A/N: Warning: mentions of homophobia.
The team stares at me from the cover of their desks. Ducking down when I pass.
I wasn't out at work, neither was Emily. But still, people tend to make assumptions. Even the security guard on the way in had looked at me sideways, but I suppose that could've been a figment of my imagination.
Reid walks over to my desk hand fidgeting with a file. I can feel the bottom of my stomach drop because he's the last person I want to have this kind of conversation with. But he wants to talk about some new episode of Hannibal, the show we guiltily watch together on Friday nights and not what happened with Emily. For that, I'm grateful.
Hotch appears at the doorway, "We've got a case." And the sideways glances will have to pause now, at least for a little while.
Penelope walks in and we make eye contact immediately. "This case is not one anyone is going to like."
When the pictures flash onto the screen, I barely stifle an audible scream.
The women all looked like me. Brunette, mid-forties, slim-build, and all in relationships with other women. The silence in the room is stifling.
"They're all in lesbian relationships?" The word aloud feels thick on my tongue, because it had always been my silent truth. Never whispered aloud, only in my mind.
"It would appear that way, oh and hold that thought, it looks like we just got our new victim," Penelope says.
And then the last picture flashes onto the screen and I feel sick, sick to my stomach. Because she was pregnant. I can feel my knuckles go white upon the edge of the table, gripping down as hard as I can. The gold wedding band eating into the soft flesh of my finger. I slip it off, for the last time. I was Agent Miller now. I had signed the papers after Emily had decided to stay because I was tired of being afraid of his shadow. Of living a half-life. With it on, the men on cases tended to steer away and into the direction of JJ. And no one questioned my longing glances in the direction of women, or innocuous flirting. But all shields eventually fail. It was time. Reid has been eying my fingers, his eyes reaching up to mine. A silent "Are you okay?" Because he knew, Reid always knew. The two of us had become closer than either of us had expected. I nod.
"Sir, I really would rather be looking at anything else," Penelope says.
Hotch gives her a sad, knowing smile. "We're headed to Seattle, we can brief on the plane. Wheels up in thirty." And as we all leave; everyone's eyes fall to Penelope. Penelope whose Bi flag had become as much a part of her lair as her computer. Penelope consoled younger agents when they had first come out because the Bureau was not always welcoming. Penelope who was out. And I, I who was not. And Emily, they had all stared, not because they believed us to be together. But, because we seemed like an odd two to become friends. Because I wore a ring on my finger and had a husband I did not love. And I feel embarrassed as a profiler, that I had ever thought otherwise. Penelope's eyes follow mine, tracing. Because even she did not know why I could not seem able to close my mouth. Everyone else trickles out until Penelope and I are left in the shadow of the evil in the room. True evil, the kind that preys on women who look like you, live like you, the kind who could prey on you. Silent, the room is eerily silent. She knows I think she does. A flicker of recognition flashes before her eyes, because to everyone else this evil was there but it did not affect them. It couldn't affect them but to us. It was as omnipresent as the clouds in the sky.
And as if this day, this case couldn't get any worse. In walks Erin who is here to consult.
"Agent Miller," she says after a long pause.
"Erin." The stand-off has begun. Penelope sits unmoving between the two of us. A small part of me wants to tell her to leave, but she's frozen. Eyes looking back and forth from Erin's stick-straight posture to my missing ring.
"I see you've finally come clean."
"I-uh, yes James and I made it official a couple of days ago." I can feel the heat rushing to my cheeks.
"Must be nice to finally be out… of that relationship." She gives her a pointed glare. And Penelope catches the hint and quietly excuses herself whispering something about her Chocolate Thunder being in need.
"Odd girl isn't she. Pretty though, and smart."
"What do you want Erin?"
"Ooh one of your teacher glares, will you cross your arms too? You know, I've always thought you were an English teacher in another life. You sure still dress like one." My arms, however, were already crossed firmly over my chest.
"Erin if you came here to gloat about my failed marriage I'm really not in the mood. What happened to let's try to move on from the past?"
"You used to like this." Her fingers have made their way to my arm and the distance between us closed by warm coffee-tinted breath. The blinds in the briefing room haven't been closed and the team is still down in the bull-pen. Erin hadn't noticed. She was never good at planning ahead, that was the one consistent thing about her that I had at certain points began to love.
"We can't and you know why."
"Alex, it's not the '90s anymore." Of course, it wasn't, but what had changed in twenty years?
I remove her fingers and begin to leave. My phone still on the table begins to ring.
"Shouldn't you get that?"
Mhmm. "Hey, how are you feeling?"
"I'm ok, Alex. I wanted to check in and see how everything is. Has Garcia slipped, yet?"
"No, babe everything's fine. Totally fine. I miss you."
"Uh, Alex?" I scurry out of the room watching Erin's face go slate-white as I leave.
"Sorry, I needed to escape Erin, she's coming on this case and she's never been one to let things go."
"Oh, uh no problem. Is there, was there something going on between the two of you?"
"Emily, I've got to go, we have a case. Can I call you back when we land?"
"Of course, babe." The words are foreign on Emily's tongue, but she likes the way they sound when Alex says them. When Alex says them to her.
"Alex, wait I think you took my go bag."
But Alex wasn't listening, the phone had been hung up and the elevator was taken, and the ring in her pocket fiddled with. And Emily calling her babe had left a faint flush on the tips of her cheeks.
"Miss you too," Emily says.
A/N: I find it unlikely as much as I love the BAU that any of this would have been easy, Don't Ask Don't Tell was a rule in the US until 2010, and in times before that you could be told to leave service: military or governmental for things of that nature. Therefore, this storyline developed, but as always, I'm open to suggestions. I'm also debating writing fics in different languages if there's people who will read and enjoy them let me know. I speak English, French, and Spanish fluently and some others not so fluently, yes just like Agent Prentiss.