Prentiss
I sat in Venice, Italy; in the same spot I had months ago at my mother's funeral. I sat with my team, Rossi to my left, JJ to my right and the rest after JJ. Jack and Henry were sitting at the end with Garcia. My left hand was between Rossi's as he tried his best to comfort me. In 6 months, I would be due to give birth to my twins. My mother would never get to meet them or even know about them, my father the same and my boyfriend might not be home for their birth either. Hotch's mother was dead, his father went to jail for abusing him and killing his mother and died there. Our children wouldn't have grandparents.
After the funeral, the team walked with me back to the hotel that was close by. They were going to leave me to be by myself for a while, but then Reid expressed his concern about me being alone. Apparently he thought I might have done what my father had. I was grateful that they stayed with me; I didn't know what I would have done. Who knows? Maybe I would have done something stupid.
"Do you think that if I told him I was pregnant, he wouldn't have done it?" I asked quietly after silence had fallen over us.
Morgan sighed quietly and sat forwards, "Truth is Prentiss, no one knows. No one will know."
I nodded and looked at my hands on the table as I picked at my nails. JJ put her hand over mine to stop me and I smiled at her appreciatively. "Do you ever just feel like your whole life is falling apart?"
"What do you mean?" Reid asked.
I bit my lip, "Doyle came back from the dead, Doyle went back to the dead, Hotch and I have been on and off the whole time we've been together because we just have argument after argument, my mother died, I got pregnant, I found out it was twins, my father died." I listed the main things that I saw as my life falling apart.
They fell silent; no one knew what to say.
"What are you thinking?" Garcia asked for a while.
I took a breath and looked around at them, "Do you remember the day of my mother's funeral and my father told me to rethink my chosen occupation because it was so stressful?"
"…No…you can't leave." Garcia said.
I shook my head, "I haven't considered all my options yet, but I just want you all to be prepared if I choose to leave the bureau. You all know very well how much this job can destroy you."
"Only if you let it." Reid said sadly.
I shook my head, "It's just an option. I might stay, I might leave. I'm not planning on making a decision until after learning just how hard twins are and after talking to Hotch about it."
"We've been through a lot together. Some of us have had to leave and then come back and it was a long while before we were a family again." JJ said.
"If I decide to leave, I'll still be around. You'll see me a lot, just not quite as much as you do now." I understood what JJ was getting at. That if I left, it would impact the team negatively; they wouldn't feel like a family.
"But we like how things are now," Garcia said. She had tears in her eyes, "Seriously, it feels weird when we have time off and I don't see you in even a week, let alone only seeing you once a week to once every two weeks to once a month for the rest of my life."
"Don't worry about it yet."
She nodded and sat back. She, JJ and Morgan all exchanged worried glances. Reid was looking at the piece of paper in front of him that he had been writing something on and Rossi was tapping each of his fingers together silently, looking forwards.
"How much damage do you think a few drinks would do?" I said quietly, asking no one in particular.
"A lot; don't even think about it." JJ said.
I sighed and sat back, "Yeah." My phone rang and I looked at the caller ID. Hotch's number flashed but I really didn't feel like discussing it. I declined the call and put my phone back down. It rang again a second later and I groaned, "Go away." I said quietly. I hung up again and turned my phone off.
After a minute or two, Rossi's phone rang. He looked at me as he got it out of his pocket. "Don't." I said.
He ignored me and accepted the call, holding the phone to his ear, "Rossi."
"Yep." He said quietly before looking at his phone. He put it on speaker and I shook my head at him.
"Emily, you know that I'm not going to stop calling until you talk to me."
"It's like midnight there. When do you sleep?"
"I don't; I'm magic like that."
"Would you like to talk to Jack?"
"I would like to talk to you. Preferably not in front of the whole team but if that's how you want it."
"I'm really not in the mood."
"She's thinking of leaving the BAU." Garcia said quickly.
I stared at her and shook my head. I didn't even know what to say.
"…What?" Hotch asked.
I stood up and grabbed my coat as I opened the hotel door and walked out. I pulled it closed behind me and walked away from the room. I couldn't do it right now.
I got back to the hotel room late and I walked in quietly. The team was still here, Will and Henry included. I took my coat off and threw it to the couch beside the door. "Why are you still here? Where's Jack?"
"He's asleep." JJ smiled.
"Hotch told us to keep a close eye on you." Reid said.
"Of course he did," I mumbled to myself, "I'm going to bed. Leave or stay, I don't care." I walked through the room and towards the room where my things awaited me.
"Emily?" I heard Jack say quietly. I turned and saw him walk out of the room he was sleeping in. "Dave said that you talked to dad before."
"Only briefly."
"So he still doesn't know when he's coming back?"
I tilted my head slightly and smiled sadly as I shook my head, "He doesn't."
Tears filled his eyes and a few dripped to his cheeks. He ran to me, seeking comfort. I held him to me and kissed his hair. I let him cry for a while, he needed to get it out, and then I crouched down to a lower height and looked up to him. I wiped the tears from his cheeks.
"Jack, you father is doing great things over there. He's saving the good people and catching the bad ones over there just like he does in Virginia. He'll be back before you know it. If you go to sleep now, then the night will pass faster and you'll be one night closer to seeing him again, so come on, bed." I pushed him gently back towards his room and followed him in. He climbed back into the bed and I kissed his forehead, "You need to get some sleep, honey," I said quietly, "Good night."
I walked towards the door and went to exit before he spoke quietly. "Emily?"
I turned back, "Yeah?"
"I love you."
I smiled, "I love you too, Jack. Now go to sleep!" I turned the light out and walked out. I closed the door behind me and tears stung my eyes.
"…Em?" JJ asked.
I looked at her and smiled, "He's so sweet and innocent." I said before walking back to my room. I got changed slowly and after a few minutes, I walked back out to the main room, "Are you guys really going to stay here all night?"
"No, we're going to go back to our rooms in a minute, but Garcia is staying with you and Morgan's sleeping on the couch." JJ said.
"Ah…no, Morgan and Garcia are going to go to their own rooms." I looked between the two of them.
"Sorry pumpkin, bosses orders." Garcia smiled.
"And I'm crashing on the couch because Garcia wanted me to and Hotch said have as many of us around as possible."
I tilted my head and readjusted my stance to a more defensive, attitude-filled one, "What do you think I'm going to do if I'm alone?"
"We don't know; that's kind of the point." Will said.
"Okay…see, Jack is in the next room. If I wanted to do something stupid, don't you think I'd wait until he wasn't around? I don't exactly want to scar him for life."
"Better safe than sorry," JJ's eyebrows rose and she shrugged her shoulders, "I was going to stay too, but we think Henry's getting sick."
"Where is he?"
"Asleep on the couch." She pointed to the other side of the room.
I nodded, "Okay, goodnight." I walked back into the room and I threw the door closed lightly behind me. I turned when I never heard it click shut and saw Garcia walking in. She smiled at me as she walked past and she jumped onto the bed.
"Which side do you want?"
I woke up in the early morning. Light shone through the small gap in the curtains over the window and lit the end of the bed in a line of sunlight. I looked at Garcia beside me. She was asleep, smiling slightly. She saw nothing but good in anything and everything; that was why she was always able to sleep soundly. I stared at the roof for a while, and hour or two maybe, before I got too restless.
I got up quietly and tried not to disturb Garcia. I walked to the small connected bathroom and had a long shower. I eventually got out and got changed into a casual outfit. I walked back through the bedroom where Garcia still lay asleep. I opened the door as quietly as I could and closed it behind me.
"Morning."
"Oh my god!" I exclaimed quietly, jumping and then placing my hand over my fast beating heart, "Jesus Christ Morgan, you're going to kill me." I shook my head and walked towards the kitchen. I put water on to boil and offered him a coffee. He accepted and I stood at the counter, tapping my fingers quietly and looking around. He stood up from the couch and walked over to the kitchen, leaning on the counter directly across from me.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm—"
"Don't say fine." He cut me off.
I sighed, "I've been better, but I will be fine."
"Please tell me that you'll take more than two months off this time?"
"I'm not taking any time off, Morgan. I'm okay. Besides, I've got one preteen kid and I have two babies on the way; I need all the money I can get right now so that I don't struggle in the future when I physically can't work."
"Ah, but you have Hotch." He pointed out.
"I'm not the "rely on someone else" type."
"Okay…but even what you save now, having and raising twins is estimated to be more than fifteen thousand."
I smirked, "Okay, thanks Reid."
He closed his eyes and nodded as I laughed at him, "Yeah, okay, so I did a little research."
"Aw, you did?" I smiled.
He rolled his eyes, "I like to know what my team is going through and what they will be going through. Plus, I thought it'd be better to know if I ever were needed to help out with something."
I smiled wider as I turned around and made the coffees with the boiled water. "That's sweet."
"So if you or Hotch ever need anything, a night off from Jack while you're pregnant, I night off from all three kids after you give birth, a hand with something, anything, I'm always available. Someone to talk to about something that might be affecting you negatively…" The way he said it, you knew he was just waiting for me to give in and talk to him about my feelings on the reason we were even in Italy right now.
"…You're offering to take care of my children for a night?" I decided to focus on that and not his last offer.
"Well, I mean, I'd probably call Garcia to help me out, but yeah," He laughed when I did, "So what happened last night when you were in Jack's room?"
I looked down with a smile, "He told me that he loved me," I looked up and Morgan, "And when you try your hardest to make a kid like you and enjoy your presence even after everything he went through with his mother and the women Hotch dated that he didn't like, it's all you ever really want to hear."
He nodded, "He knows that you're different than the other temporary women Hotch dated. He gave you a chance to prove yourself because he knew you'd be sticking around, and I guess you proved yourself worthy of Hotch."
I took a deep breath as I nodded.
"And why didn't you want to talk to Hotch yesterday?"
I closed my eyes and bit my lip. I didn't really want to reveal anything to him, but he was trying to be as supportive as he could. "It's really hard. I didn't want him to ask how I was feeling or how I was doing because I would have just broke into tears and you all really didn't need to see that. I miss him so much that every time we talk, I cry. But I think the main reason that I didn't want to talk to him was because I knew that he'd feel guilty about not being able to help me because he's so far away. I didn't want him to worry."
"Well he's worrying more now than he would have if you talked to him."
I looked at my watch briefly. It was about two pm over in Iraq.
Morgan smiled and took the coffee that he hadn't touched yet, "Text him and see if he's free to talk." He stood up and walked towards the room where Garcia lay.
I bit my lip and picked my phone up from the counter beside me. I unlocked it and went into the text messages. The last one I sent was to Reid, but the second one was the number that didn't have a name to it, but I still knew it was Hotch. I had memorised that number.
"Call me whenever you can? I'm sorry about last night; I just didn't want to cry again. I love you xx"
I sent the text to Hotch and put my phone back down. I sipped my coffee and moved over to the couch that Morgan hadn't slept on. I sat down and pulled my legs up. I sit there for a while in silence, drinking the coffee and occasionally checking my phone. I could hear the quiet talking and laughing between Morgan and Garcia in the next room. It was comforting to know that even when you struggle in silence with something like I was right now, others were still able to smile and laugh. My laughs and smiles over the last few days all had that fakeness in them that was hard to achieve, but was generally believable.
