"Arizona..."
The two women stood there, staring at each other for a moment before both broke out into grins and crushed each other in a tight hug.
"What are you doing here, Prentiss?" Arizona asked before they pulled back but didn't let go of each other, still grinning from ear to ear.
"Here on business, unfortunately," Emily replied, her expression going somber as Arizona realized.
"You're with the FBI..."
Emily nodded "Yeah," she said softly "We're just waiting to speak with a third witness,"
"The one who found the Peds scrub nurse?" Arizona asked and the two women slowly let go of each other. Emily nodded again, and Arizona sighed, dropping her gaze "That'd be me,"
Emily's eyes widened momentarily, before she composed herself and sighed "I'm sorry," Arizona looked up at her again and just shrugged, not really knowing what to say "Did you know her well?"
"Not well," Arizona replied, shaking her head slightly "Great scrub nurse, nice ass, but other than that..."
Emily snorted softly, almost so Arizona didn't hear it. Almost.
"What?"
"You haven't changed one bit, Battleship," Emily smirked before Arizona looked mock offended, punching her in the arm "I've missed you,"
Arizona sobered slightly and sighed a little "Yeah, me too,"
"Are you doing anything right now?" Emily asked "I haven't eaten all day and I'm so hungry I could even eat hospital food,"
Arizona chuckled "Well now I know you're really hungry," she joked and looped her arm through Emily's as they made their way toward the elevator.
"So, I want to hear everything," Emily started "What's been going on-"
"Nick died." Arizona cut her off and Emily's step faltered slightly, but she continued anyway.
"I know." she said softly, almost a whisper.
"You weren't at the funeral," Arizona said.
"Neither were you."
"I had an excuse."
"So did I," Emily responded "I was..." Dead. "Busy,"
"Yeah..." Arizona replied "That seems to be the case,"
"Arizona..."
Arizona pulled away from her, and they stopped in the middle of the hallway, and Emily knew what was coming next wouldn't be fun "Where were you?"
"I was-"
"Busy. I know. We're all busy, Emily!" Arizona raised her voice "I was in a plane crash! Nick had just died and you were nowhere to be seen!"
Emily dropped her eyes to the ground, avoiding her gaze. She couldn't tell her what happened with Doyle. She would never look at her the same way ever again.
"You disappeared!" Arizona shouted "I got married! I had a kid! You were supposed to be there and you were nowhere to be found!"
"You got married?" Emily couldn't help the small smile that crept onto her face.
"And divorced!" Tears started to build up in the blue pools of her eyes "Where were you?"
They stood there for a moment, Emily's mouth opening and closing before she finally said "I'm sorry."
Arizona shook her head and scoffed "Yeah," she said softly "Me too," and with that, she walked off, leaving Emily standing in the middle of the walkway, frozen.
Emily took a deep breath, she wasn't going to break down. Not here. So she composed herself, held her head up and turned to walk back in the other direction before bumping into a familiar face.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going!"
"It's okay, Dr. Torres, neither was I," Emily tried to smile at her, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Callie looked at her for a moment, but didn't say anything "How's your patient?"
"I'm sorry?"
"The one from earlier? You got paged in the Chief's office..."
"Oh! Right," Callie responded "Guy went skydiving and landed in between two power lines, shattered over 80 bones in his body,"
"He's still alive?"
Callie shook her head "The damage to his heart was too much, he stroked out in the trauma room,"
"I'm sorry to hear that," Emily replied, making Callie nod gratefully to her.
"Y'know, I was just heading to the cafeteria to grab something to eat, you wanna join?" Callie asked her, and when she saw Emily about to politely decline, she spoke up again "It's just, you look like you could use a friend right now,"
Emily gave her a small smile "That'd be great, actually,"
Callie beamed back at her "Okay,"
Tara found her in the cafeteria where Emily had texted her to meet her, laughing with Dr. Torres about something. But she knew there was something bothering the other agent, and she didn't have to be a qualified psychologist to see it.
"Hey, did you find anything?" Emily greeted her as she approached the table, sitting down.
"Yes, actually," she replied, making Emily lean forward "I didn't find anything else about Teah Grayson, but I did find more out about your victim, Leoni Poll," she started "Apparently she left her husband,"
"Yeah, about eight months ago," Callie joined in.
"For another woman," Tara added, making Emily furrow her eyebrows and nod slowly, joining the dots together.
That's when she saw the blonde haired, blue eyed surgeon step into the cafeteria, and Emily shot out of her seat "I'll be right back,"
She raced over to the surgeon, who rolled her eyes and tried to ignore her "Were you sleeping with her?" she asked, getting straight to the point, making Arizona give her a sharp look "Yes or no,"
"That's none of your business-"
"It is actually," Emily replied a little harsher than she intended "It's my job, and I need to know everything about the victims which includes their personal lives. So, yes or no,"
Arizona stared at her for a moment, contemplating what her answer would be, before finally giving it up "Yes, a couple of times, but it wasn't personal,"
Emily let out a sigh of relief and her face softened "Thank you," she said, and then turned on her heel and made her way back to the table "That's the connection," she said to Tara "The only connection we could find before was the hospital, but now..."
"They're all gay, that's the common denominator," Tara replied and grabbed out her phone "Hotch, we found something..."
"It's gotta be more than that," JJ said "I mean, more than just the gay factor, because that's a whole lot of rage,"
"Well, actually, it's more complicated than that," said Tara. Emily and Tara had gone back to the precinct, they'd stuck around the hospital to find out whatever they could find out, but it was nearing 6 pm, so they decided to call it a day at the hospital and brainstorm with their team instead. They would head back to Grey-Sloan tomorrow.
"All of them were with men before they were with women," Emily said, taking a seat at the conference room table. Hotch had noticed her behavior had changed when they came back. She tried to be as normal as possible, but Hotch knew. He always knew
"Isn't that usually how it goes?" Luke asked "That's how they find out they're gay?"
Emily raised an eyebrow at him as JJ snorted "That's very heteronormative of you," the blonde commented "Some people find out when they're teenagers, and others don't know until late in life - believe it or not it has nothing to do with men," she winked at him, making him hold hs hands up in surrender.
"My apologies," he said, though he was grinning slightly "So, they all left men for women..."
"Leoni Poll was the only one that was married to one, and Teah Grayson was in a serious relationship with a guy when she got the job at the hospital," Emily started "But Michaela Sitwell was bisexual from what we've heard,"
"So our unsub isn't just targeting women who no longer sleep with men," said Rossi "He's targeting women who have slept with both,"
"Are we saying that thoroughbreds aren't being targeted here?" JJ asked.
"Thoroughbreds?" Hotch asked, his eyebrows shooting up just a fraction, but not enough for it to be considered a facial expression.
"Gay from the get-go," JJ explained, making the men in the room come to realization.
Emily snorted at the description, but didn't say anything else "That seems to be the case,"
"So this unsub believes you have to be gay from the beginning or...what? You deserve to die?" Luke asked "That doesn't make any sense,"
"In the unsub's mind it does," said Reid "A lot of people believe that a person's sexual orientation isn't valid if it's not discovered early in life. They believe that you should know,"
"What? No statistic?" Emily smirked at him, making him smile sheepishly, making her laugh "Oh, Spencer, don't ever change,"
"The unsub probably believes that by being with men beforehand, these women aren't valid, therefore they don't deserve to live," Tara explained.
The conversation went on into the night, until it hit about 11 pm and Hotch sent everyone back to the hotel. Emily was the last one to pack up, and the two of them were alone in the conference room.
"Is everything okay?" Hotch asked her eventually.
Emily had been lost in her own thoughts, but snapped her head up at his voice as she gathered the paper on the table, putting it into the files "Sorry?"
"Something's been bugging you for a while now," he responded as they started to leave the conference room and headed for the elevator "And we have a deal,"
Emily sighed as she smacked the button for the elevator "I'm not having a bad day, Hotch, it's nothing to do with that," Hotch gave her a look that told her he didn't believe her "Okay, fine, it does a little bit, but not for the reasons you think,"
The doors opened and they stepped in, hitting the underground parking button before they stood there, in silence. He didn't say anything, the more he pushed, the less she would tell him.
"I saw my best friend today," she offered, he was a little surprised but she didn't need to know that "I haven't seen her in a decade,"
She stopped talking, apparently that was all she was going to volunteer, so he pushed a little "How'd it go,"
She stayed silent for a moment, and the elevator doors opened. Hotch looked over at her, just as she swallowed "Not good," she replied, before stepping out.
"Did you get in touch with that third witness yesterday?" Hotch asked both Emily and Tara as they all met in the conference room the next day.
Emily shifted slightly "Uh, no, we never interviewed her,"
Hotch noticed the change in behavior, but just nodded "Okay, I want you both back there, if we plan on giving this profile today, we need all the facts,"
The two women nodded before Emily walked out the door, Hotch following close behind "I can send Reid," he said quietly as he joined in-step with her. Emily looked at him curiously "The witness, the one you never interviewed, she's the friend,"
Emily straightened her shoulders "I'll be fine,"
"Emi-"
"Hotch," she turned to face him as they hit the elevators again, she gave him a small smile of reassurance "I'm okay, you don't have to worry about me,"
Hotch looked at her for a few moments before nodding back at her, and Emily just caught the small, faint curve of his lip at the corner. Just then, Tara joined them.
"Everything okay?" she asked. Tara had noticed the strange behavior of the other agent yesterday, but knew better than to confront her about it. Emily wasn't one to overshare - or share in general.
Hotch went straight back into Unit Chief Mode by nodding and replying "As soon as we get a profile, I'll send Reid or JJ over to help you deliver it to the doctors,"
"It's a big hospital," said Tara.
"Start off with the Department Heads, the Chief of Surgery and the Board," said Hotch "We'll go from there,"
Both agents nodded and stepped into the elevator as the doors opened and Hotch started to walk away. As he looked back at her, Emily gave him a small but genuine smile. One which he couldn't help but return.
As the doors closed, Emily could feel Tara looking at her "What?"
Tara shook her head "Nothing," she replied "I just don't think I've ever seen him smile at work is all,"
Emily rolled her eyes, making Tara smirk. It's not like she's never noticed it before, the looks, the worry. Things that can't be defined under coworkers, or even friends.
Tara knew there was something between Hotch and Emily. The only people who didn't know that were Hotch and Emily.
Tara and Emily walked through the doors of the hospital, making their way up to the pediatric wing, looking for their third witness.
The woman in question was standing at the nurses station with another man, talking about something. Blue eyes looked up and grabbed hold of brown ones. The blue froze, the brown didn't.
"Dr. Robbins," Emily started "This is Dr. Lewis, FBI,"
Arizona eyed her for a moment, and Emily could tell the man behind her was eyeing both agents suspiciously and stepped forward protectively. It almost made her smile.
"Arizona," she snapped out of her gaze on the raven-haired agent and addressed Tara "Pleasure to meet you,"
"Likewise," Tara smiled back "If you have a moment, Dr. Robbins, we'd like to get your statement,"
"She already talked to the cops," the man was close to Arizona, protectively so.
"We're not cops," Emily replied, narrowing her eyes at him.
"You've got a bigger title, so that makes you more important?" he asked, this time actually stepping in front of his boss.
"Alex!" Arizona scolded him, but he didn't back off. Tara looked at the young male doctor and her colleague, they seemed to be in some sort of stare down.
"Who do you think you are?" Alex asked "You think you can just put her through this again?"
"You're protective, and I respect that, but you don't want this fight with me - not over her," Emily said, the volume of her voice matching his.
"That is enough!" Tara watched as Arizona stood between the two, pushing her hands against their chests to tell them to back off "Both of you, back the hell off!"
The two stared at each other another moment before Tara put her hand on Emily's shoulder, shaking her out of the state she was in. She backed right off.
"Dr. Lewis, I think you should do the interview solo," Emily said to Tara, but she was looking at Arizona. She took a couple steps back and glanced at Alex, who seemed to have calmed down too, before turning around and walking away.
There was a silence that hung in the air, and no one moved, until Tara spoke up "I take it you two know each other,"
"Let's just get this over with."
!
R&R!