Work Text:
__
It was 8:32 on a Saturday evening.
It was cold, vaguely windy. Some scattered bits of light from the streetlamps had made their way up to the stairs that Ema was walking up. Her cheeks were warm against the chill, one hand gripping a filled grocery bag.
One rested against her phone like it had been all day.
All day, she had her email open. Her messages too, her notifications on. And now she was heading back home to her apartment after errands, and still no result back from the department.
She was giddy and afraid and damn near exploding. She probably looked like a maniac in the supermarket with how she reacted to every beep and buzz. She’d ended up setting her email notification to a specific sound to minimize her heart attacks.
Her plan was as follows: When she got back inside, she would grab a blanket and snacks and sit on her mattress and wait. And she'd text everyone, and Lana's weekly call was tomorrow and she could celebrate and tell her all abou-
BZZT.
Ema’s heart stopped for a second, and then sped up like a bullet train.
Oh fuck. This was it.
She should wait until she was inside so it would be warm and comfortable, and her plan could proceed exactly as she had always-
Instead, she grabbed her phone out of her pocket, almost dropped it, slipped, and grabbed the siderails before she could completely eat the concrete.
“Holy fuck,” she breathed, as mist clouds left her mouth from the cold.
Adrenaline spiked, and kept rising. Her cheeks were flushed, her fingers twitchy with barely restrained energy.
Her fingerprint unlock took two tries, before she quickly swiped to open her email. A message from the forensics department.
Holy shit. Holy fuck.
A chill ran down her spine. This was everything she’d dreamed of coming to fruition. This was years of joy and passion. This was it, right?
___
Ms. Ema Skye:
We regret to inform you that-
___
Ema almost dropped her phone again. Her body clenched up, froze, iced over.
No, shit, no, this wasn’t-
___
-your scores during this year’s forensics entrance examination did not reach the required standard.
__
The outside air turned suffocating. The cold changed temperatures. Something deep inside started scratching at her chest, now hot and angry and confused.
Not high enough? Didn’t reach? Maybe if she’d given much thought at all to this possibility the horrible sting would’ve dulled, but the idea of failing had never seemed a real risk at all.
___
A message detailing your department reassignment with employment information will be sent out within 2-3 business days. If you have any questions, please contact the attached number.
Best wishes-
___
Department reassignment? God, fuck, she was going to get stuck being just a standard detective?
No, no. It would be fine, because all she has to do was just take a deep breath, go inside, and think, process. This wasn’t real.
Ema set her foot forward, shoe clacking on the concrete steps, and instantly burst into hot, salty tears.
Her legs nearly gave out under her, but she managed to reach out and clutch the icy railing. Thoughts burned through her mind like acid, scorching, torching. Her whole body was on fire, tingling - but the wind was apathetic to it all and continued chilling her back.
Her breaths were short and staticky, to try not to make sound; her feet moved up the stairs in a hurry to get inside. Where was she?
A clatter.
“Shit-” Ema scrambled for her dropped keys, fingers wearing against the rough concrete. Every second outside made her feel vulnerable. It wasn’t that she felt watched, but she felt dreamlike. Detached. Unreal.
A click.
The door opened, bringing the warmth of the inside. She immediately slammed the door shut behind her, dropped her bag to the floor, and slid down to a crouch to read the email again. Her fingers were twitchy.
No, fuck, this couldn’t be real. Maybe they’d switched up the numbers. But that was her name at the top, and it was sent to her address. They didn’t make trivial mistakes like that.
So she read it again. And again.
__
Shit.
Her shoulder, back, legs, every muscle was tensed up and ready to spring. Ema choked out a gasp as she rubbed at her eyes, clogged up with snot. It was not pretty tears. It was raw crying, messy and real and so, so angry. At herself, maybe, at the proctors, maybe, at the world, probably.
Thoughts of the future stabbed into her mind. She'd always had it all planned out; She would get this job, and people were going to be in awe of her dedication, and everyone was going to congratulate her, and-
Frustration, confusion, her heart was a veritable boiling pot of an organ now. Some deep-seated grief filled her gut, too.
Ema heaved herself to her feet, steadied herself, and moved to the rapidly dwindling box of water bottles sitting pathetically in the corner.
Fuck it all.
She pulled off her lab coat and her glasses and threw them to the hardwood floor, kicking them away bitterly. They weren't doing her shit anyway. They hit the cardboard boxes stacked around her small apartment (she'd unpack them someday).
A gulp of almost-vaguely cold water that felt like it irritated her throat more than soothed it sent Ema coughing again. She chugged the rest and threw it to the side.
Occasionally, a random burst of tears would come and go, but throughout it all her face was red and marked with tear tracks. Her back hit the thin cushions with a thump.
So, so many things came to mind in an instant.
Her first forensics kit, gotten for Christmas as a kid, one that Lana had saved up for months for.
Raising her hand embarassingly high for every question in her chem classes.
Countless late nights under a reading lamp, poring over textbooks and instruction manuals, drinking it up like she was dying.
Countless dreams, countless ideas, countless things that won't come to pass.
Ema sniffed and coughed and started tearing up again at her pathetic state. A mess, a failure, a fuckup.
The terrifying future and the heartbreaking past were pulling at her, stretching her, ripping her apart carefully at the seams. Unthreading, unwinding.
What is she, if not a scientist? What is she, without this goal she's been working toward her whole life?
Ema slumped back on the coach, one hand covering her scrunched up eyes.
Her other hand reached for her phone, and opened her messages for a second before closing it again.
What would she even say to anyone, anyways? They’d all be awaiting news. And Lana, she hadn’t seen her so long, she wanted to bring good news for once. And Mr. Wright, she wanted to surprise him and thank him, and how was she supposed to do that now-
Shit, she was crying again. Ema swiped to the side, and started scrolling. Trying to forget the biggest failure of her life.
The lights were too bright, too artifical, The air conditioning was too high. Her phone screen was too blurry (or maybe that was her own eyes). The couch was too raggedy (but maybe it fit the occasion). Everything was so scientifically, so fundamentally wrong.
How miserable she was. How ragged and worn. Alone in an empty apartment, too afraid to reach out, too despaired to even try.
The night continued like that, for awhile. Ema would have liked to say she didn’t remember, but it was stabbingly clear in her mind whenever she tried to recall it.
Somewhere along the line, the fight drained out of her.
Somewhere along the line, she fell asleep.