It's the first time I've seen Emily Prentiss in over fifteen years.
And she's sitting in an interrogation room on the other side of the two-way mirror. To say that this is a far cry from the way I imagined our lives would end up is an understatement.
She doesn't appear overly anxious or frightened, almost as if she'd been expecting this situation to arise and I can't help but think back to the damaged fifteen year old she was when we met and wonder how the hell she wound up here.
I enter the interrogation room and sit down across from her without saying a word.
It's hard to tell who's more surprised to see the other. I think I win, though, because I had thought she was dead. Every choice I've made in my life has been because of her, because of her death. She's half the reason I joined the FBI – the case of the remains I'd always suspected were hers sits hidden in the bottom drawer of my desk and every so often, I call up the lead detective and remind them of its importance, press them to solve it.
I stare at her for what feels like a long time and think about the past. She hasn't changed very much; her features a little sharper, her hair cut shorter and a shade lighter, her eyes darker and more haunted...but I can still see the girl I used to know inside her.
I'm surprised when she's the first person to speak. "Please don't do this..." she whispers.
"Em..." I start to say, but she cuts me off with an icy glare. That's when I remember she no longer goes by Emily. "Lauren..."
"Don't do this," she says again. She's not pleading, not demanding, but there's a hint of desperation behind it nonetheless.
"Do you know why you're here, Ms. Reynolds?" I ask, because I have to.
She raises one brow, unimpressed, refusing to participate.
"You're here because of your husband," I continue on without an answer because I know I'm not getting one. It was mostly rhetorical anyway.
"My husband is a good man," she says immediately, not waiting for me to continue.
"Good men can do bad things..."
"And bad men can do good things, but that doesn't change what they are at heart," Emily counters. "I'm not telling you anything. Ian is not a bad man, he protected me when no one else would. He would never hurt anyone," she growls.
"He's an arms dealer, Lauren, he sold guns to criminals, terrorists..."
"He never hurt anyone and if you had any proof of any of this, you wouldn't be here talking to me," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
I decide to change tactics. "You've got a beautiful family, Ms. Reynolds," I say conversationally as if we aren't sitting on opposing sides of an interrogation. "How old are your children now?" I know this, of course, because of the information Garcia has dug up for us, but I ask anyway, hoping to get her to open up.
Her eyes are suspicious, but she answers anyway, "Declan's fifteen now, Aisling is eight, and Morgana just turned three."
A breath sticks in my chest. Garcia hadn't told me their names and I'm left feeling thrown off balance. "M-Morgana?" I stammer, "That's an unusual name..."
"From Arthurian Legend," she replies, but she catches and holds my gaze with burning intensity and deep down, I know – I know that she named her daughter after me...