TW-self-harm

It was late in the afternoon and Emily was working on her last consult of the day. As she progressed on the write-up, she noticed that she needed to double check the search parameters with Garcia before she could sign off on the case. Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, Emily pushed her chair back and stood up.

As she looked around the bullpen, she noticed that it was unusually deserted. Morgan was spending the afternoon at the Academy working with the recruits on tactical simulations. This was an assignment that Morgan fulfilled a few hours a month, the schedule dependent on when the team was at Quantico.

It wasn't the first time that Morgan had been off at the Academy since Emily joined the team. In fact, he had gone about half a dozen times. And the bullpen was always quieter when he wasn't there.

But today was different. Hell the whole time the team had been back from Georgia had been different. Many days the tension in the bullpen could be cut through with a knife by the end of the day. Agents not on their team has started avoiding the bullpen whenever possible.

In the past when Morgan had gone, Emily and Reid had spent the time talking about subjects that Reid had informed her that Morgan wouldn't be interested in and would in fact tease them mercilessly about if he was there. The discussions had been light and fun. Emily had found herself relaxing the barriers on some on the nerdy tendencies that she had learned to keep well hidden from others, particularly men.

Reid had previously been talkative and prone to tangents on random subjects. Friendly to those around him. Always finding fun and interesting ways to fill down time such as with physics magic.

But since he had returned to work, he had been unusually quiet, answering any questions posed to him in one to two words replies. And irritable. They all knew that he needed time to recover and weren't expecting him to jump back into his former self. But the contrast was stark.

And Emily, probably better than anyone else on the team, could understand the headspace that Spencer found himself in since his abduction. After she had been rescued from Ian Doyle's estate, she also found it difficult to cope initially, curling in on herself and being cranky with others during her hospitalization and debriefing.

The need for some space to process the experience had been the primary reason for the fortuitous decision to go off the grid after she left the hospital. She knew that it was highly unlikely that she would still be alive today if she hadn't disappeared when she did.

Closing the file on her desk, she walked out of the bullpen towards Garcia's office, anxious to get finished for the evening. Wanting this week to finally be over.

As she approaches the door, she notices that it is partially open which was unusual. As she walked closer, she could hear the voices of Garcia and JJ. Emily raised her hand to knock but stopped when she heard what they were talking about.

Her.

She lowered her arm and listened. As their conversation continued, Emily had heard enough. Turning she walked further down the hall to the stairwell at the far end.

Once she had reached the roof, Emily started to pace, trying to get her feelings under control before returning to her desk.

####

Derek Morgan stepped off the elevators, humming.

He had spent a mostly successful afternoon at the Academy Training Facility putting recruits through the paces in simulations of takedown procedures in various scenarios. He was pleased that, over the course of the afternoon, most of them had made progress. They listened to his feedback and made the necessary changes to their techniques. The real test for him would be how they did when he went back in three weeks.

Now, the workday was almost over and he hadn't gotten any messages about a new case. Which meant as soon as he got his stuff, he and Garcia were headed to their favorite bar for Friday night drinks.

This rotation at the Academy couldn't have come at a better time. Since Reid had returned to work a few days earlier, the mood of the bullpen had tense. Other agents sensed it and had been actively avoided going in there. And he didn't blame them. He didn't want to be there either except that was where his workspace was.

He had felt bad for leaving Prentiss by herself with Reid this afternoon. Somehow he didn't think they had had their usual nerdy conversation on stuff like quarks and foreign films as they had when he was at the Academy previously.

Morgan had considered asking Hotch if he could take Prentiss with him for help demonstrating but remembered that he still hadn't finished her tactical evaluation. Which reminded him, he needed to talk to Hotch about when they were going to reschedule that. Hopefully soon. They needed Prentiss fully in the field, especially since Reid did not seem to be in any condition to do field work. And he knew that Hotch didn't want to have Prentiss fully in the field until Morgan had signed off on her full tactical performance.

But that needed to wait until next week. Right now he was going to go find his Baby Girl and hit the bars.

Looking through the glass, he saw Reid at his desk and Gideon and Hotch in their respective offices but no Prentiss. Noticing the time as he looks at his watch, he wonders if she had already left for the day. Until he saw the pile of files on her desk. Nope. She hadn't handed her files into Hotch so she still must be around here somewhere.

As he turned down the hallway towards Garcia's office, he wondered if they should invited her to come with them to the bar. After the last few hours alone in the bullpen with Reid, Prentiss may be ready for a drink.

Then he saw his brunette colleague outside of Garcia office with her hand up as if she is going to knock. Then he saw her pause. Her expression quickly changed and she dropped her arms to her sides. Before he could call out to her, she stepped back, turned and walked away with a determined pace in the opposite direction before entering the stairwell at the end of the hall.

Wondering what the hell that was about, he walked up to Garcia office. He stopped before entering, curious about what had caused that reaction. As he waited, he could hear Garcia and JJ talking.

About Emily.

Derek knocked on the door as he pushed it open. "Hey."

"Hi Derek." JJ replied smiling looking over at the door from where she was sitting next to Garcia.

"Hey Hot Stuff. What are you up to?" Garcia said, looking up at him smiling.

"Just got back from the Academy. What are you ladies talking about?"

The two women look at each other before looking back at him. The guilty expressions were easily spotted by the profiler. Then JJ said quietly. "Just catching up."

After what he had heard, Morgan was not going to let that explanation go without comment. "If you are going to talk about someone, you may want to make sure you are somewhere it can't be overheard." Morgan said annoyed, looking pointedly at the two women sitting in front of him.

"What do you mean?" Garcia asked with a worried look on her face.

"You're door was open while you were 'catching up'." Morgan said, gesturing air quotes.

"You heard?" Garcia asked concerned.

"I'm not the only one." Morgan replied forcefully.

"Crap."

"Damn."

"Yeah, you think? What the hell is wrong with you?" Morgan asked, his anger back in full force.

"We were just commenting on the truth, Derek. She doesn't care. The case in Georgia proved that." JJ responded indignantly.

"I think that you are completely wrong. Let me tell you what I saw. For the three days that Reid was missing, she didn't sleep..." Morgan responded.

"Yes she did, Derek. She went up with me the first night." JJ interrupted and rolled her eyes.

"True, but then she was up pacing within a half hour. We could hear it downstairs. Then less than a half hour after that, she was back down and sorting through the journals for the rest of the night." Morgan responded. JJ looked at him confused. She had thought when she came down in the morning that Emily had simply woken up before her.

Then Morgan continued. "And JJ, jumping on her about her reactions to cases during a case, especially with Reid missing. Real low. That wasn't the place or the time."

JJ looked up at him with her cheeks flushed, arms crossed in front of her. "But it's true. Nothing affects her. Even that question- she just brushed it off. She couldn't even come up with a real answer. Except compartmentalization." JJ said rolling her eyes.

Morgan shook his head before continuing. "Really? Then why less than an hour later did I see her walk over to the cornfield. Thinking she was following a clue, I went after her. You want to know what I saw when I found her? She was sitting on a fallen log crying, alone." Morgan stopped and took a few deep breaths before looking back and forth between JJ and Garcia before continuing. "Have either of you ever considered that maybe it isn't that nothing affects her but that she still doesn't feel comfortable enough yet to show it around us? Do you really think that the two of you gossiping about her is going to improve things? Both of you know how hard it can be for women in the FBI. If you go into some units and are emotional during a case, you will never get the respect from your peers." As he looked at the women, he could see tears in Garcia's eyes and disbelief in JJ's.

"True. But then why didn't she come to the hospital with the rest of us after we found Reid?" JJ retorted.

"Do you know why she didn't come? What she was doing instead?" Morgan responded shaking his head.

"No. But it sounds like you do." JJ responded tersely.

"She stayed behind to act as the agent on site for the investigation so that Hotch and Gideon could both go to the hospital and stay with the rest of us. She spent another night at that house so that the rest of us could be at the hospital for Reid when he needed us. It was work that needed to be done that night and she volunteered to do it." Morgan answered as he felt his anger rise.

"I thought Hotch did that the next day." JJ answered.

"Do you honestly think that Hotch would have been able to do everything for THAT case in the less than 2 hours he was gone?" Morgan responded incredulously.

JJ looked down and shook her head before answering. "No, you're right. It would have taken almost 2 hours just to drive between the house, cemetery where we found Reid and the Sheriff's office. And that's not counting doing anything at any of those sites once you got there."

Morgan took a deep breath, relieved that he finally seemed to be making progress. "That's right. Also Hotch didn't complete most of the paperwork for the case. Emily did. He just needed to double check most of it and sign everything off."

"How do you know that, Morgan?" JJ answered angrily. She had been forced to concede the previous points but wasn't going to let this one go without proof.

Morgan could see the angry disbelief on the blonde's face and knew that he was going to need to pull the documentation out to prove the point. He had been shocked the first time he had looked at the completed file at how much Emily had completed. "Look at the file, see for yourself. Baby Girl, can you pull up the scanned copy of the file from that case?"

Garcia turned to her keyboard and started typing away, glad to have a task to do. The tense conversation between two of her best friends was upsetting. And she was also feeling guilty about some of the things that had been said about Emily especially with knowing that Emily had heard some of it. "As long as it's already been scanned I can. Give me a minute."

After a few seconds, the file popped up on Garcia's screen and they started to page through it. "Ok here it is." What Morgan had said both women could now see with their own eyes.

As Garcia paged through the entire files, they were shocked at what they saw. Most of the file had the documentation completed in Emily's handwriting with Hotch only signing off each document. Then there was several that had both Hotch and Emily's writing. Finally there were a few that only had Hotch's handwriting throughout.

Looking closer, JJ saw that the request forms completed for the necropsies and pathologies of the dogs was completed by Emily. The day that the results came, JJ had been so relieved to have confirmation that none of the dogs had carried any serious diseases. She had given silent thanks to Hotch when that weight was lifted. Now it appeared that her silent thanks had been misdirected.

"That is what I was talking about. 90% of the paperwork that was done for that case, aside from our individual reports, Emily completed." Morgan said.

"This must have taken her hours." Garcia stated distractedly without looking away from her screen. "It would explain why when she got to the plane, she was still wearing the same clothes from the day before." It stood out to Garcia that Emily, who until that morning, no matter what time the team was called in always looked polished, had looked somewhat rough around the edges and wearing same clothes as the day before.

"Exactly, while the rest of us had a rest break and a shower, she was at crime scenes and doing paperwork." Morgan answered.

"But why?" JJ asked confusedly.

"JJ, what did Reid say to us that night right before we got in the SUV to go to the hospital?" Morgan asked.

"That he just wanted to go home." JJ responded immediately knowing that she would not forget what happened on that case anytime soon.

Morgan looked at her and did not answer until he had made eye contact with JJ. "Exactly, he just wanted to go home. And because of what Emily did, as soon as he was discharged from the hospital, we were able to fly home. This is why I completely disagree with you that she doesn't care. Emily did what she could within her power to make sure the team could be with him at the hospital and that the casework was done when he was ready to go."

"But she's a member of the team too." Garcia said worriedly looking back and forth between Morgan and JJ.

"Yeah, but she doesn't feel like she is part of the team yet. I can't imagine why she would feel that way." Morgan responded sarcastically.

The three of them sat there for a few minutes in silence. Not able to take the uncomfortable silence anymore, Garcia asked.

"Hey Derek, are you ready to go?"

Morgan looked up and looked over at Garcia and JJ. The positive mood he had been in when he had gotten off the elevator was now gone. He shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm not in the mood to go out tonight. Goodnight ladies." He stood up and walked out the door, heading back to the bullpen.

####

Emily entered the bullpen and immediately walked over to her desk. She picked up the file that lead to her visit to Garcia office in the first place and placed it in her bag. She would email Garcia over the weekend and hand it in on Monday.

Grabbing the rest of her completed files from the corner of her desk, she quickly walked across the bullpen and up the stairs to Hotch's office. When she reached the open door, she noticed the office was empty. Stepping over the threshold, she walked over to the desk and placed her stack of files on his blotter before turning and walking back out.

After letting a distracted Gideon know that she was heading out for the night, she walked back to her desk. Once she slipped on her coat, Emily picked up her purse and bag before turning to leave. She had gone forward two steps before she walked back to her desk and pulled her workout bag from underneath. Saying goodnight to Reid, she walked out through one of the side doors of the bullpen.

####

Hotch opened the glass doors and walked into the bullpen with a determined stride. Looking around, he noticed that Gideon was in his office and Reid was staring at a file at his desk. Other than those two, the bullpen was deserted. He climbed the stairs and entered his office immediately noticing a stack of files that hadn't been there when he had stepped out of his office a few minutes earlier. He sighed as he walked around his desk and sat down. Opening the first file confirmed what he had suspected. These were Emily's completed files. Looking out the window into the bullpen, he noticed her coat that had been draped over the back of her chair was missing.

He shook his head and thought about the conversation he had just overheard. He had left his office a few minutes earlier to check in with JJ about if there were any consults that had come in that day that needed immediate attention or that he needed to review over the weekend. Arriving at JJ's office, he had found it empty.

Since Reid's return to work a few days earlier, the team's default gathering place had changed from the bullpen to Garcia's office. He turned to walk towards the tech cave in search of his missing media liaison. As he walked up to the door, he could hear voices coming from inside that he identified as Garcia, Morgan and JJ.

As he moved closer to the door, Hotch could hear that Emily was the topic of their conversation. He stopped outside the door and listened. After a couple of minutes he had walked away from the door, forgetting momentarily why he had come down there in the first place.

Now sitting back at his desk, Hotch lamented on how he was going to handle the situation that he had just overheard. Gideon had been right in Georgia when he had mentioned that the younger team members weren't going to give Emily a chance until Hotch did. Of course he was right. As infuriating as it could be at times, the old man was always right. And it appeared that JJ was continuing to instigate, this time she had pulled Garcia into the conversation.

Hotch, however, knew that he needed to change his approach with Emily once and for all. Yes she did seem different that she had been in 1994. He didn't know what it was but it seemed to him to be more than just the passage of time. But he couldn't use that observation as an excuse any longer especially when he had repeatedly seen hard evidence that the reasons she had disappeared from his life didn't happen for those reasons. At this point he didn't know what to think about what really happened.

He said he would give her a chance and so far she had exceed expectations in just about every area. But he had continued to treat her with an air of suspicion and now he was repeatedly seeing the evidence that that suspicion was having with the rest of the team.

Right now the team had real problems to deal with. He needed to put a quick end to the manufactured one of his own making.

While they had cleared the inquiry concerning Reid's abduction, Strauss was keeping a closer eye that normal on the team.

Then there was Reid himself who had been struggling since his return. So far Hotch was giving him leeway while allowing him to get back in the routine of the BAU. However, if he didn't start to improve soon, he and/or Gideon would need to address it formally.

Then there was JJ who clearly had a traumatizing experience in the barn with the dogs. Because of that he had been giving her more leeway that usual however after what he heard today, that needed to change because it was affecting the whole team.

As much as he and Morgan didn't see eye to eye on some things, he was glad that the other profiler had confronted the two women about their misinterpretation of the events that happened in Georgia. One that held more weight than if Hotch had done it.

If Hotch had inserted himself into the conversation, JJ and Garcia would have seen it as an order. And they would have followed it and stopped the gossip, at least at the office. But it wouldn't have improved Emily's standing with the two women.

Morgan was their peer. He could confront them and dispel the misconceptions that they were basing their gossip on.

But Hotch was going to need to make more of an effort to lead by example. There was no justification for him not to have given Emily credit for all of work she did while they were at the hospital with Reid. The words were not going to be enough, he was going to need to demonstrate through his actions.

And with that, Hotch looked at the clock. Dammit, he was leaving the office late again. Haley was going to be pissed. Things had been even more strained between them since he had returned from Georgia. And if he was going to be late getting home anyway, he was going to stop by where he was sure Emily had gone.

####

Morgan walked into the bullpen and went right over to his desk and sat down. As he looked around, Morgan noticed that both Hotch and Gideon were in their respective offices. Reid was sitting at his desk doing… something. But what, he didn't know and didn't dare ask. The files he had seen earlier on Emily's desk were now gone as were her coat and bag. Letting out an exasperated sigh, he turned back to his desk.

He was beyond frustrated in how the team was currently functioning. No one seemed to know how to approach Reid. They had all seen the video feed of what Henkel did to him. However it was clear that as bad as what they witnessed was, more happened to him that they hadn't seen. And he wasn't talking about ... anything.

Then there was the conversation that he had just walked in on. It was the second time in as many weeks that he had heard JJ speaking out against Emily. And that wasn't how JJ generally acted, even with new agents. They all knew she could be somewhat of a spitfire but this was different.

No, it was part of the bigger problem of the attitude Hotch had had with Emily since the day she arrived on the unit. And while he was gradually thawing out with her, it was too slow for the others on the team.

Pushing away from his desk, Morgan stood up. Turning around, he could see Hotch was deep in thought, having not touched any of the files on his desk since Morgan walked into the bullpen 10 minutes earlier. Not trusting himself to talk to the Unit Chief tonight, he gathered his bag, said goodbye to Reid and walked out.

Less than 45 minutes earlier he had arrived at the BAU happy that the work week was over. Looking forward to going out for drinks with Penelope. Now he was going home alone. And he hated being upset with Baby Girl.

####

Emily found herself in the gym again, working on one of the punching bags. She chuckled to herself at the irony of going a few rounds with one here after spending most of her work hours recently feeling like one for various members of the team. Wiping the sweat away from her brow, she contemplates what she will need to do to make progress with this team. Or does she just go against her gut and quit the job she had been wanting for over 10 years.

Gideon who had been a quiet supporter since the first case she had worked with him and Reid continued to observe her though that wasn't new. However now their interactions contained suspicion and irritability.

She had no idea what she had done to get JJ so annoyed with her. Since returning from Georgia, the shaky collegial relationship between the two women had become shakier with JJ emboldened by Hotch's support of her assessment of Emily. And now it wasn't just Hotch agreeing with JJ but now Garcia was as well.

Garcia. A member of the team that Emily had thought genuinely liked her. That was until she had overheard what Garcia was saying in her conversation with JJ tonight. But Emily knew she shouldn't be surprised. She knew the two women were close friends and had worked together for over 2 years. Somehow though Emily felt like she was suddenly back in school and overhearing some of the popular girls talking about her at yet another new school.

The questions that seemed to keep coming up was how she could remain impassive regardless of what the case was her reactions to the work that the BAU handles. And Emily could understand on some level. But she couldn't give them what they wanted. She didn't know how to.

She had grown up taught that emotions weren't expressed in public. Even in private there had been few people who she could express what she was truly feeling. Her father had been there for her but so much time had past since his death that the memories continued to fade. She had talked through many things with her grandfather during their frequent visits when she was growing up. Matthew Benton had been a great support when they both had lived in Rome as teens but that was over 20 years ago. Aaron had been when they were together but now he was one of the people she was struggling against.

Looking back, Emily could not remember ever having a talk about her feelings with the Ambassador. Any time she would be upset or sad or disappointed, regardless of the circumstances, she was sent to her room until she could control herself and paste a smile on her face.

Over time, Emily had learned to keep her emotional self hidden from others. That what she was feeling wasn't important. It was what those around her wanted her to be that was of utmost importance. But denying her feelings and continually trying to shove them into a box came at a emotional cost for her.

Sensitive from the time she was a child, times would arise when her feelings would explode and overwhelm her and couldn't be bottled up anymore. When she came to that point, a nap after a good cry didn't help with the tsunami of emotions she felt. With not knowing how to deal with them and having no safe outlet to express them, the turmoil she felt was directly inward. And over the years, she began to use various unhealthy coping strategies to help get her through these rough times and to help her center herself while still presenting the perfect image that she knew was expected from her.

And if she had noticed something was awry, her mother never commented as long as Emily kept the smile on her face and didn't do anything to embarrass her mother.

By the time she joined the Bureau, her coping strategies had evolved over the years as she had more control of her life. Not perfect but not as unhealthy as they had once been. For her first assignment as an FBI agent, she had requested and had been assigned to what she anticipated the hardest area for her, Crimes Against Children.

While her goal had always been a position as a profiler, she needed to prove to herself first that she could be successful there first. In her mind, if she couldn't handle Crimes Against Children, she would not be able to handle the BAU. And while it took time to master coping with the work, over time she did so and even excelled.

And she continued to excel over the next few years as she worked to increase her skill set not only with Crimes Against Children but also by taking the profiling courses in Quantico which lead to her first opportunity to work with profilers was during a case that Crimes Against Children worked with the BAP.

Her excitement was short-lived at the success of that assignment when the case brought her work onto the radar of the CIA. Initially, they grudgingly accepted her refusal but that all changed in the fall of 2001.

After spending weeks doing nothing but translations, she then worked again with the BAP until Bruno Hawks cornered her one day. After speaking to him, she reluctantly agreed to go through the counterterrorism training, a decision that she would come to regret.

From that day on, she could feel herself being pulled away from her dream job however the plan was for it to only be temporary. She had agreed to this detour and as long as this was her path, she was going to put her best effort into her work.

She realized later that when she was assigned to JTF-12, Bruno had used all of the right topics that hit on her vulnerabilities to get her to agree while, while downplaying aspects of the assignment. It had been described to her as similar to the work she had done with the BAP only with the team being comprised of representatives from various agencies. And for the most part that was true. Until Sean came to the team with the Ian Doyle case.

The irony of that case was that she wasn't supposed to be the undercover on it. When she joined JTF-12, it was with the understanding that she was there to do translation, analysis and field work with the team not deep cover.

But then as they were prepping for Tsia to undercover with Doyle, she became ill and was hospitalized. As the contact date grew closer for Doyle, Clyde began to pressure her to go under instead as he did not want to jeopardize the mission. Frustrated with her lack of clearance for going undercover and Emily's reluctance as she had never done deep cover before, Clyde contacted Bruno. Once again Emily was pressured by Bruno to take the assignment. He had known what buttons to push to gain her acceptance.

But Emily quickly found that being undercover resulted in overextending her coping mechanisms. Her entire self was forced inwards behind walls she keep needing to build in order to become an alternate identity. She had needed to watch herself play along while Lauren was forced to do things that Emily Prentiss would never do but Emily had to ultimately deal with the scars. Had things done to her, that without her walls, would have destroyed her. By the time she was rescued from the Doyle compound, she was almost at her breaking point.

After JTF-12 dissolved and she came back to the FBI, Emily had focused on changing her coping strategies to find alternatives to the self destructive ways that she had come to depend on and had gotten out of control since that case.

The desk position that the FBI psychiatrist had forced her into initially had been a blessing in disguise. It gave her time and space to work on new healthier coping mechanisms without the stress of being in the field. But she had not told the shrink about how she had learned to handle stress other than bite her nails. If she did then they may have never let her back into the field at all. She definitely wouldn't have made it where she had wanted to work- the BAU.

What she replaced the unhealthy coping strategies with ultimately benefited her when it was time to pass her qualifications once psych signed off on her re entering the field. Swimming. Gym sessions. Target practice.

And this is what brought her to working out in the gym tonight. Generally she would swim first but the fresh cut on her legs made that not an option. She had started cutting again shortly after returning from Georgia.

What had happened to Reid had too closely mirrored her experience with Doyle. She too had been forced to watch horrible things happen to people on a video screen. Asked to make the decision about who lived and who was killed. And if reality hadn't been graphic enough, her subconscious was rehashing it all in new and horrific ways every night in the form of nightmares.

Intellectually, Emily knew she was on a path that she needed to get off again but didn't know how to right now. And part of her wasn't ready to give up the familiar way of coping. She needed the comfort of the familiar to deal with the memories it had brought up about the Doyle case and all her feeling that stemmed from it. The turmoil on the team was just adding to the emotional burden right now.

After giving the punch bag one last hit, Emily stopped and leaned over, resting her palms on the legs right above her knees. After a few minutes, she was able to get her breathing back under control. Standing back up, she wiped the sweat from her face with the sleeve of her shirt as she walked to the locker room to shower before heading home.

As she was walking out to her car, Emily thought again about what had happened. The others on the team felt that the cases didn't get to her. But they were wrong, cases did affect her, some more deeply than others. But she knew she couldn't show it. Not with the type of monsters they chased. Emotions were a weakness made you vulnerable to others.

So she couldn't disagree with what JJ said that that is the way her actions came across to others. Even though the words had hurt. She acted that way to protect herself but the team was not having the chance to know the real her. There was no way for them to know she had to hide her feelings behind thick walls so she could do this job.

And there was no way they would unless she relaxed those walls some, at least with the team. Open herself up, slowly. That may be the way to get herself back off the self destructive path she found herself on. It would be hard but she wanted to be in the BAU. Wanted to be part of this team. If she really didn't want it, she would have walked out the day she found out Aaron Hotchner was her new supervisor.

Relieved that she had come up with a middle ground that she was comfortable with, Emily pulled out of the parking lot, hoping it would be enough for the team. That they would see that she was trying.

####

Hotch looked into the training facility, pleased that he had profiled correctly that Emily would be here. He watch her work with the punching bag, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was watching her. He noticed that she seemed to be deep in thought. When after several minutes, she wasn't slowing down, he sighed and turned to leave. She obviously needed the release and wouldn't want to be interrupted, especially by him. And looking at his watch, he needed to be heading home.