We made it through Rory's first winter without her having so much as the sniffles, which was astounding. Leon and Derek had both had a couple of minor viruses, and I ended up with a nasty cold in February that necessitated Derek taking over feeding duty for a few nights, but Rory came through that unscathed. We marveled at the miracle that was our baby - her smiles followed by her laughter and the way her eyes lit up much like ours did whenever Leon, Fran or my father entered the room. And we marveled at her immune system, which seemed iron-clad.
Then, at the beginning of July, when she was coming up on eleven months old, her immune system took a flop. It was almost like she'd stored up all the germs from the winter and let loose on us a snotty, coughing, miserable little baby that couldn't be consoled.
Derek blamed one of Leon's friends who seemed to spend an unfortunate amount of time with his fingers up his nose. I blamed the camping trip over the July fourth weekend that Derek and Will had insisted upon like a giddy boy scouts.
Fran laughed lovingly at us both and told us it was just another notch in the parenthood belt and to get used to it.
Bleary-eyed after two nights of almost no sleep and Rory's frustrated and miserable cries ringing in my ears, I escaped the house for an hour to drop Leon at JJ's on a Saturday afternoon, buy a new humidifier, and inject myself with much-needed caffeine.
When I arrived home, it was shockingly quiet. Was my baby girl finally sleeping? I crept up the stairs, not daring to call out for Derek and break the spell of peaceful silence in the house.
Rory wasn't in her crib, and she wasn't sleeping next to Derek in our bed. I found them in our bathroom, both of them in the tub, Rory's little body laying on Derek's chest, submerged to her shoulders in warm water.
She wasn't sleeping, but she wasn't crying, either. Derek's eyes looked just as tired as mine, but he smiled softly at me. "I thought a bath might help, but she didn't want to let go of me. So I improvised. She stopped crying."
They painted a beautiful picture together, Rory's slightly lighter cheek against his strong chest, her dark brown eyes blinking at me. Even the snot running out of her chapped little nose didn't detract from father and daughter like this.
She lifted her head from his chest and graced me with the first smile I'd seen on her face in a couple of days. And then, clear as a bell, and absolute and direct, she said, "Mama."
She'd babbled a lot over the past few months, stringing together sounds that we thought were words, but they never had direct context to anything. This was different, I knew it and Derek knew it. His tired eyes got watery first, and I felt emotionally bowled over.
Who needs sleep or caffeine when their baby first calls them Mama? I was suddenly wide awake and alive again, and I smiled at Rory.
"Mama," she said again, like she was calling to me. So I answered her. I stripped off my clothes, took her from Derek's arms and slid into the water with my back against his chest.
"Rory," I whispered and kissed her face.
I never thought I'd be the type of mother who would get into a bath with her baby. I never thought I'd be the type of mother who reveled in breastfeeding and the pre-dawn feedings when we'd let her snuggle up in our bed and sleep out the remaining hours of night with us surrounding her.
Hell, a year and a half before that afternoon in our bathtub, I never thought I'd be a mother at all.
Rory drifted off with the warm water around her little body and her cheek on my chest, sleeping finally. The water was relaxing and my heart was full. I leaned my head back against Derek's shoulder, my eyelids suddenly too heavy to keep open. I felt his lips against my cheek. "Sleep, Mama. I'll stay awake and keep an eye on you both."
He was just as tired as I was, but I knew he would stay awake and make sure we were both safe. I let my eyes flutter closed.
This all seemed perfectly natural and good and right, and like many times since I'd had Rory, I tried to imagine my mother with me when I was a baby. Had she melted when I first called her Mama? Had she ever taken the time to forget about her political goals, her next meeting, what was happening in the world, and just hold me and let everything else go?
I never asked her, because I knew the answers. No. My father provided me with emotional warmth and security when I was younger, not my mother. Never my mother. She's better now, slightly warmer, but I knew when I was a baby, it was my dad's arms that were my exclusive stronghold on comfort.
I never had to ask Fran what type of a mother she was either, because I knew the answer as well. She was like I was in that moment. She was the mother in the bathtub and the mother who could while away hours in a rocking chair with her babies. She was ease and warmth and love that stretched and grew and absorbed.
That night, when Rory was breathing easier and Leon was home again, we settled on the couch together and turned on a movie. We were tangled together in loving touch. Derek laid on his back on the couch, his head propped up on pillows and Rory slept contentedly on his chest. I was pressed against his side, my head somewhere around his ribs, one hand holding Rory's and one on Leon's head. Leon was curled up in the boat of my legs, his head resting on my thigh.
My little family didn't make it far into the movie before they were all asleep, but I was wide awake, taking it all in. That was how Fran found us, when she came to check in before turning in for the night. She'd been volunteering all day at a carnival at her church and the last time we'd seen her was that morning when she'd left with two trays of lasagna and a kiss for all of us.
I raised smiled at her when she came in the living room and whispered, "She called me 'Mama' today."
Fran walked towards the couch, a smile on her own face, and bent over Derek and Rory to kiss my head. "You remind me so much of me when I was a mother with young children. It's like I'm getting to live it all again, just watching you. I love it every day. I love you, Emily. Now, do you want me to help untangle you and get everyone to bed?"
The moon's full tonight. I didn't notice it until the plane took off and we climbed above the heavy blanket of clouds in the sky over the UK. We've barely had a chance to breathe because it's imperative that we get ourselves back to DC as quickly as possible, on the off chance that someone finds Patrick Joyce's body. It's crucial that that not happen until Fran is back stateside for at least eight hours, hopefully more.
In the short term, I'm counting on the current cover of darkness and the cold air of Ireland to keep people away from the rocky beaches, the place where his body might wash ashore. In the long term, I'm counting on the rough tide and bloody pulp of his leg to keep him in the sea forever.
Geoffrey Bench is dead. He didn't even put up a fight. When JJ and Gil entered his house, he was sitting in his wheelchair, resigned to his fate. He probably knew we were coming the second Garcia locked down his computer, and he couldn't get far in a wheelchair on his own.
Without any danger present, JJ and Gil took the time to knock him out with drugs before Gil put a bullet in his head. It was as compassionate of a necessary death as they could make it. They apparently discussed burning down the house, but ultimately decided to leave things as they were. The only danger to us was my face in that house in England on his computer, and Garcia had taken care of that.
The rest of it - copies of pictures, the journals JJ found - they told the story of how Adrian Stancu and Geoffrey were tied together by a rape and murder they'd committed as teenagers, they told what had really happened to Tatiana in Provence so many years ago. We wanted the story to get out, for Tatiana's family to finally be able to find their little girl's bones and hopefully find peace.
Gil said he'd call in an anonymous tip so that Geoffrey's body and journals would be found, but only after we were all safely home.
I'd stopped crying the moment I saw them coming back to the helicopter after leaving Geoffrey's house, and I hadn't started again.
Holly was the first person to ask a direct question about Adrian Junior. Still groggy and laying on Gil's sofa, she looked at me and asked, "Where's Adrian?"
A suitable reply locked in my throat and JJ spoke up with a soft, "There was an explosion."
The young woman stared in horror. "I delivered him, you know. I was fourteen years old and I had a collar and chain around my neck, and Marietta pulled on that chain while I brought that baby into the world." Holly sobbed then, and pressed her face into the sofa cushion, and I couldn't face it.
I turned away to look for Fran. I found her in the kitchen, her impeccable manners all but forgotten, replaced with gnawing, agonizing hunger. She was gorging herself on food and talking to Gil, who was heating something for her on the stove.
"I need to hear your side of the story," I told her softly.
In between bites of food, tears born of fear and relief, and looks of empathy and gratitude towards me, she told me what she remembered, from start to finish.
"I wasn't raped," Fran said while taking a bite of chicken, much like someone would say, "I wasn't tired," or, "I wasn't hungry," or, "I wasn't sleeping."
I wasn't raped.
Relief swelled in my heart, and I was grateful I still had some genuine emotion left on the surface of my being. I'd been doing a pretty good job of packing my emotions away, a systematic process I was well familiar with but hadn't had much practice with in the past couple of years; the process felt both necessary and frightening in the moment.
"Patrick wouldn't let them," she continued.
My relief crashed with guilt. We couldn't leave him alive, and I think in the end he much prefered death over going back to prison anyway, but to know that he'd protected her in that house as best as he could made me feel things I shouldn't feel for a pedophile, rapist, kidnapper and drug dealer.
When Fran was finished, I squeezed her shoulder. She'd rattled off the details with little emotion, but I knew they would come later. She was operating on mild shock and basic needs, like food, right now. Everything else would crash over her soon.
I quickly told her our side of the story, omitting one crucial detail about the death of one little boy. I wasn't ready to face it. JJ came into the kitchen at some point while I was talking.
"Marietta grabbed my ankle and I fell hard on top of Adrian. Then the bombs exploded and the ground fell out from under us. Marietta and Adrian fell, and I grabbed onto the piano leg."
Marietta and Adrian fell and I grabbed onto the piano leg. Marietta and Adrian fell and I grabbed onto the piano leg. Maybe if I said it enough, it could become my truth.
Fran stared at me, and I couldn't read her expression.
"Maybe we should have called the authorities when we found the house," I said quietly while she stared at me. "I thought about it once we saw there was a toddler and a teenager in the house, but then Marietta recognized JJ, and I had to just get us out of there."
I slit the throat of a tied-up, subdued man, held a gun to a toddler's face, and shot Patrick in the arm in order for Marietta to realize she was up against someone she couldn't fuck with.
Fran, whose instinct was to comfort and protect, shook her head. "You did the absolute best you could. You did what you thought was right for the safety of your family. They can't come after us anymore."
"Besides," JJ interjected, "if we had called the police, who knows what the outcome would have been?"
There was some truth there. The police could have charged in and those bombs could have gone off before they got Fran out. We'll never know for sure.
We left Nick at Gil's house with a raging headache and an emotionally broken teenage girl. He said he could handle it. We didn't know what would ultimately happen to Holly. Yes, she could place us in that house. Gil promised he'd take care of her, and take care of "things," if he thought we were in danger.
I promised Nick I'd be better about keeping in touch. I told him I'd send him some money to keep him on his feet until he could start working again. I placed a kiss on his cheek and, with Gil's permission, pressed Clyde's King's Badge into his hand, the badge awarded to the best all-around recruit in the Royal Marines. "You can find yourself again," I told Nick.
Can I?
We couldn't permit Fran to shower. We had to set a believable stage, a stage that Hotch expertly scripted and filled with necessary props. And that meant when we got back to Scotland and to the plane that was Marietta's - the plane that likely originally flew Fran here with Patrick in the cockpit - I also had to inject Fran with drugs.
I'd grilled her on the two hour drive back to the airfield. Stick to the truth right up until we showed up in that room in the basement. There was a man in the kitchen at our house last Wednesday. He knocked you out and took you. You came to when you arrived at a house. You didn't know how long you were out, where you were or how you'd gotten there. There was a woman there. You never saw anyone else. You were kept locked in a basement where you were beaten and they took pictures of you. Patrick was nice to you.
"He was," Fran had interjected at that point.
I nodded and kept going. Patrick was nice to you. He was apologetic and tried to give you extra food when he could. Then, sometime today or yesterday, you can't be certain of the time or day, he came to you and unlocked you. He told you it was time to go home. He injected you with something. You came to on the ground, wrapped in a blanket and laying under a payphone. Patrick must have called the police or FBI, because when you opened your eyes, there were already flashing lights coming your way. You're not sure where you were, you're not certain how long you were gone, you don't remember how you got there, if you were ever on a plane, if you ever left the country or not.
"I understand," Fran said quietly. She clasped my cold hand, and it took everything in me not to pull away. I didn't feel worthy of her affection at the time.
"Repeat it," I said softly.
And Fran did, perfectly and convincingly.
"The only person you're probably going to have to give your statement to is Hotch. They're going to take you to a hospital to have you checked out. They're going to process and take pictures of everything - your clothes, the marks on your body. And they're going to run a blood test, which is why I have to put you out when we get to the plane."
"I understand, Emily," Fran said again.
She leaned over in the seat and kissed my cheek and wrapped her arms around me. "Thank you. I wasn't ready to go yet," she said.
Something inside me gave in at her words and her touch, the piece of me who remembered this woman's arms and her hugs and unconditional love, and the point of all of this. I returned her hug. "I love you," I whispered...
She sleeps peacefully now curled up over two seats on the plane, her stomach full for the first time in days, clothed and with blankets covering her, and her arms and legs free to move.
I'm left with JJ's eyes burning a hole in the back of my head as I stare at the full moon through the window. We'll land around three o'clock in the morning eastern standard time.
Garcia will be there in her personal vehicle, waiting for JJ.
Rossi will be there in his personal vehicle waiting for me, to bring me back to Delaware, and to Derek and my beautiful children and my father.
When we get off the plane, on a small airfield outside of Annapolis, we'll move Fran. The drugs in her system should wear of a bit before we land. Rossi will put me in a car immediately, to get me back to Delaware in time for me to shower and get ready to be the relieved daughter-in-law when Fran is found. They'll give us a forty-five minute head start. Then Gil will call the FBI anonymously from the payphone, he'll ask for Hotch by name. Hotch, who is currently still at headquarters, pouring over the details of this case like the compassionate, obsessed patriarch he is, will still be there when the call comes in. Reid will be with him, a worried friend unable to go home.
Gil will leave after the call. He'll leave the plane that we've thoroughly wiped down. He'll disappear into the streets and use one of his fake IDs to fly commercial home sometime tomorrow.
Garcia and JJ will stay with Fran until just a couple of minutes before Hotch and Reid arrive, lights flashing. They'll find Fran under the payphone. They'll get her to the hospital first. And only then will Hotch call us to let us know Fran has been found.
Easy. Compared to everything else, this is an easy plan.
I sigh and refuse to turn my head to look at JJ. When she realizes this, she reaches out her hand and takes mine where I've held it protectively against my chest. "We're all going home. I would have done the same thing for my family, Emily. And you would have helped me," she says softly.
It's true. The only problem is, she doesn't know the full extent of what I did. I can't see JJ letting go of that baby.
Marietta and Adrian fell and I grabbed onto the piano leg. Marietta and Adrian fell and I grabbed onto the piano leg.
It's four-twenty-three in the morning when she comes back to me. I think I'll always remember that time, my body waking automatically for the rest of my life when the clock ticks to that moment. I'll look over at her beside me in bed and have to remind myself that she came back like she promised she would.
I've filled Chris in on the story, so he can play it off when we get to my mother. The kids are fast asleep, snuggled together on the sofa bed in the den. And we've been waiting on bated breath for over thirty minutes, or for four days, depending on how you think about it.
The lights on Rossi's car flash through the curtains in the living room, and Chris and I stand in unison. Two figures make their way from the driveway to the front of the house. I have the door open and the porch light on.
Rossi looks like he's clenching his teeth, both in frustration and relief.
And Emily. She looks like she's just been delivered back to me after wading her way through a war zone, which is pretty close to the truth.
We don't run to each other and embrace. I want to, but everything about her body language tells me to move with caution. She's in boots and jeans and a black turtleneck under Clyde's jacket. She holds a duffel bag and a small backpack; I recognize the duffel bag, but not the backpack.
I recognize her, and I don't. She steps towards me into the foyer and wraps her arms around me in slow motion. Her skin and hair don't smell like her. They smell like borrowed soap and smoke and fear.
I'm sobbing in relief, but she's not crying at all. She releases me and hugs her father briefly. I'm not sure what to do.
"Em?" I ask.
She gives me the briefest of smiles and touches my hand. I clasp onto her fingers and pull her further into the house. She drops her bags.
"The kids?" she asks.
I lead her into the house and down the first floor hallway to the den. I watch as she gazes at a sleeping Leon and Rory while she stands in the doorway. Her face gives nothing away about how she's doing or what she's feeling. The details we have about what actually happened aside from the explosion are non-existent, so I can't fill in the blanks.
She seems incapable of moving. Incapable of emotion or direction or the ability to talk. I take her elbow gently in my hand. "We need to get you cleaned up before Hotch calls," I say.
And we do absolutely need to get her cleaned up. It's not just how she smells; there's soot and a scrape on her face, her hair looks like a gnarled mess in her ponytail, and my fingers on her elbow can feel the stiffness of the material there. I've felt that type of stiffness enough in my past to know that it feels like fiber that has been congealed with blood.
"Are you hurt?" I ask her.
She shakes her head.
I guide her past Chris and Rossi, who are in the hallway watching the scene mutely. I guide her up the stairs we've rarely used in this house and towards the master bedroom, where I know there is a large bathroom. She blinks and looks down when I flip on the bright light, and I quickly turn it off. Instead, I turn on the small light under the bathroom mirror that casts the room in a softer glow.
She went. She went to London and she found my mother and she brought her home. My job was to take care of the kids and keep them safe and let her go. And now that she's back, my job is to take care of her. She's not giving me anything, with eyes or words, but that doesn't change the fact that we have to get her ready to pull off the last phase of this - where we swoop into a hospital, collect my mother under the scrutiny of doctors and nurses and possibly other FBI agents, and go home. Home.
I don't ask her for anything. I don't so much as utter words like "Thank you," or "I love you," because both would require replies that I'm not sure she has in her right now. And her silence would cut me like a knife.
I start with Clyde's jacket; it feels heavier than I remember it. There are still things in the pockets that I can feel weighing it down as I peel it off her body. I'll explore that later. I respectfully place it on the hook in the bathroom.
Her turtleneck is next, and that's harder. The blood that had congealed on the jacket had congealed on her sweater was fused to the skin under her right arm. I grab a washcloth and wet it, then I start soaking the material on the turtleneck until it gives. I lift it up and off her body and suck in a breath.
"You are hurt," I whisper.
"I'm okay," she responds automatically.
But she's not. There's a bruise cutting across the top of her chest and little abrasions here and there, like her clavicle was pressed against something sharp. The hollow of her neck, where I so regularly buried my nose and mouth over the past couple of years is a mottle mess of purple and red blood vessels. There are abrasions around her shoulders and armpits, red marks that look like the straps of a backpack have been tattooed on her skin. There's dried blood that's sticky and hard on the inside of her right, upper arm.
I wipe that with the washcloth and discover the origin of the blood, a puncture wound worthy of stitches, but it's too late now. I reach to remove her bra instead.
Her breasts are heavy. They're breasts I've spent enough time with to know that they look like they are full of milk, which has been a rarity in the past few months; she's produced enough to feed Rory on the one or two occasions each day that she's interested, but there hasn't been engorgement. This is inexplicable engorgement. As I look, a drop of milk makes its way from her nipple and down her skin, and it keeps pace with the tear that falls from my left eye and trails down my cheek.
To distract myself and keep myself from totally falling apart, I reach over and start the shower. The hot water comes quickly in this house, and steam fills the bathroom. I start on Emily's pants and underwear, and at least her legs and lower body seem unscathed. I kiss her shoulder as I guide her into the impeccable white tile. She bends her head towards the stream of water, letting the brunt of it fall on the back of her neck. I spot another bruise, a diagonal stripe across her back, and watch the clear rivulets tinge with pink when her arm gets wet.
I turn away from the view because I'm so overcome with relief and sorrow that I'm not in control of my actions. I want to grasp her and hold her and crush her in my arms and kiss her until she's breathless, but she's not open to that now, and I know it.
"I have pajamas for you. I'll go get them."
Her nod is barely perceptible through the steamy glass of the shower door.
I make my way down the stairs and go to the bags she dropped. The bag I recognize yields nothing unexpected. There's the note from Clyde with a list of names, and then there are articles of clothing I recognize. Most of the bag speaks of home - her jeans, her underwear, her shirts and sweaters and an extra bra.
The backpack, however, speaks of anything but home. IDs for all of us, with different names, and a significant amount of starter cash. I quickly close the backpack and wonder what door Emily is choosing, which bag - the one that brings us home, or the one that makes us disappear.
I pass Rossi and Chris in the kitchen, but say nothing. They don't stop me. Right now, I can only think of simple goals, and Emily in pajamas with her children is my primal need. I go to the den and quietly retrieve yoga pants, one of my old t-shirts, clean underwear and her favorite Yale sweatshirt.
When I make it back to the bathroom upstairs, I find Emily unmoved from the original position she was in when I left. She hasn't washed herself, she hasn't turned her body. She's like a statue.
"Em," I whisper, biting back even more tears.
When she still doesn't move, I strip off my clothing and step into the steamy confines of that stall. I reach for the soap and lather up my hands, and get little reaction from her when my fingers glide gently over her back. I know this body, and I know this woman. She's temporarily gone from me now, but she'll come back. I know she'll come back emotionally just like she physically has. I have to believe that.
I keep my fingers gentle on her bruised skin. I take inventory of the freckle on her shoulder and way her lower back gives way to the swell of her backside. I trace fingers over the back of her knees and down her calves. My fingers trace the top of her feet and her ankle bones. I encounter the slight stubble of her legs as my fingers make a return path up her body. When I'm standing again, I reach for her hips and turn her body to face me.
She keeps her eyes closed.
I pull the band from her ponytail and wash her hair first, with borrowed shampoo that still doesn't smell like her, but at least it's clean. Then I set to task on the wound on her arm, washing away the remainder of the blood.
I don't linger over her breasts, but kneel on the basin of the shower to wash her torso and legs.
It's when I'm there that my lips can't help themselves. I kiss the birthmark that looks like a bird that sits just below a stretch mark from Rory on her left hip. She touches my head then and it feels better than a million gestures of affection I've accumulated from her over the years. She touches my head and trails her hands down my cheek and to my neck, clasping onto the necklace.
I stay on my knees and struggle to unclasp the chain with slippery, soapy fingers. I'm finally successful and slip both her wedding and engagement ring off the chain. She holds out her left hand while I slip them on her finger. I stand abruptly and put the chain with the pendant around her neck, her birthday gift that I originally clasped on her neck so few nights ago.
She told me four days. She promised me she'd come back to me. She'd kept up her end of the bargain, but something's horribly wrong. I can see it in her eyes and her body language, and I can see it in the way her forehead doesn't relax the way I'm used to, and the way her lips can't quite curve into the natural smile I'm accustomed to.
Still, when that chain is around her neck, she pulls me towards her and hugs me. I'm reminded of the countless nights we healed each other with the touch of our skin pressed against each other. She's here. She just needs some healing.
She's here. She just needs some healing.
The problem is, I'm not quite sure where to start, because I don't know the details.
"What happened?" I whisper in her ear through the shower spray.
"Not yet," she says, and her voice almost sounds like her. "It will play better at the hospital in a few hours if you don't know yet."
I could play an Oscar-winning performance at the hospital if it meant she'd tell me what had happened right now, but I recognize her words as a reprieve she needs, so I don't press. I clutch her to me and nod against her shoulder. "OK," I say.
She turns off the water. She lets me help dry her with fluffy towels. She lets me untangle her hair with a brush that isn't hers, and let's me help her into clothing that reminds me of our old life.
Our old life is only four days in our history, but it feels like a millennium.
It's Emily who takes my hand and leads me out of the bathroom and through the master bedroom and down the stairs. It's Emily who walks us past Rossi and Chris and to the den. And it's Emily who guides us into the position that we once shared in Rossi's den the past Wednesday, her body next to Rory's and mine next to Leon's and our arms touching each other over our children.
Five o'clock comes and Rory's fussing starts up. I watch as Emily shifts our baby onto her side and lifts her shirt. I watch Rory latch on, like the past several days have just been some time warp that isn't real. I watch our little girl suck and drink for a few seconds before realizing that the past four days have happened. She releases Emily's nipple with a pop.
"Mama," she says in sleepy wonder. And then she's latched on again and drinking with gusto that soon gives way to utter relaxation.
Leon shifts in his sleep and opens his eyes. "Mama!" he exclaims happily. "Did you find Nana?"
I watch the lie wash over Emily's face. This is safer for our son. Telling anyone who asked that we were all together for the past few days isn't too terrible. Expecting a nine-year -old to carry the burden that his mother, who wasn't with us but was supposed to be, found his grandmother but we had to pretend she didn't, was too much to ask for.
"No," Emily says. She strokes his hair. "I love you and I tried, but no. Hotch is still looking. Everyone is looking, and we won't stop until we find her, but I needed to come home."
It's in that lie that Emily finally breaks. The entire foundation of our lives together have been built on truth, even when that truth was difficult. I know what Emily's doing and why she's doing it, and I know that in about forty-five minutes it won't matter: Hotch will call and say my mom has been found.
But it's the lie she tells to Leon and the shattering of the foundation of truth that we've built ourselves upon that finally cracks Emily's shell. Rory drinks from her breast and Leon sighs with his head against the pillow and his hand against Emily's cheek, "It's okay, Mama. You tried. We'll find her."
And Emily finally cries. The tears fall and she reaches her hand towards me and touches my cheek. "We will. We'll be okay."
The problem is, her false confession seems to speak of deeper, hidden things that she's unwilling to tell me. And her "We'll be okay," is more of a question than a statement.