Aux Noctambules sat on the edge of a sketchy area of Paris. With the last call not coming until five o'clock in the morning, it was the ideal place for the reckless behavior I justified in my mind; I had the entire night to stalk my prey, if I needed it. Dressed in a short skirt and revealing top, I casually watched the customers in the establishment, using my profiling skills to zero in on the most unsavory creature.
The first two months that I'd played dead in Paris were filled with denial. My body healed, but my heart and head couldn't come to terms with my reality. Daily, I walked past the cafe where I'd left JJ with my fake IDs and money tucked under my arm. Every day, sometimes several times a day, I visited the location again, hoping that she was going to be there and tell me that it was over, that they'd found Doyle and I could come home. Or that she'd tell me this was all just a nightmare and it was time to wake up.
When that didn't happen, my denial slowly gave way to other emotions, and I threw myself headlong into the grieving process of my own death. Denial faded, bargaining surfaced,
"I'll be a little stronger, and this will end sooner." "I'll be a little smarter, and all of this can be undone." I was blinded to my own responsibility in this; strength and smarts were not the issue; trust was. If I'd just told Derek what was going on when he asked, I probably wouldn't be playing dead in Paris.
Bargaining eventually gave way to anger in a completely unplanned way, before I even recognized just how angry I was.
I travelled to London. I spied on Clyde, just trying to get a glimpse of someone I knew. JJ told me on the flight to Paris that Clyde was not the one who sold me out, and I desperately wanted to apologize to him. Instead, I watched his shadow move across the windows of his flat until about eleven o'clock at night when his lights finally went out.
I walked several blocks and ended up in a bar. I drank two shots of tequila and was chasing those down with a Guinness when a man approached me.
"Can I buy you a drink, Love?" he asked.
I glanced at him and shook my head. "No, thank you. I'm meeting someone here."
"You've been here for awhile and it's after midnight. I don't think whomever you're waiting for is showing up." His lips were nearly touching my ear as he whispered, and his hand slowly made its way up my thigh.
I stood from the barstool. "Then I guess I should be leaving myself." I threw some money on the bar and didn't give him a parting glance.
He caught up with me about two blocks later and grabbed my arm, hauling me into an alley, throwing me to the ground. The gravel biting into my knees and hands only fueled a rage in me I didn't even know was festering there. And I let loose that rage on the man. I imagine I broke a couple of ribs, I definitely broke his nose, and he wouldn't be getting it up any time soon to pursue other women.
That night when I got back to my hotel, after I showered, was the best sleep I'd had since JJ left me in Paris.
After that, I sought vengeance against men, men who liked to press their advantage with women, and proof that I was strong enough. After my two months of denial, I spent the next three months playing my little game, coming out a winner every time. I crisscrossed into London, Paris and Rome with my fake IDs, found bars that were fit for my surveillance, and let nature take its course.
I looked for strong men, men who thought they could easily overpower me. I wasn't always successful in finding the right person, but I was often enough. Sometimes I let them buy me a drink, sometimes I danced seductively with them. Other times, I only needed to sit there and give them a little smile occasionally. When I knew I had them hooked, I left whatever bar I was in, usually through a side entrance and into an alley. Sometimes no one followed me; many times they did. I knew how to lock into the right person.
As I broke the nose, kneed the groin and in other ways beat the crap out of those men who attempted to force themselves on me in the back alleys of different areas in Europe, my anger let loose. I proved to myself that I was strong enough, and every man I beat up was Ian Doyle. I convinced myself that my activity was was right, that I was saving some anonymous woman who couldn't fend herself off from an undesirable fate.
It was a full-proof plan - no man was going to go to the hospital and admit that he'd tried to corner a woman in an alley and that woman had beat the shit out of him.
And it was those nights when I lured my prey and executed my wrath that I could actually sleep.
I'd been at it for about three months when I'd ended up at Aux Noctambules. That was the riskiest place I'd ever attempted such a thing. While there were "massage" parlors close to bar, and otherwise untoward occupants of the neighborhood, that place had an eclectic mix of patronage - from locals to traveling yuppies seeking cheap drinks in the middle of the night to smarmy assholes.
One such asshole caught my eye. He would be the largest man I'd ever taken on. I'd been watching him for about thirty minutes when I saw him slip some powder into the glass of a woman he was trying to hit on. I stood quickly from my table, stumbled like I was drunk towards them, tripping and pushing into the woman, tipping her glass over.
"I'm so sorry," I slurred in French.
The woman looked pissed. She got up quickly and excused herself to bathroom to clean up. I smiled at the man, apologizing again, and offered to replace the drink.
He looked me up and down. "How about a dance instead?" he asked while staring at my cleavage.
I nodded at him and smiled. The man engulfed me, and while he pressed himself against me and ground his pelvis into me, I started imagining what would happen later. I imagined digging my fingers into his denim covered crotch, getting in a few rib kicks, and possibly breaking his nose.
The woman glared angrily at us when she returned from the bathroom and left the bar in a huff. She had no clue she'd just likely been saved from a horrific night. The man's hands traveled up the back of my thighs, and I moaned. Then, acting shy, I pulled away. "I have to go," I whispered. "I'm sorry. I can't do this. I'm married," I said embarrassingly.
He reached for me, his fingers almost painful on my wrist, and I pulled away again. "No," I moaned, "I can't."
"You, there. You let go of her," the bartender called out, a baseball bat firmly in his hand. The man released me, and I looked down, my cheeks tinged sufficiently pink; the man probably thought it was from embarrassment, but it was really my adrenaline pumping, preparing me for the fight.
I grabbed my coat from the stool where I'd left it and staggered out the side entrance to exit the bar, convincingly playing at my fake inebriated state. It was nearly four o'clock in the morning, and the bakery across the street had its lights on, the morning crew already there getting ready for the day. I knew I needed to slip into a darker alley if I wanted to get what I'd come there for. My fingers were twitching, my muscles jumping, my heart pumping at full force. I knew he would follow me.
I turned into a dark side alley, the stale smell of garbage pungent in the air, and heard footsteps behind me. I smirked to myself. "Get ready, fucker," I thought.
I pretended to roll my ankle. I stumbled. I let the footsteps get close enough that I could spin and get in a good kick to the ribs, and I did just that, spinning, expecting to see the large man from the club. My kick died in me mid-spin, though, and I buckled to the ground before I made contact, looking up into the face not of the bastard I'd just danced with, but that of Aaron Hotchner.
"What the fuck are you doing?" he hissed.
I was speechless for a few seconds. After over four months entirely alone, I didn't even know how to speak to someone who knew me. I cleared my throat and stood tall. "I could ask the same of you," I responded coolly, hiding my shame and sorrow, breathing out my rage, letting go of the idea of a good ass-kicking, followed by a few hours of content sleep. Instead, hope surged in me - was he there to bring me home?
That idea was quickly dashed.
"I've been put on temporary assignment in the Middle East. I'm on my way there now. I tracked your fake IDs and found out you were staying in a hotel near here. I showed up just as you were leaving tonight. I followed and watched. Is this what you're doing now? Luring assholes out of bars and beating them?"
His direct words stung me. Yes, it's what I'd been doing, but to have someone who knew me, who I cared about and trusted, saying the words out loud made it seem far less vigilant and far more pathetic.
I tossed my head back in defiance while I pulled my thin trench coat more firmly around my scantily-clad body. "There's not a whole lot else to do here," I said icily. "Why are you being sent to the Middle East?"
"Politics," he responded stiffly.
I wanted to melt. I wanted to cry. There he was, tangible proof of a life that I'd been trying to forget I had, but I had no time for letting my walls down, and no energy for tears. "They're pissed that I died," I said. "So am I."
"Emily…" he sighed.
I shook my head at him, trying to keep an emotional distance. "It's Mudge. That's the name on my ID. Rachel Mudge. Emily isn't here anymore. And you're putting me in danger by tracking me. You're not even supposed to know my identities."
I think what I'll remember most in that moment is not my shame, but Hotch's tears, how they filled his eyes and he tried to rapidly blink them away while I clenched my jaw. "I just stopped here on my way because I wanted to let you know that Morgan is looking for Doyle. We'll find him. Where's Declan?"
I shook my head again. "I don't know," I lied. It wasn't that I didn't trust Hotch; it was just that I put nothing past Doyle, including anything Hotch would communicate via any phone to Morgan. And it was in that moment that I realized I was seething, and recognized how my anger at myself had been erroneously transferred to Hotch.
Hotch opened his mouth to say something just as a shadow moved past the alley. "Excuse me," I whispered.
It was the thug from the bar. I walked toward the edge of the alley. "Looking for me?" I called out.
The man grinned lecherously and stepped towards me. My fist crashed into the large man's throat, effectively cutting off his air. Less than thirty seconds later, he was groaning on the ground, one arm clutched around his ribs and the other hand protectively held over his groin. "You'll remember this the next time you slip something into a woman's drink? Won't you?" I hissed in his ear.
I turned to look at Hotch, smiling in grim satisfaction, "We all do what we need to do in order to survive," I said.
"Emily," he tried again.
"Don't get dead in the Middle East. It's not what it's cracked up to be," I hissed as I turned my back on him and walked away. I was barely controlling my tears at that point, but I held on until I got back to my hotel room. Then I collapsed onto the bed and sobbed.
Hotch and his connection to my old life was the caveat that spurred me forth into the next part of the grief cycle - depression. I stayed holed up in my hotel room for nearly two weeks, where I cried and barely ate.
Acceptance came thirteen days after I saw Hotch. I couldn't keep living how I had been living. I piled together all of the slutty clothing I'd accumulated over the course of the previous few months and threw them down the trash chute. I bought different clothing, flowered summery blouses and skirts and slacks. I stayed away from bars. I prepared myself to remain anonymous and hidden forever. I started contemplating finding a job.
Then I got the call from Tom Kohler - the only person besides Hotch and JJ who knew I was alive - that Declan was in danger, and I flew home. I called Hotch before I boarded my plane and he briefed me on the situation. Then, in a hesitant voice, he asked. "Still beating up men in back alleys?"
I knew he was really asking where my head was at, and what kind of Emily was going to walk back into the BAU. "No," I whispered into the phone. "I gave that up a couple of months ago."
"Good," he said.
In my mind, I passed off the seven months in hiding as a grieving process that I no longer needed to think about because it wasn't real; it was over. As far as I knew, Hotch never told anyone about that brief encounter we had in Paris or what he knew I was up to while I was gone. And he never personally asked me about that time, or about how many men.
The answer is twenty-three.
In three months, in shithole bars spread across several countries, I'd beaten the crap out of twenty-three men.
There are four pumpkins on our porch, set off against the light gray paint on our railing and brick siding near our front door. Just eight days ago, on the Sunday morning after everyone came over to celebrate my birthday, we'd buckled Rory into her red, plastic wagon and walked a mile to a little pumpkin patch near our house.
She was wearing a brown sweater that had fall leaves knitted into the pattern that day. Her curly hair was wild and beautiful, and she laughed while running through the pumpkins on wobbly legs while Leon chased her. We drank hot apple cider before Derek took off his shoes to get into a bounce house with the kids. I joined them after seeing the fun they were having. I remember how Derek sat up against the red plastic of one corner of the bounce house, the air whirring and blowing, keeping it inflated, while I held hands with Leon and Rory. We bounced lightly and laughed as Rory became delirious with giggles.
"I love our life," Derek said to me over our laughter and the noise.
I glanced at him and grinned widely, "Me,too."
We walked back home that day without a care in the world, Rory back in the wagon surrounded by pumpkins, Derek pulling it with his free hand in mine, Leon running ahead and stomping on fallen leaves.
I can't believe that was only eight days ago. There's not a carefree feeling left in me now.
After a morning at the hospital and then at headquarters where Fran gave her official statement, we're finally home. Our plan went off without a hitch with no one pressing Fran for information than her original story.
The official paperwork would read that Patrick Joyce returned Fran to the US and then disappeared. Hotch would have to contact Interpol and various international police units. Patrick Joyce would likely end up on several "Most Wanted" lists. And when the mess was cleaned up at the house in England and DNA was run, there would be more questions that Fran wouldn't have the answers to because she was either drugged or locked in a basement, according to her statement.
Physically, JJ and I were in the clear. Emotionally, I was barely hanging on.
Hotch drove us home from Headquarters. My father rode in the passenger seat. Derek and I were in the middle row, a sleeping Rory in her car seat between us. Fran and Leon were in the back row of the Suburban, our son happy with his hand in Fran's and his head resting on her shoulder. Aside from breaking down into tears when he first saw Fran in the hospital and hugging her, he hadn't said much.
We'd all been relatively quiet in this final act of deception, playing our parts, but not talking unless asked a direct question.
It's 3:15 in the afternoon when we pull into our driveway and I take in the pumpkins on our front porch. I can see all the neighborhood kids in their fall jackets walking home from school. Leon smiles when he sees his friends. I can't imagine ever letting him walk to and from school again, let alone setting him loose in the neighborhood and letting him play. Maybe Derek's thoughts are keeping pace with mine, because he reaches over Rory's car seat and squeezes my shoulder.
We get out of the car and I pull Rory out of her seat. She keeps sleeping, her head resting on my shoulder. Ainsley, the little girl who lives next door, comes running up to Leon.
"You're back!" she says happily. "Daddy said your house was broken into. That's scary. He said you went to Chicago for a few days."
Leon nods. "Yes, we visited my Aunt Desiree and Aunt Sarah."
The lie rolls easily out his mouth and I feel myself inwardly cringe. Desiree and Sarah have no idea that Fran was even missing.
"Can you play?" asks Ainsley.
Leon glances at me and then at Fran, who is clearly exhausted. "Not right now. I have to make up the school work that I missed. Maybe tomorrow?"
Ainsley smiles and nods. "OK. And we can walk to school together in the morning."
Again, Leon glances at me. He nods his head at Ainsley not knowing what else to do. I have every intention of making that walk to school with them. The danger has passed, but everything still feels almost suffocatingly unsafe to me.
Derek and Hotch pull our bags out of the car and we head into the house. I watch as Derek disarms our alarm and sets the bags in the living room. Our house is like it always is - warm and inviting. It surprises me that it still feels that way.
I watch my father gently guide Fran to the couch, his arm around her waist. When she's seated, she looks at me and Rory. "Can I?" she asks.
I smile and bring Rory to her. "Of course."
I nestle our sleeping baby in the security of Fran's arms and watch as she begins to cry, kissing Rory's forehead. I touch Fran's head and quickly turn, biting back my own tears.
Hotch inclines his head towards the den. He wants the real story now, as does Derek. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest and I want to buy myself a little more time.
"Hang on a second," I say. "I want to check something out first. Leon, can you keep Nana and Grandpa company?"
Leon nods and goes to sit next to my father on the couch, his eyes curious, wondering what I'm up to.
Derek and Hotch follow me to the kitchen and to the door that leads to our backyard. "There was a picture at the house in England. From Derek's birthday party. I just need to see."
I don't know why this has been weighing on my mind. It's over. They're all dead. But they'd been so close, at least since June. So close, just waiting for the moment they could break Patrick out of jail so that they had a pilot.
Hotch and Derek follow me down the path that leads to the dock, but I hang a left before I hit the wooden planks. I creep carefully between the bramble and the water's edge and make my way towards the angle I think that picture was taken from, and it's not hard to find at all, now that I'm looking. A couple of candy wrappers, dirt that's been clearly more disturbed than the surrounding ground, a couple of broken branches. Crouched down, they would have been easily hidden by bushes from both the house and the dock.
I look towards our home. From here, I can see our decking, our backyard, the french doors that lead into our living room, and I have a perfect view of Leon's treehouse. How often had he and Henry and his other friends been right there in our backyard, just ten or fifteen feet away from this place? I feel a chill run down my back.
"I want to clear all these bushes," I say to Derek softly.
I feel his hand on the back of my neck and fight the urge to pull away from him. "I'll call someone tomorrow."
Tomorrow, when we're both supposed to head back to work like we'd really just taken a few days after our house was broken into. There's no way in hell we're both going to be thirty minutes away in DC. It doesn't matter to me that Penelope said she's come over and help with Rory during the day since Fran won't be up for it. It doesn't matter to me that I'm only scheduled for a four hour translation block at the State Department and then I can come back home. At the moment I can't think of a single other language I speak; all I can see is us both in DC and something going wrong.
But I nod at Derek and smile slightly, turning my body and heading towards the house. I pull my jacket more tightly around me and sit on the steps of our back porch. I don't want to talk about this in the house. Derek sits next to me, linking his fingers with mine, and Hotch stands before both of us. I spill out the story to Hotch and Derek from the moment JJ found me at the airport until the moment we got on the plane back home.
I'm prepared to tell them about that baby. I know I need to. But when I get to that part of the story, what I'd told Fran is what comes out of my mouth. The floor gave after the bombs exploded. Marietta and the baby fell."
It's the first lie I've told Derek since I found him over two years ago and it settles thickly over me, making my stomach churn and my eyes sting. I squeeze his hand and he releases my fingers and wraps his arms around me. "Thank you," he whispers against my neck.
I glance at Hotch from the safety of Derek's arms and catch him looking at me in a way I haven't seen since he found me in a dark alley in Paris five years ago; the look of a man whose stunned to know what I'm capable of when I'm feeling wronged, angry and scared. He looks like he's worried about me, and that's the last thing I want right now. I do a decent job of faking a smile to reassure him.
I've already exhausted my vigilante justice in this situation. There won't be men in dark alleys where I viciously hunger to prove my strength and unleash my anger. All that's inside me is regret.
If I'd just been a little bit stronger, I could have saved that baby.
I'd said that to myself the whole flight home, and perhaps it was partially true. But I know myself well enough to know that my strength is just barely scratching the surface of the issues that feel insurmountable inside me right now.
Later that night, when we get Fran settled in the guest room and I implore my father to stay in the den with us until we can get an alarm on his cabin, after the kids are settled in their own beds for the first time in days, I brace myself for what's to come.
When Derek slides into bed behind me and presses his chest against my back, I try to relax so he won't feel my tension. When he reaches his hand under the t-shirt I'm wearing and snakes his fingers gently over my skin and between my breasts so they rest over my heart, I try to take calming breaths.
"Do you want to talk?" he asks.
I shake my head and bite back tears. "I'm so tired. We both need sleep."
His lips against my neck are the same soft lips that have sent me off to sleep in a similar fashion countless times before, but I can't find comfort in them.
"I love you," I whisper. Because I do and always will, but I'm scared because I don't know if he can love me the same as he did before if I tell him the truth - how I let go of that little sweater and watched for just a second while the red curly hair of a toddler blew in the air before his body fell to the burning ground below.
"I love you, too, Emily. Things will start feeling normal again."
I nod and bite my lip, swallowing past the the lump in my throat.
I wait for several minutes until his breathing evens out, and then I wait several more for him to fall into a deep sleep. I test the waters by moving his arm that's under my t-shirt. When he doesn't wake, I slip quietly out of the bed. I check on the kids and peek in on Fran. I check the alarm panel and then every window and door in the house.
Finally, I go to the room on the first floor that holds Derek's exercise equipment. I start with push-ups, feeling like if I can just get my upper body strength back to the condition it was two years before, when I'd carried both JJ and Clyde from a burning house, I might eventually be able to close my eyes and stop seeing Adrian's body falling from my hand.
