A/N: I'm not Seaver's biggest fan, but I think that the character deserves some dignity in her leaving and I liked the look of the challenge. With that in mind, I tried to keep it relatively simple.
Disclaimer: Well for once the people who own them have done everything I would have done if I owned them instead so I have nothing to make a witty comment about ;) …So I'll keep this simple too. I don't own them. Never have done and never will.
She had it in buckets, learned at the hands of a father who in his own twisted way was trying to warn her about men like him. It was the only thing that had got her through since the day that the FBI stormed into her life and tipped it upside down.
Survival instinct.
Ashley Seaver had always known when to stand her ground and when to turn and run. Fight or flight; that primal, intuitive feeling that had once protected the ancestors from the nasty predator hiding behind the tree next door. She remembered the science behind it from her beloved biology class, understood why and how it happened, but she could still marvel at the animal inside of her who reared its head and told her that something was just not right. She'd ignored it once before, back when she was too young to understand why her father's look sometimes made her stomach go tight, and had vowed that she would never do so again as long as she lived. There was too much at risk.
And it was because of that promise to herself that Ashley Seaver found herself requesting a transfer out of the BAU. She didn't particularly want to leave the team that had done its best to welcome her, and she didn't want to leave David Rossi's patient mentoring, but she understood that in the long run it would be for the best. On the Doyle case, before they lost Prentiss, Dave had said something that really caught her attention– we depend on the team member with the freshest eyes. She suspected it was those fresh eyes of hers that meant she could see things none of the others seemed capable of seeing; cracks appearing, threatening to swallow them all up if they lost their footing even for a moment. After Prentiss' death, she had put the slight oddness of the atmosphere – from Hotch's distance to Morgan's anger and everything in between - down to the grief that the team was feeling, and told herself that soon enough it would pass and the air would feel less heavy when she was around them.
But then JJ came back.
Ashley had of course only worked with the woman once, and so she had few ideas of what to expect when the media liaison resumed her role. She liked JJ well enough and appreciated that the older woman made an effort to speak to her and get to know her, but what she couldn't understand was why the joy that surrounded JJ's return had not lasted for very long. It took Ashley a week or two to realise that the upset in the dynamic was happening between Hotch and JJ, and was being projected onto the rest of the team who were unconsciously on edge when they were around the two of them. Ashley, as the youngest and least experienced, often remained behind in the stations when they were on a case, and so she spent much of her time around JJ and Hotch who were more often than not working from the base as well. She became an expert, in a very short amount of time, at not noticing the little looks they would share sometimes, at how they would take themselves into a corner and talk under their breaths to one another. For a brief, fanciful time Ashley wondered if they were having a secret relationship but dismissed it almost immediately; rightly or wrongly, she just couldn't imagine Hotch in that role.
No, it seemed that something had happened between the two of them that they would not – or could not – discuss. She remembered vaguely the hospital waiting room and how they had separated themselves from the rest of the group, and had idly thought that perhaps there was more to the Emily story than they were being told. It was far-fetched, and she suspected she was just hoping as such because she missed Prentiss, but even if that was the case, whatever was causing the tension between the pair was arguably just as big a secret. And it was a secret that she wanted no part in.
Ashley Seaver was not a coward, and she repeated that mantra to herself as she signed the request transfer and passed it on to Hotch. It was not an act of cowardice she was committing. She wasn't running away. She was just removing herself from the danger zone. As welcome as the team had made her feel, she knew that she didn't have anything more than a brief appearance in the history that they shared. When the explosion came, whatever it turned out to be, they would have one another to lean on. It would take time to sift through the mess, that was obvious, but she knew that they would survive. She wasn't so certain about herself; thanks to the science lessons she loved so much, she knew that the weakest in the pack always suffer first when there is danger or chaos. Ashley wasn't willing to succumb to that fate, not when she had a way out.
The reactions from the team were as she expected; Garcia and Reid told her to keep in touch, Morgan wished her luck, as did JJ. Hotch seemed secretly relieved even as he shook her hand, one less thing on his mind to worry about and although Dave was disappointed, he promised her that he understood she wanted to stretch her wings and that he'd always be at the other end of the phone if she ever needed him. Ashley left with little fanfare on a Friday afternoon, after one last cup of coffee with Reid and Garcia. At the glass doors, she took a brief moment to turn and look at the group gathered around Reid's desk – the odd little family that she had been a part of for such a short time. The grey cloud was still hanging above them even as they smiled and she knew once more that she had done the right thing. Field experience in the Los Angeles office might not be as interesting as life in the BAU, but it would be steady and she would gain much more from such time there than riding out the wave that was about to hit this small patch of Quantico, Virginia.
Survival instinct.
Fight or flight.
It was time to run.