The atmosphere on the plane ride back to Virginia was subdued. Losing victims wasn’t necessarily new to the BAU but when they were as close as they had been it was always difficult. Chloe Floam had only been dead between 2 and 4 hours. Emily looked around the plane with a grim sense of satisfaction. She was glad they’d closed the case. She was upset that they hadn’t been able to save Chloe.
The logical part knew they couldn’t save them all. She knew that there was more to life, that she couldn’t dwell on those they’d lost. Gideon had kept a book of pictures of the victims he’d saved to remind himself of the good they did. Most of them took what they could when they could. Emily closed her eyes and leaned her head back, remembering Carrie, remembering that Penelope was safe and sound back in her bunker in Quantico. Little Jack lived a safe and happy life, the kids down the hall from her would probably be racing for the bus at an ungodly hour the next morning “ they were more reliable than her alarm clock some days.
Aaron was already working on his paperwork beside her, Morgan asleep against the plane on the other side of the four-person table. Morrow sat on the couch following Aaron’s lead while Reid read across from JJ. The blond had a pile of files beside her, probably trying to determine how many of the files were cases and how many were simple consults. With a sigh, she reached across Aaron for the crime scene photos of the Woodson basement.
“Should you be looking at those?” Aaron asked, just over the sound of the plane’s white noise.
Emily shrugged as her eyes dragged over the photos. Cody Woodson had called them all whores, said that wanting to be rescued was just part of that damsel in distress. They were dirty, they all had boyfriends and yet, had profiles on a pornography site. It hadn’t been difficult to see the underlying problems in that scenario. And, true enough, Cody Woodson’s mother had been cheating on his father in the bed next to Cody’s room as a child. Then, when the car accident had happened and Tim Woodson was almost permanently paralyzed, it was the trigger to his rage.
“You know,” she said after a while, the same tone he had. “I blame my mother for a lot of my dysfunctional traits, but I wouldn’t kill her because of it.”
“You don’t resent your mother,” Aaron replied.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t resent my mother? Are you kidding me?”
“You wouldn’t be at the BAU if you resented her,” he pointed out calmly, continuing to jot his thoughts down. “You’d be doing something stereotypically female.”
“Trying for my mother’s approval and resenting her don’t go hand-in-hand,” she argued. “Maybe I like the challenge of the BAU.”
“You do,” he agreed, “Or you would have quit in the first week. You’re strong, resilient. You work in a government job that deals with the worst things a human being can do to another human being and you’re good at your job.”
“I’m good at compartmentalizing,” she responded, leaning her head back against the seat again. “That’s why I’m good at my job.”
“Either way, it has nothing to do with a resentment of your mother. You worked that Russian Mob case even with her watching over your shoulder and proved your merit. You know as well as we do that most of the things you learned as a child that have come in handy in your job are because your mother was an ambassador.”
She sighed. He was right. “Okay, I don’t resent my mother. I respect her.” She paused. “But I still hate politics.”
He chuckled. “Politics is my job,” he pointed out, darting a glance at Morrow.
“Don’t write her off just yet,” Emily suggested. “She knows she has a choice to make, but she’s seen how we interact. I think she’ll surprise you.”
“Did we call the intra-team profiling rule off?” Aaron asked, cracking a smile.
Emily shrugged unrepentantly. “We all do it, you know it.”
Aaron thought back to the day Strauss had suspended him. He knew his team and he knew them well. The team exchanged a high level of trust between them, not only because of the danger that was part of what they did but because of the knowledge that there were other people in the world who saw the same things they did. They helped each other through the tough ones without being obvious about it and even if no one said thank you, it was implied when they all made it through a case alive. They were good together, they made an excellent team. Hell, Aaron knew a good third of the BAU’s reputation was built on their team alone. He had some of the best minds in the FBI under his command and he valued each and every one of them.
They were a family, if a slightly dysfunctional one. They had their ups and their downs, their strengths and their weaknesses, their stereotypes and their reality and it worked for them. Reid was had a deadly mind, easily spouting off any bit of knowledge in the span of seconds, but he was socially awkward and was very stuck in a social situation. Morgan knew his stuff, knew exactly how to get into the most obsessive minds they’d come across. He was their muscle, their push, but if it wasn’t for Garcia, Aaron had a feeling the man would have burnt out long ago.
JJ had arguably the hardest job of all of them. She was young, beautiful, probably could have used her considerable skill with media and people to get herself a cushioned job at a PR firm, but she’d chosen the government instead. She was in charge of picking the cases the saw, of looking at the files, fielding calls from police departments and deciding whether or not the case was something that the BAU could do in consult, or if they had to head off in their jet. She had to go home hoping she made the right decision and saved a life or two. But she had the team, her family the people she saw every day. She had Penelope and Reid, Emily and Morgan. The tough decisions were always easier when there was someone at your back.
Emily was the rock. She’d come into the unit after the rocky road of Elle Greenaway and carved herself a niche as the pillar of strength. She was everyone’s sister, everyone’s friend in the unit and she had a huge heart for a woman that compartmentalized better than anything Ikea could ever come up with. Aaron always pictured her mind as an OCD organized file room. But in all of that, she was only human, and even that pillar of strength collapsed sometimes. But she had the team to lean on. JJ and Garcia would be there for an instant if something was wrong and even Morgan would drop a certain number of things for their raven-haired colleague. Just like she’d do for him.
In some ways, he was jealous of what the five of them, Garcia included, had formed. His separate office gave him the air of authority in the bullpen, the air he needed to get the job done every once in a while, but sometimes he wished he had a desk just like the rest of them. He adored his family, but it had been another thing that had held him apart from the rest of his single teammates. He knew he was becoming a bigger part of that. The team rallied behind him when his divorce papers showed up at the BAU and they hadn’t asked questions when he proposed a drink after a case. He didn’t love Jack any less, and Emily was certainly helping him on his way to thoroughly understanding that he still loved Haley and probably would always love Haley, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a spot for him to fall in love again.
“Deep thoughts there, Boss,” Emily teased quietly. She’d tucked a leg underneath her, pulling out her own files. She’d let him follow his mind to wherever it wanted to take him without any questions. The way his mind worked, it was more likely for him to come to some sort of epic conclusion if she just left him be.
Aaron glanced at her but didn’t say anything. There was still Jane Morrow to consider and not just in how he behaved towards Emily. This case hadn’t been as enlightening as he’d hoped in terms of their newest teammate. He knew Emily shared a sort of connection with the blond agent and didn’t find it all that difficult to believe that Emily had tactfully explained to Morrow the way his team worked.
He wasn’t sure where she was going to fit in the overall scheme of the team. She was smart, but she was eager and he’d bet that it was that eagerness that had drawn Strauss’ eye and put her in the running for his unit. Still, he knew Morrow had at least seen their unwritten code of conduct at work. She knew her acceptance into the team hinged on whether or not she could keep their secrets. And the team had their fair share of them.
Between Morgan’s past, Reid’s drug addiction, his blossoming relationship with Emily and Garcia and Morgan’s interaction, not to mention Garcia’s encryption of their cases, their team was ripe with unmentionable things. Emily had proven herself the same way Morrow would have to. If she could keep the behaviour she observed to herself, keep herself from being a bug in Strauss’ ear, she had potential.
He looked over at Emily, not surprised that her head was cocked his way, even if her eyes were fixed on her files. It had been good to have her back with the team. The normalcy they’d all coveted had been back, if with a little bit of a Strauss-induced kink. And Aaron had missed her. He hadn’t realized how much until she was back in the swing of it all. He’d missed her teasing with Morgan, missed her friendship with JJ, missed her subtle advice to Reid. They were basic interactions that they had on a day-to-day basis that made their team a smooth running machine.
“It was good to have you back,” Aaron said finally.
Emily quirked her lips. “It was good to be back,” she said, understanding everything he didn’t want to say. She knew she was a stabilizing force and had quickly learned that she was his stabilizing force. “Are you seeing Jack this weekend?”
“Haven’t talked to Haley,” he told her honestly, taking advantage of the way she spread her file across her lap to touch her leg, thumb sweeping over her knee.
“You should,” she said with a smile, turning her head to face him.
Aaron chanced a glance at Morrow who, to all the world, seemed completely engrossed in her files. “It depends.”
Emily arched her eyebrow at the huge risk he was taking. “On?” The look in his eyes told her what he wanted to say. It depended on what she was doing this weekend. She slipped her hand under the file, settling it on top of his. “See Jack, Aaron,” she encouraged. “JJ, Garcia and I are taking a girls day on Saturday to catch up. Take Jack to the park, watch him run and play on the playground like a normal father and son. Play catch, teach him to hit a baseball.”
He didn’t push the subject for now. He did want to see Jack, usually wanted to see his son after cases. But he wanted time with Emily too. Aaron knew he wasn’t alone in that need, but understood that her friends were important to her too. She wasn’t blowing him off, she was ensuring that the foundations she’d built were still there.
They worked quietly for the rest of the flight, discussing the cases and their reports. When the jet touched down everyone went their separate ways. It was early evening, but it wouldn’t do them any good to push going back to the office. They were exhausted. But they’d solved their case, put another disturbed individual behind bars. It was one of the best satisfactions.