ACT 2 - SCENE SET 3

INT. Clyde Easter's hotel building in D.C. - MORNING - SCENE 3.1

START SCENE

Clyde walked across the lobby of the hotel, to go meet with Tsia and Sean to plan how to take down Doyle. Emily hadn't been returning his calls. That was less than surprising.

She had the most to lose, he knew Doyle's primary target would be her. Part of him worried she had muddled her feelings surrounding Doyle too much. He knew she had to have let some of the lines be crossed in order to get the job done, but how much of herself had she truly compromised in the process?

He knew it couldn't have been easy to lie in the arms of man like Ian Doyle every night for as long as she did, and she had to make it convincing. However, in the process, had she convinced herself too? He was nearly out the door when the hotel clerk called out the false name he'd given the hotel.

Clerk: Mr. Tate?

Clyde turned around.

Clyde: Hm?

Clerk: Someone dropped this off for you.

The clerk held up a manila envelope. Clyde was positively baffled. Who knew he was staying here, under the fake name?

Clyde: Who? Did you see the person?

Clerk: I'm sorry, no I didn't.

Clyde sighed and approached the desk. He needed to see what it was at the very least. The clerk handed him the folder and Clyde opened it.

His heart sank. Inside were several photos of Emily over the past weeks, with dates written on them. The most recent was from the night before. He knew immediately who had taken them.

END SCENE


INT. IAN'S APARTMENT - SCENE 3.2

START SCENE

Liam: You finally going to explain your plan here?

Ian: I'm going to do exactly what she did to me. Take everything away so she's completely alone.

Liam: How?

Ian: Well, I'm going to start with Derek Morgan.

Liam: The one she-

Ian, snarling: Don't say it.

Ian would never admit it aloud, but when he'd been watching her and saw her kiss Morgan, his stomach dropped. Even the thought of another man's hands on her made him feel violently ill. Lauren or not, he felt she was his and his only.

He would remind her of that in the coming weeks with the help of a little four leaf clover.

END SCENE


INT. EMILY'S APARTMENT - SCENE 3.3

START SCENE

Emily woke later in the afternoon than she had for years, but she woke feeling as unrested as if she hadn't slept in a month. Her confrontation with Ian had not gone the way she'd intended, at all. Him groping her, whispering in her ear, asking about her work was so not on her agenda for the evening.

She'd gone back upstairs, then tried her best to sleep, but couldn't stop wondering if Ian was still watching her window. When she woke around noon, she decided to shower, feeling a little disturbed she hadn't washed his touch off of her immediately. After, she wrapped herself in her robe, careful not to walk too close to her rather thin curtains, in case Ian was still watching.

Instead, she bent down in front of her bookshelf, reaching for the safe on the bottom shelf. She punched in the code-Declan's birthday- and her breath hitched before opening it. She closed her eyes, counting to ten, before finally looking inside and withdrawing some of its contents.

She didn't bother pulling out the spare gun - a Heckler & Koch USP - or any of her passports - some real, some fake, or any of the cash she kept. Instead, she pulled a manila envelope, and a blue velvet jewelry pouch. Emily took these items over to her dining room table, where the now wilting flower from Ian still sat.

She couldn't bring herself to discard it, not yet. She spread the contents of the envelope on the table. She picked the small photo of him up, gently grazing the image with her thumb.

The photo was black and white, but even so, she couldn't deny his attractiveness. Shame growing inside her, she flipped the image down and slid it away. Her eyes skimmed the rest of the documents- a copy of her profile of Ian, some of the notes she'd studied to become Lauren, and more of the like - but her eyes kept going back to the little pouch.

Sighing, she gently fiddled with the velvet before opening it up. She slowly pulled the golden chain out, fingering the ring charm with care. The day Ian gave her this was simultaneously one of the best and worst parts of the entire experience.

It was a day of confirmation, wasn't it? Ian confirmed his love for her, telling her he wanted her to be a part of his life forever, giving her this symbol of their connection. But he also confirmed something Emily had suspected for weeks - that he himself was the kingpin of the organization, he himself was Valhalla.

Professionally, this was probably the biggest and most consequential piece of information she'd ever acquired as an operative and JTF 12 Agent Emily Prentiss was thrilled. Lauren Reynolds, arms dealer, was also thrilled- she'd managed to catch the eye of the most powerful man in her industry. The power was intoxicating.

But, the convoluted personality inside her- not quite the CIA Agent nor fully the Arms dealer- but perhaps maybe Emily, a girl with a big heart who had thought she'd given up love a long time ago, was torn. This little fantasy was coming to an end. She knew she should've left the necklace in evidence, and Clyde looked at her like she had three heads when she'd asked to keep it, but it was one of the only relics of her time with Ian she'd allowed herself to have.

She'd dutily given up the recordings she'd managed to get from discrete wiretaps of his business meetings and the photos she'd managed to capture of his weapons caches and money stashes. She hadn't protested when the team thumbed through Ian's photos of her- some completely innocuous- images of her sitting on the grass on the grounds of the villa, smiling at the camera, but others were more intimate- photos he'd snapped of her in the bedroom, scantily clad and posing for him. She had enjoyed those moments with him- when they would do normal, ordinary couple things, but the fact that they'd all be evidence to be examined by her friends and colleagues had somehow slipped her mind and her face had flushed deep red when an image of her in nothing but Ian's open button down shirt, splayed across their- his- bed flashed across the screen.

She hadn't allowed herself any reminder of the assignment, changing her hair back to its typical near black as soon as possible and trashing all of the light colored wardrobe created for Lauren immediately. She hadn't given herself anything- except for the necklace. She squeezed the gold metal in her hand, eyes shutting, a tear falling down her cheek, staining the pages beneath her hands.

END SCENE


INT. HALLWAY IN FRONT OF HOTCH'S APARTMENT - SCENE 3.4

START SCENE

Derek stood outside the door, pausing before knocking. He had procrastinated doing this for as long as he could and now he had to just rip off the bandaid. After a short moment, the door creaked open, revealing Hotch, dressed in a GW t-shirt and jeans, carrying Jack on his hip.

Hotch: Morgan. Hey!

Morgan: Hey, Hotch.

Morgan faltered for a moment.

Morgan: Is now a bad time or?

Hotch: No, now's fine. What's up?

Hotch stepped back to allow Morgan inside his home.

END SCENE - FLOW DIRECTLY INTO NEXT SCENE


INT. HOTCH'S APARTMENT - SCENE 3.5

START SCENE

Morgan looked at little Jack, now clinging to his father's leg.

Morgan: Hotch, maybe Jack sho-

He trailed off, knowing Hotch would understand. Hotch did, and he gently shooed Jack to his room.

Hotch: What is it?

Morgan sighed, taking the liberty of sitting on Hotch's plush couch. He ran a hand over his head.

Morgan: You were right, Hotch. Emily is… She was CIA.

Hotch: You're sure?

Morgan: I asked her, and her exact words were "I am bound by oath not to say anything".

Hotch looked down and nodded.

Hotch: I knew it.

Morgan: Hotch, what does this change? I mean, it's not like she lied for fun- it's the law.

Hotch: I know. But…

Morgan: Hotch, she's still the same agent she was before you knew

Hotch: Is she?

Morgan paused.

Morgan: Yeah, I mean… something's going on with her, but… look, maybe she needs our help. I really don't think Emily's being cagey because she's like… plotting something.

Hotch looked unconvinced.

Morgan: I mean come on, Hotch, you know her better than that

Hotch: Do I? Do any of us? She doesn't confide in anyone, ever- she, she lies about her career and clearly she lied about that man knowing her in Boston!

Morgan: I almost forgot about that. Look, she didn't say anything else about except that she's NOT still in the agency.

Hotch nodded, trying to process.

Hotch, uncharacteristically nervous, probably because he knew Morgan wouldn't take kindly to hearing he and Dave had been watching Emily: There's something else.

Morgan: What?

Hotch: Dave and I dropped by her place last night.

Morgan, dumbfounded: Why?

Hotch: Just to see if…

Morgan, angery: You were surveilling her.

Hotch, nodding glumly: But, here's the thing - somebody else was, too.

Morgan's eyes widened.

Morgan: Who?

Hotch, shaking his head and shrugging: Two guys, probably around my age- gold sedan, I wasn't able to see the plates. Driver was the one taking pictures of her. Dave managed to get one of them, too.

Hotch walked over to the camera, picking it up and getting the aforementioned image up on the small screen. Morgan leaned over his shoulder to look.

Hotch: Do you recognize him?

Morgan shook his head.

Morgan, sounding nervous: Hotch, who the hell is this guy?

Hotch chewed his bottom lip nervously.

Hotch: I have no idea.

The two men shared a frantic glance.

END SCENE


INT. MORGAN'S APARTMENT - SCENE 3.6

START SCENE

Ian strolled through Morgan's apartment, picking up items with a gloved hand, careful not to leave any DNA lest Morgan returned later and suspected something. He looked carefully around, paying attention to every item, particularly photographs. Suddenly, he found just what he wanted to see.

A framed picture of the BAU team, Emily included, right on the wall above a fireplace. She was dressed in a sleek grey suit and white blouse. The rest of the team was seated on the couch, but Emily was crouched on the group, arms resting on the knees of Aaron Hotchner and Derek Morgan.

While Hotchner had placed his hand appropriately on his own arm, careful not to cross professional boundaries, but it seemed Morgan had no such qualms, his arm looped over her elbow. She was flashing her million dollar smile at the camera, and Ian couldn't help but be reminded of the photos he'd taken off her when they were together. When the interrogators at the prison in North Korea had taunted him with photos, before he'd discovered her betrayal, his heart sank and he felt like he'd betrayed her, failed her by letting those men get ahold of those intimate images.

And then, when he'd refused to give in, to break and give up his organization, they'd pulled out a different set of photos, ones he hadn't seen before- a photograph of a violent car accident. When he had peered closer at it, he noticed a woman's body, clearly too mangled to have survived. He'd recognized those brunette curls anywhere.

His Lauren was dead. He had managed to wait for his captors to leave him, but the moment he was alone, he could no longer hold back. For maybe the first time in a long time, maybe even ever, Ian Doyle cried.

But when the interrogators returned, he didn't break. He knew Lauren would have wanted him to stay strong, to not give up. He would honor her memory that way, by never saying a word.

He wouldn't let them win. But that all changed when he saw the next set of pictures. This time, he couldn't wait for privacy to let his tears fall.

Declan. Oh, his sweet Declan. There was only one person who could have revealed his identity and she was supposedly dead.

That's when he figured it out. And that's when he started planning his escape. This photo, of her with her friends, her team, made him angry. No, not angry. Furious.

How dare she. How dare she give up his son who loved her, who trusted her, who was completely innocent, his son who was basically their son in all but biology, how dare she do this and then smile? How dare she move on, forget, keep going, when she was responsible for the death of a four year old boy?

The Irishman snarled at the sight of the photo and pulled out his untraceable zip gun, shooting the image twice- once dead on at her chest, and the second an afterthought, right at Derek Morgan's head. Backstabbing, lying, doublecrossing bitch that she was, Ian still didn't want anyone else touching her, loving her. He was possessive that way.

The sight of Morgan's arm around her infuriated him. Ian left the shattered picture where it was, and left Morgan's property.

END SCENE

END ACT 2