Chapter Thirty-Five

Elizabeth's words weighed heavily on Emily's mind, as she watched land and sea disappear beneath her. The atlantic stretched on forever, but her flight was over so soon. By the time the plane had landed, Emily had all but made her decision. This time, she did cry on the plane. At least, though, the vomiting had stopped, although the guilt still sat heavily on her chest. Waiting inline at border control, Emily pulled out her phone.

Just landed.

She sent it to both of them, her finger hovering over Hotch's name a second before she clicked it. Her phone vibrated not a minute later.

I'm glad. That one was from him. Short, succinct. Exactly the kind of message a friend might send. Good.

Her phone was quiet after that, and Emily was relieved, which only brought on yet another surge of guilt. Exhausted by her flight and by her own emotions, she was relieved to climb into a cab and be on her way home. It was raining again. By now, though, Emily was used to it. The streets she passed were slowly becoming as familiar to her as Washington was but, as she sat in the back of the car and let the cabbie make his way through London in peace, she wasn't paying attention to any of it. Half of her consciousness seemed to have been left behind in Washington; she felt as though everything around her were a dream. It was cloudy both overhead, and in her mind.

She overpaid the cabbie, but waved him away when he tried to give her the change. He gratefully offered to carry her bags up for her, but she politely refused his help, insisting that she was fine. Maybe it was a form of punishment. It wasn't enough. Stepping into the spacious lift, Emily caught sight of herself in the mirror.

This Emily, the one staring back at her, looked exhausted. Her hair was lank from the rain, her cheeks pinched. Her eyes, though, were sallow and sunken, underlined by purple bruising beneath the skin; evidence of her many sleepless nights. It had been a long six months. A long couple of years, truthfully. Between the BAU, Doyle, Hotch...a long, arduous and difficult couple of years. Emily didn't see things getting any easier now that she had made the decision to end things with Isla.

With a relieved sigh, Emily slid the key into her lock and heard the familiar click as the door opened. Excited to collapse into her bed and ignore the world for twelve hours, Emily felt her stomach sink when a delicious scent met her, something aromatic and heavily spiced. The door swung inwards and there, leaning over her dining table in her silk robe and lighting several long stem candles, was Isla. Blonde curls spilled over her shoulder and, as she looked up, blue eyes meeting Emily's own and immediately breaking into a grin, Emily felt her stomach drop.

"Welcome home-" Isla's words were cut short by the sound of Emily's suitcase crashing to the floor, and then Emily's lips were pressed against hers. The front door stood wide open behind her, but Emily didn't care. She didn't give it so much as a second thought as she tore open Isla's robes, finding white lingerie beneath, the elaborate lace delicate and enticing against Isla's tanned skin. "Emily-" Isla breathed, chest moving rapidly as she tried to catch her breath. "I've missed you, too, but I-I made dinner-"

"Yeah, it smells great," Emily muttered, in between the hard, wet kisses she was pressing to Isla's neck. Her desperate hands shoved the robe from Isla's shoulders, and the red silk pooled on the surface of her glass dining table like blood. Isla's head was thrown back, her throat jumping as she tried to speak. Emily didn't hear a word of it, lost in her worship of her girlfriends body. She had to show her, had to prove how much Isla meant. She's not a rebound.

"Slow down," Isla's words finally broke through to her, when Emily stopped to catch her breath, and the blonde's hands came up to gently hold Emily's face, cupping her cheeks and pressing a slow, soft kiss to her lips. "We've got all the time in the world, Em."

Standing up, Emily watched as Isla dropped the robe to the floor, before walking to the front door and closing it. She clicked the lock into place. Guilt and fear swirled like a cocktail in the brunette's stomach, watching her girlfriend move from the front door to the oven, where she turned it off, followed by the stove.

"Dinner can wait." Isla told her, with a small smile, offering her hand to Emily. She stared, at the narrow fingers extended towards her. Stared for a long time, before she smiled, and let Isla lead her to bed.

"I've missed you so much," Isla's soft hands slid beneath Emily's black sweater, the pads of her fingers playing at the hem of Emily's jeans, before she swept the sweater over her head in one smooth movement. "I know it's only been a week," She was saying, but Emily was only half listening, content to lose herself in the feel of Isla's hands on her as she cupped her breasts through the black bra she wore. "But it's rained the whole time, like even the sky knew how much I missed you."

"It always rains in London," Emily commented, capturing Isla's lips with her own as the blonde laughed. She leaned forwards, a gentle hand on Isla's shoulder forcing her to lie back onto the soft sheets. Crawling onto the bed, Emily fit one of her legs between Isla's, her knee pressing against Isla's core. The gasp Isla let out was all the encouragement Emily needed as she began to apply and reduce pressure in response to every little noise her girlfriend made.

"God, I missed you-" Isla said, not for the first time since Emily had walked through the door. Emily's eyes moved from her girlfriends body to her face, and found Isla looking up at her, a warm smile on her face, a look in her blue eyes that Emily recognised. A look that scared her, made her breath catch in her throat. She'd seen that expression in Hotch's eyes, that night in her apartment. A strangled sob escaped her and she watched Isla's expression change, concern clouding it, which only made Emily feel words.

The blonde reached for her and Emily moved away, backing up so quickly that her back smacked into the wall. Isla rushed towards her, as Emily slid down the wall, tears spilling over like they had on the plane.

"Emily?" Isla asked, hand stroking Emily's pale skin. "Emily, what is it? You can tell me."

Shaking her head, Emily tried to knock her hands away, but Isla pursed her lips, grabbing for Emily's hands. "Stop it." She said, sternly, "Stop trying to push me away. Whatever it is, I can help you. Just tell me, Em, and I'll do anything I can to make it better."

Make it better.

Emily dropped her head onto her knees, shoulders shaking with the power of her sobs, wrists taut in Isla's hands as she fought the blonde's touch. Isla let her go, fearing she was going to hurt herself, and sat helplessly in front of her. A moment ago, she'd been grinding against her girlfriends leg, and now said girlfriend was sobbing in front of her. Having never seen Emily cry before, Isla deduced that something must be very wrong.

When Emily finally looked up, her eyes were tired and resigned, and Isla saw her words there before she spoke them out loud.

"I slept with him."

She didn't need to elaborate who he was, she knew. Isla had asked whether she needed to be threatened by Hotch. Emily never had answered her question. Now, though, Isla had her answer. She stared, and even Emily's profiling skills couldn't deduce how she was feeling, how she was processing. Emily expected yelling, expected a fight, but, instead, Isla looked down at the floor, nodded, then stood up.

Silently, she moved about the room, walking to the chair where she had folded up her clothes, and Emily said nothing. She watched Isla pull on jeans, then drag a t-shirt over her head, and said nothing. When Isla walked past her and straight out of the bedroom, Emily almost let her go, breathing a moment before shoving herself to her feet and following after her.

"Say something." She pleaded to Isla's back. The blonde didn't turn around as she packed things into her handbag.

"I'll come back for the rest of my things some other time." She said, shortly, before turning and heading for the door without so much as a glance in Emily's direction.

"Please." Emily's desperation stopped her in her tracks. "Please. Say something. Yell. Scream. Just...don't leave like this."

She didn't expect a response; she expected Isla to walk out of the door, out of her life, without so much as a look. But, as she watched, Isla's head fell backwards, and she heaved a sigh that made her shoulders shake. Turning, she met Emily with eyes full of grief, shaking her head slowly.

"You want me to yell and scream so that it makes you feel better, Emily." She said, flatly, "If I yell and scream, you get to yell and scream back, and then this turns into an argument that caused our break-up. That's not how this happened. You did this, Emily. We didn't do this. I'm not going to stand here and validate what you did by arguing about it."

Emily stared, a chill passing over her as Isla regarded her with the eyes of a stranger. Then she turned and walked away, and Emily dropped her head in shame.

"I just-" Her voice came from the door, bitter and hurt, "I just wish you'd told me the truth. I wish I'd known you were in love with someone else."

When Emily looked up, Isla was gone.

It thundered that night. Emily knew she wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway, so instead she sat at her window, like she had so many times in those first few weeks in London, and watched the lightning crack over the Thames. Rain chased itself down her window. She wrapped her silk robe around her shoulders, to keep the chill away, but it didn't work, and Emily didn't have the energy to stand up and turn the heating on, so instead she shivered through the night.

Eventually, she must have fallen asleep, because when she awoke, it was to the obnoxiously loud sound of her phone vibrating against her hardwood floor. Turning her head, her neck twinged from the awkward angle she had fallen asleep. Eyes blurred by sleep, Emily didn't check the caller I.D, certain that it would be Isla calling, anyway.

"Hello?" Her voice was thick with sleep and she tilted her neck this way and that, trying to free the trapped nerve in her neck.

"Hi."

She stilled. His voice was a warmth that washed over her, and she immediately hated herself for it.

"Hotch. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He said, completely unconvincing, "Friends call friends, don't they?"

"Not usually at-" She took the phone from her ear, and her screen, offensively bright, flashed the time at her. "2am."

"I'm sorry." He paused on the other end of the line, and Emily lay her head back against the wall, just listening to his breathing until he spoke again. "We just got back from a case. It was a bad one. I needed to-" Again, silence, but only a beat this time, followed by a heavy sigh, "I wanted to hear your voice."

Closing her eyes, Emily sighed, breath steaming up the glass of her window as she leaned her forehead against it. Lightning cracked across the sky, followed swiftly by a loud rumble of thunder directly overhead. She wanted to tell him off, tell him that friends didn't call friends at two in the morning just to hear their voices, that he couldn't do this to her. The words wouldn't come.

"I'm here." She said, instead, unable to hurt another person she loved tonight. There was a noise of affirmation on the other end of the phone, somewhere between a sigh and a huff, and then more quiet. "I'm sorry you lost someone, today."

"Thanks." He said, from the other end, in a voice she knew so well. She could almost picture him, sitting at the desk in his office with an untouched glass of bourbon beside him, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other rubbing his temples. In front of him, there would be a pile of paperwork, bigger than usual. It was always a bigger pile when there were more victims.

I lost someone today, too.

She wanted to tell him, but knew, deep in her chest, that she couldn't inflict that guilt on him. Hotch would beat himself up, blame himself, when, truthfully, Emily knew this wasn't on him. They'd slept together, but she was the one who had hurt Isla, not him. When she'd pulled him in, Emily had made a choice. That was why she had made herself sick with guilt the next day. As soon as she'd set eyes on him, this was always how it was going to turn out.

But she couldn't say any of that to him. Because she'd seen it in his eyes, all of those months ago. He wanted her, wanted them. He wanted everything she could never give to him, especially now that she had hurt somebody so much in the name of loving him.

Hotch began to tell her about the case, and Emily nodded and reassured him, as silent tears raced down her face.