Chapter Text
Season 16, Episode 1 | Just Getting Started
Tara’s phone alarm blares from its place on Tara’s nightstand. She blinks awake and grabs the offending object, silencing the alarm and groaning sleepily. She reaches over to find Emily already sitting up, leaning back against the headboard, glasses on, laptop open on her lap.
Tara sits up, resting her head on Emily’s shoulder.
“How long have you been up?” Tara asks.
Emily moves her laptop off her lap, wrapping an arm around Tara. “Like an hour. Trying to get a meeting with Bailey,” she says. Deputy Director Douglas Bailey has become one of the biggest pains in Emily’s ass as of late. She knows he’s gunning for director someday, and doing anything he can think of to work that promotion into existence. Unfortunately for Emily, that means his focus right now is keeping the BAU split, working multiple cases at once. She needs to talk to him, explain that while it may look great on paper, the team can not keep working like this. In fact, none of the teams Emily works with can keep up. With budget cuts and a pandemic, departments got a little too comfortable working on shoestring budgets and skeleton crews. Everyone’s tired, everyone needs a break.
“Hmm,” Tara hums with a yawn. She knows Bailey is irritating, though she hasn’t had to work with him directly yet. She reaches over to grab her phone, blinking away the tiredness as she focuses on the screen.
Rossi had texted her a few times late into the night, she’ll be headed to Washington state to meet some locals, where a storage container with multiple bodies was found. She scrolls through the file Rossi sent, scrunching her nose up.
“What’s that?” Emily asks, turning her attention to Tara and glancing down at her phone. “Jesus,” she says softly.
“Mind you, I just opened my eyes. Not one drop of caffeine,” Tara says, then she softens. “He sent me this at like, 2am, Em,” she says quietly.
Emily sighs. She knows that Rossi is not well, and hasn't been since Krystall’s death. At first, it seemed easier to let him work out his grief alone, but she knows he’s been living in a hotel because he can’t bear to go home. He’s not sleeping, he’s been kind of an asshole lately, if she’s truthful.
But she’s not sure what to do, she can’t make him do anything.
“I know,” she says simply.
Tara responds to Rossi’s message, then puts her phone down on the nightstand again, turning her attention back to Emily. She slides her arm around Emily’s shoulder again, smiling when she feels Emily lean in. She leans down, kissing the top of her head. Tara loves this side of Emily, the soft, domestic side that no one else gets to see. The Emily that’s only for Tara.
They sit like this for a moment, relishing in the quiet before their days begin and they’re apart for who knows how long. From this angle, Tara can see the framed photograph on the wall from their courthouse pandemic wedding ceremony, where they’d taken their masks off just long enough to pose for a photo.
They’re smiling so wide, standing facing each other, foreheads touching. It’s the happiest Tara can ever remember being, even if the ceremony was less than ideal. They’d been watching the news, they knew the world as it had previously been known was changing. Everything was closing down.
When the clerk at the courthouse asked them how long they’d been together as they filed for their marriage license one rainy Tuesday in March, Tara and Emily could only look at each other and laugh. They had no idea what to say. They never labeled themselves, spent a lot of time considering themselves friends with benefits. But slowly, they became each other’s constant, a touchstone that the other could always depend on and reach for when things felt overwhelming.
It didn’t matter that the courthouse clerk was staring at them in utter confusion, they kept laughing. They’d never considered marriage, it just wasn’t something they were particularly concerned with in the grand scheme of things. But with the world changing, they’d had to have some hard conversations. Emily would have rather died than have Elizabeth Prentiss have any say in anything regarding Emily’s wellbeing, and certainly no medical decisions. And sure, she could’ve written up a living will or some kind of document and assigned that role to anyone, maybe. But she wanted it to be Tara. They’d joked about being married so much, why not actually do it? Emily mentioned it as a joke, partially testing the waters. Tara had agreed, much to Emily’s surprise, rather gleefully.
The trust and compassion they shared for each other was unmatched, there was no better choice if the worst came to be. And so, 72 hours after they obtained their marriage license, they returned back to the courthouse to make it official.
Their relationship wasn’t a secret, not to the team, at least. Though now, they’d have to go through the proper channels, and they both knew that meant one or both of them would be reassigned. At one point, that would’ve been a deal breaker. Enough of a threat to keep them at arm's length when it came to commitment. But with the world changing the way it was, that didn’t seem to matter as much as it once did.
That’s how Emily’s promotion came about. Though, she often refers to it as her punishment. If she took a promotion, she wouldn’t be Tara’s direct supervisor, meaning that their relationship could continue without breaking any fraternization rules.
Climbing the ranks was never something Emily wanted to do. She liked feeling like what she did actually mattered, liked seeing the direct impact the team had on the world. With each unsub caught, each life saved, Emily felt like her work mattered.
Sitting in her office all day, dealing with bureaucratic red tape and bullshit, having to justify why saving lives was worth American tax dollars to a bunch of people in suits who don’t care enough to listen to her was fucking exhausting.
But when Emily came home in the evenings to her wife, oftentimes already in the midst of cooking dinner, classic rock playing as she hummed along, it suddenly all felt worth it.
Tara sighs, she knows she should get up. She’ll need to repack her go-bag before she heads out, knowing by tonight she’ll be across the country.
As if Emily can read Tara’s mind, she grabs Tara’s hand in hers. “Five more minutes?” She asks.
“Five more minutes,” Tara confirms. They sit together, relishing in the moments of calm before what will likely be another crazy week. Maybe it’s the exhaustion talking, but Tara feels like something about this consultation will be different.
That evening, Tara heads to the crime scene after landing in Washington state. With all the budget cuts, no jet had been approved to replace the one the BAU lost. And even if they had been able to replace it, the way Bailey has been advocating for the team to split up so much means that they’d always be arguing over who flies where and when. Flying on commercial airlines isn’t horrible, but it does make things take longer, resulting in time wasted that they don’t always have to waste.
The storage container is dingy and dirty and gross, and Tara doesn’t even want to begin to describe the smell. There’s at least sixteen bodies, by Tara’s count. She and the locals search the container, Tara learns that the property has been abandoned for quite some time, the unsub would’ve known that.
There’s so many trophies, photos, clear indication that the site’s been visited and revisited; it feels almost like a museum of their crimes, exhibits that the killer can come back and relive any time.
When she finds the skeletons, she sighs.
“I’m gonna need some help,” Tara says, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
Tara calls Luke, wondering if he might be able to fly out and work with her. Perhaps two heads would be better than one.
“Tara Lewis,” Luke says with a smile. “You don’t call, you don’t write …”
Tara smiles, she misses working with the team. All together, just as they always have. It can be so lonely, working case with no one but the locals there. She misses sitting around a stuffy police station conference room, bouncing ideas off the team.
“Dear Luke Alvez,” Tara says with a smile. “Wish you were here. But seriously, I wish you were here. Any chance you could fly up to Seattle?” She asks hopefully, almost desperate enough to buy Luke’s flight herself.
“I promised Rossi I’d hold it down here for another week,” Luke says apologetically.
Tara sighs, frustrated with the way things are. She knows that the team has been fractured, the narrative to the higher ups is that they solve more cases separated than apart, and even if that’s true, it’s not sustainable. They can’t keep on like this, and everything in Tara’s gut is telling her that this is just the beginning.
“Maybe I can get Emily to approve something,” Tara says offhandedly, quietly. She doesn’t like having to ask her wife for anything work related, but she knows something is really wrong here.
“Ehhh,” Luke says.
Tara narrows her eyes. “What do you mean ehhh?” Tara asks.
“Ever since her promotion, she’s got a lot more on her mind than just us,” Luke says.
“Yeah, Luke, I’m aware,” Tara says with a playful roll of her eyes. “I live with her,”
“Right, my fault,” Luke says.
Emily is so sick of giving these presentations. None of these higher up officials care, they don’t listen, it’s all so performative and irritating, but Emily plays along. She has to.
She’s in the middle of giving one of these updates when Deputy Director Bailey barges in, as he always does.
“Prentiss,” Bailey says briskly. Emily has to fight not to roll her eyes.
“Give us the room?” She requests. The agents at the table all rise and disperse, chattering low amongst themselves on the way out.
“Apologies for the delay, heard you requested a meeting,” Bailey says.
Emily’s so unbelievably grateful for her ability to keep a straight face. “Didn’t think I’d see you so late, Deputy Director,” Emily says, the title slipping off her tongue like an insult.
“Tell me about it. What are we still doing here?” Bailey asks. Emily wants to throat punch him.
“Every agent I manage is exhausted,” she settles on saying. “Especially the BAU,” she adds.
Bailey doesn’t react. “Well, the powers that be crunched the numbers—“
She stops listening. She knows what he’s going to say: the same fucking dumb ass shit he’s been saying.
“Yes, but it was only supposed to be for six months, now it’s been almost three years—“
He cuts her off.
“When’s the last time agent Rossi was in the office?” Bailey asks, a raise of his brow. Emily sighs internally.
“He’s been working with the Virginia Police on the Westbrook murders,” Emily says.
“Word is there’s no leads, maybe it’s time for Rossi to move on. People talk, word is that he’s been obsessed.” Bailey says. It’s like he’s trying to piss Emily off.
“I’d bet my career on agent Rossi being the best man for the job,” Emily says.
Douglas just stares at her, unimpressed.
“You seem to have a bias towards the BAU,” Bailey says, seeming to challenge her.
She sighs, she can’t help it. It’s late, she’s tired, and tonight when she goes home her wife won’t be there. “It’s not a bias, I just have eyes. They’re burnt out.”
“Well, there’s not much I can do here,” Bailey says. “Was this what you wanted to meet about?
Emily doesn’t give him an answer. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Douglas,” she settles on saying, moving past him.
She heads into her office, she doesn’t want to go home without Tara. She’ll just work a little later, there’s always something to do, her attention always needed.
Before she takes on the task of trying to sort through her emails, she picks up her phone. Tara has texted a couple of times, some about the case but also just to say I love you.
Emily swipes to Tara’s message thread and taps the camera icon so that she can FaceTime.
“Hey,” Tara answers with a soft smile.
“Where are you?” Emily asks, trying to gauge Tara’s surroundings.
“Back at the hotel,” Tara says. “I’m gonna meet with the locals again in the morning, but I don’t know that they have the resources for this,” Tara admits. “I was hoping to get Luke out here to help,”
Emily sighs. “I’m sorry,” she says simply. It’s not enough.
“I miss you,” Tara settles on saying. “You’re at the office?”
Emily just nods. “Late meeting,” she settles on saying. No need to pull Tara into the politics right now. “Also,” she admits. “I didn’t really want to go home alone,”
“Gay,” Tara says quietly. And Emily laughs,genuinely laughs, for the first time since Tara’s been gone. “Don’t stay there too late, okay?” Tara says, voice softening with nothing but love.
“I won’t,” Emily promises. “I’ll see what I can do for you, okay?”
“I know,” Tara says simply. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you,” Emily replies, ending the call.
The next morning, Tara meets with the locals and they continue investigating the storage container. Tara learns a lot, learns that there are victims from 2005 all the way up to 2020. They theorize briefly on why he might’ve stopped, but don’t come to any set conclusion. They can figure that bit out later, but what’s bugging Tara are the photos. The trophies. He’s revisiting, he’s memorializing these crimes. She knows their best shot is to start identifying the victims. If they can find out who these people are, they can maybe start figuring out who would do this to them.
The local cop tells Tara that their department just doesn’t have the resources to begin moving all the evidence, the bodies.
Maybe they don’t, but the BAU certainly could.
She just has to convince someone that they have jurisdiction.
She tries to call Emily, but she doesn’t answer. She pockets her phone, she’ll try Rossi in a moment.
——-
Once again, Deputy Director Bailey barges in, interrupting Emily. She was just about to return Tara’s call when he stormed in. She’s never able to tell if he’s angry, upset, or if maybe he’s just always this high strung. She has half a mind to offer him an edible. All that stress can’t be good for him.
“I heard there’s a missing girl. The media will be all over it, you need all BAU on it?” He asks. Good morning to you, too. Emily thinks.
“I’d love to, but agent Lewis uncovered a mass grave in Washington,” Emily says.
“Yeah, I heard that it could be a drug cartel. And a cold case. This is an active investigation with a missing girl.” Bailey says, as if he isn’t aware that Emily knows this. As if Emily wouldn’t understand how important it is that they get to work.
Besides, by the time Tara could get back here, it’d be hours.
“I agree that a missing girl is time sensitive, but what agent Lewis found is huge. We need jurisdiction,” Emily says.
“Agent Prentiss,” Bailey says smugly. “You can’t just go around blindly defending agent Lewis and catering to her desires just because she happens to be your wife,” Bailey tells her.
Emily blinks, feeling her heart rate increase and the anger flow through her. She forces herself not to react. That’s what he wants.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with that. There’s been enough evidence uncovered to suggest that this is a serial,” She says calmly. Tara sent her photos. She’d like to show them to Bailey, but something tells her it’s not going to happen.
“Tell you what,” Bailey says. “Find this girl alive. Then we’ll talk,” he says, turning on his heel and leaving Emily alone.
She’s so fucking pissed off. She forces herself to take a breath, to still her shaking hands.
She calls Tara back, hopeful that the sound of her wife’s voice will be enough to calm her.
“Hey, Em,” Tara says softly.
Normally, she’d apologize for missing the call, ask how she’s doing. But instead, she jumps right in, too angry.
“Bailey heard that your case is a cartel dump site. He wants DEA on it,” Emily says.
“Oh, come on!” Tara says, Emily can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “We haven’t ID’d the bodies yet, but there’s an elderly couple in there. Unless they broke bad they wouldn’t be on cartel’s radar. You see the photos?” Tara asks.
Emily’s pacing, she can’t help it. “Looks like some of the vics are preserved?”
“That’s why he kept them underground. Needed the privacy. I’ll bet he’s revisiting,” Tara theorizes.
“Shit,” Emily swears. “Notebooks, trophies? Anything we can expedite here?” Emily asks, hoping there’s something. She stops pacing, forces herself to sit.
“Uh, the best lead are the photos. He stalked before he struck. He’s probably keeping souvenirs too. We’ll know more about the vics when the coroner gets it back to the lab,” Tara tells her.
Emily sighs. “You’ll need to stay up there,” she wishes Tara didn’t have to, that she could come home and that tonight she wouldn’t have to lie in bed by herself. “But I really wish I could clone you,” Emily says.
“Well,” Tara says smugly. “That’s because I’m so delightful,”
Emily can’t help but laugh softly.
“Did something else happen?” Tara asks.
It never fails to amaze Emily how in tune Tara is to her. Emily has always felt like she hides her emotions well, but around Tara, she can’t get away with anything.
Tara’s worried enough as it is, so she doesn’t go into any detail.
“Just fucking Bailey,” she said dryly.
Tara laughs softly, it makes Emily almost ache, realizing how much she misses Tara.
“I’ll do what I can,” Tara promises.
“Be safe,” she says.
“Always,” Tara confirms.
Once the call ends, Emily drops her phone on the table in front of her, leaning back against the chair and sighing. She rubs at her temples, a headache lingering.
She puts in the request to have the container moved to Quantico, at least then it can start moving up the chain of command. Maybe she’ll get lucky.
After that, she fishes around in her office for a semblance of a meal, deciding on an old granola bar and a cup of tea for now.
She makes a quick stop to another department to check in, hasn’t even had time to check her email or anything since she put in the request.
She’s on her way back to her office when Bailey confronts her. Again. She’s half convinced he’s got a tracker on her phone. How is he everywhere?
He catches her in the hall.
“You wanna move an entire container that presents as an organized crime dump site.”
It’s not a question. Emily doesn’t try to deny it, but before she can even respond, Bailey continues.
“Wish I could help, but you can’t just claim serial killer if there’s no proof.” He says.
She pauses, ready to plead her case. “Professional killers don’t risk time it takes to torture unless the act itself has meaning. Not to mention the revisiting.” She says. It couldn’t be more clear that this is more than just a cartel dump site. She has no idea why he’s fighting her so hard. Is their whole job not finding and stopping serial killers?
“It’s just not enough, sorry.” Bailey says, continuing on in the opposite direction, leaving Emily standing in the hall, irritated and annoyed.
She gets a text from Luke about the missing girl, hopeful that they’ll be able to save her.
She feels like she’s being tugged so tightly between the rest of the team and Tara. She understands it looks like she’s trying to favor her wife, but she’s not. She’s convinced what Tara has found is serial, and she knows Tara wouldn’t keep pushing it if she didn’t think so, too.
Of course she cares about the missing teen, of course she wants the team to throw everything they have in the ring and come out on the other side. But she also can’t stop thinking about the bodies across the country. People they hadn’t been able to save, people who suffered and died because they didn’t know an unsub existed.
She sighs, wishing Tara was here. Tara could always talk her down, could always provide that sense of security that Emily had found herself relying on.
Later, she makes a point to walk through the BAU, up to Rossi’s office. She knows he’s not doing well, that he’s lashing out at Luke and JJ. The silence is the most worrisome, so she goes into his office to check on him. Remind him that he’s not alone, that he can’t go silent on them. Tries to lift his mood.
She can see she’s getting absolutely nowhere, so she turns to leave. As she stands in the doorway, Rossi says:
“That’s so like you. You don’t even mention how Alvez stayed at HQ for me, and yet I still managed to lose my shit this morning. Or how Tara and JJ have answered every call, every consultation without fail. Or how you’ve been covering for me,”
Emily blinks. “Why would I keep score when you’re doing such a good job? Dave, when you lose someone the way you have, I know it might seem easier to ride the waves of grief alone but you’ve got to let us help. This,” she nods vaguely. “This isn’t working.”
She’s not certain she’s gotten through to him at all. “You’re a better person than I am, Emily,” he says. “And I’m okay with that.” He tells her. Definitive, resigned.
Emily’s not sure what to say, so she just nods and leaves his office. If anything, this conversation has made her even more worried about him than she already was.
She feels herself being pulled again. The team, Rossi, Tara. The other agents, the other teams who look to her for advocacy and she can’t do a damn thing to help. Like each of them are attached to one of her limbs, ripping her apart.
Later that night, Tara finds herself at a diner with Deputy Henson, who she’s been working with the last few days. She’s not really eating, but it’s nice to get away from the crime scene, away from her lonely hotel and the station. At least the diner has great coffee.
She’s looking through the file on her tablet again, brows furrowed in concentration. There’s got to be something else. Something she’s missed that she can use to get Bailey to agree to have the container sent to Quantico.
“How many of those footlockers were in there?” Tara asks.
“Just the one,” Hanson says, Tara half listens. There’s gotta be something. The tv in the diner is on, but she’s having away from it. Her ears perk up a little when she hears mention of the BAU.
Hanson looks up, nodding towards the TV. “That’s your team, huh?” He asks.
Tara glances up, there’s Luke and JJ. “It sure is,” she says, wishing she had someone here with her. It’s then that Tara sees it. She freezes for a second, squinting her eyes to focus on the tv screen. To make sure she’s seeing what she thinks she’s seeing.
“You see that?” Tara asks. “Another Haberlin,” she says, sliding out of the booth, unlocking her phone and sending the photos from her own crime scene. The exact same case. This has to be it, the thing that proves this isn’t some cartel site. That this is the connection.
Her phone rings almost immediately.
“You’re kidding, right?” Rossi says.
“What are the chances we have the exact same footlockers on different coasts?” Tara asks, speaking quickly, a habit she’s always had when she’s emotionally charged about something.
“I would’ve bet at the farm I was chasing a 40-something in sub with experience. Maybe that 19-year-old was getting help from the 40-something with experience,” Rossi theorized.
Tara nods eagerly. Yes, yes. Finally, fucking finally something she can work with.
“We gotta get that shipping container transferred, right?” Tara asks, hopeful.
“We need all eyes on this.” Rossi confirms.
Tara ends the call, breathing a sigh of relief for the first time in days.
She calls Emily immediately.
“Hey,” Emily says. Tara can hear the tiredness in her voice.
“Hey, listen, that Haberlin case Luke and JJ found?” Tara says
“Mhm,” Emily hums, confirming she’s listening.
“There’s one here. With my storage container.” Tara says. “Just sent you photos.”
“What?” Emily says. Tara gives her a moment to look through her pictures. “Holy shit,” Emily breathes.
“We have to get this to Quantico,” Tara says.
“We will,” Emily promises. “I’ll handle it,” she tells her. “When can you come home?” She asks, her tone shifting. Softer. She’s not Section Chief Emily Prentiss at the moment. Right now, she’s just Emily. Tara’s wife.
Tara smiles. “You miss me or something?”
“Tara,” Emily laughs. “Of course I do,” she adds quietly.
“As soon as I can,” Tara tells her.
She hangs up, knowing that she’ll end up booking a red eye flight herself if she has to. The exhaustion is settling in, deep in her bones. All she wants is to go home. Home to her wife.
Whatever she’s just uncovered feels like it’s only just getting started.