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It was approaching another month. Another month that you desperately wished didn't arrive. One more month since your other half was taken, no ripped, from you.
Emily was your everything, the only light to be found amongst your plethora of darkness. Single-handedly, she swooped in and saved you, saving you from things that you didn't even know you needed to be saved from.
Alas, after every broken sob that came from you behind closed doors, you began to hide your heartbreak from the team. It was proven difficult, not just because they're a group of profilers but also because they're your family. The closest thing you have to one. Though, you started to become better at hiding your pain. Pushing through your heartache for the sake of your job and the others.
Even though you and Emily were together, you felt as if you had no right to mourn her more than the others. Thinking it'd be selfish of you to make the others see and deal with your pain on top of theirs. No, you'd bury it deep within you like you did everything else.
After all, the one person you could open up to was gone.
The days never got easier, but you didn't let on to it. You had finally gotten used to the fact that she was gone just enough for you to not break down at the mere thought of Emily, only while in front of anyone else of course.
The thought of another month arriving took hold of your thoughts, leaving a shell of you sitting at your desk in the bullpen.
You could hear the light conversations and shuffling of paperwork from your coworkers around you. Aside from Spencer, he was overanalyzing your daydreaming, a habit of his you've learned to ignore.
Suddenly, Hotch and JJ pulled the team into the round table room.
Confusion overtook everyone as there was no mention of a new case to be solved. A stoic Hotch stood in front of the tv with a worried-looking JJ standing beside him.
With one look, you knew that something was wrong and they were afraid of something. You were a profiler after all. But what they were afraid of, you had no idea. And that terrified you more.
You kept looking between the blonde and the brunette standing just off to the left of you, stealing a glance around the room to see everyone else as equally confused.
Derek was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence, "What's going on? Everything alright?"
Hotch lowered his head just slightly as he spoke next, "Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team. As you all know, Emily lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilize-"
Your stomach instantly churned and dropped, leaving you feeling as if you were to be sick. You heard the words Hotch was saying, but you couldn't process them.
A ringing began in your ears as you began to realize exactly what he was saying. Tears instantly violated your eyes, coming to the surface with the threat of falling.
You couldn't look away from Hotch, "No." A pathetic attempt of a whisper left your lips. Or at least you thought it did.
This can't be happening.
"She's alive?" Garcia spoke with disbelief.
"No." You whispered once more, a single tear escaping.
Spencer almost didn't want to believe it, "But, we buried her?"
"No." You spoke a little louder, you weren't sure what emotion you were feeling at this moment.
A movement at the doorway, the one you walked through just moments ago, grabbed everyone's attention. Looking up, you saw something, someone, you thought you'd never see again. If it weren't for the others around you, you would've sworn you were dreaming.
"No. No!" You stand from the table, the emotions and pain becoming too difficult to bare.
"Y/n-" Emily tried talking to you, to get you to hear her.
But you need to leave, you don't want to risk the team seeing you break down again. You disliked them witnessing the first time it occurred, the moment JJ and Hotch came around the corner in the hospital to tell everyone that 'she never made it off the table'. You always, and still do, thought that there were dozens of other ways she could've worded it, and she chose that.
"NO." You all but shouted.
You go to exit through the other door in the round room but Hotch attempted to stop you by standing in front of you, "No! Y-You, stay away from me!" You say as you push past him.
He lied to you. He lied to you about the most important person in your life. And that's enough for you to want to leave this place and never return.
You rushed down the stairs, quickly coming up to your desk. You opened the bottom drawer and swapped your gun and badge for your bag. You can feel the team watching you from the windows, but that's not enough to stop you, not even close.
You hear rushed movements, unsurprised that someone came after you. What you weren't expecting was the person that was behind you. Emily came up to you. Normally under any other circumstance, she would've been plenty to stop you in your trail, but not now.
And what did surprise you, was that she was standing in front of you. In the flesh. The Emily Prentiss that you buried just months ago, standing in front of you.
The tears are completely streaming down your face, "Y/n, please wait," Emily tried.
This was already too much to bare, but hearing her voice so close to you, that's an entirely new type of difficulty, "No! You should've known that I can't handle this," Your eyes scanned her in disbelief. "You, you- UGH!" You were frustrated with everything.
Frustrated with yourself due to being unable to express your thoughts in feelings in quite literally any way. Frustrated with Hotch and JJ for lying to you, frustrated with Emily for leaving you, frustrated with the team for you don't even know why at this point.
You just had misplaced emotions everywhere at this moment.
You tried walking away from her.
She came forward and tried to touch you, "Y/n please-"
Fear, maybe longing, flashed in your eyes as you flinched away from her touch, after all, you are looking at a ghost, "I said no. Just- you- no. No."
You pulled yourself away from her and walked out of the BAU, leaving not only Emily confused with your reaction but everyone else too.
~Time Skip~
Your phone buzzed on the coffee table, with you laying on the couch just watching as it moves ever so slightly with each buzz.
You had quickly become annoyed with the sound of your ringer, so you shut it off. You wanted to shut your phone off completely but you knew that was a bad idea for many different reasons. You knew the team would panic, panic being an understatement, if they couldn't even get one ring on your phone. That and you knew Garcia was tracking your phone just so they knew where you were.
Instead, you opted to watch it buzz. Leaving the texts unchecked and the calls unanswered.
You may have been a little dramatic but you couldn't find it in yourself to care.
———
Emily was standing, well pacing, in Hotch's office as he sat at his desk, "I just don't know what to do. She won't answer my calls or texts,"
"She's not answering any of ours either." He didn't want to let on that he was worried, this being entirely out of character for you.
"Hotch, it's been a week. She hasn't come to work." Concern practically dripped from Emily's voice.
He briefly pinched the bridge of his nose, "I know. I didn't think she would react like this."
"I didn't either, did I mess up by not telling her?"
"No. We did what we had to. Not only for the importance of the case, but it kept her safe too."
He tried to reason with the thoughts raging through the brunette's mind, ultimately failing.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm going to head over to her place and try to talk to her."
Of course, he felt that maybe Emily going wasn't the best idea. Maybe Rossi or Reid could go. But he knew that she wouldn't listen regardless of what he said anyways.
"Okay, keep us posted."
She rushed out of his office with your apartment in mind, "Will do."
It took Emily all of twenty minutes to get out of the BAU and to the front door of your apartment.
Oddly, she hesitated for a mere second before knocking. A feeling of relief came to her when she heard your voice on the other side.
"Who is it?" Your voice was weak and hoarse, presumably from your exhaustion but also because you haven't actually talked in quite a few days.
"It's me, Emily."
You regretted your choice of calling out instead of looking into the peephole.
You jumped up from the couch, with more abruptness and energy than you've had in ages, instantly going to the door, "No one's home. Go away." You quietly paced back and forth behind it.
"Come on Y/n, you can't hide forever."
"Sure I can, maybe if I hide long enough everyone will think I died." You couldn't care less about the childish sentence that left your mouth.
"That's not fair, I did what I had to."
The door flies open, "Really?! That's the best you could come up with?! God, Emily!"
The moment her eyes landed on you, she took the opportunity to get a better look at you. She hasn't seen you in months, just like you hadn't seen her. But your flushed and tear-stained face isn't what she was expecting. Emily was expecting you to be tired, a bit different maybe. But not like this. The dark circles that claimed home under your eyes weren't budging, becoming a new part of you because you never were able to get actual sleep since she was gone.
You tried to slam the door shut but she stops it, you don't have enough energy to fight it. You sigh loudly and sharply but it doesn't phase Emily.
She glanced around your apartment, the usual tidiness and comfort nowhere to be found. In your defense, this didn't happen in a week, the clutter occurred from the sheer lack of energy and motivation to clean anything over the past several months.
"Y/n, you have to talk to me." Her hands are out front of her, bracing for something, though it's as if she's almost afraid of approaching you.
You cross your arms, "Oh? Now you're all for communication?"
"Look, I know you're mad-" Okay, maybe you weren't expressing your feelings entirely in the right way.
"Mad? Mad?! Emily, I'm not fucking mad, I'm fucking destroyed."
She has a questioning face but lets you further explain.
The tears you so desperately tried to hide returned faster than before, "Every damn day for months, I cried the hardest I've ever cried in my life. I cried so hard because I thought that the love of my life, the other half of my soul, was gone. YOU DIED," Your arms were flailing in attempts to hide your shaking form. "And- and then when I thought I finally found a way to not cry every damn hour, you just, walk right in? Like nothing happened?! What the fuck?!" You wiped the tears that you had felt during your rant.
"Y/n, I'm sorry. I truly am. I wanted to talk to you, to reach out, but I couldn't." The pain in her eyes beginning to match yours.
"The worst part of it all," You took a stuttering breath. "I didn't get to say goodbye. Every day, I had to walk by your portrait that was screwed into the wall, as if it was mocking me." More tears fell on your face.
Emily took a step forward towards you, and in turn, you took a step back.
"I want to believe this is real. That you are standing right in front of me. But I can't bring myself to. I can't savor this to just lose you all over again." A broken sob left your lips.
Despite your, very pathetic, attempt at keeping Emily from getting close to you, she moved your hands aside and pulled you into her.
Another sob escaped you when you realized she didn't vanish. Her scent and the feeling of her stroking your head made you realize, this is real, and she is here, with you.
At this realization though, your knees gave out, and you are no longer able to muster the energy to keep you upright. More broken cries and sobs came from you as Emily dropped to the floor with you, her hold never faltering.
Your fears of her vanishing again were clear in the way you held onto any part of her you could.
As your sobs and cries shifted into stuttering breaths, you began to feel the embarrassment roll over you. You knew you shouldn't be embarrassed for your emotions, especially for showing them in front of Emily. She was always the only one you never hid from. But you were feeling many different things at once, and you couldn't help it.
You pulled back from her and silently wiped your tear-stained face, you knew it wouldn't make a difference though.
It took you a second to remember the reason why Emily returned to begin with, "So, how's the case?"
Guilt took over you again, you made this about yourself, ignoring the much bigger picture that was happening. How could you do that? Leave in the middle of one of the biggest cases the BAU has had in some time.
Emily was clearly confused by your sudden shift, "No no, how are you?"
Sighing, you tried to get the topic off of you, "Emily, we can talk about that later. I've missed a lot of what's happened on the case."
"We haven't made much progress, well, we haven't made any progress. So, I'll ask again, how are you?"
"I'm okay."
"Wanna try that again, 'cause I'm right here." Not a thing changed, she still saw straight through you.
"Before I answer that, I have a question for you."
"Anything."
"If we had caught Doyle on our own, would you have come back? Would you have come back if you didn't have to?"
She paused for a second, "I'd like to think that I would've, yes."
Her political voice was clear as if she were speaking on trial, "Oh, stop the bullshit Emily, I'm not Strauss," She looked a little surprised. "You don't need to be posh when speaking with me. If the real answer was no you could've just said that."
She sighed before speaking, "I won't lie and say I didn't embrace the slight break of things at least a little bit, but it was just as much hell for me as it was for you," You waited for her to explain more because her tone told you she wasn't done. "You mourned the loss of one, I mourned the loss of six. Every day, I lived in fear that Doyle or one of his men would find me and finish what they started. Or worse, they'd find you. And that's why I couldn't tell you. There was a chance that if they found you, going on normally and living your life, they'd know I wasn't actually gone. And they would use you to get to me. And I wasn't going to risk that."
Your tears returned when you saw Emily fighting off her tears, trying to at least keep herself together. That was another way you two were alike.
"I understand why you did what you had to, I really do. A part of me just couldn't help but feel every possible thing." She searched your eyes for something, and she likely already found it.
"Your turn." You knew what she was talking about.
"No, I'm not," You looked at your hands in your lap. "It felt like a huge part of me died with you that day. A part of me that I was certain wouldn't come back. I became reckless on cases, anyone could tell you that, just hoping that if there was anything that could go wrong, it would happen to me. If anything was to happen to someone on the team, it would be me. I guess, I thought that if something did happen, it would bring me to you." You were terrified to meet Emily's gaze, you know the type of look she'd have and you couldn't bare to see it right now.
"Y/n, I-"
"Don't be sorry, please don't be sorry for me." You whispered, looking up to see her with the exact look you didn't want her to have.
"I'm not-"
"Emily, that's the face you make when you have to talk with a victim's family. I know that tone. I don't want you to treat me like one of them because I'm not, nowhere close."
Yes, you did lose the love of your life. Yes, you were utterly lost. And no matter what the hell you were currently feeling, you got her back. She was here and in your arms. And that is what sets you apart from any family of victims.
"I know that," She spoke as she just slightly nodded her head. "Believe me, I do. And I know I'm just a broken record but I'm so sorry. Y/n, I didn't want to go without saying anything to you but I didn't have a choice."
"I know, I was just being selfish. I just wanted you to come back to me, I wanted this to just be a nightmare and I'd wake up and see you sleeping next to me." Emily brought her hand up and caressed your cheek as you finished your sentence.
"Well, I'm back now. And I know we can't take back the time we lost but we can make up for it, we can continue where we left off or we can even start over if that's what you want."
Your eyes search hers, the same russet brown that you longed to see for ages, but you weren't looking for anything in particular, you just missed her. At this moment, seeing and holding her, you said to hell with it. You pulled her back to you and rejoined your lips, deciding that you were ready to be done with the past. After all, it was irrelevant now.
The world was drowned out with her lips on yours, nothing else was important and nothing could pull you from this moment. That is until your phone went off again. You pulled back from Emily with a groan, and a small chuckle came from her.
"You should probably answer that." She followed your eyes to your buzzing phone that was on the coffee table.
You sighed, "Yeah, I don't want Morgan breaking down my door if you guys decide to come for me."
You crawled a few feet's distance towards your phone, a smile coming to your face when you heard Emily's laugh at your comment.
You turned around, leaning against the coffee table as you answered the phone, "Hey, you."
Emily tried to make it seem like she wasn't listening to the call, but she wasn't trying too hard and you saw straight through it.
Garcia squealed as she heard your voice, "OH! Oh my god! Lovey, are you okay? I don't know what I was expecting but I'm glad you picked up! How are you doing?" You chuckled at her antics, her asking a million questions a second.
You looked up at Emily, "I'm okay, now."
"Oh! I'm so glad! As much as I'm glad you're having this reunion, there's been a breakthrough on the case." Just as Garcia asked you if you could come in, your eyes snapped to Emily.
The moment she saw your look, she knew that both of you were needed, of course, she heard what Garcia said but that's unimportant.
Before you made your leave for the office, you opted to shower and change out of your clothes. You may not have been dirty per se, but it was nice to refresh and rid yourself of the past few days.
The smile that came to your face when Emily rested her hand on your thigh during the drive back to the BAU was entirely involuntary, but it was welcomed. There was plenty you two could've been talking about during the drive, plenty to catch up on, but you both just decided to enjoy the silence the both of you shared and enjoy each other's presence.
All eyes were on you when you and Emily walked back into the bullpen, and instead of speaking you just flashed everyone a sheepish smile. You may have blatantly ignored both Hotch and JJ, not quite ready to face them and be the bigger person, and listened to Garcia as she announced the newfound information.
With everything coming together, the team set a plan in action. Of course, you didn't like that Emily was their main play, you just got her back.
Luckily, all went well, except for Doyle being killed but you counted that as a win. But you, Emily, Declan, and everyone else on the team were safe.
"Let's go home." You placed your hands on either side of her face in an attempt to ground her, you knew that what just happened was a lot for her.
She just nodded in acceptance and took your hand, following you back to the car. Everyone else on the team just watched as you both walked away, they would catch up with you both later, they knew that you both just needed each other right now and the paperwork could wait.
Yeah, the last seven months were hell, but that doesn't matter anymore. All that heartache, all the tears, they're irrelevant now that you have Emily in your arms again.