Drizzmal

One day when she came home, Elle was gone. She had left a note on the kitchen table.

Em, sweetie,

I'm headed back to the BAU to see if I can still do this job. I'll be incommunicado for awhile. Jason called, too. I'm not sure if we are a we, yet (him and I) or what, but I need to see him to find out.

Just chuck my stuff someplace if it's in the way.

Love on toast, Elle

It was dark outside, drizzling under steely clouds. Emily tucked the letter into thirds to save it. It smelled like Elle's perfume, a woodsy concoction Emily had bought for her.

In the bedroom, Emily noticed only a few things gone-the perfume, the diamond bracelet, some of Elle's clothes. Enough for a go bag. And the CD she had tracked down was absent, too.

She picked up the clothes Elle had left on the floor. Would she tell Jason about Emily? Probably, if they were a couple. In a way they still were, Emily was just the break Elle had needed from a guilt-ridden man dually infatuated with her and his work. Perhaps she had a clearer head now.

The sights of the Capital were visible from the bedroom window. They had never made love with the shades closed, letting the lights of the Senate play over their bodies. Now Elle would go back to Jason, to the apartment with the birds on the wall, and the train sets kept lovingly by a man whose son hardly ever spoke to him.

Was she bitter? She refolded a shirt, realizing it could be hers or Elle's. Maybe she was. Only the worst men seemed to find her, and she thought she had found one good woman. But maybe she wasn't good enough for Elle. Maybe…

Elle's voice was clear in her head. "Em, don't be an eejit. What has 'maybe' ever done but drive people insane? Literally?"

Later, she would hear about how Elle had yelled at her boss. How she started to drink. How she shot a man, circumstances unclear, and left the BAU. She would hear all of this from Jason, Elle's Jason, after he had come to accept that she was a good agent. She would learn that Elle had recommended her to Erin Strauss before going on her bender as a good replacement. But it would be years before she heard from Elle Greenaway again.