Long Shadows – Chapter 2

"There is often the look of an angel on the Devil himself." – Irish proverb

2002

Nausea boiled in the pit of Emily's stomach as she swung her legs out of bed and stared off into space. Behind her, Ian Doyle traced his finger across the sheen of sweat that covered her bare back. The room was deathly silent, the moans and pants of a few minutes earlier hanging in ghostly echo.

"Do you have a cigarette?" she asked hoarsely. She felt him move aside, heard the creak of a drawer sliding open. He held out the cigarette and she turned her head, focusing on the pillow, the headboard, anything but him. She closed her lips around the little tube, feeling his thumb brush against her chin, and waited for him to light it. The intimacy of the gesture made her skin crawl.

He leaned back against the headboard, watching her. Emily reached down and gathered up the sheet, which had long since fallen from the bed, and wrapped it around her slim form. The orange glow of the cigarette was the only light in the room, save for a sliver of moonlight in the window, and it brightened and dimmed like a distantly burning beacon.

"You don't have to cover yourself up," Doyle said.

Emily looked halfway over her shoulder, staring at him. His eyes raked across her barely covered body before coming back up to meet hers. His pupils were wide and dark, with an eerie spot of orange where they reflected the cigarette.

"Ian," she said quietly, "how often do you do this?"

The corner of his mouth quirked up. "Do what?"

"You know." She gestured to the bed, the whole room, with a sweep of her hand. Their clothes were scattered like twigs after a storm. "This."

Doyle seemed to enjoy her discomfort. His eyes twinkling, he repeated, "This?"

She glared at him, but a smile was playing on her lips. "Screwing your new suppliers."

He chuckled and reached across the bed, tugging at the sheet. Emily allowed herself to be pulled down as he slid his hand to the back of her neck and joined his lips to hers. His tongue tangled with hers and she gripped his shoulders, letting the sheet fall from her body. Her forgotten cigarette dangled from her fingers. His other hand traced down her bare torso, and his fingers dug into her sides.

"Ian," she said, pulling away with some difficulty, "I'm serious."

Doyle moved his hands to her hips and shifted her so that she straddled his waist. She dropped her cigarette in the ashtray and splayed her hands across his chest, feeling the hardened ridges of scar tissue beneath her fingers. They stared at each other across the darkness. Finally, he replied, "Most of my suppliers aren't as pretty as you, Lauren." When she bit her lip and smiled, he added, "And I find myself… drawn to you."

Emily blushed and tried to climb off of him, but his hold on her hips was tighter than she'd thought. She sighed. "I just… Look, this is supposed to be business, and here we are in your apartment—"

"I thought you were attracted to me." He was grinning now.

"I am!" she protested, laughing. She had to play this just right. She couldn't let him have her so quickly, and she'd already figured out that he was attracted to the thrill of the chase. Ian Doyle was a hunter, the kind who wanted a challenge from his prey. Emily just had to strike the right balance.

"So what's the problem?" he asked. His fingers stroked the smooth skin of her hip.

"I just want to make sure we can do business and still…." She trailed off.

Doyle caught her off guard when he tilted his hips up sharply, hitting that spot just right, and she yelped in surprise. He dragged her down again for another fierce kiss, teeth and lips scraping together. His fingers twisted into her messy curls as he rolled them on the mattress. He pulled back and hovered above her, pinning her knees between his. She leaned forward and kissed the side of his neck, and then slid her hand down his straining bicep.

"Make sure we can still do that?" he asked with a sideways smirk.

Emily nodded and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Yeah," she agreed breathlessly. She reached across the bed for her cigarette in the ashtray, now only faintly glowing, but Doyle stilled her hand.

"Let me get you a new one," he said softly. As he leaned over for the pack, Emily exhaled heavily and stared up at the ceiling. This wasn't where she'd pictured herself when she agreed to work with the JTF. It certainly wasn't what she'd had in mind when she joined the CIA. For some reason, Emily thought of her mother. Ambassador Prentiss had been proud of her daughter for making it into the CIA, if a little disappointed that it wasn't the State Department. If she only knew what that prestigious, exciting job was now making her do….

But she would never know. All she knew was that Emily was doing some kind of dangerous work that had to be kept secret. She couldn't even be in contact with her mother during the assignment, let alone tell her what was going on. Not that she would want to tell her—Elizabeth Prentiss would have a heart attack if she knew Emily was using her body this way.

"Penny for your thoughts," Doyle said, holding the cigarette before her.

She took it from him and lit it, buying herself time to think of a response other than 'I'm sleeping with you because the CIA told me to and I'm wondering if my mother would approve.' Exhaling the first sweet wisps of smoke, she finally answered, "I'm wondering what I'm getting myself into."

"I was under the impression that you were getting yourself into my bed," he quipped. She pushed his arm playfully, and he sat down beside her. "Doing business with me, you mean."

"And sleeping with you," Emily added. "I… hoped this wouldn't be a one-time thing. Sleeping with a buyer goes against everything I know, but…." She rolled over and glanced up at him through the haze of cigarette smoke. "I want you, Ian."

He ran a finger down the side of her face with surprising tenderness. "Tell you what, Lauren. When we do business, it'll be just business. We'll conduct it wholly apart from everything else."

"And what will everything else be?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Us? I'm only in Boston for another month or so. We'll see what happens."

Emily froze, but covered for it by pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "Only a month?"

Doyle lay down on his side, propping himself up on his elbow, and leaned in so that their noses were almost touching. "We'll see what happens," he repeated. He pulled the cigarette from her lips and kissed her before tossing it in the general direction of the ashtray.

"You're wasting those, you know," she chided with a smile.

His response was to begin kissing her neck. "We've still got the rest of the night to use up," he whispered against her throat. His hand slid across her stomach, and she arched against him with a whimper. "Let's make the most of it."

One month. Emily had one month to convince Doyle that she could be more than a supplier-with-benefits. Sleeping with him wasn't going to be enough. Sean McAllister had suspected as much—as far as they could tell, Doyle rarely stayed in one place for long—but she had hoped against hope that it would be simple. Mixing business and pleasure was already going to be difficult, but this latest revelation had complicated things further. Emily had to convince Doyle to take her with him when he left the country in a month.

She had to make him fall in love with her.

Present

The park at Dupont Circle appeared deserted as Hotch strode across the street, his heart pounding in his throat. He had sped over as soon as he'd hung up the phone, but he now wished he'd kept Emily on the line. He squinted, glancing around the park. He could barely see the little tables, mostly obscured in shadows. One area of the park was eerily half-lit by a flickering streetlamp, and Hotch thought he could see a figure tucked into the darkness. When the lamp flashed again, he distinctly saw Emily's coat peeking out from behind a tree.

"Emily?" he called softly, advancing towards her.

Emily whirled around, arm outstretched, clutching her Glock. Hotch held his hands out, as though appeasing a wild animal, and stood in place until she lowered her weapon. "Em, it's me," he added unnecessarily.

She tucked the gun into her holster and glanced around deliberately before beckoning Hotch towards her. As he neared her, she pulled him in for a hug, but he placed his hands around her face and pressed his lips onto hers. They stayed like that for a moment, silent and unmoving, before Hotch pulled away and rested his forehead against hers.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I panicked."

Hotch slid his hands down to the small of her back and gripped her body against his. "God, Em, I didn't see you when I got here and I thought the worst had happened." He leaned back and stared at her. "What the hell is going on?"

Emily shook her head. "Aaron, I'm glad you came, but I don't need your help. I told you—I don't want you in any more danger than you already are."

"Bullshit," he said uncharacteristically, making Emily freeze with surprise. "You already said he knows about our relationship, about the whole team. Whoever this is, we can take him. I can take him." He placed a hand under her chin and tilted it up. Their eyes met: his dark and fierce, hers frightened. "Hon, I'll stop him. You just have to tell me what's going on, and I'll take care of it."

She stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest. "It's not that simple!" She ran a hand over her face, exhaling forcefully to try and calm herself. "God, Aaron, do you have to be such an alpha-male all the time? You can't just come swooping in to save the day—if it was that easy, I'd do it myself. I don't need you to rescue me."

Hotch said nothing, waiting for the storm to blow over. Emily rarely had these tirades, but when she did, he had learned that it was better to keep his mouth shut until her anger had faded.

"You don't get it, do you?" she continued. "This man is after me, and there's nothing he won't do. The only thing I can do is try to protect you, and the team, and—" She was biting her nail again. "Do you have a cigarette?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Uh, no," he replied slowly. "I don't smoke, and neither do you. You haven't for years."

She threw him a sarcastic half-smile. "Yeah, well, I was feeling nostalgic. Sue me."

Hotch placed his hands on her shoulders. "Emily. This isn't like you." His voice was higher than usual, betraying the distress he was trying to keep hidden. "Please."

She allowed herself to be steered over to the table. She sat, but Hotch remained standing, leaning against the arm of the other chair.

"Please," he repeated, taking her hand and squeezing it gently, "just tell me."

Emily heaved a sigh, her shoulders sagging. "It's an old case, back from my days at… before the Bureau. We caught a man and sent him to prison, but he escaped and now he's hunting me." She looked up at him. "But I can handle it."

He shook his head. "Em, I know you're strong. But you said yourself that it's not simple. I can help you." Seeing the way her jaw tightened, he tried again. "The team can help you. Hon, I tried to take care of George Foyet on my own, but it wasn't until I had the rest of the BAU behind me that I could do anything."

"Aaron, Foyet was awful, but this man…." Her voice started to break. "You have no idea."

Hotch switched tactics. "He's keeping tabs on all of us now. Look at it this way—help us defend ourselves. Tell me who we're up against."

Emily stamped her foot. The tears were welling in her eyes now. "Damn it, stop guilting me into this. I can't tell you, don't you understand?"

He pulled her out of the chair and into his arms. She clutched his jacket with shaking fists and buried her face in his shoulder. He stroked her hair, feeling her shudder against him. She murmured something unintelligible against his chest.

"Em?"

"I'm working on it with some old colleagues," she repeated. "People who were on the original case. So I'm not doing this completely on my own."

Hotch kissed her forehead softly. "I know, Em, I know. It's just…." He paused, and Emily lifted her head to look curiously up at him. He took a deep breath. "I waited too long to stop Foyet, and I lost Haley because of it. I nearly lost Jack. My life fell apart because my stupid pride got in the way, and Foyet played me like a fool. He tore my family to pieces." He rubbed his thumbs under her eyes where her mascara had smeared.

"Aaron—"

"Emily, I don't know where I'd be without you," he said quietly. "I was a wreck in so many ways after Foyet, and you… you put me back together. You made me smile again; you made Jack smile again. You took a broken man and a scared little boy, and you rebuilt a family."

She gave him a watery smile. "I love you, Aaron."

"I love you, too, and that's why I can't lose you. I don't care how long it takes, or how dangerous it is." He cupped her face in his hands, and she could see his eyes shining in the darkness with unshed tears. "Emily, I cannot lose you."

Emily bit her lip and stared at her shoes. Twice she opened her mouth, and twice she swallowed the unspoken words. Finally, she cleared her throat and began speaking, still looking at the ground. "You have to swear you will never tell anyone this. I suppose I'll have to tell the team eventually, but you have to realize that these details are highly classified, and knowing them could put you in even more danger."

Hotch wondered if it was possible for his heart to forget how to beat. It certainly felt like it had. "I promise."

She bit her lip for a few seconds. "I haven't been working for the Bureau for ten years. My records were changed to protect me. Before I came to the FBI, I worked for the CIA. That's where I got my profiling experience—I wasn't lying about that. I was part of a team called the JTF. It was one of those small groups that sprang up in the panic after 9-11, when we realized we weren't invincible to terrorists. We were tasked with profiling terrorists so that we could better protect ourselves from them, predict their moves and stop them before they attacked us. Obviously, it involved getting close to those terrorists."

If he had doubted it before, Hotch was now absolutely positive that his heart and lungs had both ceased to function.

"There was an arms dealer, former IRA. We knew his name and his alias in the black market, but not much else. He was feeding weapons to half of Europe and the Middle East; his client list read like a real-life Evil League of Evil. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, African warlords… he was facilitating so much destruction and bloodshed that he had to be stopped. And someone had to get the information on him." She glanced up at Hotch, her eyes sad and fearful.

"You went undercover," he guessed. When she gave a single nod, he added, "You had to get close to him."

Emily sank into the chair behind her without a word. Hotch sat down across from her, waiting. Finally, she whispered, "Yes. I had to get close to him."

There was nothing Hotch could say in response to that.

-(I feel obligated to warn you all that I have NEVER updated a story this quickly. So don't let the speed at which I posted this get your hopes up too much- for most updates, you can expect a week minimum. But this chapter just sort of wrote itself over the last couple of days, and I wanted to go ahead and post it for you guys. This is probably the chapter length you can count on, though. Future chapters might get a little longer, but I'm aiming for about 2,500-3,000 words per chapter.

I'm also trying to keep the 'past' and 'present' halves in balance with each other. That's really what I'd like feedback on this point- let me know what you think of the format, because right now I'm planning on keeping it the same. Also, let me know what you think of the characters, because that's another thing I tend to worry about. I know the action's still a little slow at this point, but things will definitely start to pick up in the next chapter. I've got some exciting things planned for the next few chapters that I hope you'll all enjoy :)

Finally, thank you all SO MUCH for the great response to the first chapter! I've never gotten so many review and story-alert emails in one day, and it's wonderful to know that people are excited to see what happens next. I'm excited, too, and I hope it'll live up to your expectations. As always, thanks for reading!)-

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