Disclaimer: I own nothing.
As Emily finished up her paperwork, she couldn't help but be excited. After work, she was going out with Garcia and JJ for Girls' Night.
She had been looking forward to going out with them since JJ had mentioned it a few weeks earlier. Their first attempt had been thwarted by a case but today no cases had come up and they were planning on heading out right after work.
The timing couldn't have been better for a night out. It had been almost two weeks since she had discovered the truth about her parents' role in her breakup with Aaron years earlier.
Since the day that Spencer had taken her to Alicia's office, she had been processing through everything with the older woman with frequent sessions. She knew at some point her and Hotch would need to have a conversation even with it being just to clear the air in their professional roles. He had the right to know what happened just as she did.
She suspected that the misconceptions caused by what her parents had done had colored his expectations of her when she started at the BAU just as it had affected her interactions with him. At this point, she just wanted the whole story out in the open between them so they could determine if it was possible to continue working together.
Alicia had shared with Emily several times over the years that she suspected there was more to Aaron leaving the way he did. However even with that mindset, she expressed shock at the level of manipulation that had occurred. That night at her parents' house had indeed been eye opening for Emily as she realized how far her parents were willing to go to control her life.
Since that night, Emily had sent all of the numerous calls she had received from her mother to straight to voicemail, not ready to talk to her. The messages were mostly the same, focusing on regrets on how Emily found out while still maintaining that things wouldn't have worked between her and Aaron.
Now Emily had to consider if her relationship with her mother have a future? Until she had better clarity about that, she didn't want to talk.
With Hotch also at the office and having no idea how much he knew, Emily felt mostly confident that her mother wouldn't show up there again unannounced.
However, Emily groaned as she realized that she was on borrowed time until her mother would show up at the apartment. It belonged to the family so her mother had a key. It also meant that regardless of her feelings about the apartment, she should probably start looking for a new place.
Even if she was somehow able to get past what she had just learned, she now knew she needed to have clearer delineation lines between her parents' influence and her personal life. And moving to her own place again would be a good first step.
But for tonight, all of that drama was on the back burner. She wanted to enjoy this first night out with her new-ish coworkers.
####
After parking, Emily notices that she was the first one there. JJ and Garcia had left the office earlier than her but were making a stop first. As Emily walked through the parking lot, she began to feel as if someone was watching her. Looking around, no one stood out.
Shaking her head, Emily turned and continued walking towards the entrance, when she saw someone come around the corner from the other way and cross over to the sidewalk before stopping. She was surprised by who she saw standing in front of her.
He smiled and said with an accent, "hello Emily. You have proven to be a difficult person to get in touch with."
####
As JJ sat next to Garcia at a table while Emily was in line at the bar getting them all drinks, she thought about the strange encounter they witnessed outside when they arrived. As she walked up with Garcia, they saw Emily deep in conversation with a tall dark haired man. Their conversation quickly stopped before her and Garcia had been close enough to hear what they were saying.
After quick greetings, the man, who introduced himself as Jeremy, quietly whispered to Emily though JJ had been close enough to hear to let them know if she could think of anything. What did he mean by 'them'?
The more JJ thought about it, the more she wonder what that was about. It certainly didn't seem like they had just met.
JJ then shook her head. Maybe she had been working with profilers for too long that she was seeing things that weren't there. This outing was the next big step after the talk she and Emily had to getting past the friction that had been happening between them since Emily joined the team. If she started questioning Emily, especially since it was just a feeling without any proof, she could lose the fragile progress they had made.
Sighing, JJ thought as they sat there about how little she did know about Emily compared to the others on the team.
Morgan, of all people with his trust issues, had quickly formed a bond with Emily which JJ had chalked up to Emily's strong desire to prove herself thus earning his respect.
Garcia had commented that her and Emily had had lunch a few times and had been encouraging JJ to give her a chance.
While Hotch had been suspicious of Emily from the beginning, in recent weeks he had come around to seeing her value to the team. But even with the friction between them, JJ could sense there was a level of familiarity between the two of them. However that did not make sense with limited timeframe Emily had been with the team.
On the other hand, Gideon had been an early supporter of Emily's skills as an agent. However for some unknown reason a couple of months ago, he became suspicious of her. That suspicion peaked during a tense meeting between the two of them around the same time Emily and Spencer started spending time together. To JJ it felt like there was something more involved with the conflict between them but she could never put her finger on what as both were incredibly tight-lipped and overall difficult to read by her. Whatever it was Gideon seemed to have gotten past it in just the last couple of weeks.
Then there was Spencer.
As JJ thought back, she remembered how she was confused and apprehensive when after New Orleans Emily and Spencer had become inseparable. With Spencer struggling since his kidnapping, she had been worried about Emily's intentions. JJ also recalled that she hadn't been the only one as they whole team had witnessed a tense meeting between Gideon and Emily.
However, JJ soon found her concerns about Emily and Spencer were unfounded. During that time, Spencer became less pale and anxious as well as slowly returning to the Spence they all knew and loved.
No JJ wanted to learn more about her enigmatic colleague and questioning her wasn't going to accomplish that. Looking up, JJ saw Emily waiting for their drinks at the bar while conversing with yet another guy. Hmm, she wondered, was this what always happened when Emily went to a bar. The only other time Emily had gone out with the team was for the Superbowl.
That night, though, Emily had stayed with the group during the game. But then JJ remembered that she wouldn't have known what Emily did after the game that evening because as soon after the game was over, JJ had gone off to play darts with some cute single guys around the same time Spencer had gone off to do trivia and Morgan had been pulled onto the dance floor.
And, she shuddered at the memory, with what happened on the case that they went on later that night, there hadn't been much talk since about what happened after JJ had gone to play darts. All she had heard about after she left the table that night was grumbling from Garcia about Haley Hotchner.
Haley's presence at the bar that night was one of the reasons JJ was so willing to leave to team to play darts though she did enjoy beating unsuspecting guys. JJ had had multiple negative run ins with Haley and really didn't want to stay in her presence any longer than necessary during her personal time.
During Haley's pregnancy, JJ had agreed when Hotch asked if he could give Haley her cell number in case of an emergency and Haley was unable to contact him. Since then Haley had discovered that JJ could reach her husband quickly even when Haley herself was unable to contact him. That had led to Haley calling JJ to reach Hotch several times regardless of the reason. On a couple of occasions she had become angry with JJ because he wasn't answering his phone. JJ shook her head as she knew at some point she needed to address it with Hotch because none of these calls fell into the emergency category to which she had agreed.
Looking down at her watch before looking back at Emily, JJ noticed she was holding all 3 beers while playing close attention to what the guy was saying. As JJ started to wonder if she should go and get her and Garcia's beers from Emily, JJ noticed that while Emily was smiling and engaging in conversation with this guy, she also had an almost irritated look just below the surface.
After catching Emily's eye briefly, JJ saw her walk back to the table with the guy she had been talking to at the bar in tow. As she reached the table, JJ could see the glint in her eye. Before she could process why Emily was inviting some random guy she just met at the bar to girls' night, she heard Emily say as she reached the table,
"Ladies, this is Brad a real FBI agent."
Hearing the tone of the statement as well as the smug look on Brad's face, the pieces of what JJ had observed since Emily was waiting for the drinks at the bar were suddenly fitting together. This guy was using the fake agent ruse as a pick up line and Emily had given him just enough time and interest to figuratively back himself into a corner.
And by his confident stance, the poor schmuck believed that it had worked. And he thought he was going to get the chance to dupe two more attractive women with it.
Not sure what Emily had planned for this guy other than she wanted her and Garcia to help, after taking her beer, JJ looks down at the table and said, "no way" after Garcia said "really". Looking briefly over at Emily who visibly relaxes at the recognition that JJ and Garcia understood what she is doing as Garcia then posed a question to him.
It was only a couple of minutes later that Brad realized he picked the wrong woman at the bar to use that ruse with when all three women flashed their FBI credentials.
#####
Emily was flustered as she walked away from Jeremy and joined JJ and Garcia inside the bar.
She never wanted that part of her past.
That team.
And especially that case … to intersect with her current life.
Though, she sighed, she should have known Clyde would up the ante at some point when she had been avoiding all of his phone calls over the last couple of weeks. He knew better than to come himself though she wouldn't have put it past the arrogant ass. Jeremy wasn't much better. She didn't trust either one of them.
As JJ and Garcia got settled at the table, Emily asked what they wanted to drink and quickly left the table to head to the bar. She needed a couple of minutes to calm herself after that unplanned encounter. She hadn't missed the questioning looks from JJ and Garcia when they walked up and saw her talking to Jeremy nor had she missed the look of confusion at Jeremy's request that had, she suspected, intentionally been said loud enough for them to hear.
Given that it was a girls' night, she had no doubt that questions would be asked when she returned to the table about who the hot guy with the sexy accent was. It would be no surprise for them to ask given that neither of them had seen him before 'and hopefully never again." she thought coldly.
She could tell that at least JJ had deduced that they hadn't just met and wasn't going to insult them by outright stating that if asked. Blatant lies would unravel the work that all of them had done to get to this point.
Besides, all that would accomplish is that Garcia would just go and do what she did best and search for Jeremy online. That would bring its own questions based on what she suspected could be found. No, she needed to handle it directly. But what could she tell them that would satisfy them but not reveal too much about the true extent of their connection?
And once she got past them, Emily needed to process what Clyde's message had been that had brought Jeremy to come to talk to her.
Before she let her mind wander too far into what Jeremy wanted to solicit from her, some guy bumped into her as she waited to place her order with the bartender. As she shifted closer to the bar as the line moved, the same guy attempted to engage her in conversation. She smiled politely at him while trying to ignore him.
Getting hit on was not in the least what she needed right now. No she needed to get these beers, go back and enjoy time with JJ and Garcia before going home and trying to decide what she was going to do about this update on the Doyle case.
But this guy was not catching on that she wasn't interested. When he said he was an FBI agent, Emily turned and scrutinized him from head to foot before turning back around and rolling her eyes. There was no chance that 'Brad' was an FBI agent. Brad, however, took her sudden attention to the declaration as interest so he continued to try and engage her.
Emily could feel the annoyance in her rising. All she wanted to do was to have a long awaited outing with the other women on the team but here was another person screwing with her- Clyde, Jeremy, her mother and stepfather, Gideon.
OK fine, this guy wants her attention, he's going to have it. But when she is done, he is going to wish he had taken her ignoring him as a hint. Taking a deep breath, Emily smiled before turning and introducing herself.
While Brad focused his attention on trying to win her over, Emily used all of the skills she had learned over the years at embassy events to appear interested in what he was saying while revealing very little about herself. And Brad seemed to think that he really had her fooled.
After the bartender handed her the drinks, Emily was ready to call Brad out on his lies. Just before she said anything to him, her eyes landed on the table where she saw JJ and Garcia looking bored as they awaited her return with their drinks. Emily smiled back at him for real as a brilliant idea came to her as she invited him back to the table with her. He had taken up part of their girls' night time, it was only right that all three of them should have a role in taking him down.
Besides, it was one thing to be called out on lying about being an FBI agent by one woman, it would be completely embarrassing to be called out by three female agents. Garcia had a badge so he didn't need to know she wasn't a field agent like her and JJ. This was going to be so good.
####
Hotch walked out of his office and down into the break room. He had called the team back in to review a strange case in the Boise National Forest. He expected them to be leaving later that night so they would be onsite at first light the following day.
As he walked into the room, he went over and started the coffee maker so a pot was ready when the rest of the team arrived. Reid and Gideon had still been at the BAU playing chess when Hotch got the call. However, Derek had been out on a date, the women of the team had been having girls' night at a bar. Morgan and JJ had sounded sober in the short conversations he had with them but he wanted to be prepared if any of them had already had some drinks before he called.
Standing in the breakroom, he could hear the three women before he saw them. It certainly sounded like they had a good time in their abbreviated evening out as he heard laughter after JJ said something he couldn't hear.
When they saw him, they stopped and quietly walked over to where he was standing. He summarized the case and his current plan. He gestured towards the coffee pot before letting them know they would meet in the conference room after Derek arrived which he was expecting in the next few minutes.
He started to walk back to his office after they nodded and started walking further into the breakroom. He had only taken a few steps when he heard Garcia say something that sounded like 'kicking criminal ass'. He stopped and turned to look at the three of them laughing at the coffee pot with their back to him.
Shaking his head, he continued on his path back to his office deciding he had misheard what she said. It had to be. He had never heard that term before from anyone on the team. Besides why would Garcia say that when she didn't work in the field?
####
When they were a couple of hours into their flight, Hotch indicated to the rest of the team that he wanted to discuss the case. Garcia had forwarded some additional information that they needed to review. In addition to discussing the case, there were some decisions the team need to make before they arrived.
As they discussed the case, Morgan made the observation, "the offenders are more comfortable in the woods, something like a second home."
"My grandfather retired to the French Alps. There was a good ten year stretch that he didn't come down off the mountain. He had no running water, no electricity and his food and supplies everything came from the land." Emily shared nostalgically.
Her grandfather was never far from her thoughts however over the last couple of weeks she had found herself thinking of him more often, wishing he was there to help her, advise her on how to proceed. She had always welcomed his insight on her complicated relationship with her mother, his daughter. And given what she had recently learned about her mother, it was insight that she would welcome right now.
As she looked up, she noticed that the discussion on the case had stopped. Emily was immediately embarrassed when she noticed the eyes of everyone on the team was on her. Quickly glancing down at her lap, Emily began to internally berate herself for the personal comment when the team was discussing a case.
However, her thoughts were quickly interrupted when JJ asked, "you spent a lot of time up there?" Emily looked at JJ who was turned around and looking over the back of her seat, genuinely interested in learning as much as her usually very private colleague was willing to share.
Noticing that the rest of the team also appeared interested instead of upset about the tangent, Emily nodded before responding, "yeah, whenever we were in France, which was a lot."
Before JJ could reply, Morgan asked, "does he still live there?"
As she thought about the question, Emily recalled that it had been when she was in France during her grandfather's illness and funeral that her mother and stepfather had manipulated her relationship with Aaron which resulted in it falling apart.
Once she got over the shock of the truth she had learned two weeks earlier, she had been trying to find a way to somehow broach the subject of what appeared to have happened that summer wasn't what it seemed with her now married boss without luck. Given how angry he had been the first few weeks she was with the team, she was hoping that he would be receptive to a personal conversation with her at some point so they could clear the air.
Now an opportunity to drop some breadcrumbs on the topic was essentially being handed to her by Derek.
Emily sighed and shook her head before looking forward at no one in particular. Se couldn't look at Hotch when she answered this question, "no, he passed away the second summer that I was at Yale. I went to go stay with him as soon as I found out he was in the hospital. There was nothing they could do."
The jet was silent as she finished. The team had been excited to learn more about her however did not know how to proceed after the sad turn the conversation had taken. Before the silence could become too uncomfortable, there was a beep indicating that Garcia was on a video call with more information about the case.
Emily could still feel Hotch's eyes on her. She had briefly glanced over at him just before Garcia had popped up on the screen. She could see the confusion on his face as he started to put together the pieces of what she had said.
As they ended the call with Garcia, the whole team knew that they were going to be splitting up between the Boise National Forest and Spokane. Before she could speculate too much on which location she was going to be assigned, Gideon said from the other end of the jet, "woods is like your second home right Prentiss?"
She sighed before looking over at him and answering nervously, "yes sir." Although it made sense from an operational standpoint, she was stunned that Gideon had asked her to go with him. Things had remained strained between the two of them since that meeting in his office weeks earlier when he questioned her motives.
Gideon had hit a nerve when he had suggested that she was working with Bruno Hawks to hurt the BAU. She had been frustrated with herself after that meeting. She had not been prepared for that line of questioning though it shouldn't have shocked her that it hadn't just been her who had seen through Bruno's machinations particular when the BAU had been there when he was arrested. That fact that she had been right about him was little comfort.
After the debriefing from the Doyle case and she had some time to really process what had happened before and during that case, she surmised that he had a role in what happened. As she prepared to return to work after the Doyle case, Bruno had approached her again, trying to pull her back into his web.
When they separated that day she has reached three conclusions. One, he knew more than he was letting on about what had happened behind the scenes during her time with JTF-12. Two, he was somehow involved in the breakdown of her team during the Doyle case. And third, she couldn't trust him.
A couple of weeks later she was on her way to Chicago having taken a position with the FBI. It wasn't in a department she wanted and certainly wasn't the BAU. But it gave her the distance she needed from Bruno and the CIA.
Recently she had hypothesized that given some of the looks Gideon sent her way that he had followed through on obtaining her CIA file and the report from the Doyle mission. In retrospect, she regretted suggesting he read it as she didn't want that part of her past to collide with the present.
Before she could get to far into her head, he heard Derek suggest that Reid go with Hotch and JJ to Spokane while he would go with her and Gideon.
This request quickly improved her mood as it would have her frequent partner with her in the field in addition to or, she hoped, instead of Gideon. She wasn't sure with the tension between them if being partnered on a case was the best idea. No knowing if he would attempt it but Emily certainly didn't want to discuss that part of her past during a case.
####
Shortly before they landed in Idaho, Emily is looking out the window at the trees in the forest below when a thought caused her to panic.
What had she been thinking?
Or had she been thinking at all?
Why had she shared with the team about her grandfather's cabin in the French Alps? It was the location of most of her best memories from childhood. But more importantly, it was her secret safe place.
She sighed as she thought about what had been in her mind when she made the comment - how much she missed him and wished he was here to help with the latest challenge in her relationship with her mother.
Her grandfather had left it to her when he died. No one knew she owned it, not even her mother. The Ambassador believed that Emily had listened to her when she encouraged her to sell it.
But Emily hadn't. She had made some improvements and made sure it was stocked with supplies so it was ready when she needed to get away.
But now there were five people who knew there was a cabin that was special to her. She had, thankfully, been very vague on the location but that didn't make her feel much better. But she had answered additional questions on the topic making it more likely that the team would remember the details that she had shared.
She wanted to trust these people. They hadn't given her any reason to think she couldn't. Even with the tension with her and Gideon, she didn't suspect that he would betray her. But at one point she also thought she could trust her JTF-12 teammates and she knew how that had turned out.
With her assignment to JTF-12, she had been assigned a bolt hole along with all the documentation she would need to assume a different identity if she should ever need it. There was also a bank account to get her started if she needed to use that identity.
With the betrayal of someone yet unknown on her team during the Doyle case, she no longer trusted that she could count on her bolt hole to keep herself safe. There were people within those relevant agencies who knew all of that restricted information.
The cabin is where she had gone when she went off the grid after the Doyle case. While there she had made some additions that she had hoped to never see there - security features and weapons. If her past ever caught up with her, it is where she planned to go. And fight if needed.
Although the conversation hadn't started with her reveal to Hotch at least she had gotten a chance to put out there what happened that summer. But, she considered, was it worth the potential cost of her future safety?
####
Once they landed in Idaho, Gideon took one SUV to go into town while Morgan and Emily took the other to head into the forest to meet up with a park ranger and her team at one of the crime scenes. Morgan could see that Emily was still distracted and he felt somewhat guilty for his role in bringing up a sensitive topic on the jet.
As they were stopped to fix a flat tire he remembered something that Garcia mentioned before the team left. As they continued up the mountain after the tire was changed, he broke the silence with, "hey Prentiss."
"Yes, Derek." Emily said without taking her eyes off the road in front of them.
Derek quickly looked over at her in the passenger seat before saying, "based on something I learned last night, I have an important question for you?"
Emily shrugged, not knowing where he was going with this line of questions, "OK, what is your question?"
Derek smirks as he asks nonchalantly, "So who's Brad?"
Emily quickly turns her head to look at him, her mouth opened in the shape of an 'O'. He peeked over at her and laughed at her expression. Looking back at the windshield, Emily groans as she realized how he learned of the encounter at the bar with Brad. She chuckled before responding, "well unlike the rest of us, Brad is a real FBI agent." She rolled her eyes when he glanced over at her before continuing, "but he can't show anyone his badge because it's classified."
####
Gideon, Derek and Emily joined Hotch, JJ and Spencer on the jet for the return trip to Quantico. They had found the missing woman, Bobbie Baird, deep in the forest however during their search, six people had died - four innocent bystanders whose only crime was camping at the wrong place at the wrong time and then the two suspects.
But that had unfortunately only been the tip of the iceberg as in Spokane they found evidence at the car lot owned by the UNSUB brothers about the length of this family's crimes as well as the number of people they and their uncle before them had killed over the years.
As they settled in for the long flight, Emily sat by herself next to a window, looking out deep in thought. It wasn't long after the plane had gotten to cruise altitude that Derek came over at sat across from her. The gesture didn't surprise her as she had felt him watching her since they had come down from the mountain.
When she met his eye, Derek said, "you OK?" before pausing before he said, "I've never seen you so…"
"...quiet." Emily interrupted before quickly looking away and then back to him.
With Emily not forthcoming, he continued, "what's up?"
Emily sighed before nodding. He had been on that mountain too. Looking over at him, she said quietly, "Bobbie Baird asked me a question and it's sticking with me."
He nodded before asking, "what was it?"
Emily already had plans to talk to Alicia about it but decided that having been there, Derek may have some insight. Raising her eyes, she said, "she asked me how they could do it. How those men could hunt and kill people in the woods."
Derek nodded. It had been one of those cases where the actions of the UNSUB or in this case UNSUBs was so heinous that it was difficult to contemplate to mindset that would justify how someone could do that to another person. But Emily was an experienced agent and profiler, there had to be more to the exchange to have her this far off kilter. Hoping to gain insight on that, he asked open endedly, "what did you tell her?"
Emily studied the colleague sitting across from her as she wondered how much she wanted to say on the subject. Recalling that Derek had mentioned having worked undercover, she decided to go further than she may have with another member of the team, hoping he would understand so she said, "that they don't think like we do. But the truth is we do think like them."
She stopped and let that statement sit between them as she waited for him to respond. It wasn't long before he responded, "yeah, we do because it's our job. We need to know how it feels."
Emily could feel her stomach drop at his response. While she could recognize his thought process, she had been hoping a different perspective. Though, she sighed, for her the conflict wasn't just about the current case. Derek didn't know she had been undercover or what had happened during that time.
He also didn't know about the visit she had received from Jeremy or what he(and Clyde) had wanted from her. Deciding to end this conversation, Emily said, "we hunt these people every day. The question is how different are we - us and them."
She noticed that Derek looked at her perplexed as he wasn't sure how to respond to that statement. He continued to sit across from Emily watching her look at the window for a couple of minutes before returning to his original seat and putting his headphones back on.
After Derek moved away, Emily considered again the last statement she had made to him - how different are they? The answer to that would determine to direction she would go.
The topic that had Clyde trying to reach her by phone for two weeks as well as why he sent Jeremy to find her was the interrogators who were questioning Doyle had reported they had hit a wall. As the agent who had been undercover on that case, they wanted to know if she had anything, know anything, that would get him talking.
At the bar she hadn't given Jeremy anything except asking if they had referred to the statement she gave during her debriefing. She needed to think before she considered whether to divulge anything else.
A part of her was also apprehensive with the request. During the conversation with Jeremy it came across to her as if he was fishing. Was the request for more information official? Or did they already know the Declan was Doyle's son and were attempting to gain his location? Or were one of them involved with a competitor of Doyle's that would harm Declan because of his lineage?
If she could determine that the request was official, it would present her with a moral quandary about what to do. In her role as a CIA and JTF-12 agent, the mission was of the highest priority.
When JTF-12 accepted the Doyle mission, the goal was to take down Valhalla network. Others had tried but she had been the first one to collect enough evidence for Doyle to be arrested. In order to accomplish the mission of taking down Doyle's network, they needed leverage and if she knew of leverage, then she was obligated to share what she knew. Given her extended proximity to Doyle, they were counting on her to give some pieces of information that would affect him.
But from the core of her being, she knew outing Declan as Doyle's son was wrong. She did not want him to come to any harm. Whether he was handed over to interrogators or a rival, it would traumatize him, a young child who had no role in the sins of his father.
Even if Doyle discovered that the interrogator had Declan there was no guarantee that they would get the result that they were hoping for considering Doyle was a psychopath and wouldn't react to stressors the same way as most people. From what Emily had seen, Declan had no role in Doyle's business and had been isolated by Louise. His relationship to Doyle a closely guarded secret to keep him safe.
When she asked if they had spoken to Tsia and Sean, she became uneasy when he responded yes to both. The Doyle case originally had Tsia being the undercover however an illness and subsequent hospital stay just days before they were set to make contact had the team scrambling to come up with an alternate plan. That plan after much debate ended up as Emily going undercover. But given the timing, Tsia had been mostly done her preparation research which may have an angle on a different topic that they could pass on to the interrogators.
When she had been rescued from Doyle's compound, Sean had been the first one from her team that she spoke to. He was also the only one who she had told about Declan. He had been the one to bring to the Doyle case to the team. He and Emily were also the only ones to be cleared of wrongdoing after the debriefing. That is why she trusted him with what she had learned about Declan. JJ and Garcia had walked up interrupting her conversation with Jeremy before she had gotten the chance to ask if Sean had offered anything.
Since the end of that case, Sean and Emily had a colleague that they both trusted keeping an eye on Louise and Declan not only to keep them safe but to determine if there was any interaction with members of Doyle's crew. Sean had also advised her to refrain from approaching them as her real identity unless necessary until they could determine Louise's loyalties, not wanting any of Doyle's goons to be able to track her down.
But that they had spoken to Sean and he had not contacted her yet was a surprise. If Sean knew that they wanted more leverage and hadn't contact Emily himself, then there had to be a reason. She was just hoping the reason wasn't that he had outed Declan true identity as Doyle's son.
So she was back to what she said to Derek - how different are they from the UNSUBs? Could she do it and walk away? And if she didn't tell them about Declan what did she need to do to keep him safe going forward? Could she really live with the decision to sacrifice an innocent child for the sake of a mission? Would she really be that different from one of their UNSUBs if she did?
####
Gideon was lying down on the jet couch trying to sleep when he had overheard the conversation between Morgan and Prentiss. He had noticed that she had been off since they came off the mountain after handing the case off to the local sheriff and park rangers.
Once they joined the rest of the team on the jet, she had sat quietly by herself focusing on looking at the window. Hotch, JJ and Reid had all look over at her with concern as well as questioning looks to him and Morgan, silently asking what happened. Questions that neither of them could answer not knowing what part of that horrific case was troubling her.
It was the polar opposite to the openness she had started to show the team on the plane ride out. Though that had been abbreviated when questions revealed the death of her grandfather who it was apparent she had been very close. He sighed as he thought at least now he knew what had happened to his mentor.
There had also been some different weird energy between Hotch and Prentiss during that conversation. However it couldn't put his finger on what was said that triggered it.
It hadn't taken long for Morgan to approach her. Being her partner on the case as well as her friend, it made the most sense.
As he shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation, Gideon sighed as he heard what she shared with a somewhat puzzled Morgan.
After Morgan's attempt to reassure her fell short, Gideon heard him move back to his seat while Prentiss quietly went back to staring out the window.
Unlike Morgan, Gideon knew what her previous work entailed. That knowledge made all the difference in understanding from where he suspected her internal conflict was coming. While Morgan had done undercover work, the case he worked on, while extended, was not nearly as complex as the JTF-12 cases. Or was he held against his will while needing to maintain his cover while members of his team dropped the ball on providing external support during the mission.
It had been a couple weeks since he had read through the file for the Doyle case. It had been a difficult read even for the experienced profiler.
Hearing what she just said to Morgan, Gideon wondered what about the Doyle case had been triggered by Bobbie Baird question. It could be something else that had her asking the questions but he didn't think so. Or as he thought about the concerns he had stated in her CIA psych evaluation it could just be difficulty in reintegrating after being undercover.
But even with being the only one on the team to know about her full work history, he knew that his attention would not be welcomed by her. And it was his own damn fault. Sighing, he could kick himself now that he had looked at that case file.
As a profiler, it didn't happen often that he read situation incorrectly however, with Prentiss, he had completely misinterpreted her connection with Bruno Hawks. Then he had confronted her without all the facts. And given what he had read as well as what was unsaid in the report about the dysfunction in JTF-12 he couldn't have used a worse approach.
For now all he had was regret. If he could take it back, he would. Unfortunately life doesn't work that way. He would need to talk to her soon and explain why he suspected what he did and hope that she would understand his mindset at that time. He also wanted the opportunity to regain her trust.
He also wanted to share with her the research he had done about the agents under Bruno's command. Her joining the team had prompted the start of Gideon's investigation followed quickly by what he had learned the previous year about Olivia Hopkins' work history with the CTU of the CIA. Since then he had found more agents whose interactions with Bruno and that unit had followed a similar pattern. He wasn't done with his research but from what he had found so far about what all of these agents had experienced was concerning.
For now he was going to try and get some sleep before they got back to Quantico.