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Prentiss

I walked into my apartment, my team behind me. I hadn't really had a "housewarming" yet and Garcia was too elated to let it slide so I invited them all over for drinks tonight. I assumed Reid would be here anyway to see Sarah and Morgan would probably have come to see Ainsley after the case of children anyway.

"Mummy!" Ainsley exclaimed eagerly as she ran up to me. I caught her when she jumped and lifted her up, hugging her to me. I kissed her hair a few times and held her until she let go of the cling she had around my neck. I put her down and she ran to Morgan and then JJ.

"Hey." Sarah smiled as she walked out, "Did you finally get them?" She asked as she hugged me. She moved to Reid as I replied.

"Eventually." I said with a sigh.

"The guy tackled Emily to the ground." Reid filled her in on that detail.

She looked at me with wide eyes, "I thought you said you'd be away from the danger."

"I didn't know he was going to be there." I lifted my hands in defence as I walked down the hall towards my room. I dropped my bag on my bed and walked back out. My team was sitting in the living room when I got there and Sarah was getting glasses and alcohol out. She gave me a glass of water.

"You enjoy that." She smirked, laughing at me.

"Oh, just what I need after a case with dead children—water," I rolled my eyes, "I hate being pregnant."

"I booked that appointment for next week, by the way." Sarah said, "The anomaly one that you had to cancel for the case."

I nodded, "Thanks."

"Do you book all of her appointments?" Reid asked her at his side.

"Well if I don't book them then she won't and she'll never go."

"I'd book it…eventually."

"Really? Because I distinctively remember you telling me that you were told to go back in for another check-up at 25 weeks with Ainsley and you never went."

"Well it wasn't mandatory…"

"It wasn't supposed to be optional." She shook her head.

Ainsley was sitting on Morgan's lap, leaning against him and playing with a stuffed toy lazily. She stopped fiddling with it and looked up at him, "Daddy? Will you and mummy ever be together?"

"What do you mean?" He asked. He knew what she was asking but he was buying himself some more time to think of a reply. The team fell silent and watched him as he thought his answer out.

"Like Sarah and Reid are together and JJ and Will."

Morgan hesitated, coming up empty with a response. I spoke so he didn't need to, "Honey, do you remember when I told you that sometimes people make mistakes and they don't always end up together like in fairy tales?"

"So you're not going to ever be together?"

I shook my head, "But that doesn't mean that we don't love you any less than JJ and Will love Henry."

"Did you love Mark?"

"Bedtime," I stood up and avoided answering that question, "Say goodnight."

She hugged and kissed Morgan, Sarah, JJ and Garcia and waved to the others before running into my arms. I lifted her up and walked to her room. I lay her down, tucked her in and kissed her goodnight before walking out and turning the light out as I went.

I stood outside of her door and pulled the chain of my necklace lightly to remove the pendant from my shirt and held it, viewing the ring on it. Mark had proposed to me two months before I came here and got pregnant again. I told him I didn't know yet so he said to wear it around my neck until I made a decision. He was having a good week away from his friends, spending it with Ainsley and I a few towns over so he was kind to us. He told me that if he saw the chain gone and my finger bare, then he'd know it's a no. If he saw the ring on my finger, then he'd know it was a yes.

"Hey," JJ said quietly. I looked up quickly and saw her at my side. She was looking at the ring, "You were pretty deep in thought there; you didn't hear me saying your name all the way down the hall."

"Sorry." I said quietly as I slipped it back down my shirt, hidden from everyone.

"Was that an engagement ring?"

I sighed and nodded before walking back up the hall. She followed me as I made my way to the living room. I picked up my glass of water, drank it back and then went to the kitchen to get another.

"Emily, stop. Talk to me." JJ said quietly, reaching me in the kitchen again.

"I don't want to talk about it, Jayje." I said in a tired voice.

"Is it from Mark?" She asked me at a normal volume. The team would have heard from the next room.

"I just said that I don't want to talk about it and I'm not going to talk about it, JJ. Forget about it." I said coldly.

She pressed her lips together and looked down, nodding, "Fine." She turned and walked back to the living room, shaking her head as she went. I drank two more glasses of water before filling it again and taking it to the living room with me. I sat back down and put the glass on the table.

"Don't you think it's time to take it off?" Sarah asked me quietly. I glared at her. "Oh come on, Emily. You're not going to marry him and we both know it. He's in jail now anyway and when he gets out, you can send it back to him or you can sell it or something; just don't keep it, let alone leave it hanging around your neck."

I didn't reply at all.

"What do I know? Maybe you will marry hi," She shrugged her shoulders, "Put it on your finger, go see him in jail, force Ainsley to live through that again. Have fun in your abusive relationship that will probably result in your death."

I shook my head and picked at my nails.

"Well what are you going to do? Keep it around your neck so it always reminds you of it just so you can stop yourself from letting some other guy into your life?"

"Stop, Sarah. You don't understand—"

"I don't understand? Are you kidding me? What do you think—"

"Do I need to tell you the same things I tell Ainsley? Life isn't like the fairy tales, Sarah!"

"Yours certainly isn't because you go for any guy that's fucked up! You see guys that a fucked and they're messing up everything their life could have consisted of with drugs and alcohol and crime and you try to fix them. You're helping no one by doing that; the only thing you're doing is putting you and your 4 year old daughter in constant danger!"

"It's not always roses and gifts, Sarah. Relationships include fights."

"Fights that consist of you being held up against the wall, not being able to breathe because his hand is so tight around your neck, a knife to your throat, being screamed at about something that doesn't even make sense in his drug haze and tears you try desperately to hold back because your daughter is in the room? Do you see Spence ever doing that to me in a fight? No, because he isn't abusive."

"Oh, don't bring him into it." I shook my head.

"I have to bring him into it! I have to bring your whole team into because they're the only people you listen to!"

I shook my head and bit my tongue to keep myself from yelling again.

"No, you're right. You don't listen to them. You don't listen to anyone anymore because you're fucking your life up three times more than any guy you've dated all put together and you don't want anyone to point that out to you. And on top of that, you're bringing your daughter down with you and you're bringing another child into it that you're just going to fuck up like you did with the first."

She had crossed a line there, bringing my children into it. I stood up and walked out of the room. I walked down the hall and threw a few outfits into my go bag that was on my bed. I slung it over my shoulder and walked back out, taking my car keys and making my way to the front door.

"You forgot your daughter." She said.

"You said it yourself; I'm just bringing her down with me. Why don't you raise her, seeing as you're so perfect and your life is so flawless."

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, just to party. You know, get drunk as fuck, mix the alcohol with all the different drugs I'll be taking, finding new guys to try and "fix"."

I had stayed at a hotel that night and went into the precinct this morning to get some paperwork that I forgot to grab on my way out yesterday. When I walked through the glass doors, I figured I'd find an almost empty bullpen around our area as the team had the weekend off but I saw Hotch in his office, about to leave it. He saw me before I had time to move out of sight. I continued to my desk and picked up the pile of work I had to complete and he stood beside me, "Are you okay?" He asked quietly.

"I'm fine." I said as I slid the work into my bag. I went to walk away but he grabbed my arm gently and pulled me back. I sighed and looked at him.

"Sarah told us everything."

"What do you mean by everything?"

"The countless criminals, alcoholics and drug users you've dated in the hopes to help them because you thought you weren't doing anything as an agent, the amount of times you had to move houses around London as a result of these, everything Mark did to you, everything that still causes you pain to think about, hear or feel because of him, the ring, the drug and alcohol problems you used to have, your suicide attempt…and much more."

"Ah…so literally everything," I said quietly, nodding. "I'm sorry, she shouldn't have told you all of that."

"Prentiss, we all understand that you cannot control who you love and we know that you did everything you did and you do everything you do to help whoever you can, but Mark was not the right choice for you," He shook his head, "He abused you, whether you want to admit it or not and we all think that you really need to let go of him. It's not fair on you or Ainsley to have to live with him and it isn't fair on you for him to always have a part in your life," He motioned to the necklace, "Yes, relationships have fights but they should never, under any circumstance, be any kind of abusive. We know that it really isn't our business and it's not up to us, but you normally value our opinions, so that's what we think. Take the necklace off and think about it." He gave me a small, comforting smile and walked to the doors. "Oh," He stopped and turned, "The whole team is at your place again already; they had questions about you that they would never dare to ask you and Morgan and Reid were there anyway."

I nodded and he walked out. I sat at my desk for a while and picked up the box I had in my bottom drawer behind the cardboard one that Garcia had put in there. She now called that my drawer of fun, similar to what she had done for Morgan. Little did she know, behind the cardboard box that made it the "drawer or fun" was actually something I kept from everyone that made it a not-so-fun drawer. That one box contained anything I had left from any of my several dark places I had been in my past. It was my box of the past. Photos of Ian, Declan and I, photos of Mark and I, photos of Mark, Ainsley and Sarah, photos of Sean and his family, photos of Tsia, Jeremy, Clyde and Sean back when we were a team. There were small things that Ian and Mark had given me; jewellery, individual types of small flowers with stems cut short to fit in the box. There was so much, it was filled to the top.

I decided not to open it here; I didn't want to break into tears in the precinct. I walked out with it and drove back to my apartment.

Once there, I took my bag to my room, got my paperwork and put it on my desk in the otherwise empty corner of the living room and walked to the dining room with the box. The team was in the living room but none of them dared to speak to me right now. Hotch was here again and smiled at me when I walked through.

I sat down in the dining and opened the box. I started to look through it and JJ came in before long. She called the others in as I put the things I already looked at down on the table and it was now full of things from my past. I was crying as I looked through at everything and I didn't bother telling them not to look because they were going to one way or another.

They stayed silent after I emptied the box. I started putting everything back into it. The handed it all to me and I unclipped the necklace from my neck. I did the lock up so the ring wouldn't fall off and I looked at it for a short while, twisting the ring round and round on my fingers. I kissed it and put it in the box before putting the lid on.

"I'm sorry, Em." Sarah said quietly after a while.

I stood up and picked the box up, "Never bring my children into something like that again." I said quietly and coldly as I walked out. I went to my room and slid the box into the back of my wardrobe. When I closed the wardrobe door, I saw Morgan standing in the doorway. "What?"

"Sarah was right, Emily. You needed to take it off. You'll feel a lot better about yourself soon enough now that it isn't a constant reminder."

"Maybe I liked the reminder."

"You're not going to admit that she was right, are you?"

"Morgan, I can admit that she was right about taking it off, but she was wrong to tell me how she did and she was wrong to bring it up in front of everyone. She was wrong to recount everything that happened to me, she was wrong to bring my children into it and she was wrong to tell you all everything."

"She was trying to help you."

"And what a great job she did." I nodded.

"You're being petty." He shook his head.

"I'm not in the mood to argue with you." I had just noticed that I still have tears in my eyes and on my cheeks. He walked over and hugged me, placing a kiss on my forehead.

"I know it was hard for you." He whispered quietly. He was very empathic and I then remembered his past and how hard it was for him to let go of it. He understood me for the most part. Not the love involvement in the situation, but almost everything else, or at least the basics. I hugged him back and we parted after a short while. He wiped my tears away and smiled at me, "We're proud of you for that, though."

I smiled to myself and looked down, "Thanks…now we should go back out before they think we're sleeping together again."

We walked out and I was met by Ainsley as she ran into my arms, "Mummy, are you okay?"

"Yeah honey, I'm just fine." I smiled at her and kissed her cheek. I put her down and she ran off with Henry. He and Will must have gotten here while Morgan and I were in my room. I sat down, "So, what are everyone's plans for today?" I tried to start a new conversation.