I thought a lot whether to write a story inspired to Lauren, and in the end I decided that worst case scenario it would be at least therapeutic and help me coping with the news about Emily's final fate.

As usual I am very happy to receive comments and criticism!

Asteriscus hierochunticus

There are some stories you can't tell, nightmares you can't recount because they're too horrible; they are unspeakable shadows clamping your heart, holding your breath, clenching your jaw.
There are some horrors that you have to keep locked into your closet, you don't let them out, but deal with them in solitude.

Sometimes it gets too much and you can't control the solitude, the grief for what you've lost, the memory of who you left behind, the awareness that you don't, you cannot have a future, nothing to hope for, nothing to hold on to. When those moments come, you close yourself in a dark room, you scream your suffering, cry your tears and once you're done, you change clothes, dye your hair and vanish, again.

Sometimes you meet decent people who care for you, whom you care for. You get comfortable enough to believe that this time you got settled, that what they know about you it's enough, they don't need to dig more, there's no need for you to expose that stain. What counts is who you are now, no matter if you don't know exactly whether the present you is the real you.

Emily, the ambassador's daughter, who questioned every rule and authority. Lauren, the arm dealer who slept with the enemy in order to save her own life, his son and god knows how many other innocents. Emily Prentiss, the FBI profiler who works with her team, which is also her family, a dysfunctional, unconventional, but truly loving family.
Are those different faces or just different layers of the same person, each one whether you like it or not, contributing to the complex human being you are now?
What about the multitude of identities who covered your tracks and movements during the past nine months?
And what if one of those layers simply doesn't want to let go? What if you get stuck into a limbo where you cannot go back, either move on? How do you get over it?
You spend each single breathing moment of your life hunting down who did this to you and making sure he doesn't get close to your beloved, caring about them in the distance because there is no other option.

She slowly moved toward the window unbuttoning her shirt, in front of her room a huge billboard covered with the advertisement of an eau de cologne, portraying two strangers meeting in the middle of the street and accidentally touching each other, and obviously matching the fire of eternal love with the complicity of the magnetic scent.

She wondered when was the last time someone touched her, held her or simply gave her words of comfort. She immediately reminded of his hands holding hers, his voice talking to her, not letting her slip away, stating that he knew and was proud. Was he sincere or was he just talking out of mercy for the woman agonizing at his feet? For Derek Morgan trust needed to be earned and it wasn't easy to have it back once betrayed his friendship.

Her hand brushed the outline of the scar on her chest, she honestly didn't know if any man would ever touch her again, if she ever let anyone come near her, and if she still remembered how to deal with people?

The hardest thing was to know that she was now a shadow. It was not like if she went missing and someone was looking for her, nobody was waiting for her return, she was dead; people had mourned and slowly adjusted to live their life without her.

Over the past nine months she had been imagining the day she would have met them again, with anticipation and fear. She betrayed them running away, for good reasons but still she left without saying a damn goodbye, then she faked her death and lived elsewhere while they were left struggling with the aftermath of her death, with thousands questions, with regret, with rage and unfinished business. How could she come back and hope for a second chance?

She had written many letters in the past months, to apologize, to explain, to heal, all of them were stashed in a box and never meant to be sent. As painful as it was the safest and healthiest solution was for her friends to believe she was dead, even though this meant hell for her.

She threw the rest of her clothes on the bed and went for a shower, the bathroom was filled with vapor and she was wrapping a towel around her body when she heard the click of the door lock getting opened.
She instantly grabbed the gun left near the sink and creeped behind the door holding her breath, her eyes went wide when a familiar voice reached her "Ne t'inquiète pas, ces't moi"

"Ce que tu fais ici?" she came out of the bathroom with her gun pointed at the man, who was supposed to believe her dead.

"That's not a nice way to welcome an old friend, darling" he commented, arms opened in surrender "but if you want to search me for a gun I won't complain" he added then with a mischievous grin.

"I'm not joking Clyde. What are you doing here?" she insisted.

"I'm here to help you Emily. And to be honest I already proved to be trustworthy last time, even though you wouldn't believe me" he kept his calm.

Emily remembered that conversation months before and how her decisions had Tsia killed, and finally lowered her gun.

"Now, as much as I appreciate this attire I think this conversation requires you to be fully dressed" he carried on with his usual sarcasm.

Emily shot a look at him, "Should I remind you that this is my room and you broke in without permission?" she commented before picking her clothes and disappearing into the bathroom.

"So how did you find me? Only few people know that I'm alive and just one is informed about my location" she asked once she emerged from the bathroom, in jeans and shirt.

"I was informed by your status by Agent Jereau, I needed a skillful agent for a mission and she pointed me one"

Emily gave him a confused look.

"Oui, mon chery. You're back in with immediate effect" he added, this time no sign of sarcasm or joke on his face.

"Why me? I have been inactive for months, I am not updated and right now my orders are to lay low, I don't.."

"It's Doyle, Emily" he cut the story short and finally obtained her full attention.

"After your departure we grieved and then we got back to work to find the son of a bitch and solve the problem once for all. We knew it wouldn't be possible to track him down but we had an advantage he wasn't aware of, we knew what he was after. So we gave him what he wanted and used him as a bait" Clyde explained leaning against the window, occasionally staring at the billboard with curiosity.

Emily's heart stopped "Please tell me you didn't use the kid as leverage"

"No we didn't. We couldn't have even if we wanted since you didn't reveal his location and you were dead… But we left a thread of very believable breadcrumbs, easy enough to follow, difficult enough to track so he wouldn't smell the trap. And it worked."

"How do you know that? How do you know that he's not playing you along?" she objected with diffidence. Ian was unrivaled when it came to plan his steps and all the possible back up solutions, she had experienced it on her own skin.

"We know it because we drew him out of his hole and finally after months our roles are reversed, he's the prey and I'm the hunter. And I swear I'm not going to miss the shot this time"

Emily realized that in all those months she'd been hiding, but Clyde, who was also one of Ian's target, went on working in plain sight under the constant risk of being next Doyle's victim. Suddenly she felt almost relaxed at the idea of having someone who was sharing the same fight, the same aim. But still she didn't understand why he came to her "Clyde, if you are confident about catching him what am I needed for?"

"Well," he finally got to the point knowing she wouldn't have liked it "everything was proceeding fine until a certain technical analyst started looking where she wasn't supposed to and got to the trail we left for Doyle. Of course all your friends were more than happy to take on the hunting party and since you were right and they are the best, now they are dangerously close to the truth. As much as I respect them for saving you, I can't let your team interfere with this operation."

"Why don't you talk to Hotch? Why JJ sent you here? You know that I cannot do anything" she asked confused.

"Oh, this is not true darling and you know that. Once Doyle is out of the picture you can come back to your old life, what I'm asking you is to reappear a little bit earlier than planned in order to distract your team while I neutralize Doyle" He immediately understood he had said something wrong because Emily's face suddenly became a mask of fear, had he asked her to throw herself in Doyle's arms she should have taken it more lightly.

"Clyde… I , I can't go back to my team. What am I supposed to tell them? How can I even get them to look at me and listen to an explanation? They will be confused, hurt and furious." She started pacing nervously and then sat again on the bed "Reid has been let down by so many people he trusted that I don't even know if and how he will be able to rely on someone again. Morgan was my partner and my friend and all of a sudden he discovered that I was a totally different person from the one he was convinced to know. Penelope, has a big heart, and I took it and broke it in thousand pieces and it will never be the same. Rossi has been a supportive friend, he always backed me up and I turned him down. Seaver, I offered to mentor her and I was supposed to lead by example, and what example I set. Hotch, has to look the team in the eyes every day and carry the burden of the lie and its consequences on the people he's supposed to lead. What do you think is going to happen to the balance in the team once the truth comes out. Believe me as much as I miss them, they're better off now knowing me dead. Once I am back everything will change, everything will be broken and there's no way back from that."

Clyde listened silently to Emily's speech, finally he gave his own piece of mind "People thinks there's no way back from the death, but you're about to prove them wrong, so I don't see why your team mates shouldn't be able to forgive you. Having you back will override their perplexity and with time everything will be fixed" he saw the uncertainty and fear in her eyes, then he took something out of his pocket "Here, I've got something for you" he handed out a small cotton bag.

Emily opened it and took out the object examining it with suspicious look "oh, a gray, dried mushroom? You know how to get a woman's heart.." she commented blunt.

Clyde sighed and explained "This is not a dried mushroom, Emily. It's a rare desert plant called Asteriscus hierochunticus , ever heard about the rose of Jericho? It's a plant adapted to the most extreme environments where rainfalls are just a sporadic event; to survive the long periods of drought they stay closed and seemingly dead as pieces of wood, then when it rains they open up in wonderful flowers and spread the seeds for the future generation. Many species don't even have roots, they wander through the desert carried by the wind until they find favorable conditions to open up" he disappeared to the toilet and put the plant under the running water, few minutes after he came back again handing to a puzzled Emily the now opened flower.

"It's beautiful" she whispered taking into her hands what seemed a chiseled sculpture, few drops of water managed to turn that miserable stunted piece of wood into a beautiful leaving creature. What seemed a frail, defeated being was now revealing to be a strong, unbreakable fighter.

"You are like this flower, Em. Don't underestimate your strength and endurance. You made a lot of sacrifices but now it's time for the rain to come and for you to flower again, my darling."

To be continued...