Endlessly

Emilia pursed her lips, still feeling Ville's on her own. He couldn't stop looking at her, kissing her had been something he'd contemplated since he first saw her standing at the end of his parents' driveway but he didn't actually believe he'd muster the courage to do it before night's end. Now that he'd broken that particular wall down, he craved more but knew it would likely be a long time before such desires could be indulged once more.

"Where do we even start?" She mused out loud, opting not to discuss their kiss any further. While shocking, she'd enjoyed it more than she wanted to at this point. However diving in headfirst was not the way to go about fixing their friendship, let alone anything more.

"Ville I..." she began, searching for the right words. "Every single time that I came home I went looking for you. But you were always off recording or on tour or I'd just missed you."

"Jesse told me about the last time, when Osku was born. He called me and I tried to get home in time but we got stuck in France for a few days," he confessed, recalling the disappointment he'd felt when he learned he'd missed her leaving by one day. He'd only left for three weeks at the time, for a short lineup of shows they'd agreed to at the last minute.

"He didn't tell you about the other times?"

Ville shook his head. "I wouldn't allow anyone to even mention you up until about four, maybe five years ago."

"I hurt you that badly?" She cast her eyes downward.

"Em, when you didn't come home after the first year, I understood. Your dad had died, you were dealing with things with your grandmother. It was when you started to act like you were never coming back that everything changed," he paused, feeling years of sadness coming forth now. "When I told you that night that I loved you, I meant it. And I thought you did too, but you abandoned me so easily and for so long..."

"I did mean it, Ville. I just needed more time than I'd initially thought and then my grandmother kept getting sick or hurt and I was the only one who would take care of her. She ended up sending me to university which ate away more time...it was hard to leave."

"So why didn't you stay here when you came to visit?"

She could have given him any number of excuses to answer that question. Excuses related to her grandmother or her studies or her mother's list of boyfriends, each one weirder than the last. But the truth was that there was only one real reason she wouldn't come back, something she barely admitted to herself.

She knew he'd had a girlfriend when she visited the second time. When she stopped at the Valo house and Jesse had been the only one home, once again. He'd invited her inside to wait for his parents and it was there that she'd seen the picture of Ville and a girl she didn't know. She was beautiful and Ville looked truly happy with her wrapped in his arms, the kiss being planted on her head forever frozen in time.

Reasonably, Emilia knew couldn't have expected that he'd just wait for her, especially not with his prolonged silence. Still, it had hurt her more than she'd cared to admit to see another woman in a place she had always believed to be hers. A small part of her always hoped that they'd be able to reunite and pick up right where they'd left off. After seeing that photograph was the first time she truly started to let Ville go, the first time she'd felt really alone in a long time.

"Helsinki is nothing without you here," she said finally with a sad smile. Ville leaned forward and took one of her hands within his own.

"It's been empty without you, too," he said giving her hand a squeeze. She tried to ignore the vice her heart seemed to be put in when he spoke.

"I went to one of your shows in Germany once," she admitted. "I was walking to work and saw your faces on the poster and never made it to work that night."

"Why didn't you come find us?" Ville was startled by her confession because deep down, he'd always hoped she'd come to one of their shows in Berlin.

"You were drunk and I hardly thought that was an appropriate time for a reunion. Besides, you were seeing someone. Not that that I think so highly of myself to think that I could have ruined that but if roles had been reversed, I wouldn't have been happy about my reappearance if I had been her."

"You knew about Susanna?"

'So that's her name,' Emilia thought. "Yes, I saw a picture of you and her together once when I went looking for you at your parents' house."

Ville pressed his lips together in a thin line. "She wasn't you."

"You wrote a whole album about her, Ville. You love her, you don't have to hide that fact from me."

He remained quiet for a moment, comparing the things he'd felt for Susanna to the feelings coursing through his veins at this very moment. He'd loved Susanna, sure, but she'd never made him feel as though his very soul were ablaze.

"Loved," he corrected. "Did you see anyone in Germany?"

She shrugged. "Nothing that was very serious. I saw one guy off and on for about a year when I was in school but ultimately he was kind of annoying and so I ended it."

He chuckled. "Annoying?"

"He was very...into himself. He was cute and smart but everything wandered back to his accomplishments and what he wanted to do and what his plans for the future involved. There was no me in that relationship."

"So why did you go back to him?"

"I was lonely and he was always sort of...there. Not emotionally or anything but no one else really wanted to be around him either."
"Sounds like love to me," Ville joked bitterly. Her expression soured at his remark.

"It could have been you."

Her quiet statement held no anger, but sent a jolt of regret through his body. It could have been him, if he'd only given her the time she'd so obviously required. He had nothing but time. He would have waited an eternity for her.

Hell, it felt like he already had.

"I'll hope you'll forgive me someday. For letting you go for so long, I mean. I shouldn't have been so childish about the whole thing. I knew what you were going through. It was selfish of me."

Emilia shrugged. "We were kids, Ville. We were going through so much already and throw in everything with my dad and grandmother..."

"It still wasn't right. You deserved more than that from me. You trusted me with everything, especially the night before you left..." She blushed at the topic he was bringing up. "...but I left you anyway when you probably needed me the most."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Ville, there was so much that I was going through at that time that I never bothered to explain to you. I kept you in the dark on so many things just because I wanted our conversations to be happy; I wanted you to think I was okay. I'm just as much to blame for all of this as you are. If I had trusted you with those things then maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"But-"

She silenced him with a finger pressed against his pale lips. "No, Ville. This was a two way street. I messed up too."

He nodded. "So you'll forgive me?"

She smirked. "Only if you'll forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, kulta," Ville sighed happily.

He leaned forward and embraced her, nuzzling against her hair, inhaling the floral scent that always seemed to accompany her. "I don't know what I've done to deserve having you back in my life, Em. But I promise I won't fuck it up this time."

She smiled and squeezed him a little. "I won't either. I've missed my best friend. For all Germany had to offer, there was no one that even compared to you."

Suddenly, Essi's door flew open and out came the man she'd brought home, wearing only his underwear and carrying a bundle of clothing. A very irritated blonde came out after him with her hand on his back, thrusting him forward. Emilia and Ville looked on in amusement as Essi threw the man out of her apartment and closed the door with a thud.

Then a venomous glare was thrown in Ville's direction, against which he immediately recoiled.

"You!" Essi pointed a long finger at him. "He wouldn't fucking shut up about how you were in my living room."

Emilia chuckled but Ville didn't dare breathe for fear of incurring any additional wrath from Essi. She growled and stomped her way back in her room and shut the door tightly.

"What just happened?" Ville asked, wide eyed.

Emilia just laughed. "You stole her man."



Ville left in the early hours of the morning feeling lighter than he had in years. His best friend was back home and what was even better, she would be staying put this time. He knew that his career and lifestyle would inevitably separate them at times, but more or less, he would without her again.

He'd been pleased to find that once everything was out in the open between them, they relaxed into the easy friendship they'd always had. They talked about everything, dropping the niceties their earlier conversations had held due to the awkward tension between them. It was as though the last decade had dissolved and they'd never been apart.

The only thing he noticed was that she wouldn't allow him as close to her as he'd been when he had kissed her. She kept her knees to her chest almost as a barrier and let him only quickly hug her when he left to go home. Ville worried he'd pressed for too much too quickly or that she wasn't interested in the place their relationship had been headed before she'd gone to Berlin.

As he turned these things over in his mind, looking out the window as the cab drove him home, he couldn't help but wonder what wanted, whether friendship or something more. She'd given no indications either way and as given as he was to rush headlong into things, it was probably for the better. He wanted to do things right this time, if he was granted the chance.

Suddenly, Ville's phone vibrated in his pocket and he wondered who would be trying to contact him at such an early hour. He produced the phone from his jeans and frowned deeply when he looked at who it was on the other end. Well, for that particular person it certainly wasn't as early, seeing as they were on the other side of the Atlantic.

He'd nearly forgotten about everything that had happened in the states only a few days ago, being as euphoric as he had been about seeing Emilia. He pressed the ignore button and slipped the phone back in his pocket. That could wait until another day. He didn't want to allow anything to ruin his current state of bliss.

Sighing, he rested his head against the cool glass of the window and allowed his thoughts to wander familiar paths back to Emilia.