HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Chapter IX

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." ~ William Faulkner

Emily was going through everything in her head for one more time, when Clyde appeared from the exit of the airport.

"Hello, darlin'.", he greeted her.

"Thanks for coming earlier, Clyde.", she said ignoring his term of endearment.

For his own sake and if he wanted to still keep all of his 'limps', he should not say it in front of Hotch, she joked in her mind.

"Coming to the United States again looks good on you.", he commented looking her up and down as they walked towards the car.

There was something different about Emily, as far as Easter could say. She didn't look like he had last seen her in London. Love makes people look more beautiful, he had heard somewhere. He wasn't an expert in the field. He was always far too occupied with the job to be very interested in it. When the job is the priority, you can only find someone from it and just to be honest Clyde was never a fan of the idea. In addition to this, the 'house with the white picket fence, the kids and the dog' dream didn't have much of an appeal on him. Kids eh? Emily would look good with a baby. OK, where did this come from? Probably from the fact that he had three sisters with four kids each. Anyway, Agent Aaron Hotchner had done some miracle with Emily. He had finally done something simpler than just moving the world to send her to the other side of it to protect her.

"Carry on like this and you are not going to stay around here for long.", Emily warned him.

"I've met Agent Hotchner before. I know.", he replied, "So how is it going apart from bombs exploding in the FBI parking?"

"Roger Peters wasn't Roger Peters. Someone had stolen his identity and that someone is James Hathaway, American citizen with pilot's licence, having been a transporter for a private security firm till two years ago.", she announced getting into the car.

Clyde's hand going for the handle of the door froze. He could still get amazed with a particular person's abilities. He got into the car.

"What was up so much with Peters that led to the blue notice? Ria doesn't seem to know.", Emily started the subject and the engine.

It was about time to learn some things.

"Because she doesn't know.", Clyde answered as a matter of fact.

Emily was confused. That wasn't the answer she was expecting. So let's start from the basics.

"Why did you get into the Paradise Demons investigation in the first place?"

"Gloria hasn't told you.", he replied, not surprised.

"Told me what, Clyde?", she got unnerved a bit.

She hadn't asked Gloria directly these questions, because she wanted to see if she would have said anything by herself. If Clyde hadn't planned to come earlier, she would have. She had enough with things being kept secrets, when they had so dangerous things happening around them. The best for Clyde was to give some answers.

Easter shook his head. It was exactly what he had imagined. He should be the one to explain everything.

"The OCU was left without a leader. We had worked closely because of Doyle. I knew most of the stuff. I jumped to help."

Emily was taken aback. No... It wasn't that, was it?

"Whelan died then...?"

"Richard got killed during that final confrontation with the Paradise Demons.", he paused.

"Oh no..." she said as the information sunk in.

No... All this time she was thinking that Gloria was hiding things in purpose. She just didn't know and what she wasn't saying didn't matter, only hurt. Damn it! Why had she never confessed the details of that loss? 'Be reallistic! She hadn't even told you that that had happened for quite a long time!', Emily's mind told her. But she should have put the time together. She should have had a closer look in the file of that last mission. The few from the organisation that had escaped the arrests had closed themselves in a farm in Northern Ireland. The law enforcement forces had no other option than to go in, to face them directly. Emily wasn't aware that Interpol had taken part in it practically, though. That close of Paradise Demons had ended up a rather dark event. They didn't know back then about MQ-300 and guns like those. There had been casualties, a lot of them. Apparently Richard Whelan was one of them.

"I'm sorry, Clyde, I know he was a friend of yours.", Emily added sympathetically.

"I just had to wrap the case up. It was over, anyway.", he returned to the subject, without showing any emotions.

There was another reason he jumped to close that case but Emily didn't need to know that and it wasn't what someone would expect from Clyde Easter.

"Then why the notice?", Emily asked again.

"Whelan had a hunch for Peters, that they were missing something. But I don't know what he was suspecting. I put the notice along with the others for future reference. I put a blue notice on my friend's memory, as weird as it sounds." 'And I almost got his woman killed under my responsibility.' he thought to himself tightening his lips.

Emily turned to him briefly. It was one of those moments that Easter looked human. Clyde Easter was always quite enigmatic to Emily. His secretive ways, his controlled reactions and words were what someone would expect from an ex-military man with a SIS training. But his big ego and his tendencies to control everything and not only his emotions were what could make someone question his intentions and aims. These were the reasons that Emily suspected him wrongly as a mole during Doyle's pursuit, sending Tsia to her death... Emily shook her head. The truth was that she never knew what to expect from Clyde Easter.

"I haven't told Gloria. The name having come up during that investigation, combined with the proof of his involvement with the new version of Paradise Demons, now, was enough for her. I prefer it to stay like this. She has to remain objective.", he continued sharply.

"That was my decision to make."

That rest of the story couldn't stop Emily from getting annoyed for one more time by him trying to take control and not telling her from the start of the whole story.

"What does this suppose to mean?", Clyde asked.

"It means that for one more time you decided what was a need to know.", Emily replied strictly.

"You remember how Richard was! He had instincts! But he probably got the feeling from something completely insignificant! What good can come for Ria from knowing that this has partly to do with him, Em?", Clyde argued aggressively.

Emily was getting confused with Clyde, again. She didn't actually imply asking Gloria directly. She cared for her and, of course, she didn't want to torture her. But since when had Easter become so overprotective of the other woman?

"I'm not saying that I would have told her or asked her, Clyde! I'm saying that me, I needed to know that in reality what was behind the past interest for Peters was a dead man's hunch and only that.", she clarified.

That should definitely be called irony, she thought. Her position was over a case that to some extent was based on the suspicion of a man that, even forced, she had moved against. Someone was playing tricks on her.

"What would have been the difference?", he asked, raising his eyebrows, in his 'I-know-it-all' tone.

She would have known for sure that she got sent to a witch-hunt... Not a real difference. At least she wouldn't have suspected her friend for hiding stuff. She would have put a reason to her odd behaviour.

"Is it possible that Ria knows something more? Did she tell anything back then?", she asked tentatively, she had to.

"I don't think that she had even paid attention.", he admitted calming down.

Clyde Easter wasn't supposed show any favouritism for any part. He didn't take sides. He had never done it before; he wasn't going to do it now, not with the rest that was going on around about politics and positions, not when he didn't know what he was going to do with those two sides. Easter was famous for one thing: his unbiased ability to move, detached from feelings and preferences. Actually that time, he was between two former members of his teams, one that he cared for –not getting intimate with members of your team and job in general didn't mean that you weren't allowed to care for them, even Hotch had understood that about him, or at least he had used it to make him help the BAU– and another that some other unbiased judgement of his had failed, his friend's woman.

"Are you seriously screwing your subordinate, Rich? And that particular one? And I had you for cleverer! So you have her in your bed! Where is it gonna get you now, mate?", he argued with the other man an evening in his flat, a week before the tragic events.

Clyde had always good relations with the uppers. He used to learn stuff. The news about that affair had hit the top. Someone ratted them out and Clyde went to confront his friend.

No, Easter was never for the idea of romantic involvements in the job. He had thought a lot of things back then and some not very flattering either for the woman or his friend –he had to admit that. Only till one hour before that attack to that farm and after Richard's death and witnessing Gloria's reactions, Clyde was convinced that whatever was up with those two was much deeper than 'screwing' and Gloria wasn't sleeping her way up.

"Was she that bad?", Emily said concerned, she could never imagine her friend losing her professional approach no matter what.

"You don't wanna know.", he replied with meaning, no she didn't want to know for multiple reasons.

Emily looked at Clyde. She noticed his tense expression and understood his tendencies to protect the other agent and for a moment she got scared. The profiler kicked in and Emily realised that a woman bottling everything up, with a temper and recklessness, putting her training and her bouncing from one identity to another on top of them, wasn't fragile but if she broke, she could break destructively for others and mainly for herself. She used to believe all those years that Gloria Paterson could endure everything and still keep it together, even the times she had been careless about her safety. She used to believe the same for Aaron. But she had witnessed his loss of control over Foyet. He had come back to normal in moments, but he was still carrying it around till some months ago. The two of them had only one difference. He had Jack and all of them. Gloria had no one. Emily should stop pushing her around. The games, the positions could go to hell. The solution of that case was all that they needed and Emily needed Ria's head in this. Most of all she needed her friend.

In the meantime in the BAU, Gloria was trying to put the new information about Peters-Hathaway into the puzzle. The practically 'nobody' had a double identity and he was just transporting candies, covering transports with other 'goodies' obviously? She ran her hand through her hair and took a couple of deep breaths. She had faced similar things before. Why was her mind refusing to remember all the facts? There was an answer in front of her. For some reason she could feel it.

"Why would someone get a different identity?", she thought out loud.

"Is that rhetoric question?", Rossi's voice came as he entered the conference room, "Good morning.", he continued.

He touched her shoulder briefly and that time she flinched without any effort to hide it. There were times that she couldn't withstand his touch and not because she didn't like it. Damn it. She had found herself wanting it often lately, not the consolation touch, but that other one... But as it seemed that consolation touch was all that she could get. And no, she didn't want that, she hated it.

"Morning.", she replied with a short smile, while David was thinking that he should get used to her constant passing from flinching to leaning and back to flinching again, when his hand touched her, "The man wasn't doing anything apparently illegal, why hide? Why take that particular identity?", she remained on the problem in hand.

"And according to Garcia the guy had an IQ above average, good education, high social skills, high functional in general. Rogers according to the Interpol info was none of that, low-educated, a worker, even his transport company wasn't that serious. Hathaway was playing a shadow of himself.", the older agent added.

"Shadow...", Gloria repeated shocked and turned to a surprised Rossi.

"An organisation so big, they know that they are going to be shut down at some point. Some of them, the bigger heads, are going to come to pick up the pieces but for now they are just shadowing... These shadows will return."

"Bloody hell!", she exclaimed, standing up and she flew out of the room.

He watched her as she ran down the stairs to the bullpen and exited the door towards Garcia's office. They were probably going to catch a lead, even if he didn't know from where exactly. That was the bright side of it. But Dave was concerned. She had looked at him, like she had just seen a ghost. When she turned her eyes to him, a different kind of shadow had crossed them.

"The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow." ~ George R.R. Martin

First chapter for the New Year!

I should admit that I kinda like writing Clyde. A straight logical character with big ego, limited emotions and torments is interesting.

And the first spoiler of the year: Gloria will figure out what they are missing and then it's time for the others to put the rest of the pieces together...

As I said I love analysing characters in this story and giving little bits of the past relevant to the case and the characters' problems or not. Let me know if I'm getting you tired. Actually let me know for whatever you are thinking about the story, good or bad! ;)

I'd like to mention something, too. CM writers have a fascination with the names or is it just my idea? Do you remember the episode 'NormaL' where the Unsub was called 'NormaN'? Anyway what I found out, while I was looking through Irish surnames for Richard, is that 'Doyle' comes from gaelic words meaning 'dark stranger'. Quite descriptive surname, isn't it? Anyway, some nerdy info I just wanted to share.

HAPPY 2014 again!