fic post: for all that was lost (Prentiss centric)
Title: for all that was lost
Characters: Emily Prentiss, ensemble
Rating: pg-13
Summary: Out of this whole ordeal, this was not a struggle she anticipated.
Author’s Note: word count - 1,636. Set post-Lauren to early season 7. Spoilers through 7x03. thanks tomagisterequitum for reading over and suggestions.
She fluctuates between feeling too little - floating along through her daily routine as if it’s not her life at all - and too much, the crushing reality and regret for what she’s done bearing down on her while grappling to find some kind of hold on all she’s been through.
There is no middle ground.
- -
Every morning for seven months, in the moments between the first brush of consciousness and the state of being fully awake, she forgets Emily Prentiss died thousands of miles away. Seconds is all it takes for the realization to come crashing back.
She’s lost everything and everyone who ever mattered to her. Feeling the weight settle on her, she pushes herself upright and out of bed, grabs the pistol off her nightstand and pads to the small bathroom in the cash only apartment she’s renting by the week.
She sets her gun on the top of the toilet and runs the water just south of scalding before getting in. And while blanketed by the steam and water, she lets go. For the ten minutes it takes her to wash away the accumulations of living in this city, she lets herself grieve for what she truly lost; and for the people she loves, who she might never see again.
- -
Some days she’s not so sure who Emily Prentiss is.
That’s not something she prepared herself for. Spending months hiding in various European cites, blending in seamlessly and inhabiting highly populated urban areas where she goes unnoticed makes it all too easy to forget Emily Prentiss. Everyday of living as someone else makes the memories of what she’s lost less concrete, less real. If not for her team, she has virtually no ties back home. Nothing, no incentive to stay under the radar and make it back safe.
But she has her team, even as thoughts of them fade and the reality of her new life - if you can call it that - sets in, there is the tiniest bit of hope that she’ll someday go home.
In what state and how long from now, she can’t be sure.
So she’s here: struggling to find the balance between trying to forget her past life ever existed, and holding out for that phone call that it’s time to come home.
She’s not sure which is more painful.
- -
She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t stop because she can’t.
She doesn’t take the time to get her life back in order upon reinstatement to the BAU. Work is a solace, she can fill her mind with cases and profiles - all puzzles needing to be solved so urgently that it would be a disservice to the victims, to the team, to dwell on her own issues.
It’s foolproof really, she does her job. And her job pulls her though.
A few weeks in there’s a chink in her plan in the form of a tall, dark haired middle aged woman - stabbed multiple times in the stomach. Her injuries aren’t really similar to what she suffered at the hands of Ian Doyle, but it’s close enough.
Still, she does what she always does. Latex gloves on - collecting evidence, noting body positioning. Sharing insights with Reid and Hotch, and listening in return.
It’s her job, and she’s going to be damned if she’s going to not do it because it hits too close to home.
So she’s fine.
And she believes it herself until the walk across the crime scene back to the SUV. She tries every trick she’s picked up along the way to slow her breathing, but the thing she wants to slow more than anything is her mind.
She knows from experience that’ll never happen.
- -
It surprises her for how much she’s struggling, all the things she’s trying to reconcile, that her confession to Hotch four years ago still rings true: She still needs to know she can be human.
Logically she knows this. By genus, species, by every other definition, purely human. Sometimes she forgets that she’s made of flesh, muscle and bone, that she had the equivalent of a wooden stake driven into her abdomen, and almost bled out in the operating table
She stands in her underwear, watching her muscles move, contracting and releasing in the stark bathroom light. The tension in them building and dissipating as she examines her range of movement. Studying her reflection, her eyes dart over exposed skin, conspicuously avoiding the scar on her stomach and the brand on her chest. She pinches at her pale skin, needing the reassurance that there are still nerve endings there. That she hasn’t become too hardened - too good at forgetting and ignoring what she really needs. It’s harder to make yourself feel things when you’ve spent so long pretending you don’t.
And yet some days she still feels like she's more machine than woman. Metal gears and pieces that intricately fit within each other to create an unstoppable force unhindered by petty emotions. On these days she throws on a lower-than-usual shirt, taking care to insure the brand Doyle left on her chest is covered. Just so - if nothing else - she looks undeniably womanly, even if she doesn't feel that way.
- -
She meant it, what she said in the bullpen about knowing the unsub’s head space - knowing the desperation of thinking your family is in danger, there’s absolutely nothing she wouldn’t have done to keep them safe.
There’s nothing she still wouldn’t do.
She was prepared to sacrifice herself - her life, for the team and Declan, if it came to it.
Some people might say she doesn’t place enough value on her own life if they sat back and considered it.
She doesn’t want to admit that there might be some truth to that statement.
- -
If anyone had been watching her face as she tried to pull the unsub’s daughter away from the glass doors of the BAU, they’d know this is so much more than wanting to protect a child from seeing her father in a compromised state.
Hearing her cry out, feeling the sum of all the strength her small body could manage in an attempt to catapult herself through the doors, all Prentiss can think about is that she will not have another child witness their father’s death. She doesn’t know when this case got so personal. Not just about her, but about Declan and Doyle too. And when she stops to think about it, when has anything ever not been about them?
It’s just lucky for her, no one was watching.
- -
Later that day Hotch asks her if she’s okay.
The answer comes fast without thought, “Oh, yeah. I’m good.” A reply rooted in pure instinct.
Say it enough times, and eventually it has to be true. Profilers are easier to fool than you’d think. And she’s the master at it.
After all, how long has she been fooling herself?
- -
When she told Morgan she quit caffeine to reduce her stress level she wasn’t lying. What she didn’t tell him is that she’d started smoking again.
She hates that she has to rely on a habit to calm her down, but she picked it up in Paris, and she’s cut down to one or two a week since then. That’s something, right?
It’s not what she really needs - this she knows - it’s not therapy. It’s not constructive, like talking to anyone on the team about her problems, or boxing to reduce stress would be.
It is an acknowledgement to herself that everything is not okay.
At least it’s something, and for her that’s huge.
- -
She’s trying desperately to mend these broken relationships with her teammates.
Sundays at the shooting range with Morgan almost feel like old times. Except that the reason she’s there is because in Morgan’s mind she died in the field and this is his way of hoping he won’t fail her again.
It’s not easy to shake that thought. Imagining everything he went though. All of it because of her, and how he’ll always see her just a little bit different than before.
But she looks at him on the line beside her as she removes her ear protection and grabs another magazine to fill with bullets, and thinks he looks content, happy even. She can do this for him, to give him that solace that comes from knowing they can function efficiently as partners again.
A small smile graces her lips as she teases, “Person with the most “X”s chooses where we eat lunch. Loser buys.”
One of his patented Derek Morgan smiles and a laugh precedes his answer,“Oh, you’re so on.”
One at a time she inserts the bullets into the clip as she tries to ignore the tightness in her chest, and convinces herself that if she can make the team okay, she’ll be okay.
And she doesn’t dwell on it, because that’s all this feeling is.
- -
It hits her at the strangest times - waves of sorrow for all she’s lost. Standing in line for lunch, sitting at the round table during a briefing, at home lying in bed before sleep comes.
Pressure building in her chest, suffocating any other thoughts from her mind.
It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic - that the only way her mind can get her to acknowledge that something’s not right, is by forcing her body to revolt on her.
Because, yes she is back. She’s with her team, but nothing will ever be the same. Despite their assurances, there has been damage done to their family beyond repair.
And this she knows for certain: She’ll never be who she once was.
Characters: Emily Prentiss, ensemble
Rating: pg-13
Summary: Out of this whole ordeal, this was not a struggle she anticipated.
Author’s Note: word count - 1,636. Set post-Lauren to early season 7. Spoilers through 7x03. thanks tomagisterequitum for reading over and suggestions.
She fluctuates between feeling too little - floating along through her daily routine as if it’s not her life at all - and too much, the crushing reality and regret for what she’s done bearing down on her while grappling to find some kind of hold on all she’s been through.
There is no middle ground.
- -
Every morning for seven months, in the moments between the first brush of consciousness and the state of being fully awake, she forgets Emily Prentiss died thousands of miles away. Seconds is all it takes for the realization to come crashing back.
She’s lost everything and everyone who ever mattered to her. Feeling the weight settle on her, she pushes herself upright and out of bed, grabs the pistol off her nightstand and pads to the small bathroom in the cash only apartment she’s renting by the week.
She sets her gun on the top of the toilet and runs the water just south of scalding before getting in. And while blanketed by the steam and water, she lets go. For the ten minutes it takes her to wash away the accumulations of living in this city, she lets herself grieve for what she truly lost; and for the people she loves, who she might never see again.
- -
Some days she’s not so sure who Emily Prentiss is.
That’s not something she prepared herself for. Spending months hiding in various European cites, blending in seamlessly and inhabiting highly populated urban areas where she goes unnoticed makes it all too easy to forget Emily Prentiss. Everyday of living as someone else makes the memories of what she’s lost less concrete, less real. If not for her team, she has virtually no ties back home. Nothing, no incentive to stay under the radar and make it back safe.
But she has her team, even as thoughts of them fade and the reality of her new life - if you can call it that - sets in, there is the tiniest bit of hope that she’ll someday go home.
In what state and how long from now, she can’t be sure.
So she’s here: struggling to find the balance between trying to forget her past life ever existed, and holding out for that phone call that it’s time to come home.
She’s not sure which is more painful.
- -
She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t stop because she can’t.
She doesn’t take the time to get her life back in order upon reinstatement to the BAU. Work is a solace, she can fill her mind with cases and profiles - all puzzles needing to be solved so urgently that it would be a disservice to the victims, to the team, to dwell on her own issues.
It’s foolproof really, she does her job. And her job pulls her though.
A few weeks in there’s a chink in her plan in the form of a tall, dark haired middle aged woman - stabbed multiple times in the stomach. Her injuries aren’t really similar to what she suffered at the hands of Ian Doyle, but it’s close enough.
Still, she does what she always does. Latex gloves on - collecting evidence, noting body positioning. Sharing insights with Reid and Hotch, and listening in return.
It’s her job, and she’s going to be damned if she’s going to not do it because it hits too close to home.
So she’s fine.
And she believes it herself until the walk across the crime scene back to the SUV. She tries every trick she’s picked up along the way to slow her breathing, but the thing she wants to slow more than anything is her mind.
She knows from experience that’ll never happen.
- -
It surprises her for how much she’s struggling, all the things she’s trying to reconcile, that her confession to Hotch four years ago still rings true: She still needs to know she can be human.
Logically she knows this. By genus, species, by every other definition, purely human. Sometimes she forgets that she’s made of flesh, muscle and bone, that she had the equivalent of a wooden stake driven into her abdomen, and almost bled out in the operating table
She stands in her underwear, watching her muscles move, contracting and releasing in the stark bathroom light. The tension in them building and dissipating as she examines her range of movement. Studying her reflection, her eyes dart over exposed skin, conspicuously avoiding the scar on her stomach and the brand on her chest. She pinches at her pale skin, needing the reassurance that there are still nerve endings there. That she hasn’t become too hardened - too good at forgetting and ignoring what she really needs. It’s harder to make yourself feel things when you’ve spent so long pretending you don’t.
And yet some days she still feels like she's more machine than woman. Metal gears and pieces that intricately fit within each other to create an unstoppable force unhindered by petty emotions. On these days she throws on a lower-than-usual shirt, taking care to insure the brand Doyle left on her chest is covered. Just so - if nothing else - she looks undeniably womanly, even if she doesn't feel that way.
- -
She meant it, what she said in the bullpen about knowing the unsub’s head space - knowing the desperation of thinking your family is in danger, there’s absolutely nothing she wouldn’t have done to keep them safe.
There’s nothing she still wouldn’t do.
She was prepared to sacrifice herself - her life, for the team and Declan, if it came to it.
Some people might say she doesn’t place enough value on her own life if they sat back and considered it.
She doesn’t want to admit that there might be some truth to that statement.
- -
If anyone had been watching her face as she tried to pull the unsub’s daughter away from the glass doors of the BAU, they’d know this is so much more than wanting to protect a child from seeing her father in a compromised state.
Hearing her cry out, feeling the sum of all the strength her small body could manage in an attempt to catapult herself through the doors, all Prentiss can think about is that she will not have another child witness their father’s death. She doesn’t know when this case got so personal. Not just about her, but about Declan and Doyle too. And when she stops to think about it, when has anything ever not been about them?
It’s just lucky for her, no one was watching.
- -
Later that day Hotch asks her if she’s okay.
The answer comes fast without thought, “Oh, yeah. I’m good.” A reply rooted in pure instinct.
Say it enough times, and eventually it has to be true. Profilers are easier to fool than you’d think. And she’s the master at it.
After all, how long has she been fooling herself?
- -
When she told Morgan she quit caffeine to reduce her stress level she wasn’t lying. What she didn’t tell him is that she’d started smoking again.
She hates that she has to rely on a habit to calm her down, but she picked it up in Paris, and she’s cut down to one or two a week since then. That’s something, right?
It’s not what she really needs - this she knows - it’s not therapy. It’s not constructive, like talking to anyone on the team about her problems, or boxing to reduce stress would be.
It is an acknowledgement to herself that everything is not okay.
At least it’s something, and for her that’s huge.
- -
She’s trying desperately to mend these broken relationships with her teammates.
Sundays at the shooting range with Morgan almost feel like old times. Except that the reason she’s there is because in Morgan’s mind she died in the field and this is his way of hoping he won’t fail her again.
It’s not easy to shake that thought. Imagining everything he went though. All of it because of her, and how he’ll always see her just a little bit different than before.
But she looks at him on the line beside her as she removes her ear protection and grabs another magazine to fill with bullets, and thinks he looks content, happy even. She can do this for him, to give him that solace that comes from knowing they can function efficiently as partners again.
A small smile graces her lips as she teases, “Person with the most “X”s chooses where we eat lunch. Loser buys.”
One of his patented Derek Morgan smiles and a laugh precedes his answer,“Oh, you’re so on.”
One at a time she inserts the bullets into the clip as she tries to ignore the tightness in her chest, and convinces herself that if she can make the team okay, she’ll be okay.
And she doesn’t dwell on it, because that’s all this feeling is.
- -
It hits her at the strangest times - waves of sorrow for all she’s lost. Standing in line for lunch, sitting at the round table during a briefing, at home lying in bed before sleep comes.
Pressure building in her chest, suffocating any other thoughts from her mind.
It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic - that the only way her mind can get her to acknowledge that something’s not right, is by forcing her body to revolt on her.
Because, yes she is back. She’s with her team, but nothing will ever be the same. Despite their assurances, there has been damage done to their family beyond repair.
And this she knows for certain: She’ll never be who she once was.