Turn Around, Bright Eyes

"I've got my eyes on you. You're everything that I see. I want your heart, love, and emotions. I can't get over you. You left your mark on me."

~Drake.

*Author's Note: This first section has references to two other stories I've written: Remains of the Day (re: Hotch's habit of tracing designs on Emily's back), and Out of Africa (re: Hotch and Emily's discussion over how to handle being in the field together, which you can find in the final chapter, and Emily and Penelope's "Team Penemily" t-shirts and photos, which were also mentioned in this story's prequel). Also, random side note: Mika Kimanthi is first introduced in Out of Africa as well.*

Reagan National Airport. Washington, D.C.

Ye gods, Emily Prentiss' stomach could've won a gold medal for gymnastics, with all the flipping it was currently doing. She was clutching the leather straps of her go-bag so tightly that she was beginning to lose feeling in her knuckles, but it was the only thing that kept her entire body from shaking like a leaf.

She'd been one of those lucky souls who wasn't really affected by jetlag—one trait for which she could truly thank her mother, she supposed. But the stress of the inquest, followed by the dehydrating effects of alcohol and then coupled with a new stressor and very few hours of sleep, was a veritable cocktail of fatigue.

Of course, she told herself that her nerves were simply from all of these factors.

Of course, she knew that she was lying.

The actual source of those nerves was waiting for her at the baggage claim entrance, looking so indescribably like himself and all the things she'd always loved and missed about him that a vice gripped her heart and her throat.

Aaron Hotchner noticed Emily Prentiss approaching, and he couldn't stop himself from staring. She was a ball of frenetic energy, with shining eyes and a face that warred between delight and concern—delight at seeing him again (he hoped), and concern at the reason for their reunion. When she met his gaze, she actually blushed, and any kind of defense he might have had against this woman crumbled entirely.

This time, he didn't have to hide how he felt—Rossi had accompanied him to the airport, but the older man had decided to wait in the car (and inwardly, Hotch was grateful to his friend, because he knew that Dave was trying to give them a moment alone before they launched back into the whirlwind). They were just two people, meeting in an airport. No need for pretenses.

If Emily had any doubts of how to act around her former boss and current something-else, she lost them the second that he started moving towards her (really, she lost most of her thoughts entirely). She dropped her go-bag and found herself wrapped up in his arms as easily as she'd taken her next breath. His lips were on her neck, a quick warm kiss that no one else saw, another secret to be shared between them. She returned the affection by burrowing her forehead into the crook of his neck, giving a soft hum as she took in his warmth and his scent.

"You're OK," were her first words to him, so filled with relief that he simply held her tighter in reassurance.

"We are." It was a slight lie. Obviously, the team wasn't entirely OK.

"What can I do?" She hadn't moved, hadn't let him pull away from her, not even an inch.

"Just being here is enough," he informed her gently, and he meant every word of it. How many times had he faced another tough case, another dark moment, and had found himself wishing for Emily's presence? Of course, he couldn't tell her such things—it would seem needy, or as if he were trying to make her feel guilty for leaving, or worse yet, for not abandoning everything in London to come back to him, after the things that had happened in Nairobi. Emily Prentiss had experienced enough guilt in her lifetime—he certainly wouldn't add any more to her plate.

His hands were gently tracing designs into her back—the way he'd done the night of JJ's wedding, when they'd danced together for the first and last time. Jesus, this man could wreck her in the most mundane of ways. If she allowed herself to stay like this a few seconds longer, she'd probably be lost forever.

So she pulled back, keeping her arms around him as she took a moment to study his face, trying to find her way back to safer ground. "When's the last time you slept?"

"There's this wonderful invention called coffee," he explained easily, disengaging from her embrace and stooping to pick up her go-bag.

She laughed at the quip, gently pulling her bag out of his hand—even in this, she couldn't allow the dynamics of their original relationship to change. There was so much she could—and had—survived, but the man's tenderness would always be the death of her.

However, he didn't let go of the bag—he merely pulled the handle, bringing her closer to him again. She was immediately serious, her dark eyes searching his face, filled with a cautious expectancy.

The last time they'd met up, it had been to rescue JJ. Afterwards, she'd gently chided him for not giving her a proper greeting—for not taking a moment to move away from the others and quietly acknowledge what they were to each other (whatever that was). He'd promised to do better next time—and Aaron Hotchner was a man of his word.

He reached up, gently tracing the outlines of her face with his fingertips. Her lips parted slightly, taken off-guard by the reverence of his touch. His eyes never left hers as he pulled her in and kissed her, quietly and deeply, like a man returning to home after a long journey, relearning the rooms and corners of her mouth.

Emily Prentiss was certain that she couldn't blame fatigue or alcohol or jetlag for the current quivering in her knees.

However, she was also certain that Hotch needed to know just how much she'd missed him in return, so her free hand shot up, slipping through his hair as she pulled him deeper in, with just enough force to say, god, I've missed you.

He gave a small hum of agreement, and the sound reverberated into her chest, where her heart skittered and lost track of its rhythm. Her mind raced through all the other small sounds she'd heard him make, in all the times they'd been tangled together in the most intimately satisfying of ways, and she physically had to squeeze her eyes shut to block out the litany of the images and memories that followed.

He shouldn't be able to do that. He shouldn't be able to short-circuit her brain and her heart with such a simple, ordinary sound. It just wasn't fair.

She kept him close to her for a few beats more, foreheads touching, noses lightly brushing, sharing the same breath. It was a bubble of a moment, a fleeting respite from the world and the reality that still awaited them on the other side. Her hand slipped from the back of his neck to lightly trace the outline of his shirt collar, unnecessarily re-straightening his tie (and that's when she thought of Spencer again, and felt a pang of guilt for taking the time to savor Aaron Hotchner when she should be busy rescuing her friend).

Aaron felt her shift in emotion, and he wasn't quite sure what it meant, but he could hazard a guess. Mainly because he felt a similar zap of self-reproach as well (though he didn't truly regret it, not now, not ever—he needed this, needed her, needed a moment to feel balanced and reset before jumping back into the fray). With a light sigh, his hand gave her upper arm a comforting rub, as if gently waking her from the dream of the moment.

As they moved farther apart again, they both exchanged sheepish smiles.

"I did mention that it's good to see you, right?" He feigned uncertainty, and she laughed, the nerves and awkwardness seeping out of her bones once more.

"Not in so many words, but I think I got the message," she admitted with a grin.

"Rossi's in the car," he explained. "Everyone's anxious to see you."

She nodded, silently accepting the fact that they were currently slipping back into their outer personas, the two colleagues who thought very highly of each other and nothing more.

She easily matched his pace, their long strides quickly traversing the open space of the baggage claim. "So, when can I see Reid?"

The automatic doors whooshed open, and Hotch frowned as they stepped outside into the early morning sunshine. "I'm not sure. Dawson technically hasn't informed us that we aren't able to be part of the investigation, so I don't know where we stand, officially. There's supposed to be a briefing at eleven, and I've no idea if we're invited."

"Well, you could always just show up. The worst that could happen is that they send you home."

Hotch made a small noise of agreement. "We're hoping Penelope can find something for us to bring to the table—something to definitively prove that Reid isn't connected to the bombing."

"Or at least connected in the way that they think he is," Emily corrected easily. "Obviously, he's connected to this."

He couldn't argue with that point—regardless of Spencer Reid's original place in this drama, he certainly was center stage now.

He could feel the sudden shift in Emily's demeanor before he even glanced over to see the grin on her face. Obviously, she'd spotted David Rossi.

"There she is," Dave was out of the car, arms open as he came towards her, his face alight with adoration. He enveloped Emily into a hug. "Glad to see you, gattina."

Gattina, little cat. His favorite nickname for her—Emily Prentiss, the girl with nine lives. Inevitably, she felt a prick of nostalgia at the moniker, smiling softly as she held him.

"Wish it were under different circumstances," she admitted quietly.

"Me, too." He took her bag and tossed it into the trunk of his car. "But if there's one thing I've learned in life, we don't get to pick and choose the hows and whys of it."

"Sometimes I forget what a philosopher you can be," she informed him drolly, which only made him grin.

"Missed you, too, Emily," he came back to give her one last quick pat on the back. "Now tell me, how the hell did you convince Clyde Easter to let you come running back to us?"

Interpol Branch Office. London, England.

On a good day, Clyde Easter wasn't the cuddliest man in the world. Or the most bearable. On a bad day, he was often described in terms that were completely unrepeatable amongst polite company.

Today was not a good day.

Yesterday had seen the closure of an inquest, which had basically held him hostage at the London office, instead of overseeing some important matters at Interpol's General Secretariat headquarters in Lyons, France. Since London was directly under his purview, he was obligated to stay—although he'd had nothing to do with the actual mission that had been under inquest. It had been a waste of time, in his book, and he wasn't a man who had time to waste.

He'd spoken to Emily Prentiss before they'd both left for the evening. He'd quietly informed her that she was beginning to look over-tired (and she'd received that comment as pleasantly as any woman would have, he supposed) and that perhaps she needed to take a few days off to rest and recuperate. It was a suggestion made as a friend and also as a smart boss—Emily was one of his best and brightest, but if she couldn't function at her highest levels, then she was of little use to the agency or her position within it.

She'd merely nodded, though he'd gotten the distinct feeling that she wasn't going to actually consider his advice, in typical Emily fashion.

He'd gone back to the rental he kept nearby, took a sleeping pill and made the grave mistake of putting his phone on silent for the night—it was always a gamble, allowing yourself to be unreachable when your job was directly tied to the security of the world, but he'd needed a single night of uninterrupted rest, and he'd figured that if there was a dire emergency, someone would be sent to his flat to retrieve him.

That had been an unwise decision on his part. Because again, in typical Emily fashion, Prentiss had disappeared in the night, leaving a voicemail citing some kind of dilemma with her old team from the Bureau. As someone who kept a finger on the pulse of all major world news, Clyde was well aware of the current disaster at Quantico (in fact, he'd been the one who had alerted her of the incident—an action which he was currently regretting), and the BAU's involvement didn't surprise him in the least (they were always in the middle of something, those people), but he hadn't expected it to sneak into his life and drag away his branch chief.

Mika Kimathi had already been installed in Prentiss' office by the time that Clyde arrived the next morning. As usual, the Kenyan-born English-raised agent was handling things with ease—over the past few years, he'd become Prentiss' unofficial second-in-command, and from time to time, he'd looked after the office while Prentiss was away. That part hadn't worried Clyde in the least.

The fact that Emily had been able to skip town so quickly—and on a plane flown by a pilot who was a regular contract worker for Interpol—was the worrisome bit. Of course, there was the added sting that by whisking away in the middle of the night, Emily had also successfully thwarted any chance Easter might have had for convincing her to stay put in London. That was a petty thing, he knew, but it didn't make it smart any less.

Emily wasn't a despot, he knew that—she'd never abuse her power or her position at Interpol. But he still had an obligation to look into the matter. Also, he was still feeling a bit cross and wanted someone to lash out at, and the current source of his irritation was an ocean away.

So he'd find the next best thing—the accomplice.

He made his way through the frosted glass doors of the accounting department, which housed the mission coordination unit as well—the place where expenses were balanced and all the logistical details of a mission or any other trip were handled, where everything from paying the light bill to making sure a diabetic agent had plenty of insulin in their emergency supply kit was sorted with technological ease.

"Hello, there," a woman with a dazzlingly wide smile and a set of eyes that spoke of instant mischief greeted him. She looked like the poster girl for business vogue, in a crème gauze blouse, a heather pencil skirt, and a pair of heels that were utterly impractical, unless she intended to use them as weapons of blunt trauma. Her hair was pulled into a tidy bun, though one couldn't call it sleek, due to the fact that her naturally curly hair created a halo of frizz around her head.

Clyde Easter briefly wondered why he hadn't visited this part of the building before.

"Yes, I'm looking for the department head."

"What is the nature of your visit?" Her smile faded and she became almost clinical.

"That would be between me and the department head."

"The department head whose name you obviously don't know," the woman glanced down at the file in her hands, as if perhaps it was more engrossing than her current conversation. Her green eyes darted across the page, double-checking the lines of numbers.

"You don't know that."

"Of course I do. If you'd known the person's name, you would have asked for that person specifically. One, it sounds more professional, and two, it implies a prior working relationship with said department head, making the staff more likely to be receptive to your request, as they will assume that you know that person and are an expected visitor." She scribbled something onto the bottom of the page—a signature, perhaps. She did it with a flair, as if emphasizing both her point and her certainty that he could offer no rebuttal.

"And how do you know that I'm not?" He couldn't argue with her logic, but he couldn't let her win so easily, either.

"Because I am the department head," she looked up at him again, her green eyes wide with nonchalant sincerity.

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh." With the same curt efficiency, she offered her hand. "Brighid Adair. How can I help you? I'm assuming you have some kind of clearance, or else you couldn't have made it this far into the building."

"Clyde Easter."

Now it was her turn to simply stop and say, "Oh."

"Yes. Oh." Clyde would be lying if he said he didn't feel a small measure of smug satisfaction at being able to reverse the situation.

"Then I guess you actually are an expected visitor," she admitted, turning pertly on her heel and waving for him to follow. They wove a trail through a maze of desks—at one point, she dropped off the folder in her hand at one of those desks, without so much as a hitch in pace. He had to admit, he was slightly impressed at how well she navigated in her impossible heels—keeping up with her wasn't a challenge, but it wasn't a stroll in the park, either.

"Welcome to the fishbowl," she motioned to an office that was three walls of glass and a fourth wall of windows looking out into the city, waiting for him to enter first. She gently closed the glass door behind them, nodding towards the only empty seat besides the one behind her desk—every other scrap of furniture was laden with files and books. She headed over to a credenza, where a tea service waited. She began making a cup of tea, although she didn't offer him one. "Now, I could play up the dumb blonde card—heavens knows, I've got the right set of hips for such a role—and pretend as if I'm totally shocked at your arrival, but I, for one, have better things to do with my time."

He had to admit, her comment about her hips wasn't untrue—she had a very nice figure, and yes, he could even see her playing the airheaded sexpot when it suited her. She seemed to have that kind of personality—the type that enjoyed fucking with people's heads simply because she could. Antagonistic, that was the word. If he wanted a fight, he'd definitely come to the right place.

"So," she turned around again, forcing a smile that didn't even try to hide the fact that she wasn't thrilled at his presence. "Let's cut to it, shall we? Emily Prentiss is gone."

"And you helped her go."

"Yes, but she's coming back," Ms. Adair assured him with a patronizing air, taking a seat behind her desk as she gingerly set a modernist monstrosity parading as a teacup on its dark walnut surface. She didn't ask him how he knew that she was involved, and he didn't explain—because she already knew. She'd used her own access ID to enter and approve Emily's request for time-off. Of course, the ID had simply listed her as the administrator, which had been why Clyde had asked for the department head, but it was still a pretty clear-cut path straight to her door. She hadn't tried to hide her actions, or deny them. It was refreshing, actually.

"You didn't offer me any," he motioned to the tea, more out of a desire to see her reaction than actual feelings of insult or cravings for caffeine.

"Well spotted." Her eyes widened with feigned delight, as if he were her pet dog who'd just learned a new trick. "That's because I don't expect you to stay long enough to properly enjoy it—and I assure you, this brew is meant to be enjoyed. It's a waste otherwise."

She offered another facetiously winning smile, as if she were a traveling salesman hawking her own tea. It was so over-the-top and blatantly contentious that he couldn't help but admire her cheek—by now, she knew that she was talking to the man who oversaw every single Interpol branch in the United Kingdom, and yet she still treated him as if he were simply some drunk frat boy annoying her at the bar.

All in all, he found her absolutely amusing. Irritating, but amusing.

"I think what you mean is that you don't want me to stay long enough to properly enjoy it," he corrected with a smile.

She gave a slight wave of her hand, "Semantics. And distractions—you haven't told me why Emily taking some much-needed time off has anything to do with me."

"Because I did some digging. And Emily left using an Interpol pilot—"

"A contract pilot," she held up her finger to interrupt. Now she was smiling at him (nice try, Mr. Easter). "A contract pilot who takes jobs outside of Interpol all the time—usually at least once a week."

She gestured towards him, almost dismissively (next point). She took a sip of her tea, leaving a mauve arc around the rim of the cup.

He gave slight sigh. It was going to be hard to build up to a proper row if she kept interrupting him and shutting down his arguments before he even finished making them. "Fine, a contract pilot—whose information she never would have gotten if you hadn't come back into the office last night to make the arrangements—"

"First, never is a very big word to throw around," she leaned forward, setting her hands on the edge of her desk. Clyde noticed that she didn't wear a wedding ring. "You can't honestly prove that Emily wouldn't have stumbled across this man any other way. I mean, Dav Bosko isn't some oracle Buddhist monk living in a cave atop a distant lonely mountain—he's in the phonebook, for Christ's sake. Second, yes, I did come back here to look up his information, and yes, I did use an Interpol landline to make the calls—which I'm assuming is why you knew about it at all, you clever little sleuth. But what does that matter? I also used that same phone to order Chinese takeout two nights ago, which was entirely for my own personal consumption. Tell me, are you going to have an issue with that as well, Mr. Easter?"

He sat back slightly, taking a full beat to study the woman on the other side of the desk. She returned his gaze with an easy nonchalance, sipping her tea without ever breaking eye contact.

Finally, she set the cup back down with slightly more force than necessary, as if to punctuate her next point, "Emily Prentiss did not use Interpol funds for her trip—she's paying Mr. Bosko out of her own pocket. She technically didn't even use Interpol resources—I did, if you're looking for someone to nail to the wall, although you have to admit, it's a shaky case at best and a complete waste of both our times at worst. But she's not actually depriving us of any resources. We have a dozen other contract pilots, ready to go at a moment's notice. So unless you suddenly decide to decree a mass exodus par avion, we'll be just fine."

Again, the dismissiveness in her tone was acute. He was obviously wasting her time and she had no qualms about showing her displeasure with the matter. He actually wanted to take her to a pub, just to sit in the corner and watch her mow down any man foolish enough to try making a pass. It'd be a sight to behold.

"You have an answer for everything, don't you?" He asked, a smirk dancing at the edge of his lips. "Every base covered."

"Or perhaps I just really don't give a damn, Mr. Easter," she kept her words neutral, but he could tell that she was being honest. She gave a slight wave towards the world outside her office window. "You could fire me today and I'd be happily installed at another agency by tomorrow. Having that kind of certainty takes the fear and doubt out of things."

"A bit cocky, aren't we, Ms. Adair?"

"No," she took another small sip of tea. She hadn't been lying—the cup wasn't that big, and despite the number of times she'd taken a drink, it was still over half-full. She truly was savoring the cuppa. Something about the relaxed nature of her body language imbued every word with sincerity, "I'm just very good at what I do—and smart enough to make good connections wherever I go. I've been in this field for a very long time—and as I'm sure you are very well aware, if you're going to survive in this strange little world of ours, you must always have a contingency plan."

He liked her, Clyde decided. She was self-possessed and self-assured in a way that was aggravating, but she had the grit and the determination to back up her swagger. It was evident, even in the way she sipped her tea.

Now she was simply watching him, waiting for whatever came next. He'd satisfied his need to know that Emily hadn't done anything improper with her position or its connections, but he wasn't quite ready to leave this shiny new thing he'd found. In all honesty, he'd never intended to fire Ms. Adair, or even threaten her with such, but still he prodded, "And what agencies would be offering you a job, if you were dismissed from Interpol?"

A flicker of a smirk played across her green eyes, "Ah, Mr. Easter—you know better than that. Part of being good at what we do means being able to keep secrets."

He shared her grin. But his curiosity wasn't satisfied. "Suppose you got multiple offers—"

"I would," she gave a curt nod of certainty. "I would and I have—and I continue to get them, on a regular basis."

He understood the unspoken threat (I'm here because I want to be, and I can leave just as easily as I please).

"Alright then—would you choose based on higher pay or more authority?"

"Usually those two traits are intertwined." As if emphasizing her point, she interlaced her own fingers, setting her hands in her lap. However, she humored him, taking a beat to consider the question. "Either way, that wouldn't be a deciding factor. It all depends on the work."

The antagonistic tone was gone. Somehow, they'd reached an unspoken truce, for the moment, as they moved from facts to hypotheticals. She wasn't being dismissive or aggressive, and he wasn't goading her.

"In what way?"

"It has to be something I believe in." Now she took a moment to look embarrassed, sheepishly glancing down at her hands. "I know, it sounds terribly naïve, but—it's true. I've done a lot of things, in a lot of agencies over the years. I've been the boots on the ground, the team leader back at the van, the eye in the sky back at mission control, all of the above—and now here I am, a glorified accountant. But it matters. Making sure the agents have what they need, making sure they know where they're going and that they get there on time and in one piece—it matters."

She looked back up at him, the fervent gleam in her green eyes clutching at his throat. They were creatures of the same creator, and in this moment, they recognized one another as such.

"I understand that," he admitted quietly.

"I thought you would," her tone was equally soft. There was great compliment in those words, he could feel it. However, she quickly fell back into her usual demeanor, rising to her feet, "And I think you understood this entire situation much more than you let on—whatever the reason for your fishing expedition, I hope you caught what you were looking for."

And a bit more, perhaps, he mentally supplied, but was wise enough to keep it to himself. He noticed that she hadn't asked why he was really here, or even expressed curiosity—either she already knew or she just didn't give a damn. Clyde Easter was certain that it was the former.

She was already at the door, holding it open for his with the same false smile that she probably spared for people whom she was mentally telling to fuck off.

"I think next time, I'd really like to try the tea," he admitted easily as he brushed past.

"Not a chance," she assured him.

FBI Academy. Quantico, Virginia.

"Spencer. Spencer, wake up."

The voice had such a gentle lulling cadence—for a brief moment, Spencer Reid thought he was a kid again, being softly cajoled back into the waking world by his mother. However, his brain quickly reminded him of where he was and what was going on.

He opened his eyes to see Judith Eden hovering over him, hands on her knees as she leaned forward in slight concern. "I'm sorry to wake you. But time is of the essence right now."

He grimaced slightly as he sat up on the narrow cot that had been brought into the room for him. He'd been kept under watch all night, though Dawson had been kind enough to find an office that contained an ensuite bathroom and enough books to help Reid distract himself until he was so exhausted that he had no choice but to fall asleep. The phone and the computer had been removed—Spencer Reid wasn't allowed any contact with the outside world just yet.

"What's happening?" He blinked a few times, recalibrating his brain to deal with all the craziness that was sure to ensue.

"Nothing yet—the list of addresses in your handwriting was sent to an analyst this morning, and the evidence team has arrived at the lab to begin sorting through the items found in Fuller's home. I'm afraid you'll be waiting here for a bit longer—but I want to ask you some questions, and I want you to think very hard about them before you answer. It's crucial that you consider everything, no matter how unimportant it seems."

"I think at this point, nothing's unimportant," he pointed out.

Eden gave a slight smile of agreement before continuing. "Sura Roza is going to spend the morning looking into the email supposedly sent from your phone—the one to the reporter, about the bombing."

"Linnea Charles—she's Maeve's sister—"

"I know, I know. That's not the important part right now. We need to focus on how the email got to her in the first place."

Spencer was silent, watching and waiting.

"Right now, our first priority is finding your phone. You say that you lost it at some point during your rush to check on Agent Jareau. You noticed it was missing once you were in the ambulance, correct?"

He nodded, his expression furrowed in rapt attention.

"Now tell me what you can remember about the ambulance itself. The name, license number—anything to identify it."

Spencer wracked his brain. "I'm not sure…I wasn't really focused on anything but JJ—"

"Understandably so. Look, we're trying to see if we can locate it via GPS—so far, no luck, probably because the battery's dead. Agent Shostakovich is currently helping agents comb the area in front of the main building to see if we can find your phone there. If nothing comes up, he and I are heading over to the hospital to see if we can possibly find it on the ambulance—we know the it went to Fairfax Medical Center, since that's where Agent Jareau was sent. They're both long shots, I know, but sometimes you've got to try the improbable."

"I appreciate the effort," he assured her quietly. "Although I'm still not sure why you're telling me this."

"Because," she held her breath, as if weighing the consequences of her current actions. Then she shifted tack slightly, "I need you to trust me, Dr. Reid. Trust that I want you to be proven innocent, and that I want to find the real person responsible."

He had to admit, if this was simply a strategy by the Flying Js to establish some kind of rapport in an elaborate Good Cop/Bad Cop routine, then it was an impressively good one.

"No offense, Agent Eden, but I don't know you enough to trust you," Spencer kept his voice calm and quiet—he wasn't trying to be rude, merely factual, and she seemed to understand that. "But I suppose I don't have much choice at this point, do I?"

Eden smiled again, sadly and apologetically. Then she rose to her full height again. "Agent Keller will be your monitor for the day. She's right outside the door—when you're ready to eat, want to take a walk, whatever. If you do think of anything else—anything at all—don't hesitate to tell her, so that she can relay it back to us."

With that, Judith Eden left the room. He knew that she'd been there, just outside his door, through the very early hours of the morning. He'd heard her and Jonas talking quietly in the hallway, and that was when he'd realized that the Flying Js were personally guarding him. He'd tumbled back into exhausted and fitful sleep, wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Even now, he still wasn't sure of the answer.

Spencer laid back down, frowning to himself as he stared at the ceiling.

None of this made sense. But the amount of nonsensical things was so overwhelming that it was hard to decide where to even begin sorting it all out.

First thing he'd do, once he decided to leave this office-turned-holding-cell, would be to ask Keller when he could speak to his team. He may not trust Judith Eden fully, but the BAU had earned his trust a long time ago. If anyone could end this nightmare, it was his team.

"How is he?" Jessalyn's voice was low, laced with concerned compassion—though most of it was actually for her partner, instead of the man on the other side of the now-closed door. Jude had left her bed after only a few hours of sleep to come back down the Academy and relieve Jonas of guard duty, and the long hours showed in the dark circles under her eyes and the sallow tint of her skin.

Judith gave a heavy sigh, rubbing her forehead in a mixture of fatigue and frustration. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

Jack had said those words, or something similar to them, the night before. She'd understood them then and she felt them now, deep in her tired bones.

"Hey," Jess reached out, her fingers gently encircling Jude's wrist, as if pulling her back into the present moment. "It's gonna be OK."

The older woman forced a smile, "Of course it is."

"Be careful today, OK?" Jess had already issued that edict earlier that morning, and Jude understood that her repetition only further proved just how frightened she was by the whole thing.

"I will," Jude didn't offer a witty retort—Jess' worried heart was too tender for anything other than absolute sincerity at the moment. "And you'd better do the same."

Now the blonde gave a soft smile of reassurance as she nodded. With one last smile, Jude turned and went back to the conference room, where O'Donnell, Cruz, Dawson, and Shostakovich were already mapping out a battle plan for the day.

"Find anything?" Jude's question was directed at Shostakovich, who apparently had just returned from searching around the main building for Spencer's phone.

He gave a dour shake of his head, obviously displeased with his own answer.

"What about you?" Dawson looked at her.

Now it was her turn to look unhappy. "Dr. Reid doesn't remember anything off the bat—he was too busy focusing on Agent Jareau."

"Understandable," Dawson gave a curt nod. Then he frowned. "Unfortunately for us, also unhelpful."

"He hasn't asked for a lawyer yet," O'Donnell pointed out from his seat at the end of the conference table, where he was distractedly stirring a cup of coffee. "That's gotta mean something, right?"

Shostakovich gave a slight shrug, "Either he's innocent, or he believes he can outsmart us—lawyering up now is practically a declaration of guilt. He could be just one very clever lad who also happens to possess a God complex, which the BAU predicted our UNSUB would have."

Scott O'Donnell made a face that implied both his agreement with the reasonableness of that statement and his disagreement with the idea that it could actually apply to Spencer Reid.

Mateo Cruz didn't say anything—which wasn't much change from how he'd been all morning. He looked like a man who'd been run through a blender on his way to work. Everyone had noticed, but they all had the good grace to refrain from pointing it out.

"C'mon, Vichie," Jude reached out to give Jonas a quick pat on the shoulder. "Let's go find us a cellphone."

"I still don't understand why the phone is such a big deal," O'Donnell held his hands up in confusion. And of course, he had a point—they had proof the email existed, and just a few minutes earlier, Sura Roza had informed them that the email had actually been sent from Spencer Reid's cellphone. It seemed pretty cut-and-dried to him.

Dawson hadn't told him about Sura's theory on the possibility of some kind of remote access program being installed. In fact, the only ones who knew about it where the Flying Js, and Dawson planned to keep it that way, for as long as possible.

"I mean, is there some way that physically having the phone can definitively prove something?" O'Donnell asked.

"Yes, perhaps," Dawson admitted. He knew O'Donnell would delve deeper, because the man wasn't an idiot and he could obviously sense that there was more to be said than what was actually being put on the table.

"Like what?"

"Who knows?" Jude saved the day with a smile. She cocked her head to one side and brightly chirped, "Let's find out, shall we?"

Penelope Garcia's Apartment. Washington, D.C.

"It's a miracle! Oh, be still my beating heart, Emily Prentiss has returned!"

Emily could only squeal in delight at the dramatics of her always-bedazzled partner in crime, who was currently wearing her Team Penemily t-shirt.

"Look!" Emily shrugged out of her jacket and oversweater, joyously revealing her own matching tee (hers was black, while Garcia's was neon pink), which Penelope had made for her after the case in Nairobi two years ago—it had since become a prized possession.

Penelope cheered with delight, pulling her friend into a bone-crushing hug and forgetting all about her unstable ankle. They began to skitter off-balance, but Derek Morgan quickly caught them, taking the time to simply give Emily a warm embrace of his own.

"Now, when do I get a shirt?" He demanded playfully. "I mean, you two wanna be a dynamic duo, I get that, but can't I at least have some kind of fan memorabilia? Or better yet, can I get you two lovely ladies sporting Team Morgan shirts, because that—"

"Is never gonna happen, champ," Emily rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, giving him a playful shove. On the sidelines, Rossi and Hotch exchanged amused grins. It was like watching two siblings get back together for the holidays.

Morgan stepped back suddenly, pulling his cellphone out of his back pocket, "Wait, wait, we need a pic—to go with the one on the mantle."

Emily glanced over at the mantle in question, where she saw a framed photo of herself, wearing that same shirt, smiling and giving a big goofy thumbs-up—it had been a recreation of the photo Penelope had sent her, along with the shirt, making the same pose. She couldn't help but grin, because she had Penelope's photo framed and on display atop the entryway table in her own home. It was a silly thing, an odd thing, but it was the fabric that made up a family, wasn't it—strange inside jokes that became even stranger traditions, woven into the story of a shared life?

She and Penelope struck the standard pose from the two previous photos, and then took another with a slight more "gangsta" stance, per Morgan's direction.

Once the hugs were given and the delight expressed, they slipped back into their roles—everyone knew why they were here, and although they'd taken a moment of respite, it was time to return to the situation.

"So, what do we know?" Emily set her hands on her hips, looking around expectantly.

"Not a lot," Hotch admitted with a frown. "We still haven't been allowed to speak to Reid."

He glanced at his watch. Kate Callahan was on her way now—they were going to the briefing at Quantico, which was supposed to be in an hour. On the drive to the airport, Rossi and Hotch had discussed the best approach, and they'd agreed that having the entire BAU attend the briefing might look like a show of force, which wasn't the note they wanted to strike. When at Quantico, the team would appear to play by all the rules, as if what they were doing at Penelope's apartment wasn't even happening. So far, Callahan had proven the most effective at not only keeping a cool head, but also distilling any tensions or misunderstandings that arose, making her the best possible choice for backup.

Hotch found himself wishing that Emily could go instead—that for one brief moment, they could pretend to be back where they used to be, when he saw her face almost every day, when her laughter and her caustic cracks and her dry humor weren't such a rarity, when having her walk in-sync beside him was taken for granted, when using her as a sounding board for this theory or that event was a given part of his day. While he certainly didn't regret the physical turn their relationship had taken since the Nairobi case, he could still easily admit that wasn't the thing he missed the most—because he simply missed her, here, working and living and breathing and fighting beside him. Sex with Emily Prentiss was great. Life in general with Emily Prentiss was even better.

But would he trade this new facet of their relationship, just to regain the old one? He didn't think so. It wasn't even remotely a possibility, so he'd tried not to even consider the question. If Emily came back to the BAU tomorrow, would he be able to re-box all the feelings that had been unleashed and expressed since Nairobi? He knew he wouldn't want to, but it scared him to think that maybe he couldn't, even if he tried.

Can't have your cake and eat it, too. When Emily had been his agent, he'd carefully filed away any feelings he might have had that went beyond respect and admiration. When she'd finally been at his side, with no rules in the way or working roles in conflict, they'd crossed the line. A line that couldn't be crossed as often or as deeply as he'd have preferred, since there was an ocean and two very busy careers in the way. The more he'd wanted had come with complications, and while he didn't regret it, there were times when he'd found himself ungratefully thinking that it still wasn't enough.

To have her here, truly here—here, in the field, and here, with him, in a much more profound way. That's all he wanted. Was it too much to ask?

Apparently so.

He only thought this way when she was nearby. That was a bit of a lie—he didn't think about it as much, nor feel it as intensely, whenever she was safely tucked away in London. When she wasn't physically present to remind him of all that he missed, all that he wanted to never miss again.

Her forehead had a few more fine lines across it. There were two silver strands at her temple that hadn't been there a year ago, when they'd last been in the same physical space. There was a new mark on her left wrist, like a burn from some kind of cooking accident. It looked a few weeks old, but it would probably leave a faint-yet-permanent scar, the kind you wouldn't notice unless you knew to look for it. He was missing pieces of Emily's life, every second of every day. He was missing her grow older, grow stronger, grow into an entirely different person that she was two years ago, five years ago, ten. He was missing all the things that could be taken for granted in any other relationship, with any other woman.

In every event, there was a witness. Someone, or perhaps something, saw it. More than anything, he wished he could be the one chosen to witness Emily Prentiss' life. To count the grey hairs and kiss away the new laugh lines and know the story behind the scar on her wrist. The not knowing, the not witnessing, was agony, the price paid for loving a woman like her.

She murdered him with all the things he didn't get to see, with all the stories those things implied, all those little ghosts of things not done and chances not taken, all those little regrets that didn't have a name because he didn't even fully know what he was missing, only that he was missing it.

She turned away from Penelope for a moment to give him a smile. A smile with teeth that had dragged out his heart long ago, without ever even knowing they'd done it.

And he smiled back. Because this was a moment that he did see—he saw the look in her big brown eyes, and he knew he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

For now, that was enough. But only for now.

"How can you stand here beside me and pretend not to remember? Not to know that my heart is breaking for you? That your face is the wonderful light burning in all this darkness?"

~Emily Brontë.