A/N: Thank you all so much for the fantastic response to the first chapter! I hope you will enjoy this chapter as well!
Coming Back Home
Chapter two – Look who's back!
Derek Morgan strutted along the catwalk above the BAU bullpen looking at the people scurrying around their desks. He flashed a pearly white grin at the newest buxom administrative assistant and laughed at Dr. Spencer Reid sitting cross legged on his desk chair absentmindedly swiveling around. He was having a good day.
He was almost at his destination, Dave Rossi's office to have a chat, when he glanced to his right through the glass doors and saw his day potentially taking a turn for the worse. Section Chief Erin Strauss was closing in on the bullpen. His first thought was to quickly run and hide.
But then he saw who was walking next to her and the sight made his perfectly groomed goatee drop humorously to the ground.
"Prentiss!" He exclaimed and Emily Prentiss, someone he hadn't seen in almost five years, turned around and gave him a wide smile and a wave. But she didn't stop or turn her steps towards him. She kept following Strauss.
Morgan figured quickly that they must be on their way to Hotch's office. Were they here for the reason he thought they were? Did this mean that their team would finally become complete again?
When Emily had left them very abruptly five years earlier Strauss had seen that as her chance to make some cuts in the budget and had never replaced her. Not that they had ever wanted her to be replaced. It had, considering the circumstances, worked out for the best. But it had been a strange time. They had continued on as a team, but they had felt like a person missing a vital limb. Maybe, he thought, they were becoming a whole person again.
They had never got an answer from Emily as to why she left so suddenly. He'd tried talking to her about it but she always managed to worm her way around his questions and after a while he gave up. The reason obviously made her uncomfortable and he didn't want to cause her any unnecessary pain.
But that did not mean that the team hadn't had their suspicions about her reasons for leaving. They had all agreed that it must have had something to do with Hotch. They had all seen the two of them growing closer over the years. And none of them had failed to notice that Hotch and Emily hardly were on speaking terms the weeks before she left. They had also seen Hotch's slumping shoulders and sad furrowed face after she left. At the beginning they had all talked about her during briefings, on the jet and at team nights out but when they noticed the pained expression on Hotch's face they had stopped doing that.
Hotch, of course, never said a word about it. He said that Emily left for personal reasons but never disclosed what those reasons were. And he said nothing about his part in it. He basically stopped talking about her all together.
So eventually Emily Prentiss became a thing of the past. He kept in touch with her, but they kept their conversations light and breezy and after a few years they became more and more sporadic. He knew that she still talked to JJ too. They'd kept in close contact over the years and he knew that JJ had even gone to visit her a few times. But she didn't tell them anything other than that Emily was doing well. He suspected that JJ was the one person who knew exactly why Emily had left. But he didn't want to pry. So he didn't ask.
But now Emily was back. For good, he hoped. He hoped that she would bring the stability back to the team. He hoped that they would be that close-knit family, that they had once been, again. Not that they weren't close anymore. They still were. But it just wasn't the same.
Hotch leaned back in his large desk chair. His eyes closed by their own will. He was exhausted and had hardly been able to even put a pen to a piece of paper during the two hours he'd been at the office. He hadn't slept at all the last few nights. His mind had been swimming with images of tiny raven haired girls with tiny dimples and their beautiful laughing mothers.
A firm knock shook his door. He jerked into an upright position and looked over at the door. The blinds were closed so he couldn't see who it was. But his guess was that he was about to receive a visit from the wicked witch herself.
Strauss had told him a few days ago that she would be bringing by a potential new team member. She had told him that she wanted his input on whether to assign this person to the team. But he knew Erin Strauss and he didn't trust her further than he could throw her. Had Strauss decided that this was their new team member, then this was their new team member.
He'd promised himself however to have an open mind and not remake any mistakes of the past.
"Come in." He said in his dark authoritative voice and the door knob turned. He got out of his chair as Erin Strauss entered the room. Behind her he saw dark hair and pale skin and his heart dropped, crashing into his stomach. Why had he not seen this coming?
"Agent Hotchner." Strauss said. "I am sure you remember Agent Prentiss." She tilted her head at Emily.
"Of course." Hotch said his voice polite and filled with a false calm. There was just a hint of the slightest wobble. He was sure that Emily noticed, she knew him inside and out. "It's great to see you again, Prentiss. How are you?" He said looking at her, trying to catch her eye.
"I'm fine, Hotch." Emily answered, but didn't look him in the eye. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the floor in front of her.
Not noticing the tension rising in the room Strauss continued. "I am sure, Agent Hotchner, that you have realized by now that Agent Prentiss is the new team member I'd like to assign to your team." She gave him an insincere smile. "Of course, if that is fine with you, Agent Hotchner."
"Yes, Ma'am, it is." Hotch answered. "It will be very beneficial for the team to have a member such as Agent Prentiss again." Hotch added with completely calm features. On the inside nothing was calm, his mind was spinning. It felt as if the walls were closing in on him and he couldn't breath.
He had come to terms with the fact that she wasn't coming back to him not much more than a year before. For the longest time he'd waited for her, a some points almost imagined hearing her voice behind him.
And here she was again. Standing in his office. As the newest member of his team. The team she had left five years ago. He'd dreamed of this moment more times than he could count but now that it was here it felt... uncomfortable. She wasn't looking at him and he had an inkling as to why. She didn't want to look the father of her daughter in the eye.
"Well..." Strauss interrupted his inner monologue. "I'll leave you two to catch up. You will officially be a part of the BAU again tomorrow, Agent Prentiss. Welcome back." She shook Emily's hand and turned with a nod at Hotch and left the room.
They just stood there in silence for several minutes. She looked out the window. He looked at the wall in front of him but kept sneaking glances at her. She was more beautiful than he remembered. She was almost five years older but she didn't seem to have aged a single day. She still had her bangs and her lips were just as full and red as he remembered. She was wearing a black simple pants suit that showed of her curves in a modest way. It was as if it were five years earlier. Except it wasn't.
"So..." He started, painfully dragging out the words and finally got her eyes on him. "Ehrm... You're back."
"I'm back." She answered tentatively.
"Is it okay if I ask why?" Hotch asked. She probably had her reasons but he really didn't have any right asking. No, he changed his mind, he did have the right to know one of those reasons.
"Of course, Hotch." She said giving him a small smile. The first smile she'd given him in a horribly long time. "I needed a change of environment and my heart never really left the BAU." She said looking down at her feet again. He didn't know how to interpret that. "Don't get me wrong I loved heading that unit in New York but this, the BAU, always was my passion. It pulled me back."
His heart sank a little deeper. Obviously she meant that her heart never left this office and this job. She hadn't meant him. He took a deep breath. He had to ask. She didn't know that he knew and apparently she wasn't intending on telling him. Not now anyway. And he needed so desperately to know.
"Emily..." He said pulling her attention back to his face. "I saw you by chance last Friday. In the park." He turned his dark gaze on her eyes and he saw the light bulb slowly becoming brighter above her head and her mouth formed a perfect circle. "I need to know. That little girl. Is she... Is she my daughter?"
A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Please let me know what you thought. For now this will be updated on Wednesdays, hope that's okay will all of you.
x Sussi
