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The storm that diverted her flight is nothing but gray clouds this far south. It’s a there and gone again memory, those old extreme weather shows. A storm chaser, she has become.
The car rental wasn’t cheap and she won’t be able to invoice it to any agency. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the compass pointing north and the speedometer not dropping below seventy.
Emily loosens her grip on the wheel. Tenses up again.
She’s in the same country as Doyle. Her nightmares’ favorite plaything and she doesn’t have Clyde and Tsia at her back. It’ll be hours before the BAU will decide if her complicity in the betrayal is forgivable.
She wishes she could call JJ for one last reassurance.
Maybe that thought is why she stops. The photorealistic imagination of her friend, sarcastic grin, blonde hair, fierce gaze. She doesn’t know what else would pierce through this determined fog to get home.
In between blinks, she finds her rental pulled over on the side of the road, hazards flashing.
What’s more time lost when she’s been seven months without her family?
Looking back through the rearview mirror, she lets out an impatient huff. But it would be rude to continue on now. If her mom knew she was alive, she would give a sarcastic self-congratulations at Emily’s baseline politeness.
She sighs. That’s all she seems to do when she’s not undercover. Sigh and wallow and regret. It’s not like her, it never has been, so like all the times before, she pushes forward. Climbing out the driver’s side after confirming no traffic will take her out before Doyle can, Emily positions herself against the trunk.
It’s only another minute or two before the hiker catches up.
“You break down?” the traveler asks. She’s close enough now that Emily realizes she looks nothing like JJ at all. Her blonde hair is frayed out in unkempt curls. The lock of her jaw is set with retaliation rather than resolve. And she is a child. Half JJ’s age. Wandering the US highway system alone.
She continues on, not needing Emily to answer. “If you have an emergency kit, I might be able to fix it. I’m pretty handy,” she offers like she isn’t sixteen, sweat dispersing the dust on her brow, hiking boots worn at the soles.
Emily doesn’t push off of the trunk. The girl might not give off timid energy, but there is a tightness in her smile that reads as fear. “No, it’s running fine.”
A small, “Oh,” and an edging backward.
God, Emily does not have time for this and yet it feels like the most important thing she can do. She remembers being sixteen and all alone in the world. Rome and Matthew and the doctor.
“You looked like you needed a ride.”
The teen cringes at that. She swipes away some of the dirt on her brow and tightens the straps on her overfull backpack. She assesses Emily with an intensity mismatched with her youth. Or, maybe, perfectly aligned. The claws of her scrutiny catch in areas that Emily would focus on an unsub. Twitching hands, places where weapons are best hidden. Emily adjusts so that her jacket doesn’t hide as many shadows.
“You headed north?” the girl asks finally.
“To DC,” she confirms. She could say more, but any attempt at convincing or sweetening the deal will only deter her more. Make Emily seem like the kind of creep she hunts.
The girl weighs her few words against the soreness of her feet and the heaviness of her backpack. She sighs. “If you’re headed that way…”
“I am.”
“Alright,” the teen allows. She eyes the car, spots the rental plates from the airport. “Long drive.”
Emily shrugs. It is. But she needs to get home. She hopes that’s how this girl feels too. That she’s running toward, not from.
“I’m Emily,” she introduces instead.
The traveler takes her hand. “Steph.”
Steph keeps her backpack in her lap the first hour of the ride. She keeps her feet tucked tight near the seat. One hand rests inches from the door handle, the other near the buckle release.
At least, Emily supposes, she’s not carrying pepper spray. Or, if she is, it’s not ready to be deployed.
Her skin is tan, which makes Emily think she’s been traveling from somewhere even further south. It reveals thin white scars on her left cheek, a pattern she identifies as glass shattering.
There’s a stiffness in her left shoulder and a reliance on her right side that she corrects repeatedly. An injury, substantial but healed.
She tracks the road signs repeatedly, hardly glancing at the GPS suctioned to the windshield for confirmation.
Emily keeps her body language relaxed, the radio humming just loud enough to cover their lack of conversation. She’s speeding, but no more than she was before. Not enough to make Steph nervous.
It’s a bit embarrassing how she startles when Steph shifts slightly.
She gives half a smile, assuring the both of them that this is okay, good even. The girl has been stiff and suspicious. If after forty-five minutes, she’s finally comfortable enough to stretch out, Emily won’t do anything to deter her.
Steph adjusts where her feet are, still a grounded position compared to how most would sit shotgun. She pulls a crinkled water bottle from the outer pocket of her backpack and sips it carefully.
Close to hitting herself, Emily realizes just how hungry and thirsty Steph must be, if she’s been traveling as long as Emily suspects. As her behavior indicates.
Affirming her grip on the steering wheel rather than biting her nails like she wants to, she waits for Steph to put away her bottle. It’s a third full. “I have some snacks and water from my flight in the back seat.”
Her face tightens, just shy of a grimace. “I’m good, thanks.”
It shouldn’t surprise her. This teen is as hardened as Emily is now. But a pang of disappointment hits her all the same.
Just over an hour into the drive, Greensboro, North Carolina appears on the map. Emily clicks on her blinker for exit 35B.
Steph tightens her grip on the buckle release and the door handle. “It’s faster to continue on.”
“There’s a storm up north,” Emily explains. “It diverted my plane all the way to Charlotte, but it’s mostly along the coast.”
“It’s faster straight,” Steph repeats, teenage recklessness.
“It’s safer this way.” She reaches for the GPS to angle it toward Steph, regretting it when the girl flinches minutely. “We’ll take Highway 29 instead of Interstate 95. They both get us to DC, but 29 won’t be flooded. Shouldn’t add more than 20 minutes.”
She studies the GPS for a moment, brow furrowed and mouth moving reminiscent in the way Reid calculates statistics to himself. Her heart pangs, missing her friend. JJ hasn’t said much about him, which makes her all the more worried. She just… She believes that JJ would’ve told her if he relapsed. She holds onto that. That her ‘death’ didn’t rob him of all his hard-won progress.
“How bad’s the storm?” she finally asks.
The concern in her voice gives Emily pause. “Lots of flash flood warnings, according to the flight crew. High winds. Downpours.” She’s answering the wrong question, she knows. But what Steph is really asking is unclear to her.
“Is it moving north?”
“I don’t know.”
Steph frowns. Her eyes scan the horizon. She doesn’t protest the longer route again.
Signs for Brown Summit, Reidsville, Oregon Hill, Pelham, and Whitfield fly past at seventy-five miles per hour.
Then, finally, Danville. They cross the border into Virginia.
Evidence that they are truly heading north. Emily feels like cheering as Steph loosens her grip ever so slightly as the first Welcome to Virginia sign comes into view.
It’s a big enough town that Emily doesn’t want to risk there not being another like it when they need one.
“I’m going to get gas,” she announces before the exit comes into view.
Steph nods, eyes taking in the landscape that isn’t all that different from North Carolina. There’s a humble curiosity that leads Emily to believe this is Steph’s first time in the state.
They slow down on the business route and she pulls off for the first Valero she sees.
Popping the gas cap door and grabbing her purse, she watches Steph slid out of the car after muttering about using the restroom. She’s about to duck into the building, when she pauses.
Emily doesn’t stare back, continuing to set the nozzle into place and hitting the unleaded option.
Steph opens her mouth, brow furrowed and eyes darting for someone else, before hurrying on.
Unbidden, a fun fact from Reid enters her mind. New Jersey is the only state where attendants still pump gas.
She stays by the pump until the handle clicks. Returning everything to its proper place and tossing the receipt that prints out against her wishes, Emily goes into the station as well.
It’s rundown. Danville isn’t big, it’s just bigger than everything else around it. The lone cashier to talking to a man that’s already bought a pack of cigarettes but doesn’t seem likely to move along soon.
Steph is coming out of the bathroom, eyes flicking to the curved mirrors meant for security.
“Hey,” Emily calls. “Grab anything you like to eat and drink. I’ll buy.”
“Sure…” Steph agrees, not moving, presumably, until Emily locks the door to the single bathroom behind her.
They meet at the register. Steph has a heavy duty protein bar that is usually advertised to gym rats and a large water bottle.
Emily doesn’t comment on any of it, making herself a ‘freshly brewed’ coffee and grabbing a honey-almond bar.
She pays, the other customer barely budging over to let her insert her credit card into the horribly outdated reader.
It’s one of Lauren’s accounts and Steph notices immediately.
She grabs her two items before the card reader beeps and strides toward the door. She brought her backpack, Emily realizes. Burned enough times to be prepared.
“Steph, wait-” she calls once she’s in the parking lot.
The teen whirls around on her, far enough away that she has to raise her voice. “Sure thing, Lauren,” she bites out. “Anything else you want to lie about?”
Emily holds up her hands placatingly. There is a pounding in her chest that insists she cannot abandon this girl. It wars with the parts of her mind that insist she doesn’t have time to waste, that she needs to get back to the team now. It succeeds.
“My name’s not Lauren.” The thread of trust between them has snapped and she’s desperate to re-tie the frayed ends.
Steph crosses her arms over her chest. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got a whole host of aliases to trot out, kidnapper. Thanks for the snacks, but I’m out. Good luck with whatever scam you’re running in DC.” She turns again toward the street, obviously intent on returning to the highway and making her way north alone.
Maybe it’s that it’s been so long that she hasn’t been able to be honest that compels the truth out of her. “I do have a number of aliases. But my real name is Emily. I was overseas for a while, and Lauren Reynolds was the only account with an active account in the States.”
It’s enough to stop Steph again, though she remains faced away. Her head shakes in disbelief. “What, did you fake your death too?”
“I did,” she confesses. “Or, my unit chief did.” A layer of hurt, honest and unresolved, covers the words. “I was injured at the time and to get me out of danger, he told everyone that I hadn’t survived the surgery. I’m- I was an FBI agent.”
Steph’s shoulders hunch impossibly more.
“Look, I get it, it’s a wild story, you don’t know me. I really am trying to get to DC, to Quantico, Virginia, technically. I’m happy to drop you off in the city. You can get almost anywhere from there.”
“Gotham,” Steph says, sucking in a breath like she hadn’t expected the word to come out. “I’m headed to Gotham.” She turns, hands grasped tightly around the straps of her backpack. Her sharp eyes assess Emily for a long, stretching moment. “What kind of danger were you in?”
Unbidden, Doyle’s cruel smile flashes in her mind. “I’d rather not say.”
Steph gives half a smile. “Yeah,” she says with all too much understanding. “Fair enough.” Her shoulders relax. “So can we listen to something other than the oldies or what?”
Surprisingly, the ride becomes comfortable within minutes of hitting the highway.
Steph eats her protein bar with an uncomfortable amount of gusto, but sips her water conservatively. Her backpack rests at her feet.
As requested, Emily switches the radio to a more ‘modern’ station, eating her whole bar while at the one traffic light between the gas station and highway.
The music is grocery-store familiar, though what she suspects as more recent songs draw a blank. Steph seems to recognize even less of the music than her, humming along to one in every five songs or so.
Her eyes still flick to the road signs, but Steph’s attention is mostly cast out the passenger window, watching the trees broken up infrequently by farmland. She fidgets more, shifting around to get into a more comfortable position, running her fingers against all the little features of the rental car.
“What’s in Gotham?” Emily asks when they pass by Lynchburg. Bigger than Danville, she’s tempted to get drive-through, but settles instead for using the location to make Steph feel safe enough to answer a personal question. If she asks to be dropped off here, Emily won’t feel quite as guilty.
Steph glances at her, shrugging. “Home, I guess.”
Emily fights a frown. She’d felt confident in her assessment that Steph is from down south. Her accent isn’t impressionable any which way, so she’d reasoned the location on the limited other information. Morgan would laugh at her for being so off-base, she thinks mournfully.
“You guess?” she probes.
Another shrug. “Was gone for a year. City moves fast. Leaves people behind.” There’s a deep sadness in her voice. Emily wonders if it’s not the city, but the people in it who she’s worried about.
“I have a phone, if you want to call someone,” she offers cautiously. Steph has been traveling for a while, with a year between her and home. It’s unlikely that Emily is her first opportunity to get in touch with her loved ones.
Did they not answer when she called? Did they reject her?
Is that why she’s walking all the way home?
Steph flinches. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“If things aren’t safe at home…” The protector in Emily hasn’t wavered for a moment since she saw Steph, though she cringes at the federal agent-tone that colors it.
The teen huffs out a laugh. “It’s Gotham. Not a corner of that city that’s safe.” She takes in Emily’s concerned expression. “But, no. It’s… complicated. I’ve been gone for so long that- It’ll be better to see everyone in person rather than- try to convince them that I’m back.”
Emily had said the same words to Hotch when he called her and she told him it was time for her to return. “I understand,” she answers quietly. Her eyes burn. “I understand.”
It starts raining an hour later, as they’re pulling off in Charlottesville for Burger Queen.
Emily offers to get her a shake along with her meal and Steph accepts. She even, jokingly, thanks Lauren for the meal.
It’s maybe the first time Emily’s felt joy with that alias since watching Declan take his first steps.
It starts pouring when they get back on the highway.
“My plane was diverted too,” Steph tells her when she clicks the windshield wipers into their fastest setting and they still fail to clear the water for even a moment. “I was supposed to land in Metropolis.”
Focus primarily on not hydroplaning, Emily hums to indicate her split attention.
“I thought North Carolina was a bit far, but…” She lets the pounding rain speak for itself.
Headlights on, their visibility is quickly reducing several miles to half of one. Someone else’s high beams blast from the other lane. She lays off the gas.
She needs to get home alive. The team can’t forgive her if she crashes on the way to her own resurrection.
“Where were you flying in from?” Emily asks, turning up the heat.
“Uh. Tanzania, originally.” She shifts in Emily’s peripheral. Uncomfortable.
Emily mentally raises an eyebrow at that. Most people in the US couldn’t even name Tanzania as a country. “Study abroad?” she hedges.
Steph snorts. “No.” Her calloused fingers trace water droplets smearing across the chilled window.
The rain comes and goes as they race through the Virginian country side. But becomes heavier and heavier as they approach DC. The time on her GPS ticks from from two hours, to an hour and a half, to an hour.
Their progress slows and the clouds thicken. But they’re both determined. They’ll get to DC. Emily will return to her family and Steph will hopefully do the same. Emily’s already trying to recall where the nearest train station is, so she can buy Steph a ticket north. It’s the least she can do, when her chest gapes with the knowledge that she will not be able to deliver Steph home.
Declan needs her. Her team needs her.
“How did your family react when they found out you weren’t dead?” The question comes out of nowhere. It’s practically dark now, as if light would help them with the way the rain floods down.
Emily grimaces. “I don’t know. I- The people who knew haven’t told the rest of our team. I- haven’t even thought about my parents.” God, she’s never going to hear the end of it. Ever. They had a funeral. There’s a gravestone.
“Oh.” She can barely hear her over the rain. “I hope it goes well. That they don’t… blame you for something that wasn’t your choice.”
“It was my choice,” Emily finds herself saying. She shouldn’t be unloading this on a sixteen year old, yet she can’t convince herself to close her mouth. Steph needs to hear this. For some reason, Steph needs to hear this. “Maybe not at first, but I chose to continue with it. Every day I didn’t call one of their numbers, it was my choice.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
Emily’s stomach clenches. “I thought I was protecting them. I told myself that, anyway. There was a bad man who hurt me. If he thought I was dead, then maybe he wouldn’t go after my friends.” She shakes her head. “But that didn’t stop them from going after him. That’s why I’m finally coming home. They have him in custody.”
Steph closes her eyes. The rain, hitting hard and fast against this small vehicle, carries Emily’s confession away.
Maybe none of this was worth it. Maybe she should never have agreed to Hotch’s desperate attempt to save the team. Maybe she shouldn’t have accepted herself as a sacrifice. Her friends are brave and strong and loyal.
They could’ve protected her. They could’ve handled Doyle’s wrath.
She is complicit in their mourning. She doesn’t know if they’ll forgive her. If she’ll forgive herself.
“There’s this man in Gotham,” Steph says. She stares straight ahead, like the flooding rain outside could hide her forming tears. “He hurts people.” He hurt me, Steph doesn’t say. “He died last week.”
“No one will judge you for waiting so long to feel safe,” Emily promises against the churning of the wheels.
Steph shakes her head. “They should.” Her voice is wet. “You’re going back to confront the man that hurt you. I can’t- I couldn’t-”
“Steph,” Emily interrupts gently, so at odds with the storm they’re driving into. “Does your family know you’re alive?”
She shakes her head harshly, tears and snot dripping down her face. “She wanted to show them that it’s dangerous. I didn’t want them to think I was gone but I didn’t want them to know I was so scared either.”
And as she says it, Emily remembers her own fear. How absolutely terrified she is to stand in the same room as Doyle again. For all her scars to flare in familiarity. All he’s ever wanted to do is destroy Emily. Over and over and over until there is nothing of her true self left.
She hopes that the hurt that Steph experienced isn’t the torture that still aches in Emily’s bones, but she can’t find it in herself to believe it. Steph sobs with the rattling fear of repeated degradation.
Blurred, a sign for DC flashes by. Fifteen miles away. Fifteen miles and Emily will be forced to abandon this girl. She sniffs. “It’s okay to be scared.” The sort of canned phrase she’s said to countless victims. “It’s okay to need time. They’ll still want you to come home, no matter how long it’s been.”
“But how do you know?”
Emily swallows, wishing she could close her eyes just long enough so the tears she desperately wants to cry could form. “Because if I were them, there isn’t a day that goes by that I wouldn’t want you in my life.” And she means it hypothetical, but it resonates much deeper. Through the wariness breaks resilience and hope and humor. Steph is a firecracker waiting to go off. In these few hours, Emily feels like she finally understands her mother. Wishing that this daring, brilliant young girl be swaddled and calm and safe.
“You deserve to be with your family, Steph.”
She wraps her arms around herself. “They’ll hate me,” she whispers. “I could’ve called them. I should’ve called them.”
“You still can.”
She shakes her head. “I just need to get home.”
“Okay.” Emily takes a slow breath. “Okay.”
The electric signs that usually have clever, holiday-specific puns about not drinking and driving are instead covered with warnings to pull off at the nearest exit. The storm that’s grounded planes hasn’t been enough to keep Emily away though.
It won’t be enough to keep Steph from continuing on.
She parks outside the train station. Neither of them have an umbrella, so they sprint though the water inside.
Steph’s hair is plastered to her face and she grins like she wasn’t sobbing minutes ago. Her backpack is soaked, as are her socks.
She lets Emily buy her a ticket to Union Station in Gotham with minimal protest. Her eyes shine.
“Thank you,” she says finally, ticket bending with how tightly she grips it.
Emily smiles, bittersweet. “You’re welcome.”
“Good luck.” Steph glances back at Emily’s rental car, still being pounded by rain. Still with many miles to go.
Not as many as Steph.
“You too,” she tells the girl. “They’ll be more happy than angry,” she promises, hoping the prophecy will ring true for her as well.
Steph hesitates for half a second before wrapping her dripping arms around Emily’s middle. Emily hugs back just as tight.
“You’ll be okay,” she whispers.
Steph nods minutely.
“Tell me when you get home?” she asks. “You can call the FBI switchboard and ask for Emily Prentiss. They’ll put you through.”
Steph thinks about it, just as she thinks about anything. She accepts the request with a kindness Emily wishes was her own.
“Goodbye,” Steph says as a train rumbles in the distance. Or maybe thunder.
“Bye, Steph. Take care.”
And she steps back into the rain.
She’s mostly dried off by the time she reaches Quantico. As she steps toward the conference room that she once knew well, Emily steels herself for all the anger that Steph fears. And recklessly hopes for all the acceptance the girl needs.