"We are dying from over-thinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap." -Anthony Hopkins
The ringing phone filled her with dread every time. Actually, more like a strange mixture of hope and dread; a feeling that had become very familiar to her in Paris.
During the first couple months, she was terrified every time the phone rang – terrified of what might've happened, what Doyle might've done.
She saw all the scenarios, clear as day, in her head every time she heard the shrill ringing echo through her hotel room.
She saw Reid, on the floor, unmoving, a syringe of Dialudid laying abandoned by his feet.
She saw Garcia, sobbing on the floor, begging Ian to let her go.
She saw Morgan, trying so desperately to protect everyone, getting himself killed in the process.
But a glimmer of hope would come with the phone calls too. Maybe they'd gotten Doyle, just maybe. But deep down, she knew he was too good for that. She probably wouldn't live to see him caught. After Lauren, he'd built his defenses even higher than before.
But she could hope, couldn't she? She could hope that it would be Clyde, or Hotch, or JJ, calling to tell her that it was over; he was dead. That she didn't have to hide anymore. But, of course, that call never came.
It was always just Clyde, checking up on her. And she would spit out curt one word responses, like 'fine' and 'yes' and 'good', which probably indicated that she wasn't in the least bit okay. But in the midst of these routine calls, the mixture of relief and disappointment in the pit of her stomach made it hard for her to say anything at all.
So she would ignore Clyde's concerned questions, assure him she was doing just fine, and hang up, changing her number, just like she was instructed to.
And she would keep waiting for the call.
Sometimes, the phone rang in the middle of the night. Almost out of instinct, she reached for it, assuming it was JJ; assuming it was a case, just like nothing had changed.
It would take her a couple seconds to register that in reality everything had changed, and then the terrible feeling would manifest itself inside her again. And she would answer the phone, in french, using the fake name that she had grown to hate. But it would be nothing, so she would try to go back to sleep, knowing even then that she wouldn't be able to.
Those were the times that she got dressed, and ventured out of her room to the twenty-four hour Internet Cafe across the street. Those were the times she held her breath, hoping that the familiar name of Cheeto-Breath would pop up on her screen.
Those were her few moments of solace. The one word interchanges on Scrabble had meant everything; it had kept her from going insane because of all the possibilities and scenarios and the god-damn phone calls.
But soon enough, JJ would log off, and Emily would be left there with her thoughts again. And she swore her own over-thinking would drive her mad eventually.
As the months passed, she grew even more paranoid. You would think it would've gotten better, but no. She jumped at every creak of the floor, every tap on the shoulder, and especially every god-damn phone call.
After around four months, every time her phone rang, she didn't answer right away. The fear and hope and whatever the hell it was would be so overwhelming that she wouldn't be able to move for a second. But then, she would slowly reach her unsteady hand towards the phone, answering it with a shaking voice.
Clyde had almost come to get her then, but she'd convinced him, somehow, that she was fine. And she was. It couldn't get much worse, could it?
But it did. Around six months, she'd given up hope: of anything really. When the phone rang, she would answer it with a steady voice, making Clyde think that she'd finally grown to accept the change.
But in reality, it had just gotten worse. The depression had hit, and the not caring was what got Emily the most.
She didn't care anymore what would be on the other side of the phone calls. She'd given up all hope that Doyle would be caught, and she was convinced the team had gotten through it. They'd accepted it after six months, she assumed. They'd come to grips with the un-doubtable fact: Emily Prentiss was dead.
So she stopped waiting for the calls. The strange feeling that she'd grown accustomed to subsided. Everything subsided, until she couldn't feel much of anything anymore.
And looking back, she knows that time was the worst. The terrible moment that you can't seem to get yourself to care about anything. The moment where you just give up.
And she did give up, because Emily Prentiss was dead, and she didn't know who she was anymore.
The phone calls got rarer around that time. JJ went on Scrabble less. They all assumed that she was fine; that she was coping. But in reality, that was when she'd needed someone the most.
One night, the phone rang for what would be the last time.
She didn't even feel worried as she picked up the receiver, just numb.
But as she heard Clyde's frantic voice, Emily put herself together somehow.
As she grabbed her always-ready duffel bag and wrapped a scarf around her head, she thought about Declan, and she started to feel again. Feel that strange mixture of hope and dread, with a whole lot of anxiety mixed in.
And she snapped out of it; of that numbness she'd been in for months. Because of that phone call.
Because of the determination to find Declan.
But most of all, because she was finally going home.
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