AN: To avoid any possible confusion, I will repeat here what was said on the summary - these are snippets, not a single linear story; therefore, this chapter doesn't immediately follow the previous one but is in some way independent ... except for the fact that it takes place in the same Universe. Also, according to my head canon, Boston's bombing, Gideon taking a medical leave and Hotch stepping into the BAU's SAC position take place shortly after Chapter one. You don't need to know this to understand the fic, but I thought I should share with you the bits of this AU that didn't made into the story :).
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Emily Prentiss
Her smile is obviously fake, but there's a limit to how much shit she can handle. Her mother's friends and fellow diplomats, those she'll deal with; but those airheaded men who think she should fawn all over them just because they are rich and/or famous and/or from an old and rancid family? Hell no.
"I'm not desperate enough to turn cougar over you, lover-boy, but I'm sure you'll have more luck everywhere else. And if you're not picky, there has to be some sugar daddy in the room looking for a cute thing just like you."
So okay, that is kind of bitchy, but younger and prettier than her is not how she likes her men.
"I think you've just managed to insult seventy eight point seventy five percent of those present," an amused voice says barely loud enough for just her to listen. And, surely, when she turns, young-and-pretty is looking at her with a mischievous twinkle in suddenly too clever eyes.
"Only seventy eight?" she asks, her mind reeling. Surely this isn't the man Clyde wanted her to meet. That he's not as banal as she first believed doesn't mean he has that much depth, does it? "I was aiming higher."
"Well, there are those who don't care enough for your words to be insulting," he says, taking a coin out of who knows where and making it dance over his knuckles in a well practiced magician trick. "Are you really the USA Ambassador's progeny?"
And that, exactly, is what makes it. There's only one person who's used exactly that same words, and that person is the one who asked for 'a favor, just this one time'.
"I'm going to kill him," she grumbles, and takes the lanky guy and a still unopened bottle of wine up to the guest room she's currently staying at. "I really hope you are who I think you are."
"And I really hope you are who I think you are," he retorts, releasing his wrist from her grasp as soon as the door is closed, and moving with purpose all over the place, obviously looking for bugs. "You know, I'm used to being propositioned, but this being sneaked into a girl's bedroom while her mother is downstairs is a brand new experience."
He's so deadpan and clinical in his declaration that she can't help but smile. "What, weren't you a teenager? That's a motion detector," she explains when he finds the device she stuck under the night table, "and according to the receptor currently in my ear, nobody has been around since I left the room two hours ago."
He nods, and to her surprise starts unbuttoning his shirt. "Still, I assume you're carrying the document?" he adds after popping the last button, letting the shirt slide to the carpet, toeing his shoes off with practiced ease.
"I, uh, yes I do." It is a small, slim notebook, black and crammed in coded handwritten text, strapped to her inner thigh. She is flushed by the time she hands it, which isn't like her, but there's something in this man-child that makes her self-conscious.
It is obvious he notices, as he suddenly looks uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," he offers, taking the book and looking anywhere but her. "I expected you'd be an agent, but now I realize that my contact was never explicit about it."
Oh god, she thinks, and flushes further. Now he thinks she's an inexperienced civilian, which is a big blow to her ego. But she doesn't correct him as, well … he already knows she's Ambassador Prentiss' daughter, and that's some information she's never felt like sharing. So she just mumbles "It is okay," and gingerly crosses to sit by his side on the soft bed.
It doesn't take a genius to understand what kind of scene he's staging, so she unzips her cocktail dress and discards it while he flips through the small book, an eye on the document and other on the door. Still, she reacts first when the door opens, straddling him in on one fluid movement just to let out a surprised gasp when his thumb brushes over her bare nipple. How did he open her bra so fast?
"Who the hell are you?" a man she doesn't know, but who has Bratva written all over him, growls. That she's practically naked and obviously humping a half dressed man doesn't stop her mind from working, rapidly cataloging.
Then her mother enters the room and says "That's my daughter and her boy toy," and the clear disdain infuriates Emily into losing her cold mind. What is it about her mother that a few chosen words can dispel years of training and field experience?
It moves fast from there. The man, who's supposed to be a police officer looking for an escaped criminal, makes them get up and efficiently searches everywhere before taking her boy toy with him. It all makes her feel dirty and in a desperate need of a cleansing shower.
Her mother's departing "And don't bring work into my home without my prior knowledge again" actually helps somewhat. As much as she hates her relationship with her mother, Emily can't help admiring the woman's sharpness.
She is climbing into bed six hours later, the New Year's gathering just winding down downstairs, when her cell phone rings.
"Did you deliver it earlier?" Clyde asks, and she takes the call is secure because otherwise he wouldn't be speaking so openly.
"You said tonight, I didn't know him, I didn't have another way to contact him, and you know what? Never ask a favor from me again." There's silence on the other side of the line, and if she knows her ex-leader, he's wondering whether she's finally cracking. So she tries to change the topic, "Why do you ask?" hoping he won't call the FBI to tell them the ex-Interpol agent they've just accepted is unfit to work.
"We have locations, five of them. The operation is scheduled to start in eight hours."
Already?
"You said your KGB contacts hadn't been able to decode the notebook."
"I know, and they are not KGB anymore."
"You said your SAS contacts hadn't been able to decode it either."
"Emily …"
There's doubt in his voice, so she says what they both are thinking.
"Are you sure this isn't a trap?"
He sighs. "We have satellite photographs. Everything fits into place." The but is unvoiced but clear. She can imagine him, going over every available piece of information, trying to find the missing clues. He didn't survive spying for MI5 and leading Interpol's JTF-12 by doubting his instincts.
That he hasn't called off the whole thing means everything has passed his paranoid tests so far, though.
"Are you telling me the CIA did in a few hours what nobody else could in two weeks?"
His self-deprecating snort tells her he's already considering it, which … wow. The only thing Clyde Easter feels about the CIA is unwavering contempt, and apparently for good reasons. That he's willing to acknowledge they might have done something useful is nothing short of wondrous.
"Apparently it was coded into some sort of chemistry formulae. Which makes sense, as the man who wrote it was a kidnapped scientist."
"And the CIA just happened to have a chemistry expert around to help them break the code. Don't you think it is a bit strange, Clyde?"
"Forget about the chemistry, Emily. They delivered a geographic profile based on the information three hours ago, there's no way they could have decoded, processed and analyzed all of it without prior knowledge. Most of my resources are focused on breaking into their mainframe and trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and so far the only unknown variable is your contact."
Oh, so that is why she got a call.
"Do you think he's a double agent?" It doesn't make sense, but she doesn't points it out. Clyde has to know that, otherwise she's going to seriously start doubting the man.
"I don't know what to think. I don't know his name, they won't share his dossier, and nobody even remotely CIA has entered Russian territory on the last days."
"So …" she makes a gesture, as if motioning for him to continue, aware that he can't see it but sure that he knows her mannerisms well enough.
"So, you have a picture? Finger prints? A name, maybe?"
They both know there's nothing. The orders were clear: disable all security systems for the night, don't ask for names, not even alias …
"Everything he touched is gone, sorry." Unless you want to search my nipple, she doesn't say, because a) with Doyle still fresh in their memories, Clyde is likely to blow a gasket; and b) she already showered, so all evidence is irremediably lost.
There's nothing more she can do, so the call doesn't last much longer. And, being thrown into the change of life that is the FBI, it doesn't take long for her to shelve the incident deep in her mind, especially as Clyde never calls back to inform her of the operation results.
He doesn't need to, though; it is all in the news when she wakes up late, the first day of the year.
"If you tell them I kill you."
Matt Gray blinks at her, his face the perfect picture of innocence. It would work better if he had shown even a little bit of worry over the fact that an FBI agent just threatened to kill him, though.
"I really don't know what you're talking about, Agent … it is Prentiss, right? Tell what to whom?"
They are in LA, their UNSUB, one Davon Strada, finally where they want him: out of the streets and in an interrogation room with both Hotch and Rossi. Prentiss knows it won't be long before her team unwinds enough to start trying to unravel the next mystery, which currently takes the form of one male supermodel, slash CIA undercover agent.
"Don't fuck with me, Gray," she growls at him and storms away, too worried and angry to continue facing the man. She's known, right from the beginning, that her past is going to bite her in the ass eventually. There's nothing to be ashamed on her former career, but with how close the BAU is, that's not the problem: it is the secrecy.
She's spent too long a time winning her team's trust, just to have them start doubting her again due to her buried past.
He's waiting for her, months later, when she returns to her apartment after a thankfully too boring day at the office.
"I apologize for showing up unannounced," he says, looking nervous in a way that feels more natural that the cockiness she's witnessed on previous occasions. "But I, ah, have received an offer to join the FBI. The BAU, specifically."
She waits, but he doesn't continue.
"Why are you here, Gray? Should I say, hey, congratulations? Are you here to tell me I should pack and clear the way?"
"What? No! I just …" There's something terribly young in his eyes but she doesn't back down, and eventually it dissolves into weariness. "Look, I promise I won't tell them anything. As far as I know, LA was the first time we ever met, I'd never in my life seen you before, and there's no reason for me to believe you're anything other than a FBI profiler, okay?"
She nods reluctantly because that's what he seems to be expecting, even if there's no way she's going to trust so easily.
"I just wanted to know if it gets easier," he says, and she frowns, but he continues before she asks for clarification. "I feel like I've been lying half of my life, and the idea that I won't know how to be myself is, well, kind of terrifying. And there is, I have done things I'm not proud of, even if they needed to be done, but I worry that they'll see me, and they'll know, and …"
"And they'll judge. They spend their days tracking down the worst criminal minds, and you have been deep down there, even if just pretending. You have let things pass, things that no morally good person would have permitted, all in the name of the greater good. You have blood in your hands, and damaged souls in your name, and you feel dirty, and disgusting, and tainted, and you're ashamed of what they'll see when they see you."
And this time she knows that what she sees in his eyes is not a lie or a construction, but the innocence in him that got buried the moment he choose his career.
"Look, Gray, I can't promise nothing of it is going to happen, I worry for that myself now and then." She pauses, trying to soften her words. "And I don't know if you'll ever stop feeling this way, and I am sure sooner or later things are going to blow up. But it is a step in the right direction, and for me, at least, that is enough."
That earns her a nod but nothing else. He's still silent when she guides him to the door, but turns to her before she closes it.
"Actually, my name is Spencer Reid, although I'm not sure whether to ask people to call me Spencer, or Reid. Both choices are going to be weird to get used to, I fear."
She chuckles, because in the great context of things, a name is not that important.
"We'll have to figure it out, then," she offers, and he smiles back.