[fic] In Her Blood - Emily Prentiss - Criminal Minds
Title: In Her Blood
Author: calleigh_j
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: G
Warnings: possible spoilers for the beginning of season three
Prompt: 33: The more hidden the venom, the more dangerous it is - Marguerite de Valois
Summary: tons of thanks to mcgarrygirl78 for betaing this for me and assuring me that it wasn’t totally unreadable. Set after the Emily/Strauss storyline at the beginning of season three. All feedback is welcomed and appreciated
There are things Emily Prentiss has always been aware of. She's always been aware of the importance of her mother's job, the necessity that she never do anything to show her mother up, the fact that few people will ever look at her as anything more than the sum of her parts. She's an ambassador's daughter: politics runs through her veins. Except that it doesn't, it never has, and Emily would prefer that it remain that way. She hates the lying and the back-biting and the false smiles hiding years of animosity. She understands it, sure; it would be difficult not to having grown up in her mother's world, but she stays as far away as she can. Instead of networking and making contacts, instead of playing by the rules and trying to get everyone on her side, she goes straight for what she wants.
She picks the college course she wants and works every possible hour to earn the respect of her professors. She joins the Bureau right at the bottom, going into basic training like everyone else when she knows full well what her mother's contacts could get her. She works her way up, taking every extra course offered and passing them all with flying colours. She takes more risks than she should, but they pay off just often enough that she gets away with it. She earns a reputation for asking forgiveness rather than permission (a reputation she's actually rather proud of, though she would deny it firmly to any and all of her superiors). But still, people talk.
She hears them whispering about her during the first week of training. With no idea how they know who she is, she ignores the gossip and throws herself into the work. She thinks that maybe if she works hard enough, the taint of her mother's job will fade away. It doesn't.
She makes it into the Bureau and gets her first assignment. In St. Louis, she's well away from the politics of D.C. For two years, she gets on okay. She plays the odds still, but she's better at judging things now and the verbal warnings she gets at the end of operations are usually followed by a smile and a pat on the back. Her colleagues invite her out for drinks and she goes. Her first partner teaches her to play pool (her mother would be horrified) and with a little natural skill and a lot of practice, she gets pretty good. Then a new transfer from D.C. mentions something about having heard of Emily, about the Ambassador, and immediately people are wary of her.
The same thing happens in Chicago. When she's just herself, it's okay. She's a good agent and a good drinking partner, a good team player and a good person to have watching your back. When no-one knows about her family, she's okay. Once the political background makes itself known, suddenly she's untrustworthy. She can prove herself again and again and still people never fully trust her, afraid that she pulled strings to skip some vital steps in training or that she's just waiting for them to screw up so she can swoop in and take their jobs.
Reassignment sends her back to D.C. People know who she is, but the payoff is that she's closer to the position she really, truly wants: something within the BAU. Every time an opening comes up, she applies. She knows the positions are fought over, but she knows she has the necessary qualifications, plus a few unnecessary ones on top. Still, she's passed by every time, until finally the reassignment letter arrives on her desk. The circumstances aren't the greatest and she knows this: multiple versions of Elle Greenaway's story travel the length and breadth of Quantico in a matter of hours and she knows that's the position she's being sent to fill. She'll take it though, this job she's worked her entire career for, even these most difficult times.
It turns out that nothing about it is as it seems. Strauss has pulled her in because of her mother, because of the politics in her blood. In return for the coveted position, she has to be the Section Chief’s snitch. Erin Strauss is looking for a way to the top and wants any problems out of her way. She'd suspected something - to suddenly get this assignment after being overlooked so many times, seemed too odd for her to ignore. Her most recent application was sent in almost three months ago and the ink is barely dry on the Greenaway investigation report. But to have it confirmed, and so bluntly, hurts. It hurts like a punch to the gut: quick, and harsh and bruising. She sits in the chair in Strauss' office and struggles to breathe through the realisation that, once again, she hasn't achieved her goals based on merit but on some fluke of parentage. She can barely muster the strength to reply and the self-control not to say what she really thinks.
The subterfuge doesn’t last long. Reporting her colleagues’ (her friends’) activities back to Strauss is worse than she’d imagined and worse than the idea of no longer having the job. She resigns rather than keep lying to the team, to her team.
Resolution comes with relative speed and ease. Garcia holds her resignation long enough for Hotch to convince her that leaving isn’t necessary and they follow the rest of the team out to the latest case. By the time she’s bandaged up and on the plane back home, things seem almost forgotten. No one other than Hotch knows why she resigned and with the unspoken rule in place about not profiling one another, no one asks. Everything’s back to normal.
All her life, she’s worked to get out from under her mother’s shadow. She’s been the best at everything she tried because nothing less would ever be good enough. Yet at the end of the day, it’s still politics which got her what she wanted and politics which came so close to taking it away, and she knows that will never change. It’s in her blood.
Author: calleigh_j
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: G
Warnings: possible spoilers for the beginning of season three
Prompt: 33: The more hidden the venom, the more dangerous it is - Marguerite de Valois
Summary: tons of thanks to mcgarrygirl78 for betaing this for me and assuring me that it wasn’t totally unreadable. Set after the Emily/Strauss storyline at the beginning of season three. All feedback is welcomed and appreciated
There are things Emily Prentiss has always been aware of. She's always been aware of the importance of her mother's job, the necessity that she never do anything to show her mother up, the fact that few people will ever look at her as anything more than the sum of her parts. She's an ambassador's daughter: politics runs through her veins. Except that it doesn't, it never has, and Emily would prefer that it remain that way. She hates the lying and the back-biting and the false smiles hiding years of animosity. She understands it, sure; it would be difficult not to having grown up in her mother's world, but she stays as far away as she can. Instead of networking and making contacts, instead of playing by the rules and trying to get everyone on her side, she goes straight for what she wants.
She picks the college course she wants and works every possible hour to earn the respect of her professors. She joins the Bureau right at the bottom, going into basic training like everyone else when she knows full well what her mother's contacts could get her. She works her way up, taking every extra course offered and passing them all with flying colours. She takes more risks than she should, but they pay off just often enough that she gets away with it. She earns a reputation for asking forgiveness rather than permission (a reputation she's actually rather proud of, though she would deny it firmly to any and all of her superiors). But still, people talk.
She hears them whispering about her during the first week of training. With no idea how they know who she is, she ignores the gossip and throws herself into the work. She thinks that maybe if she works hard enough, the taint of her mother's job will fade away. It doesn't.
She makes it into the Bureau and gets her first assignment. In St. Louis, she's well away from the politics of D.C. For two years, she gets on okay. She plays the odds still, but she's better at judging things now and the verbal warnings she gets at the end of operations are usually followed by a smile and a pat on the back. Her colleagues invite her out for drinks and she goes. Her first partner teaches her to play pool (her mother would be horrified) and with a little natural skill and a lot of practice, she gets pretty good. Then a new transfer from D.C. mentions something about having heard of Emily, about the Ambassador, and immediately people are wary of her.
The same thing happens in Chicago. When she's just herself, it's okay. She's a good agent and a good drinking partner, a good team player and a good person to have watching your back. When no-one knows about her family, she's okay. Once the political background makes itself known, suddenly she's untrustworthy. She can prove herself again and again and still people never fully trust her, afraid that she pulled strings to skip some vital steps in training or that she's just waiting for them to screw up so she can swoop in and take their jobs.
Reassignment sends her back to D.C. People know who she is, but the payoff is that she's closer to the position she really, truly wants: something within the BAU. Every time an opening comes up, she applies. She knows the positions are fought over, but she knows she has the necessary qualifications, plus a few unnecessary ones on top. Still, she's passed by every time, until finally the reassignment letter arrives on her desk. The circumstances aren't the greatest and she knows this: multiple versions of Elle Greenaway's story travel the length and breadth of Quantico in a matter of hours and she knows that's the position she's being sent to fill. She'll take it though, this job she's worked her entire career for, even these most difficult times.
It turns out that nothing about it is as it seems. Strauss has pulled her in because of her mother, because of the politics in her blood. In return for the coveted position, she has to be the Section Chief’s snitch. Erin Strauss is looking for a way to the top and wants any problems out of her way. She'd suspected something - to suddenly get this assignment after being overlooked so many times, seemed too odd for her to ignore. Her most recent application was sent in almost three months ago and the ink is barely dry on the Greenaway investigation report. But to have it confirmed, and so bluntly, hurts. It hurts like a punch to the gut: quick, and harsh and bruising. She sits in the chair in Strauss' office and struggles to breathe through the realisation that, once again, she hasn't achieved her goals based on merit but on some fluke of parentage. She can barely muster the strength to reply and the self-control not to say what she really thinks.
The subterfuge doesn’t last long. Reporting her colleagues’ (her friends’) activities back to Strauss is worse than she’d imagined and worse than the idea of no longer having the job. She resigns rather than keep lying to the team, to her team.
Resolution comes with relative speed and ease. Garcia holds her resignation long enough for Hotch to convince her that leaving isn’t necessary and they follow the rest of the team out to the latest case. By the time she’s bandaged up and on the plane back home, things seem almost forgotten. No one other than Hotch knows why she resigned and with the unspoken rule in place about not profiling one another, no one asks. Everything’s back to normal.
All her life, she’s worked to get out from under her mother’s shadow. She’s been the best at everything she tried because nothing less would ever be good enough. Yet at the end of the day, it’s still politics which got her what she wanted and politics which came so close to taking it away, and she knows that will never change. It’s in her blood.