A/N: First things first! Thank you so much for the fabulous reviews! They bring happiness to the cold, cob-webbed cockles of that black hole where my heart should be! :)

Okay so this chapter is a bit more complex. Each time you see the 'x's, it indicates a change in POV. As to who's POV it will change to each time, well I'm fairly sure you'll have no problem figuring that out on your own.

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Hotch entered the bullpen for the first time since Emily's funeral.

It seemed odd to him, entering the BAU alone. He'd grown accustomed to their schedule of near-identical arrival times. He'd grown accustomed to walking in with her, many times lingering at her desk to finish the morning's conversation. It had been a radical change, when he'd started doing that. Beforehand, even if they walked in at the same time, he kept the conversation strictly professional an impersonal, cutting it off as soon as the elevator doors opened. Once they became friends, however, the conversations included far more personal information, little tidbits of information, seemingly unimportant to life. But those conversations were the trigger to the blossoming friendship turned relationship that had occurred soon after. Today, as he looked out into the dim, fluorescent lighting and vacant desk chairs, he did not linger. As soon as he walked through the glass doors he made a beeline to his office and shut the door promptly.

Once his blinds were safely closed, he began to calm down. There was a reason that fraternization was intensely frowned upon in governmental positions such as theirs. This break off wasn't like his divorce with Hayley. Besides the obvious remaining emotional commitment between them, Emily ad Hotch had spent virtually all day together, every day of the week. With her gone, even if alive, he began to feel like a body missing a limb. He ran a tired hand over his face. It had been a long night. Jack had begun to ask questions regarding the whereabouts of Emily. He simply didn't understand why Daddy's friend had disappeared so suddenly.

But, really, what do you tell a kid like that, a kid who did not socially know many people since the witness protection and the kidnapping and his own mother's death?

Hey son, see now, remember how that guy point blank blew your mother's brains out? Well this other bad guy came and impaled Emily with the pointed end of a 2X4. So basically on of the only other stable adults in your life has abandoned you again. Get it? Great! Let's go get ice cream!

Hotch knew he should get Jack out there. He knew the boy needed friends and social interaction. It was only health. But what with his job, what he saw every single day, he wanted nothing more than to hide Jack away from all the world's corruption and hate. It would only be too easy to do it too. But he couldn't. He was left in limbo, juggling contradicting urges, playing the role of half-assed father while Hayley's sister practically raised his son day to day. Just the way Hayley had had to do.

Even without the guilt of not spending enough time with Jack, he knew he was struggling. Emotionally, he had been taking beating after beating this year as if some karmic WWE wrestler had decided to own his ass.

Maybe it was because he hadn't gone to church since the divorce. Maybe that was it. Maybe God thought a little taste of Job in his life was just what the doctor ordered.

A bitter chuckle escaped his lips. How ironic it'd be: the loving, forgiving, vindictive God we all knew and loved. Sunday mass never looked more exciting.

The small click of the BAU doors opening brought him out of his religious reverie. It was time to begin the work day.

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Derek Morgan walked out of the elevator and through the doors of the BAU, laughing heartily at Pen's latest joke. As he caught sight of the desk that had once belonged to Emily Prentiss however, the laughter died in his throat quickly as it had begun.

It had felt good to laugh. God knows no one could make it happen more than his Baby Girl. But now, it flooded back to him, all of it, the reason behind the funk he'd been in.

It wasn't even that she was… gone. It was more than that. It was the residual mistrust he still felt toward her, his dead partner! Even now, after her death, he still couldn't shake the little tick that made the hairs on the back of his head raise. Something just didn't sit right about the whole ordeal despite them having gotten every minutiae of information able to be derived from the case, the scene and the Interpol Corporation itself. None of it added up right.

The Emily Prentiss he knew didn't leave her badge and gun anywhere. She didn't consult with European spies or sleep with foreign weapons dealers for a case. The Emily Prentiss he knew didn't pretend to pull the trigger on small children in order to appease North Korean prison guards or run off to play bounty hunter against a whole band of Irish crime lords. But most of all, the Emily Prentiss he had known never lied.

So how was it, he wished to know, that the woman who's desk sat across from his, who's moral compass could not seemingly point more north; how was it that the woman who he'd trusted with his life countless times was just that: a lie.

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Penelope followed Derek into the bullpen, her eyes following his line of sight to undercover the reason behind his abrupt bought of silence.

As soon as she spotted it, she knew. It was the desk. She'd known it would be hard to comeback after their leave of absence. She was right. The minute her eyes laid themselves upon the vacant furniture they began to well up with tears.

Guilt bubbled in her chest as she realized not five minutes ago she'd been laughing. She'd been happy. Happy! At a time like this! And, she noted as she observed the utterly bare surface of Emily's former workspace, the scum-sucking bastards at maintenance had already dumped her things. Did they know what mourning was? Her precious chica's memory needed preserving! The should mark it down as a honorary monument to attest to her fabulosity.

Penelope glanced back at Derek to see if he was as outraged as she by this complete disregard for humanity. What she saw was… disturbing.

She was by no means a profiler and gladly so. But when a person spends as much time schmoozing with her chocolate lollipop as much as she did, they would tend to get acquainted with the many expressions of Derek Morgan. This particular example was by far one of the worst she'd ever seen.

Derek was staring at Emily's desk with an expression of the utmost revulsion. No, that wasn't about maintenance or cleaners or management, it was personal. But why in God's name would her sweet cheeks be so messed up by Emily?

But he, like she said a thousand times over, she was no profiler.

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Reid was still pretty screwed up. Right after the funeral he'd booked the first flight out to Las Vegas to visit his mother. He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he had decided to journey there. It wasn't like she was a naturally empathetic or understanding person. And, frankly, hat with the migraines he was experiencing, he hadn't had much intention of going anywhere near a ten mile radius of another schizophrenic. But that was before Emily died.

As it was, his mother did, surprisingly, help. She regularly had a knack for single handedly insulting his entire team, labeling them into niches and stereotypes in order to fit them into her paranoid conspiracy plots. As far as she was concerned: Hotch was a governmentally hired assassin hunting her down via her son, Morgan was a gangbanger in cahoots with Rossi, the real Italian mob head both of whom naturally want to steal away the secrets of her mind as well. JJ was, as it seemed, in charge of all things media related. She conveyed messages globally in an effort to hunt Diana Reid down. The only characterization that made sense was Garcia as she apparently was terrifying enough as herself and needed no additional menace. From what Reid had seen of the information Garcia was always able to dig out of the system, even after being encrypted and buried so deep as to make it nearly impossible to find, she was a force to be reckoned with indeed.

For some subconscious reasoning, however, Emily had not struck Diana as a potential threat on any level. As ironic as he found this to be –what with Emily having been the only member of the team to be involved with any conspiracies or spy work at all- Reid had found this particular character fluke to be just the thing he needed to hear…

...

"It really is a shame, Spencer. She was such a good person," Diana began, reached over to stiffly pat Reid's arm in what he assumed to be a comforting manner, "I'll never forget what she did for you in Colorado."

Reid grimaced as memories of Emily's voluntary torture rushed back to him. He'd felt so awful.

"She cared about you, you know." She told him, briefly catching his eye. For a moment he could see a glimpse of the strong, intelligent woman he knew his mother to really be before she returned to her usual tick of flicking her eyes to and fro about the room. "And she knew you felt the same way, Spencer."

...

But did she? He couldn't help but wonder if she ever really had known

The elevatored chimed him back into reality as he reached the level of the BAU and his workplace.

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Dave's head hurt like a mother. For as long as he'd been in the business of hunting down serial killers, never once had he purposely gotten hammered the night before a workday. Sure, once or twice in the academy but once he'd hit the big leagues, the real world he'd burned that bridge.

But to hell with it if he wasn't preparing for Hurricane Hotchner and his calamity crew. So, against his better judgment – what little there was remaining- he had indeed gotten very much drunk. And we're talking fall-asleep-on-the-bathroom-floor-drunk.

As he opened the glass doors to the BAU, Dave could see the reminder of her absence had already struck home. Derek was seated at his desk, his face flickering from emotion to emotion. Clearly he was still struggling with Emily's double lives. Reid wasn't doing much better. The younger agent too sat at his station, shuffling completed files of paperwork and various reports over the top of his desk. His face was oddly blank and his eyes glazed over. As per usual, his mind was wandering. Penelope looked perhaps worst of all. Her eyes were red-rimmed and full to the brim with worry. She kept sending furtive glances at Reid and Derek, as if they were fragile things about to break. Dave cringed inwardly, silently dreading the awkward moments that would be shared between them. What did one say after coming back from a two week mourning period of your colleague of over four years? Not much, apparently.

In all rights, Dave understood and very much shared their pain. He had been very fond of Emily as a colleague, a friend and a person. He had had no doubt in his mind that today, the first day back, was going to be a total bitch. The emotional stitches were coming out and it was going to hurt like hell for all of them.

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A/N 2: So, I hope you caught that the little bought of italic print in Reid's segment was indeed a flashback. I much enjoyed this chapter. It's not so often I write so many personalities in one sitting. At the same time, the feat was challenging.

Reviews are what keep the chapters coming, people. Assuming I don't die or suffer from chronic writer's block, I give you chapters when you give me reviews!