Endlessly

Emilia flopped down on the bed and released an exhausted, yet content sigh. Ville walked through the door seconds later with a bemused grin on his face. He turned and locked the door behind him and then went to stand at the end of the bed, crossing his arms across his chest.

“That was hardly fair, Em.”

“You’re just mad you lost,” she retorted with a wicked grin.

“I’d hardly consider it a loss, there were unfair odds from the beginning.”

Emilia rolled onto her side to face Ville and propped her head on her hand, fully aware of the cocky look on her face. They’d spent the day exploring the town that their hotel was located in. It had been a relatively uneventful day but it had been everything the pair needed. There had been an unspoken agreement between the two that kept them from discussing their relationship or their problems any further and Emilia was glad for it. The lack of pressure coming from Ville had allowed her to relax into her usual demeanor. She laughed, she made jokes, her blatant sarcasm reared its head on more than a few occasions – and Ville enjoyed every minute of it.

It had taken this retreat of theirs for Ville to realize that pushing Emilia into a decision was absolutely the worst thing he could be doing. As blinded as he was by his desire to have her for his own, he damned himself by trying to make her see reason. Emilia was stubborn to a fault, something he knew quite well, but that was the exact reason she would never give in to his pursuit. She needed to want it, and he knew very well that she did, but she needed to stop denying that fact before they would be together.

It was a good thing that he was a patient man.

He looked at the smirk planted on her face and tried to appear cross with her. “You know very well that I could never have run up all of those stairs. I don’t even have my inhaler with me.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “So I can never challenge you to a race again? You never bring that damn thing with you.”

Ville shrugged. “We’ll have to compete in other ways. Ways that won’t potentially kill me if I participate in them.”

“That rules out base jumping then,” she sighed overdramatically as she fell onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. Ville chuckled and lay down beside her, draping an arm across her stomach and cuddling close to her shoulder. She'd allowed him these affectionate moments throughout the day, whether it had been an arm around her waist or taking her hand as they pursued the shops around town. It was easy for him to forget that this wasn't their norm.

"Ville?"

"Yes, kulta?" He tensed a little as the name tumbled out of his mouth. He hadn't intended to call her that, but if it bothered her she did not address it.

"How long before you go on tour again?"

He shrugged. "The album should be released in April sometime. So probably this summer."

"How long will you be away?"

"A few months. We'd probably be home by September."

She leaned her head against his and released a long breath. At best she was looking at four, maybe five months without him. She supposed she'd spent ten years without him but that had been under much different circumstances. Ville's questing hand found hers and gently squeezed it.

"The offer still stands. You could always come with me."

"I'm sure the guys would love having a mother hen clucking at them the entire time they're on tour."

"We could probably use it, honestly. I drink way too much when we're on tour and eat far too little."

She chuckled. "No wonder you're skin and bone."

"Starving artist, darling. It's not a stereotype for nothing."

"How noble of you to suffer so for your art," she replied mockingly and Ville sat straight up with a very serious look on his face.

"Thank you for recognizing that. God, everyone just thinks I like to party."

Emilia laughed and Ville dissolved into laughter as well. He lay back down and continued to chuckle, enjoying the feeling of pure bliss that washed over him. Emilia turned to face him and smiled, biting down on her lip.

"This is nice."

"What is, love?"

"Baby don't hurt me." She answered very quickly as though it were a casual part of their conversation. Ville raised an eyebrow.

"Are you seriously speaking to me in song lyrics?"

"I couldn't help it," she laughed. "But in all seriousness, this is nice. Spending time together like we used to without all the other stuff."

Ville pressed his lips into a thin line. "I'm sorry if I've been pressuring you. I know we've only just reconnected..."

"There's nothing to apologize for," Emilia replied with a soft smile.

"But from the start I made my intentions known. I never took the time to get to know you again. To relearn all of the little things that make me love you and to learn about all the new ones. I just knew that I'd spent twelve years in love with you and there you were, an answer to my prayers. You're more to me than that, Em. I'm just glad to have you back in my life."

Words tumbled from his mouth like a waterfall and he watched her sapphire eyes search his as he spoke. He hadn't meant to bombard her with the guilt he'd felt, especially where they hadn't discussed these matters for nearly the entire day. But once the floodgates were open everything had poured out.

Her look was soft and she reached up to play with a curl that had fallen into his eyes. "I'm glad to have you back too, more than you know."

Ville didn't have time to register her mouth on his. All he was aware of was the sound of blood rushing in his ears and his heart beating wildly in his chest. She'd intended on a quick kiss, nothing more, but soon his fingers were entangled in her hair and his tongue begged entrance into her mouth. She obliged his request and soon their tongues began a gentle dance, each allowing the other a moment of dominance before taking control again. He heard her groan a little as he began to position himself on top of her and then very suddenly he pulled away from her, breathing hard.

She could hardly collect her thoughts. In the span of a heartbeat, she had become completely encompassed in the moment and just as suddenly, reality had set in for the both of them. Ville reached his hand up to brush her hair from her face and placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

"I'd apologize, but I'd wager you enjoyed that as much as I did," Ville teased with a wink. Color flooded Emilia's cheeks and she pulled a pillow over her face to hide it.

"I'll never tell," she declared.



Emilia shivered and wondered how she'd been talked into spending her day outside in the snow and wind and...winter. Looking around at the equally miserable looking crew, she was at least grateful that she had been given a spot out of the way but close to an outdoor space heater. The little warmth it provided, that wasn't blown away by the biting wind, was the only thing keeping her from stealing a snowmobile and making the long trek back to town.

The band had shown up early that morning. Ville and Emilia had been in the middle of the breakfast they'd ordered from room service when they were interrupted by a knock on the door. As soon as Ville opened the door, the four men had practically tumbled through the door and thus ended their relaxing time away from the real world.

It had been Emilia's intention to remain at the hotel while the boys went to go film their music video but Linde and Mige wouldn't hear of it. They insisted they'd barely spent any time with Emilia since she'd been home, a fact she couldn't deny, and so she'd been dragged to the frozen tundra she found herself in.

She watched as Ville stood shivering in his winter coat, speaking with the director, and she smiled watching him gesticulate as he spoke. As though sensing her eyes on him, he looked up to meet her gaze and smiled before taking his place for the shot and handing his heavy jacket off to someone waiting nearby. She supposed she should be glad that she wasn't part of the band, at least she was allowed to keep her coat.

"How's it going? I don't think we ever officially met."

Emilia's trance was broken by the approach of Bam, who had shown up to the filming site about the time that she and the band had. She had begun to wonder how deep this man's love for HIM truly ran if he were this willing to make accommodations in his own schedule to be able to see them.

"No, I believe Seppo ushered you out too quickly for introductions. I give you credit, he doesn't seem like the type of man you can piss off very easily."

Bam's eyes glittered mischievously as he took ownership of the vacant seat beside her. "You destroy one stage and its practically handled like an international incident."

Emilia laughed and turned her gaze toward where Ville was lighting various torches with a bundle of evergreen branches. She'd learned this song by heart at this point in the day, she barely believed it when Ville told her that it almost hadn't made the album. The guys had convinced him to complete it but it had very much been a work in progress a few weeks before they stopped recording for the album.

"They're so fucking good," Bam stated as he watched the scene alongside Emilia. He'd spent much of the day observing the interactions between Emilia and his friend, wondering if Ville had just been blinded by a pretty face. He'd been pleased to find Ville seemed truly blissful with Emilia by his side, though their current relationship status was complicated at best. She nodded in response to his statement.

"They've grown so much a band since we were kids. I'm so proud of them." The smile on her face revealed the depth of her pride.

Bam had felt awful over the last few days about brining Jonna into the picture. Now, as he'd observed and gotten to know Emilia over the course of the day he had begun feeling worse. He knew that sometimes he got a little controlling when it came to his friends, but it was all well intentioned. But he hadn't realized just how far Jonna would go to get what she wanted. He had learned some things over the last day or so that had him concerned and that knowledge was eating away at him.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about the Jonna thing. I didn't know you were in the picture when I tried to set her up with Ville," Bam said as he fumbled with the ties on his jacket.

"To be fair, it sounds like they happened long before I reappeared. No hard feelings."

She was understanding, he thought unhappily. That would make everything he knew about a thousand times harder to say.

"I just...I thought I knew her well enough to know how she'd react to Ville ending things with her."

Emilia's brows knitted together. She didn't quite know where Bam was going with this conversation and after everything, she wasn't sure she wanted to. She was sick of other people getting involved with her and Ville's private matters. Desperately, she wished their lives could go on as they had the day prior - no pressure, no expectations, just the two of them enjoying each other. The second they opened the door to the rest of the world all of that had gone away.

But if she decided to be with him, these were the things she would have to live with for the rest of her life.

"What do you mean?"

Both Emilia and Bam looked up, not having noticed the break the band was taking as the crew reset the torches. It seemed an awful lot of work to go through in order to film a few seconds of the video. Ville stood with a cigarette perched in his fingers and he waited expectantly for an answer from his friend.

Bam groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. He'd hoped if he told Emilia then he would be saved from the task of telling Ville. He looked up at Ville and braced himself.

"Well, it's not a hundred percent confirmed..."

"So should I bother worrying about it?" Ville asked as he took another drag off his cigarette.

"Maybe just call your real estate agent."

Both Emilia and Ville exchanged glances then looked back at Bam. "Enough dancing around the subject, Bammie. Spit it out."

Bam sighed. "Jonna was looking at the vacant apartment in your building yesterday. I'm not sure if she went forward with anything but she had Dunn drop her off there yesterday morning."

Ville looked to Emilia whose face seemed carved of marble at that very moment. She would not meet his gaze but began to bite her lip the longer he watched her. Bam waited patiently for a response from either party but none spoke.

"Have I mentioned I'm sorry about her?"

Ville tossed his cigarette into the snow and offered his friend a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Don't worry about it. Like you said, nothing is for sure yet. No need to get upset for nothing."

Emilia stood suddenly and walked away without another word. Ville was thoroughly shocked that she would leave the warmth provided by the space heater but she was trudging off in the direction of a fire someone had built with the old torches.

"I didn't mean to upset her," Bam said with guilt heavy in his tome.

Ville sighed watching Emilia's retreating figure. "Give her some time to process. Jonna really shook her up, I think. She'll be okay."

Ville had said those things in order to assuage some of the guilt that his friend was feeling but he'd really said them to try and convince himself of those things. He looked back and found that the crew had finished the reset and he walked back over to where he was supposed to be standing.

He really hoped that everything would be okay.