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Gertrude lets Emma into her house for one more time.
"You have been so distant ever since you returned," Emma accuses once she's inside. "Are you angry with me?"
They had planned this before Gertrude's trip; a dinner at Gertrude's house and an evening together afterward, with a promise of intimacy. The mere idea of the last part disgusts Gertrude now, but she represses it, planning to play her part until the end. She will have to make Emma pay for everything she has done, and uncover any truths that she has time for. But it seems like Emma already suspects something.
"I'm not," Gertrude lies as she takes Emma's coat. "It was just hard to send Michael off to his death." That is a bit unbelievable, even if it's the truth, so Gertrude amends: "Or rather, it was too easy. It shouldn't have been that easy."
"You only did what you had to do." This half-truth seems to satisfy Emma, who paces next to Gertrude, stroking her arm while Gertrude hangs her coat. "You just need to keep moving forward."
Are these the justifications Emma has for her own actions, or does she require anything at all? Gertrude hates that she can't tell. She truly doesn't know this woman at all, the woman who she has spoken to in confidence, who she has revealed herself to. Who she has slept with. Gertrude wants to shudder, but she wouldn't have made it this far if she let her true weaknesses show, so she represses this urge, too.
"Is that really all?" Emma asks when Gertrude tries to move past her, halting her by grasping her shoulder. "Don't close yourself off, Gertrude. You know that's not good for you."
The words are somewhat menacing, but there is no secret power behind them; Emma isn't trying to force Gertrude to act. But Gertrude can't help but wonder about it, how often she has been under Emma's spell while believing she's acting on her own accord. It's so hard to tell where the line between the truths and the lies goes, and she can't blame Emma exclusively for that. She has blurred the line enough on her own.
"Believe it or not, Emma, but I am still a person. Sometimes I can't help but be aware." A question rises from the depths of her brain, a question that will only wound Gertrude herself and not Emma. But she wants to know what Emma will say.
"Do you think Michael would understand?" she asks. "Why I did what I did? Would you, if you were in his place?"
Emma hesitates for the first time.
"I can't say I know about him," Emma says. "But for myself, I would. In fact, I would happily go to my death if you told me to."
It's something Emma has told her before. The first time around, Gertrude had wanted to believe it.
"Thank you," Gertrude says, smiling at Emma before shrugging the hand on her shoulder off. "Let's hope it never comes to that."
The desire to believe is gone. Now, the only thing that comforts Gertrude is that she can see Emma doesn't know it, and that she swallows Gertrude's lies.