SimplyPrentiss

Reaching blindly for her phone, she grabbed it and turned the screen towards herself before her stomach dropped at seeing Rick Romero’s caller ID. Even without accepting his incoming call, she would have known why he was calling her at three in the morning, but she accepted it anyway, rolling onto her back beneath the comforter and brushing her hair from her face.

“Where?” She didn’t even give him time to speak, her voice rough and weary.

He sighed on the other end. “Foodbank on 4th. Homeless guy called it in on a payphone.”

“Seal the scene,” She told him. “I’ll be there in ten.”

She hung up before he had the chance to respond, pulling back the covers and climbing out of bed with a soft groan. She already knew exactly what she was going to see when she got on scene. Another child. Another brutally murdered child. It was a sight she’d seen not once but twice in as many months, and now with this third victim? She knew without a doubt that they had a serial killer on their hands. The murders were connected in one way or another - she could feel it - she just couldn’t work out how, and it was really beginning to piss her off.

“Another one?” She heard Bobby’s voice - quiet and groggy - from the bed as she opened the closet door, and she glanced over her shoulder at him while pulling out one of her sweaters.

“Yeah.” She said, grabbing some pants from the chest of drawers and lying them on the bed.

He pushed himself up on an elbow and ran a hand over his face as he yawned, running that same hand through his sleep-mussed hair seconds later as he watched her begin to remove her pajamas in the dim light the lamp offered. “When was the last time you got some sleep? And I mean actual sleep, not just five minutes of…whatever it is you’ve been getting lately.”

She shrugged, pulling her sweater on over her head. “I have no idea.”

“Thena, you’re gonna run yourself into the ground if you keep going like this,” He told her. “I’m not telling you to stop working on the case - I know how much good that would do - just…maybe speak with someone about taking over for a couple days. You need to sleep.”

Punching the keycode into her gun safe, she opened the door before pausing for a moment and sighing under her breath. He was right, she knew, but she just couldn’t back away from this case. Not for a few minutes, let alone for a few days. She’d looked too many families in the eye and watched their world crumble around them in seconds flat the past two - soon to be three - months to do that. She was too involved. She didn’t want anyone else handling it.

Taking out her gun and grabbing her badge, she put both in her bag before grabbing it and pulling the strap up over her shoulder while turning to face her husband for a second time.

“I’ll sleep when this son of a bitch is in custody.” She told him bluntly.

The corner of his mouth twitched into a tired smile.

Truth be told, he’d known that was going to be her response.

“Alright,” He murmured. “Just be careful.”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly at him before making her way around to his side of the bed and bending down to kiss him softly, touching the back of her hand to his cheek when she pulled away from him again. “I promise you,” She told him, her voice quiet. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” He replied as he laid himself back down and tucked an arm under his head.

She made her way swiftly out of their bedroom then, closing the door and making her way up the steps to the front door where her sneakers were still sitting on the mat. She slipped her feet into them and laced them before grabbing her keys from the cabinet and stepping out into the night, locking the front door behind her and clicking her key to unlock the car.

From home to the foodbank, it was about a ten-minute drive, and when she arrived on the scene Rick was already there - the crime scene completely sealed just like she’d asked for. She climbed out and made her way over to him, and the moment she saw the body on the ground her breath caught in the back of her throat and she felt her stomach lurch slightly.

“Oh my God…” She breathed.

The victim was female, with long brown hair and pale skin. The crime scene wasn’t as brutal as the first two had been—there was no catastrophic blood loss and no visible injuries to her body they could see—but it was how emaciated the girl was that got her. There was nothing to her. Nothing at all. She was completely skin and bone, totally different to the first victims.

“If this is our guy…” Rick said slowly, turning his head to look in her direction before turning his attention back to the body lying on the ground. “He’d have to have had her a long time.”

She nodded, reaching into the back pocket of her pants for her cell. “Before he abducted the first one, I’d say. This level of emaciation takes months. I’ll give dispatch a call and ask them about missing child reports going back five, six months. She has to be in there somewhere.”

She dialled the number then, and it wasn’t long before Maddie picked up at the other end.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” Her voice came through the phone.

“Maddie? It’s Athena.” She told her, pushing a hand into one of her pant pockets.

“Athena? Hey, what can I do for you?” Maddie asked.

She glanced down at the little girl on the floor for a moment before clearing her throat and responding. “Romero and I are on scene at the foodbank on 4th. Could you pull up missing child reports made about five…six months ago? Focus on females, aged about nine or ten.”

Maddie was quiet for a time, the only sound coming through the phone the sound of typing as she pulled up the reports on her computer, but before too long she spoke up once again.

“I got way too many, Athena, is there any way to narrow things down?”

“She has long brown hair,” She glanced Rick’s way and placed a hand over the microphone. “Did you see if she has any identifiable marks? Like a birthmark or a scar? Anything at all?”

“She has a birthmark behind her left ear.” He told her.

“She has a birthmark behind her left ear,” She relayed the information to Maddie, waiting for her to type those two things into the computer to filter the results. She knew that—likely—it took a minute or two at the most, but in that moment it felt like it was taking Maddie hours.

Eventually, Maddie sighed. “The reports for between June and July are still in their hundreds, Athena. If you wanted to look through them at the precinct, I could send you what we have?”

She knew that going through each one of those hundreds of reports would take time - time they didn’t really have - but she also knew she had a dedicated task force and that this little girl deserved justice and her family needed closure for what happened to her. If this was the only way for her to ensure that they all received as such, then it was genuinely a no-brainer.

“Yeah, send it all over,” She shook her head. “Thanks, Maddie.”

“Of course,” Maddie replied. “If you need anything else, just call.”

She hung up the phone then, tucking it back into her pant pocket and glancing Rick’s way. “Maddie says the reports are in their hundreds,” She explained to him. “She’s going to send them over, so when we get back to the precinct I want the task force to go through each of them thoroughly. She has to be among them all. Children don’t just go missing unnoticed.”

Just as she finished speaking, CSI pulled up at the side of the road, and she and Rick turned together while the team climbed out of their cars and began making their way over to them.

The two of them stepped back as the team moved in around the little girl, setting down their equipment. She watched them work for a moment - in the same careful, methodical way that they had at the first two crime scenes - and she felt that familiar feeling settling in her chest.

“You alright?” Rick finally asked her, his voice lowered so only she could hear him.

She scoffed. Of course, she wasn’t alright. No-one could be standing there, looking at what she was looking at right now, and be alright. In any sense. “No,” She muttered softly. “You?”

“No.” He echoed.

Eventually, the CSI team lead - Dr. Dale Korascic, who’d been with them at all three scenes - stood and turned his attention back to the two of them. “Well, there’s no signs of a struggle. No visible trauma to her extremities and no defensive wounds either.” He explained to them.

“So she wasn’t fighting back.” She said.

“Either that, or she simply didn’t have the strength to,” He shrugged. “Given her condition? I would probably lean more towards the latter. Cause of death is going to need an autopsy, of course, but if you want my opinion? I’d say starvation, plain and simple. In combination with something else, maybe. Her lips have some discolouration to them. Raises some questions.”

She nodded. “When can you get me results?”

“I’ll expedite,” He told her. “You’ll have a preliminary report before the end of tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Korascic.” She breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Knowing there wasn’t much more the two of them could do now that the CSI were on scene, she and Rick began making their way back to their cars parked nearby. Climbing into hers, she sat there for a moment and just closed her eyes - allowing her brain a second to simply process all that she’d seen, not just tonight but over the past three months - before pulling herself back together, starting up the engine, and beginning to follow Rick to the precinct.

———

There was something about the precinct at four in the morning that differed from the rest of the day. It had a quietness to it that just didn’t exist when the rest of the world was awake—the kind of quiet that allowed you to hear the soft hum of the ventilation system, the tap of keyboards, the sound of a coffee pot bubbling. She’d always found a measure of comfort in it on her longer shifts, but not tonight. No, nothing could bring her any comfort right now.

Setting her bag down on her desk, she sank into the plush leather chair behind it and rested her elbows on the surface, burying her face in her hands and running her nails through her hair with a low, gentle groan. She hadn’t thought it would look like this. She’d made captain eighteen months ago, and she’d known that eventually she’d be handling some awful cases. Hell, she’d already handled her fair share rising through the ranks. But this was so different.

Naively, probably, she’d thought that the weight of cases like this would be more distributed at this level. That there would be some layer of procedural distance between herself and the absolute worst of it. Instead, though, she’d become more involved than ever. The past three months had been spent sitting in briefing rooms with FBI liaisons and family advocates, just poring over photograph after photograph of crime scenes she would give anything to unsee.

Shaking her head to refocus herself, she woke up her computer and after a few minutes she found the missing person reports that Maddie had sent over. Leaning back in her chair, she cleared her throat before clicking on the first one, opening it up and beginning to study it.

By the time six o’clock rolled around, the rest of the task force had arrived at the precinct. Ransone had arrived first, followed by Detectives Munroe and Stevens, and once they’d all had the chance to change into their uniforms and grab some coffee, she and Rick had led them into the briefing room where the whiteboard holding all the information they had was.

Standing there in front of them all, she took a breath and began speaking.

“Third victim, female, aged between nine to eleven, found at the foodbank on 4th at around two-thirty a.m. this morning. There was no visible cause of death,” She explained to them. “There were differences with this one than with the previous two. There were no injuries - at least none as severe as the first two victims sustained - and there was no overkill. Dale says he’s going to expedite the autopsy results, but his opinion is that the C.O.D is starvation.”

“He’s escalating.” Munroe said from where she was sitting at the table. “The interval between two and three is shorter than the interval between one and two. Only by a week or so, but…”

She shook her head. “Romero and I think he had this girl before he even abducted the other two. The level of emaciation she suffered is significant. It would have taken months for him to get her to such a state, and the fact that it took us this long to locate her means she was killed recently. He had to have been feeding her just enough to keep her alive until he was ready. For what, though, I still have no idea. I have no idea what’s going on inside his head.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room before she began to speak again.

“If this girl was taken in June or July, as the level of emaciation would suggest, then I’d say we’re looking at someone who started planning this out maybe eight, nine months ago...” She told them carefully. “All of the missing child reports from the window of June-July that match our parameters have been sent over. Female, approximately the right age, with long brown hair. There are around three-hundred of them and I want each one of them cross—referenced against the birthmark on the body by lunchtime today. When they get sent over, I also want Dale’s trace analysis cross-referenced against every bit of evidence we have from the first two scenes. Soil composition, fibre, anything. The locations the bodies have been found in means that he’s transporting them. And he needs to be doing so in some vehicle.”

Ransone frowned. “What about the foodbank? Were there any cameras?”

She nodded. “One, but it was covering the main entrance. I’m having the footage pulled as we speak, but I’m not holding out much hope. The body was found on the east side, tucked against the wall. It’s not in the camera’s field of view, so it’d be a miracle if it got anything.”

He nodded, tapping his pen against his pad. “The homeless man who called it in?”

“He was gone by the time I got on scene,” Rick interjected. “No name, no description. But he used the payphone on the corner of 4th and Mercer. Footage is being pulled from the diner.”

“Good. With any luck, it would have caught something,” Athena hummed before turning her attention to the rest of the room and clearing her throat. “Alright then. Let’s get to work.”

———

It was hours later when Ransone appeared in the doorway of her office.

“We got her,” He said bluntly, walking across the room with the missing child report in hand and setting it down in front of her on her desk. “Sofia Lee. Reported missing June fourteenth by her mother, Jennifer Lee, just out of Reseda. Has the same birthmark behind her left ear.”

She looked down at the photograph that was paper clipped to the inside of the folder, and the shiver that ran down her spine was enough of an indication that this was definitely the same little girl she and Rick had been staring down at behind the foodbank just hours ago. It was a school picture. Her dark hair was neatly groomed, and she had sparkly brown eyes and the sweetest smile. Swallowing the lump that came to her throat, she looked up at Lou.

“Good,” She said, her voice softer than intended as she leaned back in her chair and tapped her nails rhythmically against the armrests. “Contact the mother ASAP, but she’s not to be told anything over the phone. I want victim’s advocate present before anyone gives her any information, and I want a family liaison assigned before the end of the day today. Got that?”

He gave her a short nod before turning and making his way out of her office, and once he was gone she let her head fall back against the headrest of her seat with a thud. She could feel the tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

Three photographs.

Three names now.

Sofia Reyes.

Caleb Winters.

Maya Ito.

Maya, aged ten, had been found murdered near one of the local war memorials by an elderly woman out for a morning walk with her dog. It had probably been the most gruesome of the three, and the discovery had resulted in the woman suffering from a heart-attack. She could still remember the way her own stomach had turned when she and Rick had arrived. She had lost so much blood, they had been able to smell the iron. It had been extreme overkill. She’d have been dead long before he finally left her there. She’d never unsee that, she was certain.

Caleb, aged eight, had been found by a churchgoer - stuffed inside a confessional booth. It had been overkill once again, the booth soaked in blood, but he had also been posed. As if he’d been praying. And the words ‘justice’ had been etched into the wood around his body.

Now there was Sofia, in a completely different location yet again with a completely different and still unknown cause of death. While the other two had been brutally—so brutally—killed, it was as though he’d barely touched her. In the cases of Maya and Caleb, it had truly been as though the killer hadn’t been able to control himself when it came to killing them, and so what had changed with Sofia? What was different about her? It just didn’t make sense to her.

To anyone else, it would probably seem as though this third victim wasn’t connected to the first two in any way - honestly, someone could probably make her begin to doubt it herself if they argued it well enough - but she just had a gut feeling. She knew these killings were all connected. She knew all of them had been carried out by the same person. The issue was?

She had no idea how she was supposed to catch him.

The people she had working on this case were some of the best, she knew that well enough, but they didn’t have the skills required for something like this. They - herself included, she would hold her hands up- were out of their depth here, and they needed some outside help.

So she reached for the phone.

It took her quite some time, but eventually she found herself being patched through to the FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit in Quantico, and straight to the desk of Agent Aaron Hotchner.

“SSA Hotchner.” His voice came through the phone.

“Hello, Agent Hotchner,” She replied. “This is Captain Athena Grant from the LAPD. I’m the commanding officer on a serial homicide investigation out of Los Angeles. Three victims, all of them children, over a period of approximately three months - though we have reason to believe that whomever is responsible was holding our latest victim for at least five-to-six-months before we found her in the early hours of this morning. My task force has worked their hardest on this, but we’re completely in over our heads and I think we - this case - would benefit greatly from the expertise of your team in Quantico. We need the support.”

Aaron was quiet for a moment on the other side before his voice came through once again. “May I ask what makes you think the three cases are connected, Captain Grant?” He asked.

“The first two victims had the exact same level of overkill and almost identical injuries,” She explained. “The third is…different. We haven’t had the autopsy results yet with how recently the body was found - they’re being expedited - but the likely cause of death is starvation. If I’m correct, though, this is the same person and his interval between murders is shrinking. There were four-to-five weeks before the first two murders, and only three weeks between the second and third. Agent Hotchner, if I can help it I’d rather there not become a fourth. I don't want another family to have their lives ruined.”

He hummed on the other end of the line. “No, I can understand that. It sounds as though he's beginning to adapt. Trying to figure out his MO.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Captain Grant, I’d appreciate it if you sent me everything that you have. Full case files, all three victims - any information you’ve compiled - all crime scene reports and photography, and the autopsy reports for the third victim when you have them. Time is of the essence in cases like this, so my team and I will go through everything on the plane. We’ll be with you this evening, ready to begin our investigation thoroughly in the morning. Does that work?”

She breathed a deep sigh of relief at his words. “Yes. I appreciate it so much. Thank you.”

“Of course.” He replied.

Once the two of them had exchanged their good-byes, she set the phone down and felt a weight lift from her chest as she slumped slightly in her chair. There was still a long way to go. A hell of a long way to go. And the chances of another child being abducted and killed in the time it took them to catch this guy were higher than she liked to admit, but things were moving now. The BAU were joining them on the case and they were the best in the business.

The silence in the doctor’s office was suffocating.

Her hands were resting in her lap, playing together uneasily in an attempt to keep herself from biting her nails, and she was doing her best to keep her breathing under control as the fluorescent lights hummed above her head. There was just something about offices like this that never failed to put her on edge. The sterile smell, the rock-hard chairs, the harsh lighting, the way time always seemed to stretch unbearably when you were waiting for news you already knew was going to change your life.

And not for the better.

Her watch read 9:46am when she checked it for the third time in as many minutes. Doctor Chen was running late, and she knew that wasn’t a good sign. Doctors didn’t tend to keep you waiting like this unless they needed extra time to examine your file. To work out the gentlest way to word what it was that they needed to inform you about. To really prepare themselves for your reaction to such news.

The door opening a few moments later pulled her from her thoughts, and she turned to look over her shoulder as Doctor Chen made her way into the room with a folder in hand. The expression on her face was one that she had seen countless times. It was the expression medical examiners wore before they gave a preliminary cause of death. It was the expression victim advocates wore when they had to tell a family they would never see their loved one again. It was professional sympathy masking devastating news.

She felt her stomach drop before the woman even sat down at the other side of her desk.

“Miss Prentiss, I apologize for the wait.” Doctor Chen said as she lowered herself into her chair, setting the file down on the desk. She offered her a smile - a smile that, Emily supposed, worked wonders to put most patients at ease - but she wasn’t most patients, and she could read the woman like a book.

“It’s fine.” She lied, shaking her head.

Doctor Chen sighed. “I have your results back, and I’ve reviewed the imaging from your ultrasound.”

She gave her a nod, not trusting herself enough to speak.

“Your health, as a whole, is good,” Doctor Chen began carefully, deciding -she knew - to give her the good news first before hitting her with the bad. “Your hormone levels are normal, there aren’t any irregularities regarding your cycle, and there’s nothing to suggest any systemic issues,” The doctor paused for a brief moment before continuing. “However, the ultrasound revealed some complications.”

“Complications.” She repeated, somehow succeeding in keeping her voice from trembling.

Doctor Chen pulled two black and white images from the folder and laid them down side-by-side on the desk so that she could see. Honestly, she couldn’t make heads nor tails of them - they were merely shapes in different shades of grey to her - but the doctor moved her pen over several lighter patches on the images as she began to explain them and their meanings to her, her tone still professional.

“What you’re looking at here is extensive scarring around your uterus and your fallopian tubes,” Doctor Chen told her. “Based on the medical history you provided, specifically the severe abdominal trauma you experienced four years ago, it looks to me like these are adhesions that formed during the healing process. Your records indicate that multiple internal organs were damaged during the penetration.”

She lowered her head and closed her eyes for a moment, and she found herself back in that room with Doyle. His face inches from hers as he drove that broken table leg straight into her abdomen. She’d survived it. She’d fought her way back from death itself and pieced her life back together. Returned to her team, her work, some level of normalcy. In doing so, she’d convinced herself that she had won.

Apparently, she’d been wrong.

“So—” She almost choked the words out. “What does this mean? In regard to conceiving?”

Doctor Chen gathered the images back up and sighed as she met her gaze, the look in her eyes one that could only be described as apologetic. “The adhesions have created significant blockages in both your fallopian tubes, and the level of scar tissue surrounding your uterus would make implantation extremely difficult. I’d say impossible. Combined with the damage to the uterine wall itself…” Doctor Chen trailed off for a moment. “In my professional opinion, I don’t believe you could safely carry a pregnancy. Even if you were to conceive naturally - which is incredibly unlikely in your condition - the risk of ectopic pregnancy is high. And if, by chance, an embryo did manage to implant itself in your uterus, the scarring would prevent you from being able to carry to term. You would likely miscarry.”

The words hit her like bullets. Each one finding its mark with perfect precision.

She heard them and she understood them, but her brain was struggling to actually process them.

In a matter of minutes, her life had been changed completely.

“What about fertility treatments?” She asked, her voice dull. “I don’t know, IVF or—”

“IVF still requires a viable uterus for implantation,” Doctor Chen reminded her. “I don’t believe it would be possible with the extent of the scarring. There’s a chance that it could pose serious health risks to you too were you to attempt it, and so I highly discourage it,” She told her before reaching into the top drawer of her desk and pulling out a number of pamphlets, sliding them across the desk toward her. “There are other options available to you. Surrogacy, for example, is possible. And, of course, adopt—”

“I understand.” She cut her off, not intending to be unkind, but unable to listen to anything more right now. She couldn’t sit there and discuss any alternatives while still trying to process what she’d heard. “Thank you. For being thorough. I appreciate your taking the time to really explain everything to me.”

“Of course,” Doctor Chen nodded. “If you’d like to schedule a follow-up to discuss your options in—”

“I’ll be sure to get in touch if I need anything.” She rose from her chair, grabbing her bag. “Thank you.”

With that, she walked out of the office with her head high, refusing to embarrass herself in front of a room full of people. It was only once she’d made it back to her car in the parking lot and slid back into the driver’s seat that the first little crack appeared in her façade. A lone tear trickled down her cheek, but she quickly palmed it away as she leaned back in her seat for a moment and buckled her belt.

Four years.

It had been four years since Doyle tortured her.

Since he drove that table leg into her body, leaving her to bleed out on the floor.

She’d survived.

She’d healed.

When she returned to her team, she’d thought the worst of it was behind her, but she’d been wrong.

Doyle was dead, Aaron had made sure of it, but even dead and buried he was still taking things from her. He was still hurting her in ways that she could never have seen coming, even from the grave.

Reaching down, she pressed her palm flat against her lower abdomen where she still had the scar. It was faded now, nothing more than a thin silver line hidden beneath her clothes, but the damage was there still. Would always be there. It was irreversible and, like the doctor said, nothing could be done.

Six months, that was how long she and Aaron had been trying for.

Six months of hope followed by disappointment. Six months of nothing but negative pregnancy tests and false alarms. Of telling herself to just be patient and stop worrying because these things didn’t just happen, and worrying was a preventer of pregnancy. It was around the fourth month that she’d begun to worry. It was during her fifth month that she’d made the appointment for her ultrasound.

And now she had all the answers she needed.

Now, she had to go home with Aaron that night and tell him that it had all been for nothing.

Starting up the car, she pulled out of the parking lot with a sigh and began driving in the direction of Quantico. She had case reports she needed to finish, files she needed to review, and work that needed to be done. Work had always been her refuge, thankfully. The one constant she could always rely on even when everything else was crumbling down around her. It was something for her to lose herself in.

She could fall apart later.

Right now, she had a job to do.

----------

The bullpen was alive with the usual chaos when she walked in just after 10:30, a takeout cup in hand. She had made a pit-stop for it on the way in, knowing that if she was going to have any chance of making it through the day without unintentionally tearing someone’s head off, then she was going to need some good caffeine.

“Well, well, well, look who finally decided to grace us with her presence this morning,” Morgan called to her from where he was sat at his computer, that usual easy grin of his on his face as he kicked his legs up onto the desk and leaned back in his chair. “I was starting to think you were playing hooky.”

“Doctor’s appointment,” She replied, approaching her own desk and setting her bag down on the floor before dropping into her chair and waking up her computer. “Nothing too exciting, I can assure you.”

He frowned a little at that, leaning forward. “Everything okay?”

“Just a routine check,” She didn’t look at him as she pulled up the Nebraska arsonist case file they had closed last week, narrowing her eyes slightly as she focussed on her screen. “Honestly, it’s all good.”

For several long moments, he continued watching her, trying to decide whether or not to press her on the matter, but in the end he thought better of it and went back to working on his own report. “Okay,” He murmured. “Hey. Garcia’s been begging me to go to that new Thai place for lunch today. You in?”

“Maybe. Got a lot to catch up on.”

“Yeah, heard that one before.”

She knew he was teasing, but she was grateful when he dropped the matter and they were both able to just get back to their reports. With a sigh, she forced herself to focus on the words in front of her on the screen. Behavioural analysis, evidence timeline, victimology. She’d gotten half of the report written up before the case had even officially been closed. She just needed to finish it. Easier said than done.

Across the bullpen, Reid was deep in conversation with someone, and his voice carried to her in that excitable way it did whenever he was discussing something particularly fascinating to him. “—actually, the statistical probability of successfully apprehending an arsonist before they escalate to murder is approximately 23% lower than with other serial offenders, primarily because fire-based crimes destroy so much physical evidence. There was a study conducted in 2004 that examined 347 cases of ser—”

She had to tune him out.

She loved Reid - truly, she did - but right now, she couldn’t handle listening to statistics on anything.

She could barely handle sitting at her desk, pretending everything was normal when it wasn’t.

Glancing in the direction of Aaron’s office, she could see him sitting at his desk through the window. He was on the phone, one hand gesturing as he spoke to the person on the other end. She could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t a particularly pleasant conversation, and he was a little irritated.

She watched him for a moment, the man she’d been building a life with for over a year now, and she sighed again. They had been through so much together in the years since they’d met. As colleagues, as friends, and now as partners both in and out of the field. He had been so patient with her when she’d been having nightmares. When memories of Lauren Reynolds and Ian Doyle plagued her, more so in recent months than before. More than that though, he’d dealt with all the baggage that she’d brought into their relationship with her without a word of complaint. He’d put up with so damn much.

He'd made her believe she could have something real.

Something good.

Something permanent.

And now, in a few short hours, his life would be in the same state as hers.

“Em?”

She jumped slightly at the sound of JJ’s voice, turning to see her standing next to her desk with a file.

“Sorry,” JJ said, setting the file down. “Witness statements from the Omaha case. For your report.”

Emily gave her a small smile as she accepted the file. “Thanks.”

JJ didn’t move right away. She could sense something wasn’t quite right with her, having been her friend for so long now, and she frowned slightly as she leaned against her desk. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Just a long morning,” Emily replied, shaking her head. “I’m fine. Really.”

There was no doubt in her mind that she was lying - that she was anything but fine - but having been her friend for so long also meant that she knew better than to push when she was guarded like this. “Okay,” She rested a hand on her arm through her shirt. “You need anything, you know where I am.”

“I know,” Emily gave her the first genuine smile she’d managed all day. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

JJ gave her arm a gentle squeeze before returning to her office, leaving her alone at her desk again.

The rest of the morning and the afternoon dragged by almost agonizingly.

She managed to get her Nebraska report finished and start going over case files for an upcoming trial testimony, and she responded to what seemed like an innumerable amount of emails in her inbox. She ended up declining Morgan and Garcia’s lunch invitation, telling them she just wasn’t hungry, and it wasn’t a complete lie either if she was honest. The thought of eating anything made her feel sick.

Reid tried to engage her in a discussion about the behavioural patterns of arsonists versus other types of serial offenders at some point, something she would normally partake eagerly in, but not today. Even Garcia coming up to her and showing her the videos of cute baby animals she’d found over the weekend didn’t help lift her mood when it usually would. She was in a real funk, she seriously was.

At around 5:30, Aaron finally walked out of his office and straightened his jacket as he made his way down the steps into the bullpen. As if on autopilot, he made his way right to her desk and rested a hand on her shoulder. The gentleness in his touch was almost enough to make her crumble right then and there, but she somehow managed to hold it together and give him a smile as she looked at him.

“Hey,” He said quietly. “Sorry, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing today. How did it go this morning?”

She was silent for a long moment before she found her voice. “Can...uh...can we talk about at home?”

His brow furrowed slightly, but he didn’t press. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. I don’t need to stay late tonight.”

“Good,” She replied. “Jack’ll be glad to have both of us there for dinner for once.”

He gave her shoulder a little squeeze, saying more to her than words could hope to, before turning on his heel and making his way back up the steps to his office, closing the door behind him once again.

She sank back in her chair once she was alone.

She was dreading going home.

She was looking forward to the three of them eating dinner together tonight, that much was true, but after dinner would come the talk. After dinner would come both the hurt and the disappointment.

And that, quite honestly, was something she would never be ready for.

----------

Dinner passed in a blur.

Jack spent most of it telling the two of them about his day - about the science project that his class is starting next week, about how Tommy Richards got sent to the principal’s office for writing rude words on the board, about the dodgeball game at recess where his team finally one for once. Aaron, naturally, hung onto his every word and asked questions in all the right places, but she’d found it hard to keep focussed and she’d felt him watching her out of the corner of his eye. She’d done nothing but push her food around the plate, not eating much of any of it, and he’d noticed it. Of course, he had.

Once dinner was over, Aaron went and helped Jack get washed and ready for bed while she cleaned up a little. She rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the counters, put the leftovers away, and straightened up the dining area. The entire time, she was still trying to figure out how she was going to tell Aaron about the appointment when he came back into the room. There was no easy way to give someone news like that. No matter what she said, she supposed, it’d make no difference.

Because how do you explain to someone, gently, that the future they’d hoped for had been torn away?

How do you tell the man you love more than anything that you can’t give him the one thing he wants?

By 8:00, Jack was tucked up in bed and a familiar quiet had fallen over the apartment like it did every evening. She was curled up on the couch when he came back into the main room, two glasses of wine already poured and waiting on the coffee table in front of her. When he made it to the couch, he sat down next to her and reached for one of the glasses, slipping an arm easily around her shoulders.

She let him pull her close to him as she sipped at her own glass of wine, and for a moment she was silent. The clock ticked steadily on the wall, and neither of them said a word until she let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “Doctor Chen showed me the images from the ultrasound I had at my last appointment this morning,” She said eventually, looking down into the liquid in her glass. “It, uh, wasn’t what I was expecting, to be honest. I didn’t expect any of it.”

Aaron leaned forward to set his glass down on the coffee table again and turned to face her properly, letting her know that she had his full, undivided attention. The way he always did at times like this.

“The scar tissue,” She said slowly. “From when Doyle—when he impaled me with the table leg. The damage was worse than I thought. There are adhesions all around my uterus and my fallopian tubes. There’s significant blockages in my fallopian tubes from the adhesions too, Doctor Chen told me.”

His breath caught at that, but he didn’t interrupt. He knew she still had more to tell him.

“She said my chances of conceiving naturally are basically zero,” Her voice trembled. “And even if I did somehow manage to get pregnant, it would be a high-risk pregnancy and the chances of me carrying to term would be slim. My uterus wouldn’t sustain a full-term pregnancy because of all the structural damage. So that’s it, more or less. I can’t have a baby, Aaron. We...we can’t have a child together.”

He didn’t say anything for a time after that, and the silence between them was soul-crushing.

Eventually, she forced herself to look at him for the first time since he’d sat down next to her, and she found him looking at her with profound sadness in his eyes. He felt it all the same way she did. The pain, the heartache, the sadness, the anger, the grief. He, too, was finding it hard to process all of it.

“God, I’m sorry,” He said finally, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. “I’m so sorry, Em.”

She shook her head, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes as she set her own glass down on the coffee table, her hand trembling. “It’s not your fault,” She told him. “It’s not either of our faults. It’s his fault. He’s been gone for four years now, but apparently he still gets to keep taking things from me.”

Tightening his hold of her, he took a breath. “What did she say about options? Surrogacy? IVF?”

“IVF won’t work, she says, because it still requires a fully-functioning uterus for implantation,” She repeated to him what Doctor Chen told her at her appointment that morning. “Surrogacy is possible. We could use my eggs with a gestational carrier, but…” She trailed off, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. “But I don’t want that. I don’t want to see someone else carrying my child, Aaron. I don’t.”

He nodded, thinking for a moment. “Did she mention adoption at the appointment?”

“Yeah,” She sniffed. “I don’t know how I feel about that, either, though. I don’t know how I feel about any of this, to be honest. This morning, I thought maybe I needed to change my diet or maybe we needed to give it some more time, or something. I don’t know what I thought, but I…I didn’t think—"

He pulled her into his arms the second he heard the subtle break in her voice, and she buried her face in his chest and broke down into sobs. They weren’t the quiet, controlled tears she’d been holding back all day, but full body-wracking sobs that tore their way out from somewhere primal and broken. He held her through all of it, one hand slowly stroking her hair while the other remained in place on her back, keeping her close to him. He refused to tell her that things were going to be alright or give her false hope. Instead, he just held her close to him and allowed her to simply feel her feelings.

When the worst of it finally passed, she pulled back from him and pressed the backs of her hands to her eyes before wiping the tears from her cheeks with a sniffle. “Sorry…” She murmured, defeated.

“Don’t apologize,” He reached out to stroke a dark strand of hair out of her face and back behind her ear, running his hand down her damp cheek as he looked at her. “You’re allowed to feel this way.”

“I just hate feeling like this,” She shook her head. “Like I’m broken. Like I failed in some way.”

“You’re not broken,” There was a slight edge to his voice when he spoke again. “Em, you came back from the dead. You fought. You survived something that you never should have survived. Your body healed itself as best it could, despite everything it went through. That’s testament to your strength.”

She scoffed tearfully. “Yeah? I don’t feel very strong right now.”

“I know,” He leaned in and pressed his lips softly to her forehead, lingering for several long seconds before pulling back from her again to look at her. “But you are strong. You never would have survived everything you have if you weren’t. You’re stronger than you think you are, and you’re going to get through this just like you got through everything else. It might take some time, but you’ll get there.”

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to lean into him then, her head falling against his shoulder and her arm throwing itself across his middle as she curled into his side. “Are you disappointed?”

“In you?” He murmured into her hair. “No. Because we can’t have a baby? Yeah, I’m disappointed.”

She nodded into his neck, exhaling shakily.

“But,” He continued, angling his head in a way that allowed him to look at her again. “I love you. I love our life together. I love coming home to you and Jack every night, even when I stay at the BAU until the early hours of the morning. I love our family just as it is. We don’t need a baby to be complete, Em.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better about the whole thing.”

“Actually, I’m saying it because it’s true.”

She searched his face carefully, looking for the slightest hint of dishonesty or disappointment in her, but she found none. He was being serious - truly serious - and it made her feel slightly better.

“You know, Doctor Chen gave me some pamphlets. About adoption and stuff,” She told him. “But I’m not ready to look at them yet. In a couple of weeks, though, maybe. If you still wanna do that by then.”

He smiled, running his hand lazily along her back. “Yeah. We can totally do that. But only when you’re sure you’re ready. I’m happy to go at your pace. With all of this. You can take all the time you need.”

“Yeah?” Her voice was soft.