This is a little something that has been floating around in my head for some time. The scene takes place a couple of months after Emily returns from the dead.

I don't own Criminal Minds, I just borrow their characters for kicks and giggles.

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Collateral Damage

Always the innocent are the first victims…So it has been for ages past, so it is now.

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"God, you're such an asshole!"

Agent Emily Prentiss had had enough. On the best of days less than 3 hours sleep and a 5 am wakeup call sucked but add scorching heat plus the broken air conditioner in their piece of crap rental and she wanted to rip somebody's head off and if her partner didn't shut his trap it would be his head she'd be going after.

She smelled bad and he smelled worse and the 17 miles from the podunk sheriff's station to the only slightly better motel felt like an eternity. It was time to get out of this godforsaken rural Alabama town with its godforsaken backwoods people and back to civilization.

They had finally caught Morris Emmet, the local high school football coach who had been kidnapping the prepubescent sons of migrant workers and dumping their bodies in a mass grave on his horse farm. The FBI should have been called in sooner but combine small town mentality and it's reverence for a coach who consistently won state championships against victims whose skin were just too brown and residency status the opposite of legal and you get a sheriff and a community that just didn't give a damn.

That is until Coach Emmet got sloppy and grabbed Max, the 10 year old son of Dr. Francis Sanchez as they were passing through on their way to visit family in Tennessee.

Breaking down on the side of the road with no cell phone reception to speak of and a mere mile from the only gas station in town, Dr. Sanchez left Max and their black Lab, Dora in his locked Honda while he ran back to get help.

When he returned not more than 15 minutes later, Dora was dead and Max was nowhere to be found. Sadly Max's body was discovered this morning along with 10 others in various stages of decomposition. Yes, they caught the unsub but counting this as a win the team couldn't do. Not when eleven little boys had learned the hard way that monsters are real.

To top things off Morgan in his attempt to block out the images of the small bodies twisted under rock, dirt, and Lye was back to his favorite line of questioning since Emily's return from Paris and ultimately from the dead.

"Sue me; I'll never understand why you didn't trust us sooner to help you take down Doyle." His tone is accusatory and tinged with bitterness. What he really wants to ask is 'Why didn't you trust me?' but honesty comes at a price he did not wish to pay today.

Derek knows that he's being unfair but they've been partners for five years, a partnership built on trust and loyalty or so he thought. Didn't she know that he would do everything in his power to keep her safe?

Always the leadfoot he floors the accelerator of the SUV causing loose gravel to fly out beneath the tires. The rocks crunch and pop as they violently hit the rims and undercarriage of the vehicle.

Too disgusted to even look at him, Emily continues staring out the passenger window mentally ticking off the minutes until she can submerge herself under the coldest shower known to man. She's determined to ignore him but his callousness has left her fuming and needing to strike back.

"But you know what's worse than being an asshole? Being an asshole who won't take no for an answer. As in no, I don't want to talk about this, again. No, my answer hasn't changed from the last time you asked and no, I don't care if you ever understand my reasons for doing what I did!"

If she wasn't so friggin tired she'd tell him to pull over and she'd walk the rest of the way. Or better still, make him trek the remaining nine miles.

With a dismissive shrug he ignores the caustic bite of her words. "Yeah, yeah you went into hiding to protect the team but what you forgot is that the team is strongest when we work together, when there are no secrets between us. Instead you ran and let us believe you were dead. Garcia was inconsolable, Reid wouldn't talk unless asked a direct question, and I …" His words trail off as the flood of memories come rushing back.

During the day he tried to stay strong for the others but at night the ghost of Emily haunted his dreams. Too many times he'd "wake" to find her standing at the foot of his bed, impaled through the abdomen like some kind of modern day vampire.

Bloodied and battered she would plead for him to save her and just like he had failed her in real life, he couldn't keep her from being swallowed up by the malevolent shadow figure lying in wait in the doorway.

Knowing that she's alive and sitting safely beside him doesn't erase the pain of bearing witness to her last breath, or what he thought was her last breath. Thankfully the nightmares have stopped, mostly, but the fear of knowing how close he came to losing her still makes him break out in a cold sweat.

Emily was sorry for the pain she caused her friends but she would do it all again if she had to. Ian Doyle, former IRA terrorist with a penchant for torturing his enemies was a man who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And he wanted Emily dead and anyone who stood in his way was collateral damage, even if they worked for the FBI.

"OK big shot, maybe you could have handled Doyle and gone up against anything he threw at you but what about Garcia? How long would she have lasted with him? You tell me since you have all the answers," she shot back.

"Garcia, what does she..." But Emily doesn't let him finish. Her next words cut through the thick air like a knife.

"He knew about your movie nights," she shouted.

That got his attention. He wildly yanks the steering wheel to the right, skidding the car to a stop along the road's shoulder. Putting it in park he collapses against his seat before turning to look at her with sad eyes.

Just how close had Doyle and his men come to getting his Baby Girl? How many times had the two of them stayed late at the office only to separate once the clock struck midnight?

Arm in arm they would walk to her car where he would watch as she slid into the driver's seat. Leaning in he would buckle the seatbelt for her, pulling the strap snug across her body. She would always reward him with a kiss on the cheek, for his gallantry she would say. Hopping on his bike he would then follow her out to the intersection of Main Street and Broadway where she would turn left and he right. Alone she would drive the 20 minutes to her apartment.

"He would have hurt her, Morgan. More than Battle did, more than she's ever been hurt before and I just couldn't…" Emily's words catch in her throat, "I couldn't let that happen."

No longer angry, she takes a steadying breath and wills herself to go on.

"Doyle was a cruel man, an evil man who used pain and fear like weapons. A bullet to the back of Penelope's head would have been too easy, too humane. He would have made her suffer not because she did anything to him but because…because he knew what she means to me and everything he would have done to her would have been a message to those of us left standing. Doyle would have made her earn her death. And I knew that as long as he thought that I was alive that none of you were safe. Do you understand? Because I need for you to understand."

With tearful eyes that match his partner's, Morgan nods and silently vows never to bring up the topic again. Putting the SUV in drive, he safely turns them back onto the road.

The End

There's a hill and there's a little girl on top of the hill... and she's just dancing in the sun. But somehow I know she's waiting for me, so I start to walk up the hill, but the hill gets steeper and steeper, and by the time I climb to the top, the little girl's gone. And I, I look everywhere for her, and when I can't find her, I start to panic, and I panic because I know what's waiting out there for her. I know what the world can do to a girl who only sees beauty in it. Like you.

Emily Prentiss to Penelope Garcia

-Valhalla

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