You have an eidetic memory. And you cannot picture her face.
You have an IQ of 187. And you cannot remember her voice.
You can read 20,000 words per minute. And you cannot recall precious conversations with her.
She showed up years ago and at first, nobody seemed to give her a chance. You especially. You didn't trust her right away. You said things to her you wish you could take back. You wish you could return to those early years and make the team see that Agent Emily Prentiss deserved their respect and admiration from the moment she arrived.
But you can't. So you settle for gently placing yet another bouquet of flowers on her grave.
It is impossible to determine exactly when Emily became your friend, your confidant, your advisor, but you know it was a gradual process.
She snuck up on you.
One minute she was just a new addition to the team, trying to prove herself to the older, far more experienced members, defending her integrity, her reasons for joining the Unit.
The next, she had managed to successfully duck under all of your well structured defences and was happily drinking coffee with you within the confines of your guarded self.
You still marvel at how adept she was at understanding you. Not many people can.
Gideon was one of the few who did. But he left.
Emily could. And now she was dead.
You can feel yourself crumbling from the inside out. You cry often. Great, heaving sobs wrack your body and leave you weak and breathless.
There is no comfort. No solace from this pain.
She died, right down the hallway from you. She suffered, and you could do nothing. She was murdered, and you weren't there to protect her.
When the pain is too much you turn to JJ. She understands you to an extent. She is your closest friend. You love her like a sister. You trust her. She comforts you when you cry. She lets you sleep on her couch when you cannot leave, cannot return to an empty apartment and lie there with your tattered thoughts and fractured memories. She lets you play with Henry to draw your attention to something alive and vibrant and pure.
Something untainted by the monsters.
You are a certified genius. And you couldn't save her.
You failed. The team failed. You swore you would always be there for her, like she was for you, and you let her down. You let her die. She walked out of the BAU alone and she died alone.
Alone. Scared. And in pain.
Sometimes you are angry with her. If only she had told someone, anyone, about her past life, perhaps they could have gotten there in time.
If she hadn't kept so many secrets she wouldn't have spent the last months of her life so terrified.
So isolated.
They say 'no man is an island,' but clearly the author of that quote never had the pleasure of knowing Emily Prentiss.
She was used to being alone. She was used to keeping secrets. She was used to pretending. She was used to fighting her own battles.
And sometimes, you truly hate her for not putting her faith in you. You and the team.
But then you remember she did what she did to keep everyone safe.
You know she made that decision because she thought it was right, that there were no other options. That she simply had to fight on alone.
JJ's words haunt your dreams and waking hours; 'she never made it off the table.'
And you never did get to say that goodbye.
So you visit her grave more often than anyone else. Sometimes you stand there for so long your feet grow numb and anyone passing by might have been slightly unnerved by the glazed look in your eye.
You try to ignore decay rates, statistics and other medical knowledge you hold with regards to the dead.
Because being here helps. Just a little.
It makes you feel close to her.
You fill her in on recent cases. You stand there, morning noon or night and you inform her of old cases that have now been closed thanks to the team.
You tell her you miss her.
You stand and stare at the words emblazoned upon the cold stone.
FIDELITY. BRAVERY. INTEGRITY.
Oh yes, Prentiss had all of those qualities. To a fault.
Then, when you can bear it no longer, you kiss the tips of two fingers and press it to the top of her gravestone.
You like to think maybe she waves as you leave.