"but it's not real, and you don't exist, and i can't recall the last time i was kissed"
tw: suicidal tendencies, substance abuse, hallucinations, self-destructive behaviours, manifestations of depression.
He finds her in the same place he has everytime, on the fire escape.
"Emily, come inside, it's cold." She doesn't seem to hear him, just goes on staring at the cityscape ahead of her, and he wonders, not for the first time, where she goes when she gets like this.
Helplessly, he watches. The hand that lifts the bottle to her lips shakes, the hand that holds the cigarette does not.
"Go home, Hotch." She doesn't call him Aaron anymore. It's just another thing that has changed between them since she came back to life. He watches the back of her head, wishing he could read her mind. Wishing he could reach into it and bring her back, because she's not the same as she was before.
Maybe it's unfair to expect her to be. You can't die and be ressurected as the same person. Change is the only truly implicit aspect of human nature.
If she won't come inside, he'll go to her, and he does, joining her on the fire escape. The metal groans beneath his feet and he wonders if that's why she comes out here, in the hopes that one day the structure will collapse, and it won't really be her fault, or her choice, but she'll finally be able to let it all go. It's a dramatic and depressing thought, but it's not the first time it's crossed his mind.
The pale skin of her arm is stained orange by the rust of the iron, he notices, as she lifts the cigarette to dry lips and takes a long, slow drag. Everything about her body language - including the fact that she doesn't so much as look at him - tells him to leave, but he can't. He never can, when he finds her like this.
There is an old table and chairs squeezed onto her tiny faux balcony, left by previous owners, god knows how long ago. Aaron settles himself into one of the chairs in a practiced way, and braces his elbows on his knees. And he watches.
He watches the way she tilts her head towards the sky, like a bird with clipped wings, longing for flight. He sees the way she flicks the ash of her cigarette into the air, tiny pieces of fire that float away, and the hunger in her as she watches them go. He's not sure if she wants to follow them into the wind, or if she just wants to burn up and be gone, too.
Dark liquid sloshes, the bottle almost empty, as she takes a mouthful of whiskey. She doesn't offer it to him, never has. He would say no, anyway. She used to drink refined, expensive stuff. Now, she buys the cheapest bottles she can, because she doesn't drink for the taste anymore, so it doesn't really matter, does it?
"How much have you had?" He doesn't expect a response, and he doesn't get one. She just goes on drinking, smoking, until her cigarette burns down to a stub and then she flicks it off the balcony, watches it fall four storeys to the ground. When it lands, she sees its little flame go out like a life snuffed out too soon.
Emily looks at him, then, and the longing he finds in her eyes is terrifying.
"Come on."
He reaches for her, his hand a lifeline, a buoy in the sea of darkness that her life has turned into. Emily regards it for a long moment, like she's afraid it might lash out and hurt her. Her gaze moves from his hand, to his face, full of a deep and innocent kind of fear.
"Are you real?" It's the same whispered question she asks him everytime, and everytime, he gives her the same whispered answer.
"Yes, take my hand and you'll see."
And, luckily, like every time before, she does. He's always fearful for the time when she doesn't. The first time she asked him it broke his heart. It was the first time he realised, he had no true comprehension of what she went through, alone and on the run, fearful everyday that she would be discovered. And with nobody she knew to help her. No protection, no back-up, no team. Just her and the tiny, government issued firearm she was allowed to carry in Europe.
He's read her report. He knows all about the six days she went without sleep, sitting, standing, pacing the tiny Parisian apartment they bought outright in somebody elses name, flinching everytime she heard a door slam too hard, her hand fastened so tightly around the gun that it cracked when she finally let it go. He knows all about the nightmares that still plague her, of that same apartment, and every scenario she created in her own head, in which her devil found her, and dragged her, kicking and screaming, to hell, all the while taunting her in that rhotic accent.
It wasn't just once; her sleepless nights in Europe were innumerable. That's why she asks him, everytime, if he's real. If you go for long enough without sleeping, the hallucinations start.
She gazes at the place where her hand finds his, her fingertips tentatively brushing the air above his palm, hesitating over his skin, like she thinks her touch will go straight through him and he'll vanish. As always, he's patient with her. It takes only a brush, skin meeting skin, and her eyes flit to his. He can see the clouds behind them clearing, as she brings the bottle to her lips with one hand, and grips his with the other.
"We've got to stop meeting like this," there's nothing flirtatious in her tone when she speaks to him, only a dark sort of humour, and her expression is just as grim. She's not in that dreamspace anymore, no, now her eyes are hard, and he doesn't like her very much when she gets like this, but at least this side of her doesn't scare him.
"You were somewhere else again," he reminds her everytime because he's not sure she remembers and, like every other time, she ignores his comment, because she doesn't want to have to explain either way. She takes back her hand, and sighs, folding her arms across her chest, as though protecting herself.
"What are you doing here?" She asks everytime, and he hasn't given her an answer that satisfies her, yet.
"I'm worried about you," he's gone with the truth, the last few times, and he hasn't learned his lesson, yet, because everytime, he gets the same impatient response.
"I'm not a child, I don't need a babysitter," they're actors in a play; repeating the same lines night after night, but the script is easy and they're comfortable with it by now. Hotch says his lines because if he doesn't, then he doesn't know what else to do, he doesn't know how else to help. He just hopes that, one day, she hears him.
"I know you don't-"
"You don't know anything about me," it's the same cruel accusations he throws at him everytime, as though testing him, as though one day he'll concede and admit she's right, and she'll feel alone but vindicated.
"I know you, Emily-"
"No, you don't," her voice turns thick, sultry, and when he looks at her, it's not Emily he sees. It's someone else, someone dangerous and unholy. The way her lips curl, into a smile that's hungry, feral. For the blink of an eye, she's not the Emily he knows.
"Lauren," he whispers, and then she's gone, as fast as she appeared, and Emily scoffs at him, turns away.
"Don't you get it, Hotch?" She's full of pain, and directing it at him, and he's not entirely sure he doesn't deserve it, "You all moved on, you grieved and you moved on. You all healed from losing me. You left me there, with no one for company but her."
"I didn't. JJ didn't. We were waiting for you."
"You're still waiting, Hotch, I see it everyday. You're always looking at me, stealing glances when you think I'm not paying attention. You're still waiting for someone, but she's not coming back, Hotch," she's upset, angry, accusing, "I'm not her, anymore."
"I know." This is off script, he's supposed to argue with her. Finally, her expression changes and she looks at him, frowning. She knows she's drunk too much when the edges go blurry; behind him, the streetlights soften, becoming blurry and ill-defined.
"What?" She blinks at him, expects the lights to fix themselves, but the golden glow bleeds into the night like an oil-painting running with water.
"I know, Emily. We know, by now." No, no, this isn't right, this isn't what he said. It's not what he's supposed to say. Her head hurts. The lights…the pain…it must be a migraine, she lifts her hand to her eyes, covers them. "It's why we don't come around anymore.
"You're making no sense…" she lowers her hand, looks at him. He's staring blankly at her, not in his usual serious, stoic way, but in a truly blank way; there's nothing behind his eyes at all, it's unsettling, "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's enticing, isn't it," those blank eyes move from her, to the balcony, following the fall all the way down, "It would be like flying. You've always wanted to fly, haven't you, Lauren."
Something surges, when he says that name. It's like a switch has been flipped, and Emily has to fight to maintain control. The lights behind him pulse, growing darker, until they're not golden anymore, but a deep, dangerous red. She tries to pull them into focus, Aaron fading into a pale blur, as she frowns into the night. "I think I've had too much to drink…"
"No, you've not had enough, love," that's not Aaron's voice; no, that's not an American accent, at all, but a rolling, rhotic Irish one. She blinks, and it's Ian standing much too close to her. She steps back, her legs hitting the railing.
"Y-you're dead," she tells him, and she knows it is true, she saw him die. Saw Chloe Donaghy pull the trigger.
"Did you?" He smiles, taunting and hungry, even though she knows she didn't say that outloud, "Are you sure you saw that, Lauren?"
Emily shakes her head, shakes the persona that threatens to break through, "I'm not her, I'm not Lauren."
"Oh, but you are," Ian doesn't come any closer, but it's as though she can feel him pressing on her, a pressure that pushes her, makes her lean away from him because she's so afraid he'll reach out and touch her, reach out and push her, "Lauren and Emily are one and the same, love. They're two halves of a whole. You can't be one without being both."
She shakes her head again, more vigorously this time, as though his words are a spell, a spell that will summon the woman she pretended to be, the guise that was created for him, "No, that's not true. I'm not her anymore. Lauren Reynolds is dead, Lauren Reynolds is dead," she repeats her mantra, the one she needed for so long after the birth and death of Lauren Reynolds, the one she needed to reconnect with Emily and with reality, the one that keeps the devil at bay, "Lauren Reynolds is dead."
"No, she isn't love," Ian's voice is right beside her ear, and she's holding onto the rail now, doesn't remember turning around, "Not yet." He whispers, and together, they look down at the pavement that seems so far away, "But you can take care of that."
"Don't do it, Emily," A quieter, softer, safer voice breaks through, and Emily closes her eyes against her breaking psyche, as though she can fight what she now knows is inside of her head. "You're stronger than this."
She clings to him, to Aaron's voice, even if it's not real, because she knows that somewhere out there, he is.
"Jump!" Ian screams, but she screams louder.
"No!" and then she's alone on the balcony. Again.
The world has come sharply back into focus, no more blurry lights, no more pain in her head, no more Ian, no more Aaron.
It fools her everytime, the phantom version of the man she might have loved once, in another life. He's not here; he never was. It's been months since anybody checked in on her. A helpless, wrenching sob tears itself from her throat, because this happens everytime…everytime, she trusts him and everytime, he's not here.
Finally, after years of trying, she's succeeded in doing something she's been working on since she was fifteen years old; she's pushed away everyone who ever cared about her. Finally, she's truly, utterly, alone.
There's no table and chairs; she got rid of those the day she moved into this apartment. There's only her open window, the tiny piece of metal that passes as her balcony, and the cold wind of the night, making her thin, satin robe twist around her legs. In the absence of chairs, Emily sits at the edge of her window, her hands clasped tightly around the ridge, the metal digging into her palm. That she for sure knows is real. Breathing hard, she stares at the broken whiskey bottle, and doesn't remember dropping it.
That must have been what really broke her trance; not Aaron, but the sound of the bottle smashing against the metal of the fire escape.
Scraping hands over her clammy face, Emily runs her fingers through her hair, and they catch on knots she hasn't detangled for so long she doesn't remember where her comb is. With shaking hands, she pulls her pack of smokes from the pocket of her robe, lights one and puts it between her teeth. Folding one leg over the other, she rests her elbow on her knee, staring at the sky as she smokes her way through yet another cigarette - she's lost count of how much money she's spending on them, lately, and even though she knows it's bad, she can't help it. That's what a habit is, right? And, anyway, they steady her nerves.
Smoke finished, she drops it into the empty plant pot beside her window, and then waits.
For a while after Paris, this apartment was never empty. There were always people coming and going; Spence would come and watch old movies with her, in French and Russian, and sometimes Rossi would join them for an Italian special. Emily can't remember any of the movies, though, nor the taste of the rich Italian food Rossi brought with him "to plump her back up", he said, after she came home looking like a skeleton, evidence of the hell she went through and all of the ways she hadn't looked after herself properly. She would sit and stare at the screen, laugh when they did, tell them afterwards what a good time she'd had, but really she didn't hear a word they or the characters on her TV said.
Penelope and JJ showed up a few times, bottles of wine in tow, like it was the old days. That, she knew, was exactly what they were trying to create; the feeling of casual intimacy that exists between close-knit female friendship groups, the warmth that comes from being in a feminine space, feeling understood and seen and heard and real. But they didn't understand all that she had been through, they didn't see or hear any of the ghosts that haunted her in Paris, and Emily didn't know what was real, anymore. They tried, hard, but it always felt a little hollow, and Emily knew that was her fault. She didn't understand some of their stories, the ones they referenced when they forgot she'd been gone for so long, and no, she didn't remember Rossi's birthday party when Morgan fell into the pool. It only made her hurt, more, when she realised that life really had continued on without her. So girls nights fizzled out pretty quickly after that…
Morgan tried to get her out of the house, and for a while, it worked. They jogged familiar routes, sparred in the park with his boxing gear. The first few times were torture, so out of pratice was she with his routine, and Morgan worked her hard, like no time had passed, like they'd done their usual work out routine yesterday. She told him he was pushing her too hard, but he insisted that he wasn't and they'd ended up in a huge fight because of it. Words were exchanged, and she realised how bitter he was about the whole situation; she'd hurt him, badly, by disappearing, and if it wasn't her decision then who cared, right? It was a plot to save her life; she was at fault. The pain in Morgan's eyes was too heavy, and ever since then Emily has actively avoided her best friend because she can't face it. She has enough pain inside, without trying to shoulder his, too.
Her life doesn't fit, anymore. She's like Goldilocks, everything is too hot or too big or too small, and nothing is just right. She's not sure anything ever was.
No, there's one thing she's certain was.
She reaches for another cigarette, and instead her fingers brush the cool metal of her phone, nestled into her pocket beside the pack, and she grabs that, instead.
She knows the number by heart and types it in, her thumb hovering over the call button, bites her lip as she ponders the screen and wonders what he's going to say. She's not sure he's her boss anymore, but she is sure that he's still her friend, and, as her friend, he would want her to call. So she does.
"Emily?" He greets her with her name, not a hello. They're not hello people. His face is full of panic as it appears on her screen, and, with a pang, Emily realises the only scenario in which he can fathom she would call him now is when she's in trouble. She feels another pang when she realises that's…exactly why she's calling him.
"Hi, Hotch," her voice comes out hoarse, and she corrects herself, "Aaron."
"Are you alright?" His panic subsides, because he can read her, and he knows there's no fear in her face, only sadness, only exhaustion. His question calls tears to her eyes, and Emily brushes them away, impatiently, only for more to follow.
"Yeah, I-uh, I just wanted to…" she doesn't know how to finish that sentence, only that the sight of him, the sound of his voice, even just his breath, on the other end of the phone, is the most comfort she's known for weeks, "Will you stay on the phone with me, for a little while?"
It's a strange request, she knows, and there's a beat of silence, but not because he's going to turn her down, "Do you need me to drive over?"
She shakes her head, "No, no, I don't. I'm alright," Emily sniffs, tries to brighten up her voice, tries to smile at him, "I'm alright, I promise, I just…"
Her eyes find the place on the balcony where Ian stood, and a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold evening races down her spine, "I just can't be alone anymore, Aaron. Will you stay with me, for a little while?"
"Of course." He doesn't hesitate, and it's a little awkward for a moment, neither of them know what to say, but then Emily stands up, phone in hand.
Slamming the window, she shuts out the cold and pads on cold feet across the wooden floor of her apartment, to her bedroom. The bed hasn't been changed in a long time, but her aching muscles don't care as she crawls onto the bed, on top of the covers, and lays her head down on a pillow. Her eyes find his again, on the screen, and she sees he's done the same thing, laid his head down on crisp grey sheets.
It's quiet again, for a long time. He doesn't prompt her, doesn't force her to speak. He just waits with her, in the quiet night. She doesn't even know what time it is, but she's certain it's far too late for a call like this, and yet he picked up, anyway. He always has. The fear that's been bubbling in her chest, the question that haunts her ever moment, waking or sleeping, rises again, and if she's going to ask anybody, it's him.
"Who am I?" Her voice shakes with the question, and Aaron's eyebrows slope with concern, with emotion. "Am I her?"
"No." His answer is firm, gentle but firm, and he says it with such certainty, like he can pull her broken psyche together with just the strength of his conviction, "No, you're not. She doesn't exist."
"She did," for a while there, at least, Lauren was real. Not just a character, but a person she became. Different to the other personas she assumed. Lauren became real, a being in her own right, and for a while, it was as though two souls lived in her body, until slowly, Lauren began to take over, and Emily faded from memory. And, at the time, it didn't seem so bad. Looking back, that's the worst part of it; that she was losing Emily, but she didn't really mind. The snap back to reality the day Ian was arrested was the first crack, she's sure. Paris broke her entirely.
"She's gone, Emily," he says, in the same tone he uses on Jack, whenever there's a monster under the bed, or a nightmare to be chased away: the one that tells him he's safe. Only now, it's Emily who needs to feel safe and he's gentle as he tries to ease her confusion, but immovable. "They both are. And whenever you need reminding, I'll remind you. Okay?"
"Even in the middle of the night?," she whispers, drawing her hand to her mouth.
He smiles, warm and safe, "Even in the middle of the night. Stop biting your nails."
It's Emily's turn to smile then, against her fingers, as she draws them from between her lips. "Sorry, habit."
Her body feels heavy, but that's nothing new. She closed the window, but it was open for hours, and the apartment is chilly. Shrugging out of her robe, Emily slides her aching body beneath the comforter, drawing the softness all around her, seeking warmth and comfort, finding it not only in the blankets, but in Aaron's eyes as he watches her settle in.
"When was the last time you slept?" He blinks, hard, and frowns at her through the phone. Emily doesn't have an answer for him, but her eyes are growing heavy now. She fears sleep, that's when the nightmares come.
"Emily?" And that's how she knows he's real; the phantoms can read her mind, Aaron can't.
"It's been a while." Annoying, involuntary tears leak onto her pillow, already tearstained. "I get nightmares."
"I know. I do, too." And then she's not trying to fight the tears anymore. Aaron says nothing, he doesn't try and comfort her with words he knows won't work. His presence is comfort enough, he simply bears witness as Emily soaks her pillow with more tears.
Tomorrow, she will change the sheets, she will shower and wash her hair, she will wash some of the clothes that have been piling up around her bedroom. She will eat something good. She will do all of that tomorrow. Maybe she'll go into the office.
"Do I still have a job?" She asks, in the voice of a child asking a question they're afraid of.
"Of course you do," he reassures her, quickly, but then his smile fades a little, "You'll always have a job for as long as you want it, Emily, but…"
"I know." She needs help, before she can go back. And not help from her friends; professional help. "I'll go and see your stupid therapist."
He smiles then, because, for the first time in a long time, she sounds like her old self. And she smiles weakly back at him, her eyes drooping heavily.
"You saved me," she mumbles, sleepily. He thinks she means months ago, when he made the decision to let her die to save her life, but she doesn't, she means tonight, when his voice brought her back from the edge of her own psychotic break, back from the edge of her balcony, to the land of the living. "You always save me."
"Sleep, Emily. I'm not going anywhere. I'll keep you safe." His voice finds her in the darkness, gentle but steady, strong. And she does, because she knows he will. The real Aaron, the one who, no matter how long she leaves it, will always pick up the phone and be there for her. And maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's sheer exhaustion, or maybe it's the stupor she's drunk herself into, but the nightmares don't come that night, and Aaron doesn't hang up, either.
"Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.
" ― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes