Friday 6th June, 2013. 7:30pm GMT
After a long, complex day at the office, Emily Prentiss arrived home. She still wasn't quite used to calling this one bedroom flat in Waterloo her home, but it was comfortable enough. Although she had been desperate to get out of DC, that didn't mean that her decision was one that held no regret. She felt the loss of her Quantico family constantly, a dull ache at the best of times, a sharp stab at the worst. Throwing herself into her new position at Interpol had helped, and she had developed friendships, but none that could ever come close to those she held closest to her heart.
Technology was the one thing that kept her tied to Washington, and although they were all busy with equally time consuming careers, the BAU tried their best to keep Emily in the loop, and she bestowed them with stories of her "spiffing" life in a different capital. Garcia was the most frequent in her correspondence, sending e-mails every day (both long and short, depending on her work load), and arranging Skype calls every week. Morgan and JJ were good too, sending IMs whenever they could. Reid was consistently techno-phobic and sent her letters once a month. Rossi called her whenever he remembered. Hotch had sent brief, formal e-mails a couple of times at the start, but they had petered out. Emily tried to pretend she didn't mind, that Hotch had enough to do and she'd catch up with him when she visited DC some time.
Seeing the Houses of Parliament every day instead Congress had taken some getting used to, although she had been relieved to find that her sarcasm and dry sense of humor fitted in perfectly with her English co-workers, who insisted on calling her "the Yank" whenever she spelt something without a u, or called the "tube" the "subway".
She was happy. Really she was. However, as well as things were going for her, she couldn't get one thing out of her mind. Well - one person.
As she unlocked the door and pushed it open, she bent down to pick up the stack of mail that was lying all over the doormat (why didn't the English have mailboxes? She wondered). Sifting through them, her heart began to beat faster when she saw all too familiar handwriting on the front of a thick, cream envelope. Closing her eyes, she flipped the envelope over and began to open it, pulling out what was inside. She didn't have to open her eyes to know what was in her hands. Reluctantly forcing her eyes open, she read the thick, gilded words written in cold on the card. She sighed, as she caught sight of her own name, written in Hotch's handwriting:
Emily Prentiss
And beneath it, in swirling gold letters;
Aaron Hotchner and Beth Clemmons request the honor of your presence at their marriage on 1st September 2013 at..
She couldn't read anymore. Three months?! They were getting married in three months?! She didn't even know that they were engaged. Was this all some horrible joke, or had the team really been hiding this from her? Throwing the invitation over to the couch, she opened her ridiculously large handbag and wasted several minutes shakily trying to fish her cell (mobile, she reminded herself) out of the abyss. When she finally found it, with trembling fingers she went through her speed dial. Pressing green, she held the phone to her ear, trying to breathe at a normal pace.
"Princess Emily! What a surprise to hear from you this early in the day!"
"PG, why didn't you tell me?" Emily struggled to keep her voice even and breezy, but she knew it was pointless trying to hide anything from Garcia.
"Tell you what? What's wrong, you sound all floopy and I don't like it. Let me shut my door and we can talk, ok?" Emily heard the door clicking shut, and the wheels of Garcia's chair. "Now, what haven't I told you about?"
"About Hotch, being engaged?" Despite herself, Emily felt a hot tear roll down her cheek and a lump in her throat.
"Hotch is engaged?! What? How do you know this?!" Garcia sounded genuinely shocked, and Emily felt guilty for even believing her friend would hide something like this. Besides, what reason would they have to hide it? Nobody, as far as she knew, thought that Emily saw Hotch as anything other than her ex-boss and friend.
"Because when I got home, a wedding invitation was waiting for me."
"Seriously? I haven't heard a thing, and I normally know if someone in the building's about to cough! Does this mean I'm not invited to the wedding?!" She gave a sudden squeal. "Does this mean you're coming back home?"
"I-I'm not sure."
"What? Why would you miss this? When is it, by the way?"
"September. Just a little short notice, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the holiday time."
"'Holiday time', just listen to you Little Miss British! But you'll try, right? Because my trip seems like a lifetime ago, and I need some Emily time. Three months isn't that short notice is it?" Right now three months feels like tomorrow. "We miss you, you know. A year doesn't heal the pain of not having you here to go shopping with. JJ always stops me buying stuff. And I'm sure Hotch really wants you to be there for his special day, even if he didn't bother telling the rest of us yet."
"I was gonna try and get there early in the new year. I just don't think I can come with only three months notice."
"Is that what it's really about, Emily?" Garcia's voice became laced with genuine concern, and Emily had to struggle to keep her nonchalance in tact.
"Yeah, of course! What else would it be about?"
"I'm no profiler, but I know that normally you would drop everything for a friend's wedding. And now you're making lame excuses about not being able to ask for vacation time? I'm not dumb, Emily. I've seen the signs for as long as they've been there. The reason you're so upset is that.." Half way across the world, Emily still recognized the loud, solid knock that echoed from Garcia's office down the phone. "One second." Garcia moved the phone away from her mouth. "Come in, Sir."
From far away, Prentiss heard that low, deep voice that she had been trying to forget for the best part of a year.
"Garcia, I need information on a potential victim..who are you talking to on your personal cell? I don't need to remind you that this is confidential information, and you're on the Bureau's time."
"It's Emily, sir. I'll hang up." The phone moved back to Penelope's face. "Em? I'll call you after work, if that's not too late on your end? And we are not done, okay?"
"Ok, PG. Talk to you later."
She slumped to the floor, defeated by her emotions. Her chest began to heave, and before she knew what was happening, she was sobbing on her doormat, the front door still wide open. Blurry eyed, she gave it a weak shove, hearing it softly click into the latch. Letting the tears fall freely, she felt like she was drowning in her own self pity. And all from a stupid wedding invitation.
Having recovered slightly from her hysterical reaction, Emily changed into the comfiest, ugliest pyjamas she owned and called the local Chinese take-out and ordered the greasiest, carb-laden items on the menu. Once it had arrived, she settled down to watch the ultimate "I'm-going-to-die-alone-and-I-want-to-watch-other-people-be-miserable" movie; Titanic. On the table in front of her, she was slightly ashamed to admit, was one of those novelty wine glasses that fit an entire bottle of wine inside. And it was full.
As Jack helped Rose back over the bars of the ship, Emily was feeling considerably happier. Which had nothing to do with the fact the enormous glass in front of her was now half empty. Snuggling deeper under the blanket she kept on the sofa - even though it was supposedly summer, London was still chilly - she sighed happily. She stretched her feet out, frowning when something hard was forced down the space in her toes. "Ouch!" She leaned forward, moved the blanket and peered at her feet. Shit. It was that stupid, stupid wedding invite that caused all this drunkenness and self pity. Emily had almost forgotten about it, and now it all flooded back to her in a wave of misery and nausea that had nothing to do with the alcohol and grease combining in her digestive system. She threw the card as far away from her as she could, and sunk back down under her blanket, and turned Titanic up as loud as she could to try and drown her own thoughts (no pun intended).
Just then, her phone began to ring, blaring out the "ironic" ringtone Penelope set to play whenever she called.
"Hey I just met you..and this is crazy..but here's my number.."
"Hey PG. 'Sup?"
"'Sup indeed, my homegirl. Hey, is that the doomed romance of Jack and Rose I hear in the background?"
"Uhuh, it sure is." Emily appeared to have lost control of her tongue, and her words were coming out heavy and slurred.
"Woah, someone's been hitting the vino! Say your last name."
"What? That's stupid. You're stupid."
"Say it."
There was silence, and Emily could almost hear Garcia smirking over the phone.
"Prentiff."
"Knew it. You're drowning your sorrows."
"Am not."
"Are too. Titanic, red wine, and I bet you ordered Chinese food too, right?"
"..Shut up."
"I'm sorry my dear, but the Oracle of Quanitco sees and knows all. You okay, honey bunch?"
"Never better." She said, pausing Titanic and getting up off the couch, grabbing her wine for good measure. "You?"
"Fine. Got home and found the invite in my mail box, as expected. I spoke to the others, they had no idea, except Rossi who said Hotch told him a couple months ago. He's Best Man."
"Really? Tha's great." New game, she thought, drink every time you pretend to be happy about something to do with the wedding. She took a big gulp of her wine, and caught sight of her black teeth in the reflection from the glass. Sexy.
"Yeah, he seemed pretty pleased about it. You've gotta come, right? How can you miss dirt on what Hotch does when he's off duty that Rossi is bound to share in his speech?"
"I really don' think I'll be able to make it.."
"You haven't even asked yet. C'mon, Em. I know what's going on."
"What, that I have a verrrry busy life? Doesn' take a genius, Pen."
"More than that, my boozy one. You're upset that Hotch is getting hitched."
"No, no, I'm verrry happy for him." Drink.
"You're sure?"
"100% sure. If I can get time off, I'll be there." Drink.
"Well, good, because I happened to be in the vacation, sorry-" Garcia affected a cut glass English accent "holiday database of your office, and it seems you have two weeks booked off starting August 25th, to allow for jet lag. Wonder how that happened?" Garcia sang down the phone at her. "But, baby, I can cancel it all if you really, really can't face it? I know you've always had a little thing for Hotch, but we all want to see you and I know Hotch wants you there, even if he is the world's crappiest communicator. But seriously, just say the word and you'll be working in Paraguay the week of the wedding."
Emily took a deep breath, and prepared to finish the glass.
"No, no, Paraguay won't be necessary. I'll be there. Better get a new dress!" With that, she downed her drink.
"Well, ok. I'll let you get back to Titanic. If you need me - call. Anytime."
"Thanks, PG. Ciao!" She clicked the phone shut, and pressed fast forward. No more love, time for some misery.
Several hours and a bottle of wine later, Emily sat cross legged on her bed stalking ex-boyfriends on Facebook. It wasn't big, and it certainly wasn't clever, but making herself feel better about not ending up with any of these losers was truly making her feel better. She'd had a quick IM session with JJ, who'd expressed total shock at Hotch's sudden news (even speculating that Beth might be pregnant) until Emily made her excuses to sign off, lurking on "appear offline" until JJ had written a status that she was going to bed. Turning chat back on, Morgan had said a quick hello, but talked about normal things, like a woman he'd met in a bar the other night and the new self defense class he was thinking of teaching. Emily typed carefully, probably too carefully, and if he knew she was drunk, he didn't say anything. He said goodbye mercifully quickly, and she was left staring at her news feed.
A few games of Tetris, looking at cat videos and some more drunk snooping later, Emily looked at the clock blinking 4:00 and thanked heavens that it was the weekend and she'd have peace to wallow in her inevitable hangover. She stretched out and placed her laptop to the side of her bed, and crawled under the covers. Grabbing the remote from her bedside table, she turned the TV on and watched some weird late-night show, complete with a man at the side doing sign language. Do deaf people only watch TV in the middle of the night? She drunkenly mused to herself. Suddenly, her computer pinged, and she grabbed at it, almost dropping it. She squinted at the screen, hoping that it was a drunken hallucination.
Aaron Hotchner: Emily?
She blinked. Hotch never IMd, and she'd completely forgotten he even had a facebook.
Emily Prentiss: Heyyy.
Ok, that was way too y-heavy to appear sober.
Aaron Hotchner: How are you?
Emily Prentiss: Dandy, thnk you. An you?
Missing letters. Great, Emily, way to go. Sober as a nun.
Aaron Hotchner: Very well, thank you.
Emily Prentiss: Jack ok?
Aaron Hotchner: He's doing great, thank you.
Emily Prentiss: Gd, gpad to heaaer that.
Aaron Hotchner: You're up late. It must be, what, 4AM in London?
Emily Prentiss: Uhuh.
Aaron Hotchner: Trouble sleeping?
Emily Prentiss: Jusft gkot in, actuially.
Must make it seem like I'm actually an interesting person, rather than a self pitying spinster who sits home drinking wine and watching Titanic on a Friday night, Emily thought, taking a deep glug of wine, not that she needed it.
Aaron Hotchner: That explains the poor typing skills then ;)
Emily Prentiss: Dd you jus ;) at me SSA Hotchnerr?
Aaron Hotchner: I'm trying out these smiley things, Beth told me I IM like an old man writing to his attorney.
Emily Prentiss: I happsjfen to like writging to atteorneys
Aaron Hotchner: I think you might need to go get some sleep, Prentiss.
Emily Prentiss: Proabbyly.
Aaron Hotchner: Before you go, I just want to make sure your invitation arrived safely?
Emily Prentiss: Yesfs it did, cheers. Thast what Englishg people say, it meandjs tahnsk you.
Aaron Hotchner: I'm glad. I hope you can make it, we'd both love to see you there.
Emily Prentiss: I'kll teyry my verry best!
Aaron Hotchner: Goodnight, Prentiss
Emily Prentiss: Gnidght Hotch.
Emily noticed that her wine glass, which was at least a third full at the start of the conversation, was now empty.
Tomorrow was going to hurt.