A/N I'm like a mouse with a crack addiction, I can't push the lever for food, I can only push the lever for angst and violence and more ET fics. Oh self.

The files were stacked nearly eighteen inches high on her desk, teetering and threatening to topple at every heavy step. She pursed her lips and frowned toward Derek Morgan's pristine desk and cut a glance at Reid's mildly cluttered desk.

"Problem Prentiss?" Rossi asked as he walked past her desk on the way to the break room. He had a file tucked under one arm and was holding his smartphone with both hands.

"Am I being punished for my sins?" She asked bleakly.

Rossi stared at the three teetering stacks, slumped against one another like sad soviet era tenements longing for demolition. He glanced at his smartphone and scowled.

"Desk duty?" He asked looking up from his phone and quirking an eyebrow.

She nodded glumly.

"Riiight, buy you a coffee?" He offered nodding at the break room. She sighed and followed him. He slipped his phone into his pocket.

"I hate technology." He grumbled.

"Nah, you're just not used to it."

"It invades everything, used to be you could take your phone off the hook, ignore your mail, and be left alone. Not anymore."

"Progress?" She suggested with a smile. Rossi grunted sourly earning a small smile from Prentiss.

"They won't clear me for the field or for secure cases until my background check comes back." She sighed..

"Background check?" Rossi asked pouring two mugs of over-brewed coffee. She nodded.

"Apparently they don't like how I spent my leave of absence."

Rossi thought about that as he added sugar to the coffee. Normally Rossi was fastidious about his coffee and would never adulterate it with cheap sugar or a sugar substitute but break room coffee wasn't on the same plane of existence as his usual brew. Prentiss took hers black.

"So desk duty and reviewing cases?" He prompted.

"Apparently." She sighed accepted a mug from Rossi. She savored the familiar sour tang for a moment. Rossi smiled and slurped his own drink.

"What did you tell them? About your leave of absence?"

She flashed him a brittle smile at that.

"The bare minimum, I worked as an unpaid private security investigator for a wealthy client, we traveled a bit and when he didn't need me anymore I came back to work. I took the case and the leave of absence to avoid a conflict of interest." She said the last in an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper. Rossi and the rest of Hotch's team new full well what she'd been up to.

"Plausible enough." He admitted.

She shrugged and drank more coffee.

"Derek said he called you." Rossi ventured. Neither needed to point out that the 'he' in question was Methos.

Prentiss stared at the mirrored surface of her mug for a full five seconds before lifting her head and confirming Rossi's question.

"What did he say?" Rossi asked carefully. He enjoyed a good rapport with Prentiss, almost all of them did though he realized there were aspects to her that he hadn't scratched. For all her amiability, dedication, and loyalty there were some things she held close to the chest.

"Nothing and everything. He's in Seacouver now I think, at least he said he would be."

"You could visit." He suggested carefully.

She smiled wryly.

"I think the Bureau would frown if I took any more leave just now. Besides I…I don't know if I want to go there again."

Rossi knew she wasn't speaking about Seacouver, or Seattle, or Washington.

"I've been married three times Prentiss, and every time I genuinely thought it would work, last forever, the whole nine yards. Call me a romantic."

"So you're saying it was worth it?"

"I don't know. But no one does, that's the point. Part of love is trust and part of trust is risk."

"If I'm with him we'll never have peace and I'll never have children."

Rossi fell silent drinking his coffee. There was a girl, a few years before, her family had been annihilated by a pair of killers. Prentiss had offered to take the girl in before her relatives had come forward. He had never truly wanted children himself but the pain he'd seen ever so quickly in her eyes spoke volumes.

"More coffee?" He offered after a few moments of silence had passed.

"What the hell I'll need it to get through that stack." She said with a smile. Case closed, conversation ended, future set. He watched her walk back to her desk and wondered if it really was.

She set to on the stacks with a will. They'd been organized alphabetically which was fine for the clerical staff that had likely pulled and stacked them on her desk but she needed to sort them by urgency. She separated everything that was over two years old and set them aside. Then she skimmed the cover page summary of each file and organized them by propensity of further acts.

She settled on what she judged to be the most urgent – a six month old case with all the signs of a compulsive sexual sadist - and set to work. Time drifted into meaningless white noise, agents came and went, researchers, clerks, Hotch and Rossi. Someone asked her about lunch, she waved them off. At some point she finished with the first file, wrote up her analysis and submitted it, picked up a new file and bent to work again. The second file went down easier than the first, so she picked up the third and opened to the first sheet.

"Emily?" Reid asked. She blinked and looked up from the file.

"It's almost seven, are you planning on going home tonight?" He asked worriedly. His face did an unconsciously adorable scrunch when he was genuinely concerned, Prentiss had noticed it early on in her interactions with him and noted it now.

"I guess I lost track of time." She admitted.

"You didn't eat lunch either." He pointed out.

"Yeah…I guess I was distracted." She laughed and pushed away from the desk.

"You wanna grab something to eat?" She asked. She would enjoy his company but more than that Reid didn't necessarily require an active partner to hold a conversation. She didn't want to have to think of things to say and didn't want to be alone.

"Sure I guess, hey there's this Greek restaurant I've been meaning to check out –" She gathered her things while he talked and they walked to the elevator.

As they were finishing their meal she took the time to check her phone for messages or emails. The rumble of the restaurant and the slightly sharper notes of Reid's voice faded as she stared at the email on her phone.

Call me.

Joe

She felt cold and panicked. She hadn't really known Joe, hadn't really met him but she knew who he was, the only person Methos trusted enough to watch over his interests. His best friend in a way, his only friend maybe.

"Emily?" Reid asked concerned. She flicked a gaze up at him, met his eyes, thought about lying, and couldn't be bothered.

"I need to make a call, I'll be right back." She stepped outside to do it, she tapped the phone number in the email twice and hit call when the option popped up. She held it to her ear and half hoped Joe wouldn't anser.

"Joe's." A softe female voice said promptly.

"Is Joe in?"

"May I ask who's callin'?" The woman asked shortening the last word in the soft accentless manner of the west coast.

"Adam's friend."

There was a soft clunk, presumably as the receiver was rested on a hard surface. Prentiss could hear the woman shout to someone else then a long pause.

"This better be who I think it is." Joe growled.

His voice was a pleasant tenor, burred with age or whiskey, maybe both.

"I got your email."

"Things are bad here."

"How bad?"

"Tell me what happened on Carthis."

"I don't really know what happened –"

"He changed, not for the better I know you two splittin' up didn't help but something happened, spill."

"I.." She swallowed throat suddenly dry and tried to gather her thoughts.

"You know what he used to be?"

An informed silence filled the line, she forged ahead.

"Death…he let Death out and…he stayed around somehow…somehow he took him in, I don't know how to explain it without sounding crazy but he absorbed Death. He couldn't lock him away anymore so he incorporated him."

"Christ." Joe snarled.

"Is that why you two –"

She stiffened, "That's none of your business." She snarled back.

Pause, she could hear the bar in the background.

"You're right." No apology.

"What's wrong? What's going on?"

"Christ, maybe nothing if he let that bastard out permanently-"

"It wasn't like that Joe, he was still him, he was…stronger somehow, more intense, but still him. He was harsher, less patient, more…fuck efficient I guess but he wasn't pillaging and raping."

"While you were with him." She wasn't sure if it was an accusation or a question.

"What the fuck is going on Joe?"

A long, long pause, she was tempted to hang up, catch a flight and bawl Joe out in person.

"Maybe nothing. Look, I'm sorry I called –"

"Fuck you it doesn't work like that, you don't get to take a shit on my day and hang up Joe, give me answers."

Heavy breathing, not sexual or lewd, more like how a person might breath after jogging up a double flight of stairs.

"What happened on Carthis?"

She nearly hung up on him then.

"GoddamnitJoe!" She snarled in one hot breath.

The line went dead. She nearly threw her phone but managed to put it safely in her pocket safe from her rage. She forced herself to calm down and breathe slowly and deeply before returning to Reid.

"You okay?" Reid asked looking up from his plate.

"No, sorry Reid I think I need to cut this short."

"You deserve a life too." Reid said sharply. Prentiss paused in reaching for the check and stared at him.

"What?" She asked utterly confused.

"Ben, Adam, Methos whoever he is, doesn't own you. You deserve your own life."

"Reid I have a life but –"

"No you don't you work like twelve hour days, you skip lunch, your cat probably doesn't even recognize you."

She straightened, deciding to stick Reid with the check.

"Emily –"

"I love him Reid, god help me I do." She snapped.

"You left him." It wasn't a question.

She didn't answer for a moment.

"Yes, I did, I…I want the chance to have children one day Reid, and that can never happen with him."

"That didn't bother you before –"

"How is this your business?" She asked coldly.

"You're letting him ruin your life –"

"That's my call." She said softly.

He didn't answer.

She booked a flight for Seacouver on the way to the airport she called Hotch.

"Prentiss? Is anything wrong?" Hotch asked, his voice was soft but concerned.

"I have to go to Seacouver."

He was quiet.

"You're certain?"

"Something's wrong –"

"Prentiss if you go before your background check comes through it will jeopardize your clearance."

She felt her eyes sting and burn with tears suddenly. She was so fucking tired, she just wanted to put her head on her arms and sleep for a thousand years.

"Prentiss?"

"I have to go Hotch, I…it's not just that…I have questions. I don't remember what happened on Carthis Hotch, and I have to…I have to find out."

"I'll do what I can for you."

"Thanks Hotch I…I owe you."

"Good luck Emily." He said gently.

She hung up and ignored her tears.