Elizabeth excused herself to make some phone calls while Hotch went back to Emily's room. The scene he came upon could only be described as some strange version of a Mexican stand off. The two guards Jones had stationed outside of Emily's room stood glaring at the rest of his team who were lined up on the opposite side of the hall. Someone had dragged a couple of chairs from the waiting room and Garcia, JJ and Rossi were sitting while Reid and Morgan stood, the latter glaring at the CIA men, his arms crossed.

When they saw Hotch, his team came over to him, though Morgan continually looked over at the guards with a glare.

"You okay?" Rossi asked. The last time he saw Hotch, the man looked like he was about to pummel Emily's father. "What did the Ambassador want?"

This would be the difficult part, how much should he tell the team about the deal he made with Elizabeth Prentiss? While he had expressed faith and confidence in re-integrating Emily back onto his team, he couldn't say for certainty that everyone would be as welcoming as he had led the Ambassador to believe. Knowing he had made a deal to get her back and essentially foisting Emily upon them before they might be ready, may not be looked upon kindly.

"She thinks Emily's father will try to move her tomorrow, ahead of schedule, and then try to keep us away from her," Hotch opted to say.

He watched as their faces hardened into determined looks. "Try being the operative word," Garcia spat out.

"Seriously, what is wrong with that guy?" Morgan asked.

"He's taking precautions," Hotch informed them.

"Is Emily still in danger?" Reid queried. He stole a look at the guards. "Why would he feel the need to post guards if this whole thing was over?"

"The Ambassador believes that Jones thinks there could be a threat, but more likely he's trying to keep Emily tethered to him."

"Why?" Rossi looked searchingly at Hotch.

"Emily mentioned someone having to have run Doyle's organization when he was in prison. It was too intact for that not to have happened."

"So they think the organization might still come after her?" JJ asked worriedly.

"I don't know, but what I do think is that Jones wants Emily's help to break that organization up. She told us that for the past two years, while tracking Doyle, she's also been disrupting their work. In fact, one of Doyle's men told us how much of a nuisance Emily has been to their business." Hotch sent his own glare towards the guards. "I'm not going to let her father whisk her away again and put her in the line of fire of whoever may be running Doyle's group." He directed his keen gaze towards JJ. "That's what happened last time, right JJ? Emily faking her death, it was all his idea?"

The young woman blushed slightly when everyone turned towards her. She nodded. "Yes. He said it was for her safety." Her chin went up defiantly. "And I agreed. It was way too dangerous for everyone if Doyle knew Emily was alive."

"Dammit, JJ!" Morgan snapped. "It wasn't your decision to make!" He stared intently at her. "Did Emily even have a say in it?"

"Not at first," JJ admitted reluctantly. "But when she was conscious, she agreed it was probably for the best. She was hurt badly, unable to defend herself."

"And she's hurt badly again," Hotch interjected, wanting to get them back on track and also stop Derek's dogged interrogation of JJ. Hotch planned to speak to her later to get the full story, but now they needed to concentrate on Emily. "Jones won't be able to spirit Emily away like last time."

"Damn straight he's not," Morgan snapped out.

"Which means at least two of us stay will need to be with her at all times until she's moved and we're ensure continued access to her. The Ambassador believes she'll be transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital where they can control security better. I know we're all exhausted so why don't you all get checked into a nearby hotel and I'll take the first watch."

"Hotch," Rossi protested. "You're the one who needs sleep the most. I can stay here with one of the others."

Hotch shook his head. He couldn't leave now, not at this critical point and not when they've just gotten Emily back. Too much had happened over the last 72 hours and he needed to process, but more than that, he kept feeling the need to reassure himself that she was back and here with him. Besides, he felt himself too keyed up to be able to sleep.

"Well, at least let one of us stay with you," Rossi continued, seeing that determined look in Hotch's eyes. "You did say to do this in pairs."

Hotch hesitated a moment and then nodded his head. "JJ, if you can stay, I'd like it to be you."

She looked warily at him, but nodded. She suspected Hotch picked her not because she looked like the least exhausted one of the group. JJ had a feeling that once they were alone, her former boss was going to turn that laser beam stare onto her and demand to know everything about her part in faking Emily's death.

Rossi still looked like he was about to object, but stopped when Garcia placed a hand on his arm. "Uh, sir, I think Hotch is right and we should all go and get some rest." She knew that look on Hotch's face too and while normally she would be concerned for JJ, Garcia herself wanted answers about what really happened two years ago and knew that Hotch was the best person to get them out of their former media liaison.

Rossi still looked like he wanted to protest, but finally nodded. When they started to leave, he gave Hotch and JJ one last speculative look before hurrying to join the others.

Silence fell over them, the two CIA agents having ignored whatever had transpired between the FBI agents, or at least given the appearance of ignoring them. JJ sent another wary glance at Hotch and moved towards the chairs her group had dragged into the hallway earlier when Hotch stopped her.

"We'll sit with Emily in her room," he said. He went to the door and saw the guards flick a glance at him. He simply shot them a look that dared them to try anything and went inside Emily's room. After a moment's hesitation, JJ followed.

A single soft light had been left on near the head of the bed. It was turned far enough away to not bother Emily, but provide enough light for the nurses to check the monitors and the physical state of the patient. From her deep and even breathing, Hotch and JJ knew their friend was still sleeping and they didn't want to do anything to disturb that sleep.

Hotch took a seat in a chair in the far corner of the room and JJ sat down in one next to him. For a few minutes, they simply sat there in silence, JJ occasionally throwing a worried look at Hotch. He simply stared forward, watching the gentle rise and fall of Emily's chest and listening to the comforting steady beeps emitted by the machines surrounding her. Since this whole ordeal began, he finally allowed himself a moment's peace, knowing she was alive and before him, where he could see her and if he wished, could simply reach out and touch her. Some of the tension leached out of his body, letting him feel the weariness in his bones. However, it was only some of the tension.

"So, what exactly happened two years ago?" he finally said in a low tone.

JJ sighed, knowing this was the reason he asked that she stay with him. Given the choice, he would have preferred Rossi or even Derek. But Hotch wanted answers and he wanted them now.

"The reason I was brought into the Doyle situation was my connection to Emily and the BAU," JJ began. "I suspected that Emily taking off for Boston wasn't exactly an expected move by the CIA. Now that we know Jones is actually Emily's father, some of this stuff makes sense. My guess is that he panicked when she went off the grid. I was told to provide you with every possible help to find Emily. I thought that was all I was doing until-," JJ swallowed hard.

"Everything went to Hell and Emily almost died," Hotch supplied grimly. God, they had made mess of that entire investigation. Sure it was easy to lay all the blame on Emily and her secrets, but if only one of them had kept their head, treated it like a normal investigation, they would have caught on sooner, at least picked up on the multitude of clues Emily had left for them and this whole mess could have been avoided.

"When she was brought to the hospital, Jones met me and told me his plans. Well, you pretty much know the rest. Emily's death was faked and she was taken out of the country to Paris to recover. We developed three aliases for her to use."

"What went wrong?"

"Someone hacked into my files and found the one on Emily. Only three people alive knew what those three aliases were, me, Jones and the Ambassador."

Hotch's head snapped around to look at JJ. "The Ambassador knew?"

"She found out after Emily's fake death was decided. She wasn't happy, to say the least, but Jones couldn't let her think that her daughter was dead."

"But she still had to play the part of a mourning parent," Hotch replied as he turned slowly back to watch Emily. "Who was the mole?"

"We don't know." JJ explained to him what happened since the breach in security was discovered. She told him how Emily had returned and the plan she had worked out to save them. Hotch felt his admiration for the brunette grow, along with his uncertainty. The woman JJ was describing, the strategic, methodical, CIA agent was not the Emily Prentiss he had come to know and trust in the years she was on his team.

"She should have come to us in the first place," Hotch said quietly.

"Would it have made a difference?" was JJ's response. She sighed. "The type of man Doyle was, his resources, Hotch, I'm not sure if we were capable of handling him." She bit her lip. "I think, I think if Emily had told us earlier we might have eventually wound up doing the same thing Jones did to her. Use her as bait." She hastily explained when Hotch turned outraged eyes towards her. "Think about it. How would we have tracked Doyle? He only appeared when he wanted to and the only way to draw him out was with Emily."

"I would have never used her as bait," Hotch snapped out. "I would have found Doyle."

"Would you? How close were you to finding him in the last two years? What if it dragged on and on? Would all of us have gotten a security detail? Me? Jack? Henry? Would you have kept Emily hidden permanently?" JJ shook her head. "I'm not sure the alternative of Emily telling us earlier would have been better."

"We would have been focused," Hotch mumbled. "That's where we screwed up two years ago. All of us were too distracted, not on top of our game. Hell, I wasted so much time with Easter and Rossi relied too much on Seaver. Reid and Morgan barely had anything to offer. It was like we were all operating at 10%."

"It's because we were missing a part of the team. We were missing Emily," JJ's quiet voice said.

They both turned to look at the sleeping woman. Hotch knew JJ was right. Things weren't the same without Emily. They hadn't really been the same without JJ either. He needed his team back, his family.

"JJ," Hotch asked. "What would you say about coming back to the BAU?"

She turned to look at him and he caught the flash of hope in her face. JJ was never very good about disguising her feelings from him and the rest of the team. "Really?" she asked wistfully. "Hotch, that would be great. I mean, I know how important my work at State is and Lord knows I'm not looking forward to dealing with all the crimes we see at the BAU, but…I just haven't felt right away from the Team. Do you think it can actually happen?"

Hotch nodded, mentally making a note to talk to the Ambassador about it. "We'll make it happen, JJ." He nodded at Emily. "I'm going to make sure we have our entire team back. Our family."