Can't believe the response for the first chapter, it was amazing seriously. Like I've said this will be a pretty dark story and a slow burn so if you're looking for an Emison quick fix then this isn't the story for you. I tried to get this written as quickly as possible after all the reviews etc please keep leaving them they make me want to update much quicker. Please be gentle though, this is shaping up to be my most challenging story yet and I really want to do it justice so please leave me some feedback I'd love to hear from you all. Hope you guys enjoy!
She splashed cold water onto her face before she stood back and looked into the mirror. Emily had never had the ability to appraise her own appearance. Instead her gifts were appraising other people's appearances, empathy and an obsessive, tenacious determination that required her to follow every possible outcome until, like peeling away layers of skin before hitting bone, the truth was uncovered. She turned her eye for detail onto her own image that reflected harshly in the weak bathroom light.
She had sad eyes but she didn't used to. She didn't have sad eyes before she came into contact with Jessica Jackson. She had cheeks that dimpled when she smiled, which didn't happen often anymore, if at all. Her teeth were perfect though and that had to count for something she thought. She smiled at her reflection and cringed. Who was she kidding? But she tried to make an effort.
She had on a simple black blazer and black pants with a crisp white shirt underneath. The blazer which, just over a year ago had fitted perfectly, now hung a little loose around her shoulders and waist. She had flat tied up shoes on because if she ever needed to run she couldn't do that in heels and her socks were clean at least. She appeared, to herself anyway, to look nearly normal.
She hadn't felt properly rested in over a year, she was twenty-seven but felt ten years older. She was losing a battle with sleep. She only spoke to a select few people in her life. She survived mainly on coffee and yet she appeared almost normal. Yes, she could carry this off. She could do this. She was a detective, she reminded herself.
I can bullshit magnificently.
Eight white oval pills were lined up on the back of the sink. She counted them out one last time before she nestled six of them into the pillbox, padding them carefully into the box so they wouldn't shake when she walked around. Then she put the pillbox into the pocket of her blazer which had a neatly concealed zip. Eight Vicodin.
It should be enough, but sometimes it just wasn't. She had done the maths. She played at controlling her intake, carefully. Just enough that she wasn't addicted, but enough to get her through the day. It was almost like a game now. King of the Hill.
At least you're off the Ambien and Xanax now, she thought to herself before she popped two of the chalky pills into her mouth and pushed herself away from the sink. It was time to bullshit magnificently.
- x -
The new task force office had moved into a former bank which Rosewood Police Department had leased just last week. The building was a grey one-storey rectangle with few windows, surrounded on three sides by a parking lot. It looked like the ATM outside still worked.
To Emily it looked depressing as hell. Emily had a look at her watch, she hadn't worn it in months but it still worked. It had just left eight in the morning. Toby had dropped her off at three this morning. "Get a goodnight's sleep," Toby had said, and they had both laughed sarcastically.
She had parked across from the building and stood outside her car, her hands deep in her pockets while she scanned the spectacle that was unfolding outside the bank. A fucking bank. There were already local news outlets parked around the building. No national news yet, but that was just a matter of time. She watched the reporters carefully, dressed in waterproofs and heavy coats. They jerked forward every time a car pulled up.
They were waiting for her, she realised. Not the missing woman. Not the other task force members. Her. They wanted her: Jessica Jackson's last victim. She felt the blood in her veins run cold before she lifted her hand and ran her fingers through her hair. She took a deep breath and pushed Jessica from her mind before she trudged towards her new office. An old bank. She still couldn't believe it.
The group of reporters flocked around her as soon as her shoes had hit the concrete of the parking lot. She ignored the questions and the cameramen, blanking them from her system as much as she could. She walked as fast as she could towards the front doors, reach them and you're okay she thought to herself. Don't get distracted by these people. "How does it feel to be back?" "Have you spoken to Jessica Jackson?" "Are you fully recovered?"
She showed her badge to a guard at the door, she didn't need to, not really anyway, everyone knew who she was. She slid past him and soon there was a barrier between her and the sea of reporters outside. The bank to her surprise was buzzing with activity. She surveyed the floor before her eyes fell onto Toby, he was obviously waiting for her. Toby could cut an imposing figure when he wanted, but his kind blue eyes and lopsided grin gave away his warm nature.
"Let me guess, the local news recognised you of all people?" he asked with amusement lacing his voice. She had been the object of much more uncontrolled press attention than that outside and Toby knew it.
"That's nothing."
"Well you would know more than most," Toby agreed. "You ready for this press conference at two?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," she answered, albeit unconvincingly.
She walked to their designated room with Toby and looked around the room when she entered. Four of them she had worked with on the first task force, two of them were new. "I'm Emily Fields," she said in a strong voice. They all knew who she was but it gave her something to start with.
She'd worked with some of these detectives night and day for three years and the only one she was really glad to see was Spencer Hastings. A familiar face. She'd seen Spencer a lot over the past year, being her best friend, it came with the territory. Being Toby's wife, it was almost obligatory but Emily was glad to have Spencer. She was glad to have her friends, she was a hundred percent sure that if she didn't have them she wouldn't be standing there. "When do we get the profile Spencer?"
The brunette sipped from her water bottle before she set it on the table with a small clatter. She gave Emily a comforting smile and Emily smiled weakly back. She was the best profiler Emily had ever encountered, and that wasn't her being biased. "Twenty four hours at the most detective," she replied simply with a nod.
"Before we continue this meeting, I should let you know that a journalist from the Rosewood Herald is going to be following me. Her name is Alison DiLaurentis." She watched as everyone except Toby and Spencer stiffened. The last thing detectives wanted was journalists poking their noses in where it wasn't wanted.
"I know," she sighed. "It's strange, but I have to do it and that's that really, you are all welcome to talk with her to a level that you feel comfortable with."
Looking around the room at their faces, she wondered briefly what they all thought of her. She felt bad for them, she always felt bad for the people who knew what she had gone through. It made them feel awkward and she knew it was up to her to make them feel comfortable so they could work together effectively to catch the next psycho. The best tactic she could think of was to act like nothing had happened. Back to work just like that. No grand gestures. Just show them that she was in control.
"Any questions so far?" she asked, almost confidently.
Six hands went up.
- x -
"Care to share information on Emily Fields?" Alison said. It was mid morning and she had made her way through the folder that Parker had given her this morning on the task force. Now she sat perched on the desk of Donna Gomez, the mother hen of their working group. Last week when Alison had seen her she had an Afro, now her black hair was woven into a million tiny braids that swung every time she spoke.
She was old school, and Rosewood's crime beat reporter. She was heavy set and hostile. She was usually condescending and Alison had wondered more than a few times if she had an alcohol problem. But she was smart and Alison liked her a lot. She leaned back on her chair and smiled in Alison's direction.
"What took you so long? Come on kid," she said, pushing herself upright and out of her chair that groaned underneath her. "I will buy you a coffee and a crappy sandwich or something in the cafeteria and then we will play journalists."
The cafeteria was in the basement of the building and the food was standard institutional crap. Donna bought them two cheese sandwiches and two coffees before she handed one of each to Alison. Because the cafeteria was so grim, there were very few employees who ever used it, much less sat down to enjoy the atmosphere of it. They found a vacant table easily in the far corner so no one would interrupt them if anyone happened to appear.
Alison opened her notebook before she wrote Emily Fields in the middle of a new page. She smiled dazzlingly up at Donna who had opened her sandwich and was in the middle of taking her first bite. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" she asked playfully. Donna just nodded her agreement.
"Detective Emily Fields was on the Jessica Jackson task force from the beginning right? She and her partner Toby Cavanaugh investigated the first victim?"
Donna nodded again. "Yep, she'd only been a homicide detective for a couple of weeks, Cavanaugh was more experienced than her. It was Fields' first case. Can you imagine that? First case and she draws serial killer of the century. Of course, they didn't know that then."
"And it was Fields who caught the signature right? The love heart mixed up in between all the torso damage?"
Donna moved, causing the table to gently shake between them. "The hearts were very hard to find. Someone would have found them eventually but Fields caught them quicker than most. It was her first case, a big priority to impress you know?"
Alison scribbled down notes furiously as Donna wiped a bit of sandwich away from the corner of her mouth. "You have to realise Alison, that Jessica confused the hell out of everyone. There are things you understand about serial killers. Jessica Jackson didn't conform to ninety nine percent of they things. Her victim profile was all over the place, she used male helpers and the big one: she was a woman."
She didn't know why she thought it but Alison had the feeling that Donna knew Emily personally, maybe even in a friendly manner. "You knew Emily didn't you?" she asked as she opened a sachet of sugar into her coffee.
"She was a good cop, probably still is. She was well liked, she was fair, driven and nobody had anything bad to say about her. For being so young she commanded an incredible amount of respect. She led the task force for two out of the three years and never once asked to be reassigned when many people would have."
Some of it still didn't make sense to Alison. She didn't understand why Jessica had kidnapped the cop who was chasing her, it really wasn't in her best interests. "Okay, well what do you think of the theories that Jessica actually wanted to be stopped?"
"Bullshit," Donna replied simply as she scrunched the saran wrap from her sandwich up into a ball in her hand. "Jessica Jackson is a psycho, lets get that straight. She's not like us little folks. She doesn't do things for rational reasons. She kidnapped Emily Fields for a week, and would have killed her too if Emily hadn't managed to talk her out of it."
"What do you mean talked her out of it?"
"Jessica was the one who called the police, turned herself in. If she hadn't had any medical training, Emily would be dead. One of the EMT's told me that Jessica kept Emily alive for nearly fifteen minutes, doing CPR, before they got there. She saved her life."
Alison couldn't really believe what she was hearing. "Fucking hell. That's got to be one mind fuck that."
Donna smiled gently in Alison's direction before lifting her cup of coffee to her lips. "I would imagine so kid."
- x -
Alison detested press conferences. They were fake and almost never revealed anything that was true in the way that made for good writing or good stories. Sure the information was accurate but it was never true. She'd driven over with Parker but had lost him in the sea of people, it was raining, so she stood at the back of the extended tent, huddled underneath it. By the time she got her notebook out the mayor was already speaking about the new task force.
When she looked up she saw Emily Fields. She was standing behind the mayor, leaning against the plain brick wall of the bank, her hands were in her blazer pockets and she didn't really look interested in what Mayor Johnstone was saying. She was watching them, looking from one person to the next. No expression. Just observing.
Her dark hair was longer now than it was in the pictures Alison had seen, it curled at the ends and pooled over her shoulder, but she looked okay, well as okay as someone could be after going through what she had. She didn't look damaged or broken. She just looked like someone waiting on something to happen, like a passenger waiting idly for public transport to arrive. She was beautiful from a distance.
Alison felt an electrical current jolt through her system and she realised quickly that Emily was looking directly at her. They locked eyes for a moment, and she felt something pass between them but she couldn't put her finger on it. Emily gave her a smile, even from her standing point at the back Alison could tell that it was genuine. She smiled back and then Emily went back to scanning the audience. Her body was perfectly still.
At that the Mayor stopped talking and handed over to Emily. Emily looked up, mildly startled, but she quickly recovered before she walked over to the podium. She took her hands out her pockets and rested them on the sides of the wood, the microphone jutting up towards her mouth. She adjusted it before she ran her hand through her hair.
"Okay, can I answer any questions?"
She'd led many press conferences in her pursuit of Jessica Jackson but this was the first since then and she surveyed the nervous faces in the crowd. Some of them looked as anxious as her. Many of them she recognised, there was a few she didn't. She searched the audience for the person who would ask her the question she wanted, the one she wanted for the evening news. Hands reached into the air, straining to be the highest, and faces were red with exertion.
She willed her stomach to settle and called on a young reporter who sat near the front. "Detective, do you think that you are mentally and physically ready to pursue this case?"
Emily winced. "Never felt better," she lied.
"Do you have any physical or mental effects from your ordeal?"
Ordeal. That was one way of putting it. "Some sleep problems, but probably on par with the rest of Rosewood's sleeping problems." There were a few smiles in the crowd and it seemed to help her stomach.
She scanned the audience again. Come on. One of you ask the question, it's obvious, it's the one you are all thinking so just ask it she thought to herself as her eyes came to rest on Alison DiLaurentis. Her stomach clenched again. The blonde hadn't wasted much time, she was scribbling something on her notebook. Ambition – that was a good sign. Emily had picked her out of the crowd right away, there was something in the way Alison was watching her.
Alison was now gazing around at the other reporters too. She looked back in Emily's direction. Emily raised her eyebrow. Ask it. She watched as Alison hesitated, she almost looked embarrassed, but then she raised her hand and Emily called on her.
"How… how will you and your task force go about catching this guy this time?" she asked.
Emily cleared her throat and looked directly into the television camera's that were focused on her. "We will explore every avenue and every connection that these women may share, we will interview everyone we have to and we will set roadblocks up all over this town." She leaned forward, confidence oozing from her, this was her home, her thing.
"We will catch you." She stepped back from the podium, her hands trembling but it wasn't in fear, it was in excitement. She waited a beat before she spoke again. "Thank you."
Alison was hustled into the task force office lobby, most of the press in attendance had rushed off to write their stories and edit their videos to perfection. She had to wait on Parker, she didn't know where he was but she knew he wouldn't be far away. The lobby was in chaos, detectives and cops rushed around carrying boxes from room to room, the place was lit up in the kind of fluorescent light that gave her a headache, the walls were painted in a sickening yellow colour.
"Thanks for the question."
Alison spun around on her heels in the direction of the voice. Emily Fields was standing a few steps behind her. She had her gold badge attached to the chest pocket of her blazer and she was carrying a black notebook under her arm while her hands nursed two hot coffees. One of which she extended to Alison.
The blonde took it eagerly, only then noticing that the detective hadn't brought any sugar. "I thought you were very convincing up there," she said. "You know with your speech and yeah very convincing."
Emily smiled before she took a sip of her coffee, the hot liquid a warm welcome into her cold body. The caffeine rushing through her veins like a freight train. "Thank you, a little intimidation doesn't hurt at times."
"Do you think he will see it?" Alison asked.
Emily shrugged before she took another sip of her coffee; she noticed rather quickly that the blonde hadn't touched hers yet. Sugar. Sugar in coffee was for the weaklings. She made a mental note to bring it up at a later time. "Probably, guys like him enjoy the attention that your profession brings."
Alison surveyed Emily playfully; this was not what she had been expecting at all. "What's your favourite movie?" she asked without even thinking about it.
"Mamma Mia," came the reply before the brunette laughed gently.
"Shut up, as if a detective's favourite move is Mamma Mia!" Alison laughed too.
"It's too farcical isn't it?"
"Just a little."
Emily ran her fingers through her hair again before she peered over her shoulder and spotted Toby watching them. "I will think of something better for your first day tomorrow."
"The missing woman is dead isn't she?"
If it was supposed to trick Emily into giving her a reaction, Alison had to admit that it hadn't worked. But there was a tiny glitch in her armour. Emily glanced at the floor so quickly that Alison would have missed it if she hadn't been looking at the brunette's eyes. Emily recovered quickly though and gave her a small smile. "We all have every hope that she is still alive," she said without much conviction.
"Why did you agree to the profile now? Are you and the Mayor buddies or something? I mean I get why the mayor wanted you back but you must have had every writer in the country wanting your story. 'Hero Cop saved from the clutches of a Female Demon".'
Emily took another gulp of her coffee, it was almost finished now. "You're already working on your headline? I like it."
"Why agree to the profile now?" Alison asked again, Emily's face still gave nothing away.
"You're going to help me do my job and I'm going to help you do yours."
Alison raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"
Emily nodded as she swallowed the last of her coffee, the blonde still hadn't touched hers. "Yep, but we can talk about that at the nine o'clock meeting I've been told not to miss tomorrow morning." She held up the notepad she had been carrying under her arm. "I've got to get back to work."
She took a few steps before she turned back towards the blonde. "Alison DiLaurentis right?" Alison nodded although she had a feeling Emily already knew her name.
"You can call me Emily, well except when it seems more appropriate to call me detective. Wait, are you a morning person?"
"No."
"Good." Emily turned and walked off in the direction of one of the rooms that was buzzing with activity, throwing her empty coffee cup into one of the trash bags that was attached to the handle of a nearby door. "See you tomorrow morning Alison DiLaurentis," she called over her shoulder. The way the blonde's name rolled easily off her tongue unsettled her.
"See you tomorrow Em...detective. Emily," Alison finally called back before she looked for a place to sit her untouched coffee.
