Brussels – Winter 2003-2004
From the moment she settled back into Lauren Reynold's flat in Brussels, Emily had operated under the assumption Ian was having her watched. She was actually pretty sure that he wasn't. Not yet, anyway. But a little bit of paranoia was a far preferable alternative to the distinct possibility of taking a bullet.
Emily continued to conduct work with Sean and Clyde through one of her burner phones, but she stayed well clear of any known JFT or CIA locations, and she kept a million miles away from anything that might be associated with Emily Prentiss. Every great once in awhile she was tempted to try and check in on her parents, but it wasn't worth the risk. She resisted the temptation to perform so much as even a web search of their names.
In the meantime, she had to keep up appearances as Lauren Reynolds, fledgling weapons dealer. Emily wasn't particularly keen to be involved in that line of work, but it was important that Lauren Reynolds at least build up a small clientele beyond Boston, in case Ian Doyle or Valhalla ever checked in to her bona fides. But Emily was only poising as a dealer. Clyde and Sean were actually in charge of the dirty work of moving things around. Emily didn't know how they did it, and she didn't really care to. Her job was to be the face. She took meetings, made people feel assured, handled the money, and then told Clyde and Sean where to have their people make drops and pickups.
Luckily whatever Clyde and Sean were doing behind the scenes seemed to work like clockwork. No angry customers had come after Emily with guns or baseball bats. But to Emily it was all fast becoming—there was no other word for it—boring. There were a few interesting extended travel meetings here and there—including a very weird extended weekend with some paramilitary guys in Azerbaijan. She started a rudimentary profile of Doyle, but really didn't have much to go on aside from the fact that he was slightly vain, highly loyal, and extremely demanding. For the most part, Emily was just waiting.
At the beginning of this assignment, Emily had been so consumed with the danger of living a double life that she hadn't really thought about how isolating it could get. Weeks turned into months without Emily seeing hide or hair of Ian or, as far as she could tell, any of his goons. Meanwhile, contacting friends, family, and co-workers of Emily Prentiss was firmly off limits, and Emily didn't believe it was worth the risk of trying to make new friends as Lauren Reynolds.
So between her handful of meetings, Emily spent a lot of time reading and sipping coffee in the corners of random cafes. On Christmas Eve, she popped into a Midnight Mass for the first time in 15 years just to be around other people and experience a familiar if long-lost rhythm, before spending Christmas Day reading Wuthering Heights alone next to a perfectly-trimmed tree.
Even for an unabashed introvert like Emily, life had become almost unbearably lonely.
…..
By the turn of the New Year, she was downright stir crazy. Nearly ready to pull the plug.
"How much longer can you expect me to wait, Clyde? He's not coming," Emily protested, during one of her periodic telephone check-ins with Clyde and Sean.
"I'm sorry your love has jilted you, darling," he answered, slyly.
"That's not funny."
"Fine, then let's get serious. You need to be patient, or I suppose you could go find yourself some excitement in Iraq or Afghanistan," Clyde said. Emily could tell she struck a nerve.
"I'd be fine with that," she shot back, not untruthfully.
"You are out of your bloody mind," Clyde muttered.
"For God's sake, you two," Sean interrupted, mediating. "Lauren, look, he's an arse, but he's not wrong. You need to be patient. You struck dumb luck even getting in with Doyle as soon as you did. As far as we know, he's going to come back looking for Lauren Reynolds and if she's not there when he comes looking that could be very bad for Emily Prentiss. Ops like this sometimes take years, you've only been at it a few months."
He wasn't wrong, Emily hated it. But he wasn't wrong.
"Fine," Emily acknowledged, defiantly. "But I better not still be here when I'm 40."
"I promise you won't still be here when you're 40," Sean assure her, almost fatherly in tone. "Things will happen."
…
It was almost as if Sean's words were a talisman. Two days later, while walking absentmindedly through a snow-brushed path in a local park, Emily spotted him again lingering oafishly in the nearby trees: Liam. He was really bad at being inconspicuous, but Emily pretended not to see him. Two days later, she saw him again, following her just too closely on her was home from a café. The next day, she saw a different man staring just too-long at her in a local book store.
She wasn't in total shock, then, when her door rang the second week of January and she found a familiar face on the landing: Ian.
"Hello Lauren," he said confidently. Again wearing black. Emily wondered if he ever wore anything but black.
"Where the hell have you been?" Emily demanded. It worked both ways. Ian heard a Lauren Reynolds who desperately missed him. Meanwhile, the words were uttered by an Emily Prentiss who desperately missed real contact with anyone.
"Can I come in?" Ian asked. Emily noticed he maneuvered his way expectantly to the doorway, but had not quite crossed the threshold. She quickly mentally inventoried the contents of her townhouse and concluded there was nothing in there that could possibly incriminate Emily Prentiss. Her real passport and other personal identifiers were tightly locked away in Shirer's CIA office. The most Emily Prentiss and Lauren Reynolds shared were a few sets of clothes.
"Sure, come in," Emily allowed.
….
Their lovemaking was far more passionate in Belgium than in Boston. Emily couldn't account for Ian's motivations, but hers were simple. The desire for human connection, any connection, overwhelmed everything. Well, almost everything. Even in her desperation to commune with someone for the first time in months, Emily never forgot who she was dealing with, and that she had a job to do.
"So," she said, as they relaxed on Lauren Reynolds' bed afterword "where the hell have you been?"
"All over," Ian said cryptically. "But I've been thinking about you."
"And I you," Emily answered. She didn't mean it in the same sense he did, but it also wasn't entirely untrue. Whether she liked it or not, her purpose now pretty much hinged on him being around.
"Don't tell me you're going to leave me again," she added, half as Lauren to an unreliable lover and half as Emily craving something, anything, to do.
"I've been thinking," Ian said, staring at her intently. "I have a house in Tuscany. I could bring you there for a few weeks. What do you think?"
Emily sensed this was her chance. She answered instinctually.
"I would love that."
….
Tuscany – January 2004
Emily hadn't spent any time in Italy since she was a teenager and her mother was posted in Rome. All told, those were years she'd rather forget. Thankfully, Ian's Tuscan Villa was a far cry from the crowded Roman streets. As Ian's driver pulled through the gates and toward the house, Emily spotted a generous wine storage house, meticulous flower gardens, and even what appeared to be a small private vineyard in the distance.
The place had to cost an absolute fortune. If Ian was bringing in this much money, Emily could only guess what Valhalla was raking in. This operation might have been more extensive than even Clyde and Sean had imagined.
"What do you think?" Ian asked, as they exited the car and took the short walkway toward the house, the driver brining their bags behind them. He had the unmistakable air of a little boy showing off his new toy.
"It's stunning," she said. Emily didn't need to lie. The place was quite something.
"Come on, I'll show you inside," Ian held the door open. Emily barely made it two steps into the house before she was nearly bolled over by a blur of blonde locks.
"Declan, for God's sake watch where you're goin'!" cried a curvy, thirty-something Irish woman. She was chasing after the blur, which, Emily soon realized, was actually a young boy of five or six with oceanic blue eyes and the lightest hair Emily thought she'd ever seen.
"I'm sorry Mr. Ian," the woman told Ian, as he entered the house behind Emily. "And Ms.?" The woman hesitated.
"Lauren Reynolds," Emily said, extending her hand, which the woman shook heartily.
"Ms. Lauren, glad to meet you.
"Lauren, this is Louise, my housekeeper," Ian introduced her. "And that's her son, Declan."
"Declan," Louis demanded, sternly. "Apologize to Ms. Lauren for nearly runnin' her over."
"I'm sorry Ms. Lauren," the boy said sweetly. "I didn't mean to."
"That's alright," Emily said, laughing sincerely for the first time in ages. "You didn't know I was coming. And you can call me Lauren."
"Declan, it's after noon, why don't you run along and have your mother make you some lunch," Ian suggested.
"Yes, Mr. Ian," Declan answered, before bouncing away like a pogo stick, with his mother scurrying in his wake.
"Well, he is adorable," Emily observed.
"He really is something, isn't he?" Ian chuckled.
For the first time, Emily noticed just the slightest hint of softness in the hardened fighter. Interesting.
…
While Emily could never, ever fully let her guard down around Ian, the ensuing days in Tuscany were the best she'd had in awhile. After a winter of isolation, it was invigorating just to be around people again, even if none of them had the first idea who she really was. In addition to spending time with Ian, Emily struck up somewhat of a friendship with Monsieur Cannes, Ian's French gardener. Emily made it a habit of getting up early in the morning and joining him in the garden after her first cup of coffee. The two of them chatted merrily in French about every frivolous topic under the sun.
"It is so nice to spend time with someone who can actually speak proper French" he would tell her frequently. "Monsieur Doyle is such a butcher of the language."
But by far Emily's favorite person to spend time with was Declan. After a few days of warming up to "Lauren," Declan let Emily chase him around the house or play "hide and seek" in the yard until it was time for his nap. Emily had never thought seriously about having kids. It seemed neither a possible nor a responsible thing to do, given her lifestyle. Still, she was drawn the precious little boy like a magnet. After spending nearly a decade among soldiers and spies, it was refreshing to spend time with someone completely innocent. Someone too young to have ulterior motives or hardened cynicism.
And Ian didn't seem to mind her spending time with Declan at all.
"Louise's boy has really taken to you," he observed one night as they shared a bottle of red wine on the veranda.
"He's a cute kid," Emily said, which she felt was a tremendous understatement.
"I almost hate to separate you two," Ian continued. "But I need to be going tomorrow. I have business in Belfast."
"Do you want me to wait for you in Brussels again?" Emily offered.
"Actually," Ian said, grasping her hand, "I was hoping you could come with me."
Emily was surprised, but recovered quickly.
"You'd miss me too much, huh?" she said suggestively.
"I would miss you," Ian said. "But it's not just that. I need a favor."