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The cases involving the kids are always the toughest ones. There is not a single person at the BAU that will object to that.
Children who lose their families or their innocence or their childish happiness or worse, their lives are never easy to witness.
So when their latest unsub turns out to be one who kidnaps children of single parents and dump the corpses in the most unexpected places in the city, they all end up on the edge during the whole thing.
The unsub's target area is limited to Seattle, which is supposed to make the case easier. But the number of single parents in such city is not small at all.
The jet is more silent than usual on their way there. They discuss the victimology for a few minutes and then go back to working solo.
There is not much to talk about, considering the lost kids have nothing in common other than having single parents. They are children from different ages and different ethnicities who live in different neighboorhoods and go to different schools.
"Not even a common pediatrician," Rossi mutters, frustration creeping into his voice.
"No overlap in schools, sports, libraries..." Garcia sighs as she talks to them on the phone.
Even with their guesses, they do not have much progress and the jet goes silent.
Emily doesn't know what she expects. Maybe it was always like this, tense and quiet, and she is just exaggerating. But a part of her knows that that's not true, that the team has been different since she came back.
She doesn't expect them to be completely okay with their dead friend coming back all of a sudden. She knows that would be absurd but the distrust they all seem to carry doesn't make anything easier.
Hotch asks her to go to the latest victim's house with Morgan and she is not about to whine about her personal problems to her boss who is one of the two people who actually treat her the way they used to right now.
A part of her wants to stay with Hotch, not only because she is more comfortable around him but also because she can see how much this case is getting under his skin. The idea of something like this happening to Jack scares the hell out of her too, so she can't imagine what's going on in his head. His face is stoic as he gives orders, someone who doesn't know him or someone who is not a profiler wouldn't even realize how tense he is. But Emily is both of those things and leaving him behind makes her feel guilty.
However, she can't bring herself to object and hops into the car with Morgan. It's a silent ride, even quieter than the one they had on the jet. He doesn't even look towards her as he drives with a calmness she finds hard to believe that belongs to him.
It hurts to remember that being partners with Morgan used to be her favorite thing about the job. They understood one another, worked well together and supported each other. Even during the most difficult cases she used to be able to breathe with Morgan's calming behaviour.
They used to trust each other.
And the absence of it is just simply impossible to ignore. It hurts her to think about this guy who gives her the cold shoulder is the same one who begged her to stay with him in that warehouse. To realize that they can't even have a small talk anymore while his desperate begging voice was the one thing that kept her alive.
It's not that she thinks there is any way that Morgan would put her in any risk. It's the opposite. Because no matter what anyone says, he is not ready to see her as his undefeatable partner after watching her die in his arms once.
They walk into the beige colored house without their usual banters. A blonde woman, the aunt of the lost kid, welcomes them in, her face making it obvious that she has been crying. The devastation on her face brings no questions about how close they were.
The victim's name is Sally Sparrow. A six years old with the same blonde hair with her mother and her aunt, light brown eyes that shine through the pictures they had been looking at since Quantico. A quiet kid who has an extreme interest in bugs and cartoons.
Her mother, Sarah, sits on the couch with tears keep rolling on her cheeks as she holds a framed picture of the sweet, little girl. She is looking at the camera, smiling like she had won lottery as her face is covered in chocolate.
Neither Emily nor Morgan is willing to speculate about whether Sally is still alive. Not after seeing the pictures of the other kids. But one thing they are almost certain of it is that the smile she wears in that picture will not be easily brought back.
While Sally is lost and there is still hope for her, they can't say the same thing about Aisha and Zahra, twin sisters whose parents they have to talk to right after they leave the Sparrow house. The pictures of their dead bodies are something that won't leave their minds any time soon.
Talking to divorced parents about such thing always creeps her out, knowing the odds of how they will treat each other. She has more experience with those kinds of people more than she cares to admit. Her own parents, first to come to her mind. The memory of her father who hadn't talked to them in months, yelling at her mother through phone after finding out Emily broke her arm instead of talking to his daughter, feels like yesterday.
But instead of anger and accusations, the parents of the twins seem to try to support each other through all of the questions.
Their grief pulls them toward one another instead of driving them apart. Emily has always thought standing beside someone during the good days was easy. But this? The worst day of their lives? This must be the real test.
She feels selfish for thinking about her relationship with the team during an important case, in front of parents who lost their kids, but the thoughts are just there. Human beings are strong enough to hold each other up through such pains and yet the team is not willing to embrace her after thinking she was dead for so long.
She shakes her head slightly to get rid of the thoughts and focuses on the parents in front of them, sitting next to each other, holding hands tightly as they try to answer Morgan's questions.
Seeing how much they struggle, Emily wishes their answers would at least lead them to somewhere. But the twins have nothing in common with Sally or the other victims.
There are six more families they might need to visit, with the hopes of finding something more but Hotch calls them to the local police department and they drive there, grateful that they don't need to cause more pain to the families who are already going through so much pain. She feels silly for being happy about Hotch calling her cell instead of Morgan's. It's stupid, really, she is aware. But having Hotch treat her like she had never left feels like medicine somehow. Though, she tries her hardest to hide her happiness over it, knowing better than to piss Morgan off when he looks so ready to
One thing that hasn't changed since she first joined the BAU is the sight of Reid in front of a white board in local precincts. Though, she has to admit that she misses his silly hairstyle from those days and how young that used to make him look.
She lets out a breath of relief the second she sees him glowing with the excitement of a child as he is talking to Hotch, JJ and Rossi. Whatever he is talking about must be a great improvement for their case, even if not able to solve the whole thing just yet.
But her relief doesn't last long as she sees the way Hotch clutches the pen he is holding. While Reid looks like he solved the whole problem, Hotch looks simply troubled.
The closer she gets, the more she sees his impossibly strained face and frown. Her heart misses a beat with the thought of his distress being related to Jack instead of the case.
She wants to slap herself to get rid of the intrusive thoughts, knowing if Hotch wanted her help he would've told her. The way he used to after everything with Foyet.
Maybe Hotch doesn't treat her the same way he used to either. Maybe it's just her wishing he did, thinking that there is something between them that actually never existed. Something more than the generous friendship they had since the beginning.
"What have you got, pretty boy?" Morgan says with a smile on his face that Emily hadn't seen all day. Seriously?
Sure, most of the team have their problems with the whole faking her death situation. But while Reid or Penelope seem to be glad she is back, she can't say the same thing about Derek. His problem does not look like he is trying to readjust to this whole thing. He is furious, she is sure of it. And she just can't understand why his anger overweights everything they've been through together.
"It's not about the kids. It's not about the schools they went or their dentists or playgrounds," Reid says. "It's the parents. They all used this same forum and it was always the parent the kid saw less that was complaining about it."
Emily frowns at the statement. While it does make sense, she can't complete the picture in her head. "But how could someone find their information through this forum, if he is not-"
"The owner of the forum?" Morgan interrupts her in a way she would've called 'completing her sentence' before. But now, it just makes her angry.
"Or a hacker." Emily points out, trying to sound nonchalant but the endless options they will need to think through if none of the administrators fit their profile bothers her.
Reid nods at them franticly before speaking again. "That is another possibility, yeah. There are four hundred and seventy-five administrators associated with the forum. Three hundred and forty-two are in the United States, seventy-nine are within driving distance of Seattle."
"Did you tell Garcia to narrow them down to people with divorced parents or who have divorced and couldn't get the kid?" Emily asks.
"Yeah, we're waiting for her. It shouldn't take much longer," JJ says as she sends Emily a tight but assuring smile.
Emily forces a smile towards the blonde woman, grateful that she's got her on her side. Grateful that she had her on her side during the hardest, loneliest times of her life. Maybe not speaking or seeing each other's face but through an online game that made her feel better than any medication could.
She takes a step closer to Hotch, who still looks way too tense. She places a hesitated hand on his elbow, not wanting to overstep.
She feels him flinch but his face doesn't show any reaction. She admires that about him. She is a good spy even though she won't brag about it. But the kind of strength Hotch has over his emotions is upsetting considering he has never been an undercover agent, so it has deeper rootes than professionalism.
"Wanna give Jack a call?" She asks with a silent voice that only both of them can hear.
Hotch looks at her with clear surprise on his face. As if she hadn't been basically reading his mind for years. As if she wasn't the one who was there for him every day after Haley had died. Like she wasn't the one watching movies with him and Jack at nights, even after the hardest cases, having breakfast with them and making pancakes with silly faces for the little boy she adored.
He nods. It's a subtle one. No smiles, no 'thank you for trying to take care of me's.
He steps away from the crowd waiting for Garcia's call and calls who, Emily assumes must be Jessica. Considering the amount of grief and resentment her team held about her fake-death, she thinks it is only natural that Jessica is the only one who keeps showing how grateful she is that Emily is alive. She doesn't ask further questions, doesn't need any details.
She and Jessica had never been close, not really. But after Haley's death and with all the time Emily had spent with the Hotchner family, two of them were certainly friends.
One of the things she expected to be the hardest about coming back from the death, though, was Jack's reaction. The idea of confusing the little boy, making him believe that coming back from death was natural and that his mother could as well was worse than every other possible outcome of the situation she had found herself in instead of simply dying and letting everyone have some peace instead of complications. But it turns out that Hotch has never even told Jack about her death, and she can only be grateful for it.
She has been grateful to Hotch about lots of things these days.
She watches the man's shoulders fall with relief from afar. A smile matching his appearing on her face as she takes the scene in.
"Got it!" Garcia's voice takes her attention off of her boss. "Dylan Muller. 48 years old. Divorced 3 years ago. Father of two. First, they had partial custody but then the mother wanted to move abroad, so they had to go to the court again. He had lost the custody. Quit his job at a technology firm a few weeks later. Lives on his own. No close relatives. And of course, he is the founder of this forum."
"Adress?" Hotch asks, standing right next to Emily all of a sudden, surprising her in a way that embarrases the spy in her.
"He lives in 4870 Alderbrook Place," Garcia says quickly. "Oh, hold on. He also owns a fishing boat. Fishermen's Terminal. Could he be taking the kids there?"
"That's a possibility," Reid says with a shrug.
"Okay. Morgan, JJ, Reid. You go to his house. Garcia, try to find any other clue if the unsub isn't there. Prentiss, Rossi and I will go, take a look at the boat."
"Got it. Garcia out."
"Let's go." Morgan says as he starts walking without waiting for the duo who are supposed to go with him, making JJ roll her eyes with irritation.
Emily watches as Rossi patts JJ's back with a small smile on his face.
She turns to look at Hotch, finding him wearing his dark blue jacket as he takes his car keys from the pocket of it, her eyes locked on him as he passes by her to walk towards the door. He seems like he is back to his normal self. The grey clouds hovering over him are gone and he looks like his head is back at the game.
"You okay?" Hotch says with an almost unvisible smile on his face when he is right by the door and she still hasn't moved an inch.
His voice snaps her out of her daze. She murmurs her assent with heat rushing through her cheeks, her body burning with the way he is looking at her. She glances around for her jacket, only to find Rossi holding it out to her with a smirk. Oh, how she hates that smirk...
"Shut up," she whispers, not able to look into the older man's eyes.
"Haven't opened my mouth, bella," Rossi's voice is not doing anything to hide his amusement.
She knows what he implies but she can't bring herself to actually think about it. Denial is the option she will always choose when it comes to her friendship with Hotch. He is too important to her.
And it won't do her any good, she knows that much. The last time she had thought all these messy feeling could lead to somewhere, somewhere that didn't include one of the most important friendships she had being ruined, everything with Doyle happened and she can't imagine a bigger sign telling her that it is a bad idea. And she doesn't even believe in signs.
She sits on the backseat of Hotch's car, letting Rossi sit on the passenger seat. She opens the window and lets the cold wind hit her face.
There is a feeling. It's like there is a weight sitting on her chest, making it hard for her to breathe but doesn't kill her.
That weight has been suffocating since the beginning of her healing process in Paris.
Paris had seemed like a good place to restart life back then. She had always loved Paris, she had loved learning French maybe more than any other language she had learned, though Arabic was a close second.
But now, that weight feels awfully similar to the shape of Eiffel Tower. Or maybe similar to the table leg she had a very close interaction with as the Emily people she had loved knew had died.
And the new Emily, the one who was born lying on a hospital bed as her family grieved in the corridoors of the same hospital, feels two things every second of every day: the suffocating weight and the need to leave this damn city.
She doesn't notice when the city skyline gives way to the waterfront, her mind too occupied to do that. The salty smell of the air brings her to her senses.
When they are out of the car, she is met with the concerned eyes of Rossi. Because, of course, he had to notice...
She gives him a smile that she knows must be good enough for everyone else to believe and yet not good enough for one of the oldest agents of the BAU. First his smirk and then the concern? He is so onto her.
She ignores him as she walks quick enough to catch up to Hotch, who doesn't slow down even though Emily is sure he has heard her footsteps.
"His boat should be this way, Garcia said slip C-21." Emily says, knowing both Hotch and Rossi are aware of it but feeling the need to talk nonetheless.
"Rossi and I will be looking at it. Prentiss, circle around to the other end."
Emily frowns. "Why?"
"Only one way on and off these slips by water," Hotch replies, pointing toward the floating dock. "But there's a second access point from land behind the bait sheds. If he's watching us from somewhere, he'll run before we ever step aboard. I don't want him slipping past us."
She looks at the dock and nods. "Got it."
Comparing the possibility of the unsub being at his house or near his boat with the possibility of him being at the other end of the terminal, she can't ignore that she has been assigned the less risky task. Maybe it shouldn't bother her this much but she can't help it.
She's been alone in Paris for months, and she is finally back home only to find out it's long gone. Her friends don't act like her friends anymore, her mother hadn't even cared that she wasn't dead, and her boss, whom she somehow trusts more than anyone else, and has a crush on, doesn't trust her enough to assign her to the kind of missions he would have before everything happened.
The long story short? Her life sucks.
Then a muffled scream cuts through the silence.
The world narrows in an instant.
She's moving before she realizes it, gun already in her hand as she sprints toward the small cabin.
"Cabin!" she barks into her comms. "Possible victim."
She doesn't wait for a response from Hotch or Rossi. Every second matters, especially now that she's heard of the scream.
Her gun is steady in her right hand as she knocks the door with her left one. "FBI! Open the door and get out with your hands up."
She takes a step towards the small window to look inside only to see the cabin empty. "He is not inside," she says to her comms as she looks around cautiously.
And then, the unsub, Dylan Muller who looks exactly like the picture Garcia sent them, is in front of her with a gun pointed at a blonde girl with tears running on her cheeks.
"Let the girl go," she says as the unsub pulls the girl more and more towards the ocean with him. Her grip on the gun tightens with every second, her finger on the trigger, ready to shoot him between his eyes. "Drop your weapon and put your hands up."
The unsub doesn't even talk to her, which only stresses her. None of the kids before had been drowned or shot, it makes it even more difficult to predict his next move.
She tries to have eye contact with the kid, the least she could do is assure her that she will get out of this alive. There is no way that she is going to let the unsub hurt the already traumatized girl.
The girl has been with this creepy man for six days but she doesn't try to get away from him or scream for help. She just keeps crying silently.
"Stop right there or I will have to shoot you." She takes another step towards the man, wanting him to understand she is not bluffing.
The unsub stares into her eyes for a second, and then it all moves awfully fast. He pushes the girl to the ground and raises his gun to Emily.
She always knows when someone is ready to do something stupid and shoot his way out of the situation, so she doesn't hesitate shooting him.
The bullet hits him on the chest. His eyes widen, not with fear, but with surprise, as if he genuinely hadn't expected anyone to pull the trigger.
He stumbles backward.
The gun slips from his fingers and clatters against the dock before he collapses with a dull thud.
Emily is already moving. She shouts into her radio. "Suspect is down!"
She kicks the unsub's gun away from where he could reach and grabs the little girl's shoulders. The little girl can only look at the woman with wide eyes as the shock leaves her speechless.
"You're alright, okay? You will be with your parents soon, I promise." She talks as calm as she can, not wanting to spook her any more than necessary.
When she is sure the only problem with the girl is the aftereffects of what she's been through, she turns to the unsub. White guy, brunette. His white shirt is now covered in blood, and yet she can see that it's an expensive piece of clothing. It's not a guy that would strike her attention on a crowded street, or someone she wouldn't want her child to sit next to in a theatre. Most unsubs are not.
She leanes to check his pulse though she knows it's unlikely for him to bleed out so quickly. She is about to talk through her comms after she feels his pulse, wondering where the hell are Hotch and Rossi when she feels the unsub's hand pushing her to their left, to the ocean.
Her brain may not work quick enough for her to register what's going on but she is not about to leave the unsub with the little girl alone again. She pulls him with her, grabbing his arm with all her might.
Then, she is under water. And the weight of the man she was just pulling with her is now pulling her under even more and more, so she lets go.
She could swim up, she knows how to swim. She is a good swimmer.
She doesn't remember a single house she lived in as she was growing up that didn't have a swimming pool. And that was always the better option than sitting with her mother and her guests.
But as the water fills in through her nose and her ears, her thoughts get crowded. It's so loud in her brain that as she tries to concentrate, focus, there is only one single thought left in there.
What's the point?
She doesn't really think about it. It is there for maybe a few seconds. But the ocean pulls her under and unlike the last time she was this close to death, she doesn't feel scared. The fear doesn't squeeze her heart the way it did in that warehouse. Morgan's voice is not trying to convince her to stay with him anymore, she doubts it ever will again.
Just for a second there, she feels closer to peace than she has been feeling for a long time.
And then her vision goes dark as the ocean pulls her deeper and deeper.
She doesn't know when Hotch and Rossi arrives to the scene.
She doesn't know how they are trying to talk to the little girl, only to find her too shocked to get the words out of her mouth.
She doesn't know the way the blonde kid points to the ocean when they ask her about the brunette woman who tried to help her.
So, it's only natural that she has no idea how Hotch dives into the ocean without a second's hesitation. Her consciousness is gone so long for her to be aware of the way his arms pull her up.
She will never see the way Rossi's face darkens with dread when he sees Hotch with a blue skinned Emily in his arms but she will sense it from the way he will hover over her later.
She won't see the way Hotch is doing CPR to her with the most tragic helplessness on his face.
She will not be able to feel his hand never leaving hers even in the ambulance on the ride to the hospital.
The only thing she will know is the sleeping posture of him as he sits on the chair next to her hospital bed when she opens her eyes to a way too white and lit up world.
She will try her hardest to not wake him up only to find Morgan sleeping on a chair on the other side, opening his eyes to see her awake, a smile appearing on his face that is more genuine than the ones she had seen from him since she came back from Paris.
Her brain will be too occupied with the thoughts of the case, asking questions about if they found evidence in the unsub's house about the other dead children before she is able to ask for water.
Oh, her mind will be too clouded to see the devastation on their faces as she asks the questions, waking Hotch up in the mean time.
She won't be able to understand their anger, their frustration for a while after that.
It will take a while for her to realize what the caring frustration, anger mixed with actual worry that is leaking outside from Hotch's veins as he takes her to her house and refuses to leave her alone.
But, she will see the way he prepares her breakfast, the way he is always there when she wakes up from a nightmare with sweat on her forehead and tears on cheeks, the way he doesn't flinch away when he sees the scar shaped as a four-leaf clover that is branding her like she is a furniture or something, the way he looks into her eyes as he talks about the way she was so ready to give up, not buying her lies about trying her hardest but not being able to swim.
And this time, she will feel hope.
Not peace, brought by the thought of death, not fear or anxiety about every aspect of her life, not sadness over every friendship she seemed to lose.
Hope, about what's to come.
Hope.