September prompt: So shoot me down. . .
You're such a killer
So shoot me down again
It won't hurt when the killing is done by a friend
. . .
A violent whisper
Maybe this time it won't heal
Maybe this time it will bleed until I'm free
- 747 by Kent
Emma never asked Scott what he would have chosen.
Not that it would be easy to talk about. Even just reconstructing the sequence of events in his own head took effort, but when he tried, he remembered it this way: Scott had been angry with his wife, or himself, or unsure of how to be one without the other. He had gone to Emma, had found refuge in something that wasn't exactly comfort, that certainly wasn't love (not on his part, in any case), but at least was something. After a while, he had tried to break it off -- or had said he wanted to break it off, which might not have been the same thing at all. What he meant stopped mattering when Jean found them. She ripped into Emma's mind first and into Scott's, only when he asked. (Something in that sequence, he would never understand).
And then Scott, faced with the ruins of his marriage and of his affair at once, did the one sure thing he was good at. He ran. Ran away from both women who might have cared for him, or might have wanted to kill him. He only found his way back near the climax of the battle; he grabbed Emma long enough to tell her that he had things worked out, that he knew what he was going to do. And then, before circumstances gave them a chance to have the necessary talk -- wasn't that always the way? He should have known better, by that time -- Jean was dying (in his arms, again), and nothing he would have chosen seemed to matter. Maybe that was why Emma never asked.
Or maybe she thought she knew.
What could he be choosing, after all, but to come back to his wife? Emma must have thought this, and, as far as it went, she was right. He had every intention of kneeling before Jean and -- not confessing everything, because confession was superfluous at that point. Not asking forgiveness, because he couldn't even comprehend what that would mean between the two of them. Not asking to save their marriage, because he didn't know what there was to save.
No, Scott wanted -- needed -- to go back to Jean for only one reason. Everything was over, he finally understood that. He just needed to let her be the one to walk away. The one to pull the trigger.
After all the things he had done, he didn't even think it would hurt.