Four months and seven days after entering treatment at the Nicholas Sents Center for Change just outside Morristown, Tennessee, Emily was smiling brightly at herself in the bathroom mirror.

She hadn't taken any kind of drug or medication since the day she walked through the rehab center's warm, welcoming doors, and hadn't have any kind of craving since her seventeenth day. Her doctors had been the same doctors and therapists that had taken her to the center and had been the most loving and understanding people the agent had ever met.

They had helped her begin to first think about why she had wanted to take the drugs in the first place, and then once she had cried her eyes out for almost every hour of the day, they then let her realize why she continued to take them and why it had been so hard to stop.

And why she and her boss had become so dependent on one another.

But now she was smiling. Raking her fingers through her grown out curly hair, Emily watched as the sun sparkled against her dark chocolate eyes. Her therapists had told her that she was finally getting a visitor, and she couldn't be happier about it. Sure, her friends and even Hotch had kept in touch throughout her treatment, but no one other than her mother, who had only come to tell her that she was thinking of putting her daughter's apartment on the market because she hadn't been there for months, had come to actually see her.

"Emily?"

The brunette woman quickly made her way through her room and opened up the door, smiling to the owner of the rehab center she had been shipped off to. "Melanie, hi," she smiled, glancing down to readjust the 'v' of her top.

"Hi honey," the older woman said warmly, reaching out to touch her patient's arm. "Your visitor is here."

Emily's eyes widened, looking over to the clock in her room to see that already two hours had passed by. "Already?"

"Already."

Biting down into her lip, Emily let her eyes stayed glued to the greatest mother figure that she had ever had. "What if I'm not ready?" she whispered, fear overcoming her at the thought of breaking down in the arms of whoever had come to see her.

Melanie pressed a warm kiss to the agent's cheek before enveloping her into a hug, letting Emily lay her head to her shoulder and feel the warmth from her body radiate onto hers. She needed to be comforted, something that she hadn't been given since whoever her druggie friend had been to her. "Sweetheart, you know that you're ready; you've been waiting months for this. It's just another step closer to getting out of here," she grinned, pulling back to wipe the tears from the brunette's freshly made-up cheeks. "It's alright to be nervous. Just remember that they love you, ok?"

Emily took in a breath, nodding her head as she let the older woman gently push her through the halls and help her step out the front doors. "Can we maybe tell them to come tomorrow?" she asked, scared of what she would see when she walked around to the side of the building where the cars were parked.

"You'll do just fine."

Emily's eyes flickered toward the parking lot as she left the older woman to walk down the front steps, making her way toward the stables when she didn't see any new cars or people around the building. "Hello?" She pushed her hair away from her face as she entered the horses stable, climbing up over the bale of hay that sat in front of the back barn doors. "Anyone?"

"Surprise!"

Brown eyes widened, the ivory woman's hand slapping over her heart when all of her friends popped out from behind the only empty stall in the stable. "Oh my God," she cracked, tears welling in her eyes when she saw balloons flying up and streamers being thrown her way. "Hi."

Reid was the first to step forward, tentatively holding out his arms to the older woman with a smile on his face. "It's good to see you."

Emily excitedly nodded her head before launching herself into her friend's arms. "I missed you," she laughed, tears spilling down her cheeks as she suffocated the genius in a hug. "Thank you so much, Reid."

After getting hugs from all of her friends and the double cheek kiss from her favorite Italian, Emily did her best to wipe the tears that had stained her cheeks. "I didn't know it would be all of you."

"We thought it would be nice," JJ grinned. "You haven't seen any of us in forever and if we all just came one at a time then we'd have to do all of this a lot more times than necessary."

Emily laughed, slapping her blond friend gently on the arm as they led her out and into the training ring. "So," she nodded, clearing her throat to lessen the lump that had formed in her throat. "Hotch couldn't come?"

"He really wanted to, Em."

Garcia smiled sadly to the older woman beside her, holding tight onto her hand. "Treatment has been really rough on him."

Emily did her best to return the smile that every one around her was doing their best to send her way. "No, I understand. I've been going through the same thing," she chuckled darkly, pulling at her shirt to try and rid her sweat. "It can be hard, I know. I just miss him."

"You think I'd miss your party?"

Looking up at the painfully familiar voice, Emily's hands came up to cover her gaping mouth.

Hotch grinned, glancing to the horse by his side and patting at his nose before letting him trot in the other direction. "Do you really think that little of your boyfriend?"

"My boyfriend?" The words were so quiet, she didn't even realize if she had spoken them out loud.

"Ok well don't be mean and take it back," he laughed, letting the younger woman grow closer to him at her own pace. "I've already said it's true so if you take that away from me, that's just plain rude."

Emily let out a sob, running across the dried up dirt and jumping into her boss' strong arms, her cries echoing throughout the center's residence as she peppered messy kisses all over the older man's face. "You're better," she laughed, her eyes sparkling with delight as she saw the first real smile he had had in months spread over his face. "You finished already!"

"I did," Hotch smiled, threading his fingers through her ebony hair and pulling her in so he could finally kiss her supple lips. "And so did you."

"I missed you," she sniffled as she kissed him back.

"How do you feel?"

Emily's lips curled into a grin, letting her new boyfriend set her down on the ground so she could nestle into his chest. "I feel good." And for the first time in months, she knew it was true.