Author's note: thanks again for the amazing reviews and advice, I try to keep them in mind. The story's slowly coming to an end, I just want to add a bit more post-traumatic coping for the team. As usual, I don't own Criminal Minds.
Chapter 17: Crumbling
Emily Prentiss was looking straight through the window, enjoying the unhindered view her fourth floor apartment gave her over Washington. At nights like these, she would sit during hours on the window frame and drown her sorrow into the endless dark sky and millions of lights in the distance. Usually with a bottle of wine – on better days – or tequila – when she felt like never waking up to this rude world. But tonight, a diet coke and a whole box of painkillers were on the menu. Although they were intended for the concussion she had been ignoring for two days, they helped too with the stiffness in her neck and the multiple bruises on her face, she had noticed with satisfaction.
She had been sitting like that ever since she had gone home, approximately six hours ago. Dealing with the grieving parents and writing her report had taken much longer than she would have expected. And, to end up a dreamlike day, Erin Strauss had insisted on speaking personally with Emily despite the voiced protestations of all her coworkers. The supreme chief wanted to have an insight into the situation before an official investigation was called in. Emily had not even tried hard to dissuade the grumbling blonde from digging further into the case. By the time she had left a crying Joan Mayers and reassured all of her coworkers, Emily had no energy left to care about a potential threat to her career. So she had just answered the questions in a polite and honest way, left the office when she was told, grabbed her stuff and ignored her friends' calls before hailing a cab. This happened around six in the afternoon. Without even looking at her wristwatch, the brunette could tell that it was now well past midnight. She had not even bothered to take out the cell phone out of her jacket, which was now lying on the back of some chair in the kitchen. Anyway, it had stopped ringing two good hours ago, which made Emily guess that her coworkers had finally headed to bed after these long days. She however didn't feel like sleeping at all, although the painkillers made that operation a little difficult.
When a knock resounded on her frontdoor, Emily considered during a split second ignoring the visitor. Then, all of a sudden, she felt guilty. Maybe they had caught a case, although it seemed hardly plausible that JJ would want her to resume working so soon. No, it was probably one of her teammates, sick with worry. Emily could handle her own pain, but she couldn't put that burden on anyone else. So she reluctantly got to her feet and walked to the frontdoor, not even checking in the peephole before pulling the door open.
"I did not wake you, did I?" Hotch smelled like alcohol although his voice sounded all but drunk. Maybe he had needed the liquid courage to come and knock on Emily's door, at one in the morning.
"No. Come in." She had not talked in so long that short answers only came to her mind now.
"Did you try to reach me?" She asked when the man had penetrated in the dim light of the apartment. She hadn't even noticed that most of the lights were off, only realizing when she saw Hotch search for the switch.
"About twenty-two times. And JJ called me an hour ago, she tried every thirty minutes for the past four hours."
"I didn't feel like talking." Emily simply answered, walking past Hotch to resume her favorite activity: looking into the dark sky.
Hotch took in his surroundings. Last time he had been in this apartment, he had felt like throwing up from fear. CSU had done a very good job cleaning up the place. The only trace still visible was the blood that had seeped into the wooden floor and the cleaning team had not managed to rub out. Emily would have to change that floor altogether.
"Do you want me to go?" he asked, his eyes getting accustomed to the obscurity of the living room.
"No, it's alright. You wanted to check on me, I suppose."
Hotch's hands were dug deep into his trouser pockets. He was still standing near the kitchen counter, as though he did not dare to intrude into her apartment anymore. But then again, knocking at her door at one in the morning already was intrusive, and she had gladly let him in.
"Don't tell me you are alright."
Emily smirked without looking in his direction.
"You read in me like in a book." She groaned. It didn't take a profiler to see that Emily Prentiss was going down a very dark path. She sipped at her can of Diet coke and grimaced as the grumbling in her stomach became more intense.
"How long have you not eaten anything?" She hadn't thought the screams of her empty stomach had been loud enough for him to hear, but the man apparently had tackled his hearing problems.
"Does coffee count?" Before she knew it, the man had turned around and walked into her kitchen. He began rummaging with care through the cupboards and fridge, sighing at the lack of any consistent food. For someone who always so shy about making friends outside of work, he moved pretty comfortably in Emily's kitchen, she noted.
"You have absolutely no food in this house." He finally said, having only found a bottle of ketchup and some flour.
"I'm not home that much." Emily answered, finally bothering to join the man in her kitchen, blinking at the sudden bright light.
"I know the feeling." They stared into each others' eyes for a moment. It had always been difficult to have more than a trivial conversation with Hotch, because when he became serious, he did it all the way – and people would usually shy away.
"How are you holding on?" he finally asked, receiving a glare in return. "Okay, I might rephrase that since you are not sleeping in the middle of the night and are avoiding all outside contact… Do you want to talk about it?"
"What is there to talk about? You were there."
"I didn't mean Kansas. I meant your daughter."
Emily didn't shy away. She knew this was bound to come, and to be honest, she felt relieved that she could tell Hotch in private rather than make it a public announcement in front of the whole team. Maybe the man would even have the delicacy of passing the necessary information, so that no one else would bother asking her.
"Do you think she was right? Joan?"
Hotch's eyes narrowed as he considered the seriousness of her question.
"You didn't kill your daughter." His voice was firm; there was no doubt to have.
"If I hadn't left my name for him to find…" Before Emily could finish her sentence, Hotch had erased the distance between them. With him standing so close to her and looking down to her eyes as though she was some helpless child, Emily felt unable to continue.
"You left your name because you loved your daughter. You wanted to be there if she felt like getting to know you."
The reality of his words took a minute to sink in. Even though this was the obvious reason for Emily's decision twenty years ago, she could not accept that good intentions could have such a tragic ending.
"Why did you come?" Her voice was so broken. Their situation was insoluble: she refused to let go of her shield in front of anyone. He would refuse to leave until she had opened up to him.
"I know what you are going through. As a parent, as an agent… When I felt like breaking down, you were there to offer a hand. I want to do the same."
Emily took in a sharp breath and looked down at her shaking hands. In the intimacy of her apartment, she now wanted so desperately to let go but couldn't bring herself to do it. A few tears ran down her cheeks to release a tiny bit of the tension she was feeling. She just hoped the man wouldn't hug her or try any other form of contact, or she would crumble altogether.
"It seems ridiculous to cry over a girl I barely saw a few minutes in my life, doesn't it?" Emily's voice was sore by the end of the sentence, but she did no more care. The flow of her tears was so strong that it could not have gone unnoticed by her superior officer.
"It was your flesh and blood. It's perfectly normal…" When his hand came to rest on her shaking shoulder, Emily suppressed a sob and had to cover her face with her hand to keep some kind of sanity. But Hotch wasn't making things easy for her with his kind words and soft gestures. Emily tried to pull away, to tell him to stop, but Hotch was not one to give up. Instead of giving into her flight, his grasp became firmer, until he felt Emily relax and he could pull her into a hug without hurting her. For a long moment, she just stayed like that and let her tears flow freely. Hopefully, everything would be forgotten by morning.
When Emily's eyes had shed all the tears they could, she took a few more moments to let her breathing become less erratic. She didn't want Hotch to think she was about to have a panic attack, although it almost felt like it. When she was ready to pull away, he let her go without fighting and didn't protest as she turned around to compose herself. Crying into his chest was one thing, but looking into his dark eyes with a tear-stained face was another.
"I take it you don't want to take some time off." He said more than asked. He knew Emily well enough to guess that she would want to drown herself into work to forget about her personal issues.
"If you agree, no."
"I know it helps." Yet he did not mention that he would agree only if he was allowed to watch her and make sure that no case was hitting too hard on her. He knew too well how she could be a risk to herself and the others, if she wasn't focused enough.
"Emily, am I right to suppose you haven't slept or eaten in two days?" his voice had a paternal tone that Emily did not like. But she was far too tired to protest or snap in return. So she just nodded, her groaning stomach giving away the rest of the answer. Hotch looked helplessly around.
"Go to sleep. I'll get you something to eat for when you wake up." To say she was surprised at the offer was a gross understatement.
"Hotch. You don't have to do this. Go home and spend some time with Jack."
The dark-haired man shot her a tired smile.
"Prentiss, it is almost two in the morning. Way past bedtime for Jack."
"Right. Still, you really don't need to do this. If I promise to go to sleep straight away, will you go home to your family?"
Hotch wanted to tell her that, at this point of his life, she – and the rest of the team – had become as much a part of his family as his own son, but he repressed the thought. The boss hugging up his agent in her apartment, in the middle of the night, was already way beyond protocol limits. He didn't want to dig his grave deeper.
"Alright. Don't feel obliged to come in tomorrow. You need your rest."
"See you tomorrow, Hotch." He had obviously predicted her reaction, and only smiled in return before walking out the door.
Reid's eyes were set on the board as he pinned down the pictures, one by one. Each photograph he would take in his hands, he would look at during a whole minute, before hastily putting it in the open file lying on the circular table. From time to time, his eyes wandered through the open blinds to make sure a certain brown-haired agent wasn't coming his way. JJ and himself had agreed that all evidence regarding the case should be gone by the time Emily Prentiss came back to work. And knowing the brunette, she would be in before noon, even under these exceptional circumstances.
JJ was absently sipping her coffee – the third cup since morning – and trying to get her mind onto the stack of files on her desk. From her office, she had no clear view over the elevators and this worried her. Hotch had arrived just a few minutes after her this morning, and had asked her to keep an eye on their brown-haired colleague. By the way he seemed sure about Emily being in the office that day, JJ knew that they had talked, though she did not push the subject. They all had thoroughly enjoyed their night's sleep, knowing that the next day would be stressful. Even though Emily was a strong person and probably the most secretive woman JJ knew, her teammates – including JJ – felt the need to watch her. So that she could do just that – and avoid having her head bitten off by a nervous Hotch – the blonde's head turned every ten minutes to the wide open door, to see whether Emily's desk was still empty. JJ almost cursed in surprise as a mighty shadow came to stand in the doorframe. Derek Morgan was glancing at the blonde's desk, with the same look of expectation that she was wearing herself.
"Hello, Morgan. Do you mind knocking on the door next time?"
"The door's open."
JJ smirked.
"I enjoy the view."
"You mean you're spying on Prentiss?"
It was Derek's time to give her a knowing smile, making a move to sit down across from JJ. He too had a huge mug of coffee in hands, and she wondered whether the man had slept at all last night.
"I came to see if you needed some refill." He raised his own mug to make his message clear.
"Thanks, I'm good. One more and I'll begin jumping through the bullpen like a kangaroo."
"Long night?"
"Short one. Or long, depends what you mean. I spent more time thinking than sleeping." Derek frowned at the response. JJ had always been a straightforward person, and she didn't hesitate to let the others know how she felt. Compared to his other secretive colleagues, it was a nice change, thought Derek.
"Me too. Do you think she'll be in today?"
"Hotch told me so. I suspect he got a hold of her yesterday."
"Lucky man." Derek too had tried to call Emily from the moment she had left the bullpen in a hurry. For one, he wanted to check on her. Secondly, he had to know whether he needed to go and put Strauss down with a few karate tricks after her primary encounter with Emily. But after the second message left on her voicemail, he had dropped the matter and gone to sleep – or tried to.
"He's worrying me." JJ continued, visibly wrapped up in her thoughts and oblivious to Derek's attempt at humor.
"They are both going to be okay." He answered with a soothing voice. "Emily is as strong as a rock. And Hotch… well, Hotch is just reliving his own nightmare, I guess. Familial matters always hit close to home for him."
JJ's eyes widened. Although Derek had said very little, he had evidently reviewed every detail of the situation and drawn his own conclusions. JJ however was not sure whether this was really all.
"Has Hotch ever shown up at your place while you were on sick leave?"
"You know Prentiss and him have always had a special bond, ever since the Milwaukee case."
JJ nodded. She too had noticed that both dark-haired agents seemed to share a lot, both professionally and personally. Emily had been the one to search for him after Foyet, to keep an eye on him after his return. As for Hotch, he obviously held his newest agent in high esteem, often pairing himself up with her and letting her assist him in many occasions. But both were so secretive and shy that they would never dare to make a real personal move.
When a familiar silhouette walked into the bullpen, JJ's attention left Morgan, who immediately turned around. They waited a few minutes before joining Emily at her desk. She had made it clear the day before that she didn't want to be watched or protected by anyone, and would not accept any gesture of pity or compassion from her coworkers. As Derek had guessed, Emily just needed to get back to normal and forget about the last 72 hours.
