Author Note: There is dialogue borrowed from Season 4 Episode 17. I feel that this episode is very important to Emily's story hence why I'm tackling it here. Enjoy.
"Thanks for coming in early," I say to Reid, JJ and Rossi as they walk into the round table room.
"Where's Morgan and Prentiss?" JJ asks, leaning against the chair in front of her.
"They're at the morgue examining this man, Matthew Benton, a friend of Emily's. She believes that his death may be connected to that man's.
"Thomas Valentine, dehydration? Did she know him?" Rossi looks at Valentine's file as he asks.
"No, but Benton seemed to think that someone was after both of them."
"Wait, one death was a heart attack. The other was from dehydration. What's the connection?" Reid poses the line of questioning we usually follow.
"I don't know If there is one."
"Are the police Investigating?" JJ asks the logical next question.
"No. Right now, we're just, uh, helping a colleague." I answer honestly.
"So we talk to the families. See if there's anything suspicious." Dave throws out.
"Is Emily ok?" JJ asks, concerned for her friend.
"I don't know. That's why I sent Morgan to go with her." I honestly answer again. She hadn't said much to me at dinner last night and even with the kids she was quiet. The kids hadn't noticed since they're all so young. But even once the kids were asleep, Emily spent most of the night with her nose in the files or deep in her mind.
"JJ, you and I will go talk to Benton's family. Rossi and Reid, check out Valentine's wife. Once Morgan and Emily get back from the morgue we'll all meet back and assess what we know."
Rossi follows me out of the round table room and towards my office. "You're worried about her."
"How can I not be? It's worrying her so it worries me."
"It also doesn't help that you two love birds aren't living together."
"Jack and I stayed at her apartment last night."
"Only made it one night before you went back I see." I can't help but scowl at one of my oldest coworkers.
"She's hurting. I wasn't going to leave her alone."
"But you seem to know the case file pretty well for only finding out about this last night."
"All she wanted to do was look over them last night so that's how we spent our night." I admit. I grab my coat from in my office and step back out the door. My hand is drawn to my phone and all I want to do is check on Em, but I know that she's busy at the morgue so instead I text Sarah and Laura who have the kids. When I get the picture from them, I save it and send it to Emily. This might be a hard case for her, but a picture of the twins napping normally calms her down or brightens her mood depending on what she needs so hopefully this helps.
"Ready to go?" JJ asks, as she stands with her own coat. I nod and we make our way to the SUVs.
"I don't understand why the FBI is interested In our son's death." Matthew's mother asks as JJ and I stand on their porch.
"We were investigating another death recently under similar circumstances, and we just wanted to make sure that there's no connection."
"He suffered a heart attack." She states.
"It's just routine." JJ adds.
"Well, there's nothing routine about investigating a heart attack."
"Andrea, it's ok. I assume your investigation is drug-related." Matthew's father asks.
"We're just trying to rule out foul play. May we come in?" I don't confirm or deny what he assumes and just focus on getting in the front door.
"Of course." He says and motions for us to come inside.
"Do you mind my asking if you've been burning incense?" I ask as we stand in the room where Matthew died.
"After Matthew died, I burned some in the room to cleanse it." Andrea states.
"So he was living here with you?" JJ asks.
"We were hoping he could turn his life around. We were in New York for the weekend and when we came back, we found his body here." I glance at the bed and notice some scratch marks under the posts of the bed as if it had been moved with great force.
"My son's soul was in the possession of evil." Andrea says without either of us asking and I turn to look at JJ.
"Do you have any experience dealing with drug addiction?" Matthew's father asks.
"We see a lot of it through our work." JJ answers him.
"Well, it's an impossible thing to watch happen to someone you love." He replies.
"Were you aware that in the days before he died, Matthew thought someone was going to kill him?" I ask.
"Where did you hear that?" Matthew's father looks genuinely surprised.
"One of our team members, Agent Prentiss." JJ says.
"Emily Prentiss?" Andrea asks.
"Yes, ma'am." JJ responds
"She's the reason you're here?"
"We'd like you both to leave. Now." JJ and I can't say much else since they no longer are volunteering anything.
As JJ and I duck into the SUV trying to avoid the rain as much as possible, I can't help but think how weird that was. Most of the time people feel more assured when they hear the name of someone they know working a case, not kick us out. "That was weird right?" JJ asks.
"Being kicked out after hearing Emily's name?" JJ nods. "Yeah, but only Emily can explain." I say as I turn the car back onto the street to head back to the FBI building.
"I- I told you not to mention me." Emily's voice is determined as she speaks to JJ and me.
"You didn't say it'd get us kicked out." JJ reminds her.
"Is there something we should know?"I can't help but ask.
"Matthew and I met in Rome when we were 15. My mom was posted there. His parents didn't like us hanging out."
"And they still hold a grudge?" JJ's voice rings out.
"They were extremely religious. They thought I was a bad influence." Emily shrugs.
"You?" JJ asks, shocked.
"Yeah."
"And that's it?" I ask my girlfriend, feeling more like her jealous boyfriend than her boss at the moment.
"That's it." Something in her voice doesn't sit right with me. There's something she's not telling me. My eyes follow her as she starts to walk away towards the break room to head up to the round table room, but I decide to make her a cup of coffee before heading up to meet her. This case is probably just wearing on her since it's her friend and that's what I'm picking up on.
Her coffee order is simple, but I'll probably never forget how she takes it. Two cream, two sugar. So I make one for each of us quickly before walking up to the round table room where she is the first one waiting. "Here." I place the cup in front of my girlfriend and take a sip from my own.
"Thanks." She stares at the cup but makes no move to pick it up from the table.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?" Emily asks, her eyes not leaving her mug.
"Seeing Matthew at the morgue." She shakes her head.
"Not right now." She says right before JJ makes her way into the room.
"I can come back." JJ offers.
"You're fine." Emily reaches slowly for the cup in front of her. The rest of the team makes their way into the room.
"We saw scuff marks on the floor underneath Thomas Valentine's bed. Almost as if someone had been tied up and struggled to get free." Rossi starts the conversation once everyone has taken a seat. I choose to stand near Emily, not wanting to leave her alone physically or emotionally during this case.
"We saw the exact same marks in Matthew's bedroom." JJ adds.
"Has anybody been able to find any connection at all between Benton and Valentine?" I throw out.
"According to my snooping, both Matthew Benton and Thomas Valentine traveled to Galicia, Spain, over the same week, four months ago." Garcia walks into the room as she reads out from a notebook in her hand.
"That mean anything to you?" Morgan turns to ask Emily.
"No." Emily shakes her head.
Garcia sits down next to Morgan before adding, "I did the quick guidebook thing. There's a church there, Santiago de Compostela. It's visited by over 100,000 religious pilgrims every year."
"Did his parents say anything about him going on a pilgrimage?" Reid throws out to JJ and me.
"No, the opposite, actually. His mom said his soul was possessed by evil." JJ answers him from where she sits in front of the monitor.
"Yeah." Emily doesn't sound surprised.
"What?" JJ asks.
"Matthew had a thing about challenging the church. He could push it." Emily explains. "When we were in high school, his mom and dad consulted a priest because they were afraid he was possessed."
"But I think in this case, she was talking about drugs." I say to her, trying to convey what his parents had told us. I don't even know if she knew he was using or had used drugs.
"Are you sure?" Rossi asks. "There's a pattern here- the talk about evil and the soul and scuff marks on the floor."
"What are you driving at?" My eyebrows pull together as I try to figure out where he's going with this.
"Well, drug addiction and schizophrenia are two afflictions most likely to present as demonic possession." Rossi explains his thought process.
"You think these were exorcisms." Morgan adds it all up.
"I think it begs the question." Rossi throws into the circle.
"Look, I know the bible just as well as anyone. But I also know there's nothing more open to behavioral interpretation than religion." Morgan says not wanting to place the blame one way or another.
"Meaning what?" Emily's head shakes from side to side as she tries to come to terms with what Morgan is saying.
"I think it's dangerous for us to wanna find a connection between these deaths." Morgan shrugs slightly as he speaks.
"Wait. Was Thomas' wife religious?" Emily still seems to be on the thought process Rossi was.
"She was concerned that he had been cursing God." Rossi says.
"Exorcism ritual can take days to complete. It's possible the stress induced could cause a heart attack, especially in someone with a history of drug use." Reid's doctor voice fills the room as he provides some missing links.
"That would explain the timeline of someone dying of dehydration." JJ stands up as she addresses the other death.
"Guys, look, I'm willing to say that we might have an unsub who ritualizes killings as if they were exorcisms, maybe. But right now, we don't even know if we have a crime yet." Morgan returns to his point.
"Morgan's right. We need to step back. Let me talk to someone before I have us all telling ghost stories." Rossi adds, being the person with connections most likely to be able to deal with a possible exorcism.
"While Rossi talks to his friend, Garcia I want you to keep running background on our victims and see if there's anything else that connects our victims or if you can find anything that positively identifies them as spending time together in Spain. We also need to see if we can find a stateside connection in their day to day life styles that would link to how they met their killer. Morgan and Reid I want you two to keep running the non exorcism route and see what else you can come up with in terms of connection between the two cases. JJ and Emily, I want you to focus on a profile for our killer." Everyone nods at their assignments and leaves to start working, apart from Emily. She takes a moment to pull out her cell phone and look at the picture I sent her.
"Thank you." She finally looks up at me and I can see the weight of this case in both her eyes and her shoulders. "I don't know how you knew it, but seeing the twins is what I needed."
"When a case is really hard on me, the first thing I do is text Laura for a picture of Jack. I figured it might be a similar case for you."
"It definitely helps." She stands up and takes my hand in hers. "I know I haven't been the easiest person to deal with but-"
"Emily, you're dealing with something difficult. I'm here to help. You could be the most difficult person in the whole world but as long as you turn to me in the end, that's all that matters." I can see her swallow from where I am. She nods before speaking.
"It might be hard, but I'll come to you in the end."
"That's all I ask." I squeeze her hand as I say this since we're out in the open at work, but all I want to do is pull her into my arms and never let go.