CHAPTER 9

YOU DID WHAT TO EMILY?

After assisting with Angie's polygraph, Emily got a call that she said was quite urgent, so she had someone else step in and take over the next tests for the day.

In reality, it had been Garcia, asking in advance if Emily wanted them to bring her lunch. Emily's reply was that she would be joining the team for lunch, after all. She knew that they were worried and she tried to make time for them, no matter how busy she was.

By the time Emily got back to her office, it was almost 10 am. That gave her only about two more hours to work until she could have a pizza. She would never admit it, but pizza was life, in her opinion. If she was with a cute guy, out on a date, she might slip and order something with quinoa or whatever else it was that the cool millennials considered healthy these days, but if she was on her own, it was pizza all day, every day. She worked out enough to be able to keep her body in shape, anyway.

At 12:30 Rossi texted her to come downstairs, as they were all ready to leave for their 12:45 reservation at an Italian restaurant, just right out of the government property lines.

"Benvenuti!" A petit Italian waiter welcomed them and showed them to their table.

"Io prendo, come di solito, la mia pizza preferita – Diavola." Emily's Italian accent was invidious. Even Rossi thought so and he was, actually, Italian. Well, of Italian heritage anyway, but he grew up with the culture and, most importantly, the cuisine.

"Oh, Prentiss. I'd be worried if you didn't order that." Tara laughed.

While everyone was open to trying new things, to Emily this one pizza was all she ever wanted. Chilly salami and melted cheese on top. Yum!

Everyone ordered their food and when it came to drinks, they all sighed, ordering a bunch of mineral water bottles for the table. They still had to go back to the office, so there was no way they could consume any alcohol.

"So, Emily…" JJ started and met instant disapproval.

"Come on, guys. Couldn't you wait until I was finished?" Emily pouted. She had just nibbled on her first piece of the pizza and she could barely feel its taste on her tongue before she heard the beginning of yet another intervention.

"Honestly, no." JJ shrugged, not giving a crap if her honesty came off as rude. "We've been thinking and we came up with a few ideas on budget cuts."

JJ then poured a summary of their earlier conversation and Emily raised an eyebrow.

"You're all okay with this?" Emily questioned, specifically because she knew how much Garcia loved her electronics and her unlimited access to everything that was online.

Five sets of eyes got glued to Garcia and, when she finally got the clue, she muttered out a reply. "Ye-…Yeah."

"I scribbled down something…" JJ pulled a folder out of her bag and she started placing numerous papers on the table until one of them was practically on top of Tara's pizza, as there was no space left to put it.

"That is what a detailed first script of either one of my best-sellers looks like." Rossi laughed, pointing out the extensive amount of research and writing that JJ had done since that morning.

"Here, this amounts to about half of what we are asked to cut. The other half we have already decided on – no intern this year. See? All set. Now, all we need is your signature, here, here, here and right here. Oh and here. And here." JJ kept on pointing random places on the papers and everyone realized that this was not just something she had scribbled down in a hurry. This was the actual nine-page proposal that Emily was supposed to have written herself.

Emily did not seem impressed. Or maybe she was simply not convinced. As JJ held out a pen and pointed out the blank spaces where Emily's name and signature had to go, Emily distracted herself by cutting her pizza and feeding herself tiny pieces.

"Earth to Emily?" Garcia waved her hand in front of her boss.

"Guys, I appreciate your efforts…" Emily trailed off.

"Uh-oh, there is a but coming." Garcia's usual smile turned into a frown.

"However…" Emily got out of this situation quite smoothly. "I've also given it some thought. A lot, actually. And having no intern this year is no longer an option."

"What? But, Emily, an intern, however nice it is to have one, costs the BAU a lot of money. We cannot afford that right now." JJ frowned. She liked having a fresh perspective on the cases and it was often quite fun to have someone stir up the dynamics of their little family, but even she had to admit that they were in no position to welcome anyone this year.

"I know. I have a different plan of action." Emily said calmly.

"She's filing for a major cut on her salary, so we can keep our privileges." Reid could not hold it in anymore. JJ had been giving him looks ever since they sat on the table. He looked like he desperately needed to pee, with all the fidgeting that was happening on his chair. Clearly, there was another reason for it.

"It's really your fault that you held those papers in front of your chest as you walked to the elevator earlier. It's definitely not my fault that I am a genius who can read fast, from a far and in any position." Reid shrugged and his confidence made Luke smirk. He had been waiting for the day that Spencer Reid got his groove on.

"Guys, it's not a big deal. Really. It's just money. I have enough in my savings account." Emily spoke as if it weren't a big deal, but the truth was, in order to meet the new standards, she would have to get paid about a quarter of her salary. And there was no time limit for that. It could be temporary, but it could also go on forever.

"No. You've worked too hard for this." Matt refused to agree with her.

"Yeah, if you sacrifice a chunk of your salary, so will we!" Garcia's statement met five heads that nodded in agreement.

"I'm the Unit Chief. It is my responsibility to fix this. It's also my fault we are in this situation." Her tongue ran over the side of her bottom lip and it was the most Emily Prentiss thing she could do.

"Water?" Garcia offered with a small smile, grabbing Emily's glass, even though it was still more than halfway full.

JJ then started to rant about something else and everyone turned their attention back to their food, not wanting to argue with Emily any further.

An hour went by and so did their lunch break. Emily insisted on offering the lunch, since it was probably one of the last days she could go around with her head held high and her bank statement not near the zero. Yes, she did have savings in her bank, but she never touched those. Emily's life had always been complicated and thus, she had learned to have a good chunk of cash, safely tucked in a bank somewhere, ready to be used in extreme situations only.

On their way back, Garcia urged Luke to drive Emily's car. She justified that weird request with Emily's bad driving skills and the fact that Garcia sometimes got car-sick. Emily did not want to scrub anyone's vomit from the back seat, so she simply handed Luke the keys and took the passenger's side. JJ drove the other car.

As they got out of the cars, Rossi noticed Emily being a little flimsy. He did not question it. Maybe it was just all the pressure messing with her.

It was when Emily tried to swipe her credit card in the elevator, instead of her FBI badge, that Rossi started to get a little worried and decided to keep an eye on her.

Everyone went to their desks and Emily walked up to her office.

For the next couple of hours everything seemed normal. That was until Rossi tried calling Emily, as he needed her opinion on an old case they had worked on a year ago. Emily did not pick up. He could hear her phone ring continuously in her office, yet there was no answer. He knew her well enough to know that she hated the sound of a ringing phone. If she was unable to talk, she would hang up, which always drove him mad, but she would never let the phone go on fire like that.

"Garcia, did you notice anything weird with Emily today?" He asked as he saw Garcia walk past him, on her way to re-fill her unicorn mug with hot water for the sixth cup of tea that day.

"Huh? No. Not at all. Not really. No. Why? No. No, no." She replied lamely and hurried back to her office, forgetting all about her tea.

"Has everyone around here lost their mind?" Rossi rolled his eyes.

JJ, being a protégé of Garcia's when it came to eavesdropping, overheard Rossi's concern and disappeared very subtly.

"OH MY GOD!" JJ screamed from upstairs, a minute later.

"Shh!" Garcia was one step behind her.

She pushed JJ further in, as she was stood by the door, speechless, and then she closed and locked the door behind them.

"EMILY!?" JJ said in panic, walking slowly to where her boss was, laying on the floor, with a drop of blood next to her head.

"Calm down, JJ. Shut up. Okay!?" Garcia kept up with JJ's pace and put a hand over her mouth, as to prevent her from screaming one more time.

"Calm down? Don't you see what I see?" JJ was freaking out by that point. "Oh, Emily. What did you do? Oh my God, what happened? Oh my God. Oh God. Emily? Emily, please wake up? Emily?"

Garcia sat down on Emily's chair, because, why not? Emily was clearly not using it at the moment. She chewed on the first thing that she found, which was Emily's new rubber phone case.

"How can you be so damn calm, Garcia!? Call for help!" JJ's face turned white and she felt a sudden and very hard to overcome wave of nausea.

This scene reminded her of vivid images she had been trying to erase from her mind since the age of 11. Garcia knew it, which is why she felt so incredibly guilty.

"She'll be fine." She muttered.

"How can you be sure? We don't even know what she took. God, there's blood. Oh my God, there is blood. Garcia, there is blood!" JJ kept on freaking out, not even daring to touch Emily's body.

"I heard you the first time." Garcia said cockily. "Look, JJ, I have a confession."

"Go to church, Garcia! And on your way there, call an ambulance!" JJ could stay calm in any situation in life, except for when the life and well-being of her friends and family was at question. It was then when she freaked out the most.

"JJ…" Garcia knelt down by her side and pushed a strand of sweaty blond hair away from her colleague's ear before whispering something that was barely audible and thus, so hard to comprehend.

"You did what to Emily!?" JJ shouted at the top of her lungs and the white color on her face was slowly being replaced with red, fiery red, fuming red.