As soon as they were in the elevator, riding up to the bullpen, Penelope burst into tears. Erin wrapped her lover up in her arms, rubbing her back softly as she murmured in her ears. Penelope nuzzled her face into Erin's shoulder, trying to get control of her tears. "Maybe she's fine, Penny. It could have just been a false alarm."

"Hotch didn't sound like it was just a false alarm. I know his voice by now, Erin. We've worked together for twenty years."

She sighed, knowing that tactic wasn't going to work." "Well, then…"

"I know what you're trying to do, Erin. Normally, it would so work." The shuddering breath that Penelope took tore at her heart and they embraced all the tighter, the space between them seeming to melt away. The doors finally opened and they stumbled out into the waiting arms of friends.

Erin felt herself gently pulled away from Penelope, and breathed in the spicy scent that was David Rossi. "What is going on here, David?" she whispered into his ear as his arms closed around her back. He shook his head, and as his cheek rubbed against hers, she could feel his tears. "Please, do not tell me she is dead."

"I wish, oh, hell, Erin, just let me hold you for a little bit before we get into that." He led her into his office, where everyone else had seemed to congregate, and they sat on his sofa. She could tell Penelope was next to her, she could smell her perfume, and she reached out blindly for her hand. Moments later, it was enclosed in her tight, sure, grasp, and she relaxed into her friend.

"She said she could hear it in Aaron's voice."

"We never did learn how to lie to each other for long." He nuzzled his face into her shoulder and with her free hand, she rubbed his back, feeling her first tears come.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Penelope suddenly said, standing and running from the room. Unable to stay quiet any longer, she collapsed into David, sobbing loudly.

"Shh, bella. You're safe here, with us." His voice was still choked up and this caused her to cry all the harder. "Erin…"

"My heart hurts so badly, Dave."

"I know, honey, I know." She felt his lips on her forehead and she relished the touch. "We'll get through this as a family, I promise." Someone else sat next to her, resting their hand on her shoulder.

"Erin, can you pull it together long enough so that Jayje can explain to everyone what happened?" She turned her head to look into Aaron's whisky-brown eyes. Nodding hesitantly, she was rewarded with a soft smile. Jessica smiled sadly at her as well, taking Aaron's place next to her.

"They called our house first," she said. "Jack's out with his friends, doing typical senior skip day things. We can't get ahold of him."

"I'm sorry." Jessica reached out and took hold of her free hand. She drew in a deep breath and looked up in time to see Penelope come back. Her face was so white, a sharp contrast to her red-rimmed eyes. She walked over to the sofa and sank to the ground in front of her. Erin parted her legs so that her fiancée could nestle back into her, feeling her wrap her arms around one of her legs. "Aaron?"

He nodded and stood, facing them all. "Thank you all for gathering so quickly. JJ is going to explain everything, since she was able to use her contacts in the State Department to get more details than I could."

He gave the floor over to the other woman, sitting next to his wife. "Emily had been working on cracking a human trafficking ring in London for the last three years. It takes time to get into deep cover, and everyone thought that she was well established. Two evenings ago, her cover was somehow compromised, and she was shot. By the time paramedics got to her location, she had lost a lot of blood, and it was touch and go the entire way to the hospital.

"The doctors did everything they could to save her…"

"We've heard that line before, Jayje, from your lips. What makes it different this time?" Morgan asked a bit hostilely.

"The call I got from Clyde Easter. He was the one who informed me of Emily's passing. I didn't want to believe him at first, either, so I did some digging, using my connections. Someone was able to get me her file from that night. With my limited understanding of medical jargon from the time Will was shot, I was able to glean the fact that there was nothing anyone could have done to save her. The bullet nicked her femoral artery, and she was lucky to make it to the hospital. Usually, people bleed out in minutes with a wound like that."

"And is she going to have a funeral again?" Reid asked, looking a little lost.

"No. It wasn't what she wanted the first time. It was the one misstep I made, seeing as how she often told us that she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered to the wind." JJ drew in a shaky breath and stepped closer to her husband. "Easter is going to send the urn back here as soon as he is able to. He's going to call me as soon as he lands in the States."

"Are we going to be the ones to scatter her ashes?" Penelope asked softly, nuzzling her nose against Erin's bare leg.

"I think so. I have to ask Ambassador Prentiss, of course, but that is probably just a formality. She knows how close we all are to Emily."

Penelope nodded, and Erin could feel the wet sting of tears against her legs. "I think we're all due for a family sleepover." As Erin looked around the room, she saw the others nod, grateful smiles breaking out on their faces. "Shall we be off, then?"

She stood and held out her hand to her beloved. Penelope took hold of it and stood carefully, a slight wobble to her legs as she tried to balance. Erin automatically wrapped an arm around her waist and steadied her. "Thank you, Erin." She burrowed in close to her as they made their way to the elevators. Somehow, they all fit into one car and they huddled in a close mass, as if the proximity would ease their wounds.

Penelope's sniffles broke her heart, and she pulled her lover close, pressing her head into her shoulder. "It's all right, my love, just let it all out. It's better to cry than hold it in," she whispered in her ear.

"I know. I'm just afraid if I start crying again, I'll never stop. She's the first of our group that we lost."

"We have been blessed over these years to never lose any of us to violence. That is why this is so shocking to all of us. While we see violence every day, it has never permanently touched us. Our scars have made us stronger." As Erin watched, Aaron touched his chest, one of the places she knew that Foyet had stabbed him all those years ago.

"I know, Hotch. I just have this head and heart disconnect, as usual." Penelope reached up and kissed her cheek lightly. "I've come so close to losing you, and my beloved, and Will, and now, it just doesn't seem real. At the same time it seems too much to take."

"That's because she's not here, Kitten. If it had happened here, we would have better confirmation on what occurred. Being an ocean away limits our contact." Dave reached out and slung his arm around Erin's shoulders, rubbing Penelope's shoulder lightly.

The doors opened and they trooped out, heading to their cars. Erin led them back to the house she and Penelope had bought six years ago, when the condo hadn't made sense any longer. Leaving the garage door open, she let Penelope float inside and motioned the others in. "There's soda and juice in the fridge. I'm sorry we don't have anything stronger, you know the reason why."

"We don't need to get drunk, Erin. We just need to reminisce with those who knew her best." Reid smiled at her kindly and stepped inside, squeezing her shoulder tightly as he passed.

As the others came in, she was hugged and caressed, everyone trying to give and receive comfort. Shutting the door at last, she followed Morgan in and locked the door behind her. They all gathered in the living room and Erin took a seat on Penelope's lap in the recliner. "Tell me a story about Emily," she opened up with.

"I'm go first." Again, it was Reid who spoke up. "My favorite memory of her is when we first met her, in the war room. Jayje handed her a report in Arabic and she read it like it was English. I could never do that, even with my eidetic memory. Then we got on the plane and Gideon treated her like she was less than…well, like she didn't really deserve the way he treated her. I think he thought her a poor substitution for Elle at the time. She still worked her hardest on that case, and did not give up until we had all the answers."

"She loved me, once," Morgan said softly, looking down at his hands. "I begged her to stay with us when Doyle had tried to kill her, and she did. At the time, I thought she was gone, but there she was, coming back to me. It was easy to fall back in love with her, she was my everything. But by the time we got to the bank heist and Will almost died the first time, she was moving on. Love wasn't enough to keep her here with us, with me. She jumped at Easter's offer to join Interpol."

Aaron coughed softly and all eyes swung to him. "I always remember Emily as the one who wanted to come to my home and bring me to work after our second brush with Foyet. No one else knew that I was a little uneasy about returning back to work. Haley was gone, and so was Jack, and I really had nothing to live for. That was the first time we vowed to be honest with each other. That's how I knew she was having trouble readjusting to us. We reminded her of the worst time in her life, and like Elle, she had to run away."

The moody had quickly shifted from somewhat wistful to melancholy and Erin felt she had to lighten it somewhat. "Well, up until the wedding, I thought she hated me. I wasn't the nicest of people to her when she first started. My ambitions were still focused on climbing the corporate ladder. But then Alan left me, and my children wanted nothing to do with me, and I fell off the wagon, hard. I knew I had to change, and decided that, like you lot, I didn't want to be anywhere else. Though the look on her face when Penelope said she was dating me was enough to make even the straightest hair curl. We had a 'come to Jesus' meeting that night, and she said that if I ever hurt her friend, I would never see the light of day again."

Penelope giggled a little, and that made Erin smile. "She really told you that?" Erin nodded and Penelope pulled her closer to her chest. "She never understood how my heart could have chosen you as its home." She ran her hand up and down Erin's arm. "But once she became accustomed to the idea of us, we traded really great stories about our current partners over Skype. And that's how I'm going to try and remember her. As my smiling, laughing, gossiping friend who loved me."

As JJ began to speak, Erin nestled back into Penelope, content to just listen.