Sheesh, you guys are amazing! I know a lot of you want to see more team (and also Hotch/Em scenes), and those are on the way, I promise! I absolutely love reading everything you all have to say, it always makes me smile. Seriously, when I check my email and see there's a new review I can't help but smile like a dummy. But anyway, these next few chapters are obviously going to be a bit heavy and pretty sad. I'm sure, though, with Jack and Henry around I'll be able to throw some cute sadness breakers your way! Thanks for sticking with me thus far, guys!

XxxxxX

When Emily woke, she didn't recognize her surroundings. Everything was incredibly bright. She was in a small observation area, lying on a bed. The curtains were pulled to ensure her privacy. Her vision was a bit blurry, but she could make out two other figures in the room. JJ and George.

She wanted to say something, but she couldn't find her voice. She shifted slightly in the bed, making just enough noise for JJ to glance over at her.

"Emily," she said softly, stepping closer and reaching out for her friend's hand.

"What...happened?" Emily frowned, trying to remember. She didn't remember passing out, but quickly she remembered why she was back at this hospital, and she almost wished she would pass out again.

"You fainted. Doctor that checked you out said it was just from the initial shock coupled with exhaustion and low blood sugar." JJ said softly. "They were just keeping you here until you woke up, but they said you'll be fine." She managed a small smile.

"Do you remember how you got here?" George asked gently, coming to stand on the other side of the bed next to Emily.

Emily sat up, wishing they would stop coddling her but knowing she wouldn't be able to get them to stop.

"I remember you telling me..." Emily trailed off. She couldn't say the words because she knew as soon as she did her resolve would break. She couldn't let that happen. Not yet.

"I want to see her. Can we...are we allowed to do that?" Emily asked, biting her lip.

"We can, we were waiting for you to wake up." George told her.

"Okay..." Emily breathed. "Okay." She forced herself to stand up. She felt a little dizzy, but she ignored it.

She pulled back the curtain and almost immediately a petite, red-haired woman in bright blue scrubs was at her side.

"I'm glad you're awake," she said with a bright smile. Emily just stared back at her and tried to walk away, but the red head gently grabbed her elbow. "I just need to ask you a few questions before you leave. Protocol." She smiled again, this time smaller and less annoying.

"I'm fine," Emily said curtly, glancing at the name tag on her scrub top. "Doctor Avery." She added.

"Just humor me," Doctor Avery said as she asked questions like what year is it, what's your birthday, who's the current president, all things Emily knew they had to ask if they suspected a concussion. She didn't remember hitting her head at all, but maybe she had. She didn't really care enough to ask.

Finally, Doctor Avery cleared her and Emily immediately started moving. She didn't even know where she was supposed to go. She stopped and let JJ and George catch up to her, George leading the way to where Elizabeth's body was.

JJ walked silently beside Emily, wanting to say something but knowing nothing was going to be enough.

Emily wanted to run. She wanted to go find a place where she could be alone, because the empathetic looks JJ kept giving her were driving her crazy. She knew JJ was just being a good friend, and she was so glad to have someone like her in her life; but she just wanted to be alone. She felt like she was trying to breathe underwater.

She felt JJ slide an arm around her shoulder. Though Emily wanted to shy away, she didn't. She let JJ comfort her. She felt the tingle of tears at the back of her eyes, but she couldn't let them fall. Not yet.

Finally, they had reached the morgue. Nothing had been done to Elizabeth's body yet, but soon enough a mortician would be there. To prepare her mother for a funeral. Her funeral. Her burial. The words hardly made any sense to Emily.

Emily took a breath before forcing herself to walk in, falling into step behind George. JJ waited outside, prepared to step in if Emily needed her.

George and Emily were greeted inside the door by a man who looked who be around George's age. He identified himself and shook their hands and expressed his condolences, but Emily couldn't repeat back a single word he said. She just kept staring at the floor, anxiously biting her lip and blinking away tears.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" George asked, just loud enough for her to hear as he slipped a protective arm around her shoulder.

Emily nodded, her dark hair falling in her face. She tucked it back behind her ear, never looking up to meet his eye. "I have to," She said weakly.

Together, they followed the man back farther into the room. Emily wanted to turn around and run, but she knew she couldn't.

Emily let out an audible gasp when she saw her mother.

She didn't mean to, she'd never been one to show her feelings; but she didn't really care about that right now.

She was used to death—she investigated it among other terrible things for a living—but there's nothing like seeing someone you know and love lying on a cold, metal table, completely void of life. She'd lost a few friends in her life, Matthew, Tsia…but she'd never experienced a death so close to her. Her grandfather died when she was too young to really understand it. As far as she knew, her father was still alive. She hadn't heard from him in years, nor did she really want to.

Emily stared at Elizabeth's body for a moment, wondering how someone could look so vastly different even just a few hours after death. The woman lying on the table hardly even looked like Elizabeth. She glanced over to George, noticing the tears in his eyes.

She took a breath before she spoke, needing answers though she knew they couldn't calm her. "Were you here?" She managed. "When…when it happened?"

George looked up at her and nodded. "She was asking about that picture of you and her by her bed again. Nothing seemed wrong, but then she…she just started seizing and machines started beeping and the nurses came rushing in. They made me leave, but I stood outside the door. I know I heard them trying to revive her at least twice. But then Doctor Greene came to me and somehow I just…I just knew. He didn't even have to say anything. It's like the second it happened I felt it." George told her, his voice slow and surprisingly calming despite his melancholy tone.

"I don't understand…what…did it?" She asked, unable to utter the words what killed her? Or how did she die? As if not saying them would somehow make it untrue.

"Aneurysm. Even though they did extensive scans and checked up on her daily, they didn't catch it because it was so small and in a part of her brain where even if they had caught it, they couldn't have done anything about it, anyway. It just…happened. There was no warning, no time to say goodbye." George continued. Emily almost wished she'd never asked, she'd never seen him look so confused and broken.

Emily closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to shake the images of doctors looming over her mother and trying to revive her out of her mind.

She stepped a little closer to the table, knowing she needed to get this closure, no matter how hard it was.

"I'm sorry," Emily whispered to the body on the table. "I'm so, so sorry." She wasn't exactly sure what she was apologizing for. Maybe for all the things she'd done as a teenager to intentionally get a rise out of her mother. Maybe for not trying harder at being a better daughter in her adult life. Maybe for the sudden loss of Elizabeth Prentiss' amazing life. Maybe for not being there when she died. She didn't know. "I love you, I hope you knew that." She said softly.

Emily stepped back, allowing George to step closer and say anything he felt he needed to say. She didn't listen because she knew he didn't listen to her, she owed him these last moments with the woman he'd always loved. She looked at her mother's body again, one last time. She'd been doing so well at keeping her composure; but when she saw the sling that held Elizabeth's arm close to her body, she knew she'd lost all composure.

Elizabeth's body never even got the chance to heal itself properly before she died. How was that fair? How was the Alzhiemer's, the memory loss, the assisted living housing, the stroke…how was any of that fair? Suddenly angry, Emily wondered what the point of anything was. Was there any sort of reasoning for things like this happening? Was there some kind of lesson to learn, some kind of vendetta the universe or God or whatever had against human beings? It had to be something like that, for it to be so random and mean, she decided.

Emily whimpered, something very uncharacteristic of her, and felt her legs give out underneath her. Before she could fall, she felt George wrap an arm around her and steady her back on her feet. She furiously wiped at tears that finally started to fall, unable to stop them.

"It's okay, Emily. It's okay." She heard him whisper softly. They were walking out of the room, but Emily felt like she wasn't moving. Like the few feet between her mother's body and the door lasted for an eternity, like she was stuck in some kind of strange limbo; where the world stopped and all that existed now was her and George.

As soon as George pushed the door open, JJ wrapped Emily in a hug.

"I'm so sorry, Emily." JJ told her as she held her friend tightly to her, running a hand up and down Emily's back like she might for Henry.

Emily said nothing. What was there to say? It's okay seemed incredibly wrong, because it most definitely was not okay. Thank you seemed like a stupid response. She wanted to push JJ away, because the tighter JJ hugged her, the more she started to cry. She could hardly breathe; the sobs were coming so fast and so ferociously.

After what felt like days, JJ finally let Emily go and placed a hand on each of Emily's shoulders.

"Can I do anything?" JJ asked quietly.

Emily shook her head. "I…need to walk for a bit. I'll be back." Emily said, her words running together so quickly she'd be surprised if JJ had heard her. She spun around and walked as fast as her shaky legs would take her down to the main floor and outside.

She breathed in the abnormally cool early summer night air. It seemed like even the weather was sad tonight, Emily mused as she walked down the sidewalk, not even sure where it may lead her. She wiped at her eyes constantly. She hated crying. Not because it signaled weakness, because she'd learned that wasn't the case most of the time. She hated it because she felt out of control, and for someone like Emily who always liked to have a handle on things, that was an uncomfortable feeling.

Her vision got so blurry from the flow of tears that she had to stop walking. Frustrated, Emily looked around, wishing the sidewalk was tall enough to engulf her. She noticed a little outdoor café area not too far away. She knew it would be closed at this hour, but anyone could get to the chairs and tables. She'd probably get run off by someone, but she didn't really care.

She slowly walked toward a table and sat down at a chair. She pulled her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms atop her knees, resting her forehead on her arms to shield her face from anyone who might happen to pass by. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop crying. It was annoying and tiring and all she wanted was to make this feeling go away. It felt like the entire world had been thrown off its axis.

That was true, at least, for Emily's world.

For so many years, she'd resented her mother. Then, she'd learned to tolerate her and had learned how to get along with her. But lately, she'd grown close with her mother. She hadn't even realized how much she had missed out on until recently. Elizabeth Prentiss was full of light, humor, and many stories that Emily knew that now she'd never hear. She'd never even known it until it was almost too late.

While she was immensely grateful that now she actually knew her mother, she was mostly angry at herself for not trying sooner. She could feel that pang of guilt creeping up in her chest. Guilt for not being there when her mother died. The logical, rational part of Emily knew she shouldn't feel this way. How could she have possibly known her mother was going to die tonight? No one could have predicted that. But still, Emily should have been there. She should have been with George as he was recanting the story in the photo for the hundredth time. She should have been there to stand with him as the medical personnel tried to revive her. She should have been there to hug him after Doctor Greene told him what had happened.

But she wasn't. She was a few miles away, laughing and being happy.

She knew she shouldn't feel guilty about that, either. But she couldn't help it. Blaming herself was a lot easier than thinking about her mother. Blaming herself was simple, it made sense. Trying to understand the whys and the what ifs and the should have, could have, would haves surrounding her mother's death was surely going to give her a panic attack if she didn't stop dwelling on them.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there in that chair, trying to make herself as small as possible; invisible to the world. Eventually, she'd cried as much as she could. She sighed and made herself stand up. She needed to get back to the hospital. George needed a friend right now, and he and JJ were probably getting worried. So, she walked the few short blocks back to the hospital, feeling somehow even worse than she had when she'd left.