Chapter Text
The airport was as busy as every other that she had ever been to. If there was one thing that never really changed, country to country, was that airports were always busy and delayed.
The girl grimaced, pulling her brown hair back into a tight pony tail so as to look at least a little presentable. She hadn’t had the opportunity to shower in almost forty-eight hours with her first flight being cancelled and having to wait six hours for the next flight. Not to mention the emergency landing that they had to take halfway through that flight, leading to more waiting. When they finally managed to land at their destination, her connecting flight had been delayed.
At that point she just passed out in the airport, uncaring of what was going on around her and slept for as long as she was able.
Now, she was finally back in the States, ready to talk to the higher ups at the American embassy and explain everything that had happened earlier that week. After that, who knew where she would go.
So, she focused on the now, on what she could control here, in this moment. During this waiting game of sitting on the uncomfortable airport chairs, she focused on how unclean she was. Something that she could easily change.
She mentally complained about the lack of water, clean clothes, and even food – which had far less to do with her cleanliness levels and far more to do with her rumbling stomach. She couldn’t even go and get food as she was short out of change, sort of how her luck was going at the moment.
Eventually (Finally, she had complained not quite silently if the judging looks from the older woman beside her were any indication), a man appeared, holding a sign with her name on it. She scurried over to him after picking up her belongings from where they sat on the chair beside her.
Really, they were quite heavy, an entire coat and the shoes she had taken off at least an hour earlier. Those two items were everything she owned as of last week, besides the clothes that she had on.
“Miss. Prentiss?” the man asked.
She craned her neck back so she could look him in the eyes. He was a tall, skinny man. Dressed well, but nondescriptly in black slacks and a button up. Under the clothes, she could see that he was well muscled. Probably a bodyguard then. She had important information and had expected nothing less.
“Yes, though you may call me Emily,” the brunette slipped into the role of a diplomat’s daughter smoothly, as though putting on a familiar coat. Except this coat had been honed to perfection and hid everything that she wanted it to, no matter how big or small the secret may be. She had learned this art at her mother’s knee and she was good at it. She had to be by this point.
“This way.”
The man’s gravelly voice shared only the necessary information it seemed. That was fine with Emily though, she was exhausted after her long flights (note the plural) and really wasn’t prepared for keeping up with the expectations that she was required to as a diplomat’s daughter.
The man, who still had yet to give her his name which was honestly suspicious as hell, led her to a black, FBI issue SUV. She was far too tired to care about stupid things like names and kidnappings, but she thought that maybe she should consider it.
“So, do you have a name, or is it just a number?”
Well, there went the diplomat’s daughter, far faster than she had anticipated honestly.
Luckily for her, the man didn’t react, at all, which was also creepy come to think of it.
“That’s confidential, but you may call me Alfred,” the man hadn’t turned to her and he almost seemed as though he was talking to himself.
“Really? Alfred? Like, as in the butler from batman, Alfred? Should I call you Jarvis too, then?”
Alfred just continued on, completely ignoring her questions and acting as though she didn’t exist as he climbed into the driver’s seat. Emily naturally claimed shotgun and silence reigned in the car.
The comfort of the leather seats slowly calmed and relaxed her, the classic rock in the background acting as a lullaby to put the tired teen to sleep.
Alfred let her rest, she looked like she needed it with unkempt hair, a dirty face, and deep bags under her eyes. This Emily was strong, though, he could tell. He would deliver her to the embassy, as he was tasked to, but he hoped she would find somewhere nice to stay after that. She was spunky and defensive and very entertaining, but to really grow, she would need someone who could handle taking on this handful of a teenager. He hoped she would do well, her case, at least what he had been told about it, was the stuff of nightmares.
It took them a good while to get to the Embassy. The traffic was not light, but it did give Emily a chance to catch a little more sleep then she would have had otherwise. It would have to do for now.
Alfred woke her up surprisingly gently for all of his untouchable rock man act and she was immensely grateful for it. At this point she could eat a horse, sleep for a week, shower until all of the hot water was gone and she still wouldn’t feel remotely human.
She was led into the grand Embassy, but the number of American Embassies she had lived in throughout her life led to a clear lack of awe with her surroundings. Her being about to pass out from lack of sleep probably didn’t help either.
Once inside the Embassy, Emily was taken from Alfred and placed in a short-woman’s care. The woman herself was nothing too remarkable, pretty but not gorgeous and fairly average outside of her height. She introduced herself as Margret and was quick. Not just when walking but in everything she did. Talking, explaining, and getting her settled in the room she was to stay in overnight was all done efficiently and without any time to breathe.
Margret left Emily to take her own shower (which finally) and came back in with food before she was done. The teenager was drawn out of the shower long before she wanted to get out due to the rumbling of her stomach and the smell of the burger that had been placed outside the bathroom door. It was almost strategic on Margret’s part, which Emily would be impressed with when she wasn’t exhausted and her stomach stopped eating itself.
Not long after gulping down her food as though she was starving, and by that point she really was, Emily dove onto the bed and found herself asleep, too tired to dream for once and definitely thankful for it. She slept like the dead, a comparison that made her uneasy but an accurate one nonetheless.
Like a heathen, she hadn’t even pulled the blankets over herself, stopping just long enough to pull back the covers and leaving them bunched at her feet. Reaching down was way too much effort at the moment. Margret took it upon herself to fix that issue, pulling the comforter over the nearly comatose girl and turning on her heal when finished. She strode out of the room without looking back, moving like a hummingbird, quickly and precisely.
When Emily did wake, it was to a knocking on her door. She had absolutely no idea how long she had slept. Finally, she felt rested enough to form a coherent thought for the first time after the incident back in Burundi, a small country back in Africa where her mother had been sent as an ambassador.
The States had flown her back and would need her to report on what had happened in the country before they would find her a place and someone to stay with. If they hadn’t needed her input, they may not have even shipped her back. Politics killed and a young girl was far beneath their notice.
“Come in,” she called, assuming it was Margret coming to get her up for the day.
The door opened and light spilled in from the well-lit corridors, revealing Margret, just as she had thought. The woman walked in and shut the door behind herself as she started in on her spiel.
“Alright, Emily, we need to meet up with some people in an hour so hurry and get ready. Up and at ‘em.”
Margret opened the curtains and the light cause Emily to turn head and burry it in the pillow under her head.
“We have lots to do so let’s get to it. I’ll go get breakfast and I’ll be back in twenty minutes. I expect you dressed and ready. I brought some clothes – “
It was then that she noticed the neatly folded clothes that the woman had brought with her.
“ – and they should fit you well. Now you have twenty minutes staring now, best get to it.”
She finished her sentence by sweeping out the door just as quickly as she had come in and Emily had no doubt that the woman was a force to be reckoned with. So, while she didn’t want to get up and did indulge herself with ten more peaceful minutes laying in bed, she eventually forced herself to get up and dress in the clothes that were laid out for her.
With the extra time she was given, Emily also managed to go to the bathroom, wash her face, and pull the covers of the bed up in a poor parody of making the bed.
As she sat down, done with her tasks for the moment and being handed a minute or two to just think, Emily sighed and let her walls fall.
She just finished a flight from a war-torn country, one that her mother had failed to make with her. Her mother was not her favourite person by a long shot.
Absolutely not. Yet, she was still Emily’s mother and losing her had been a hard blow to swallow. Her mother had been invincible, or so she had thought, and nothing had ever seemed to get to the woman, not even as she lay dying in her daughter’s arms.
As always, the words out of her mouth were ones of critique and warning.
“Why are you still here, Emily. I am a lost cause. Now get going and follow the passage out, you know the way. I expect you to make it and report back to the States, they need to know the state of the country.”
She had looked at Emily as she always had, and if it weren’t for the blood covering her and her mother and the pallor that her mother was rapidly gaining, Emily could have believed it was any other day. She was in shock. That much she knew. For her mother she wasn’t doing enough, as always. The woman had taken her hands and pushed her back toward the passageway that led to freedom.
“Go,” she had repeated, “I gave you a job and I expect it done. Go report to the States, and none of your shenanigans on the way.”
That was enough to get Emily moving and she turned, ready to run out when she heard her mother say one last thing.
“Oh, and Emily? Remember that I love you, and I know that with everything I have taught you, you will do great things.”
Those were the last words that her mother had spoken to her. Fitting, perhaps, that they had also been her kindest.
The image of her mother, calm and maintained even while bleeding out paraded its way through her head. It was there when she closed her eyes and there when she didn’t. It seemed that there was no escaping it…
Until the door opened, Margret stepping inside once again.
“Good, I’m glad you’re ready. Here’s a bagel, you have ten minutes to eat it. I’ll be out in the hall if you need anything. I have a few calls to make but I’ll come get you as soon as I’m done and we’ll head over the meeting room.”
As quickly as she had come, the woman was gone. The only sign of her having been there being the bagel on the table that Emily grabbed and practically inhaled, having become hungry again over night.
It took her no time at all to eat the bagel she was given, plain though it was, and yet as she was shoving the last bite into her mouth, Margret came back in the only way she seemed capable of, like a whirlwind.
She ushered Emily into the bathroom and gave the teen a tooth brush, giving her the required two minutes before moving her to the main room and then through the door into the hall.
The two females travelled the maze of corridors, finally ending up deep within the bowels of the Embassy in a plain room, filled only with a long, rectangular table that she was promptly seated at the end of.
All of the eyes in the room were fixed on her from the moment she stepped into the room, and Emily knew not to show weakness. Her mother may have been praise less and overly focused on her job, but she had given Emily the skills to properly navigate the life she lived.
The ‘meeting’ (she used the term loosely at best) began with introductions which she promptly forgot. Her mother must be rolling over in her grave at that rookie mistake.
From then on though, the process turned into far more of an interrogation than a meeting. The questions flew through the air and it was all she could do to describe the civil unrest in Burundi that had led to the Embassy there being attacked. From there, she talked about escaping and leaving her mother behind, leaving out the last words her mother had said. Those were to be kept between mother and daughter and they would be something that she would take with her to the grave.
The people in the room became faceless after a while, and the questions still kept coming. By this point they were repeating and all of the questions and answers were blurring together. Still, Emily answered as best she could, completely overwhelmed by this point and feeling as though the beige walls were closing in on her.
Finally, they let her go. They seemed satisfied and turned to talk to each other in hushed voices, leaving Emily to her own devices. That state didn’t last long as Margret, who had been perched on a chair in the corner of the room, came forward and took her out into the hall. None of the people in the room seemed to even notice that they left.
Emily focused on the chatter Margret was filling the air with. Just little things, like the history of the building and the pictures in it, but it passed the time as they took a new route through the maze of corridors, ending up back at the front of the building, where Alfred and another man were waiting.
“Alright looks like we’re here. Emily, this is Mr. Teagan Greenald. You’ll be going with him and he’ll take you to where you’ll be staying.”
Abruptly, she turned to face Emily fully, reaching out her hand to shake for the first time. Emily took it and they shared a brief moment of contact before Margret was on a roll again.
“It was nice to meet you. I would take you myself but I’m just so busy that that wouldn’t be possible. Have a wonderful day, dear, and best of luck with everything.”
With that, Margret turned on her heel and strode purposefully across the entrance way and into the mess of hallways that stretched throughout the rest of the building. She was like an ant, never stopping and working only to better her colony, the Embassy in this case. She was good at it though. Emily found she might even miss her, short though their acquaintanceship had been.
Alfred, as well, turned and began to walk out the door, expecting her and Mr. Greenald to follow. The extraordinarily tall man stomped back out to the same SUV she had rode in yesterday (she assumed anyway, there was really no way to know, they all looked the same anyway) and climbed into the driver’s side once again.
She slid into the back, assuming Mr. Greenald would want the passenger’s seat, and was surprised when he climbed into the back beside her.
He started up a conversation as soon as the car began moving. He told her to call him Teagan and that he was her social worker, but that’s where the important information ended. He asked and told in turn things like his favourite colour, favourite food, some things about his job, and gushed about his wife. Emily answered with one-word answers or less, if she could get away with it.
Teagan didn’t seem to be perturbed by her lack of response and he only seemed to gain enthusiasm as he continued to talk. Slowly, almost too slowly to notice, the conversation turned to more important matters, though Teagan was no less upbeat about that than anything else they had talked about so far.
“Anyway, it’s a pretty good thing that you know people because if you didn’t who knows where you’d end up. Somebody pretty high up pulled some major strings for you, you know? The guy you’re staying with, yeah, he was really well known in the FBI. His foster home is probably the best in the area and specializes with the really difficult cases. Luckily, you aren’t a bad case but you’ll meet some good kids there who have gone through things like what you have. It’ll be great.”
“Yeah, great,” Emily leaned her head on the window and turned away from Teagan, staring at the rain that had started pouring outside. Her eyes followed the droplets dripping down the window, picking one and following it as it started its trek down the sheer surface.
She let her social worker and his explanations of praise for the man she had yet to meet fade to a quiet background noise yet again and focused solely on the water drops in front of her. At that moment, it was simply her and the water, no one else. Her having the opportunity to be in her own world was something that she hadn’t realized had been sorely needed until then.
Emily let her thoughts fade away completely. It was nice, the silence in her head that hadn’t been present since before the incident. She managed to stay in that strange, almost meditative state until the car turned off, shocking her out of it.
She found herself in front of a fair sized two-story home, in a nice white-picket neighbourhood. It was getting later, nearing supper time, and the rain had let up to a light mist that soaked to the bone as soon as it touches your body.
That caused both her and Teagan to get out of the car and run to the covered porch, leaving Alfred behind in the car to wait for when her social worker was finished.
As she wrung out her hair – seriously how did it get drenched this quickly – Teagan knocked loudly on the wooden door. From inside she could hear voices talking and laughing in a way that had never been allowed in her house. Her mother said that they must be prepared at all times to be seen as diplomats and anything less had not been tolerated.
After what felt like an eternity, likely due to the fact that her social worked had started up on another long, rambling tangent, the door opened. A man stood there, older but still fit and standing tall. Through the open door drifted the voices, louder than before and she could almost make out the individual voices from within the cacophony of noise.
Her attention was drawn back to the man in front of her when he smiled, making him seem a lot less intimidating than a few second earlier.
“Emily Prentiss?” he asked, focusing on her. She forced herself to stand up straight and plaster a kind but fake smile on her face. Her mother’s lessons had engrained themselves in her by this point.
“Yes, its nice to meet you –“
She paused waiting for an answer to her unspoken question.
Without hesitation, the man took the invitation, “Jason Gideon.”
The newly named Jason Gideon stepped out of the door frame as to allow them entrance into the house.
“Welcome to the team, Emily.”