PRESENT DAY:

Prentiss

I stood outside the Quantico precinct with Sarah on my right side and Ainsley on my left, holding my hand. We had been standing here for only a short while but it would still look unusual to anyone that was seeing us. I was standing motionless, staring through the doors. Anxiety and fear were the only things I was feeling right now. It was cool out today so my layers didn't look too out of the ordinary. I would, however, be wearing less if my baby bump hadn't developed earlier than it had with my first child.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sarah asked quietly.

"I have to. It's not fair on him to have two children and not know about either. I should at least give him the option to meet Ainsley and know this one when it's born."

"What does Mark think?"

I shook my head, "He's furious. I would be too if the situation were reversed. If he cheated on me and got a girl pregnant, I would have broken up with him. This is even worse because I'm the pregnant one."

She shook her head, "What are the chances of sleeping with one man twice in your whole life and falling pregnant both times? Did you use protection?"

"Not the first time, but I triple checked three months ago."

"That sucks," She said, "Did you tell Mark about your resignation? Or that you were thinking of moving here?"

"No," I shook my head, "Apparently I've become quite the coward."

"Mummy, I'm bored. Can we go in?" Ainsley asked from my side.

"Two more minutes." I said to her.

"Are you scared?" Sarah asked, "Or just nervous?"

"I'm scared and nervous. I need to calm myself down before we go in so I don't have a panic attack."

"You'll do great, okay? He'll want to meet her and if he is half the guy you claim, he'll understand."

"I'm not so sure…" I said quietly. I sighed, "Okay, let's go." We walked inside and I got the visitor badges that we needed. I was greeted again, like I was four years ago, by the guards that still recognised me. Some even remembered my name. We went to the elevators and I hesitated before pressing the button. I waited impatiently, clicking my fingers to satisfy the need to fidget. The elevator doors opened and I panicked. Sarah gave me a light push and I walked in with Ainsley still holding my hand. I was excited to see my old team; I wasn't excited to tell Morgan what I needed to and I wasn't excited to see my replacement. No matter how many times I had told them all that they'd find a great agent, I didn't want them to. I didn't want them to forget about me. They probably had already; I hadn't contacted any one of them in months, even after I told Morgan that I would.

The doors opened on the sixth floor and we stepped out. We walked towards the glass doors and I hesitated.

"Do you want me to keep Ainsley around here until you call us?" Sarah asked.

"Uh…" I thought about it, "Could you sit over there with her and then I'll come get you when it's safe?"

"Safe?" She smiled.

I laughed at myself, "My palms are sweating. Sorry, when he's ready."

She nodded, "Sure." She lifted Ainsley up and walked through the glass doors, walking over to where I had pointed on the other side of the bullpen. From here, I could see them in the round table room. I took a deep breath and walked through the doors. I walked towards were my old desk was and it was empty again apart from the pencil holder that I had left with Garcia. It was back where it used to be. What happened to Deanna Ferelli, my replacement? Did she have her own office? Did someone from the team leave? No, they couldn't have. I could see the two unmistakable blondes from here. I could see Reid's face, Morgan's back to me. I couldn't see Hotch or Rossi but their names were still on their office doors. I walked up the steps by Hotch's office and heard an excited scream. I looked over and JJ appeared out the door of the conference room quickly.

"Emily!"

"JJ!" I replied with more excitement. I ran to her and she met me half way. We collided and fell to the ground in each other's arms at the corner from where it met outside of Rossi's office to the walkway to the room. We were in laughter and tears and we didn't move from each other on the ground. Four years. It had been four years since I had seen my best friend in person. Social media and online games and just a few web calls were never enough.

After about 5 minutes, we finally decided to part. We were still laughing and crying, though.

"Ow…I forgot that I'm not 25 anymore." JJ said.

I laughed, "I want to hug everyone else but I just hurt my back." She laughed too and we both sat up. She stood and pulled me up. I ran my hand through my hair to push it back and smiled wide at Garcia before running into the room and hugging her tightly.

"I missed you so much, my little cherub!" She said with tears streaming down her face. "Four years!"

"I know." I nodded as we parted. I wiped my cheeks and eyes before turning and crashing into Reid. He had a tear or two on his cheeks too and he returned my hug tighter than I had started with. I hugged Morgan for less time than the other three, considering I had seen him only three months ago. I hugged Rossi next and I didn't want to let go. Four years without seeing him was too long. Who knew you could get so attached to people whom were one of the least you expected to miss so much. Sure, I assumed I'd miss him, but not as much as I really did. I felt the same about Hotch and hugged him for longer than I ever had before.

I ended with hugging JJ again and crying again but I calmed myself down and we sat down. "Sorry for interrupting." I said once we were all seated.

"You didn't interrupt anything; we just finished debriefing." JJ said.

"Where's my replacement?" I asked curiously.

"I've told you, we could never replace you." Garcia said, "But I assume you're talking about Ferelli?"

"I am." I nodded.

"How'd you know about her?" Reid asked.

"Morgan." I motioned to him.

JJ raised her eyebrows, "So you've talked to him in the last three or four months and not me? No phone call, no text…"

"You can dial a number," I smirked, "No, I'm sorry. Life is actually really shit, I've come to realise. Well, not completely…but almost everything in my life has gone to shit so I've had so much to do and I could never find the time that suited both one of you and me at the same time and I'm already exhausted and getting next to no sleep." I shook my head.

"Yeah, you look exhausted." Rossi nodded. "Dangerously exhausted, actually…"

"I'm fine." I brushed him off.

"What in your life is so shit?" Garcia asked, "I thought London was what you wanted."

"It was…for a few months…" I thought about how to word this without giving anything away, "But then something….happened and it threw me off completely and then Interpol was crazy and apparently I'm not so good at my job anymore because I just couldn't do it. My team wasn't any help, they were different and they didn't use the word 'unsub' and we didn't have a literal genius to tell us anything off the top of his head and no matter how long I was there, the accents. I never got used to them and they got irritating because they pronounced things different and I kind of just wanted to do really shit so they'd send me back here."

"Oh look, a vacant desk…" Garcia smirked.

I smiled and shook my head, "I can't."

"Why not?"

"…I'm not up to that. Then, after I was about done, something else came up a few months ago and my boyfriend dumped me, my job is no longer existent and I left. I left London, I have no job, no boyfriend, my—" I stopped before saying "my daughter is confused", "And everything is just…urgh!"

"You know you have an accent, right?" Hotch asked me.

"What? I do? Ah shit. And I had next to no friends in London because every time I met someone, all I could think was that they weren't you guys and they couldn't compare to you guys so I just completely cut myself off from the world other than my job and Mark and my—one or two other people and then I developed some depressive disorder…I don't know, it's gone now. Basically, two months ago marked the time that I gave up on London."

"Are you moving back here?" JJ asked hopefully.

"Maybe." I said, "I don't know yet. I have to take…something into consideration before I make any life changing decisions."

"Why'd your boyfriend break up with you?" Morgan asked curiously. There was suspicion in his voice, too.

I laughed to myself with no humour, "Oh, you'll know soon." My phone rang and I looked at the caller ID, "Speak of the devil…" I accepted the call and held my phone to my ear, "Hey."

"Em, where are you? Are Sarah and Ainsley with you?"

"Virginia. Yes, they're with me. When are they not?"

"Well where's Michelle? She was supposed to be here a half hour ago."

"I gave Michelle a paid week off because I'm not at my house. Why are you at my house?"

"I came to pick up some stuff."

"Don't you dare take me CD's."

"Which ones?"

"Any of them. I don't care how invaluable they are or how little I listen to them, I know my CD's and if any of them are gone, I'll report you for theft."

"That's so immature."

"Well you've got to do what you've got to do to stay in the game."

"Whatever. I've got to go and look through the basement for whatever's mine. Bye."

"Have a nice life." I hung up and put my phone down, "Arsehole."

"Who's Michelle?" Garcia asked.

"My housekeeper." I answered easily.

"And what is it you keep going to mention before swiftly changing your sentence to avoid the topic?" Rossi asked.

"What?" I acted oblivious.

"You've done it a lot. "Something…hesitation…happened", "something else came up a few months ago", that's not quite the same but it still showed that you were avoiding saying it, "my..." change of sentence, "my…" change of sentence, "I have to take…hesitation…something into consideration". You're keeping something from us and you're doing it very badly."

I cleared my throat and looked around at them. When my eyes met Morgan's, I knew I couldn't just tell him in front of everyone. "I don't really want to talk about it right now…" I said.

"Are you okay?" Hotch asked, "Health wise? Physical and mental?"

"Oh yeah." I nodded, "I'm fine." I assured.

"Okay." He nodded, "Then you don't have to tell us yet if it isn't serious."

"Thanks. So, enough about me. How are all of you?" I changed the subject off me. About a half hour of conversation lasted until they all finished filling me in. "Uh…excuse me. I'll be two seconds; I just have to make a call." I said, standing up and looking at the text I received from Sarah. I walked out of the room and called her from across the bullpen. I didn't want them to see me near them or they'd know instantly.

"Why are you calling me? We're looking at each other right now…" Sarah answered.

"I don't want them to suspect anything yet. It's harder than I planned and it might take a while. You can take her out for lunch or something if either of you are hungry. There's a good diner down the street. Good food and great service."

"Okay; just call me when you tell him and if he wants to see her. I'll bring her right back."

"Stay safe." I said before hanging up. The team was watching me so I turned my back to them as I found Morgan's contact.

"I need to talk to you privately." I texted.

I looked at my phone like I was reading a text or typing one and after a minute or two, Morgan walked around the catwalk to me, "I'm assuming this is a secret so I said that I needed to talk to you privately about something and Rossi offered his office so…" He opened the office door and motioned for me to walk in. He drew the blinds down so they couldn't see us and he closed the door. "So what's going on?"

I took a deep breath, looked him in the eyes and froze.