Author's Note: Picking up a little over a week after they visited Dave. It starts with their first day back, but the chapter covers almost another week.

And just as a mile marker, this is now late July. I was flipping through the prequel here, "Reason" and then the preemptive chapters in Girl, and I couldn't see that I'd ever particularly tagged the month. But in my mind I had the Girl chapter in May, them leaving for the parole hearing about week later, in early June. So this story started between the second and third weeks in July, and again, now jumping ahead about a week. And the only reason I'm mentioning all this now, is not because I'm a nutjob, but because I was trying to decide what the weather was like when Emily was getting dressed :)

Thursday

Scar Tissue

Emily stood naked, staring into the full length mirror affixed to the inside of her bedroom closet door.

She was looking at her scars . . . the new ones, those that were still pink . . . and her bruises. The palette for the latter had mostly morphed to shades of brown with the occasional tint of yellow.

Her body was healing.

On the outside anyway.

But she wondered if it had healed enough. Enough for her to go back to work. Because that's what she was supposed to be doing on this bright and sunny summer morning. Slip into her black suit . . . and all the rest of her Agent Prentiss armor . . . and go back out into a world that had torn her flesh apart mere weeks ago. And she wasn't sure if she was ready to take that step.

If it wasn't still too soon to even try.

The Bureau's written decision on her return had stated 'light duty' to start. Which meant no field work, and no more than six hour days for the first full week . . . but it still seemed like a lot of pressure. Because there was so very much that could go wrong. What if she choked up looking at a case file? Or started crying over an autopsy report? Or God help her, went off and started screaming at somebody on the elevator? Somebody who had just stepped on her foot.

What then?

Everything, all of the progress that she'd made so far, it would all have been for nothing. She'd be back at the beginning. Worse even. All of her pain, all of her scars . . . all of her PRIVATE business . . . it would be laid bare for others to see. Of all the things that she was struggling to get beyond, and make right, that was the ONE thing that she wasn't sure that she could come back from.

Public humiliation.

Her dignity was all that she had left.

So perhaps it would be better for her to wait. Maybe she could start back next week . . . her fingertips ghosted over a still dark bruise on her lower back . . . or maybe the week after that. Maybe then she'd be ready.

The thought had no sooner come to her, than she was pushing it right back out of her brain.

No . . . she winced and her eyes fell shut . . . no, she couldn't do that. She couldn't push off her return, because her return was linked with Aaron's return. They were doing this together. And HE was going back today, that was a definite. He had a unit to run, and he was going to need her there with him. Even if it was just for moral support.

That was a definite too.

Shit.

Okay . . . she sucked in a deep breath . . . six hours. That's all she had to get through, a six hour day. And at least one of those hours would probably be spent filling out forms down in HR, so that would bring her down to a five hour day. And then maybe forty minutes for lunch, so . . . she bit her lip . . . that just left like four hours really. And four hours was nothing. It was a Lord of the Rings movie. A Godfather director's cut. It was nothing . . . her hands clenched . . . a breeze. The time would fly right by before she even knew it. Right?

Her eyes fell shut again.

Christ help me.

/*/*/*/*/*

On the drive to work, Emily was nervous and quiet . . . Hotch couldn't stop talking. That was a switch. But he seemed to either be running on an excess of adrenaline, or an excess of caffeine, either way though, he was clearly wired.

He kept running down their day.

He had everything planned out, almost to the minute, of what he wanted to get done, of who he specifically wanted them to see, and of who he specifically wanted them to avoid. And he just wanted her to know that he had this plan. And as long as they stuck to this plan, that everything was going to be fine.

Just fine.

Although part of her wanted to make him pull over to the side of the road so she could shake him silly . . . they both knew how quickly, and devastatingly, plans fell apart . . . she let it be. If this was what he needed to do to walk back into that building with some myth of control, then she would be supportive. Or at least not take the wind out of his sails. Whatever got him through the first day.

And all the days after that.

So she nodded to his statements, and occasionally murmured an "okay, sounds good" when he raised a point that sounded vaguely inquisitive, but mostly she just stared out the side window, watching the morning sunlight glinting off the curves of the passing cars. Her eyes felt gritty, and her hands were balled into tights fists in her lap.

The ride took forever.

/*/*/*/*/*

It wasn't until the following Tuesday that Emily had a total breakdown at work. It took her completely by surprise. No . . . she bit her lip . . . no, that was a lie.

The surprise was really that she'd lasted as long as she did.

In her defense though, up to that point . . . the point where her control began to unravel . . . the return hadn't (outwardly) been going too badly. That first morning they'd walked back through the glass doors to almost no fanfare. That was one check in the pro column of working in a unit like theirs . . . everybody was trained in trauma counseling.

So everybody kept their distance.

All of the little half waves, the polite head nods, the tiny supportive smiles . . . they were tolerable. And on some level Emily had also felt some relief in knowing that neither she nor Hotch were being treated as pariahs. Because if anyone had thought that their actions up on that mountain had been "monstrous" . . . as for instance, she herself did . . . then they'd hid it well.

Better than her at least.

The only people who had actually approached them that first day, and/or spoke to them directly for more than a casual greeting, were the younger members of the team. Gentle hugs for Emily, light claps on the back for Hotch.

Again, it had all been very tolerable.

At least from Emily's point of view. Granted, she wasn't really into the whole 'touching' thing right now . . . she was more into the 'put a fist through somebody's throat' thing right now . . . but her team was her family. And she did love them, still. So she'd be damned if she let this little bout of ATD, damage her long term relationships with them. She'd lost enough already.

She didn't want to lose them too.

So she'd suffered through the hugging with what she'd hoped wasn't a scary smile. And nobody ran from her desk, screaming in terror, so she figured she did okay faking it.

Happiness that is.

Because that of course was what she was faking. Happiness was what had been eluding her since that day in the woods. Happiness, contentment . . . sanity.

Things other people took for granted.

Not that she had been in any way 'displeased' to see her friends, but it had been almost five (very deliberate) weeks, since she'd last seen anyone from work besides Hotch. And she could have easily gone another five weeks without batting an eye. But by the time she walked back through those glass doors, she had accepted that it was time to start reengaging.

Or at least accepted that it was time to see if she still could reengage.

The jury was still out on that one. But, all horrific events considered, she'd felt that she'd done pretty well on the 'interaction' front. Her social skills might have been fairly rusty, but they hadn't yet become completely non-existent. And again, mostly the others had kept their hands to themselves.

Thank God for that.

So basically things had gone okay'ish on day one. That was the hardest day. Just getting used to being around people again was difficult. Not that she and Hotch had been hiding away in a closet . . . they'd had their therapy, and those regular walks around the city . . . but work was different. Work was personal. She knew these people.

And they knew her.

And unlike the prior five weeks of dealing with strangers, people who didn't give a shit about her or her problems, Emily had walked back into the BAU knowing that THOSE people were watching her. Watching for the little cracks and tremors, and tiny quirks. Those little things . . . the tells . . . that would just prove to them what they had to already know.

That she was still broken.

And she hadn't much cared for the idea of being on display. Like she had a countdown clock on her, and everybody was just waiting for the "KABOOM!" So again, just adjusting to those eyes had been difficult.

But there was no kaboom.

And then the first day ended . . . and Hotch took her home.

They made it.

Thursday was much of the same, and Friday too. No more hugs by Friday . . . thank God . . . but still they were getting the knowing looks and the supportive smiles. And by Friday those were starting to chafe. Seriously. She felt like a mental patient. Somebody that had just gotten her day pass and was wandering out in the world, the little plastic badge pinned to her chest.

Crazy Person Here! Keep Your Distance!

Hotch had told her that she was being too sensitive. That the others were just trying to be nice. His words would have made more of an impact if he'd kept eye contact when he'd said them. But he hadn't. So she was pretty sure that he had just been bullshitting a response. Not just for her though.

For himself too.

Because she had seen that he was also getting those little looks . . . and she had seen that they were also starting to wear on him. Just because he hadn't admitted that to her, or perhaps even to himself, didn't mean that he was doing any better than she was.

Treading water was their way of life.

And of the two of them, Aaron was definitely under a hell of a lot more pressure over the situation in the office. And that was because Gideon had only given him a week's notice . . . and Rossi hadn't started yet . . . so Hotch had walked back in the door trying to immediately get back up to speed on a thousand different things that he used to be able to keep straight, without so much as a blink of an eye. But those days had passed. He'd been struggling, and she'd been worried.

She still was.

But one point on the plus side . . . for both of them . . . was that each day that passed, that was one more day under their belts. One more day to "adjust" to how things were now. And make no mistake, everything was different. There was no way around that.

They were different people.

So they were re-learning their way through the old routines. The paperwork, the meetings . . . the trips to the range, and the gym. And then there were the new routines . . . though they really weren't all that new anymore. And those would be the physical therapy, the talking therapy . . . the joint therapy.

All of the therapies were still painful.

But still, somehow, she'd gotten through those first few days, with nary the occasional sobbing herself to sleep. But hey, a girl had to have some kind of release.

And crying at home kept her from crying at work.

Or at least it had been.

But now it was week two, day three. And not five minutes ago her control had suddenly . . . and horrifically . . . begun to unravel. She'd been sitting quietly at her desk, reviewing the newest stack of files that had been left for her. All new consult requests. All new stacks of neatly packaged, high glossy horrors, taking place around the country.

Where to begin?

Well, that had been her biggest stress point every day since she'd returned. Which file should she pick up first? Each time she made that choice, she'd felt a surge of panic that that file would be the one that would break her. So today she'd done what she'd been doing since she'd returned . . . she'd stared at the little stack of manila files for almost a minute, gauging the thickness of each, hedging bets.

Sending up prayers.

And then she began. A deep breath, and a folder grabbed at random. One, two, three . . . she snapped back the cover . . . go.

That had been working so far.

It had been working today too, she'd begun her reviews just a little over two hours ago. And basically things had been going okay . . . or, well enough . . . until she'd picked up the folder she was currently staring down at with her mouth agape. There was a picture in front of her. A crime scene photo. A, horrific, crime scene photo.

The woman's eyes had been sewn shut.

It might as well have been a freaking snapshot taken from her last 'wake up screaming at three am' nightmare. And at the moment it was BEYOND Emily as to why the freaking hell JJ would have ever given her THIS case file without any God damn notice . . . seriously what the actual FUCK(!?) . . . but here it was, right on her desk. Sitting there in all of its Technicolor horror.

She wanted to throw up.

Her eyes were burning and then her hands started to shake . . . she slipped them under her desk. But that didn't stop it, the attack was hitting like a freight train. Now her breathing was getting erratic, and her heart had begun to race.

Oh God! The physical manifestations were going to give her away . . . she thought with wave of panic . . . they were all going to SEE! Crazy person in the house!

And she was desperately searching for some way to get OUT of there! To somehow stand, and walk up the stairs to Hotch's office, without looking like a completely spastic LUNATIC!

It didn't help that she FELT like a completely spastic lunatic. Hence her drawing a complete blank on a means of escape from her DESK of all places! But it was like she was stuck in quicksand.

And she was just about to DROWN!

Just then . . . just as the shakes started to travel their way up her body . . . Emily felt someone's eyes on her.

Her own eyes snapped up to see Rossi . . . he was looking down from the catwalk. He'd just started back the day before, and given that she'd already had her big 'bonding' experience with him like ten days ago, all they did when he'd come through with Hotch, was exchange a quick wave.

But now she could see that he was staring at her . . . and then she saw his eyes widen. He seemed to realize what was happening. Her tears started to pool.

That she was on the verge of going nuclear.

To his credit, and her everlasting gratitude, he didn't make a fool of her. He didn't yell over the railing and ask if she was okay, he just quietly worked his way over and down the stairs.

Her watery gaze dropped back down to her desk. Back to that God damn picture.

Her unraveling.

But then she felt Rossi's hand on her shoulder and he was muttering some nonsense about needing help figuring out the new database, and did she mind giving him a hand.

Somehow she found herself murmuring a non-committal, "mmm, hmm," even as he subtly moved her chair back with his foot.

And then she was standing, and he was guiding . . . and then she was at the top of the stairs.

Her eyes locked onto Hotch's closed door . . . shit, she'd forgotten that he had a meeting with Gideon(!) . . . while Rossi kept her moving smoothly along the upper walkway and down the little hall. He'd be taking Gideon's office, but Gideon wasn't leaving until Friday.

It was only Wednesday.

He walked her into the conference room . . . and she doubled over, sucking wind. Then she heard the door shut, and she could feel Rossi's hand again pressed to the middle of her back.

"Just breathe kid," he whispered with a pat, "it'll pass."

And a few minutes . . . a half dozen tears, a few thousand erratic heartbeats, and a few million panting breaths, later . . . it did. Slowly, she came back first to herself.

And then to a fully vertical position.

Rossi's hand finally fell away . . . he hadn't left her side the whole time.

She looked up at him then, her face flushed, her eyes watering, her whole essence reeking of shame and humiliation. But Dave Rossi, this curious man that she hardly knew, he didn't make her feel like a fool for breaking down. He just gave her a sad smile.

"I once had one while I was having sex with my wife. My first wife. I suddenly noticed that her hair was the same shade of cornflower yellow as the girl we'd dug out of a dumpster three days before. I jumped out of bed like my dick was on fire. Now that," he rolled his eyes, "was embarrassing. This was nothing. Nobody else knows," he gave her a hard look, "and nobody else is going to know. Not from me. So," he turned to lean across the table, "here," he turned back to hand her his water bottle.

"Sorry, I did take a drink out of it, but I promise I have no diseases."

Emily stared down at the drink for a moment before another of her pooling tears spilled over. It dripped off her cheek.

"Thank you," she murmured back, her eyes snapping back up to his, "thank you very much. You um, well," she simultaneously cleared her throat and reached out to take the bottle. "I didn't know what I was going to do."

Rossi shrugged dismissively.

"No thanks needed. I just happened to be there. And honestly, and I know you don't want it to happen, but having a panic attack in the middle of the bullpen wouldn't have been the end of the world. It wouldn't have even been the end of your career. It would have just been a bad day. But really," he reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder, "just think how bad your days have been recently. Nothing that's going to happen to you in here, is ever going to compare with what happened to you out there. You get what I'm saying?"

For a second, she stared up at him, another tear slowly trickling down her skin. And then she blinked, and nodded.

"Yeah," she swallowed and wiped the back of her hand across her face, "yeah, I think I do. But I still don't want to, you know . . ."

And she trailed off.

But he stepped right in again.

"I get ya kid, and I also get that you and Aaron are private people, and you don't want the rest of the world to know any of your business. And to that I say, fuck 'em. Fuck the whole damn lot of them. Fuck your friends, your family," his lip quirked up, "me. Who cares what any of us thinks, really? It's your life, the rest of us are just set pieces. So," he patted her shoulder, "you think about that. And I'm going to go see if Aaron's free now, because we both know damn well that you'd rather be talking to him right now than me."

Emily cleared her throat.

"Thanks Ros . . . Dave," she tipped her head, "thank you, really."

There was no way she was going to be able to repay him for what he'd done.

Dave winked.

"Hey, I'm just glad it wasn't me. It's been a long time since I've seen the wicked witch. Walking into Strauss' office yesterday I could have easily had a flashback myself."

Seeing Emily's red rimmed eyes crinkle slightly, Dave knew that his job there was done. Best to get out now before he fucked it up. So he gave her one last smile, and turned away.

He slipped out the side door without another word.

Emily stared after Dave for a moment. Then she blinked and sniffled and set about pulling herself back together.

At least the best that she could under the circumstances.

Basically all she did was spill a little of the bottled water into her hand and splash it onto her face. That didn't do much of course besides rinse away the salination, aka make her a little less 'sticky.' Otherwise she still felt like complete shit.

She just wanted to get out of there.

Though she did allow that Rossi had made some valid points on perspective . . . basically in her need to get some. But those were points that she would much rather be pondering at home, curled up on her couch with a bottle of whiskey.

And hopefully Hotch.

God she would happily go out and humiliate herself again, if she could just get a hug from him right then!

And while she anxiously waited for him to come find her . . . she knew that Dave would get him out of his office . . . she gulped down the rest of the water. Then she went over and turned off the overhead light. It was hurting her eyes.

Or maybe it was just her brain that hurt.

Either way she moved over to the side of the room . . . far away from the sunbeams cutting through the slats of the closed blinds . . . and stooped down to her knees. There she braced her back against the wall.

Then she closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, she heard the doorknob turning, but before she could panic . . . there was Aaron's voice.

"Emily," he whispered, "are you in here?"

Thank God!

"Here," she called out softly, swallowing the lump in her throat, "in the corner, on the floor."

Hotch slipped through the door, and quickly closed it behind him. After he'd turned the lock, he took four quick strides across the small room.

"Are you okay? Rossi told me that I needed to come see you."

Hotch's words were a soft murmur as he stooped down in front of Emily, his fingers dangling just above her left knee.

Though it was obvious that something had happened to upset her . . . and seeing that she was upset immediately gave him the urge to pull her into his arms . . . it was absolutely not the place for it.

He needed to keep his hands to himself.

"It was a frigging case file," she croaked back, trying to keep the strain out of her voice, "but I don't want to talk about it right now. I just want to go home."

"Okay," he immediately soothed back, "we can leave. It's after two now and I don't have any more meetings today."

Hell, he'd have been happy to have gone home around hour two that morning . . . that was the point where he'd actually counted the stacks of unread files still piled around his desk . . . but he'd stayed because throwing in the towel that early in the day would have been pathetic.

But hour five . . . he reached down to help Emily up . . . that sounded just about right. And with that he tugged on her hand . . . and they both came back up to their feet.

Even in shadows Hotch could see that Emily's eyes were still down on the faded carpet . . . her body was barely an inch away from his. She was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his jaw.

It made his pulse quicken.

But when she leaned forward to put her arms around him . . . he stepped back, dropping her fingers in the process.

It actually hurt him to do it. To move away. But a locked door and a dark room looked bad enough on their own. He didn't need to add anything to an incident report that would actual count as an "incident." As long as they were on duty . . . and most especially onsite at Quantico . . . their physical interactions had to be FAR above reproach. Strauss was still looking for any excuse.

And Christ knew that they couldn't get separated now!

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his stomach twisting when he saw the flash of pain on her face just as her arms come up to wrap around her chest, "but we can't, not in here. I'll give you a hug as soon as we're off base, okay?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could see that he'd just colossally compounded the cluster he'd created. Emily's jaw had tightened. And despite the words he'd just spoken, he found himself reaching out to touch her cheek.

To make a connection again.

But just as he touched her skin, she jerked her head back like she'd been burned. His heart clenched.

"Emily, I'm . . ."

But she didn't want to hear it. Her watery eyes shifted towards the door as she cut him off.

"Let's just go."

A/N 2: If you're reading The Arrangement, you might notice the gender flip in the relationship breakdown. It's always kind of interesting (to me) when things come together like that. With some ying and yang because at any given time I'm poking away on a half dozen things, and then suddenly the two back to back items that wrap, will end up balancing each other out in some weird way.

So now Hotch is most definitely in the doghouse. But it won't be too long before you find out if he gets himself out of it in the short term.

Otherwise, thanks for the feedback!