While I didn't expect to be updating so soon, this chapter practically wrote itself, so I thought that there was no point in delaying. Enjoy! C.
Faking her own death had been the easier part. She had a little experience when it came to that particular department as Lauren Reynold's had been convincing enough for at least eight years. But she was beginning to find that coming back to life was the more difficult of the two. She decided it was because the weapons trader had never been a real person anyway and was meant to have stayed dead. Whereas Emily Prentiss was entirely real and she had left so much more than a superficial world behind her when she had supposedly died.
Who was the first person to call when you were back from the dead? She knew that her relationship with her mother could have never been described as loving, but there was something wrong with the thought of keeping her mother in the dark for any longer. She was her daughter after all and no parent deserved to be put through the loss of their child.
But how could she call Elizabeth without expecting the whole world to find out? Her death had been high profile - and surely that meant that her 'rebirth' would be high profile too? And if it was going to be splashed about the broadsheets and tabloids for days then she would rather that the people who she cared about most knew the truth first. She just didn't know how she could tell them.
The other disadvantage of having spent the past three years convincing people she was dead became obvious within the first couple of days she spent in Tulsa. She had contacts in this part of the world, people who could put her up, old friends who she would have liked to talk to once more - but they all believed her to be dead. And she had firmly resolved that her team would be the first to know she was still alive - so until she brought herself to get in touch, she could not reveal herself to any of the other acquaintances she had in the city.
Clyde Easter had brought her to view an apartment in the south side of the city. He had agreed to staying around for a few weeks, until she could find her feet, but only because he was the only one who knew the truth. "Not the only one," Clyde had pointed out. "There are at least two other people out there - both of them your friends - who know the truth as well."
She hadn't said to him then the first thing that had crossed her mind. But you're the only one who came looking for me. She came very close to calling them some nights when she was on her own, with nothing to do but stare at the cheap cell phone he had offered her that day, but each time she busied herself cleaning or cooking or doing something to take her mind off it. Because she always remembered that just as she knew where to find them, they had known where to find her, and neither of them had shown up. The bruises of that knowledge were still fresh on her skin.
"What if you can never bring yourself to contact them?" Clyde had asked. "Then they'll never know the truth - nor will your parents or any of the other people you left behind. Surely if you feel so much guilt, you know that you owe it to them."
She had been a little angry when he'd said that. He knew she felt an unbearable pain in her chest when she thought of how she'd hurt them and for the first time he had used it against her - another sign of his impatience at her reluctance. But she had fought to remain calm because he meant well. He just wanted everything to go back to normal, for him and for her, although she was beginning to think it never would. That was why she told him to leave.
Now, outside the airport as she waited for a taxi, she could only remember his last words to her before he'd stalked through departures. "Things will never sort themselves out. You do know that. Most people of action are inclined to-"
She had offered him a weak smile. "Fatalism - and those of thought believe in providence." She shuddered at the memory of the other man who'd said that to her only three years ago. "I know. But I also know that there's a time for everything. Now just isn't that time."
"There's never a specific time for anything. Only the amount of time it takes us to work up the courage to go after what we want. Take care." He had hugged her briefly, gathered his things, and disappeared into the throng of travelers.
Some of them would be going home - to parents or spouses or children. Others would be going away. But the one thing that they had which Emily envied them for was a destination. Some kind of goal that they were working towards as they took their seats on the plane. She didn't have anywhere to be and she certainly had nothing to work for - or maybe it was that she had too much to work for and no way of achieving it.
She stood outside and breathed in the crisp autumnal air. She reached into the pocket of the jacket she was wearing and retrieved the cell from her pocket. She hesitated, staring at the buttons, wondering if maybe this minute was the time when she'd finally dial the number, if she would be right to. And that was when she remembered Clyde's words. When had she stopped believing that people didn't make their own fate?
It took her only two seconds and then the phone was ringing. Her heart seemed like it was about to explode out of her rib cage as she pressed the phone to her ear and waited, waited in anticipation, expecting something that she couldn't quite explain, and all this time a pang of lonliness clenching her stomach. She didn't even know that the number still worked, and for a second she hoped that it didn't, but then the phone was answered and she could hear a sigh, and heavy breathing.
And then a voice. "Please listen to me Hotch. I get that you want to talk about this and that you want to work it out, but I just can't. I don't know that I will ever be able to talk about Em - Emily. You said that you wanted to talk about the future but there isn't one and you're lying to yourself if you say any different. She - she may not have actually died but the life she lived did. There's no going back to it. Not for her and not for any of us. I just - I can't deal with this now." A distressed voice. A voice belonging to Jennifer Jareau, before suddenly the line went dead.
She didn't know what she had been hoping for. She was a practical person and she had always known that it wouldn't work. She blinked back the tears that were now threatening to fall and stared blankly at the cell in her hand for a few moments.
Her life was dead. She had been listening to that little voice in her head that had been telling her none of it had to be gone but now she had heard the cold, hard truth from her friend. And though her spirits were crushed she was also glad in a way. She knew now that in the long run she was doing the right thing, she was saving them from the pain.
But she still pocketed the phone. She couldn't walk away from everything she'd had before. Even if she couldn't exactly if she could never return to it, she couldn't turn her back on the past either.
"We need to work out what Carl Harrison's relationship with his wife was like before they divorced." Derek Morgan stared at the man in the picture - tall, blonde and with a loving smile on his face, he hardly seemed like the type of perso to abduct the children he was holding in his arms and the woman standing next to him. But that was exactly what he had done and it was just more evidence that people sometimes behaved strangely.
Aaron Hotchner paced from one side of the room to the other. "We need to work out why they divorced." But if there was one thing Morgan had learned from profiling, it was that they didn't change without good reason. He couldn't tell what Harrison's trigger had been anymore that he could work out what had been his boss'.
"Neighbours said that they were perfectly happy - the kids went to the local school, they were married in the local church. They were totally settled, upstanding members of the community." Spencer Reid's brow furrowed in confusion. "Could Debera Harrison have been having an affair with the man found on the side of the road?"
Ashley Seaver shook her head. "Not with him anyway, the sister said that they first met two years after the divorce. And anyway she was totally devoted to her husband when they were married - she protested the divorce. Not the actions of a woman who was trying to self-sabotage their marriage. Maybe he had an affair...?"
"But then why would she have protested the divorce? He agreed to a settlement of thousands - but he didn't get custody of the children, he didn't get the house: everything that he did was an effort to get her to agree. He gave more than she was entitled to. If he had been unfaithful and she had found out, then she would have told him to leave, or at least made more demands at the preliminary hearing." Hotch stopped pacing.
Rossi shrugged. "Maybe he was having an affair and she just didn't know about it. He was desperate to get out of the marriage and if she wasn't cheating on him, then it looks like it was perfect, so why was he so determined to leave? There was somebody knew and he wanted to pursue a relationship with this new woman instead."
"But then we still have to work out why the hell he's taken his family and hers now." Derek Morgan glanced around at his colleagues. "She married this new man two years ago and their baby is nearly a year old. She hasn't been a part of anything that could have triggered this reaction and he doesn't feel bitter about the divorce because he was the one to walk away from her. So why now?"
Ashley tapped a pen against the table for a moment in thought before she spoke. "I think we're looking at this the wrong way. It could have absolutely nothing to do with the wife - or the kids, since the custody agreements were settled at the same time as the divorce. What if it's about this new woman he left his marriage for? Things haven't worked out with her and he gets angry because he left his wife for her. So he goes back to the wife, kills her husband and gets rid of the child, so that he can go back to the way things were?"
There was silence as they all considered this assessment. Reid rooted through the files and shook his head after a moment. "He never remarried."
"And?" Derek asked.
"Well he was divorced nearly seven years ago. That's a long time to be with somebody and not get married - I mean Debera Harrison was only in this new relationship for three years before they got married. So for this new woman to have been his trigger, things would have had to go wrong recently, and it seems unlikely that they'd be together for so long and not get married. He has no problem with commitment - he left his wife for this woman. So they probably separated years ago."
Hotch folded his arms. "I think that we could be on the right track here, but we don't even know if there was an affair. Morgan and Seaver - talk to Harrison's family and see if they know anything about another woman. Rossi and I are going to the dump site off the main road. Reid, I want you to stay here and call Garcia - look at his recent financial activities and check out the possibility of another recent murder, looking at a woman who would be a few years younger than him, in this area. It's a long shot but look into it and check for anything that suggests it's not random, that it relates back to him. We don't know where he is right now or where he's headed so he has an advantage, but we'll have to work with what we have for now."
They had only been in the jeep for ten minutes but that was all it took for Morgan to work out that there was something wrong with Seaver. She was quietly and determinedly glancing out the window as if the outside scene was the most interesting thing she'd ever been lucky enough to witness.
"Ashley. Is there something you want to talk to me about?" Morgan asked. He had gotten to know her over the years that they had been working together - she would never lie to him, she would just studiously try to avoid the subject. But if he could raise the subject directly it would force her to answer him truthfully. "You can trust me with anything you know." He chuckled dryly. "Pretty much said those exact words to Emily before she - you know."
He winced. He knew what Emily would have done in that situation - made it into a joke so that she could break any tension that built up. It was just another one of those moments he had every day when he was reminded that he missed her. He missed her a lot.
Seaver shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "What is it with everybody and talking about her these days?" Morgan visibly sharpened at this comment so she pressed on. "Sorry - I didn't mean to sound like she's not important or she never existed. She was your friend and-"
"Yours too." He took a deep breath and managed to compose himself. "She liked you a lot. She told me so herself a few days after you came on that first case with us. You're allowed to grieve for her too."
"That's not the point but it's close. Grieving - I thought that everybody was done with that. I know the loss never goes away, but I felt like everybody managed to move on a little, to start to live instead of just cope." Ashley expertly managed to avoid admitting she had felt no entitlement to grieve when Emily had passed away as she had been the one to know her the least.
"So I guess I'm not the first person to mention Emily today?" he said. He had a funny feeling that he knew who the other culprit was but he waited until Seaver was ready to tell him.
She let out a long sigh. "No. When we were in the airport Hotch said something about her - and you know how strange he's been acting lately. But he's never, ever talked so openly about her. I mean I never even said anything that could relate that directly to her and he was the one who mentioned her. By first name."
Morgan took a left turn and continued to drive straight. He couldn't deny that his superior had been acting strangely recently but this came as a surprise. There was out of the ordinary and then there was out of the possible. He didn't know how to answer what he took to be Seaver's concerns. But she was staring at him with wide brown eyes and he had to throw her some sort of hope.
"Doyle was shot dead by police three weeks ago and ever since then Hotch's been a little different than usual. But who wouldn't be? He spent a lot of his spare time trying to track down the man without any leads and then Doyle just turns up out of nowhere and had a shoot off with the cops." Morgan shrugged. "It shook him up - it shook us all up."
From the expression on her face Morgan could tell that the blonde didn't believe this for a second. "Hotch has always been cool and composed. Even when she died he held it together, in a way he held us together. So you're honestly going to tell me that he crumbles because it's all over now?"
"Don't forget that he's human too. When Haley and Jack were taken into protective custody he lost it big time and I think he's acting the same way now that he did then." Morgan took another deep breath. "Sometimes I think that he's the one who misses her the most. They had the - well sometimes I think they had the potential to be more than friends."
Seaver didn't argue with him and when they got to the house she fled from the car quickly. He wondered if he had managed to convince her anymore than he had been able to convince himself and he certainly hoped so.
We know the past and its great events, the present in its multitudinous complications, chiefly through faith in the testimony of others. Matthew Simpson.