criminalxminds | Story: Asteriscus hierochunticus

Title: Asteriscus hierochunticus
Author: Sara Nublas
Character: Emily Prentiss, all team involved
Chapter:3
Rating: FRAO
Warning: Spoiler to 6x18 "Lauren"
Summary: The story takes place after "Lauren", so also the summary is behind a cut as required... Emily doesn't plan to go back to her team because she doesn't think she deserves a second chance, but a twist of events and a friend in danger make her change her mind
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, no infringement intended
A/N: I am really happy to have comments, opinions, criticism.

Chapter 1
There are some stories you can’t tell, nightmares you can’t recount because they’re too horrible; they are unspeakable shadows clamping your heart, holding your breath, clenching your jaw. There are some horrors that you have to keep locked into your closet, you don’t let them out, but deal with them in solitude.

Sometimes it gets too much and you can’t control the solitude, the grief for what you’ve lost, the memory of who you left behind, the awareness that you don’t, you cannot have a future, nothing to hope for, nothing to hold on to. When those moments come, you close yourself in a dark room, you scream your suffering, cry your tears and once you’re done, you change clothes, dye your hair and vanish, again.

Sometimes you meet decent people who care for you, whom you care for. You get comfortable enough to believe that this time you got settled, that what they know about you it’s enough, they don’t need to dig more, there’s no need for you to expose that stain. What counts is who you are now, no matter if you don’t know exactly whether the present you is the real you.

Emily, the ambassador’s daughter, who questioned every rule and authority. Lauren, the arm dealer who slept with the enemy in order to save her own life, his son and god knows how many other innocents. Emily Prentiss, the FBI profiler who works with her team, which is also her family, a dysfunctional, unconventional, but truly loving family. Are those different faces or just different layers of the same person, each one whether you like it or not, contributing to the complex human being you are now? What about the multitude of identities who covered your tracks and movements during the past nine months?

And what if one of those layers simply doesn’t want to let go? What if you get stuck into a limbo where you cannot go back, either move on? How do you get over it? You spend each single breathing moment of your life hunting down who did this to you and making sure he doesn’t get close to your beloved, caring about them in the distance because there is no other option.

She slowly moved toward the window unbuttoning her shirt, in front of her room a huge billboard covered with the advertisement of an eau-de-cologne, portraying two strangers meeting in the middle of the street and accidentally touching each other, and obviously matching the fire of eternal love with the complicity of the magnetic scent.

She wondered when was the last time someone touched her, held her or simply gave her words of comfort. She immediately reminded of his hands holding hers, his voice talking to her, not letting her slip away, stating that he knew and was proud. Was he sincere or was he just talking out of mercy for the woman agonizing at his feet? For Derek Morgan trust needed to be earned and it wasn’t easy to have it back once betrayed his friendship.

Her hand brushed the outline of the scar on her chest, she honestly didn’t know if any man would ever touch her again, if she ever let anyone come near her, and if she still remembered how to deal with people?

The hardest thing was to know that she was now a shadow. It was not like if she went missing and someone was looking for her, nobody was waiting for her return, she was dead; people had mourned and slowly adjusted to live their life without her.

Over the past nine months she had been imagining the day she would have met them again, with anticipation and fear. She betrayed them running away, for good reasons but still she left without saying a damn goodbye, then she faked her death and lived elsewhere while they were left struggling with the aftermath of her death, with thousands questions, with regret, with rage and unfinished business. How could she come back and hope for a second chance?

She had written many letters in the past months, to apologize, to explain, to heal, all of them were stashed in a box and never meant to be sent. As painful as it was the safest and healthiest solution was for her friends to believe she dead, even though this meant hell for her.

She threw the rest of her clothes on the bed and went for a shower, the bathroom was filled with vapor and she was wrapping a towel around her body when she heard the click of the door lock getting opened.

She instantly grabbed the gun left near the sink and creeped behind the door holding her breath, her eyes went wide when a familiar voice reached her “Ne t’inquiète pas, ces’t moi”

“Ce que tu fais ici?” she came out of the bathroom with her gun still pointed at the man, who was supposed to believe her dead.

“That’s not a nice way to welcome an old friend, darling” he commented, arms opened in surrender “but if you want to search me for a gun I won’t complain” he added then with a mischievous grin.

“I’m not joking Clyde. What are you doing here?” she insisted.

“I’m here to help you Emily. And to be honest I already proved to be trustworthy last time, even though you wouldn’t believe me” he kept his calm.

Emily remembered that conversation months before and how her decisions had Tsia killed, and finally lowered her gun.

“Now, as much as I appreciate this attire I think this conversation requires you to be fully dressed” he carried on with his usual sarcasm.

Emily shot a look at him, “Should I remind you that this is my room and you broke in without permission?” she commented before picking her clothes and disappearing into the bathroom.

“So how did you find me? Only few people know that I’m alive and just one is informed about my location” she asked once she emerged from the bathroom, in jeans and shirt.

“I was informed by your status by Agent Jereau, I needed a skillful agent for a mission and she pointed me one”

Emily gave him a confused look.

“Oui, mon chery. You’re back in with immediate effect” he added, this time no sign of sarcasm or joke on his face.

“Why me? I have been inactive for months, I am not updated and right now my orders are to lay low, I don’t..”

“It’s Doyle, Emily” he cut the story short and finally obtained her full attention.

“After your departure we grieved and then we got back to work to find the son of a bitch and solve the problem once for all. We knew it wouldn’t be possible to track him down but we had an advantage he wasn’t aware of, we knew what he was after. So we gave him what he wanted and used him as a bait” Clyde explained leaning against the window, occasionally staring at the billboard with curiosity.

Emily’s heart stopped “Please tell me you didn’t use the kid as leverage”

“No we didn’t. We couldn’t have even if we wanted since you didn’t reveal his location and you were dead… But we left a thread of very believable breadcrumbs, easy enough to follow, difficult enough to track so he wouldn’t smell the trap. And it worked.”

“How do you know that? How do you know that he’s not playing you along?” she objected with diffidence. Ian was unrivaled when it came to plan his steps and all the possible back up solutions, she had experienced it on her own skin.

“We know it because we drew him out of his hole and finally after months our roles are reversed, he’s the prey and I’m the hunter. And I swear I’m not going to miss the shot this time”

Emily realized that in all those months she’d been hiding, but Clyde, who was also one of Ian’s target, went on working in plain sight under the constant risk of being next Doyle’s victim. Suddenly she felt almost relaxed at the idea of having someone who was sharing the same fight, the same aim. But still she didn’t understand why he came to her “Clyde, if you are confident about catching him what am I needed for?”

“Well,” he finally got to the point knowing she wouldn’t have liked it “everything was proceeding fine until a certain technical analyst started looking where she wasn’t supposed to and got to the trail we left for Doyle. Of course all your friends were more than happy to take on the hunting party and since you were right and they are the best, now they are dangerously close to the truth. As much as I respect them for saving you, I can’t let your team interfere with this operation.”

“Why don’t you talk to Hotch? Why JJ sent you here? You know that I cannot do anything” she asked confused.

“Oh this is not true darling and you know that. Once Doyle is out of the picture you can come back to your old life, what I’m asking you is to reappear a little bit earlier than planned in order to distract your team while I neutralize Doyle”

He immediately understood he said something wrong because Emily’s face suddenly became a mask of fear, had he asked her to throw herself in Doyle’s arms she should have taken it more lightly.

“Clyde… I , I can’t go back to my team. What am I supposed to tell them? How can I even get them to look at me and listen to an explanation? They will be confused, hurt and furious.” She started pacing nervously and then sat again on the bed “Reid has been let down by so many people he trusted that I don’t even know if and how he will be able to rely on someone again, Morgan was my partner and my friend and all of a sudden he discovered that I was a totally different person from the one he was convinced to know. Penelope, has a big heart, and I took it and broke it in thousand pieces and it will never be the same, Rossi has been a supportive friend, he always backed me up and I turned him down. Seaver, I offered to mentor her and I was supposed to lead by example, and what example I set. Hotch, has to look the team in the eyes every day and carry the burden of the lie and its consequences on the people he’s supposed to lead. What do you think is going to happen to the balance in the team once the truth comes out. Believe me as much as I miss them, they’re better off now knowing me dead. Once I am back everything will change, everything will be broken and there’s no way back from that.”

Clyde listened silently to Emily’s speech, finally he gave his own piece of mind “People thinks there’s no way back from the death, but you’re about to prove them wrong, so I don’t see why your team mates shouldn’t be able to forgive you. Having you back will override their perplexity and with time everything will be fixed” he saw the uncertainty and fear in her eyes, then he took something out of his pocket “Here, I’ve got something for you” he handed out a small cotton bag.

Emily opened it and took out the object examining it with suspicious look “oh, a gray, dried mushroom? You know how to get a woman’s heart..” she commented.

Clyde sighed and explained “This is not a dried mushroom, Emily. It’s a rare desert plant called Asteriscus hierochunticus , ever heard about the rose of Jericho? It’s a plant adapted to the most extreme environments where rainfalls are just a sporadic event; to survive the long periods of drought they stay closed and seemingly dead as pieces of wood, then when it rains they open up in wonderful flowers and spread the seeds for the future generation. Many species don’t even have roots, they wander through the desert carried by the wind until they find favorable conditions to open up” he disappeared to the toilet and put the plant under the running water, few minutes after he came back again handing to a puzzled Emily the now opened flower.

“It’s beautiful” she whispered taking into her hands what seemed a chiseled sculpture, few drops of water managed to turn that miserable stunted piece of wood into a beautiful leaving creature. What seemed a frail, defeated being was now revealing to be a strong, unbreakable fighter.

“You are like this flower, Em. Don’t underestimate your strength and endurance. You made a lot of sacrifices but now it’s time for the rain to come and for you to flower again, my darling.”

Chapter 2

Over the next few days Emily went on obsessing about the possible scenarios of her reunion with the team.

Clyde had been supporting and convincing and for sure he believed in what he said, but she knew him very well; he was an agent who never failed to get the work down and if necessary he would have told her that walking bare foot on hot coals was a brilliant idea. Truth to be told she couldn’t blame him, she wanted Doyle dead as much as he did, but she hated the idea that innocent people, her people, had been caught in the middle of this and suffered so much.

Then there was the truth. How much did her friends need the truth? Did they deserve after the horrors of death to pass through the pains of resurrection? Emily wasn’t able to find an answer, but one thing she knew for sure, if it was her in their position she would have wanted to know the whole damn truth, no way someone else could have decided what she was able to handle.

So, after deciding to comply with Clyde’s request a wave of panic overthrew her rational ability; she imagined the four of them in line standing in the deserted bull pen and waiting for her - Hotch on one side, because he was the traitor, he knew and didn’t say anything- they were there waiting for her to talk, to come up with a convincing apology for all the pain they’ve been through and to finally judge if she was suitable for forgiveness.

She knew that if they ever decided to take her back it would have been a long process, maybe in the beginning they would have been happy and moved to see her, but then after the moment of commotion the knots would start to surface. They would have wondered which Emily they were dealing with, if one of the previous alter egos or a totally new one. They wouldn’t know what to expect, they would have to test the ground to see if this fully disclosed version of her was still fit to be part of the family or if once the dirty laundry had been exposed they couldn’t trust her anymore. Dead people are always regarded with more indulgence than alive ones, one thing is to mourn a liar, but to work with her is all another story.

She knew that deep down they would have understood Hotch and JJ’s decision to keep the secret; they were agents, they knew how it all worked, but the scar of deception would have hitched for a while.

Reid would have needed time and space before according his trust again, he would have wanted assurance against further betrayal and to get there it would have been a long, bumpy road.

Penelope would have been heartbroken and hurt, for a while she would have kept some distance to survey this new person, to be sure it was her true Emily and not some kind of surrogate, but eventually she would have accepted the good news.

Rossi would have understood, his wisdom and experience would have smoothed his reaction and after monitoring and profiling her, he would have been fine.

Seaver was just a cadet, but she knew well that the dirt hidden beneath the surface is not the whole picture and she wouldn’t have treated her as a dodgy freak.

Morgan though was something different; he would have stormed out, with her, Hotch and JJ and then he would have got over it, seemingly. Emily knew that in his moral code there were some cracks that just couldn’t be fixed, faults you couldn’t make up for and this was one of those. Unlikely he would have ever accepted to partner up with her again.

Imagine to wake up from a nightmare and realize that reality is even worse, but to know that you have to take the risk and open your eyes.

“Wake up Emily!”

The two cars were crossing a semi-deserted industrial area in the outskirts of Boston, there was a tense gruesome atmosphere among the team since they arrived there, back where everything had began -or ended-.

Joining the task force in charge to track Doyle had been a tug of war, but finally they made it; they all thought that once closed this chapter they would have felt better, but getting closer to Doyle wasn’t actually providing any of the expected relief, there was just numbness in their body, their minds, their souls. Slowly they were all realizing that having finally justice wouldn’t have made any easier to get over Emily’s death, and nobody really wanted to get used to her absence, it was like let her slip away, desecrate her memory.

Derek was driving the car silently focused on his task, even too much, as if any distraction would open the gate of his emotions and he could loose control showing his actual hollowness. At his side Seaver was silently inspecting the squalid landscape of abandoned factories, spotting from time to time a dog trotting around or rummaging the garbage for food. Rossi and Reid were sitting in the back, the older profiler remembering of the friends and colleagues he lost during his career and wondering why he hadn’t given up that job yet. Reid was shielding his thoughts behind his sunglasses and unsuccessfully trying to find an activity challenging enough for his mind so as to forget the sad thoughts. For a while at least.

Studies had proved that many families crumbled after the loss of one member, in many ways theirs had proved that theory right; Emily’s death drained life and enthusiasm from them, they were all empty shells, the connective once keeping them together now worn and stretched almost to the braking point.

Seaver finally broke the silence “Again, why are we checking this building?”

“As far as the antiterrorism knows, this was last Doyle’s hiding place and we are hoping to find some crumbles. It’s highly unlikely considering how meticulous he is, but it’s worth trying” Rossi answered.

“Ok, so that’s why the antiterrorism is coming with us..” she pointed at the car riding before them.

“Technically we are tagging along, we are visitors on this case” Reid clarified distantly.

“Right”

“Practically we are keeping ourselves busy not to admit that this is another dead end” Morgan added with a bitter tone.

“At least we will rule out something” Rossi tried to show the bright side without too much ardor.

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter. What matters to me is to find that son of a bitch and then my days at the BAU will be over” Morgan replied dull.

The three pairs of eyes suddenly turned shocked, hurt and scared to those words, another goodbye, another empty desk, another crack in the already precarious balance of their family. They all wanted to say something, but they were all to exhausted, sad and angry to elaborate a consistent thought. Instead they went on staring at Morgan, was not for their attention drawn to their friend they would have seen the SUV approaching from the right, they would have maybe noticed the snipers waiting on the roof of the next building. Instead they just saw the car before them loosing control, spinning and then overturning; seconds after the SUV collided with their car crumbling the windows and shattering them on the side of the road. From his position Reid could see a profile coming through the smoke and revealing a familiar face “Doyle” he managed to mumble and then everything went black.

Chapter 3

The phone was ringing. Emily briefly checked the time, 3 am; she was always half awake, never really asleep but still the unexpected call upset her. She got on her elbows and answered, “Wake up Emily!” Clyde’s voice was jittery, judging by his breath he was running, but what most worried her was the fact he was using her real name.

“What happened?”

“Change of plans, we’re are leaving now. Pack your staff, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, no time for explanations”

After she hang up the phone she didn’t lose time in conjectures, she hurried to the closet, grabbed her ready to go bag, put on some clothes and washed her face. That’s how you do it. That’s how a shadow looks like.

They didn’t exchange a word on their way to the car, pacing fast but minding to look inconspicuous. Nobody has to notice you, nobody has to remember your face, dress not too bright and not too scruffy otherwise they will think you’re either the femme nikita or a junkie.

Once in the car, the questions.

“What happened?”

“You’re going back in now”

“I thought it was due next week”

“The situation changed”

Emily looked at Clyde, who slightly clenched his hands around the steering wheel and reluctantly started to explain, he didn’t like to talk while he was driving. “Someone tipped off Doyle, he discovered the bluff and ambushed a team who was going to check one of his hiding places. He took hostages and now he’s negotiating their release in exchange for the location of his son”

Emily shook her head biting her inferior lips, no matter what alter ego she was impersonating, some habits would never change; she opened her mouth but immediately aborted the thought, it was not the right time for the “I told you so” reprimand. She took a deep breath and asked instead “So, do we have a mole?”

“Apparently”

“How do we proceed?”

“We selected a restricted number of trustworthy agents, and moved the headquarter to a secure location, meanwhile another team is leading the negotiation”

“Do they know they are a diversion?”

“No”

It was risky but effective; the fewer people knew the truth, the better.

That sounded ironically familiar to her.

The atmosphere in the room was tense and eerie; three agents were in the hands of a psychopath who had nothing to lose and already killed one of their own.

Garcia was frantically draining information out of several databases, her hands literally flying over the keyboard. Reid was sitting at her side pressing a bag of ice on his temporal lobe, he almost laughed when JJ handed him an aspirin, had she known the kind of remedies he had to use in order to placate his headaches over the past months she would have probably opted for a pipe filled with opium. Instead he placed a feeble smile and swallowed the pill.

Hotch hanged up the phone and took JJ aside to share some confidential information; in the meanwhile Rossi entered the room, his left harm wrapped in a cast and an extensive bruise on his left cheek. The team gathered around him with gruesome expressions, not ready for further bad news “Seaver is fine” he reassured them “but she has a concussion and the doctors want to keep her under observation. How is he holding on?”

“Fine, as far as we know” Hotch answered “Garcia was able to enter the surveillance system of the place and we have a partial view on them” he carried on in his grave tone.

“Ok, what we’ve got?”

“As far as we know Doyle is in with other twelve men, two of them inside with him and the hostages and the other ten checking the perimeter. It shouldn’t be hard to take them out but we can’t risk the life of the agents.”

“What do we know about the hostages?” Rossi asked again, trying his best not to freak out at the feeling of déjà vu he was sure they were all sharing.

“Three agents. Two of them were in the first car, and…”

“Morgan? They have Morgan and you tell me only now?” she hissed at him from her seat on the jet.

“Keep your temper for later, Emily. It’s not my fault if your team decided to step in” he warned her “They were on their way to search one of Doyle’s hiding places. Four member of the AT unit were driving the first car and your team was on the second. Doyle’s men ambushed them, took the survivors from the first car and it would have been enough for them if Morgan hadn’t tried to stop them. God only knows what he was hoping to accomplish” he commented frustrated raising his hands.

This was not Morgan. The Morgan she knew never gave up the fight, but also knew the difference between being heroic and being suicidal; the Morgan she knew didn’t let things fall out of control; but this was not her Morgan, this was an angry, furious agent seeking revenge for a colleague and a friend killed by the man he was just about to catch.

She put her head in her hands, if something happened to him because he had tried to avenge her death she would have never forgiven herself.

Here it is how reality outperforms the nightmare.

“What is the situation with the other members of my team?” she asked.

My team, even if they didn’t want her anymore she would have died again ten times in order to protect them.

“Seaver will be kept under observation, but she’s fine. She just hasn’t learnt to fight with the doctors the way you do. Rossi has a broken arm and Reid has a bump on his head, an aspirin or two and he’ll be as good as new”

She thought back at Reid’s confession about his headaches and reminded herself to take care of him, if he ever allowed her again.

“What about the hostages?” she then asked, panic transpiring in her voice.

“Two agents of the antiterrorism died in the ambush, the other two and Morgan are fine, apart from being tied to a chair with a gun pointed at their head”

Apart from being tied to a chair, guns pointed at their heads and a terrorist on the verge of the nervous breakdown who has nothing to lose. Awesome. “So we have eyes” she carried on trying to keep it together.

“Yes, they are in an abandoned warehouse. Apparently the previous owner installed surveillance cameras and never disconnected them”

“What did you tell them, about me I mean?” she finally found the courage to inquire.

“Agent Clyde Easter is in charge of the operation and right now he’s on his way back from a safe location” Hotch explained to the task force gathered in the room.

“A safe location?” Reid asked voicing the perplexity of everybody there.

Two agents were down and other three were likely to follow soon unless they were able to provide a psychopathic terrorist with the location - unknown to all of them - of his son, to be used as cannon fodder in exchange for the life of the hostages, and the responsible of the operation vanished without explanation to go somewhere not to be known.

If the present situation rang a bell to the four profilers, they didn’t show that.

For the first time in many years Hotch found himself short in words, he looked at his team, almost desperately, silently apologizing for all the sufferance he caused, but there was no time to dwell on these considerations, again one of his agents was in grave danger, again he was called to make a critical decision “Given the extreme nature of this situation and the fact that Doyle already escaped us once, we decided to bring in someone who can help us, someone who has unique information on Doyle and as far as we know one of the few who survived him” he felt a wave of self disgust clutching his throat as he saw the pain of old memories lingering on his team, “Considering our suspicions about the presence of a mole this time we took our precautions. The identity of the informant will be kept secret and only Agent Easter, Agent Jereau, me and my team will interact with him. I understand your frustration but we’re are doing this for the best”

The five profilers held their breath while they were waiting in a separate room for the informant; Morgan’s life depended upon the knowledge he could share with them, and they were ready to do everything that was necessary not to lose another friend.

Finally the door opened and a hooded figure was walked in by Clyde, they hadn’t seen the Interpol agent since he helped them to find Emily and now the atmosphere wasn’t less tense than during their previous encounter. Everybody looked at Clyde with anticipation, everybody but Reid, whose attention was drawn to the informant’s hands, those massacred fingernails “It can be..” he murmured.

He looked at the figure while he slowly took a pace forward with begging eyes full of pain and hope, overwhelmed by the fear that he had finally gone crazy for even thinking something like that. His hands were shaking when he removed the hood and couldn’t even mumble her name because of the tears getting to his throat and stealing oxygen, his mouth opening and closing like a fish with no sound, his body paralyzed. Rossi faltered as if a dagger was just planted in his heart and probably it wasn’t far from the truth, Garcia needed some moments to regain awareness of her legs and run toward her friend, shaking with sobs.

Emily found herself rubbing the analyst back with one hand in the attempt to calm her, and squeezing Reid’s arm with the other to make sure he was still blood and flesh and not suddenly turned into a salt sculpture, meanwhile exchanging a touched smile with Rossi and a knowing look with JJ and Hotch, as to tell them she knew the burden they carried for her and how grateful she was for that.

Penelope finally broke the embrace “How? How is it possible? You were dead, there was a funeral… Oh god Emily, I am so upset and angry and happy and desperate and I’m so packed with emotions that I’m going to explode”

“I know, and there are no words to tell you how sorry I am, guys” Emily tried to remember all the speeches she rehearsed during the past nine months, they all sounded lame and pointless, “I promise I will explain everything, answer your questions and disappear again if you’re too upset to forgive me. But right now we have to focus on getting Morgan and the other two agents out of there; then I will finally plant a bullet in Doyle’s head and this story will be over”.

A heavy silence settled in the room after she voiced her intentions, her friends were looking at her with incredulous petrified expressions, a dreadful shared thought lingering in their minds, maybe after all the woman standing in front of them was really a ghost, briefly come back from the dead to accomplish her revenge and then fade again...