Washington, D.C. – April 2005

Peterson wrapped his knuckles lightly on the door of the office.

"Oh sure, just come in," a bleary-eyed Emily said grumpily, not looking up from her keyboard. Her flight home had landed at Andrews Air Force Base early that morning, giving her only a two hours of sleep before she had to be in at Langley.

"Good morning to you, too" Peterson answered, in a tone that told Emily he didn't appreciate her tone but was going to let it slide. "How was Cuba?"

"Hot," Emily answered.

"I'm aware it's hot in Cuba, Prentiss," Peterson answered dryly. "Do you have anything more substantive?"

Emily had just returned from a five-day trip to Guantanamo Bay, where Peterson had sent her to assess interrogation effectiveness. The limited assignment was the first overseas duty Dr. Katzman had approved for Emily after clearing her return to full-time desk duty around Labor Day. In addition to being unenthused by the mosquitoes and the heat, Emily was less-than-impressed with the detention facility.

"I'm writing a memo for you now," Emily said, nodding slightly at her computer. "But it's gonna be tough to get reliably actionable intelligence out of that place. There are some guys who know what their doing down there, but there's some real sadists too. You put those detainees under too much duress and you are they'll tell you anything. True or not."

"Pretty much what I expected then," Peterson sighed, rubbing his brow. "I don't expect my report is going to change any minds, but thanks for trying."

"Is everything their doing down there even legal?" Emily asked.

Peterson gave a cynical laugh reply.

"You know how this town is Prentiss," he remarked. "Shake enough trees full of lawyers and eventually one will fall out who'll sign off on anything. I'm actually surprised you learned much down there. Everyone knows you report to me and everyone knows I'm a contrarian."

"Oh, nobody from the Agency told me much," Emily informed him. "But the Navy guys down there don't shut up. Also, I have eyes, ears, and a brain. So, you know…" Emily trailed off.

"Yeah," Peterson sighed.

"If you want me to be able to help get any real intelligence, you have to let me go back to the Middle East, Jack," Emily appealed. "I have to see and talk to these people before they get shipped off somewhere."

"Careful what you wish for," Peterson half joked, half warned. "Katzman clears you for unrestricted duty and I'll have you on your way to Baghdad tomorrow."

"I'm close," Emily assured him. Indeed, after a rough few early weeks, Emily had steadily progressed with Dr. Katzman's help through a steady stream of cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, and the occasional sleep aid, which Emily hadn't needed again since before Christmas. "I actually have an appointment in 10 minutes."

"Well, I won't keep you," Peterson said. "I didn't really come to bother you about Cuba yet anyway. I wanted to give you this."

Peterson dropped the heavy accordion folder he'd been carrying in his right hand with a decisive "thump" upon Emily's spartan desk.

"What's that?" Emily inquired.

"That's the last profile you did for JTF," Peterson explained. "INTERPOL sent it back while you were gone."

Emily froze. She could almost feel the color draining out of her own face.

"What?" she asked softly. "Why'd they send it back?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Peterson shrugged. "They just sent it back and asked me to have you call a Sean McCallister."

"I…uh…ok," Emily stammered.

"You okay Prentiss?" Peterson asked.

"Yeah," Emily said, snapping back together as quickly as she'd slipped. "Yeah, it's fine. I'll call him after my appointment."

Though she'd collected herself quickly, Emily was perturbed as she wound her way through the building to Katzman's office. The psychiatrist picked up on it immediately.

"Agent Prentiss, good to see you. What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing" Emily tried to assure him, unconvincingly.

"Okay, that wasn't even a good lie," he smiled, looking at her bemusedly, like a parent observed a mischievous toddler. "What's wrong? Did something go awry in Cuba?"

"No," Emily said, taking her seat heavily across from Dr. Katzman. "Cuba's fine. Well not fine," she corrected herself "but I was fine there."

"So that seems to be the problem?" Katzman continued to inquire.

"I don't know if anything is a problem" Emily said truthfully. "But I just found out that the task force I was part of sent back the last profile."

"The one you were undercover on?" Katzman asked, eyes narrowing.

"Yeah, that one," Emily confirmed, chewing at her lip.

"Why?"

"I literally just found out," Emily shrugged.

"Hmmmm," Katzman muttered thoughtfully, part to himself and part to Emily.

"What's 'Hmmmm' mean?" Emily asked, heavily suspecting she wasn't going to like the answer.

"Well," Katzman said, locking his own serious gaze with hers, "to be honest I am close to clearing you for full return to duty. We've made excellent progress these past several months."

"Good," Emily said. "So then you should do that."

"But you've just told me that the source of your trauma landed back on your desk this morning," Katzman went on. "That presents an obvious risk of regression."

"We don't know that," Emily protested. "I don't know why it was sent back. It could be anything."

"It could," Katzman agreed. "I'll make you a deal. Let's put a pin in this for now. You do your follow-up and we'll evaluate where things stand at our next session."

Emily knew by now that was the best she was going to get.

"Okay," she agreed.

"And I am concerned about your sleep again now," Katzman added. "With all due respect, you look awful."

"That has nothing to do with this," Emily assured him. "You try sleeping overnight on a C-17."

"Touche," Katzman answered amiably. "I'll see you next week. Good luck."

Back in her office, Emily reluctantly opened the accordion folder that Peterson had left on her desk. Form the top page of the file, the face that was making a steadily declining number of cameos in her dreams glared up at her once more. Emily never had bothered to find out if the processing photo of Ian had been taken in Italy where he was detained or Russia where he was transferred – though the prominent bruising on the cheeks suggested the latter. But the look on his face—defiant yet somehow also hauntingly serene, was still classic him. Emily through aside the photo quickly and started flitting through the rest of the file, but there was nothing in there to indicate why it had been sent back. Everything else in there was old background information assembled from various agencies and the profile that the JTF put together, mostly authored by Emily. She was sure she'd poured everything she knew into it. All of her analysis. All of her memories. All of Ian's secrets. All but one.

Reluctantly, Emily picked up her phone and dialed Sean's number from memory.

"McCallister," Emily heard the familiar Scottish brogue answer on the third ring.

"Sean, it's Emily."

"Thanks' for calling back, Em," Sean answered. "How are you?"

"Do you want to tell me what Ian Doyle is doing back on my desk?" she asked. "This is really bad timing, Sean."

Emily was not in the mood for niceties. After coming so close to finally being ungrounded, she was growing increasingly pissed at the thought this might set her back.

"I got a message from N, from Russia last week," Sean explained. "The interrogators aren't getting through to Doyle. He's not breaking."

"I don't see how that's our problem," Emily said. "Our job was to profile him, not interrogate him. If they wanted us to do the interrogation you and Clyde shouldn't have given him up to the Russians."

"We need more dirt on him," Sean explained.

"We tied his business to at least six different terrorist networks and I have you every detail of his personal life," Emily protested. "There is no more dirt on him."

"Are you certain?" Sean pressed.

"Yes, I'm certain. Why would I lie about that?"

"I didn't say you were lying, Emily," Sean said, a bit suspiciously. "I just want you to be sure you didn't forget anything. You were with him for seven months. Anything might help."

"Did you talk to Clyde about this yet?" Emily asked.

"I did."

"And?"

"He's still in Iraq but he's working on a temporary transfer back to Europe to chase down every Doyle associate he can get his hands on," Sean explained. "You know how personally he always took this. But I thought I'd at least reach out to you to see if you thought of something first. You know Doyle better than any of us."

Shit, Emily thought. If Clyde started tearing through Doyle's old associates, how long would it be before he started going through staff? How long before they tracked down Louise? She loved Declan, but would she have the wherewithal to withstand a seasoned, determined, possibly rogue interrogator? And if Clyde found out about Declan, what then? Even if Clyde didn't harm Declan, he would certainly tell the Russians about him. And the SVR RF had few qualms about kidnapping or worse in Europe, especially if the host country's intelligence was willing to look the other way.

Emily needed to buy time.

"I'll take another look and see if I can think of anything," she told Sean.

"Thanks Em. Talk soon."

While Emily's PTSD seemed to remain at bay over the next several days, the sleepless nights were back. But instead of dreaming, she was thinking. No matter how many times she gamed things out in her head, Emily couldn't see any scenario where either Clyde or his SIS counterparts didn't drag Louise back in for questioning. And there was no way Emily was going to gamble Declan's safety on Louise being a good liar. Emily concluded she had no choice – she had to get to Declan first. And within a few days she'd formed a plan. Or at least, part of one.