A Sense of Self, Chapter 7
Emily barely made it through her front door before the tears started to fall. All of the anger, guilt, shame, and doubt that she had been bottling up for the last month came pouring out in a deluge of tears and sobs. She had messed up the case and now Hotch was paying the price. It was her fault that he’d been suspended. She felt sick to her stomach when she realized that perhaps he would come to think she had made the mistake on purpose.
“I put you in the BAU. I knew how badly you wanted it, everyone did. You were never exactly shy about letting us know…”
Hotch was right. It had been a mistake. Strauss had put on her on the team because her last name was Prentiss, not because she had taken the classes, aced the exam, and had proven herself effective and efficient in the field. But because she was Elizabeth Prentiss’s daughter and everyone knew that those Prentiss women were master manipulators when it came to the game of politics.
Strauss didn’t give a damn about how hard Emily worked, how badly she wanted this position, or whether she was qualified to be on the team based on her merits. She only cared about Emily being her stoolpigeon.
“It's time for Agent Hotchner's career to come to an end. And if you want to stay in the BAU, Agent Prentiss, you're going to help me make that happen.”
Emily felt dizzy as she thought about the fact that she did help make that happen, but it was due to her own stupidity, rather than being a malicious participant in Hotch’s downfall. Emily tried to slow her breathing down; now that her sobs were subsiding, she was breathing like a three-year-old after a temper tantrum.
Emily stood up and ran her hands over her face. At that moment, there was nothing that Emily wanted more than a hot bath. She stripped off her shirt and slacks as she made her way up the stairs. She didn’t even bother to wait for the tub to fill; as soon as the warm water started to flow, she sat down.
Hot baths had been Emily’s way of coping with difficult cases since she was fresh out of the Academy. Emily was glad that her water bill was covered under her condo fees because her hot water utilization had increased exponentially since starting at the BAU. Emily liked to picture that the water could seep in and absorb all the horrible images and knowledge of human depravity that had built up over the course of the case, covering her in a film of disgust. She then washed the feelings of horror and revulsion down the drain with peppermint-scented body wash. To Emily, peppermint smelled like starting over.
Emily sat back and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the water slowly covering her and trying to escape into its warmth. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get the case out of her head.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Emily had mistaken the quiver in Anna Bagley’s voice for fear.
“Nobody’s going to shoot you.”
She was trying to provide the frightened co-ed with reassurance. If she had considered the profile, she would have realized Anna wasn’t looking for reassurance, she was looking for a way out. She had pinned her hopes on Tubbs and when he couldn’t come through for her, Anna turned to Morgan and Emily. She wanted suicide by cop. It wasn’t until Emily saw her turn the knife on herself that she realized she had completely misread the situation.
Dammit! I should have shot her in the arm! Emily slapped the surface of the water and thought it appropriate when the drops stung her eyes and nose. Why didn’t I just shoot her in the arm?
Emily berated herself for pushing Anna to a self-inflicted knife wound. A wound that was not only fatal to Anna, but also life-threatening to Hotch’s future in the FBI.
“You mysteriously showed up at the BAU after one of my team members was involved in a questionable shooting…I will not put up with a political agenda.”
If only Hotch had known at the time that it would be her incompetence as a profiler, rather than her participation in a nefarious political plot, that would be his undoing.
Emily sighed, this bath was not working its usual magic. The water felt stagnant and the peppermint reminded her of candy canes from last year’s Christmas Tree: stale and unsatisfying. After getting out of the tub she leaned against the vanity as she saw the edges of her vision darken. Too little sleep, too much hot water, and not eating tended to have that effect. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost seven o’clock. Her day had begun over fifteen hours ago and she was starting to feel it. While sleeping seemed like the most appealing option, her rumbling stomach made a strong case for dinner.
She threw on her pajamas and went down to the kitchen to make dinner. She chuckled bitterly as she almost took a header down the stairs after tripping over her slacks. Damn karma.
With the amount of take-out and diner food she consumed while on cases, Emily tried to avoid it at all costs when she was in D.C. She took a container of homemade chili out of the freezer and while it was heating up, she searched her pantry and was pleased to note she had the ingredients to make cornbread. Emily settled herself on the couch with her chili, cornbread, and Battlestar Galactica, and found the warmth and comfort she was looking for.
.oOo.
The following week at work was nearly impossible to bear. Her chest tightened every time she looked up at the empty offices of Hotch and Gideon. The two most senior profilers on the team were paying for her mistake. Emily looked down at the file she was supposed to be reviewing and almost gave in to the urge to put her head down on her desk.
Just as she was about to lower her forehead onto her desk, she heard a chime from her computer alerting her to a new message on Outlook.
Meeting: 1530 with Section Chief Erin Strauss. Location: Her office.
When she saw Morgan turn suddenly to look at her, she realized she must have groaned out loud.
“Everything ok there, Princess?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she assured him. “I’ve had this headache all day and it’s just not going away.” It wasn’t entirely a lie; the prospect of meeting with Strauss in half an hour really did make her head hurt.
“Do you need anything?” he offered. “I have some ibuprofen in my drawer.”
“No thanks. I already tried some and now in addition to my headache, I also have an upset stomach.” Another part-truth, except it was Strauss that had her stomach churning.
“You should go home,” Morgan insisted.
Emily pondered that notion for a moment. She could certainly sneak out of the BAU after her meeting with Strauss since her office was on the other side of the elevators. That would also allow her to avoid being asked any questions about where she disappeared to.
“You know, I think I will,” she said, nodding. She couldn’t help but laugh at the look of frantic concern on his face. He obviously didn’t actually expect her to take him up on that suggestion.
“Don’t worry, Morgan, it’s not like I have an aneurysm or anything,” Emily told him, trying reassure him.
“Actually, it’s nearly impossible to tell who is at risk for the development of a cerebral aneurysm,” Reid said, coming into the conversation.
“Really?” Emily said in a voice of mock fascination. She appreciated the levity Reid’s fact-spouting brought to the conversation, despite the subject matter. “I stand corrected. Morgan, I don’t think I have an aneurysm, but I’m unable to completely eliminate the possibility.”
“Would you describe this as the worst headache you’ve ever had? Did it feel like it came on like a ‘thunderclap’?” he asked, using finger quotes.
“You realize she was kidding, right?” Morgan asked Reid.
“Aneurysms can be deadly without immediate care by a skilled neurosurgeon,” Reid said defensively. “Time is brain.”
“Thank you, Dr. Reid, for that very important P.S.A.,” Morgan said, shaking his head and turning back to his work.
“Thanks Reid, I appreciate your concern, but I think this is just a run-of-the-mill migraine. Nothing a little caffeine and sleep can’t fix,” Emily assured him, putting her things away so she could sneak away after her meeting with Strauss.
.oOo.
Emily sighed as she sat in the chair in Strauss’s office. Nothing good ever came from sitting in that chair and all evidence pointed to the fact that today would be no exception. Emily knew that Strauss had planned this meeting days ago and only gave her a half hour’s notice to deliberately throw her off. Nobody expects the Strauss Inquisition.
“So, Agent Prentiss, what is your assessment regarding how the unit is functioning the absence of both Agents Gideon and Hotchner?” Strauss asked, pulling a notebook out from her desk.
“It’s hard to say, ma’am,” Emily said, trying to keep her voice even. She had expected this conversation would happen eventually but that didn’t make it easier to deal with it.
“We haven’t had any field cases since Flagstaff. Mostly the team has been working on consults and reviews.”
“With regards to those case files, now that it is no longer Agent Hotchner apportioning those assignments, do you feel that the workload is more evenly distributed?” Strauss pressed.
“More evenly distributed than what?” Emily asked, fairly certain of the answer.
“What I am asking, Agent Prentiss, is do you feel as though the workload in the BAU is divided equally between its members?”
“I think so, ma’am, but I don’t know all the details of the workloads of Agents Reid and Morgan,” Emily said.
“Are you saying that Agent Hotchner has not been transparent with regards to the work assigned to each agent?” Strauss asked while jotting a few notes down in her book.
“No ma’am, that’s not what I’m saying,” Emily started picking at her fingernails as a way to let off some of her irritation. “Agent Jareau does most of the in-office consult and review allocations since they come across her desk first. And in the field Agent Hotchner is adept at assigning us roles based on our strengths and skills.”
“So, once you have demonstrated proficiency in a certain area, Agent Hotchner limits your field activities to a given task?” Emily couldn’t believe Strauss’s dexterity at twisting her words.
Emily let out a long breath. She was woefully unprepared for this meeting and it was clear that irrespective of her answers, Strauss was determined to frame the conversation to fit her agenda. She’d already screwed things up for Hotch and Gideon once, she may as well try to salvage something this time. But she needed time to think. To plan.
“I apologize, ma’am, but I’m not feeling well. I’ve had a headache all day long and I have over an hour’s drive to get home,” Emily said, not having to fake the exhaustion and pain in her voice. “Perhaps we can reschedule for tomorrow afternoon?”
Strauss looked at Emily for a moment without saying anything. “Very well then, Agent Prentiss, we can resume tomorrow at one o’clock.”
“Feel better,” Strauss added in a perfunctory manner. Emily was fairly certain that Strauss neither believed her nor gave a damn about how she felt.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Emily grabbed her things and tried to get out of the building as quickly as possible.
.oOo.
For the first time in recent memory, Emily actually felt rested when she got up to turn off her alarm. This was no wonder since she’d gotten nearly twelve hours of sleep. Last evening the universe appeared to be invested in keeping Emily honest because by time she got home, her head felt like there was a kick drum concert behind her eyes. The last thing she remembered after she crawled into bed was hoping that sleep would come quickly. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, grateful that she had been given a reprieve last night.
Despite her night of restorative sleep, the ache that had settled into her stomach when she received the notice about her meeting with Strauss hadn’t dissipated. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to stay calm when she realized she had less than seven hours before her meeting with Strauss and she hadn’t had time to come up with her game plan.
Just as the panic was beginning to well up, Emily remembered that she had already given herself an out. Morgan, Reid, and Strauss all knew she left early because of a headache. Just because she didn’t have one anymore didn’t mean she couldn’t use it as an excuse to get herself together.
She called JJ and Morgan to let them know and asked JJ to inform Straus that she wouldn’t be coming in to the office. She made her way downstairs to begin her day of introspection and decisions with a breakfast of French toast with her famous strawberry sauce.
Two loads of laundry, two clean bathrooms, and fully mopped kitchen floor later, Emily had managed to avoid thinking about the situation with Strauss. She was avoiding it because she already knew what her decision was going to be. She didn’t belong in the BAU. She hadn’t earned her position and she certainly didn’t deserve to keep it.
She should have quit that day after her meeting with Strauss. But it was so hard to just walk away from the job that she had been working towards for the last seven years. She had managed to convince herself that she could handle Strauss, that she could juggle both sides. She could be a double agent. Or triple agent. She would simply store her dealings with Strauss in one folder and her role in the BAU in another. She could simply place the Strauss file in the back of her mind where eventually it would be forgotten about and deleted.
They weren’t even halfway through their first case since her meeting with Strauss when she discovered the flaw in her filing system. She had tried to keep things separate, but when Strauss called during the case on the college campus, that was Emily’s undoing. Strauss’s call had thrown her off-guard and before she could right herself, she had already been distracted from the case.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
By time she and Morgan had rounded the corner, Tubbs had already been stabbed and as Emily watched the pool of blood rapidly expanding around him, she knew they needed to get in there quickly if there was any hope of saving him.
“Nobody is going to shoot you.”
Emily wished she could say that her response was one made of haste, a careless slip that was the result of wanting to get to the bleeding UnSub before he bled out on the sidewalk. That it was simply failed round-about attempt to save Anna’s life by ensuring she was tried for attempted murder instead of murder. With the right lawyer, perhaps the charge could have even been lessened to assault.
No, her response was deliberate; she was trying to dispel Anna’s fear of being shot. When she should have realized Anna’s greater fear was of not being shot. The scene played over and over in her head.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“If you don’t drop the knife - then yes, I will shoot you.”
Maybe that would have been the promise Anna needed to hear. While Emily had her distracted by thinking about the imminence of being shot, Morgan could have done the side approach and disarmed Anna in a matter of seconds.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Emily didn’t respond with words. She squeezed the trigger, recognizing Anna’s desperate plea. Emily couldn’t give her what she was looking for, but rather shot her in the shoulder, causing the knife to fall from her hand. Luckily the paramedics had already been alerted and both Tubbs and Anna survived.
Strauss’s phone call reminded her that she wasn’t a profiler, she was a political pawn. She didn’t deserve to have the job she was doing. Strauss had said so herself.
“But there were those who didn’t think assigning you to the BAU was a good idea. They thought you were too reckless. I believed in you, however.”
The only thing Strauss believed in was that Emily was as willing as her mother to compromise her beliefs in order to get ahead. Emily wanted to get into the BAU, but she certainly didn’t want it to be this way. So really, when it came down to it, her decision was easy. It was the next steps that were hard.
She could easily cash in on her last name and pedigree and follow in her mother’s footsteps. A Prentiss taking the Foreign Service exam was merely a formality. It would be effortless to get an overseas posting and carry on the Prentiss name in the spirit of diplomacy. It would be a humiliating end to a specious career.
Emily stared out the window at the National Mall and let the tears fall. She had so much hope when she moved here. Now it felt like she’d just been living the last nine months on her most elaborate undercover job yet. It’s just too bad that she didn’t realize that she was the mark.
She wiped the tears from her eyes. She’d wallowed long enough and she was not going to let Strauss have this much power over her. She knew what she needed to do.
_____________________________________________________
A/N: This post is part 1 of the chapter. So the next post will be in the "present" instead of a flashback. In fact, if you click here, you'll be taken right there!
Back to the beginning: Chapter 1: 2006 - Quantico, VA
“I put you in the BAU. I knew how badly you wanted it, everyone did. You were never exactly shy about letting us know…”
Hotch was right. It had been a mistake. Strauss had put on her on the team because her last name was Prentiss, not because she had taken the classes, aced the exam, and had proven herself effective and efficient in the field. But because she was Elizabeth Prentiss’s daughter and everyone knew that those Prentiss women were master manipulators when it came to the game of politics.
Strauss didn’t give a damn about how hard Emily worked, how badly she wanted this position, or whether she was qualified to be on the team based on her merits. She only cared about Emily being her stoolpigeon.
“It's time for Agent Hotchner's career to come to an end. And if you want to stay in the BAU, Agent Prentiss, you're going to help me make that happen.”
Emily felt dizzy as she thought about the fact that she did help make that happen, but it was due to her own stupidity, rather than being a malicious participant in Hotch’s downfall. Emily tried to slow her breathing down; now that her sobs were subsiding, she was breathing like a three-year-old after a temper tantrum.
Emily stood up and ran her hands over her face. At that moment, there was nothing that Emily wanted more than a hot bath. She stripped off her shirt and slacks as she made her way up the stairs. She didn’t even bother to wait for the tub to fill; as soon as the warm water started to flow, she sat down.
Hot baths had been Emily’s way of coping with difficult cases since she was fresh out of the Academy. Emily was glad that her water bill was covered under her condo fees because her hot water utilization had increased exponentially since starting at the BAU. Emily liked to picture that the water could seep in and absorb all the horrible images and knowledge of human depravity that had built up over the course of the case, covering her in a film of disgust. She then washed the feelings of horror and revulsion down the drain with peppermint-scented body wash. To Emily, peppermint smelled like starting over.
Emily sat back and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the water slowly covering her and trying to escape into its warmth. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get the case out of her head.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Emily had mistaken the quiver in Anna Bagley’s voice for fear.
“Nobody’s going to shoot you.”
She was trying to provide the frightened co-ed with reassurance. If she had considered the profile, she would have realized Anna wasn’t looking for reassurance, she was looking for a way out. She had pinned her hopes on Tubbs and when he couldn’t come through for her, Anna turned to Morgan and Emily. She wanted suicide by cop. It wasn’t until Emily saw her turn the knife on herself that she realized she had completely misread the situation.
Dammit! I should have shot her in the arm! Emily slapped the surface of the water and thought it appropriate when the drops stung her eyes and nose. Why didn’t I just shoot her in the arm?
Emily berated herself for pushing Anna to a self-inflicted knife wound. A wound that was not only fatal to Anna, but also life-threatening to Hotch’s future in the FBI.
“You mysteriously showed up at the BAU after one of my team members was involved in a questionable shooting…I will not put up with a political agenda.”
If only Hotch had known at the time that it would be her incompetence as a profiler, rather than her participation in a nefarious political plot, that would be his undoing.
Emily sighed, this bath was not working its usual magic. The water felt stagnant and the peppermint reminded her of candy canes from last year’s Christmas Tree: stale and unsatisfying. After getting out of the tub she leaned against the vanity as she saw the edges of her vision darken. Too little sleep, too much hot water, and not eating tended to have that effect. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost seven o’clock. Her day had begun over fifteen hours ago and she was starting to feel it. While sleeping seemed like the most appealing option, her rumbling stomach made a strong case for dinner.
She threw on her pajamas and went down to the kitchen to make dinner. She chuckled bitterly as she almost took a header down the stairs after tripping over her slacks. Damn karma.
With the amount of take-out and diner food she consumed while on cases, Emily tried to avoid it at all costs when she was in D.C. She took a container of homemade chili out of the freezer and while it was heating up, she searched her pantry and was pleased to note she had the ingredients to make cornbread. Emily settled herself on the couch with her chili, cornbread, and Battlestar Galactica, and found the warmth and comfort she was looking for.
.oOo.
The following week at work was nearly impossible to bear. Her chest tightened every time she looked up at the empty offices of Hotch and Gideon. The two most senior profilers on the team were paying for her mistake. Emily looked down at the file she was supposed to be reviewing and almost gave in to the urge to put her head down on her desk.
Just as she was about to lower her forehead onto her desk, she heard a chime from her computer alerting her to a new message on Outlook.
Meeting: 1530 with Section Chief Erin Strauss. Location: Her office.
When she saw Morgan turn suddenly to look at her, she realized she must have groaned out loud.
“Everything ok there, Princess?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she assured him. “I’ve had this headache all day and it’s just not going away.” It wasn’t entirely a lie; the prospect of meeting with Strauss in half an hour really did make her head hurt.
“Do you need anything?” he offered. “I have some ibuprofen in my drawer.”
“No thanks. I already tried some and now in addition to my headache, I also have an upset stomach.” Another part-truth, except it was Strauss that had her stomach churning.
“You should go home,” Morgan insisted.
Emily pondered that notion for a moment. She could certainly sneak out of the BAU after her meeting with Strauss since her office was on the other side of the elevators. That would also allow her to avoid being asked any questions about where she disappeared to.
“You know, I think I will,” she said, nodding. She couldn’t help but laugh at the look of frantic concern on his face. He obviously didn’t actually expect her to take him up on that suggestion.
“Don’t worry, Morgan, it’s not like I have an aneurysm or anything,” Emily told him, trying reassure him.
“Actually, it’s nearly impossible to tell who is at risk for the development of a cerebral aneurysm,” Reid said, coming into the conversation.
“Really?” Emily said in a voice of mock fascination. She appreciated the levity Reid’s fact-spouting brought to the conversation, despite the subject matter. “I stand corrected. Morgan, I don’t think I have an aneurysm, but I’m unable to completely eliminate the possibility.”
“Would you describe this as the worst headache you’ve ever had? Did it feel like it came on like a ‘thunderclap’?” he asked, using finger quotes.
“You realize she was kidding, right?” Morgan asked Reid.
“Aneurysms can be deadly without immediate care by a skilled neurosurgeon,” Reid said defensively. “Time is brain.”
“Thank you, Dr. Reid, for that very important P.S.A.,” Morgan said, shaking his head and turning back to his work.
“Thanks Reid, I appreciate your concern, but I think this is just a run-of-the-mill migraine. Nothing a little caffeine and sleep can’t fix,” Emily assured him, putting her things away so she could sneak away after her meeting with Strauss.
.oOo.
Emily sighed as she sat in the chair in Strauss’s office. Nothing good ever came from sitting in that chair and all evidence pointed to the fact that today would be no exception. Emily knew that Strauss had planned this meeting days ago and only gave her a half hour’s notice to deliberately throw her off. Nobody expects the Strauss Inquisition.
“So, Agent Prentiss, what is your assessment regarding how the unit is functioning the absence of both Agents Gideon and Hotchner?” Strauss asked, pulling a notebook out from her desk.
“It’s hard to say, ma’am,” Emily said, trying to keep her voice even. She had expected this conversation would happen eventually but that didn’t make it easier to deal with it.
“We haven’t had any field cases since Flagstaff. Mostly the team has been working on consults and reviews.”
“With regards to those case files, now that it is no longer Agent Hotchner apportioning those assignments, do you feel that the workload is more evenly distributed?” Strauss pressed.
“More evenly distributed than what?” Emily asked, fairly certain of the answer.
“What I am asking, Agent Prentiss, is do you feel as though the workload in the BAU is divided equally between its members?”
“I think so, ma’am, but I don’t know all the details of the workloads of Agents Reid and Morgan,” Emily said.
“Are you saying that Agent Hotchner has not been transparent with regards to the work assigned to each agent?” Strauss asked while jotting a few notes down in her book.
“No ma’am, that’s not what I’m saying,” Emily started picking at her fingernails as a way to let off some of her irritation. “Agent Jareau does most of the in-office consult and review allocations since they come across her desk first. And in the field Agent Hotchner is adept at assigning us roles based on our strengths and skills.”
“So, once you have demonstrated proficiency in a certain area, Agent Hotchner limits your field activities to a given task?” Emily couldn’t believe Strauss’s dexterity at twisting her words.
Emily let out a long breath. She was woefully unprepared for this meeting and it was clear that irrespective of her answers, Strauss was determined to frame the conversation to fit her agenda. She’d already screwed things up for Hotch and Gideon once, she may as well try to salvage something this time. But she needed time to think. To plan.
“I apologize, ma’am, but I’m not feeling well. I’ve had a headache all day long and I have over an hour’s drive to get home,” Emily said, not having to fake the exhaustion and pain in her voice. “Perhaps we can reschedule for tomorrow afternoon?”
Strauss looked at Emily for a moment without saying anything. “Very well then, Agent Prentiss, we can resume tomorrow at one o’clock.”
“Feel better,” Strauss added in a perfunctory manner. Emily was fairly certain that Strauss neither believed her nor gave a damn about how she felt.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Emily grabbed her things and tried to get out of the building as quickly as possible.
.oOo.
For the first time in recent memory, Emily actually felt rested when she got up to turn off her alarm. This was no wonder since she’d gotten nearly twelve hours of sleep. Last evening the universe appeared to be invested in keeping Emily honest because by time she got home, her head felt like there was a kick drum concert behind her eyes. The last thing she remembered after she crawled into bed was hoping that sleep would come quickly. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, grateful that she had been given a reprieve last night.
Despite her night of restorative sleep, the ache that had settled into her stomach when she received the notice about her meeting with Strauss hadn’t dissipated. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to stay calm when she realized she had less than seven hours before her meeting with Strauss and she hadn’t had time to come up with her game plan.
Just as the panic was beginning to well up, Emily remembered that she had already given herself an out. Morgan, Reid, and Strauss all knew she left early because of a headache. Just because she didn’t have one anymore didn’t mean she couldn’t use it as an excuse to get herself together.
She called JJ and Morgan to let them know and asked JJ to inform Straus that she wouldn’t be coming in to the office. She made her way downstairs to begin her day of introspection and decisions with a breakfast of French toast with her famous strawberry sauce.
Two loads of laundry, two clean bathrooms, and fully mopped kitchen floor later, Emily had managed to avoid thinking about the situation with Strauss. She was avoiding it because she already knew what her decision was going to be. She didn’t belong in the BAU. She hadn’t earned her position and she certainly didn’t deserve to keep it.
She should have quit that day after her meeting with Strauss. But it was so hard to just walk away from the job that she had been working towards for the last seven years. She had managed to convince herself that she could handle Strauss, that she could juggle both sides. She could be a double agent. Or triple agent. She would simply store her dealings with Strauss in one folder and her role in the BAU in another. She could simply place the Strauss file in the back of her mind where eventually it would be forgotten about and deleted.
They weren’t even halfway through their first case since her meeting with Strauss when she discovered the flaw in her filing system. She had tried to keep things separate, but when Strauss called during the case on the college campus, that was Emily’s undoing. Strauss’s call had thrown her off-guard and before she could right herself, she had already been distracted from the case.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
By time she and Morgan had rounded the corner, Tubbs had already been stabbed and as Emily watched the pool of blood rapidly expanding around him, she knew they needed to get in there quickly if there was any hope of saving him.
“Nobody is going to shoot you.”
Emily wished she could say that her response was one made of haste, a careless slip that was the result of wanting to get to the bleeding UnSub before he bled out on the sidewalk. That it was simply failed round-about attempt to save Anna’s life by ensuring she was tried for attempted murder instead of murder. With the right lawyer, perhaps the charge could have even been lessened to assault.
No, her response was deliberate; she was trying to dispel Anna’s fear of being shot. When she should have realized Anna’s greater fear was of not being shot. The scene played over and over in her head.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“If you don’t drop the knife - then yes, I will shoot you.”
Maybe that would have been the promise Anna needed to hear. While Emily had her distracted by thinking about the imminence of being shot, Morgan could have done the side approach and disarmed Anna in a matter of seconds.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Emily didn’t respond with words. She squeezed the trigger, recognizing Anna’s desperate plea. Emily couldn’t give her what she was looking for, but rather shot her in the shoulder, causing the knife to fall from her hand. Luckily the paramedics had already been alerted and both Tubbs and Anna survived.
Strauss’s phone call reminded her that she wasn’t a profiler, she was a political pawn. She didn’t deserve to have the job she was doing. Strauss had said so herself.
“But there were those who didn’t think assigning you to the BAU was a good idea. They thought you were too reckless. I believed in you, however.”
The only thing Strauss believed in was that Emily was as willing as her mother to compromise her beliefs in order to get ahead. Emily wanted to get into the BAU, but she certainly didn’t want it to be this way. So really, when it came down to it, her decision was easy. It was the next steps that were hard.
She could easily cash in on her last name and pedigree and follow in her mother’s footsteps. A Prentiss taking the Foreign Service exam was merely a formality. It would be effortless to get an overseas posting and carry on the Prentiss name in the spirit of diplomacy. It would be a humiliating end to a specious career.
Emily stared out the window at the National Mall and let the tears fall. She had so much hope when she moved here. Now it felt like she’d just been living the last nine months on her most elaborate undercover job yet. It’s just too bad that she didn’t realize that she was the mark.
She wiped the tears from her eyes. She’d wallowed long enough and she was not going to let Strauss have this much power over her. She knew what she needed to do.
_____________________________________________________
A/N: This post is part 1 of the chapter. So the next post will be in the "present" instead of a flashback. In fact, if you click here, you'll be taken right there!
Back to the beginning: Chapter 1: 2006 - Quantico, VA