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There was a rather large crick in her neck. Emmeline blinked a few times at Caradoc, attempting to mentally brush away his words before she looked back down at her parchment. She signed the letter with a flourish, wishing that she really felt as happy as she had made herself with her words. After all they had been through, he really could play such games with her? Emmeline folded the letter and stuck it in an envelope, carefully addressing it to Anneliese & Henry & Gabriella. She would send it in about an hour, so that the speedy bird she attached it to would reach her friend by tea time. With the letter finished and tucked away, Emmeline had lost the only other thing she could focus on besides her infuriating significant other.

"I made an idle comment to one of the women at the park this afternoon," Emmeline said, running her hands across the crease of the envelope. "I felt the need to--I mentioned that my boyfriend had come home late a few nights back, and had been so secretive about where he'd been. Do you know what she said?" Emmeline didn't bother to look up at him, or wait for a response. "She reckoned you were cheating on me. Instantly, her mind went to an affair. I laughed so hard."

Emmeline's brow furrowed, knowing that Caradoc's sharp tone had been purposely orchestrated to start an argument. She didn't want to fall for it, but she couldn't stop talking.

"It had never even occurred to me that that's what you could've been up to. Shagging some floozy downtown." Emmeline shrugged. "I didn't have the chance to. For two days the image of Grayson Wilkes torturing you in a dark dungeon burnt itself into my mind." Her hands folded themselves over the letter that she had placed on the table, unsure what to do with herself. The unbridled joy that had come over Emmeline at Caradoc's return had nearly washed away all the torturous hours she'd suffered the days past. Nearly. She had allowed herself that brief, wonderful moment of relief before her anger at him took over.

"For two days I thought that you'd been found, that a rogue death eater had traced everything back to here. That you were---that something---" Emmeline's teeth clenched. She could unfortunately recall quite vividly those first few hours, days, weeks, months after Caradoc's 'death.' They caused hot tears to sting her eyes, and she tilted her head down even further.

She was so angry at him.

"And now you're back, expecting me to simply be fine with knowing that you were doing something you were not supposed to be doing," Emmeline said through gritted teeth, finally looking up at him. She had not been in the right might to attempt a proper investigation of his whereabouts, with her worry and Andrew, but she knew. There were very few things in life that could've caused Caradoc to disappear like he had, and she had thought that she and Andrew had taken priority over them.

Her glare hardened and she looked back down at her hands. They had clenched around the letter, crumbling it in her fists. Emmeline's stony expression cracked. She should congratulate him; he'd managed to break down her walls. Her voice was soft, as if her thoughts were escaping her, not meaning to be heard, "I don't know how you could've done this to me."