Emily walked into her apartment and sighed as she closed the door. After taking off her boots and placing them in the front hall closet, she walked up the stairs to her bedroom.
As she took off her suit jacket, she walked up to her dresser picking out a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt. Tossing them on the bed, she walked over to her gun safe and opened it as she did everyday when arriving home from work. As she reached down to take her gun off her waistband, she was greeted with the feeling of an empty holster.
It was then that it hit her what she had just done. She had handed in her gun and badge today. Roughly shutting the gun safe, she quickly finished changing out of her work suit before walking back down the stairs.
Looking around the room, her eyes fell on the bar at the side of the room. After the morning she just had, she really needed a drink.
A quick look at her watch showed that it was 10:36AM. Early yet so much had already happened that morning that it felt later.
She sighed and shook her head before walking into the kitchen, noticing a bottle of champagne sitting on the counter.
It was then that her eyes widened as a thought came to her.
Mimosas.
She would make herself a mimosa.
Or several.
It's not like she had anywhere to go now. She no longer needed to worry about the team being called out on a case at any moment.
Pivoting, she opened the fridge to see if she had the orange juice she would need for the mimosas. She found that not only did she have an almost full bottle of orange juice but she also noticed that she had the right ingredients to make an omelet.
After joining the BAU, she had quickly learned to limit the perishable foods she kept in her apartment after coming home several times to spoiled food.
But a few days earlier on an emergency grocery run she had picked up extra items including perishables knowing that her time in the BAU was coming to an end.
After preparing her first mimosa, she chopped and prepped the filling for her omelet before starting to cook the eggs. After it was done, she took her plate and drink to the table. As she ate, she thought back to what happened when she was at the office.
Her plan had been to say goodbye to the whole team. As part of her parents' careers, she had said goodbye many times over the course of her life from staff at various postings to acquaintances at numerous schools. Once she joined the FBI it was work colleagues as she changed assignments.
It was always draining and as much as most people promised to stay in touch in her experience it usually didn't extend past a few months.
As she was preparing to go in this morning, she was thankful that she had already spoken to Spencer. With him, it was going to be a difficult conversation either way. They had become close friends over the last couple months. With as nervous as she was she didn't think the conversation they needed to have would have gone as smoothly as it had a few nights earlier.
Almost immediately she was derailed when she couldn't find JJ. As she was looking for her she did run into Garcia.
What she hadn't been expecting was the depth of sadness in Garcia's reaction to her resignation. It had only been around a week since Garcia started to trust again that Emily wasn't trying to hurt the team. Garcia's tearful inquiries and pleas for Emily to reconsider and stay had deeply affected her because when it came down to it, she didn't want to leave either.
Unfortunately, she couldn't explain why she was leaving. That it was best for the team. That either way she was out of the BAU due to Strauss' demands and her stubborn refusal to be a puppet. That leaving this way gave her back control of her own future.
That interaction with Garcia probably wouldn't have been as difficult if it hadn't been for Emily's unexpected discussion with Gideon a couple of days earlier when he showed up at the BAU while she had been completing some files after the rest of the team had left. Since that evening, she felt as if a raw nerve had been exposed that she had worked hard over the last couple of years to cover.
As soon as he walked into the room, the look in his eyes as well as the heaviness that filled the room revealed that he had taken her suggestion of looking at her JTF-12 file as well as the file from the Doyle mission. A suggestion in retrospect she wished she hadn't made.
They had talked about why he had felt the need to investigate due to her connection with Bruno Hawks. Once they delved into what he had read in files, she could feel the wall she had spent two years building up starting to crack as he already knew much of what was behind the wall.
And while it had been a difficult conversation, she had felt marginally better after having talked to an empathetic person about the experience. She hadn't really understood when Alicia had told her over the years that the more she talked out difficult experiences, the easier it would be afterwards. Though because of the Doyle mission's classification, the body of people she could talk to was small.
But in some ways the classification of that mission along with the backstop in her job history helped her avoid having the topic unexpectedly broached with her. She had never wanted anyone to know about that time particularly not someone with whom she was working. Someone who she was going to see every day. She didn't want anyone's pity or to be treated differently.
Now that Gideon knew, it was probably a good thing that she was already planning on leaving. Would he ever look at her the same again? Is that why he treated her with kid gloves during the case in Flagstaff?
She had thought it was because it was his first case back after Sarah was killed however now she wasn't sure. Given they worked with profilers, it wouldn't take long for someone to notice a change in their interactions and start asking questions.
However with how she was feeling and what she needed to accomplish today, she did not want to bump into Gideon in the office, at least not until after she had spoken to Hotch.
But as she had finished with Garcia and was still unable to find JJ, Emily took a deep breath as she readied herself to enter the bullpen to go to Hotch's office. Given that his office was next to Gideon's, it would be the most likely place for her to run into him.
Because she had still needed to talk to Hotch, she entered the bullpen and quickly headed for Hotch's office. The reason she had waited this long to resign was so that she could talk to him. She couldn't walk away and not follow through now.
She had noticed as she approached that he was there. It wasn't until after she had entered that she observed Strauss over on the couch.
Strauss' presence in his office when she arrived had been both a blessing and a curse. She was giving her resignation to Hotch with Strauss in the same room. While her plans to explain everything that had happened to Hotch was thwarted by Strauss' presence, it had given Emily the opportunity to push one of Strauss' buttons.
She had mentioned that her plan was to apply to the State Department. She regretted lying to Hotch since he had been the one to whom she was speaking. However she did wonder if he would pick up on the lie given the opinions she had shared with him in the past about that type of work.
On the other hand, Strauss was all about politics. It would get under her skin to find out her manipulations had resulted in Emily working at the State Department.
Additionally if Strauss checked, as Emily anticipated she would, Strauss would hear positive feedback about the intention since the Ambassador had said she was trying to set up a position for her there. Given that Strauss had tried to extract information from Emily, she predicted that the unexpected action would give Strauss pause. Maybe enough pause to back off Hotch and the team for a while.
While in Hotch's office, she hadn't been prepared for him to push back about her resignation given how her tenure with the team had gone. She certainly hadn't expected him to go as far as calling it a mistake.
In her mind as she thought about the meeting beforehand, she thought he may give token resistance but overall be happy that the agent he had a history with and hadn't wanted on his team from the beginning was leaving.
Given the look he had given her two weeks earlier when Strauss announced that she was acting unit chief, she somewhat expected him to be relieved. She didn't know what to make of his reaction.
Although it was unexpected, there was a benefit of Strauss being in the room. Though she didn't come out and say anything, Emily knew that she had made it clear to both her and Hotch that she respected him and recognized him as the Unit Chief of the BAU. That had been her goal in going in today and she had accomplished at least that on her way out.
But as expected the conversation had been emotional as she was walking away from a wanted job. Though she had been able to temper her feelings until she had reached her car.
After finishing her omelet and cleaning up the kitchen, Emily poured her third mimosa as she started to feel the effects of the alcohol. Carrying her glass with her, she walked over to the living room planning to continue her packing.
####
Emily groaned as she woke up the next morning as the sun streaming into her bedroom through the curtain she hadn't closed as she usually did before bed. Sitting up she held her head while squinting at the time.
Seeing that it was still early she got out of bed and went into the bathroom to take some ibuprofen for her hangover before going through her morning routine.
As she walked down the stairs, she was horrified at the mess she had left in the living room and kitchen. Some of the mess was to be expected at this point in the packing process but that wasn't the part she was focusing on right now. No, she was looking at the empty bottles as well a mess from food preparation on the kitchen counters. A mess that she generally never left.
As she sat on a stool at the counter looking into the kitchen, she immediately recognized the similarities between this and those first few weeks after she came off the Doyle mission.
It wasn't that she didn't enjoy having a glass of wine after work or to go out with friends for an evening at a bar. She had been drunk many times in her life but this was different.
This was getting very drunk while being alone. With it happened just once she felt she could push past it but given the similarities she was noticing she needed to nip it in the bud now or she was going to have bigger problems.
This type of drinking was something that she had spoken in depth about with Alicia. After the Doyle mission, she had used alcohol as a way to cope with what had happened to her. Right now there was uncertainty in several areas of her life but there was no way she was going back down that rabbit hole.
Standing up, she walked over and picked up her personal cell phone and called Alicia's office. Once she had the older woman on the phone, she requested an appointment as soon as possible. Luckily for her, she hung up the call with an appointment in a few hours.
With that done, she walked around to the fridge to make some breakfast before tackling the mess that was her kitchen.
####
When Emily returned to her apartment after her extended appointment with Alicia, she was feeling somewhat more at ease. While her therapist had also recognized the similarities, she was encouraged that Emily had also seen them and immediately came in for a session.
The session had gone smoothly as in previous sessions Emily had already described all of the current stressors in both her personal and professional life. Given the circumstances and how Emily initially chose to cope with all the uncertainty, Alicia had recommended not drinking alone in her apartment at all until she had a better handle on the next steps in her life. With the topic being coping strategies, Alicia had questioned her about cutting though they had quickly moved on when Emily explained that it wasn't currently an issue.
They reviewed the healthy coping strategies that Emily had started utilizing after the Doyle mission. Alicia had encouraged her to focus on them at the moment by using the gym and/or pool in her apartment building or researching a nearby public gun range where she could do target practice. Do the things that Emily knew helped her and made her feel better about herself. Along with that they agreed that Emily should increase her sessions for the foreseeable future while she sorted out her future plans.
After agreeing to come back in a couple of days and to call before if she needed to, Emily headed home and changed into athletic shorts and a tshirt for heading down to the building gym. After a lengthy workout, she returned to her apartment tired but with an improved outlook on at least her immediate future.
After showering and getting dressed, she came back downstairs and turned on some music before sitting in front of her laptop and starting to research options. Options for work. Options for new apartments.
Before she got too far in her research her thoughts flipped back to Declan. At some point she was going to need to determine a more permanent solution to keep him safe. Perhaps her current situation made this a good time to make that move. If only she what to do.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by an unexpected knocking on her front door.
AN: The next part will be Hotch and Haley at home before Hotch leaves for Milwaukee. I'm still working on it but expect to be able to post during the first half of next week.