The Picture We Make

by gillgankane

Spoilers: set right after the heart transplant

A/N: for FOUNDATIONS challenge. check out the community and watch/join, please. it's an awesome place. clearly. and i'm there too!

it's not exactly literal, but it's not very philosophical either.

Fine. Maybe I'm the puzzle. But you're still the pieces.
- pleasefindthis

It starts with the big things that you have in common: your kids, your safety, your security, your happiness, Gus .

It can't start with the little things, the way everyone else starts, because the little things are the things that separate you too much; pull you apart and pit you against each other without trying too, all because you're two very different people with very different morals and goals and ideas.

Like, Emma gets ice cream when she does something wrong, and Rafe gets told to pray that he gets another chance to try again.

Like, your idea of safety has always been a gun, and her idea has always been God.

Like, your security is a big hulking guy with illegal connections, and hers is the clumsily wired lock on the boarding room door.

Like, you get your happiness from the never-ending bottle of Grey Goose, and she gets hers from working day in and day out.

Like, you want to have Gus for a minute, and she's wanted him for a lifetime.

So with her, it starts big and dwindles down into the small stuff, until you're not sure where the lines blur anymore and how you're different from her. It starts with the fact that you both love your kids and your homes and your ideas of happiness and it works.

It creates a building block – something you can step up onto and try to go from there.

Try being the operative word.

Because, obviously , there are roadblocks: your heart; her son; your ability to be a complete bitch in any situation; her useless supply of faith; your anger; her naivety.

There are roadblocks like her son going to prison and the heart failing without a pacemaker.

But somewhere between all the road work signs and flashing slow down signs, you manage to find the first stepping stone on the plateau: Emma.

Emma , the only thing you've ever done right, is the thing that takes this, this relationship from taxing down the runway into the sky. Emma, with her smile and her perfect heart and her infectious laugh, is the thing that gets her to see you as more than the vindictive bitch who tried to steal her husband from her; the thing that gets you to see her as more than just a doormat.

Emma gives the two of you a reason to talk after the surgery, after Gus's heart is long buried in your body and she just doesn't need to be around anymore.

Emma is that reason, because you're too proud to admit that you need a friend and she's too angry to try and be yours.

So your days become Emma and Natalia and not lifting the laundry and dancing to the radio over banana pancakes and rushing off to school.

Your days become cinnamon coffee and sheepish smiles and hidden hymns under your breath; private prayers to keep your daughter and your best friend safe and happy and loved.

It's a start.

You'll be fine here, on the Emma plateau , until the next stepping stone comes along.