Tension is rising ! Thank you for reviewing.
"What do you mean?" Emily's eyes narrowed as Rossi looked at her calmly, without flinching. He noticed how her eyes travelled behind him, probably assessing whether the other team members were close enough to hear the exchange. They weren't.
"Emily, are you forgetting you are surrounded by profilers?"
Emily chuckled although she all but felt like laughing.
"And yet you are the only one who doesn't seem satisfied with my explanations." She met Rossi's cold gaze. She knew he wasn't angry, only worried at the brunette's attitude.
"You're wrong, miss Prentiss." He said with a warm tone and met Emily's questioning look. "There is at least another person going out of his mind here… And I don't mean you."
"I know." He didn't lower her gaze. He was talking about Hotch, it was obvious. She too had noticed how nervous the unit chief was, how he had been keeping silent all day except for work-related discussions. But what could she do about it?
"Tell him the truth." Rossi answered her silent question with the softest voice he had. Looking into his burning gaze, Emily would likely have fallen onto the ground, sobbing, if it wasn't for the bunch of profilers talking lively in the background. She didn't want to make a scene, especially not when they were on the field.
"What truth?" She tried again, sounding less and less confident.
"You tell me." Rossi must have seen by the way Emily remained silent and looked back and forth to the rest of the team, terrified they might hear anything suspicious, that she was about to break. So he decided to show all his cards and be direct.
"You have bruises all over. You flinch whenever someone comes near you – although it is so discreet that the others might not have noticed. You bite your nails, which you only do when you're under pressure. And I have never seen such a sadness in your eyes…" Rossi paused, looking at the tears pooling in his friend's eyes. "I'm just adding two and two together… You were raped."
He tried to remain confident and calm although saying this out loud was tearing him apart. Emily looked at her colleague dumbfounded during a long moment, glad everyone had already had their dose of caffeine. If anyone was to come into the kitchen area now, she would likely go for her phone and kill herself out of shame.
"Emily?" Rossi was visibly waiting for an answer which she couldn't bring off her tongue. She wiped away a tear and looked away.
"What do you want me to do?" Her voice was soar, her eyes red from unshed tears. Rossi made a step forward although he knew that making contact was the worst idea at the moment.
"You need to tell – at least him."
"No." It came out easily, much easily than the confession. A simple no, definitive, ferm.
"You need to get it out."
"Do you want me to say it aloud, is that it?" Emily's voice went higher as she tried to repress a wave of anger. She couldn't believe Rossi would corner her here of all places, in the jet, just inches away from her best friends, her colleagues, her family.
"I want you to press charge. I want you to give us his name. I want to beat the crap out of this guy."
"It's not your business."
"Damn well it is our business!" Rossi realized only too late that he had yelled this last phrase. He closed his mouth as Emily kept staring at him, mouth gaping, as still as a statue. The voices outside the kitchen had stopped, but no one seemed to come their way.
"Damn you, Rossi…" Emily groaned as she brushed past him and went back into the main space. Of course, they were all staring at her. Even Hotch, seated the farthest, had stood up.
"Is everything alright?" Reid finally asked, looking incredulously at the brunette. Fortunately, she had wallowed down her tears – anger had its good side.
"Everything fine." She answered, looking from one colleague to the other, pausing on JJ's worried face and Hotch's unreadable expression, before taking a seat. Change the subject, forget this conversation. It was another five minutes before Rossi came out of his corner, as though nothing happened. But deep inside, Emily knew it wasn't over.