A/N: Once again, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and review! Enjoy this next chapter!

She couldn't hide the pain and torture in her eyes from him when he looked at her.

Her feet struggled to move, even with her hand being tugged by Bailey. Her stomach was in knots, and she could also hear her own heartbeat in her head. "Mom! Come on!" Bailey yelled with all the enthusiasm she had. Emily broke the eye contact momentarily and glanced down at her daughter's dimpled smile.

The past few days had been sent Emily through a whirlwind of emotions; more than she had known she could experience. And she knew that things were only going to get tougher… She was exhausted, nausea was creeping up on her and yet she still had to sort this situation out.

After what seemed like an eternity, her mother finally dared to walk further into the bullpen. When she spotted her dad standing outside his office, Bailey practically sprinted across the bullpen to her father, crashing into his arms. "Dad! I missed you!"

Hotch knelt and cuddled Bailey, giving her a kiss on her cheek. "I missed you too my princess…Madi's in my office." He whispered.

As quick as she leapt into his embrace, she was rushing into his office. His gaze focused on the woman climbing the stairs. Her eyes glued to the ground and she clutched on to the handbag draped over her shoulder for dear life. Wisps of her dark, straightened hair framed her pale face.

It took a lot of courage to look up at him, but when she did, he was exactly how she remembered him. In a black suit, wearing a light blue shirt with a black and grey striped tie. Dark circles underneath his eyes, a few more wrinkles here and there. The same expressions, the same behaviour.

"Aaron." Her voice sounded tired, and her eyelids looked heavy. Even in her exhausted state, she still looked just as beautiful as he remembered her to be.

He blinked a few times, just staring at her. Emily stood there slightly unnerved but knew that the past few moments were just catching up with him. "Emily…" He finally spoke. His voice was barely a whisper.

Under any normal circumstances, he would have invited her into his office. However, he wasn't about to have the conversation they needed to have with the twins listening in. "Conference room…" He whispered. Emily nodded and glanced momentarily through the window at her babies, drawing together in his office like they had never been apart. It put a sad smile on her face.

Emily followed him down the corridor and into the conference room, reminiscing the years that she spent in the unit. It was surreal walking back in there. Not much about it had changed, there was still the same red wallpaper, the same television. Possibly they had gotten a new tv.

He shut the door gently behind him and sat down in a chair, resting his hands on the table and taking in a deep breath. Emily followed suit, glancing cautiously at him, watching for any hint of anger. There was a long silence between them, just trying to figure out what to say to each other. What did you say to someone you hadn't seen or spoken to for 10 years?

"How are you?" He asked politely. Emily gulped; she hated the small talk.

"Okay." There was a pregnant pause. He noticed her balling her fists together, it was something she did to try and stop herself biting her nails. "I know you have a lot of questions." She finally said.

He nodded. 'A lot of questions' didn't even begin to describe everything he wanted to ask her. He opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say. "I don't understand Emily…" It was the truth.

"I know- "

"No, you don't! I've spent 10 years investigating this with the rest of the team and…" He threw his hands in the air and leant back in the chair, crossing his arms. He was lost for words.

She wasn't fazed by his sudden outburst of anger; she knew that the façade of 'politeness' wouldn't hold up for long. Not with him. "You're right…" She whispered after a few moments. "You have every right to be angry at me, but please… Let me help you understand why I made the decisions I did."

Her shy eyes made contact with his cold steel orbs, and she wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out. There was always something about his eyes that weakened Emily to her knees, it was the way he looked at her that did it. He shook his head and said, "I've read your letter a thousand times… Every day. And…" He looked down at his hands. "It's been too long…"

Her body was numb as he said those words, but she was sure that the emotions along with them would hit her like a ton of bricks later. "I know that you'll probably never forgive me…" She bit down on the inside of her cheek, trying to push her nausea away. "All I want you to know is that I have felt awful for what I have done for the last 10 years, but I had to do it…"

He watched her speak with great regret and sadness in her eyes. As he took in her appearance, he noticed how 'sickly' she looked. She seemed a lot thinner than he remembered her to be, and her voice didn't have that confidence she always used to prominently convey. It was at that moment he realised this had taken a significant toll on her too, but his anger was still there.

"It was going to kill us all if I didn't…"

He furrowed his brow. "It?"

Emily shook her head in anger. Calling the blackmailer 'it' helped to release her own outrage and dehumanised his image in her mind's eye. "He ruined our lives, the last thing 'it' deserves is a personal pronoun…"

"I take it that you have investigated 'it' over the years," Hotch asked her. Emily nodded and opened her black handbag, taking out a dozen files and handing them over to her old partner. Hotch skimmed through them cautiously, keeping his eyes peeled for any clues for who it could be.

"Clyde employed me at Interpol in London; we investigated it as much as we could, but with all the cases we received and the lack of people specialising in profiling, it was hard to get anywhere." Ire swirled in his eyes as he saw the threats sent to Emily, and immediately all his anger towards her faded. He knew at that moment if someone had posted a threat as vulgar as that to him, he would instinctively want to protect his family as well.

"He sent you all these letters… For all of these years…"

Emily released a breathy sigh and nodded. "The last one sent to me was shortly after Madi and I arrived in London… Telling me that if I attempted to make contact with you again, I would feel the consequences."

Hotch nodded, instinctively looking out the window into the bullpen and over at his office, where his girls were. "You've broken one of his rules… He isn't going to be happy. I need to call the rest of the team to brief them."

Emily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. The nausea was starting to fade now that they had gotten the ball moving, but she shook her head. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"There is so much personal information in those letters that I don't want everyone else to know about."

Hotch nodded and took out his cell phone, "Do you want to catch this guy or not?"

She breathed a heavy sigh and dragged a file closer to her. "I don't think I have a choice."

While Aaron made some quick calls to the rest of the team as well as Jack, Emily arranged all the files in order.

"It all began on January 15th, 2014." She pulled out a file containing the first letter that she received. Hotch's blood boiled as he read the letter word for word.

I'm watching you. Tell your team, and you'll lose your job.

"We've seen letters like this throughout our entire career… Why'd you believe it?"

"Because…" Emily rummaged through the file for a photograph. "It came with this…" Hotch took the picture. It was a picture of them all when the twins were only 6 months old. He remembered that day. Emily was feeding one of the twins while jack had his face plastered with chocolate. They were having a picnic. They were happy.

"Son of a bitch…" He muttered.

"I knew from that moment onwards that someone had eyes on us… Eyes on me." She corrected. "I couldn't risk telling anybody. Not even you…" The pain in her voice was evident. Hotch got up and stuck the letter and the photograph onto a board.

"The next letter…"

"Do you know a guy named Anthony?" Bailey asked her sister. Madison shook her head and picked up a blue pencil, colouring in one of the turtles she had drawn.

"No, why?"

"Coz mom said this guy called Anthony was coming over for coffee. Well…He was going to come over, but then mom found out who I really was and then- "

"That's weird." Madison stopped colouring.

"What?"

"I think I would know if she was seeing a guy called Anthony…" Madison said as she furrowed her brow. All her life, she hadn't seen her mother go out once to try and find a date. Emily had always said that 'she never had time,' or 'it just wasn't worth it'. Although Madison had always believed the real reason was that she still loved her father.

"What are you doing?" Madi asked as she watched Bailey pulled out some caramel chocolate frogs from her father's drawer.

"Hmmm yum." Madi's eyes widened, had she done something like that back at Interpol and Emily found out, she would be in so much trouble. "Want some?" Bailey held the candy up to her face.

"Are we even allowed?" Bailey rolled her eyes.

"No, of course not silly, it's called keeping a secret Madi." Madison relented and took a chocolate frog, savouring the taste. "Uncle Dave!" Bailey leapt out of the chair and nearly bowled Rossi over, who was standing there in the doorway paralysed, just staring at the two identical girls.

Hotch had called him to say that Emily had finally come back, and they needed help to work on the profile. However, he didn't realise how emotionally stunned he'd be when he saw the two girls together. "Hello, pumpkin." He finally said to Bailey after a few moments of contemplation. "Boy haven't you had one hell of a trip!"

"This is Madi…" Bailey pointed to her sister sitting in her Aaron's seat. The only thing distinguishing her from Bailey was her quiet persona and of course, the light birthmark on her lower neck. JJ and Penelope had mentioned it in a phone call to himself and Spencer last night.

Madison looked at Dave with a slight smile. He held open his arms for her, and Madi gave him a hug. "It's nice to finally meet you again, Madison."

"You too… Uncle Dave." It put a broad smile on both their faces.

"Are the rest of the team coming in?" Bailey asked. Rossi smoothed the creases in his shirt.

"Yes… Your dad called us in to help on a case."

"The blackmailer case?" Both girls asked at the same time. Rossi stood there dumbfounded, he didn't know how much or how little they knew, and it wasn't really his place to tell them what was going on.

He nodded anyway; it wouldn't be much good to tell them any more lies. "You better hide the evidence before everyone else gets here." He said, referring to the empty candy wrappers on Hotch's desk. Madison sniggered, hanging out at the BAU was fun.

The rest of Emily's old team arrived in dribs and drabs.

There were mixed responses from everybody. JJ and Penelope burst into tears upon seeing her, and they hugged together in a huddle until Hotch physically had to drag them away from each other. Spencer and Rossi hesitated at first to even talk at Emily, but after being briefed by Hotch and realising the extent to which she had suffered, whatever anger they had against her disappeared.

It surprised her; the blackmailer had made her do nasty things to everybody that she had known. She wanted them to scream at her, to ignore her, make her feel bad for everything she had done. Instead, the anger was brief and then it was like nothing had ever happened at all.

While Hotch briefed the rest of the team on the new evidence that had been given, Emily removed herself from the conference room. She needed air. It felt surreal seeing everyone again for the first time in a decade and realising how much she had missed, how much everybody had changed and grown. It was like her mind couldn't really comprehend it.

Naturally, her feet took her to Hotch's office where she watched her baby girls dig into the new clothes that Penelope had bought them each. She leaned against the window, watching them through the blinds. She felt so cruel… Leaving them apart for their entire lives, not letting them get to know each other. Her stomach sunk as she watched them giggle.

"Wow… PG spoiled you guys, didn't she?" Emily stated amazed as she glanced at all the pre-teen clothing was strewn all over the floor. So, she shouldn't have been surprised, Penelope had basically bought the twins every piece of clothing they had as babies. Hotch was going to have a field day when he saw his office.

"Mom!" Madi yelled as she saw Emily for the first time in 2 weeks. She trampled over her new clothes to hug her mother, smothering each other with kisses.

"I missed you, honey…"

"Mom! Look at these awesome shorts!" Bailey interrupted as she held up striped zebra shorts. Emily moved some items of clothing so that she could sit down on the couch.

"Bailey, those look so fancy. Penelope has good taste." Emily said as she took the pair of shorts. "What did you get Madi?"

Madison held up a packet of rainbow hair ties and a new polka dot hairbrush. "It's so pretty."

"Are we gonna go home soon, mom?" Bailey asked. Emily noticed that she was already getting bored. She glanced down at her watch, realising that they had been here for at least two hours. "I just wanna sleep…" Emily smoothed a hand through her daughter's hair. Bailey had been too excited to sleep on the plane.

"I'm helping your dad and the rest of his team to try and catch the bad guy that did this, but right now the safest thing that we can do right now is to stay at the FBI," Emily stated as both girls pouted. Obviously fed up with being stuck in the office all afternoon. "Have a sleep on the couch honey…"

"I don't want to sleep in here though… The couch is so hard." Bailey complained. She wasn't wrong, Emily had slept on her office couch many times before, they weren't designed for sleeping.

"I hear Jack's going to be here soon…" Both their pouts turned into wide beams.

"I'm so excited to tell him everything that's happened!" Bailey enthused as she fumbled in the bag Penelope had got for more clothes, temporarily forgetting she was tired.

It put a small smile on Emily's face as she stood up. "We're just down in the conference room, stay here and come get us if you need anything."

Back in the conference room, Hotch stared blankly at the board that was filled to the brim with messages and photographs. Photographs that intruded into his family life, letters that threatened their lives. It boiled the blood in his veins.

"This guy is organised, obviously knows what he is doing," Spencer stated, squinting his eyes at each individual letter. "The writing style is very brisk, it's like he doesn't want to reveal too much of himself, but at the same time he does."

"Look at the gaps between each letter." Rossi stood up and pointed to two letters. "The first letter was on January 15th, along with the photograph. Emily looks at it, feels intimidated, doesn't tell anyone." He moved down the timeline. "Second letter was sent 2 weeks later… This time with the first 'official threat'."

"Spill coffee over one of your co-workers. Don't do it by Friday and they will know about one of your crimes." JJ readout. "Emily did a crime?" She asked, confused.

"She rebelled against her parents as a teen, mostly stealing." Hotch clarified, remembering some of the stories that Emily had told him about concerning her past.

"I remember that happening…" Penelope said. "It was Morgan she spilt the coffee on… He just brushed it off though… Said that it was an accident."

Rossi continued, "Emily complies, the third letter is sent after 1 week of that happening."

"So… Each time that she receives a letter, it's even closer to when she last received one." JJ mentioned.

"Right up until Emily was receiving letters daily… Right under my nose." Hotch muttered the last part.

The door opened, and she walked back in, leaning against the wall. There was a brief silence as they all watched her, still in shock that she was physically there.

Spencer shoved his hands in his pockets. "It's a bit strange… Most blackmail cases we have investigated tend to involve money. 'Do this, and I'll give you fifty dollars, do that, and I'll give you a hundred.' With this unsub, he doesn't mention money at all, it's all about hurting the people around you and destroying your reputation…"

"It's personal," Rossi concluded.

"Emily, you have to know this guy…" Penelope stated as she glanced at the woman by the wall. Emily tilted her head and sat down in the seat next to Hotch.

"I came to the same conclusion when I sat down with Clyde and investigated, at first I thought well maybe… It's someone we locked up who's come out of prison, but we investigated dozens of cases. That's easily 300 suspects who fit the bill."

"How would an unsub we locked away know such private information about you though?" Hotch questioned. Emily shrugged and paused for a moment.

"Which letter was the one where it threatened to tell you guys about my miscarriage?" Everyone looked at Emily with pain in their eyes. She was referring to the incident with Doyle. Emily had been pregnant at the time, and when she got staked, inevitably she miscarried the baby.

"You were pregnant?" Spencer asked astounded… "That explained your behaviour and why you were- "

"Reid…" Hotch interrupted.

"Right sorry…" He skimmed the boards looking for the correct letter. "This one."

Emily shook her head. "This is the puzzling part… I never even told anybody that I was pregnant apart from Hotch, JJ and my doctor. Doyle didn't even know…" Chills shivered down her spine as she said his name out loud. It was a name that hadn't been mentioned for many years.

"You were staked, Emily… You needed to have emergency surgery." JJ reminded.

"I was the one who told paramedics that you were pregnant…" Hotch admitted.

"And the paramedics would have told emergency doctors and the surgeon…" Emily continued. She stood up, squinting her eyes and glanced over the letters for the hundredth time.

"Penelope, are you able to look up Emily's medical records?" Hotch asked, clicking his pen.

"Sure can just give me a sec." Her fingers typed ferociously over her keyboard. "Uh… Nothing in her file mentioning pregnancy or miscarriage sir, just that she was physically assaulted by you know who…"

JJ swivelled around in her chair. "So… He had to have been there that day to have obtained that information. He has medical experience."

"Someone working in medicine blackmailing doesn't sit too well with me," Emily stated as she furrowed her brow.

"Medical professionals, particularly paramedics, often work long hours. Up to 12-hour shifts at most. He wouldn't have been able to have had the time and privacy to watch you constantly." Spencer stated.

Rossi squinted his eyes. "So… He either quit his job or…"

"Or he has a partner in crime." Hotch completed.

A chilling feeling swept over the room. Having one unsub was one thing but having two of them completely changed the atmosphere. Two unsubs raised the stakes. If they weren't safe before, they for sure weren't now.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I certainly enjoyed writing it. Hope that everyone is doing fine in self-isolation and quarantine. Stay safe everyone and see you all next week!