Chapter Text
"I could get in a lot of trouble for letting you do this," JJ warns.
"I won’t tell," Sarah says. She’s been good to her word and joined AA; now JJ is holding up her end of the bargain.
"Just don’t touch anything, okay?"
The morgue is cold, but doesn’t smell as bad as Sarah expected. The ME has been alerted that they are coming, and the earthly remains of Roger and Anita Roycewood are side-by-side on their stainless steel slabs. They are covered by a drape up to their necks. Sarah circles around to look at their faces.
"I thought they’d look worse," Sarah says. "They look almost... nice. Like the kind of relatives who give you ugly sweaters at Christmas."
JJ smiles at Sarah’s apt description. "Sometimes that’s how it is," she says. "Sometimes the most ordinary-looking people are capable of the most horrific things."
Sarah turns to the ME. "How did they die?" she said. "I mean I know how they died but... did they suffer?"
"Roger Roycewood was killed by hanging," the ME explains. "Cause of death was asphyxiation. Anita was killed by a single bullet from a small-caliber handgun at close range. It entered the torso and severed the abdominal aorta. She would have bled out in a matter of minutes.:
"Then their deaths were quick?" she presses. "They didn’t suffer?"
"We don’t know for sure, but most likely both of their deaths were quick, with a minimum of suffering, yes."
Sarah’s face is contorted into a rictus of hate. "That’s not fair," she says. "They didn’t deserve a painless death. They should have suffered, like they made my baby suffer for eight years."
JJ puts an arm around the woman’s shoulders and steers her away. "Trust me," she says. "It wouldn’t make it any easier."
Sarah's hands are shaking, though JJ isn’t sure whether it’s from rage or withdrawal. "Where is Charlie now? Is he still in the hospital?" the agent asks. Sarah nods. "How's he doing?"
"We told him about the divorce," Sarah says with a rueful smile. "It... didn't go well."
Agent Jareau ushers the other woman out into the hall. "After everything that you’ve done to bring him back to you, the real work is just beginning."
"I kind of hate you," Emily tells him.
"I know." Jake and Sarah are out in the hallway arguing. Again. The siblings are alone together for the first time, and Charlie’s sister won’t meet his eyes. "I don’t blame you."
"You don’t know what it was like for me after you left," she starts out bitterly.
"I didn’t leave," he says quietly, but he realizes it’s not important. For her, it made no difference whether he ran away or was kidnapped (or murdered for that matter). All she knows is that one day she had a brother, and the next day she didn’t.
"I was too young to understand it," Emily is saying. "I was in kindergarten. how was I supposed to understand? Nobody ever sat me down and talked to me about it. I wasn’t Emily Hillridge anymore, I was the sister of the victim." She spits out the word victim like it’s poison.
"I’m sorry," he whispers.
"Once mom started drinking, forget it. Dad was a little better, but not much. All he wanted to do was fight with mom."
In a way, it feels good to have her yell and scream at him. His parents have been too nice, treating him like he’s made out of porcelain, but his sister sees the cracks in the facade.
"She missed my dance recitals so she could go hang posters and stuff." Emily’s eyes narrow. "She chose you over me."
Charlie knows she isn’t really saying that what she went through was worse than what he went through, but until now he’s never considered that anyone on the outside has suffered. He’s wanted to think that while he was trapped in a nightmare, his family was happy and most of all normal without him. It’s been a jarring realization to find out that they have bickered and cried and drank and screamed and ultimately fallen apart.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that, Emmy," he says.
She whips around and looks at him. "What did you just say?"
"I said I'm sorry you had to -"
"You called me Emmy. I used to have a brother who called me Emmy."
"You still do."
She stares at him a long moment, and then her face crumples. "Oh my God," Emily says. "It's you. It's really you."
"Don't cry," Charlie says urgently. "Please don't cry."
"It's okay," Emily says. "I'm crying because I'm happy." She laughs at herself. "God, Charlie, you were so bossy."
He takes that as a compliment. "Well, you were a pest."
"I was not."
"You were." An actual smile, if a tiny one, crosses his face. "You kept stealing my Lego guys so they could get married to your Polly Pockets."
Out in the hall, Jake and Sarah have been hurling their usual accusations at each other but at the sight of their kids, their anger dissipates. It’s a start.
"Charlie?" Emily says.
"Yeah?"
"I missed you." She spent all these years being angry at his ghost. But he isn’t a ghost anymore - and she’s surprised to find she isn’t angry.
"I thought you hated me."
"I can do both."