A/N: I know some people might feel I'm a bit slow in moving the plot along, but I do find the whole emotional/psychological elements interesting and important to the story. There will be quite a bit of action soon and I do want to say there are little clues and hints dropped in every part. I don't typically write something unless there's a reason. Hope you enjoy!

Emily Prentiss rubbed her weary eyes and stared at her reflection in the ladies room mirror. Hotch and the others had been missing for 27 hours and she had been awake for about 39 hours. Her eyes felt gritty and her body ached with exhaustion. She splashed cold water on her face and ran her fingers along her skin, rubbing in the cold water in an attempt to make herself more alert. Everyone was working in shifts, with some taking naps while others continued to work. Even Garcia, JJ and Reid have taken short breaks as had Clyde, but Emily refused. She stared at her reflection.

This was all happening because of her. Doyle wouldn't have even touched any of them if she hadn't joined the team. She thought back to her early days and the suspicion and distrust they all felt her first year with the team. They had a right to be wary. She had brought nothing but trouble to their lives.

Emily continued to stare at her reflection. She had changed her hair color to a lighter, chestnut brown and it was much longer, reaching down to the middle of her back. She had lost weight since her time in the BAU, her body now more toned than ever, a dangerous whip of lean muscle and strength. She had needed that strength, the accompanying quickness in her quest to break up Doyle's operations. Dark shadows were under her eyes and she was hard pressed to remember a time when they weren't there. Her mouth thinned into a grim line of determination. With quick hands, she pulled her hair back into a neat pony tail and secured it with a rubber band she had taken from Hotch's desk.

This ends now, Emily vowed. When the others were safe, she would make sure she couldn't ever hurt them again, no matter what it took.


Alive. Emily could be alive.

Derek Morgan didn't know whether to laugh or curse. On the one hand, he was thrilled that his friend was still among the living. On the other hand, he was livid that she had put him and the others through emotional Hell. Didn't Prentiss learn anything about tangling with Doyle two years ago?

Apparently, she did. She learned it was better to hide. Though, seeing the bastard up close and now knowing what he was capable of, a part of Derek couldn't blame her for feeling that way. The guy was definitely scary and what made him even more dangerous than the usual bits of unwanted humanity they dealt with was that he was perfectly rational, crafty, resourceful and smart. He was ruthless, efficient, deadly, and had extensive resources to make someone's life a living Hell. Yeah, running may not have been a bad idea.

But she had them! They would have protected her. But how long would they have been able to keep that up? It wasn't like it was with Hotch and Foyet. Foyet was one man. A very sick and dangerous man, but he didn't have an entire army behind him and he didn't go personally after Hotch after that first time. Doyle had resources unlike anyone they had dealt with before. What could their small team of six, if you counted JJ, do?

Maybe running and faking her death was the only way.

Would Hotch be willing to risk Jack? JJ risk Henry and Will? Would he risk his mother and sisters' lives?

No.

And if anything had happened to them, their children, sisters, mothers and significant others, how would they look at Emily then? Doyle would have been responsible, but he knew that at some point, they would start to look at her as the reason they had lost someone they loved. He knew Hotch didn't let a day go by without blaming himself for Haley's death. They would begin to blame her and shun her and then Emily would have been alone again; all because they would have insisted on protecting her.

No, Fate, Ian Doyle and they themselves gave Emily Prentiss no other choice but to run and hide, letting them believe she was dead, and that realization made Derek hurt all over again. He felt pain for Emily, for his friends, for himself.

Derek Morgan made a silent promise, that no matter what happened, Doyle will die so Emily could stop running and live her life once again.


Dave Rossi glanced worriedly at Aaron Hotchner. It was a look he had been giving the Unit Chief for the better part of two years, ever since they believed Emily Prentiss had met her maker. Since that time, their usually stoic, hard-assed boss had become even more of a hard-assed, stoic man, but he'd also become easily irritable, angry and reckless at times.

He knew that Aaron had the capability of erupting into violence when pushed to his limit. The incident with Foyet showed that though Rossi completely understood and heck, if he had gotten there earlier, would have happily assisted Hotch in beating the life out of the scumbag. And challenging local law enforcement or yelling at underlings at the FBI was one thing, but deliberately getting in the face of their captor for no good reason but to show who was the true alpha male? That was just dumb and the Aaron Hotchner he knew was not dumb.

Rossi knew he had to pull Aaron back. When Doyle had threatened to re-create Foyet's handiwork on Hotch, the older profiler had no clue what to do to try to stop him. But what was even more frightening to Dave, was watching the defiant, almost triumphant look on Hotch's face. Doyle had seen it as courage, and in large part it was, but it was also reckless, stupid and likely took ten years off of Rossi's life.

Though, if they didn't figure out a way out of this mess or the cavalry didn't come a ridin' over the ridge soon, losing those ten years wouldn't matter much.

However if Hotch continued on his same path, Doyle wasn't going to let him see the next ten hours.

Doyle was different from their usual UNSUBs. He was meticulous, cautious and practical. He was also efficient and wouldn't waste time and energy on anything or anyone unless it served his needs and goals. Right now, his goal was to get Emily and make her watch their slow torture. Doyle needed them in pretty good shape in order to get what he wanted from her. There was no need to hurt them until she was here and in fact, since their capture, he and Derek hadn't been touched.

However, Hotch was goading the man, daring him to inflict pain and Doyle had been happy to comply. Rossi the Irishman had seen in Hotch what Dave had begun to suspect in the past two years. Whether it was actually love or not, Rossi knew Hotch harbored very deep feelings for Emily Prentiss, and that was driving Doyle crazy. And what was driving Hotch crazy was knowing this man had been with Emily in ways that Hotch had only dreamed about.

Two guys beating their chest over a woman was usually not a big deal, but it was a very big deal in this case. Hotch needed to keep his mouth shut and not react to Doyle's baiting and for sweet Lord's sake, not bait the man in turn. Dave's main concern right now was keeping a reckless Hotch from getting himself killed.


For the last two years, the only goal in Aaron's Hotchner's life was to hunt down Doyle and put a bullet through the man's head, whatever the price. Ironic considering when he was first asked to do that two years ago by Clyde Easter, his own ethics, his moral code, prevented him from agreeing to such a thing. That all changed when he thought Emily Prentiss had died at the Irishman's hand and he had wondered if he had been willing to go so far backed then, would they have saved her? Did his own integrity and, yes, smugness, get her killed? Because some part of him believed they would save her, an overwhelming confidence that they would succeed. How many times have they've saved victims before their captors could kill them? Surely that would happen again for Emily.

But it hadn't and she was gone. Or so they all thought.

She might as well have been dead though, separated and forced into hiding.

A part of him stirred in anger as he thought of what could only be called her betrayal. How could she make him, all of them suffer, like that? Did she think he wasn't capable of protecting her? That she would have some doubts insulted his professional and yes, masculine pride. Of course he would and most definitely could protect her. She was being ridiculous for believing otherwise.

Was it a matter of trust then? A matter of commitment, their commitment to her? Hotch thought back to when Emily was on his team and the many times she had sacrificed herself for them. She was willing to sacrifice her career to save his. She took a beating to protect Reid. She reached out countless times to each of them when they were drowning in their own personal hell. They never asked Emily Prentiss to martyr herself for them, but they had accepted it nonetheless. The one time she had asked for help, when her friend Matthew died, he had shut her down, resting on his own damn code of doing the right thing. Wasn't the right thing to help his friend? To help the woman he cared for so much? Instead, she had been met with skepticism by all of them save for Rossi and to a lesser extent Reid. How many times have the others pushed on cases that they felt some personal connection to and the team accepted and followed along willingly? Gideon, Reid, JJ, Rossi, Morgan, even himself, the team always gave them leeway, but when Emily asked that one time, they only threw doubts and road blocks in her way, with himself being the worst offender. Would you trust people like that?

Guilt, shame and yes, anger, ate away at Hotch. Maybe she was right to doubt them, and what would they have done if she had shared her secret? Would they look at her differently for hiding such a large part of her past from them? Look how some of them had reacted when they learned she had to pose as Doyle's lover. Morgan and Rossi had admitted it bothered them, made her seem a little less in their eyes. And it had troubled him, a great deal. He understood, intellectually, she did what her mission required her to do, but to imagine her willingly bedding such a man, pretending to enjoy it and wondering if perhaps she wasn't even pretending, it had angered him beyond belief and he shamefully felt some disgust towards her and himself for even having such feelings.

It made him wonder if the Emily he knew was even the real Emily. Afterall, she had managed to fool Doyle so much the man fell completely in love with her. Did the woman he knew, the woman he felt so strongly about even exist or had she merely been playing a character all along?

He should not be surprised that Emily Prentiss inspired such a complicated morass of emotions. Everything about his relationship with the woman was complicated. He wanted to hold her, keep her close and protect her. He wanted to keep her at arms length, afraid to get to close to her. He ached to see her again. He was angry with her. As Emily herself was a bundle of contradictions so were his feelings towards her.

Hotch shifted slightly, one thing he did know though, he had a new goal: to see Emily Prentiss one more time.


"So, what's going on between you and Easter?" Reid asked as he sidled up next to Emily in the bullpen. She was reading a report a representative from the CIA had just handed her.

"What to you mean?" she frowned at his tone which was sharp and suspicious.

Reid kept his voice low, but she could see more than one person interested. "I saw you two talking earlier. Pretty chummy. Don't forget he's partially responsible for this."

Prentiss sighed. "As am I. You can't blame Clyde for what's happened, he was only doing his job."

Reid narrowed his eyes at her. "You trust him more than us."

"Reid, it's not a matter of trust. He's just more familiar with the particulars."

"God, you haven't changed have you?" the young man snapped. "You and your secrets!" he spat out and then turned and walked away.

Emily could feel the heat in her cheeks as the other people in the bullpen pretended they didn't hear and see what had just happened. She picked up several other reports that had been handed to her and went up to Hotch's office. She closed the door and sat down at his desk, rubbing her tired eyes. She took a deep breath and began to shuffle through the pile she had just set down. A brown envelope with her name printed in block letters caught her eye. With a sense of trepidation, she gently slit it open. She shook out the contents and a pressed four-leaf clover fell out. Her mouth thinned into a line.

Doyle.