She is better than this.

She repeats the phrase to herself over and over again as she pats at her cheeks with a wet paper towel, runs her wrists under the freezing temperature of the bathroom sink. But this time, she can't hold onto the panic. She's working on too little sleep, too much adrenaline and a vicious paranoia that she knows is going to leave her hallucinating in a few days if she's not careful.

Valhalla.

Ian Doyle.

And this time he's not just sending her flowers and meeting her at deserted Washington picnic tables. No, this time he's doing what he does best: terrorizing his victims. He's pulling her into his whirlpool, yanking her down a painful memory lane she'd been sure she'd locked safely away in the heavily booby trapped back of her mind.

(She'd told JJ once, eons ago, that she could keep calm because she was really good at compartmentalizing. But standing here, her past shoved in her face on the barrel of a gun, she thinks that maybe she'd been naïve in making such a statement. Naïve and full of herself and absolutely riding the high on her conviction that she was safe. Ian Doyle was locked away in a black hole Russian prison.

Turns out even that had been a lie.)

She's not blind and she's not stupid. There isn't a human being alive that knows Ian Doyle as well as she does. The symbolism in his kill is not lost on her and –

God, God. She is better than this.

"Emily?"

His voice comes from miles away, faded and distorted, warped under the pounding of her pulse in her ears. "Fine. I'm fine."

Except she's not. She is not, not with the way her vision is going dark around the edges. Her lungs hurt, a stabbing paint hat tells her she's breathing too hard, too fast. Her fingers are growing numb from the lack of good blood flow- No. From how hard she's clenching the edge of the counter.

"Emily."

No. No. Not now and not like this. In a moment when she's caught her breath and has control over herself, yes. Not like this. And definitely not him.

"Away," she manages, swatting at him. "Away."

But he doesn't go. Of course he doesn't go, not when it's her and certainly not when she's having a bad day. Not when the depth of their friendship is founded on seeing each other at their worst and most vulnerable.

He catches her hand and reels her in, the contract cracking open her chest. Body-wrenching sobs of panic tear from her throat in a torrent that won't give up and won't let her catch her breath. But he doesn't crowd her, doesn't yank her close. He follows her back and she stumbles towards the wall, crouches down when she slides down to sit on the floor. He releases her hand only to reach out and his fingers around her ankle.

"I'm going to squeeze, okay? I'm going to squeeze your ankle and you're going to breathe with it. In when it's tight, out when it's loose."

She shakes her head. She can't. She can't focus enough to figure out if she's breathing, let alone help him regulate it.

"Yes, you can," he tells her, voice calm, smooth and steady. "Ready?"

She shakes her head violently, harshly, enough that between the sobs and the fact that air is so incredibly precious right now, it leaves her dizzy and her vision foggy around the edges.

"Okay. In, two, three. And out."

It takes time, but slowly three becomes four, and four becomes five. By five her eyes have cleared and her breath is coming easier. He's shifted somewhere along the line, shoulder to shoulder with her now instead of crouched in front. She focuses on that, of the heat of his thigh against hers, the pressure of his fingers around her ankle. It's still a couple of minutes before he speaks.

"Do you know him?"

The answer's already in his eyes and they both know it. Her hand clenches where it's wrapped around his wrist. He squeezes her ankle and makes her breathe in fives again. Once, twice, then a third time.

"Yes," she finally says, voice raw and hoarse from her panic attack. "Yes Hotch. Yes, I know Ian Doyle."