Panic flooded her, had her blood pumping fast enough to make her lightheaded. She wasn’t fully aware of what was going on around her. When Penelope had told her Leah was missing, JJ had taken the phone from her hands. Emily had dropped numbly to her chair. She knew JJ had stayed close to her side, could vaguely hear her melodic voice, but the agents that came and went, didn’t even register.
“Emily?”
She felt warmth settle on her thighs, felt it creep up to cradle her hands and forced herself to focus on Hotch’s dark, worried eyes.
“We’re going to find her, sweetheart,” he tried, squeezing her hand, unaware that the endearment had slipped out.
“Where could she go?” Emily asked, cursing the way her voice cracked with tears. She could feel herself starting to tremble, feeling the increased emotions racing through her.
“They sent the phone to evidence,” he tried to reassure her. “We will find her.” This was torture. The pain and tears of the usually stoic woman made his heart clench.
“How?” she croaked.
“Garcia’s got feelers out at every airport. They’re looking for her at every possible point to get into Seattle.”
“What if he went to Washington?”
“Honey, he’s comfortable here, not in Virginia,” he reminded her. “He’s not going to go and get her.”
“What made her listen? What kept her on the phone for ten minutes?”
“It could have been anything. He could have told her he had you. He did call from your phone.”
“Leah’s so smart-“
“And emotional.” Before he was aware of what he was doing, he’d pulled her up and against him, wrapping his arms around her, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. What surprised him was the way her hands went under his suit jacket to fist in his dress shirt at the base of his spine. She was shaking against him and his hand splayed across her back as wide as he could make it. He kissed her hair absently, trying to convey his support.
Emily took a shaky breath before pulling back. “I’ll keep trying her phone.”
Still, her hands stayed clenched in his shirt. He wanted to tell her to keep trying Leah from the hotel, but he wanted to keep her in his sight. “I’m sure we’ll find her first.”
“We have to,” she replied, finally managing to unclench her hands. “We’ve kept her alive too long to lose her now.” She went to her pocket and sighed. “Can I use your phone?”
He handed over the device without question.
Derek poked his head in, face completely stone. “Garcia’s on the line. She’s got JJ’s search results. We might have found her.”
Emily’s heart was in her throat as she sat in a chair, the speakerphone on the table in front of her. She could feel Hotch were he stood behind her chair, hands clenched on it’s back, his fingers brushing the back of her neck and her shoulders as she shifted.
“She’s flying to Seattle. Probably because it’s the quickest way there,” Garcia said, knowing how grave the situation was. She felt guilty for letting the girl escape, letting her out of her sight for one minute. “She booked a ticket about twenty minutes ago on the next flight out.”
“When does the flight leave?” Hotch asked.
“Two hours. There’s something else.”
“Tell me it’s good news, Baby Girl,” Derek all but begged. He wasn’t sure his best friend could deal with another blow of bad news right now.
“I’ve been trying to find the IP address of the e-mailer of those pictures,” Garcia replied, her voice still serious. “It traces back to the school, but that’s as far as I can get it.”
“And Tim Sivill?”
“Nothing. He’s squeaky clean.”
Bob Spring stuck his head into the room then. “He’s hit again.”
Hotch nodded, his whole demeanour cold as stone. “Morgan, Rossi, Reid, go with Agent Spring.”
“This one’s different,” Spring said with a smile tilting the corners of his mouth.
“Oh?” Dave arched an eyebrow.
“We have a witness.”
“A living victim?”
“A neighbour.”
Emily hated being left behind in the precinct. It gave her very little to do and very little to focus on and allowed her mind to concentrate on the problems and worries that plagued her. It was easier to compartmentalize when she had something different to focus on. What surprised her was how relieved she’d been when Hotch had decided to stay behind too. She wasn’t sure when she’d come to look at him as strong support. Not only that, but she’d gotten quite the shock when he’d absently brushed her shoulder on his way by and her body had quite heatedly reminded her of what he’d felt like pressed against her front. She’d been prepared to break down, for Pete’s sake, and yet all her body could remember was how his chest had felt pressed against hers, how his arms had felt wrapped around her body.
She’d jumped every time the phone rang, jolted every time the door opened and cursed herself every time. She could feel tears punching at her eyes, but forced herself to stay seated until she couldn’t take it anymore. Emily managed to calmly excuse herself to the bathroom. When she got there, she didn’t step into a stall. She could barely make her feet move further once the door had closed. Instead, she slid down the wall, as the flood began and she cursed herself even more. Emily Prentiss did not cry. It was something that had been drilled into her since childhood. If she was alone in her room where she could muffle sobs in the pillow, no one had to know, but when there were things to be done, crying was simply unacceptable.
Well Mother, she thought to herself, this one time, we’ll have to make an exception.
She froze when the door creaked open, knowing she was curled up in a ball against the wall. Then came the now-all-to-familiar heat on her knees and she could have sworn she wanted to die.
Hotch had considered sending JJ after Emily. After all, it would be more logical for a woman to enter the woman’s washroom that it would be for him, but as much as logic often won out, this was far from logical. This, without a doubt, was much more emotional. And sometimes, even the strongest of men give into their emotions.
So he’d excused himself and followed Emily’s path, glancing around to see if there was anyone watching. When he was sure there wasn’t, he pushed open the door. His heart clenched painfully to see her curled into herself against the wall. The door closed behind him and he reached over to lock it, both to give them privacy and, more importantly, to give her at least semi-privacy to put herself back together.
“Go away,” she whispered, just loud enough so as not to muffle it too terribly in her knees.
He ignored her, and the slight protesting of his knees, as he leaned down in front of her. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“Of course you’re sure!” Emily exploded. “This is clinical for you! Just another case, just another victim, just another unsub, but it’s not just another case to me. This is a sixteen-year-old girl being stalked by a crazy murder who has killed more than thirty people in the last eight years in an attempt to get to her. And you know what the worst part is? He called her from my cell phone probably to get her to come back to Seattle so he can grab her and kill her. How the hell do you think it feels to actually look at a real victim as a daughter?”
Her hands were waving and he’d leaned away so as not to get smacked in the face. It took him a couple of tries to catch said hands in his own. “This isn’t clinical, Emily.” He knew he’d caught her attention with the unwitting passion in his voice.
“What?”
“This isn’t just another case to any of us. If you’re hurting, so are we,” he told her seriously.
She scoffed. “You worry about the integrity of the case, about whether or not I’m going to jeopardize any part of it.”
He had no idea how to get through to her. He squeezed her hands in his, trying to convey through his expression how untrue her statement was. “You wouldn’t be here if I was worried about your objectivity, you know that, we’ve talked about that. I know how much Leah means to you, I’ve seen how much she means to you and I can almost guarantee you, the minute you brought that young woman into the bullpen, this became more than ‘just another case’ to all of us.”
He had no idea where this was coming from. Where was he getting these reassuring words? They were her job because he was the one who went to her when things went south with Haley, when a case was bad, when he could feel himself start to struggle too hard. She’d taken every bit of it, every story, every rant and he knew she hadn’t told another soul. She’d kept his confidence and he trusted her implicitly, with anything. But this was the first time he’d ever been on the giving end of their peculiar relationship. Emily wasn’t one to need reassurance, to need someone to rant to. Or at least she hadn’t been up to that point.
He moved to sit beside her, making sure his shoulder rested against hers, letting her hands go in the process. “Emotion always makes us vulnerable, but it’s that vulnerability that makes us human.”
Emily wrinkled her brow. “Aristotle?”
“Aaron Hotchner, but thank you,” he replied with a wry smile. Still, it got the slight chuckle he’d been looking for. She surprised him when she reached out and laced her fingers with hers.
“Thanks Hotch,” she said softly.
He turned to look at her, his other hand coming up to brush at the red tear streaks on her face. He saw the change in her eyes, how they darkened with awareness, and yet, she didn’t pull away in the slightest. He wanted to comfort her, wanted to take away some of the pain in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her, desperately, and he knew she was vulnerable enough right now to let him. But Hotch wanted to be on equal playing ground with her. If he was going to kiss her, he didn’t want to feel like he was taking advantage.
So instead, he tipped her head down slightly, pressing his lips to her forehead instead, the contact just that little bit too long to be considered fatherly or platonic.
“Em? Hotch?” came JJ’s voice as she knocked on the door.
“What is it, JJ?”
“Leah’s plane landed half an hour ago. Security’s holding her now.”
He saw the relief in Emily’s eyes and pulled her to her feet. He stood aside as she scrubbed at the redness of her. He reached for the lock, then the handle, surprised when her hand closed on his. Then there was soft pressure against his mouth and a warm hand on his chest, but only for a split second. There was a new determination in her eyes and a spark of surprise. If he read her right, kissing him, as brief as it was, had been an impulse.
She flashed him a nervous smile. “Because you wouldn’t do it.”
Then she was gone.