[ that silence stretches long enough that emma nearly isn't sure what to do — what she ought to say, if she'd gone and said the wrong thing on top of this, and, well.

seems she probably had.

(or maybe it's rather not that she'd said the wrong thing, but that this week of forcing space between them was itself...not the right choice.)

she shifts her weight, her fingers curling a touch nervously into the fabric of her skirt as she regards faraday, forcing her usual impassive expression into place. ]

I know it wasn't a kindly thing to do, punishin' you for— I suppose nothing at all. Nothing you had done on purpose.

[ he certainly hadn't been in control of how she'd responded to him before, and...this last week had been an unfair reflection of how poorly she'd handled being presented with something she couldn't quite grasp. ]

That's why I'm tryin' to make up for it.

[ in some way. because she misses being them, and really, she's missed him far too much to just silently allow their friendship or connection or— whatever she had with this ghost of a man to let it all dissolve away. ]