Emily had decided to try and act as if everything was normal the next day, her call with Clyde hasn't gone too well last night. Interpol had not open senior leadership positions opened at the moment, she knew Clyde would keep an eye out for it, but who knew how long it would take for one to open.

"Hey Em, do you have 5 minutes?" Emily heard JJ coming up behind her on Tuesday morning as she was just getting to her office door.

Trying to keep her cool Emily stuck her right hand in her pocket and tried to remember not to say anything, which was proving to be harder than she thought it would be.

"Hey JJ, I barely have 10 minutes to have a coffee and check my emails before the budget meeting, can we do it later?" The guilty look on her face was completely real, JJ just didn't need to know it was unrelated to not being able to sit down with her for 5 minutes.

Or maybe it was, at this point she would need a lot more then 5 minutes to say everything she needed to.

"Hmm... no problem, we can talk later. It's just we barely talked since you were in the hospital and with everything going on..." JJ trailing off made Emily's heart drop.

"What everything?" Emily can hear the panic in her own voice. "I mean… well, as soon as…" What was the point she wanted to make again?

"Em are you okay?" JJ put her hand on Emily's arm.

"Yes, sorry. I'm a bit all over the place today." She tried to reason.

"We missed you last night. Hotch's new place is great, and Jack has gotten so big." Oh god, she needed to stop this conversation before her emotions got the best of her. She was all over the place, this wasn't good…or normal.

"I'm really happy for them, they deserve that." That was a good response, right? That wasn't a weird thing to say?

"Yes…And you didn't go because?" Oh, the million-dollar question.

"Oh, it was just a full day first day back, and I just wanted to go home and soak in the tub." A version of the truth with less details, that was good.

"Okay, I won't keep if you have so little time this morning. But let's meet this week, okay?" When Emily realized she was nodding her head in the same way she did when her mother succeeded in guilt tripping her, she felt bad.

"Yes." Still nodding, still feeling guilty.

Emily decided then and there that the best course of action for the next few days would have to be making herself as busy as she could to try and avoid the team while she didn't have many of the answers she needed.

For that reason, as soon as she left the budget meeting around 2PM that day, she got to her office and accepted all the meetings she had been postponing, accepted to give a behavior lecture in the FBI academy as well as review the monthly certifications that had been scheduled, which all the unit chiefs took turns doing it.

She had taken all the necessary precaution of advising the team she had a few mandated meetings she had to take, and some trainings. And she did allude to it being something the director asked when he was in her office on Monday, which no one found strange.

And for that reason, by the third day of a crazy schedule, she was not expecting to have Rossi knock on her office door after hours. She had just been expecting to do be able to finish doing her actual core job, and not just running around doing the other 500 things she added to her schedule.

"Knock knock." He said opening the door and stepping inside. He came in without his jacket a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other.

"Hey, I didn't know there was still anyone else here." She knew this was coming, she had hoped to stall a few days before Dave came knocking, but she knew he would be the first.

"Are you ready to talk now? Or are you going to keep up this routine for a few more days?" She decided to remove her own blazer and get her shoes off while she waited for him to pour them the whiskey.

"Hotch is back." She finally said. Which in her mind it explained a lot of what was going on.

"I know, I saw him. We were all invited to his house remember to celebrate his return?" He explained as if she was a bit crazy. "What is really going on Emily?"

"Well, that's thing Dave, it's not exactly like that." She didn't want to say anything bad, because really Hotch had the right to decide who was welcomed in his home. His face completely changed to worry.

"What does that mean?" Dave was one of Hotch's best friends, she didn't want to put him in a difficult position.

"Look, that isn't the problem." And it wasn't, it was crappy, and it made her sad to know she wasn't important enough to be there for him. But that was something she didn't need to share, because besides that issue, she was still leaving. And still feeling a bit like being kicked off the team.

"Of course this is a problem, Emily…" Dave tried to interrupt her, but she decided to keep going.

"Dave, the director talked to me. Hotch is coming back, and they offered him the position of unit chief. Which from the communication I got, it looks like he accepted it." Dave took a sip from his glass.

"Well, but what about…"

"The director has thanked me for my services but that's it." She smiled sadly at him.

"That isn't it Emily, they can't just expect you to revert your life back. Is the position on Interpol still available? It's been over 2 years." Dave's exasperation was somewhat comforting to her.

"The position is not available, and there no other positions available at the moment, but Clyde will keep an eye out. Ask around… But you know how those things are." She finally took a sip of her whiskey.

"You are already planning to run?" He questioned.

"Come on Dave, it's not like that. There isn't much that I can do." She probably sounded a bit crazy. "It has always been his job, Dave. I can't fight it. After all this he doesn't deserve to have me fight it." Finally, being able to say what has kept her so frustrated this week does little calm her.

"So… what does that mean for you?"

"Well, this week my head has gone over this question time and time again. And how to tell everyone. And what I should do after the FBI." And there it was, her newest nightmare laid bare. She took her glass and finished the whiskey on it in one gulp and put the glass closer to the bottle so he could refill it.

"Wow. After the FBI? You are already talking like that?"

"My clock is running out… I got an invite from the director to be in his office tomorrow, which probably means Hotch will be there tomorrow for the meeting, which means he is coming here, and everyone will understand if they haven't already."

"But is that why you decided not to go on Monday? Because you didn't want this situation to come out?"

"Dave, I was never invited in the first place. I didn't know he was out of the program before the director talked to me on Monday." At Dave's shocked look she decided to get up from her chair and walk to the window.

"He didn't reach out?" His confusion made her feel better. She wasn't the only one who didn't understand that.

"Nop."

"And you didn't get an invite for dinner on Monday?"

"Also, nop."

"But why?"

"No idea. When you guys went to my office on Monday, I thought he would mention coming back, but when I didn't have anyone asking me about it the next few days…" She sat down on the table close to her window and took a sip of her glass.

"What the hell is happening here?"

She had left the Bureau on every day this week basically on the verge of exhausted, it helped being busy at work, so she didn't have to think about this whole situation, and it helped at home when she got there after 10PM at night and she basically only had energy left to fall face first in her bed.

"No idea, but my guess is we will find out tomorrow." Looking at her empty glass she walked back over to her table. "Top me up."

Author's note: I'm adjusting Emily's age to fit the story, and the changes I'm making are effective season 13 episode 02. No beta.