Hotch was sitting at his desk early in the morning. He had left early the day before and was now working to catch up on paperwork before Strauss came over looking for it. His recent interactions with Strauss had him on edge.
Since Milwaukee she had been cordial and understanding about what was going on with the team. This, of course, was the Section Chief that not that long ago had tried to use one of his agents to reveal dirt on him and the team to have cause to destroy his career. Even with her adjusted attitude, he wasn't letting his guard down. He wasn't expecting that she would give up her attempts to damage his standing in the Bureau.
Nevertheless he was going to accept with caution what she was willing to offer as the team needed support right now. The initial shock over Gideon's departure had passed. While all of them were doing better and working to move forward, it was a process. Successfully solving the case in Portland without Gideon had boosted morale that at some point they would be OK without him.
Equally surprising to Hotch was Strauss asking for his input on the vacancy for the position left by Gideon's departure. It was particularly strange given that she didn't seek it from himself or Gideon before hiring Emily. Though given Strauss' intentions with that hire maybe this was a good sign.
His optimism had been short lived once he started to look through the files of the agents Strauss had brought him. None of them had the profiling experience that should be present for someone in a senior position in the BAU. He was dismayed to find that some only had the basic profiling that all FBI agents are given. He would need to think about how to approach her with his concerns.
There were so many moving parts happening in the BAU right now with filling of Gideon's position being just one of them. With the changes, there was more stress than normal.
His personal struggles were only adding to his stress level right now. Haley was being difficult about the time he wanted to spend with Jack however Hotch was not going to give in. He already had his lawyer working on separation papers as well as a temporary custody plan until the divorce process could start. Given what he had been through a few days earlier, he wasn't really feeling charitable to Haley right now.
It had taken a few days to think of it after what he had found in the house to acknowledge that he should have an STD test panel done. Though it appeared that they were using condoms there was no guarantee that they were each time. Hotch knew he and Haley certainly hadn't at any time during their marriage. So he felt having the tests done would be a prudent move to, if nothing else, give himself peace of mind.
So a few days earlier he had left the office early to go see his doctor. The visit was an awkward conversation followed by blood tests and the discomfort of having cultures taken from various parts of his body. His doctor had promised to send the results as soon as they were back.
For a few tests had the doctor had stated that even if negative they would need to repeat them in a few months to be certain they were indeed negative. And until then, the doctor had handed him a ribbon of condoms and stated that he should plan to use them for the foreseeable future. He had stuffed them into a pocket in his briefcase not wanting to deal with it at that point.
Looking up from his desk he glanced out his window to notice that the team was slowly coming into the bullpen to start the day. JJ had been in just a few minutes earlier with new consults but thankfully no cases at the moment.
Before he turned back to the work on his desk he noticed that Emily had arrived for the day. He immediately noticed that her body language is off and her shoulders are stiff. He shook his head as he hoped that her and Derek weren't arguing again.
As he looked, Hotch noticed that the way she sitting at her desk made it difficult to see her face. But what he could see was that she is wearing earbuds which is not something that she generally did unless she didn't want to be disturbed.
He shook his head deciding to see how the daily case briefing went before determining if he needed to check in with her.
####
As the elevator slowly inched up, Emily stood in the back trying hard not to reach up and touch the bandage on her head. She rolled her eyes as she thought, 'there is no way this isn't going to start questions.' Just as they reached the sixth floor, she moved her hair closer to that side of her face just as the elevator opened.
After walking through the glass doors into the bullpen, she headed towards her desk while keeping her gaze down which resulted in her hair falling into her face. She left her coat and bags at her desk and headed for the break room for a much needed caffeine infusion. After a long wait in the ER the evening before, she was working on about four hours of sleep. Caffeine was desperately needed.
It wasn't that she thought she could hide the bruises or new bandage on her forehead. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone noticed and started to ask questions. But before that happened she wanted to have had some coffee. And to be completely awake.
After she had come back to work after Milwaukee, the team, particularly Derek and Garcia, were overly attentive about her injury to the point of being smothering at times. While she knew they meant well, she wasn't used to that level of concern from coworkers.
Another injury less than a week after she was fully cleared for the field would raise their concerns again. She knew it was going to happen and accepted that it would happen but before it did, she needed to get some caffeine into her so she didn't bite their heads off at their well meaning gestures.
By some miracle she made it back to her desk without anyone noticing her face. 'OK, maybe this won't be as hard as I think.' However it was probably more due to that Reid was the only one from the team in the bullpen right now and he hadn't looked up from the book he was reading.
After taking another sip of her coffee, Emily sat down at her desk and starts on her work.
####
Since her arrival, Emily had been dreading the morning team meeting. There was no way to avoid looking at the rest of the team during that meeting. They would see the bandage. They would see the bruising that her makeup had only done so much to cover. They would ask questions she couldn't fully answer. The whole situation was complicated.
But whether she was prepared or not, 10 o'clock came quicker than she would have liked and members of the team were slowly making their way into the conference room. She knew that if she didn't get into the conference room soon, someone will come looking for her. Taking a few deep breaths before standing up, Emily rose and went to fill her coffee cup before heading up the stairs.
As she walks up to the door, there was still some light chatter at the table though it appeared that Hotch was starting to settle everyone down so JJ could start. She covertly took in where there were still empty chairs in the room. Of the two seats that were open one between Hotch and Reid while the other was on the other side of the table between where JJ is presenting and where Morgan is sitting. She picks the former as Hotch won't be able to see that side of her face from his seat and Reid was the least likely to notice.
She had no sooner sat down when she heard a gasp immediately followed by Derek exclaiming loudly, "what the hell happened to you?"
The room was suddenly quiet as the team focused on Derek and Emily. She looked down letting her hair fall into her face before sighing as glanced across the table at the group and answered, "it's nothing. Can we just focus on this meeting?"
Standing, Derek shook his head before challenging, "uh nuh. No way, Prentiss."
She maintained eye contact briefly before opening the file in front of her and started looking through the information on the first case they were reviewing while ignoring the looks of disbelief of everyone else in the room.
Hotch paused to take in the situation in front of him. Clearly her injury was why Emily has been off all morning. He had to admit that he was just as interested as Morgan about what happened to cause the injury.
As Hotch looks over at her, he found himself wondering if her choice of seat was deliberate as he couldn't see that side of her face from where he was sitting. However from the part of her face that is visible, he could see fatigue and stress that wasn't there the day before. Glancing down to her hands he noticing that she has been picking at her nails, one of her stress tells..
Given her reaction to Morgan's question he can see that she is starting to shut down and curl in on herself. She isn't going to talk right now about whatever happened. Pushing the topic was only going cause his stubborn agent to dig in. It would make it that much harder to get her to open up later when he spoke to her privately.
Shaking his head and gesturing for Derek to sit down he responded, "Ok, let's get started. JJ, first case, please."
####
Hotch sat at his desk once he is back at his office. The meeting was a mess. Garcia, JJ and Morgan had all been frustrated that Hotch wouldn't let them push Emily. Though she did participate in the meeting discussion, overall Emily was quieter than usual.
Then as soon as the meeting came to an end, Emily had bolted from the room before anyone could say anything to her. After soothing the ruffled feathers of the others, he looked and found that Emily wasn't in the bullpen. He was planning to call her to his office when she returned.
####
Emily plops herself onto the chair she has stored on the roof of the FBI building. She was so glad the meeting is over but given how the meeting went had no illusions that she wasn't going to be dodging questions all afternoon.
It had been a relief that Hotch refocus the meeting away from her but she wasn't naive. She knew he wasn't done with her either. She'd bet money that a one-on-one meeting with him would be happening within 15 minutes of when she returned to her desk.
For now she was just going to sit back and relax for a bit while she was here. A headache was growing from both the fatigue and the injury. Emily pulled a bottle of ibuprofen out of her pocket and shook three tablets into her hand before dry swallowed them. She was hoping that the headache would be gone by the time she returned to the bullpen. She was going to need a clear head to handle the afternoon.
####
When she stepped back into the bullpen Emily noticed that no one from the team was there. She recognized with a glance at the clock that they were all probably at lunch. She walked over to her desk and sat down not missing that, unlike the others, Hotch was still in his office. Shaking her head, she opened the file she had been working on before the briefing.
It wasn't even ten minutes after she returned to her desk when Emily was summoned into Hotch's office. 'Should have had money on it.' she mumbled.
She slowly stood up at her desk and moved to the stairs with a sense of apprehension. When she reached the door, she took a deep breath and then another one before knocking.
"Come in."
Emily heard in response to her knock. Opening the door, she stepped just inside the doorway and stated, "you wanted to see me."
As she stood there, Hotch got the first good look at the bruise on her face as well as the bandage. It also did not escape him that she was barely in his office, ready to take off at the first chance. Not until they talked. He gestured for her to come in and saw her shoulders drop slightly as she stepped into his office closing the door behind her before coming and sitting in a chair across from his desk.
Once she was settled, Hotch said, "yes, you left after the meeting before anyone could talk to you."
"Yeah, I had somewhere I needed to be" Emily explained vaguely.
Hotch observed her before he stated, "OK, let's talk now."
Emily nodded as she answered, "OK, what do you want to talk about?" As much as she was certain of what this was about, she wasn't going to broach the subject. If he wanted to know, he was going to need to ask.
"Prentiss" Hotch said warningly.
Emily replied seriously, "Sir."
Hotch carefully observed her before shaking his head and decided to approach the topic from another angle so he asked, "what's the damage?"
Emily sighed before answering, "A small cut under the bandage treated with skin glue. No breaks or concussion. With the skin glue I'm on limited field duty only for the next three days."
Hotch nodded before continuing with his followup questions, "any headaches, blurred vision, dizziness? Any injuries anywhere else?
Emily responses, "I'm fine. It honestly looks worse than it feels."
Hotch looked at her and said sternly, "you didn't answer the questions, Emily."
Emily crossed her arms across her chest as she looked at him and answered, "why are you being so persistent?"
Hotch had let the subject go months earlier when she had come in with bruises but he wasn't this time. This time he wanted her to tell him what was going on and who was hurting her so he answered, "why are you being so evasive?"
When she didn't answer, he stood up and went over and closed the blinds to his office before walking over and sitting down next to her.
He waited until she looked up at him before he leaned forward, put his hand on her arm and said quietly and with a calmness he wasn't feeling, "talk to me, Emily. I need to know what is going on. This is the second time in the last few months that you have had non work related injuries that have limited your duties. Last time you refused to explain what happened. I'm not accepting that this time. I'm concerned. Is someone hurting you at home?"
Emily's eyes widened as he spoke. She didn't realize that was what he would think but of course that was what he would think. After working this job, that where all of their first thoughts would go. She should have seen that. Maybe she got hit harder than she thought.
She had no choice now. She needed to tell him exactly what happened no matter how embarrassing it was. She just needed to tuck that away and come clean.
His worries about domestic violence is so much worse than someone getting an upper hand on her in self defense class. From what she recalled domestic violence was a sensitive topic for him.
Sighing, she reached over and put her hand on top of his on her arm before replying, "Aaron, it's nothing like that. I should have realized that is where everyone's suspicions would go. That is where my suspicions would be too if I had been looking at it as an observer."
He observed her carefully before asking, "so then are you going to tell what did happen then?"
Emily sighed and rolled her eyes before stating, "yeah, I think at this point I don't have a choice." She paused and looked over at his desk before turning back to him and continuing, "not that it matters. You are going to get an incident report about it anyway.
I heard from another agent about an advanced hand-to-hand class over at the Academy. I decided to try it out. Last night was the first time I went. And well, I spun when I should have ducked." She grimaced and reached up and touched her forehead as she finished.
For now she was going to leave out the part of going to the class to meet up with Sam Cooper. They had talked before the class started and were going to continue their conversation afterwards however that had been delayed since she ended up going to the ER.
She had promised Gideon that she would contact Cooper and even with Gideon now gone she kept her promise. She had worked with Cooper on a couple of cases when she was with Crimes Against Children. They weren't close but according to Gideon he also knew about her full work history and had the clearance for her entire file.
As she worked towards finding a safe solution for Declan, she also wanted to have an ally in the Bureau who knew what she was up against if she ended up needing help protecting the team. They had only gotten so far so she would need to find another time to talk with him before moving forward with whatever plan she picked for Declan.
Hotch felt himself relax for the first time since Derek had yelled about her face earlier that day. Now that he knew what had happened this time, he wanted to ask about when she had bruises when she was doing her hand-to-hand sign off with Morgan so he asked, "was it a similar situation last time you were injured too?"
Emily sighed and shook her head before looking up at him and answering, "no, that was a completely different incident. That time I had an unfortunate encounter with some ice as I walked across the parking lot at the grocery store. Then to make matters worse when I went to steady myself I grabbed onto a cart which was moving the other way and I ended up crashing into a car."
"That is how you get hurt?" Hotch asked surprised.
Emily nodded and answered sheepishly, "yes. I know you asked at the time but I didn't want to admit what a klutz I was."
Hotch chuckled and patted her hand as he answered, "I know you are a klutz. Why didn't you want to tell me?"
Emily sighed as she knew what she was going to say would hurt him but he needed to know the whole truth, "because. Because at that point I was still trying to prove to you and everyone else that I belonged on the team. I was worried about what would happen if I came in and explained that I can't even walk across a parking lot without getting hurt."
Hotch sighed as he thought back to how rough her first months with the team were. How he repeatedly questioned her presence on the team. Knowing what he did now, he regretted his attitude towards her though no matter how challenging he was being he would have liked to have thought that he would have been understanding if she had come to him. "It was ice Emily. Even the best of us can find it a challenge. I wouldn't have held that against you,"
Emily shook her head and replied forcefully, "I couldn't take that chance. You didn't want me here. I still hadn't been fully in the field because I had to have Morgan sign me off on hand to hand."
Hotch sighed as he again saw the result that those months had on her. They had spoken of it somewhat in her apartment when he was talking her into going to Milwaukee with him. He was relieved that she was finally opening up to him but wasn't sure how much he like what she had to say. But he owed it to her to listen.
Processing what she said, he replied, "I'm sorry. I know that I already said it but I do apologize for making you feel you couldn't come to me without worry. As your supervisor injuries are something that you need to feel comfortable coming to talk to me about. My suspicion at that time created a difficult environment for you."
Emily reached over and squeezed his hand as she replied, "Aaron, we're OK now. We talked all this out. I didn't say it to hurt you but to be honest. It didn't have anything to do with why I didn't want to tell you about this today. I was just embarrassed. I'm also dreading the overattentiveness of Morgan and Garcia again."
They both chuckled before he answered, "it will probably help, at least with Morgan, if you explain what really happened. He will get it given how much he works with hand-to-hand."
Emily nodded as she dreaded the conversation though agreed it was needed, "yeah I will once I'm back at my desk. I don't want any of you to worry about someone hurting me. It's just me at home. I wouldn't voluntarily stay in an abusive relationship so not something you need to worry about for me."
Hotch paused and looked at her carefully after her last statement. The careful wording was a red flag that he needed to think more about as he wasn't sure of the meaning.
Deciding to focus on the current situation he said, "OK. So back to my earlier question - how are you doing?"
Emily sighed as she noticed a change in the look on Hotch's face at her last statement. She really didn't want to talk about previous relationships right now. Particular because the one she had been referring to wasn't one she could talk to him about.
Just as quickly she was relieved when he turned back to her current injury. Looking back at him she answered, "OK, mostly fine. A minor headache earlier that was relieved completely with ibuprofen. No vision problems or dizziness. No other injuries that would affect my job performance."
Hotch nodded before she said, "OK, I'll look out for the incident report. There are no potential cases as far as I know and hopefully it will stay that way for the next few days. Let me know if anything changes with you."
"I can do that." Emily replied.
####
Later that afternoon, Hotch was in his office having just finished reading through the incident report generated for Emily's injury the previous evening. The report was consistent with what she said happened. He just needed to make sure that Derek didn't see the report as it listed the name of the cadet that had injured her.
He was surprised to see the note attached from Sam Cooper apologizing to him about his agent. The surprise was mostly in that he didn't know that Emily and Cooper knew each other as neither had said anything.
But as he thought about it, Hotch began to wonder if one of the unidentified references in her file was written by Cooper. Having worked with him Hotch was familiar with his writing style and it was consistent with what he saw in the letter. But they hadn't said anything about knowing each other and there was no record of them working together.
Hotch shook his head. He wasn't going there at this point. What concerned him the most right now was that she was taking an advanced hand-to-hand class. According to Morgan her skills were good so he had to wonder what her motivation was.
He had already commented that Emily overcompensates. He had to wonder if that had anything to do with why she was taking the class. What experience was she overcompensating about? Did it have anything to do with her cryptic comment about not voluntarily staying in an abusive relationship? She had never mentioned anything about it when they were dating. Had it just never come up or was it something that happened in the last 13 years? Or was he just reading too much into a vague comment?
He sighed in relief that she was actually OK and that they had gotten to the point that they could talk as they did today.
He looked down at the bullpen having opened the blinds shortly after Emily returned to her desk. He saw that she had spoken to Morgan and he seemed less stressed afterwards.
Now he just hoped that there was time for her to fully recover this time before the work of the BAU would drag her out into the field again.
AN: Most likely there will not be another update until next week as I have family visiting.