Chapter 15

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.
But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
- Maya Angelou

July 10, 2014

Emily moved nervously in the swivel chair, tapping her gun lightly against the folder. What did she know? Until a few hours ago, she'd thought her mother a bitter woman who was part of her past, who she needed to talk about and then let go; now she knew that her mother's bitterness had spiraled into insanity, and that was a potentially dangerous beast to deal with. Elizabeth Prentiss thought she was coming to Jacob's house to see evidence of Emily's humiliation played out over surveillance recordings and would instead find Emily herself. She needed to figure out how to use that to her advantage.

Her mind randomly flashed to that memory of Derek reading To Kill a Mockingbird. An important truth came to her: Jack Finch bought Jem and Scout the guns and instructed them on the mechanical basics. Atticus gave them the morals they needed to use their weapons wisely. Emily knew she wanted to be completely free of this mess tonight, not with the tools given to her, but on her own terms. As she hear the distant sound of a car door closing in the driveway, plan came to her.

Inside the hidden room, the team had been watching Emily fidget nervously, swiveling around in the chair and taking her face from their view as she angled away from them.

"Are we really just going to stay in here and watch this go down?" asked JJ.

"We are, unless we feel Prentiss is in danger." said Hotch.

"If Emily snaps, we might lose her again," said Garcia.

Derek shook his head. "Emily's got this."

They watched Elizabeth's car pull into the driveway on the surveillance screen. They saw Emily visibly calm herself on the computer monitor. She sat up straight, adjusted herself slightly in the chair, then swiveled back towards their view to glance at the corner of the room near the desk.

Emily distantly heard her mother's eager steps on the front porch and knew she only had seconds. She looked straight at the camera. "Stay where you are no matter what," she hissed firmly to the lens. "Trust me." Then she turned to face the stairway as her mother's footsteps started to descend. Elizabeth's face was full of anticipation when she stepped onto the basement floor, but she came to an abrupt halt when she saw Emily sitting there. Her expressions flashed from shock to fury to animosity. She addressed her daughter in a detached voice. "I knew Jacob might tell you eventually. It doesn't matter; I'll easily destroy you both."

"Why, Mother? Why have a child if your only goal in life is to ruin her?"

"You always were such a difficult daughter, Emily."

"That's not an answer."

Elizabeth coldly regarded Emily. "We could have been a team, but you rejected me when you were a very small child. I tried to teach you the way to power, and you wanted to smell the roses. You never cared about the important things in life. You still don't."

"I see," Emily said calmly.

"Jacob was obsessed with you from the beginning. Just look at this room! If you love someone that much, you are weak and you can be easily manipulated. So when I needed someone to do my dirty work, I found him. I knew he would comply because I was connected to you. You're both simpletons, clouded by emotions and feelings."

"Seven years of obsession with my personal life - You were very committed. Did you like the pictures, Mother?" Emily asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. "They are what I'd expect of you. You were hopeless at being proper and your goals were always so insignificant. I never expected you to degrade yourself that wholly, but I can't say it surprised me."

Emily bristled for a moment at her words, but quickly controlled her emotions. "Being happy is not insignificant."

"Happiness is trite. It's a foolish child's goal. I raised you to rise to the top and you chose to settle at the bottom as a whore for some man."

Emily cheeks flushed with anger. She breathed heavily. Her hands dropped to her sides as she and her mother stared at one another for several seconds. Finally, Emily stood, folder in one hand, gun in the other. Elizabeth's resolve faltered slightly when she saw the gun, but she stood her ground. Emily walked towards her mother and spoke, "Do you know what Jacob gave me tonight?" Emily turned to the computer desk, set her gun on the edge and opened the folder, laying out several pictures of Elizabeth Prentiss paddling and abusing a young Emily.

Elizabeth's face paled at the sight of the pictures.

"He thought I might tell you that if you shared my pictures, I'd share yours, but I'm not going to do that." Emily gathered the pictures together again, walked around the opposite side of the desk to the shredder in the corner, placed the photos in the feed and flipped the switch.

When the pictures were destroyed, she returned to the desk to face her mother. "The flaw in your plan is that you thought I'd be humiliated enough to allow you to manipulate me."

Emily let her words sink in, and then raised her voice slightly. "I don't care. Make a million copies and paste them all over Washington. Give it your best shot. You can't control me and you can't ruin me. If all you can see in those pictures is a degraded whore, then I pity you. I did rise to the top, Mother. I rose above you as a human being despite all of that," Emily said, gesturing to the shredder.

Emily recognized the look on her mother's face well. Thin lips, narrow eyes, cheeks flushed. Her mother's anger was about to explode. For the first time in her life, she stared her down, not backing away from the impending rage.

Emily raised her voice to a full-blown shout. "The hardest thing for me today was realizing I let you get like this by lying for you all these years. I kept up the facade growing up so that the outside world thought you were a perfect mother. Nothing you do can destroy me, Mother. Love doesn't make you weak; it's hate that can blind you. Love makes you strong and honest. Those pictures are my truth. I win."

Elizabeth Prentiss snapped. She lunged forward and in a flash, grabbed Emily's gun from the desk, pointed it at her daughter and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. She fired again and nothing happened.

Emily calmly reached into her pocket and pulled out the clip. "It doesn't work without this," Emily said, the hint of a satisfied smile on her face. "I didn't want to threaten you with pictures from my childhood because I don't want what you did to be any part of my life now. However," Emily paused to point to the camera in the corner, "I believe the seven people who witnessed this will do nicely to end your insane obsession. For me and for Jacob."

Elizabeth's nostrils flared as she recognized her defeat. She stared at Emily for a full minute, working through her options and finding none. She slammed the gun on the desk and stalked to the stairs. "Goodbye, Emily. Watch your step."

Emily listened to her mother's retreating footsteps up and out of the house. She heard the door behind her open and felt Derek's strong arms surrounding her a second later. "Amazing, Em." he whispered in her ear. Her family came one by one and embraced her. "Nice work, kiddo," said Rossi.

Hotch stepped forward, non-demonstrative Hotch, and placed his hands on either side of her face. "That was brilliant, Emily."

Emily nodded and turned to look in the hidden room where Jacob was sitting at his computers. He swiveled the chair to face her. "That was not the way I thought that would go, but it is your journey. The question is, do you feel free?" asked Jacob.

Emily nodded. "I do, Jem."

Jacob smiled at Emily and turned back to his computers. "There," he said, "it's done. My files of you on my computers are all erased, the surveillance in your homes is useless." He ejected a DVD, put it in a case and stood to hand it to Emily. "Tonight's encounter, should you ever need it."

Emily gently pushed back on Jacob's hand and the DVD. "Thank you, but I don't want it. This was never my game and I won't play it. Use it if you need to, but I don't want to be part of this."

Jacob nodded sadly. "I thought you might say that. I'd hoped when things got to this point you and I would be linked again, but I understand the error in my ways. Your mother wanted to manipulate you and I see now I was doing the same thing. I'm sorry, Scout."

"You knew I couldn't kill her, right?"

"Yes, but I wished on some level that you would, because I wanted to be done with her. I should have realized you'd take a better path than the options I presented you with. Your stunt with the gun nearly gave poor Penelope a heart attack, though. She was just about to open the door when Dr. Reid told her not to, that you wouldn't have left your gun on the desk if you didn't want your mother to grab it."

Emily stepped forward, tears in her eyes, and squeezed Jacob's hand. "It's never to late to choose to be a mockingbird, Jacob."

"My sweet Emily, I fear it is too late for me," he said and squeezed her hand back. "Here, I have a gift for you." Jacob reached over to his desk and handed her a thick photo album. "It's your life," he said, gesturing to the basement walls outside the hidden room. "It took you longer than I thought, but you are here and you are spectacular."

Jacob placed the album in her arms and reached to cup her cheek gently. "I was never destined to be the mockingbird in this story, Emily. Now, you go on and sing your pretty music for the world to hear."

"Thank you for my childhood, Jem," Emily said softly. She couldn't quite bring herself to thank him for anything else. This circus of a day had been his doing as much as her mothers. "You're welcome, Scout. I'll keep an eye on your mother and make sure she's behaving herself."

She turned to her friends, her family, Derek. She linked her fingers with his and addressed the group, "Let's go."

They all walked quietly together, up the stairs, through the house and to the car. Hotch took the front seat so Emily could slide in next to Derek in the middle row. She pressed her body into Derek's side and he wrapped his arm around her. Rossi started the car and pulled away.

"There's something I don't understand here," said Garcia. "He was willing to let you kill your mother, Emily, and clean up the mess. Why didn't he just kill Elizabeth himself a long time ago?"

Reid spoke up, "I don't think Jacob is a killer. His criminal activity was surveillance, secrets and blackmail, not murder. I think the first murder he ever committed was this morning when he killed the other spy, and he did it because the end game had been reached and he needed to clean house. He wouldn't kill Elizabeth, though. I really do think he meant what he said, that that encounter was entirely Emily's journey. He wouldn't take that power away from her."

"That doesn't mean he's entirely stable," JJ interjected. "He certainly got caught up in a complicated and twisted storyline in his head. But I do think he'll leave Emily alone now."

"He will, and he won't kill my mother, either." Emily said quietly. "Now that I'm free of her, I think he will take great pleasure in making sure my mother stays completely insignificant for the rest of her life."

"Are you sure that batshit crazy lady won't come after you, Emily?" asked Garcia.

Emily huffed out a laugh. Batshit crazy, indeed. "No. I gave her the gun and baited her to use it. In that moment she believed she could kill me and get away with it. I'm sure she's already figured out that Jacob will now be watching her, and she won't be able to touch him. He stayed present to protect me, but he's free to disappear now. She is probably doing her own clean up job, deleting anything connected with Jacob and me. She also knows that all of you know the truth about her and if that story comes out, she would be the humiliated one. She won't risk it."

"So we do nothing about Jacob?" asked Rossi.

Hotch turned in his seat to look at Prentiss and she stared back at him. He sighed and turned back towards the front of the vehicle. "We do nothing. Jacob has covered himself too well, and even if we could come up with a way to get a viable arrest warrant, he'd be long gone by then. Besides, him being out there keeping an eye on Elizabeth is the best way to keep Emily safe."

Emily let out a breath she'd been holding. It wasn't an honest end, but it was the best one, for her and the team. She didn't feel badly about it. They were a family; they were honorable and highly functional as a group, and sometimes you had to bend your morals for the greater good. Derek gave her shoulder a squeeze and bent to her ear to whisper, "I didn't think it was possible to love you more than I already did." Emily placed a loving hand on his chest, content to feel the cadence of his familiar heartbeat. The car became quiet, each person lost in their own thoughts.

Her eyes wandered to the clock on the dashboard. 9:30pm. Was it even possible that just twelve hours ago her and Derek were at the cabin? She felt like she'd lived a lifetime since then. She'd been stripped down to the bare bones in terms of her humility and secrets and waded through a tsunami of embarrassment, but she'd trusted this group of people to help her, and she felt good for having done so. Had this all occurred prior to last year, she might have run for the hills and never looked back. She checked herself now and realized she still had her footing; Her body was tired, but she felt strong.

She lifted her head away from Derek's chest. "Can we stop at a drive-thru or something? I don't know about you guys, but I'm fucking starving." Everyone laughed and agreed they could definitely go for some food, but they all felt apprehensive about her light-hearted humor, Derek most of all. They'd seen this side of Emily before; the side where she masked her emotions and overcompensated in order to avoid dealing with something traumatic. The last time that happened, she'd ended up in London.

When they got to Rossi's with their food, Emily walked straight to the kitchen, casually gathered the pictures in a pile, and placed them on the edge of the island upside down. She pulled out a stool next to the pile of pictures and started unloading her food bag. The team gathered in the kitchen quietly and Derek stood behind her, resting his hands gently on her shoulders. "Emily," he said in a quiet, worried tone. She felt all of their stares at that moment and looked at their faces, recognizing and comprehending the root of their concern.

"I'm all right, you guys. Really. With Doyle, I tried to fix my mess on my own and lost myself in the process. Today was different. This wasn't a mess I created, you all were with me, and I didn't lose anyone today who I hadn't already let go of. Everyone I love is right here with me in this kitchen, including myself. I'm might have difficult moments in the future when I think about today, but I'm not going to fall completely apart. What happened today was embarrassing and heartbreaking and frightening and empowering. Right now I'm hungry and I'm choosing to focus on the empowering feeling. I can work through the other feelings as they come." She turned in the stool and looked up at Derek and gently touched his cheek. "I really am ok. I love you and we're going to be just fine." Derek nodded and smiled at her, finally relaxing.

She turned back to her food and started unwrapping her burger. "Besides," Emily said, "Derek and I had been trying to come up with a way to tell you all about us while avoiding the third degree. Today was certainly one way to take care of that. I think it's safe to say that you all have no questions?"

Genuine laughter filled the kitchen then, and they all gathered around the island with their food.

"What about the pictures, Emily?" Garcia asked, gesturing to the pile. Emily reached her hand over and picked up the random picture that was on the top of the pile. She smiled faintly at the image and set it back down. "We need to get rid of them," Emily said. "I'd think of my mother every time I looked at them and that's just..."

"Totally ick," finished Garcia.

"Exactly."

"You have a shredder, Rossi?" asked Derek.

"In the den."

Derek took the pictures, dropped a kiss on Emily's head and said, "Consider it done, Princess." A moment later they could hear the faint sounds of the shredder from down the hall.

After that they kept the conversation light, talking mostly about Emily's new house. They avoided conversations about what she was going to do for work, not wanting to put either Emily or Hotch in an awkward position. Rossi invited Emily and Derek to stay the night. Though Emily was fairly sure that Jacob would not be spying on them again, the fact remained that there were cameras in Derek's house and neither had the energy to deal with them at the moment. The cabin was too far this late at night, and Emily's new house had no furniture yet, so they accepted Rossi's invitation.

They finished eating and people started trickling out to go home with warm hugs and pleasant goodbyes. Hotch was the last to leave. When he departed he said to Emily, "My office. 9:00am Tuesday morning." She gave him a brief, astonished look and nodded. "9:00 it is."

"Huh," said Derek after Rossi closed the front door, "I thought for sure that meeting was permanently canceled."

Rossi clapped Derek on the shoulder. "He's a stern man, but he's not an unreasonable one. He'll mull this over for a few days. I have no idea what he'll ultimately decide, though."

Emily shrugged. "We'll have to wait and see." She picked up Jacob's photo album where she'd set it by the front door. She was surprised when she opened the cover and the first picture was not of the smiling five year old holding a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit; that was the second picture. The first picture was of her and Derek on the dance floor. A sticky note was on the front of it:

"Scout,

I know by now you've decided to destroy the pictures I delivered, but I wanted you to reconsider keeping this one. In almost 40 years of taking your picture, this was the look I longed to capture on your face. Your journey in life will always go back to your past, or leap to worries about the future. Should you feel yourself losing your footing, look to the beginning of your start of something spectacular. Look at your face in this picture and hold on.

All my love,
Jem"