CHAPTER 63
DON'T EMILY ME!
"How could you let someone kidnap a freaking FBI agent from right under your nose!? With cameras rolling!?" Emily yelled, making a huge scene in the common room at the police station.
"You and I…" Rossi grabbed her hand and forced her towards the back door of the station.
"We are going to have a wonderful walk, get some fresh air and clear out our heads. And lungs. Please?" He said slowly, softly. There was no denying him.
"Emily…" He started off as soon as they managed to get outside.
Lucky for them, the chaos after the media announcement was now much more calm and was only concentrated at the front door of the building.
"Don't Emily me!" She groaned. "I can't believe he has JJ…"
Emily was starting to freak out again. And the last time she had freaked out, someone had wound up dead.
"She's not her!" Rossi physically shook Emily's body. It was the only way to knock some sense into her.
Emily then finally took a normal breath, not one of those short, quick-paced ones that made her sound like she was having a panic attack. Or, was she?
"What if we can't save her? God, I promised JJ I would never leave her. And I did. I left her side. I should have been up there, next to her as she spoke. I should have never let her go on her own and show only her face. I made her a victim. I'm the reason why she's been kidnapped. Oh God, ChayChay…" It took another firm shook from Rossi, to stop her from venting.
"Prentiss, I love you and I respect you too damn much in order to do what I really think you need to have done to you right now." Rossi said sternly.
"But at the same time, I really just want to slap you across the face!" He then added.
It was obviously a bluff, but she needed to hear him say something as harsh as that.
"For the last time – stop blaming yourself for everything. Get over yourself and pull yourself together! We need a Unit Chief right now, not a train-wreck!"
Emily breathed in one more time and from that moment on, her breathing slowed down and turned back to normal.
Then they spent the next thirty minutes, walking around aimlessly. Emily, walking in a somewhat of a straight line, and Rossi, following her every curve down the street, with her hand tucked underneath his, holding her by his side like the true gentleman that he was.
In silence.
"Thank you." She finally whispered, feeling ready to go back to work with a clear mind.
"Always." He smiled, his right hand tapping against the back of her hand, the one that was still holding him.
"We have asked several TV stations to provide us the raw unedited footage from earlier and they have kindly agreed to do so…" Reid informed Prentiss and Rossi as they walked back in, showing them that they hadn't stayed empty-handed this whole time.
"Kindly?" Tara laughed. "Reid threatened to smash their heads with a first edition of…what was that book again?"
Emily could not help but laugh and feel proud of Reid.
"Anything?" Emily sat by Matt's side, looking at the footage he was currently viewing.
"No. Nothing." Matt informed her. "Unfortunately, all the videos are facing the door of the police station. And, right after JJ finished speaking, they all zoomed in on the Police Chief for his finishing words and JJ was out of frame for the rest of it all."
"Can something be heard? I bet JJ wouldn't let herself go down without even attempting to give us a notice. A sign? Or maybe she screamed something in the crowd." Emily suggested, grabbing a laptop and starting to play another one of the files they got sent.
An hour later, they had already seen each file, five times. Nothing could be heard, nor seen.
"A grown up human being does not just disappear in thin air!" Emily concluded, not ready to let go of those tapes.
She kept on staring at the screen, rewinding the video from time to time.
Everyone else had already moved on to study different aspects of the crime.
But not Emily.
"I'm glad that, for once, I'm not the mere definition of insanity." Reid said to Tara, watching Emily repeat that video over and over again and watch it each time as if it was her first time.
Emily closed her eyes for just a second, wondering how did they go from playing the Pink Ladies, to being a lady short, just the next day. And then something stood out to her. She rewound the tape one more time, this time listening for something specific.
"Right there!" Emily nearly screamed out, pausing the video.
"Emily, it's a zoomed shot of the Police Chief and the door. JJ was already gone by that time." Rossi pointed out, looking at the screen.
Emily went back five seconds and instructed everyone to listen carefully as she played it on loudspeaker.
"I heard someone mentioning children…" Reid commented.
"A man was yelling at the police for being incompetent." Matt added.
"A whole lot of colorful words…" Rossi was not about to repeat any of them.
Emily kept shaking her head. All of her faith was in Tara when she looked over to her.
"Oh my God!" Tara exclaimed after a second of silence, thinking about the different things she could make out.
"What? Did we miss something?" Rossi questioned, since it seemed that now Tara was suddenly on the same page with Emily, while everyone else was reading a different book.
"Someone said 'You're the one I need'." Tara pointed out, making them listen to the tape again.
"And then JJ yelled 'Oh, yes, indeed'." Emily's big revelation was kind of lost on the boys.
"Grease!" Tara suggested.
No wonder, neither of the boys connected those words to the lyrics of that Musical's theme song right away.
"We have this thing where us girls…" Emily started off, but she had no time, nor intention, of letting them in on their little secret.
"Never mind. It's just something we say to each other. And JJ quoted the lyrics of that one song. That was her hint to us. She knew we would be listening to those tapes when we realized she had gotten kidnapped." Emily felt good, having taken the first little step towards helping JJ out.
"Yeah, but what does that even mean?" Luke came out of his shell of silence.
They were then surprised by a loud banging on the door of the police station.
"My son! My child. My son…" A very freaked out man crawled to his knees once a policeman opened the door for him.
"It's the same man I heard on the tape. The one who was screaming about the child…" Reid recognized the voice immediately.
"I was here…my child…" The man was making no sense at all.
"Sir, calm down." Emily went over to his side, helping him stand up.
"Are you hurt?" She asked, noticing a small scratch on his left cheek, with some fresh blood on it.
"No, no. But my child…my son…he's my only son!" He kept on repeating.
Emily brought him a chair and then grabbed herself one, too, setting it right in front of his.
"Sir, calm down. Breathe. Here, have some water. I need you to relax and then we can talk, okay?" Emily spoke calmly, her voice soothing and even.
Rossi took a moment to study her behavior, while she was doing the same for the man who was now sitting in front of her.
She had been a mess, just over an hour ago. He had had to threaten to hit her, in order for her to calm down. How was she so calm and collected now? It was as if there were two Emily's there – Emily Prentiss, the Unit Chief; and Emily, just Emily, the mess.
"Okay, now I need you to look at me. Just me, okay?" Emily asked the man a few seconds later.
She noticed he was being distracted and maybe even intimidated by all these men in uniform, now circling around them, so she asked for some privacy. Her team stayed, but they sat behind the man, being out of his eye sight, as to not make him feel uncomfortable.
"My son Wallace, I had just taken him from school and we were on our way back when we heard about the kidnappings, on the radio. I stopped by the police station to ask what's going on and people were being loud and I freaked out. I stayed a little bit, to learn the news. We were told someone would come talk to us." The man spoke.
"Yes, one of my colleagues. We are with the FBI." Emily informed him, unsure if she had mentioned it while scraping him off the floor two minutes ago.
"FBI? For a couple of kidnappings?" He asked skeptically.
"Sir, this is a little bit darker than just two kidnappings. But we cannot give out any information on an ongoing investigation." Emily said honestly, yet very vaguely.
"Are you saying my son is now with a man whom the FBI is searching for?" The man started to freak out once more.
"All due respect Sir, but I have to first understand what you are saying, in order to say something myself." She spoke sternly, looking at him with that 'I ain't playin' stare in her eyes. "Also, if your son has been taken by this person we are looking for, you should take some comfort in knowing that a fully trained FBI Agent is right there, with him. She would never let anything happen to a child, she is a mother!"
"Wallace kept begging me to leave. He had to use the rest room and I told him when everyone was gone, we could use the one at the police station, so then he dropped his whining and just waited with me. It must have been at least fifteen minutes before the woman came out. Blonde, beautiful, kind of tiny." He continued.
Emily nodded. "Agent Jareau." She said her name, so that he could have a reference later.
"Yes. And then she started speaking and we just wanted answers. Everyone was pushing us around and…I didn't think much of it, at the time. It's just another riot in front of a police station, I thought this was all normal." He stopped, allowing himself to finish the glass of water that Emily had offered him earlier.
"It is normal. There should be nothing weird about it." Emily had an agenda. "Unless you think you might have seen or heard something suspicious…"
"No. No…" He repeated, the second time unsure of his own statement.
"Let's start from the beginning…" Emily breathed in and, subconsciously, the man did so as well.
"Uh-oh. Unstable Prentiss giving a cognitive? Great idea!" Reid said sarcastically.
"Where do you see an unstable Prentiss?" Rossi smirked, his eyes admiring the strength that the woman in front of him was showing now, in comparison to the one he had to take on a walk out earlier.
Emily made the man start talking and, from what she could understand, he had been standing in the crowd, despite his son begging him to leave, for about fifteen minutes, before JJ even walked out. Then it had taken her about five minutes to wrap up her statement and to answer, or avoid answering questions. Then there was a whole minute left out blank, since she had stopped talking until when her voice was heard on the tape.
Where had she been?
Why did nobody see her?
What was she doing?
The man was confused, by the end of his own statement.
"Relax, it is normal to mix up the order in which things happened." Emily reassured him, being expert in eye witness testimony after years of work and study in that field.
"I think I heard…" He then stopped for a second. "No, that's not right. I think…yeah, the woman stopped talking and I remember I told my son to shut up and let me listen to her last words. He wanted to tell me something and I ignored him. I was quite harsh, too. But I needed to know everything. I heard women were being abducted and so I was afraid for his mother. She works late night shifts and she always comes home on her own. I had to inform myself, in order to protect her."
"You are a brave man, Sir." Emily offered him a tiny smile.
"Then I just…I remember the woman and then she was not there. And my son…" He inhaled sharply, as if he had just realized something. "My son was not there either. I uh, I started shouting that a child had been lost in the crowd, but nobody was listening. Everyone was discussing the kidnappings. Then the shouting eased down and I could hear people talking, but I couldn't hear my son's voice. He wasn't near me and I couldn't find him."
"Did you see him walk off? Did he let go of your hand?" Emily asked, just to get him to keep talking.
"No. Yes, yes, he was holding my hand. He started tugging on my hand right when the woman announced she would be answering the last question. That's when I yelled at him to stay put and wait a little longer and that's when I felt his hand slip away, but I never would have thought he'd walk away in such a big crowd. He's a very good boy." The man exhaled, feeling like a fool.
Reid had an idea and he waved at Emily, as if he was urging her to join the team.
"Sir, you've been very helpful. Just one last question – how did you get hurt?" She asked in the end.
"I don't know. I must have spaced out I was so worried about my son and I guess I must have tripped and…I don't know. I only just opened my eyes now. I was laying on the grass, between those trees over there, in front of the police station." He said.
"You just woke up, now?" Emily was surprised.
"Yes and I ran to the station right away to ask if anyone has maybe seen my son. He's a smart kid, he knows to look for police officers if he ever gets lost." He stated, his heart now racing.
"Sir, would you be okay if I assign two police officers to take you to a nearby hospital for just a standard check before you go home? We will be in touch if we have any news, but right now you need to be with your son's mother and you need to be strong, for both of you. Okay?" Emily kept on smiling, trying not to freak the man out.
He agreed and got escorted to the hospital by a policeman and Matt. Emily had whispered to him what she needed and he left in a hurry.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
"Nichole" Don't worry :) I can ASSURE (and re-assure!) you that the pairing you raised concerns about is NEVER going to happen!
If you've read the "inappropriate relationship" comment, it was meant in a strictly PLATONIC way. (Inappropriate because of the things she says to tease the other person).
Angie will form strictly PLATONIC relationships (friendships!) with several characters. At most, she might become friends with the character you mentioned, but that's SURELY where it ends!
She is NOT being set up for a love relationship, anytime soon. This is NOT a main arc for the story.
As for her knowing a lot and being good - it's not because she's a fairy with supernatural powers. She's been busting her ass, day and night, for years, to be who she is now. And there is another reason why she's so good...it will be explained later on :)
Angie fails miserably at MANY things. She just does not do them, or talk about the things she doesn't know much about, so she seems good at "everything", but really, she just knows how to avoid being called out on the lack of skills in other departments. You will soon start seeing her soft side, her struggles, her past, her insecurities. I need to build her as a strong character first.
ANYONE can be as good as Angie. Just find the thing you're passionate about and be fiercely consistent in your attempts to always improve in that field :)!
PS: I really like the spelling of your name, Nichole :)!
