[ emma swears there was a point in her life where she slept soundly; her head would hit the pillow, and she'd be out faster than she could count her first sheep. part of it, she thinks, was thanks to matthew, with her husband curled beside her, a warm, comfortable body to soothe her after a long day...it had been sublime, the most restful evenings she could have imagined.
easy, effortless, and plagued only by the simplest of nightmares.
after matthew's death, however, she truly began to grasp what it meant to have real nightmares — the kind that make you kick and cry out in your sleep, the sorts that have you waking in cold, fearful sweat, reaching into the dark for— nothing. it's the nightmares that feel so real she can practically taste the gunpowder in the air, but she knows — knows, she swears — that it's all a dream.
but lord help her, if it doesn't feel so achingly real some nights.
she'd thought the nightmares might get better once bogue was driven out of rose creek. she'd given matthew's memory the justice he deserved, but if anything, the terrors were worse — because this time, instead of seeing matthew's stricken face, she just sees all of the men into whom she'd so diligently sunk lead during that battle.
she'd never killed a man before that day, never shot one dead before he'd even had a chance to scream, never watched one collapse like a puppet with all his strings cut. but oh, that day, she'd seen it all: mountains of death, on their side and hers, and when she wasn't running so intensely on instinct and rage, it had all just hit her — the realization that there were men dead by her hand.
not for a moment does she regret it (which she thinks makes her feel worse), because it had been war; it was either kill or be killed, and emma had fallen squarely on the side of making it the hell out alive, and she had — but at a heavy price. part of her wonders how many of those men had families, children maybe, and how many little ones would grow up never seeing their daddy again. that aches. she feels smatterings of guilt over those possibilities, even if she knows she did the right thing, but in her dreams, she's still haunted by their faces and their screams.
it's bogue, however, over whom she feels no remorse. it's still a shock to her system to replay the moment when her bullet hit him square in the chest, when she'd watched him go limp in sam's arms, just at the last, precarious second — because she knows what could have easily happened if she hadn't been there.
it was sam's life for bogue's, and she has no qualms with that.
(bogue got what he deserved, after all.)
but she still sees that moment, over and over again, intermingled with the other lives she'd snuffed out in the fight — and then, occasionally, her mind revists not deaths for which she'd been responsible, but ones that had shaken her most deeply.
matthew.
and faraday.
matthew she sees taking the bullet, collapsing in a heap and gasping his final breath in her arms, and it's enough to make her tremble in her sleep, to have her waking with a pillow wet from tears — but for that, she has closure. matthew is put to rest, righteousness buried with him, as it should be.
faraday...well. it's awful different when she can simply wake from a fitful sleep and see his smiling face, always ready with a quick word to take her mind off of a terrible nightmare. when she dreams about him, however, she's reliving those last moments out in the field, faraday's bloody fingers in her own as he tries to make a few, final wisecracks — even while she can see the fear and pain in his eyes. she sees his scarlet smile and the blood she later realized she knelt in, sees him wince and gasp, grip her hand, until that last, slow moment when he was finally limp beside her.
at least, that day, she'd waited until the light had gone from his eyes before she shed a real tear.
(she hadn't wanted to let him see it, not in his final seconds.)
but god, here he is again, haunting her daily life and causing all sorts of mischeif, and—
—it's good.
she doesn't understand why, doesn't know how she's supposed to deal with the reality of his unearthly existence, but having faraday there brings light to her life in a way she didn't know was possible again.
she's grateful for that, but at the end of the day, it still doesn't drive out her nightmares. maybe a part of her carries an additional level of guilt that she'd found herself happy again; men are dead — matthew is dead — but she still smiles and lives her life and even finds joy in the company of another man (a dead man, more precisely, but a man nonetheless, her newest friend). it's the guilt, she reckons, that makes the nightmares so much worse, and on the truly bad nights, like tonight, she tosses and turns and occasionally just— cries out, loud as anything as her fingers grip the sheets and her breathing comes in unsteady gasps.
she feels trapped, on the worst nights, because she just can't shake herself free of the dreams. ]
christ almighty this is wordy
easy, effortless, and plagued only by the simplest of nightmares.
after matthew's death, however, she truly began to grasp what it meant to have real nightmares — the kind that make you kick and cry out in your sleep, the sorts that have you waking in cold, fearful sweat, reaching into the dark for— nothing. it's the nightmares that feel so real she can practically taste the gunpowder in the air, but she knows — knows, she swears — that it's all a dream.
but lord help her, if it doesn't feel so achingly real some nights.
she'd thought the nightmares might get better once bogue was driven out of rose creek. she'd given matthew's memory the justice he deserved, but if anything, the terrors were worse — because this time, instead of seeing matthew's stricken face, she just sees all of the men into whom she'd so diligently sunk lead during that battle.
she'd never killed a man before that day, never shot one dead before he'd even had a chance to scream, never watched one collapse like a puppet with all his strings cut. but oh, that day, she'd seen it all: mountains of death, on their side and hers, and when she wasn't running so intensely on instinct and rage, it had all just hit her — the realization that there were men dead by her hand.
not for a moment does she regret it (which she thinks makes her feel worse), because it had been war; it was either kill or be killed, and emma had fallen squarely on the side of making it the hell out alive, and she had — but at a heavy price. part of her wonders how many of those men had families, children maybe, and how many little ones would grow up never seeing their daddy again. that aches. she feels smatterings of guilt over those possibilities, even if she knows she did the right thing, but in her dreams, she's still haunted by their faces and their screams.
it's bogue, however, over whom she feels no remorse. it's still a shock to her system to replay the moment when her bullet hit him square in the chest, when she'd watched him go limp in sam's arms, just at the last, precarious second — because she knows what could have easily happened if she hadn't been there.
it was sam's life for bogue's, and she has no qualms with that.
(bogue got what he deserved, after all.)
but she still sees that moment, over and over again, intermingled with the other lives she'd snuffed out in the fight — and then, occasionally, her mind revists not deaths for which she'd been responsible, but ones that had shaken her most deeply.
matthew.
and faraday.
matthew she sees taking the bullet, collapsing in a heap and gasping his final breath in her arms, and it's enough to make her tremble in her sleep, to have her waking with a pillow wet from tears — but for that, she has closure. matthew is put to rest, righteousness buried with him, as it should be.
faraday...well. it's awful different when she can simply wake from a fitful sleep and see his smiling face, always ready with a quick word to take her mind off of a terrible nightmare. when she dreams about him, however, she's reliving those last moments out in the field, faraday's bloody fingers in her own as he tries to make a few, final wisecracks — even while she can see the fear and pain in his eyes. she sees his scarlet smile and the blood she later realized she knelt in, sees him wince and gasp, grip her hand, until that last, slow moment when he was finally limp beside her.
at least, that day, she'd waited until the light had gone from his eyes before she shed a real tear.
(she hadn't wanted to let him see it, not in his final seconds.)
but god, here he is again, haunting her daily life and causing all sorts of mischeif, and—
—it's good.
she doesn't understand why, doesn't know how she's supposed to deal with the reality of his unearthly existence, but having faraday there brings light to her life in a way she didn't know was possible again.
she's grateful for that, but at the end of the day, it still doesn't drive out her nightmares. maybe a part of her carries an additional level of guilt that she'd found herself happy again; men are dead — matthew is dead — but she still smiles and lives her life and even finds joy in the company of another man (a dead man, more precisely, but a man nonetheless, her newest friend). it's the guilt, she reckons, that makes the nightmares so much worse, and on the truly bad nights, like tonight, she tosses and turns and occasionally just— cries out, loud as anything as her fingers grip the sheets and her breathing comes in unsteady gasps.
she feels trapped, on the worst nights, because she just can't shake herself free of the dreams. ]