Chapter 38

T + 8 weeks, 5 days

T2 – 7 weeks, 2 days

3121 18th St NW

Washington DC

Emily

Emily should not have been surprised by the figure that opened the door. She had made several stops along the way just because she expected this. But it still hurt when she saw him there. "I'm sorry." She said, right off the bat. "We honestly didn't think the US Attorney was going to insist on Witness Protection at this point. May I come in?" Spencer shrugged and stepped back to let her into his barren little apartment. She was used to seeing him in a t-shirt and scrub pants now, barefoot and wearing glasses, it was his usual way of hanging around the house. But she was not used to that look on his face, that pink, slightly swollen, I've been crying look. "I brought your favorite pizza." She said, moving to the kitchen. "And some of that gelato you liked and five hours of the best Russian sci-fi meditation movie ever. We can stay up all night watching it."

"Is that the traditional break-up healing kit, pizza, ice cream and a movie?" Spencer dropped back on his couch, tucking his feet under him. "Where's Ben?"

"He's at the Salon, working the team, surrounded by kids, parents and four agents. He's going to eat with them, show them training videos after and then go right to bed. He has them coming back at the crack of dawn. He can be a slave driver." Emily left her shoes and bag by the door, went to the kitchen to start building plates.

"So he refused Witness Protection?"

"He said he wasn't going to let Pieter bully him into abandoning his kids, not this close to trials." Plates, napkins, forks, two glasses of cola over ice; she brought it all back to the coffee table and sat next to her little brother. "You weren't there when they took Haley away, were you?"

"No, I was busy getting my knee put back together. Why?"

"We went to the house to get her. She had all of five minutes to pack a bag, maybe, while JJ helped Jack. Then they brought her by the hospital and I think she had less than that to say good-bye. Twenty some odd years of marriage and a son and they had less than five minutes to say good-bye."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying this might not be a break-up. Given that you and Sara aren't even really dating, that you've known each other all of two months, do you really think they would have given her the chance to sit down and write a letter?"

"Good point."

"Now I know how close you two have grown, we all do. I just don't think the Marshalls would understand that. I talked to Ben about it. He said he couldn't imagine being apart like this." She reached out to rub his knee a little. "You know, the only parallel we have for this is Hotch. I can only imagine that it's going to be that kind of hard."

"I'm not Ben. I don't have his self-confidence. I know that." Spencer looked at her with that sheepish look he got when he had to admit to something he didn't like. "And I'm not Hotch, Emily. I don't know that I can do this."

"I think you are so much stronger than you realize. I think you can do this, maybe not like Hotch or Ben, but you can."

"I can't do this! She left, Emily! I know it was for the best of reasons, but it's always for the best of reasons. My Dad left for what he thought were the best reasons, Gideon left for the best reasons, Elle left for the best reasons."

"I left for the best reasons." Emily filled in the missing gap.

Spencer stopped. "I wasn't going to say that."

"Why not, it's true."

"You came back."

'How do you know she won't come back?" Emily watched his face as he considered that. He could click over facts so quickly, find a solution before they could even begin, but emotions were still so hard for him. "Did you ever tell her about everyone else leaving? Did she ever say anything about that?"

"She said she wouldn't stop writing without telling me, that she would come back as soon as she was released from medical care, and that once she got here she would never leave without saying good-bye." He slowly admitted.

"Maybe she was too afraid of Pieter so she just ran."

He shook his head. "She wasn't afraid of Pieter. There's nothing in the profile that indicates that he wants her dead. He wants her to submit, and she didn't, not in all that time. As far as she was concerned she held victory and could do it again. That's why I don't understand, it was so important to her that she earn my trust, and then she didn't say anything, even though she wasn't running in fear. Surely there would have had to be some warning of some kind. If it was that important she could have sent a text, if nothing else."

That was the important point, wasn't it? Emily thought about it, if she had been in Sara's place, knowing what she knew now about Court and its underlying function, once she had heard about the losses Spencer had taken the single, most important thing would have been to earn his trust. She would have insisted on at least sending a message somehow. Unless... "Oh, here's a disturbing thought for you, you said she was still in a lot of pain after the surgery, right?"

"Yeah, she could barely walk. It's going to be like that until the stitches dissolve."

"So she was on pain meds?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"Could that be used as an excuse to get someone else to sign the paper?"

She watched as Spencer's eyes jittered a moment, accessing his memory banks. "Maybe, but only as long as she was under medical care, it's a very grey area."

"Would her brother have done something like that?"

"Quite possibly, he's been showing signs of PTSD, including withdrawal and paranoia. And she hasn't even been able to get to the mailbox; the nurse has been taking her mail up and down for her. But she could get by right now without a nurse."

"This would leave her brother handling her communications."

"And if he was paranoid enough and then the Marshalls said to cut all ties to keep her safe he might not let her get word out. And they would probably have to sedate her to move her. But why wouldn't she have gotten word out before they sedated her?"

"What if her brother considered it too important to risk her saying no?"

She watched as Spencer got that deeply angry expression it wore so rarely. "She'd be a prisoner again."

"Is there any reason to go after her? If the Bureau tries to get her from the Marshalls, that's going to be a huge pile of bureaucracy, even just to get her location."

Spencer thought again. "No, her brother is her next of kin, he does hold her medical power of attorney; at this point he would be considered her legal guardian. There's no reason to think that he would prevent her from getting health care. And if the US Attorney thinks she's valuable enough to protect from Pieter then he would order the Marshalls to keep her healthy as well. But that's only so long as she's under a doctor's care. Once she's healthy she would have to agree to stay in the program independently."

Emily smiled. "So the question is, what do you think she would do? What's more important to her, staying away from Pieter or keeping her word to you?" What's it going to be, little brother, hope or despair?

Emily watched as hope ever so gradually eased into Spencer's eyes. "What kind of ice cream did you get?"

T + 8 weeks, 6 days

T2 – 7 weeks, 1 day

Safford Diner

Safford, VA

If you wanted to have a conversation off of FBI property you had four choices of nearby restaurants. Two were heavily populated by customers from the US Marine base that surrounded Quantico, served alcohol, and tended to get a little, or a lot, rowdy. One was slightly upscale, served alcohol, and was immensely popular with the brass. And one was a hole in the wall that did not serve alcohol, and served mostly locals.

It wasn't a difficult choice.

"It is a grey area." Rossi agreed, after Spencer and Emily laid out their theory on Sara being placed in protective custody against her will. "The whole point of putting someone into Witness Protection is to keep them safe and willing to testify. If they piss her off enough she might say no."

"She wouldn't do that." Spencer replied.

"You know that. They don't." Rossi sat back, sipped his cup of bad diner coffee and looked them over. "Are we all in agreement that she cannot be moved until she's medically clear?"

All four of them, Spencer and Emily, Morgan and Garcia, nodded in agreement. At Rossi's suggestion they had left Hotch out of it, at least at this stage, so as not to cause him any more problems with the powers that be. "So we can't do anything for another eight weeks." Morgan said.

"At a minimum," Spencer told them. "It could be up to ten, which is one of the reasons why we have to wait for her to contact us when she's clear."

"Why can't we just look her up now?' Garcia asked. "We could keep an eye on her medical records, and as soon as she's clear we can go pick her up."

There was a long pause. "You notice none of us are asking if Garcia here could find her." Morgan finally said. "The problem with that is that it gets the FBI involved."

"So?" Garcia asked.

"So, that would release the paper storm on Hotch. That's what we're trying to avoid. But, if Juliet calls Romeo over here and asks him to come help as a civilian, then the rest of us can go along as his friends."

"And what's to stop them from invoking their badges? I mean, you're going to have to work through a translator, what's to stop them from just not listening?" Garcia asked

"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it." Morgan told her.

"You know what the problem is with you young people?" Rossi said with a sigh. "You're not devious enough. We already know that Van Rensburg bribed one official in Seattle to get out of the electronic monitoring. What's to stop him from bribing the Marshall on site and going to get her as soon as she is healthy? Or for that matter, her brother?"

"There hasn't been any indication of that." Morgan reminded him.

"Not yet." Garcia purred.

"He doesn't have that kind of money." Morgan tried another hole.

"He doesn't have Mandarin money." Rossi reminded him. "She's expensive. How much would it take to bribe someone on our kind of salary?"

Morgan tried again. "They won't believe it if it comes from us."

"They will if it comes from Clive." Emily pointed out. "At this point he owes me his firstborn."

"The charges won't stick."

"They don't have to. We don't even want them to." Rossi looked at Morgan. "All we want to do is get Juliet away long enough to make her own decision, and state it to a witness. Even another cop will do."

"What if she decides she wants to stay in?" Morgan had to put it out there.

"That's her decision. It might make a hard day for Romeo here, but the whole point of it is to give her the chance to choose for herself, free and clear."

Morgan sighed. "All right, I'm in. I don't like it, if we have any other option I'd rather go with that, but I'm in. So what do we do while we're waiting for her to contact us?"

"Be ready to move." Emily said. "Didn't they move Haley every time she called her Mom? We don't want to have to go looking for her."

"Try not to go too insane." Spencer muttered.

Garcia looked over at him. "Oh, no sweetie, you have to shop."

"What?" For a moment Spencer looked terrified. "Why?"

"Because when they put you in Witness Protection they get rid of everything that might tempt you to go back." Emily told him. "They cleaned Haley out, the house was on the market, the only reason why they even had photographs and videos left was because Kassmeyer gave them to Hotch. Odds are when we rescue her all she's going to have are the clothes on her back."

"I don't even know where to start."

"Not to worry." Garcia said. "You peeps can work a psychological profile, but your goddess can work a fashion profile. We'll have a trousseau for her in no time."

"And you will let me help." Rossi told him

"You're not leaving me out." Emily added. "And JJ had to go through her storage unit, she might have some ideas."

By now Morgan was chuckling. He looked at Spencer with all honesty. "Leave me out. There's one thing I don't understand though." He said, turning serious again. "They let Hotch keep in at least brokered contact. We're FBI, why not just run their letters through the Marshall's service and move them inter-office? Especially if it would keep her compliant."

"That," Rossi said, "Is a very good question."