author's notes: well, this wrote itself faster than anticipated :)) major spoilers for 7x01 (It Takes A Village), and i also took some dialogue from the episode. this is my own interpretation of how Emily comes back, it's not a comment on how the show did it. i've struggled a lot with this storyline, mostly because the show did it very well, but i tried to give it a different twist nonetheless. Inwenalas has assured me that i focused on exactly all the right moments :)) i hope everyone likes the chapter! thanks so much to everyone leaving me comments!
characters: Reid/Leighton (OC), Hotch, Morgan, JJ, Rossi, Garcia, Prentiss, Ian Doyle, mention of Declan and Strauss
disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination
SCARS REMIND US WHERE WE'VE BEEN;;
chapter twenty-four
date: October 29th-30th, 2012
(1)
"Exactly how long have you had Declan under surveillance?" Hotch asks, staring at Morgan hard. When Morgan had called him earlier it was like he'd called a national alert—deep down maybe he'd known Morgan was still investigating Doyle, but he never thought he'd go this far in his pursuit. Hotch had hoped he'd eventually just give up.
"Since I found him this February," Morgan answers. The rest of the team stands fanned out around the conference room table. So far most of them haven't said anything, but are waiting for either Hotch or Morgan to tell them what to do.
"Morgan, I never authorized any of this," Hotch says, arms crossed over his chest.
"Everyone in this room understands why I had to do this, Hotch," Morgan argues. Is Hotch really going to stand there and condemn what he did? "I waited this long to tell you because I wasn't sure it'd pan out," he adds. "I didn't want any of you involved until I was sure." Most of all he didn't want any of his team to sign up for that hurt all over again. Now it's different. Now they'll be getting justice.
"This is not our case," Hotch says.
"The hell it isn't," Morgan answers, tone strong and defensive. "I don't give a damn about jurisdiction, Hotch. This is the son of a bitch who killed Emily!" he says. How can Hotch stand there and tell him this? "You're just going to step aside and let someone else take care of this?"
"Morgan, it has to be legal," JJ interjects. They all want the same thing, they all want to see Doyle brought to justice, but they can't just risk all their careers by doing whatever they want.
"Don't you dare, JJ, you weren't even there," Morgan says.
JJ's eyes are struck with hurt.
"Morgan, that's not fair," Reid says, reacting to Morgan's words immediately. He has to admit he's with Morgan on this one, but he understands that Hotch has to consider the politics of this, and more importantly, he has to protect the team from any backlash. But they all lost Emily. Including JJ.
Morgan sighs, leaning his arms down on the chair in front of him. "I'm sorry," he says. He knows he suffers from tunnel vision when it comes to Doyle, he can't help it. None of the others were there with Emily in her last moments.
Hotch takes a deep breath. "If we do this, we'll do this right," he says. This is the least he can do for his team. "I'll talk to Strauss. We know this case and we know Doyle. I'll make sure it's official."
Morgan straightens himself out, his shoulders relaxing. Now they're getting somewhere.
"Morgan, you, JJ and Leighton track down Doyle," Hotch orders. "Dave, you and Reid get Declan in protective custody."
They all leave the room in silence to grab their gear; Morgan, JJ and Rossi back to their offices, Leighton and Reid to their desks in the bullpen.
"Hey, are you okay?" Leighton asks, grabbing her gun from a drawer and strapping it to her belt. She'd much rather not ask at all, but Reid hasn't looked at her once since they got Morgan's call this morning.
"I'm fine," Reid says, without looking at her.
"Spence," Leighton insists, one hand held out, stepping in front of him when he tries to pass her.
"Morgan's right," he says, fidgety, still avoiding her eyes. "Doyle killed Emily, this is our case."
Leighton stays silent because she gets it—she pursued Mumford and later Sylvia Burke's killer with little regard for anyone else's feelings. It's why she never stopped Morgan, but merely kept an eye on him. It's why she'll give Reid some space to deal with his feelings now, instead of insist that he takes it slow. If they're really onto Doyle's trail things won't slow down any time soon.
Reid finds Leighton's eyes; he's been avoiding them to circumvent any guilt. "I'm okay," he amends. He doesn't want to push Leighton away now; she might not have known Emily like he did, but they were friends. And after all this time Leighton deserves better from him. "I promise."
Leighton nods, and lets Reid pass her. It's not long after that Rossi joins her. "Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid?" she asks, knowing that Rossi will understand what she means.
"Make sure Morgan doesn't do anything he'll regret," Rossi says. Leighton nods, both of them disregarding any further pleasantries—they're on the job now, a job more important than all the others because they're doing this for Emily, one of their own that got lost. Today's about Emily, and their own peace of mind.
But when Reid and Rossi get to Declan's school the principal tells them he went home because he was sick. They try to catch him at home, but the house has been trashed, the two FBI agents that were supposed to be protecting Declan both dead.
When JJ, Leighton and Morgan survey Doyle's apartment, there's no sign of him either.
(2)
He doesn't know what he's been telling himself all these months. How exactly had he hoped this would end? He knew this moment would come eventually, that his team would find out just how much he kept from them, that he didn't suffer like they did because he hid Emily away from the world.
"Everyone please take a seat," Hotch says, trying very hard to keep his voice even. There's nothing he can do now, Emily's on her way here, her worry for Declan more important to her than her own safety.
Most of the team sits down around the table; JJ is standing next to him. Morgan looks around in confusion. "Why?" he asks, and doesn't sit down.
Hotch thinks it's best he just cuts to the chase. "Last year I made a decision that affected this team," he starts, hoping his team will allow him to get it all out first, and ask questions later. "As you all know Emily lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle—"
Everyone in the room casts down their eyes; they don't need to hear this again. "But the doctors were able to stabilize her," Hotch adds. Garcia looks up at him and frowns, tears in her eyes already, "and she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under covert exfiltration. Her identity was strictly need-to-know."
Everyone's but JJ's eyes are focused on him. It's so silent he thinks that if he stops speaking now they'll be able to hear a pin drop. "She stayed there until she was well enough to travel. She was reassigned to Paris, where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security."
He looks up, staring straight into Morgan's eyes. A quiet shock ripples through the entire room. He never wanted to do this to his team, he never wanted to put them through the grief of losing a colleague and friend and then find out it was all a deception. But he had to, to keep Emily safe, to keep them all safe.
Garcia blinks, a tear running down her cheek. "She's—She's alive?" Garcia stutters.
Reid looks up at Hotch. "But we buried her," he says, his voice small. He carried Emily's coffin, shed an endless amount of tears for her for weeks. He almost lost himself mourning for Emily.
"As I said I take full responsibility for the decision," Hotch says, his heart breaking where he stands. He did this to all of them; to Reid, always afraid of losing someone close to him; to Morgan, closed off from the world because trust never comes easy to him; to Garcia, who gives herself completely and asks for so little in return; to Rossi, closer to this team than anyone will ever realize. And to Leighton, whom he forced on all of them, to ease his own guilt, to mend them as a group. It wasn't fair to them and it wasn't fair to her. "If anyone has any issues they should be directed toward me."
Morgan looks around the room. Why isn't anyone reacting, he thinks, why isn't anyone utterly disgusted by what they just heard? "Any issues?" Morgan asks. "Yeah, I got issues!"
A shiver runs up Leighton's spine; she can see Morgan's anger in his entire body. "Morgan—" Leighton starts, but she barely gets a word in. She can feel her own throat closing up with a mixture of relief and puzzlement.
"You lied to us?" Morgan says, shaking where he stands, but he doesn't raise his voice. "You've been lying to us this entire time?"
"Morgan—" It's Garcia that tries this time, but Morgan never once takes his eyes off Hotch.
"Why are you telling us now?" Leighton asks, hoping to distract Morgan, if only for a second.
"Declan got a call in," Hotch explains. "She's on her way here."
Morgan's anger melts instantly. "She's—" he breathes, but turns his back on everyone to spare them his tears. Emily, the strong. Emily, the brave. Alive.
"Right now we have to focus on finding Doyle," Hotch says.
But Morgan has an entirely different idea—he all but runs from the conference room. Almost everyone else around the table is too stunned to do anything. Leighton looks at Reid, but he's staring down at the floor, frowning to himself, clearly struggling to process everything. When Leighton motions to get up and follow Morgan, she looks up at Hotch, but he merely nods, understanding why she has to.
"Morgan," Leighton calls out, catching up with him in the hallway outside the bullpen. She thinks he's probably headed to his office. "Morgan!" she calls again when he makes no move to stop.
"What, Tanner?" he shouts, and turns to face her.
"You have to calm down," Leighton says, keeping her voice steady. It won't help anyone if she loses her temper too. Something tells her she'll be doing that for a while. "Not for Hotch, but for you." Morgan shakes his head, avoiding her eyes. "Come on, Morgan. Doyle still needs to be brought in. And don't forget about Declan."
"So you're just okay with all this?" Morgan asks. "But then I suppose it's not the same for you. You hardly knew Emily."
It's a low blow and Morgan knows it, that's why Leighton doesn't react, but that doesn't mean he'll get away with this completely. "She was my friend too, Morgan," Leighton says tersely. She's sure that soon she'll feel the weight of Hotch's deception as well, not just in her relationship with Reid, but for herself. If Hotch knew Emily was alive all this time, why did he assign her to the team?
(3)
"So what do we know?" Rossi asks, finally having assembled everyone in the bullpen. Reid's in his chair behind his desk, Leighton had offered Garcia her chair, Rossi and Morgan are standing, their backs to the conference room, where Hotch and JJ are talking. Rossi knows they separated themselves to give the others some space to breathe—judging by the state Reid and Garcia are in, they could use it.
"Doyle hired a team to take Declan, but according to my contact at Interpol he's still in DC," Morgan answers. "Why hasn't he tried to leave the country?"
"Maybe he lacks the resources," Leighton says, leaning back against the partition between Reid's desk and hers. She's glad everyone seems momentarily focused on the problem at hand, rather than spend their time being angry at Hotch or JJ.
"Last time he surfaced the entire state was on alert," Morgan picks up on Leighton's train of thought. "He can't go anywhere without risking exposure."
"What if it's something more?" Reid asks, staring out into oblivion but apparently still completely involved in the conversation.
"You think he knows Emily's alive," Rossi says.
Leighton looks at Reid. "You think that revenge is more important to him than his son?" she asks. From experience she knows revenge can be a very strong motivator, but would Doyle really take that big a chance? He stands every chance of getting caught again, and then where will he be?
"It could be," Reid answers. "It got him here last time when he thought Emily had killed Declan. Even now she's still the one that put him in prison and took away the one thing that he loved." If Doyle's really that fixed on Emily, blaming her for everything that happened to him and his son, who's to say what lengths he'll go to get his revenge?
"Still," Rossi says, "It's an awfully big risk."
"A man is capable of a lot of things when he has nothing left to lose," Leighton says, looking at Rossi. "Maybe it's—" she stops talking because she loses her words. Someone just walked into her peripheral vision that she hasn't seen there for a very long time, and it's shocking how strongly it affects her. At the other end of the room, through the glass doors to the bullpen, Emily walks in.
Morgan and Rossi turn to see what has caught Leighton's attention while Garcia and Reid rise up from their chairs. For a moment or two, they're all stunned into silence.
"Oh my God," Garcia says, snapping out of her reverie, and runs over to Emily. Reid follows immediately behind, and Rossi follows him seconds later.
Leighton looks at Morgan, trying to scope his reaction, but Morgan is unreadable. His eyes are sad, though something tells Leighton there's no one happier to see Emily alive. She wonders if he'll make his way over to Emily, or push her away altogether. It can't be easy, Leighton thinks, grieving the death of a friend and then have her show up again as if nothing happened at all. But something did happen, Emily got ripped away from them so suddenly and painfully that it left a scar in all of them. And some scars heal faster than others.
"I'm sorry," Emily says, hugging Garcia in a tight embrace. Even when Emily lets go to hug Reid, Garcia doesn't release Emily's hand. "I'm so sorry," Emily repeats, her arms around Reid now.
Morgan walks over at the sound of Emily's voice. It's real, he thinks, she's really here.
Leighton breathes a small sigh of relief and follows as well.
"You have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you," Emily says, looking around the room at all her friends. "There's not a day that went by when I didn't—" She finally lays eyes on Morgan—thinking of Morgan had been the hardest. He was with her last and he told her to hold on. He made her fight for her life, fight to live and here she was. Alive because of Morgan.
"Really," Emily insists, taking a step closer to Morgan. "You didn't deserve that." She opens her arms tentatively, because Morgan doesn't move, but she still hugs him. It's what they both need. "I'm so sorry," she says it again because what other words can she use? There are no words to describe what she's feeling.
(4)
It comes as no surprise to anyone when Emily offers herself up as bait to lure Doyle out. But everyone knows that's exactly what he wants, it's what he expects, and he'll have everything planned out to the last detail. Leighton wants to tell herself that it's exactly what she did in San Francisco, except Charles Baker wasn't an international terrorist or arms dealer; Ian Doyle is too unpredictable to set up like this.
"He'll never have Declan with him," Emily says.
"Won't he want to keep him close?" Leighton asks.
Emily shakes her head. "Trust me, there's nothing Ian Doyle cares more about than his son," she says. "He won't risk putting him in the middle of all that."
"He'll most likely have Declan in a separate location," Reid says.
"We need to find that location," Hotch says. "Intercept them before they get to the rendezvous."
"How do we do that?" Garcia asks.
"Find out where he's hiding," Morgan answers. "Figure out who he's working with and pinpoint a location."
"I'll help Garcia with a list of possible associates," Emily says.
"Good," Hotch says, arms crossed over his chest. "Reid, pinpoint any location Doyle could be using." Reid nods without looking at Hotch. "Morgan and Leighton, I want you to sit down with SWAT and come up with a preliminary tactical assault."
Morgan leaves the conference room, followed by Reid a few seconds later. The whole room can feel the tension, but none so much as Emily, Hotch and JJ—whatever tension there is, whether it's born from anger or general disappointment, it's directed at the three of them. Leighton tries her best to appear as calm as Rossi, who for some reason seems unaffected by most of what happened today. She can't help but wonder why that is.
When Leighton makes her way out of the conference room to look for Morgan, she finds Reid making coffee for himself. Of course, Leighton thinks, no matter how distracted he gets he'll always need his coffee. "Are you okay?" she asks, grabbing a mug for herself from an overhead cupboard.
"I'm fine," Reid answers, but doesn't look up from the coffee he's pouring. "And I really wish you'd stop asking me that," he adds.
"You're right, I probably shouldn't," Leighton says. It's a reversal of roles this time, and maybe it makes her a hypocrite. She's never one to talk about her innermost feelings, and she'd still be hard-pressed to do so to anyone else but Reid. And she's not asking for a quid pro quo either—she's just worried, and doesn't want to be blamed for not caring somewhere down the line. "But I'm going to worry anyway."
"Really?" Reid asks, adding sugar to his coffee. "Why is that?"
Leighton takes a step closer and lowers her voice. "Because I'm not just a profiler, I'm also your girlfriend," she says. She doesn't want an apology – it shouldn't always come down to who's right and who's wrong in an argument, but Reid has to realize she's not going to stop asking him if he's okay just because it annoys him. In fact, the more it annoys him, the more she'll ask. Just like he would.
"I don't see how that's relevant," Reid says, and leaves Leighton alone in the kitchenette.
Leighton sighs, but doesn't pursue Reid. She knows it's his way of dealing, keeping everything inside much like she does, and that he's taking it to extremes because they're at work and he wants to be professional, especially now. It doesn't mean that she has to like it.
"Hey," Emily says, joining Leighton from the conference room. "Is everything okay with—"
Leighton looks over at Reid, sitting alone behind his desk. "Oh, yeah, don't worry about it," she says. She'll worry herself, but she doesn't want to blame Emily for anything. Emily didn't have a choice. "I think everyone's just a little—"
"Overwhelmed?" Emily asks. "I don't blame them," she says. "How about you?"
"I'm—okay," Leighton hesitates. She's not sure why, but she's not angry at Hotch, and even understands why he did it. Maybe it's best she can take a step back from this. That doesn't mean she'll accept Hotch's deception right away. It's already bleeding through in Morgan's and Reid's behavior; they both have issues with what JJ and Hotch kept from them. "But mostly for Reid and Morgan."
Emily nods. "You have no idea how much I appreciate that," she says. She realized a long time ago that if she ever came back it wouldn't be easy for her. Part of her wanted to think of it as unfair, because she had little other choice, but she knows she can't. Everyone on the team mourned her death, she merely regretted the distance she had to take from them. "I was sorry to hear about Ashley."
"Yeah." Leighton casts down her eyes. Morgan almost lost himself in his guilt over Ashley—after losing Emily it was too much for him to take. And now, that was all for nothing? "She's doing well," Leighton says to distract herself. She meant what she told Morgan; this wasn't Emily's fault. "It's hard work, but that's not going to stop her."
Emily nods.
"It's really good to have you back, Emily," Leighton says, putting a hand on Emily's arm. Others have said it, mostly JJ and Garcia, but it can't hurt Emily to hear it from someone else as well. In time Morgan and Reid will say the same thing.
"Thanks." Emily smiles.
(5)
The abandoned paper mill they track Doyle's movements to is a logistic nightmare. The mill consists of three buildings, two separate mills and a powerhouse, all with multiple entrances and exits and not enough points around the buildings for snipers to cover them all. Rossi and JJ take one SWAT team inside Mill One, while Emily and Hotch make their way through Mill Two with another SWAT team.
"Keep your eyes peeled, guys," Morgan says, Leighton and Reid by his side as they enter the powerhouse, SWAT members fanning out to cover adjacent rooms in the building. The mill had been idle since 2000, a fine layer of dust covering the floor and whatever equipment had been left behind. The footprints in the dust meant someone has been there very recently.
Shots sound from outside, probably from one of the other buildings. "Keep moving," Morgan orders, even though he doesn't really need to tell Reid or Leighton that. The word 'clear' resounds in their earpieces several times before they hear hurried footsteps in their section.
"FBI!" Morgan shouts, trying to discern anything in the darkness. "Freeze!"
But all they see is Doyle running from them, shooting back at them without looking. Morgan takes off after Doyle without thinking, without giving out any orders, without calling in SWAT. He takes off so fast that he misses Reid screaming, and falling to the floor.
"Spence!" Leighton shouts. Oh no, oh God no, Leighton thinks as she runs over to him.
Reid squirms on the floor. When Leighton turns him over she sees the bullet hit him in the chest, caught in the 'B' on his vest. Thank God. "I'm okay," Reid chokes out in pain, curling in a fetal position on the ground. "I'm okay!" he coughs. "Just go!" he calls, and Leighton realizes she let Morgan chase after Doyle on his own. Damn it, she curses herself.
"We got an officer down on the south end of the perimeter," Leighton communicates through the microphone attached to her bulletproof vest, and knows that a SWAT member will make his or her way to Reid to look out for him. Then she gets up, hoping to find Morgan quickly. "We got an armed suspect, possibly Ian Doyle, north of the powerhouse," Leighton shouts in her microphone, while keeping up a steady pace. Morgan should have been the one to do that.
It's when a gunshot resounds through the compound that Leighton breaks out in a sprint.
She has to push through three doors before she reaches Morgan, outside in a large courtyard surrounded by fences with barbed wire. Morgan's holding Doyle at gunpoint—Doyle's been shot in the shoulder, his gun on the ground and otherwise unarmed.
"Morgan, what are you doing?" Leighton asks, moving in, her gun trained on Doyle as well. But Morgan doesn't say anything. Was he planning on executing Doyle, Leighton wonders, is that what he's been building up to all these months? "Think about what you're doing, Morgan," Leighton says, not once losing sight of Doyle. "You're better than this."
But Morgan only takes a step closer to Doyle, and shoots him in the leg. Doyle falls down on the ground.
"Morgan, don't!" Leighton calls out. Her heartbeat spikes, adrenaline rushing through her veins, breathing hard. What the hell is she supposed to do? This isn't Morgan, this isn't the man she's gotten to know and respect. "Morgan, he's not worth it."
A smile creeps to the corners of Ian Doyle's mouth, despite the fact that he's in a considerable amount of pain. "Go ahead then, Agent," he says, hands raised in surrender. "Shoot me yourself."
"Shut up!" Morgan shouts. "Just shut up!"
"Morgan, if you do this you'll never forgive yourself." Leighton shakes her head, how is she supposed to temper Morgan's rage at this point? He's already crossed a line they shouldn't. "Please, Derek," she adds. "This is what he wants. Emily wouldn't want this, Derek."
Morgan hesitates; his head feels hot with anger, his heart racing a thousand miles an hour. Emily wouldn't want this? he wonders, no, she'd want to do it herself. He shakes his head, his anger making way for sorrow, tears touching his eyes. Emily. Alive. "You got him?" Morgan asks, doing everything in his power to keep his voice steady.
"I got him," Leighton assures him, her left-hand finger keeping a steady pressure on the trigger of her gun. "Hands behind your head, Doyle."
Morgan holsters his weapon and grabs his handcuffs off his belt. He moves in to make the arrest, Doyle sitting up on his knees unsteadily.
Morgan doesn't know how it happens, or where the shot comes from. It wheezes just past his left ear, and hits Doyle right between the eyes. "Tanner, get down!" Morgan shouts, dropping to the ground himself, trying to get back to Leighton.
"Who the hell is shooting?" Leighton shouts over the intercom.
"It's not us, ma'am," a male SWAT member calls back.
"Stay down," Morgan orders, but Leighton has no intention of moving.
Two buildings to the south, on a rooftop higher up than all the surrounding ones, Clyde Easter disassembles his sniper rifle without watching the aftermath of his shot. He came here for one thing and one thing alone— he doesn't need to see the ambulance take Doyle away, see the BAU question where the shot came from. He doesn't even need to see Emily. This was payback for what Doyle did to his team.
(6)
It's only a few hours later, but no one has been able to figure out who shot Doyle. Morgan had thrown around the idea the sniper had been Doyle's. "Maybe he decided he wasn't going to be taken alive this time," he says, anything to avoid talking about what happened in that courtyard. He knows he crossed the line, not just in his professional conduct, but with Leighton as well. She'd seen a side of him he didn't even know he possessed.
"Sniper could've taken us out," Leighton says, tossing an empty styrofoam cup in the trash. The tea in the hospital vending machine tasted like hot liquid sugar, but it relieved the tiredness in her body.
"Whatever." Morgan shrugs. "I'm not going to dwell on it."
"We got Declan. You got your man," Leighton says. "And Emily—" but at the sound of Emily's name, Morgan casts down his eyes. She can't be sure, but Leighton thinks she detects a hint of shame. "What's the matter?"
"It's just—" Morgan starts, but he doesn't know what he means to say. Emily is back. Emily's alive. There's a place in his heart for her that she always occupied, a place that Leighton helped heal these past eighteen months. He can't be anything but happy that Emily's alive, but accepting that his feelings of loss weren't real, unjustified, that'll take some time to process. "Let's just leave it at I'm happy to have her back."
"Okay," Leighton nods, thinking it best to leave things alone for now. They'll have more explaining to do later. "I better go check on Spence," Leighton adds, and leaves in search of Reid.
"Tanner," Morgan calls after her. He sees Leighton turn to face him. "I get it now," he says. Leighton frowns. "Why you did what you did in San Francisco." Somehow Leighton had found the strength to overcome her grief, she'd found a way not to let the case become too personal despite what she'd lost. And she'd gotten her man too, without firing a shot.
Leighton only smiles in response. She's not okay with what happened out there, she witnessed something so personal and bare, and she feels very uncomfortable knowing it. There will be people asking questions very soon and she needs to figure out what she'll tell them. For now, she needs to focus on Reid— she makes her way down the hallway, and finds Reid on a hospital bed in the ER. "So what's the verdict?" Leighton asks, watching Reid attempting to put on his shirt again. His sternum is black and blue from the impact of the bullet. Leighton walks over to help him button his shirt up.
"A few bruised ribs," Reid answers, wrapping an arm protectively around himself after Leighton has helped him up. They make their way to the front desk so Reid can sign his discharge papers. "Leigh?" Reid asks tentatively. "Do you think you could do that?" he asks. Leighton looks up at him. "Lie to anyone like that?"
Leighton doesn't need to think about it for long. "If it meant keeping someone safe— Yes," she answers.
Reid nods to himself; he can't say he disagrees. But there's a reason why he's asking. "Even if it meant lying to me?" he asks. Leighton looks at him, but never answers his question. Reid knows just as well as her that it's an impossible question to answer.
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