Season Seven
Désolé, if someone is prayin' then I might break out
Désolé, even if I scream I can't scream that loud
(Damien Rice)
7.01
She's exhausted, physically and emotionally. It's not until she's saying goodbye to Declan that she begins to let herself feel it all.
Even then, the full weight only comes down on her as she's standing in Hotch's bedroom, staring at a closet full of her things.
He's been waiting for her, while she's been trying to let go. Of him, of Jack, of her friends, everything. This whole life she had.
Seeing his expectations is her breaking point. Months of restlessness hit her in a tidal wave, and she grabs onto him like an anchor as she surrenders to sleep.
7.02
She has no problem slipping back into her role in the field. It's her role as Emily that doesn't seem to come naturally anymore. She spent months stripping that part of her away, and now it's her own skin, but it's been grafted back on and hasn't quite taken.
Still, she fights to normalize her relationships with the team and with Jack. And maybe that's why it's so pronounced, the way she's unsettled with him. Officially, she's staying at the Ambassador's residence but she sleeps beside him every night, most and least herself at once.
He feels her slipping away.
7.03
She knows what if feels like to have her life erased. On paper, she's alive, but she feels like nothing's familiar. Not because her friends have been replaced, but because they look at her like she has.
What Dolan's wife says about his bolt-hole, though - that's what hits her hardest. Because the same is true for her. She's always had an exit strategy, and Doyle's death hasn't changed that.
She doesn't think she can breathe without an escape hatch, and she realizes so long as she does, she can't have a life with Jack and Hotch.
It's not fair.
7.04
She'd slept beside him following her return, but never with him. She'd only touched him to grip him in the dark, fingers bunched in his shirt, and he'd known.
She tells him they can't go back. He'd fight her if it weren't so evident from the bruises of her hold, from how she shakes sometimes as he strokes her hair.
By the time they head to Boise, the only remnants of her in his apartment are memories. For Jack, at least, she leaves something tangible, a blanket of hers he'd requisitioned in her absence.
Their future is Doyle's final casualty.
7.05
She doesn't know where she gets off giving Rossi advice on first loves and second chances. She has a two-decade string of bad boyfriends behind her, a pseudo-engagement to an international terrorist who tried to kill her, and a secret relationship with her boss that ended in a literal identity crisis.
She thought she loved a couple of the bad boyfriends, she did love the terrorist, and she's still head-over-heels for her boss.
The real kicker is that he brought her back from the dead and still loved her, and she couldn't take what he offered.
She's just that broken.
7.06
"It was too hard after he died," Rossi says, gazing at the small grave beside Carolyn's. "We didn't know what to say, so we just…stopped talking."
She stands beside him. "But you kept loving each other."
"Something you know a little about, huh?"
Her mouth drops open. "I - "
"Shut up and listen to me for a second, kiddo. I've got more regrets than books I've sold and no kids to learn from my mistakes. So you're going to be the beneficiary of my wisdom." He turns to her, gripping her arms. "Don't you ever give up on love."
7.07
They're grounded until morning in Kansas. He knocks, knowing she's still awake, and she lets him in without a word.
"Thought you might want company."
He's the only one she's ever told. She's not afraid of storms, per se, but they make her edgy. She and Sergio are kindred spirits in that regard.
"Storm knocked out the cable."
"Blackjack?"
They've never once acknowledged that long-ago hand, and she's suddenly compelled to push. "You're twelve in the hole plus interest."
His voice is low, almost wary. "I think I owe you a hell of a lot more than twelve dollars, Emily."
7.08
"You put streaks in your hair because it's a constant reminder of how much you two looked alike."
She'd been dying it constantly since the moment she was extricated. It made sense - a safety precaution, something to distinguish her from Lauren. In Paris, she'd let it fade, a last vestige of Emily.
She'd dyed it back the moment she got the call.
It took her ages to figure it out, and that's a testament to how much this has screwed her up, because it's Psych 101.
She just wants them to look at her the way they used to.
7.09
"You okay?" She's squirming in the passenger's seat, trying not to scratch, and it reminds him so much of Jack that it's hard not to laugh.
"I'm not the one who needs an oatmeal bath."
"Hotch." She shoots him a look, and the emotion in her eyes is as raw as her skin.
Because she knows it got to him. His childhood had been a specter in the barracks, a permeating reminder of hospital corners and rack checks and rationed affection.
In his life, he'd never anticipated letting anyone in as far as he has her.
Nevermind letting her go.
7.10
She finds him before he finds her, because it's a race to concede.
She tells him he should go biking, because he deserves to be happy, and stares at her mug the whole time so she doesn't have to see him looking like he's been punched.
She makes sure Dave knows where she stands, even feeds him a few lines.
It's not just that she wants to see him happy. It's that she doesn't know how to close out that chapter of her life while the door's still open.
She throws the match, because she's going to lose either way.
7.11
Caleb reminds Hotch how completely destructive love can be. With Caleb, there was something broken from the start - that much is clear - but Hotch can't help considering how much his unrequited love for his best friend played a role in his actions.
Haley made him promise to teach Jack how to love. She didn't mean he should let Jack watch it tear him to pieces.
He catches Emily's eye, watches her grin at Reid's surprise, sees the way it lights her up. He still loves her.
He promises himself, for Jack, that he won't let it destroy him.
7.12
"Do you think of me as a victim?"
"I think of you as Emily Prentiss."
"Hotch - "
"It doesn't mean you haven't been victimized. It means it's not what I think about when I look at you." He wants to touch her. "Do you think of me as one?
"No."
He almost reaches for her this time, catching himself. "You know, it doesn't have to be me, but you should tell someone."
She doesn't answer. She can't. Because she's just not strong enough to open herself up like that and keep the pieces of her heart from spilling out.
7.13
"I have a crazy idea."
"Let me guess…you want us to go undercover as showgirls."
"I want Reid to go undercover as Reid."
"The bureau approved the buy-in?" She laughs a little. "I knew you could negotiate, but that's…"
He smirks. "Dave."
"Dave."
"As for negotiating…" He raises an eyebrow.
"That's not fair."
"It's not my fault Rossi can't say 'no' to you."
It's his fault she can't say no to him, though. She's pretty sure she'd give him anything he asked for, short of herself.
Because she's still broken, and she won't give herself back to him in pieces.
7.14
He keeps reminding himself that when everything with Emily had started, he'd still been a little bit in love with Haley. He'd been clinging to it out of fear, and Emily had given him the strength to let go.
He knows he's not going to have many chances, and he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life clinging to a sliver of hope. He wants to keep his promise to Haley.
He's nervous when he asks Beth to dinner, but there's no guilt. He's taking control, showing Jack how to live and to love.
Denial's a stealthy beast.
7.15
He shows up at her place with Jack and Chinese, and she almost laughs because of course he'd know she'd be battling to make dinner one-handed and needing a Jack-sized hug.
Jack falls asleep against her in the middle of Shrek, wrapped in her good arm. She catches Hotch's eye. They both see it - how easy it would be to fall back into this.
"You should get him home," she tells him quietly.
It takes everything he has not to kiss her goodbye.
She cries herself to sleep that night, and it has nothing to do with getting shot.
7.16
It's only her need to distance herself that keeps her from hitting "Uncle Derek" when he tells Jack they have to leave the girls alone because they're tired from their "special mission to rescue the tequila worm."
And yeah, her head's killing her and she kind of wants to shoot the sun for being bright, but that's not what's exhausting.
What's exhausting is convincing herself that she's glad Hotch is moving on. That seeing Jack's eyes light up at Beth's praise doesn't make her feel like her heart's been ripped out.
And she succeeds, because she's that good at pretending.
7.17
He watches her as the others trickle out, and he knows she's waiting for something. That's the extent to which he has her memorized, that the way she sits at her desk tells him everything that profiling never will.
Garcia shuffles in ten minutes later, tears trickling down her face, and he puts it together. It's Emily, not Morgan, who's there, waiting, because Emily's reflexively maternal in a way none of them, not even JJ, can approximate.
He hates himself a little, because she should be someone's mother, and he didn't give that to her when he had the chance.
7.18
"Emily."
It startles her, because he rarely uses her first name when they're on the job. Since that's all they are anymore, it's been awhile.
"You did an excellent job today. We wouldn't have saved that boy without the information you got from Allen's daughter."
"I just did my job. You should be talking to Morgan."
"I already did. Stop selling yourself short. Getting her to remember required enormous trust, and you built that in a very short time."
"I - "
"I'm ordering you to accept the praise, Prentiss."
She does, but it doesn't feel like it used to.
7.19
She sees the despair in his eyes as they gather outside the house, tying up loose ends. The slight limp as he climbs into SUV. The tension radiating from him as they fly home.
He blames himself. She knows him.
Knows how to comfort him. Knows that while nothing will immediately disabuse him of the notion he's somehow at fault, there's things she can say to help him get there. Knows how much to push and when to hold him.
She knows what she felt for him hasn't gone away.
She doesn't know how to stop herself from loving him.
7.20
"Prentiss, can I see you for a minute?"
Loaded question if she ever heard one. "Sure."
Behind his office door, he's tentative. "I just wanted to check in. I thought…I don't know if the case brought anything up."
"Oh." She honestly hadn't considered the parallels. She's too good at compartmentalizing.
"If you wanted to talk about it…it doesn't have to be me, but if you'd like to…my door's open."
"Thank you. I'll think about it. Honestly." She turns to go.
"Emily." He reaches out without thinking, hand bypassing her arm, cupping her jaw. "It'll always be open. No matter what."
7.21
"Emily likes getting letters."
Hotch glances to the door, where Rossi's staring at him, eyebrows raised. "What?"
"Just thought it might be something you'd want to know."
"Dave - "
"I'm just passing along a piece of information, Aaron. What you do with it is none of my business."
Like Rossi's ever considered anything not his business.
He's not sure why Dave's changed his tune after pushing him with Beth, but at the back of his mind he knows Rossi's a master profiler.
To him, the way Hotch still looks at Emily is a neon sign, burning bright with desire.
7.22
Before Doyle, she was like them. She thought profiling was who she was, like Rossi. She couldn't imagine doing anything else, like Reid. She was willing to face the unthinkable because it was worth it, like Morgan.
Like all of them, some of the cases became a part of her. Not just the personal ones, like Matthew and John, or the ones that left physical scars, like Cyrus, but Carrie, whose courage floored her, and Roy Woodridge, a soldier at war with his mind.
Now they all just haunt her, like ghosts.
She's terrified it's because she's one of them.
7.23
There's a moment before the blast hits her when she starts to smile, because it's such an absurd way to die after the year she's had.
She comes to a minute later with a mouthful of debris, and that's what she gets for laughing in the face of death, she thinks. She coughs and spits slivers of concrete until she's lightheaded, her ears ringing harshly, and for the first time in months, she knows she's alive.
She feels like she's been trapped in a sea of grey, between dead and living, for so long.
Maybe she's finally been jarred loose.
7.24
In the end, she doesn't overthink it.
The job is incredible, and so is the city, and she needs to put distance between them for both their sakes. She'll never be able to reclaim herself when she thinks of herself as his, and he'll never have the normalcy he and Jack deserve so long as she's within reach.
"You'll always have a place with us," he tells her, and she knows he's not just talking about the team.
"Thank you," she murmurs, and kisses his cheek, and it's the same as seventeen years ago, the first time she said goodbye.