Title: Bonds that Bind
By: Clonksholic
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.
Summary: The emotional reactions of the BAU team towards Emily's actions in Valhalla, and Emily's towards them. Team friendship. Ch.1 is Garcia. Sometimes when a loved one tells you something, you believe it because you want to, and need to.
Bonds that Bind
Authoress Notes: One of my primary aims when writing my stories is to allow the audience an insight into how the character is feeling. I find that a story that portrays or embodies strong emotion can really make you feel something, and I've often found myself immersed in fanfiction or novels that can do this. There were so many things going on in the episode of Valhalla between the characters and within the characters' minds (shown by the fantastic acting of the cast), I wanted to put it down on paper while it was still fresh in my mind.
The first few chapters will explore the emotions and reactions of the BAU team towards Emily, their hidden thoughts that we could only anticipate but were never explicitly stated. The second parts of the chapters will be composed of Emily's reaction towards the team member the chapter is dedicated to.
I really hope you enjoy, and it'd be much appreciated if you could read, review, and share with me your thoughts on the story, its content and the episode.
Chapter 1
Garcia: Superheros in the real world
It almost seemed poetic, Penelope thought as she watched Emily leave the bathroom before her.
You always make me smile. I don't think I've ever thanked you for that.
Don't say it like that. It makes me want to cry.
But she wasn't sure why.
What Emily had said seemed to remain within the room, her mind repeating her words over and over again. Her head being able to replay the vision of Emily's face before her, every expression line creased as her idiosyncratic expressions that made her who she was unfolded as she allowed Garcia a part of her heart.
It was almost like a scene from a movie.
Perfect.
Almost too perfect.
And that was what seemed to tug at her heart, a sense of uncertainty despite Emily's reassuring words.
She knew her BAU profiler team was plagued by nightmares. What they saw and dealt with everyday left marks.
Sometimes physical marks, the callouses on their trained fingers and hands; scars on their bodies as each rough tumble and turn with their unsubs on the field left them with wounds that sometimes remains as a permanent reminder of their ordeal.
At times, marks that were invisible, only apparent when they looked upon the next victim she refused to look at directly as it flashed across the screen, face no longer recognizable (or all too recognizable) after having been through the workings of their next unsub's hands; when no emotion registered on their faces; when they closed their minds, or sacrificed another piece of it to lock away what they had seen, and preparing another for what they would see.
The last time Derek had fallen asleep during their movie session in one of the projector rooms after having finished a particularly rough case (she knew it was one when the team came back with a smile that did not reach their eyes and Derek replied in one word answers when asked about the case) she had watched as a scream from the horror movie on the screen had prompted tears to roll down the grown man's chiseled cheeks. The infallible smile, the strengthened body and all signs of weaknesses that had been locked away finally released as sleep took away consciousness and its ability to control.
She had wiped them hastily using a tissue from a tissue box on the coffee table the first time, brushing it away, but when the tears did not stop flowing from his closed eyes, from beneath his dark eyelashes and his lips released a soft, pained moan, her hands holding the tissue had stilled and a heavy weight had settled on her bosom where her heart was. For even with him right beside her, she was unable to penetrate through his dreams, to see what he was seeing, even if she could only anticipate the ongoing nightmare that currently stormed in his vision.
Her hands had then wrapped themselves gently around his shoulders, a hand trailing down to grab his hand and squeeze it tightly; her stomach squeezing uncomfortably when his hand tightened around hers after a louder sob, hoping that his tears would stop, just stop.
Stop.
And it was only when his moans ceased and his grip on her hand had loosened as the nightmare came to a stop, did she finally realise; her cheeks were drenched in her own tears, same as those of the man that she had been comforting in her arms.
In sleep, he was vulnerable.
In sleep, they were vulnerable. It was their kryptonite.
It was almost as if, at the time of their rest, they were left open to the very forces they had protected themselves during the day.
During the day and night, during the time their minds ran with their body, they walked out through those doors trailing invisible capes and their minds on their sleeves as weapons, but not their hearts, as they stored it away to protect it. They were strong, both as a team and an individual, and if this had been a movie the villains would already have been defeated and their coming home finally signaling the end of their battles.
In the real world; her team marched out the next day, night, or early morning, whenever the next call came, telling them that yet again, to put on their capes and direct their minds into the dark abyss once more.
She had seen the fatigue clouding Emily's eyes under the fluorescent lights. She heard the way her voice seemed to fade into a croak whenever she reached the end of some sentences. All that she only remembered after Emily had walked out, her heart letting down its guard and allowing itself to feel comforted at what the woman had said.
Penelope Garcia wasn't sure what it was that was causing this uncertain feeling. Originally, it had seemed to be an emotional reaction; a sense of happiness, nostalgia and a strange sense of longing that were impossible to verbalise, bubbling from the bottom of her stomach and to her mouth, refusing to form into words.
Therefore, she pushed away the thought that, as happy as Emily's words had made her feel, they had sounded like a parting gift, a sad, silent, painful good bye.
.
.
.
Emily: If Only
She tried to brush her away but she couldn't.
It gets harder and harder each time. And Emily knew this. The closer you get, the more difficult it is. Being within a group of profilers, friends, who were receptive to you behaviour and any changes in them made it even harder.
It wasn't that she didn't trust them. After all this time, she did. And if she could, she would have let them know.
But they weren't involved in this. It wasn't about trust. It was the fact that what was now after her was part of another life she had acted, a character she had played to catch a bad guy.
A part of her life that they were never a part of.
A character that was doing more than biting her on the behind, but she anticipated would cost her her life.
'Oh my god. Are you preggos?'
She couldn't help but smile at Penelope's comment, her wide eyes and dropped jaw something she had gotten so used to it had made an imprint in her mind.
If only if it were something that simple.
If only, if only if only.
She meant what she had said to Penelope, standing before her in her purple lips and the mismatched outfit that was uniquely her.
What Penelope had said reminded her of what she was leaving behind, what she could never come back to, what she had once thought she could have, something that symbolized normality.
As she left the bathroom, the tears came not only at the fact that they cared so much, that she cared so much, but that Emily had only managed to verbalise her appreciation for the tech analyst only in the face of her looming predicament.
She hated herself for the fact that only now, as the stability of all that she loved as being threatened, she was findings the words to tell her how big of a part her team mate had unexpectedly played in her life. A part of her life where the small things mattered, where she was reminded that life still did involve the petals and beautiful colours, of a rose, even with its thorns and all.
By believing in the beauty of the world, the good of it all, by leaving that childish quality untainted, Garcia gave to her, and her team, something that they found difficult to regain on their own.
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.
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