The Farhat case comes back into play. There were a few small hints to this, especially during Quinn's conversation with CIA Director Senator Lockhart. If you've read my other works you know that I never like to waste a set up.

"Ma'am" Hotch greeted coldly as he entered into Erin Strauss' large office and opted to stand rather than sit.

"Aaron we need to talk" she said firmly as she motioned for him to sit down.

"I'd rather stand."

"Very well then" she conceded before she began. "We need to talk about your work on the Farhat case."

"Ma'am are you not pleased with the manner we worked on the case?"

"No, you and your team did admirable work on the case. However, it appears that the CIA gave us the wrong impression about Mr. Farhat" Strauss carefully worded as Hotch furrowed his brow and crossed his arms in typical Hotchner fashion.

"And what was that?"

Strauss took off her glasses to gaze into the skeptical eyes of the man in front of her, "That we were going to get him back for the College Park, Maryland cases."

"Ma'am?"

"I just got the phone with the Director and he confirmed that CIA is dealing with Farhat on their own terms."

"And what about the families of the victims back in College Park? What about finishing that case?" Hotch asked as his voice noticeably turned more irate.

Strauss shook her head and sighed, "The case will remain open. The CIA doesn't want any leaks on Farhat. As far as College Park is concerned, we never found out who the unsub was."

"What?!" Hotch questioned in a voice that he should have not used with his superior. Fortunately for him she understood his justifiable frustration and ignored his tone.

"The decision was already made."

"When?"

"Apparently before we formed the task force."

"Who made this decision?"

"Senator Lockhart."

Hotch scoffed at just the mention of the name, "CIA Director? How long have you known?"

"Both the Director and I have just been informed. Like you we were under the impression that once Farhat talked he would be turned over to us, a conclusion we came to after being assured repeatedly by Senator Lockhart. However, I believe that he just wanted to use the BAU to expedite the process of finding Farhat for his agent."

"Quinn" Hotch interjected bitterly.

"I'm sorry Aaron, but there's nothing I can do. There's nothing the Director can do. Lockhart's decision was supported by The Department of Homeland Security, The Secretary of Defense, and a Senate Committee led by Senator Cramer."

"His old friends" Hotch said venomously as he shook his head, "What am I supposed to tell the families? Am I just supposed to let it go? To never let them get closure, never let them know the truth about what happened to their loved ones?"

"I don't know" Strauss admitted with a small groan.

"What do I tell the team?"

"That is up to your discretion" she offered. "That's all I had for you today" she concluded as she dismissed the upset unit chief from her office. He couldn't believe that he had been tricked by Peter Quinn, manipulated into using his team under false pretenses. Hotch stomped into the BAU and growled, "Conference Room now" before he slammed the conference room door behind him. Reid looked to Emily with a questioning look, causing her to shrug in reply. She had no idea what Hotch was so upset about, he seemed perfectly fine when he was kissing her the night before.


The team filtered into the BAU conference room, keenly aware of the tension playing across Hotch's face. "I just spoke with Strauss."

"What does she want now?" Rossi questioned with a sigh as he ran his hand through his perfectly coiffed hair.

"Please don't interrupt. We have a case in Los Angeles we need to get to, but we need to get this out of the way first. This time it isn't anything Strauss has done. It's about the College Park, Maryland and possibly related Providence, Rhode Island murders…"

"Yeah when are we going to finish that?" Morgan interrupted, earning a glare from Hotch.

"We aren't" Hotch sternly said as the team looked at him collectively confused. "The CIA and Agent Quinn never intended to turn over Farhat to be questioned or arrested for the murders he had committed in both Maryland and the matching kill in Rhode Island. This means that the cases will remain open."

"But we caught him" Reid quietly said. "He can't just get away with it."

"The CIA has plans for him…" Hotch trailed off before Emily spoke up.

"They want to turn him into an asset."

Hotch nodded as Morgan stewed before having an outburst, "I can't believe this! Why did they even let us in on the arrest if we were never going to get a fucking shot at that shithead. Fuck!"

"Morgan" Hotch chided. "I apologize but I thought you should know where we are on the case." Hotch looked pointedly over at Emily before he uttered his next few words, "I thought you should all know who Agent Quinn really is."

"Are you sure that Quinn knew boss?" Garcia gently asked, worried about how the revelation may affect Emily. She liked the idea of Quinn and Emily together and was shocked that the man could lie to them, to Emily, the entire time they were consulting on a case.

"Positive" Hotch answered firmly before turning towards JJ. "Start the briefing please" Hotch instructed as he finally took a seat.


While everyone was gathering their things to prepare to leave for Los Angeles, Emily excused herself to call Quinn. Emily left the prying eyes of the BAU in favor of her car, seeking privacy. She felt so betrayed, so used and those feelings only compounded with her stress over the reappearance of Ian Doyle. She had trusted Quinn. But now, now she had picked up on that one specific fault in him that she couldn't pinpoint before.

Quinn was working surveillance on a case at Langley when he saw that Emily was calling him. "Emily…"

"What the fuck is wrong with you Peter?!"

"What?" He asked innocently. He had no idea what he had done to provoke the brunette.

"You never intended on turning over Farhat did you?"

"No" he nonchalantly answered.

"No? That's all you can fucking say? No? What the fuck Quinn? You make us help you find your guy and then you just take him and now what? He's going to be let go? He killed three women" she ranted before being cut off by Quinn.

"First, no one made the BAU join the task force. If it wasn't for fucking Aaron Hotchner there would have never been a task force to begin with, it would have been solely a CIA case. He's the one that practically begged to be in on the case. Second, we both know that Farhat will watched for the rest of his fucking life and used for every iota of information that the CIA can milk him for. It's not like he's going to retire to the fucking Bahamas. And finally, you know how it works Emily."

"You lied to me!"

"I thought you knew! The Lockhart said you all knew before we even started the task force. Why would I think any different?" Quinn defended.

"Peter…"

Quinn voice immediately became firmer with her, "Emily don't play stupid with me. We both know you know how this works. We use Farhat to find everyone else. I thought you knew this going in. Why the fuck would we turn over a potential asset? You know exactly how the CIA operates…"

Emily was quick to interrupt him, "Oh fuck you Peter. Do you even give a shit about the families?"

Peter took a deep breath as he got up from the computers he was sitting in front of, choosing to pace rather than sit. "And what about the families that are going to die during a terrorist attack? Do not for one second try to play this off like you don't know how this works. I know you better than that Emily."

"You're supposed to be different!"

"What? So now I control the entire fucking CIA?" Quinn rhetorically asked in a spiteful tone. "Emily, I didn't lie to you. You had to know it was always going to be this way."

Emily exhaled sharply as she hit the steering wheel in frustration with her left hand. "Peter, tell me the truth. Do you even give a shit about the four victims or are they just expendable to you?"

Quinn closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Emily, this is the way it works."

"Yeah and maybe that's the problem" Emily concluded as she hung up the phone.

It wasn't just Quinn that bothered her, it was everything. It was the normal stress of work, added to the anxiety of working with Hotch, added to the anxiety of finding out about Doyle's escape. It was just a lethal combination of everything that swirled in her head, making her feel nauseated and exhausted. But ironically she couldn't sleep. It was how unaffected Quinn was about the victim's families, it was how apathetic he was. It was how acutely aware she was about how things in the intelligence world worked. All she wanted was to feel the same outrage about Farhat being an asset as the rest of her team, but she understood it. She understood completely what the CIA was doing and Quinn knew it. He knew her. He knew who she truly was, what she had done, and as a result she couldn't hide from him. The idea of being completely laid bare terrified her, because everything she disliked about herself was partially reflected in Quinn. He didn't just know her because he read some file. He knew her because of how similar they were. And maybe Emily Prentiss didn't like herself enough to date someone who reminded her so much of herself. Maybe she would be better off with Aaron Hotchner, the good guy. The man who could compensate for any goodness she felt she was lacking. But now wasn't the time to question relationships. Now was the time to track down an unsub who had been killing innocent women. Emily compartmentalized her personal thoughts as she prepared herself for work.

The case had lasted a couple of days, and as the days passed more memories of Ian Doyle and her past ran through Emily's subconscious. The memories haunted her as she dissected every interaction with Doyle before he was arrested. She reflected on every emotion that played across his face and wondered, did he know all along? And while Emily seemed to be constantly on the phone with old colleagues, she was systematically avoiding the phone calls of a certain Peter Quinn.

That was until the BAU jet landed back in Quantico, when she decided to finally make contact with him. She had texted Quinn to meet her at the BAU parking lot at 8pm, cautiously avoiding the vigilant eyes of JJ.


Quinn exited his car and ran through the rain to get into Emily's front seat. "Thanks for meeting me."

"We need to talk" Emily replied coldly as she turned to face the man. "What are we doing?"

Quinn tilted his head in confusion as he gazed at her, "What do you mean?"

"I just, I don't see this working" she admitted softly. "This case is just…"

"Emily, I promise I didn't lie to you."

"I know" Emily confessed as she looked down to the carpeting on her car floor, analyzing the fabric. "But the case is over now and…" she drifted off, hoping that he would get what she meant. He did.

A few moments of silence passed before Quinn took a deep breath and cut into the quiet, "Will, will I ever see you again?"

"Probably not."

"D.C. is a small town" he offered with a sad smile that broke Emily's heart. It was the same sediment she had uttered to him a few weeks prior.

"It's not that small."

"It's him isn't it?" Quinn asked in a tender voice as the heavy rain pounded on the car.

"Peter."

Quinn shook his head in disbelief and he looked away from Emily, "I just can't keep being everyone's second choice."

"It's not him, it's us. Peter when I look at you, I see myself. I see everything I have ever done that I've regretted and it tortures me. With us it's just so messy. We're too similar We both know each other too well. We know what we're capable of..."

"You say that as if it's a bad thing."

Emily gazed at the man in front of her and spoke in such a soft voice that it was barely audible, "Maybe it is."

"Emily life is messy" Quinn argued in a louder voice than he had used all night.

"I know but with Hotch things are just always going to be…"

"Cleaner" Quinn interjected as Emily nodded in reply. "He's FBI and I'm CIA."

"Yeah."

"Maybe I'll admit that he's the better guy, but that doesn't mean he's the right guy."

Emily's deep brown eyes locked with the steel-blue eyes of Peter Quinn, the eyes that revealed all the pain she had inflicted on him and she didn't even know the half of it. She didn't know that he had risked everything and chose her over Carrie. She didn't know how much she really meant to him, but before the night ended she would.

Emily didn't know what to say in those quiet moments as Quinn processed what had just occurred. She watched him clench his jaw and open the car door to step out. At the last minute, before he had a chance to walk away, she stopped him. It was her turn. "Peter" she called as he turned around to face her again.

He stood soaking wet outside of the dry car in the cold spring rain, gazing at the woman in front of him. It was a pattern they had adopted over the past few weeks. Whenever they parted they would confess something personal about themselves. It was ritual just for themselves, completely unique and guarded from the rest of the world. It wasn't something that he had done with Carrie, and it wasn't a custom she had adopted with Hotch either. It was a simple phrase that had drawn together two people who were, in many ways, emotionally closed off to just about everyone else. This was her way of telling him goodbye, her way of reminding him that, yes, he did matter. Quinn glanced off to the side before refocusing on Emily, the rain clouding his vision of her.

"Tell me something about yourself."

Normally the pattern would have had Quinn ask Emily 'like what?' after her request. But this time was different. This time he, without coaxing, confessed something that only a handful of people had known. His voice was faint, barely discernible over the heavy rainfall, but she heard him nonetheless.

"I have a son, John Jr."

It was a simple sentence, one that would have been unremarkable to anyone else. But it conveyed so much more than it let on. Because not only did it confirm the gender of his child and reveal the child's name, but it also revealed his name. His real name, his birth name. His identity outside of the CIA. The sentence had expressed a sense of intimacy, of trust. Trust that not only would Emily never harm him, but that she would also never harm his son. And in that one moment Emily knew how much she really meant to Peter Quinn. There was no doubt in her mind.

The sentence replayed in her head on repeat as she watched Peter Quinn walk away from her car and out of her life…forever?

Has our love triangle come to an end?

It seems that Emily picked Hotch, are you happy about that?

Also in the next chapter someone from a later season makes an appearance? Predictions on who it might be? They aren't very popular.