She's Gone
Disclaimer: CBS owns Criminal Minds, not me...
Summary: Emily and Beth get into a heated argument after which she disappears...
A/N: This popped into my head and I couldn't resist. Enjoy.
Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it enough to leave a review.
Hermoine Gingold said, "Fighting is essentially a masculine idea; a woman's weapon is her tongue."
Emily awoke to hear a loud and repetitive knock on her front door. Groaning, she rolled out of her bed, and wandered into the living room.
Peering out the peephole she frowned as she unchained the latches on her door, and opened the door a crack.
"Yes?" Emily replied.
"Emily Prentiss?" the young police officer said, "Officer Bradley, Virginia State Police."
Opening the door, she was beyond surprised when she seen Morgan, Reid and Dave standing behind several uniformed officer.
"Please." Emily said allowing everyone entrance.
"Emily" Dave said slowly, "You need to get dressed, we need you to come down to the BAU."
"Why?" Emily asked, "What happened?"
"We'll explain it, as soon as you're dressed." Morgan told her watching Emily slowly nod and go upstairs.
Morgan exchanged a look with Dave and Reid, shaking his head. He didn't want to believe it, especially about her.
As soon as Emily came down the stairs dressed, Officer Bradley approached her.
"Emily Prentiss" Bradley said, "Your under arrest for the murder of Beth..."
"What?" Emily shouted, "Beth's dead? I didn't kill her, I didn't kill anybody..."
"Emily, don't say anything." Dave told her.
As Bradley read her, her rights, Emily tried to control her breathing while she was being handcuffed and escorted out of her apartment not watching her three friends hold remorse on their faces.
Emily's only thought was, 'What's Hotch going to think?'
Emily sat in an interrogation room, rubbing her wrists as she stated straight ahead at the two-way mirror, knowing that Hotch and possibly Morgan and Dave were on the other side going over techniques on how to question her.
From what she gathered, she knew her prints were all over Beth's apartment from their fight. But the blood, that's what threw her.
When she left the other woman's apartment they were both wearing matching bruises, cuts and scratches. However a tiny portion of her hair was ripped out courtesy of Beth, while Beth had a broken nose.
But enough blood to warrant an arrest? Especially hers? That was something else.
Emily looked over at the door, Hotch was walking in slowly. As he took the seat across from her, he held no emotion on his face.
"Well if you wanted to talk to me, all you had to do was call me" Emily joked, "So whats this about me and murder?"
Hotch pulled open the file in his hand, laying down several photos on the table.
"There are a few things we'd like to know" Hotch said slowly, "Like why look like you've gone ten rounds with Rocky Balboa, why Beth's apartment was trashed. Oh and why there's blood on her kitchen floor?"
Emily took a deep breath pointing to her face, "This is courtesy of your ex girlfriend. I was dropping her stuff off at her apartment when she went ape shit on me."
Hotch closed his eyes, "I told you, I was going to do that."
"She left a message on your answering machine" Emily said, "That either her stuff was dropped by today or she was going to come by and get it. I didn't think Jack needed to see her like that."
Nodding, "All right, tell me about the fight."
Emily smoothed a stray hair behind her ear, "Ok, now I want you to listen to this."
Hotch made a move that said cut the feed to the video, and looked over at her, "Tell me."
"All right, after I grabbed her box of things, I went into her apartment building and after knocking on her door, I could tell she wasn't excited to see me standing there." Emily told him, "She looked like she was expecting you..."
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Beth screamed out, "Are you trying to ruin everyone's happiness? How can you just go and ruin Aaron's chance at happiness?"
"He dumped you Beth, get over it" Emily told her, trying to maintain her temper, "I had nothing to do with Hotch dumping you. Maybe you need to pull back the reigns and take a look at yourself. Maybe there's something wrong with you."
"Everything was perfect until you interfered. Aaron loves me." Beth yelled "I'm going to kill you, you bitch."
"Huh, others have tried but I'm still here" Emily said mockingly.
"Not for long, bitch." Beth muttered.
Emily turned to walk out of the apartment, dropping the woman's box of stuff on the floor turning only to pause when she felt something fly by her head.
Turning her head she could see Beth reaching over picking up a ceramic angel, ready to throw it at Emily, when she rushed at the other brunette causing her to fall on the wooden floor.
"You picked the wrong woman to fuck with." Emily said shoving at the woman on top of her.
Emily felt a fist connect with her jaw, causing Emily to reach up and grab the other brunette by the neck, digging her nails into the woman's skin.
"Ah." Beth shouted, her facing grimacing then growling as her hand moved upwards knocking the other brunette off of her and tackling her.
Emily felt the weight of the other woman as she straddled her legs, grabbing her by the head of her hair and banging her skull into the ground.
Emily lifted up her knee and collided with her thigh as she also raised her hands up knocking Beth off of her.
"Uh." Beth groaned out, she got up and tried rushing Emily again.
Emily rolled to the side as she kicked her leg out, knocking Beth on her back and reaching over she gave one last punch to the unstable brunette, pleased when she heard the proverbial crack in her nose.
"Oh" Beth cried out, "You son of a bitch, you broke my nose."
"Yep." Emily said getting up and limping out of the apartment.
Emily looked over at Hotch, "After I limped out of the apartment I went home and nursed this black eye and lip, and spent a good portion of the night figuring out new hairstyles for the chunk of my hair Beth ripped out."
"And you expect us to believe that?" Officer Bradley said, "You're a trained federal agent, you killed Beth and did something with her body."
Emily shook her head, "Look just because I never liked the woman, doesn't mean I killed her. If anything if I hadn't left when I did, she'd probably kill me."
Bradley rolled his eyes, "You expect us to believe that an unarmed, untrained woman nearly killed you?"
"Well she certainly wasn't asking me to be her best friend." Emily said dryly, "If you're thinking Beth was some weak and wilted little flower, some meek woman you're in serious denial. That woman has some anger issues."
"Right" Bradley said looking at Hotch, "You believe any of this?"
"That doesn't sound like the Beth I know" Hotch said, "But I know Agent Prentiss and she wouldn't go around killing random people."
Emily snorted, she was having serious second thoughts on dating Aaron Hotchner at the moment. What guy interrogates his current girlfriend about the disappearance of his previous girlfriend?
"Look when I left her apartment, she might have been bleeding, she definitely was angry but she was still very much alive." Emily said, "And I admit my temper got the better of me, but I did not throw the first punch and I'm not going to admit to something that I didn't do."
Bradley mumbled something as a knock interrupted Hotch from further questioning Emily.
"Here" Dave said walking in with a photo in his hands, "Beth's apartment has security feed of Emily's arrival and departure."
"Garcia's going over the footage?" Hotch asked.
"Yeah and something else too" Dave said handing him a piece of paper, "Beth's psychiatrist is here."
"Who's questioning the psychiatrist?" Hotch asked.
"Morgan and JJ" Dave said, "Reid's going over the evidence, he wants to talk to you."
Hotch stood up, looked in Emily's direction, "I'll be right back."
Emily held up her hands, "Not like I've got anything else planned."
Dave took over Hotch's spot, "So how's your morning?"
Emily rolled her eyes at that.
Hotch stood next to Reid as they listened to Beth's psychiatrist talking to Morgan.
"From what the doctor said, it seems Beth has Borderline Personality Disorder with narcissistic tendencies." Reid told Hotch, "People with BPD tend to experience feelings of perceived rejection, being alone and feelings of failure."
"People with Borderline Personality feel victimized, and I know Beth never really liked Emily" Hotch said, "I just assumed it was because..."
"Because Beth knew you were in love with Emily?" Reid offered, not surprised by Hotch's look of surprise, he shrugged, "We've all kind of known for a while. You had called her Emily more and Prentiss less, and partnering yourself up with her more and more."
Hotch didn't say anything else, he just continued to observe the interview, learning more about Beth then he had ever from the woman herself.
"Do you believe Beth is dead?" Morgan asked Dr. Stone.
"No" the female doctor replied, "Whenever Beth has one of these breaks, she turns her rage and anger out on the person she believes wronged her and attacks. I advice you keep that female agent under heavy protection, for her own safety."
"How dangerous is she?" JJ asked worried for her friends' safety.
"Well people with BPD have changeability in their moods with anger and anxiety to depression and anxiety. The level of pattern going on from here on end will be destructive and self-destructive moods to manipulative and defensive actions. She tends to view the world as generally dangerous and treats others with extreme malevolence." Dr. Stone informed them.
Morgan shot JJ a look, "Would she go as far as to cause serious damage?"
"I can't comment on her personal life but I did read somewhere where a woman had beat someone with a tire iron for criticizing her help." Dr. Stone informed them.
Garcia rushed over to Hotch, "I told you, I told you my Gumdrop wasn't some cold-blooded killer."
Hotch took the digital photos from Garcia, looking at one that stated Emily left at fifteen after two, and the other showed Beth leaving her apartment, just as bruised as Emily was a little over fifteen minutes after Emily.
"Why didn't the police have these shown to us?" Hotch asked staring at the pictures of both women, he looked up to Garcia for an answer.
"There was some issues with the digital camera" Garcia said, "But me being the genius I am did some spelunking and I happened to... You're totally not caring right?"
Hotch looked back to the interview, when Garcia whispered, "You know Emily, she would never intentionally hurt anyone. Beth did this, she's not..."
"Hotch" Dave said walking over with Anderson, "The M.E. called, that blood that's all around Beth's apartment? She pulled a Foyet."
Hotch grimaced at the term, while Dave continued, "She stored up pints of her blood and tell them Anderson."
"Sir, she has this journal, and we've gone through everything" Anderson said quickly, "She planned to fake her death to blame Agent Prentiss."
Hotch walked away from the window, "Let her go." Hotch said looking at Garcia, "Find out everything you can about Beth."
Emily slammed the door shut to her apartment, she was beyond pissed.
When Dave told her she was going to be the patsy for Beth, she wanted to track the psycho bitch down and beat her to death.
And then there was Hotch, she still couldn't believe that he could think she'd kill anyone. Ok, someone he had seen just to get rid of the competition.
He may have not said it, but she knew as a fellow profiler, that he was thinking it. I should track him down and beat the shit out of him.
"Wait that's what got you into trouble with Beth in the first place" Emily muttered to herself, "But it felt so good to pound her face in. God, look at me talking to myself. Now I seem like the crazy one."
Shaking her head she grabbed an ice pack, walking towards her couch she laid down.
"I have a half a mind to go down to the BAU and dump him for doing this to me." Emily muttered, "Not like we were in love or anything."
Emily covered her eyes, wondering would it have been easier if she just stayed away from Hotch to begin with.
Internally rolling her eyes, she knew that she couldn't let him handle Beth alone, that if that woman wanted to go after Emily, she was going to be ready.
But she didn't need to be with Hotch to deal with his psycho ex girlfriend. Hell Beth made Ian Doyle look like a saint, except for the terrorist thing.
"God, love sucks." Emily muttered, hearing a knock on her door.
Lifting the ice pack off her face, she was half tempted to let whoever was at the door keep pounding on it. She wasn't exactly in the mood for company now.
Getting up, she wandered over to the door, and looked throw the peephole, frowning all she could see was dark hair. Hotch's face popped into her head.
"Go away, Hotch" Emily said, "You're bad luck."
As Emily turned to go back to the couch the door was kicked open and there stood Beth, with a look on her face that said this was the end.
"Emily." Beth said.
"Psycho." Emily replied back, causing the other brunette to slam the door shut and charge at Emily.
Both women fell on to the ground, duking it out neither were going to give up until one of them left this apartment in a body bag.
Garcia ran through the bullpen up the catwalk towards Hotch's office barging in, out of breath.
"Garcia what is it?" Hotch asked shocked.
Garcia panted, catching her breath, "It's bad. Oh boy" Garcia stated, "Beth ran a red light, headed towards... Emily's."
Hotch jumped out of his seat, going down to the bullpen, "Beth's at Prentiss'."
"Son of a bitch" Morgan grumbled, as he and Dave followed Hotch towards the elevators.
"What are you going to do?" Reid called out, "You're going to bring her back in?"
"Yeah" Morgan muttered, "In a body bag."
"I just want this to be all over." Hotch muttered, hoping that Beth didn't hurt her, that Emily was all right and safe.
Beth charged at Emily causing the agent to fall on the floor than winced when she felt Beth's boot connect to her rib, and rolling on her back as she looked at the unstable woman.
"What the hell do you want from me?" Emily asked protecting her face when the boot connected to her face.
Emily reached her arm over, grabbing for anything to hit the woman. She groaned when she felt Beth stomp down on her left wrist.
"Did you know in the Ten Commandments they say 'Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife'?" Beth said leaning over at the injured woman, "You do know your Commandments, don't you Emily?"
"Yeah." Emily sputtered out, the pain in her side wrenching through her.
"Well the Bible also talks about damning the wicked and punishing sinners" Beth said, "And that's what I have to do, you took my Aaron away from me and in the eyes of the Lord that's several rules you've broken."
Panting for breath, Emily kicked her foot out, connecting it to the other woman's stomach, hearing her groan at the sharp blow.
Emily gave Beth a kick across the floor, her back hitting one of her coffee table legs.
Scrambling off the floor, Emily reached over and grabbing her small lamp and threw it at Beth, hearing connect to the woman's head.
Sighing she rushed over grabbing Beth's leg to pull her towards the front door where her handcuffs were only to be kicked in the shin and topple over.
Beth straddled Emily's legs and pulled out a large, serrated knife from her jacket, "You have to pay for breaking the rules."
Emily looked up to the brunette, "What rules?"
Beth glared at her, "You broke three Commandments Emily. Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not commit adultery and Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife."
Her eyebrow's furrowing, "I didn't do any of that."
"You desired then stole Aaron away from me," Beth said holding up two fingers and then. "He betrayed me for you that's the third. And now you have to die, those are the rules."
Lifting her knife at Emily, she said, "I have one last Bible quote for you... The memory of the Just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot."
Emily closed her eyes another kick to the ribs caused her to gasp as she said, "Proverbs ten verse seven."
"Very good, Emily." Beth said lifting the knife up then hearing the door break open.
A gun shot rang out and Emily opened her eyes to see Morgan standing over her helping her up.
Dave stood over Beth, looking down at the woman, "She's gone."
Emily allowed Morgan to escort her out, "Come on, Princess."
Hotch touched her arm, "Emily..."
"Don't" Emily muttered moving out of his touch, "Just don't Hotch."
Three weeks had passed since the "Beth" incident, and Hotch wasn't handling the fact that Emily pulled away from him well.
He blamed himself for not seeing just how unstable the woman was, and that she had taken their break up so horribly that she targeted Emily.
Had he known that dumping Beth for Emily would have ended like this, he still would have ended things with Beth but he wouldn't have been honest with the reason he wanted to end it.
Emily told him that Beth was off, and he refused to see how bad she really was, but he wanted to see the good in everyone, in some ways he wondered if he were like Reid in that aspect.
Looking over into the bullpen, he could see the bruises fading from her face, only a small green tint near her right eye was evident from their first fight.
But her left wrist was still bandaged up, a fracture courtesy of Beth. He noticed that when anyone mentioned that woman's name how she tenses up and holds the injured wrist close to her.
Sometimes he really hated himself for ever picking the woman up at the park.
He wasn't surprised with Emily's professional demeanor during the working days but the few times in the three weeks that he had tried to speak with her privately she pulled away, claimed that she had worked to do, or JJ and Morgan would draw her attention, pulling her away from him.
He knew it was going to take time to win back her trust but he needed to do it, for her, for himself and for the hope of a future.
Because he still wanted a future with her and he wasn't going to let his stupidity rob him of his real chance at happiness, with her.
Emily smiled as she shouldered her go bag and reached down grabbing her purse and briefcase.
"You need a hand Em?" Morgan asked.
"Nope, just because one's crippled doesn't mean I still can't do it." Emily said, "See you tomorrow."
Hotch got up from his desk, leaving everything there and following her to the elevators.
"Emily" Hotch said watching her visibly tense at his voice, "Can we talk?"
"You are talking" Emily said.
"Emily..." Hotch said, "I want to talk to you."
"Well I don't feel like talking, sir" Emily replied.
"Please..." Hotch said softly, "I've missed you these past three weeks."
"Hotch, I had a really shitty month, the previous seven weren't any better." Emily told him, "So what else do you want to do to me now?"
Hotch closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, "I miss you, I miss my friend."
Rolling her eyes when she heard that, "Well it's going to take a long time for us to even be friends again. Is that it? Can I go now?"
"How's the wrist?" Hotch asked seeing her wince when she moved her briefcase from her free hand to the injured one.
"I'll be fine." Emily said, "Look, not to be rude but I'm tired, I'm going to go now."
"One more thing" Hotch asked, "Are we through? Is there no more chance for us?"
Emily looked down at the ground then at her aching wrist, "I just need time. Do you have any idea how it felt to be arrested for murdering your ex girlfriend only for her to show up at my apartment trying to kill me?"
"I am sorry, Emily." Hotch said looking down, he wanted to hide his feelings from her, but when he looked up.
"I just need time" Emily said, "I'm not saying no, but I just need time to figure things out."
Hotch nodded, "Ok, I understand. Good night, Emily."
Emily smiled back, "Good night, Aaron."
Hotch walked back to his office, somewhat relieved. She called him 'Aaron', she never had before, and that had to be a good thing. He vowed to himself to be there for her when she was ready, because he was.
Albert Einstein said, "Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value."
THE END
Well I hope you all like this, leave a review and let me know.