ACT 5/TAG - Scene Set 7

INT. BAU JET - NIGHT - Scene 7.1

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With the case over and the clock nearing 3:00 am, Reid was nearly dozing off, with Rossi not far behind him. Morgan turned a pen 'round and 'round in his hands, contemplating what happened on the case. A congressman hired a hitman.

The hitman hit. Strauss wanted them to solve it. Canmore confessed.

They went to the apartment. JJ was shot. Strauss didn't want them to solve it.

They had no leads. Emily called someone. They had a lead.

They went to Boston. A guy recognized Emily. She went into the bar.

She came out. She knew where he was. She went on the plane.

They got him. Morgan felt uneasy about saying "they" caught him. Emily did.

But how? Hotch clearing his throat snapped Morgan out of his thoughts.

Hotch: Good job, guys. I know this case was personal for us, and sometimes we let our emotions get in the way of our objectivity. But we did good

Reid: Is there any update on JJ?

Reid's heart skipped a beat waiting for Hotch's response. JJ was- no. Is. JJ is his best friend.

Hotch: Yes. She's out of surgery, awake and doing well

Reid sighed with relief

Reid: That's good right?

Hotch: Yes, it's good

Emily sat in that corner seat she always seemed to choose on the jet. Thank goodness JJ was alright. That wasn't the only thing she was relieved about.

She was relieved she was able to shove Lauren back into the dredges of her brain. She knew she was in deep shit with the team. Any reasonable person could tell something weird was going on with her, but a team of profilers?

They definitely knew something was up. Morgan noticed Emily staring out of the window into the straight darkness. He stood up, and went to go sit by her

Morgan: You have some explaining to do.

Prentiss: What?

Morgan: You called someone at Interpol. You led us straight to Boston and right to the unsub with what- a hunch? That guy - he recognized you. Called you Lauren.

Prentiss bit her lip, nervously and her hand drifted to the other, ready to engage in her most obvious tell- picking at her nails. She looked up at Morgan, but couldn't meet his eyes, knowing hers would give herself away. Nobody can know, she reminded herself.

It's classified. She tried to tell herself that the classification was the sole reason she wouldn't tell them. But that wasn't true.

She didn't want to tell them that she'd lied to them. More importantly, she wanted to protect them from Lauren. They could never see that side of her.

If they knew who Lauren was, they'd never see Emily the same way. She'd done things- bad things- as Lauren, and she wasn't just talking about selling out and sleeping with Ian. She'd spent almost a year building up her cover's reputation as a gunrunner, which meant being a gunrunner.

Emily could only bear it on her conscience by separating Lauren from herself, keeping her neat and tidy in a closet of her brain. But she knew her moral bound BAU team wouldn't see Lauren as a separate person, as she had forced herself to. More than that, she was worried that she too, would have to face the fact that Lauren and Emily weren't so different in the end.

In the end, Emily had Ian arrested. But how much of the ache in her heart was remnants of Lauren, and how much was Emily?

Morgan: Who's Lauren, Emily?

Prentiss looked away, she not only wouldn't answer, she couldn't. Partly because she knew the answer, and partly because she didn't know the answer. Who was Lauren? Emily wasn't sure.

Morgan shook his head, frustrated that he clearly didn't know her as well as he thought he did. Something wasn't just off- it was like a whole other person had joined their team. Whoever this Lauren was- was bad news.

Morgan: You can't push me away forever.

Prentiss continued ignoring him, focused on destroying her nails. Morgan, defeated, went back to his seat, but noticed her nails. She was definitely hiding something, and he was determined to figure out what. He couldn't work with someone he didn't trust- even if it was sweet Emily.

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