(A/N: Sorry for not updating! I usually go, like most Minnesotans/Wisconsinites, "up north to the lake" on weekends, where we sometimes don't even have electricity, let alone WiFi, on our boat.)
Before Prentiss got herself together enough to do anything else but lie in bed rubbing her forehead and blinking up at the ceiling, there was a loud, authoritative knock on her door. She groaned, and her roommate, who was already awake and had woken her up by watching TV, went to get it. It was Morgan and Hotchner, standing tall and putting on an intimidating air that she knew they were faking. These were the kindest, most caring men she knew, but her roommate didn't know that. And right now, the men looked ready to start snapping some necks. Guiltily, Prentiss saw that Morgan had a bruise on his jaw and moved carefully, as if nursing his chest. "Hotch, Derek…" she mumbled sleepily "What are you…?"
"Go back to sleep, Emily. This isn't worth getting up for. We'll handle it." Hotchner said. Moving into the tiny room, he flicked off the blaring TV. Thank you, she thought.
Morgan was staring down her roommate. "Ms. Lestrange. If you'll please step out here in the hall with us for a minute," he said icily. Faced with those two, the five-foot-four nineteen-year-old who'd nonetheless caused the older, taller Prentiss so much pain had no choice but to do what they asked.
Prentiss was still too out of sorts to get up, but listened through the thin door to try to catch what they were saying as Hotch and Morgan defended her. They were speaking softly, but she could catch "…doesn't matter how she leans…say one word…won't like the consequences. She'll tell us if you…"
The roommate came back looking rather shaken, then quickly left again, saying nothing. And when Prentiss finally got up and walked down the hall, no one there said anything to her, tried to trip her, or made comments. There were, however, more whispers. But now they sounded- scared? Good. She didn't care, and having the bullies threatened like that seemed like a small act of vengeance, compared to all they'd done to her. Let them be scared, feel one ounce of the fear and pain she dealt with every day.
Outside, it was beginning to snow, the wet pavement starting to turn to ice. Back in the room, Prentiss's cell phone buzzed. It was a call from Garcia.
"Come over, okay? I'll make you something to eat."
"Penelope, you don't have to..."
"No, I insist. I hugged you last night and I could feel all your ribs. You haven't been eating right, for ages probably."
"But, I..." Prentiss protested weakly.
"No buts! You're coming over, and I'm making food and you're eating it! See you in 20 minutes."
Garcia didn't mince words when Prentiss showed up on her doorstep. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry, but you look like shit. How are you, really?" she asked, hurrying her in from the cold.
"I can't sleep," she admitted. "And it's hard to eat because I'm so stressed. Sometimes I forget to. I'm just so sad, so hopeless all the time."
"I figured, baby girl," Garcia said, adopting Morgan's term of endearment. "You cried for almost two hours last night."
Prentiss stared at the floor. "I know, I'm still hungover. And I shouldn't have done that."
"Don't feel bad," Garcia assured Prentiss. "Now we know what's going on, and we can look out for you. Eggs, pancakes, or French toast?"
"Um, pancakes, I guess." She sat and drank tea, willing her monstrous headache to go away, as Garcia flew about the tiny kitchen. Though still ashamed at her outburst, seeing her friends care, help her, made her feel so much better. She was astounded when she took a minute to think and realized she didn't, for a bit anyway, feel like cutting. It was a start.
"I'm worried about you," Garcia said as they began to eat.
"Don't worry, okay?"
"How can I not worry when you're slicing yourself up? What if something happened and you ended up in the emergency room or, dead?" Garcia paused for a second. "I'm sorry, that was harsh. But you need to get help, so you can stop. I'll have money for you, to afford it, by tomorrow evening. Only don't ask how- you are talking to the goddess of all hacking here!"
"Thank you," Prentiss said gratefully. She was beginning to think that she did need, did want, professional help- after all, she couldn't live like this forever, and some part of her screamed for release from the pain, the hopelessness she'd known for so long.
Garcia pressed on. "JJ gave you a list of different organizations and stuff that could help you, right? I bet some of them are local counselors, et cetera. If you bring that list, and come back here tomorrow afternoon, you could call and get an appointment, and I'd be here, maybe Reid and JJ would be too. For moral support." She smiled.
Prentiss shifted nervously in her chair. This was all moving too fast, and what if she got locked up the minute she told a professional, because she was "dangerous?" What if other people found out? "Okay, but I'm scared," she said hesitantly, sounding like she had to pull the words out one by one. And she did- it killed her to admit a stupid weakness like that.
Garcia reached around the syrup bottle to squeeze her friend's hand. "I know. But we have a plan now. And no one is out to hurt you- people will help, you'll see. Now try and calm down and eat your food, all right? Seriously. I feel like I'll crush you when I hug you now." She switched to lighter topics, chattering on about computers and her wardrobe, while watching to make sure Prentiss ate. The dark-haired girl was too emotional to be hungry at first, but, after a bit, began to feel the effects of many incomplete or altogether missed meals, and then ate so much that Garcia wondered where she was putting it all.
But that night, things took a turn for the worse. Prentiss's mother called, and said eight words, just eight little one-syllable words, that left the pain in the girl's heart swelling, bursting, threatening to knock down the wall she'd built in her head. Prentiss's first thought was to grab a blade, but her second thought was to go find JJ. The blond was thankfully alone in her dorm room, and opened the door immediately. She tried her best to calm Prentiss down, but after almost an hour of trying, it seemed like nothing would help. Prentiss insisted she needed to cut, now more than ever before.
They reached an uneasy agreement. "Do it, in front of me," JJ said. "Not like some drug addict secretly shooting up. Besides, I want to know you won't go too deep or anything." Prentiss didn't want to hurt her friend by making her see this, but JJ rebuffed all efforts at letting Prentiss shield her, and in her present circumstances, the feelings, Prentiss felt like there was no other way. She rolled up her sleeve and made a gash, a new wound, in her upper arm, long and bloody, along with a few smaller, less deep cuts. As she did it, she tuned everything out; even forgot JJ was there until she yelped, "Stop!" The blond's face was a mask of concern and pain, mixed with a look that seemed like she was about to throw up. "Enough, okay? That has to be enough… Emily, I love you, and I'm so scared for you." She touched Prentiss's hand, and a shiver went up her spine.
"Okay. I'm so sorry- are you all right?" Prentiss asked, pocketing the blade before JJ could take it, and wiping her friend's tears away. She's crying for me she thought, guilt screaming through her brain.
"If I'm all right?" the very pale JJ shot back. "You're the one bleeding! Let's get you cleaned up." Despite Prentiss protesting that she could do it herself, JJ carefully cleaned and bandaged her friend's arm, in so doing noticing the many other scars layering her, like lines on a canvas. It hurt so badly to see all that. And although recent events were hardly conducive to her flirting with the dark-haired girl she'd crushed on for so long, JJ hugged Prentiss and kissed her on the cheek that night. Just like any close friend, JJ said to herself, trying to talk herself out of starting a relationship. Emily didn't need all that drama right now; she needed to work on herself.
As for the eight words Prentiss's mother had said that had gotten the girl to that state in the first place? She'd just called Prentiss, said "I know you're bi. Don't come back home," and hung up.
Monday evening, the next day. Prentiss lay on her bed, tired and emotionally wrung out, unsure what to think. The money Garcia had given her was stashed safely in the wall, under a loose baseboard, and she, Reid, and JJ had all helped her make some calls, practically made her find help. Prentiss felt ambivalent about this prospect at first, but the longer she lay there, the more she could see a glimmer of hope. On Friday, she would be seeing a psychologist with a Ph.D (Reid had insisted that the more credentials the person had, the better,) one Dr. Lake. Prentiss had breathed a sigh of relief that she was female; she couldn't see herself baring her soul to a man. Her friends, on the other hand, were relieved she could get in soon (this was mainly due to Garcia's insistence, her indomitable stubbornness,) but Prentiss still felt a bit lost, confused. It was all too fast.
And Friday came all too quickly. That whole week, her friends had spent time with her, supporting, watching, listening, but still, she'd cut twice more. At least she'd gained maybe a pound; the others kept insisting that she eat, not just push her food around on her plate. But they couldn't be with her every second.
She felt more tired than nervous, though she was a lot of both, as Hotchner dropped her off at the building, a large, old, place downtown sandwiched between a coffee shop and a bookstore. Just below it was a jewelers. There was no sign advertising that this was the place people went to to get their heads shrunk, and Prentiss breathed a sigh of relief at this. Although Reid had given her statistics, saying that six percent of the US population was in therapy at any point, she still felt ashamed and wanted to stay incognito. "You're not going to run, are you? Want me to walk you up there?" Hotch offered.
Prentiss shook her head, swallowed hard. "Aaron, I'm too tired to run. Besides, I…I…know I need to do this."
"Good luck. It'll work out. Just text me when you want to be picked up," Hotch said.
Prentiss, biting her lip, heart pounding so hard that she was surprised she couldn't see its rapid-fire beats through her sweater, carefully chosen to best hide her cuts and scars, went up the steep flight of stairs. When she stopped at the door, read the sign, her stomach did an unpleasant flip and he breath caught in her throat. She knew if she hesitated here, she wouldn't end up going in. So she only paused for the barest second before opening the door.
Twenty minutes later, after some paperwork and about five minutes' wait that felt like five days to Prentiss, a short, small, well-dressed brunette in her midthirties came up from the offices into the waiting room. "Emily?" Prentiss glanced up from her shoes to catch the barest glimpse of her, studiously avoiding looking her in the eye. Prentiss then got up on legs that might as well have been made of wood and wiped her now-sweating hands on the legs of her jeans. She did feel, though, slightly better about the whole idea of help now that she saw she had six inches and fifteen pounds on the doctor. If worse came to worse, she could run off, or fight her, she thought ridiculously. "I'm Dr. Lake," the woman said gently, noticing Prentiss biting her lip, her shallow, quick breathing, and shaking she was trying hard to hide but that would occasionally come out in her shoulders, a twitch of her head. Everything in her reminded the doctor of a scared deer, one that knows the hunter is there and has stopped running, just waiting for the next move. "Why don't you come on back and we'll talk."
Prentiss got up automatically and followed the woman. There were so many emotions battling in her tired, anxious, confused head, but she fought to keep her face blank. Even here, Prentiss would not be weak.
(A/N: I've been through therapy before, and read a lot of stuff on psychology, but I'm still not exactly sure how to work the next chapter, which will be Prentiss's first session. If you have ideas, please tell me in the reviews!)