Emily let out a soft groan as her eyes began to flutter open. She was instantly aware of a painful throbbing at the back of her head, and leaned forward slightly to allow her hand the space to examine the source of the pain. Her fingers gently drifted over a large lump and she closed her eyes, redoubling her efforts to remember what had led to the wound. The scenes she could recall were fractured and disjointed at best, and didn't give her any real indication of what had transpired.
"Hello, darling. Welcome back."
Emily's eyes opened quickly and she turned her head toward the location of the voice. "Clyde," she breathed, glad to have a familiar face with her. Questions flew through her mind at a million miles a second, but she asked the one she needed to know the answer to. "Doyle…is he…?
"Very much so," he answered with a solemn nod. "You put a bullet between his eyes...and a few into his chest."
She breathed a sigh of relief and let her eyes fall shut. She felt tears prick the backs of her eyes, as she felt a weight lift off of her. He was dead. He was gone. She was free.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You don't remember?"
"It's a little fuzzy," she admitted. "But that's probably to do with the whole head wound thing, I think."
Clyde nodded. "Well, best I can tell, you confronted Doyle and got a nasty whack to your head before riddling his chest with bullets and putting one between his eyes, just like you said you would."
"And his men?"
"Oh, I dealt with a couple of them in a rather efficient fashion, and then you decided to play 007 and worked your way behind them before taking two of them out. I took out the last one, and we made our way home."
"How the hell did I get behind them?"
"I'm guessing you used the fire escape and jumped down."
"Well that would explain why my ankles are killing me."
"It would," he said with an amused smile. "Well, that and the fact that you're getting old."
Emily glared at him before letting out a light laugh. "I suppose I am, aren't I?"
"How's that hard head of yours?" he asked.
It was that moment that Emily noticed the bruises scattered on Clyde's face and neck, and the bandaged hand at his side. "Hurts like a bitch," she admitted. "But it'll heal. How are you?" she asked, nodding toward his injuries.
"Nothing serious. Just enough to solidify that bad boy image you always used to accuse me of perpetuating."
She offered a weak smile before her expression shifted to a more serious one. "Clyde, I can't thank you enough-"
"Don't mention it," he interrupted. "I got you into the mess in the first place, it's only fair I helped you out of it."
Emily offered another small smile and let her eyes fall shut, exhaustion from being in hiding for over a year and a half and spending every waking moment tracking down Ian Doyle finally getting the better of her.
"I'll just leave this here," he said, putting down a bottle of water and a few small croissants on the table next to the bed. "You go ahead and sleep, Em. I'll be here when you wake up and we can talk about sorting through the necessary steps to get you back to America."
Emily's eyes opened briefly at the mention of going back stateside. Home. She could go home.
"If that's what you want," he added as an after-thought after a moment.
She blinked in shock. Why wouldn't she want to go back? The team – her family had permeated her thoughts for months, so what possible reason was there for not going back? She shook her head gently and dismissed the notion that she wouldn't go back.
Clyde gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before walking out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Now alone, Emily breathed in and tried to settle the wave of emotions coursing through her. Her exhale came out in shudders as the emotions she'd tried to hold in burst through the dam, and she found herself crying. She cried in relief for it being over, in frustration for the pain she'd caused her friends, in pain for everything she'd gone through, and she cried for the possibility of putting this all behind her once and for all.
But as she let herself begin to drift back to sleep she had only one thought on her mind: home.
Emily drummed her fingers impatiently on the laptop as it booted up. She watched as the logo screens appeared one after the other until finally the login screen loaded. She typed the password Clyde had provided her with and hit enter, watching as the login screen faded and the desktop appeared. She plugged in the wireless internet stick and connected to it before opening up the browser and searching for recent news from the US concerning the BAU.
In the months following her relocation to Paris, Emily had made sure to keep a close watch on the cases the team worked – at least the ones the media reported – but her efforts at tracking Doyle had made keeping up difficult, so she found herself catching up on months' worth of news reports. As she clicked through them, Emily felt her heart clenching at the memories that flooded her mind. She was all too aware of how different kinds of cases affected each member of the team, and how they usually coped with them. She could just picture Hotch spending time with Jack, Garcia meeting up with JJ for ladies' night, Morgan breaking down walls in one of his properties, Rossi nursing a very expensive glass of scotch, and Reid burying his nose into literature and eyes glazing over after science fiction movie marathons.
Emily blinked in surprise when she saw a picture of JJ and Morgan escorting an unsub into a cruiser. JJ was back on the team? When had that happened? Emily's heart clenched painfully again. What else had she missed? Was Reid still suffering from his headaches? Had Morgan gotten around to finishing that one property he'd kept starting new projects in? Were Garcia and Kevin still together? Had Rossi finished his latest book? How were Henry and Jack doing? Had they replaced her with a new agent?
She kept skimming through articles, jumping from week to week, month to month, trying to get a handle on the cases they'd worked. Sparingly few included pictures of the team, so she was left guessing how they were and what they looked like. She paused as one article, dated just a few weeks earlier, had a picture of a press conference. JJ stood behind the podium, but the rest of the team was situated behind her, surveying the crowd. No doubt looking for an unsub that had injected himself into the investigation.
Emily took a moment to scan each of her former teammates. JJ's hair had grown out, but otherwise looked just as she had on that flight over to Paris. Reid had cut his hair, but otherwise the genius looked every bit as quirky and loveable as the last time she'd seen him. Morgan, Hotch, and Rossi all looked just as they had when she'd left. No Seaver though…maybe that's why JJ had come back. And of course Garcia wasn't in attendance, but there was one more individual with them. So they had filled her spot.
After Emily caught up to the present day, she navigated away from the news sites and to the online scrabble site she and JJ played on. She logged in and noticed it had been many weeks since she'd logged in to play. She felt a wave of guilt, wondering if she'd inadvertently caused JJ to worry. Her previous plays had been sporadic at best, but this was the longest she'd gone without playing a word. She studied her available letters and found several possible words to play, but something stopped her. Emily began to wonder if she should play at all, because in the back of her mind was that tiny bit of doubt. If that's what you want.
The more she thought about it, the less choosing to go home seemed like an easy, cut and dry decision. There was a distinct possibility that returning would do more harm than good. Surely there would be backlash from the team for keeping such a secret – and it wouldn't just be directed at her. JJ and Hotch would be in the line of fire for that too. And it would cause pretty significant disruption to their lives, both personally and professionally. There was no guarantee they'd even want her back on the team with them – hell, there was no guarantee she'd even be able to rejoin the team. It had been more than a year and half – in all likelihood, her spot had been filled for good. She let out a heavy exhale. Regardless, it didn't seem fair for her to cause that pain and confusion. Again.
Emily bit her lip as the possible ramifications of her return were catalogued in her mind. But in spite of all the reasons she could come up with to stay away, there was one rather compelling one for her to return home: the team. It was terrible and completely selfish, but Emily wanted so badly to be able to see them again. She wanted to be able to playfully flirt with Morgan again, or hear Reid's rambling statistics, or smile when the bubbly technical analyst did something so typically Garcia. Hell, she wanted to be able to be on the receiving end of one of Hotch's famed glares, or Rossi's passionate Italian rants. She wanted to be able to play with Henry at the park, and later drink far too much wine as she and JJ and Garcia had their semi-regular ladies' night.
If that's what you want.
Emily stared at the screen of the laptop, unsure as to whether to play a word or not, because for the first time in more than a year and a half she wasn't sure if going home was the logical next step. For the first time in almost a year and a half, Emily was plagued with indecision. She wasn't sure if she could go home.