Smoking Gun [Emily Prentiss]

Five

PRESENT

The sun was bright in the cloudless blue sky, the warmth seeping through the top of my head, but it did nothing to melt the ice in my veins.

I could feel the breeze against my cheeks, feel it in my hair, whispering through the nearby trees. Yet I felt nothing.

"Ten years." I whispered, wiping at the fresh tears that raced down my cheeks. "How have you been?"

It seemed lame to ask, but I could think of little else to say. My mind was wild with questions, but none of them were relevant. It was ten years ago.

"Married to the job." She answered, bitter.

"I guess some things don't change." I tried to laugh, but it came out strangled. Who was I kidding? Everything had changed. For me, at least.

"How are you, Willow?"

I tilted my head and gave a huffed laugh. "How do you think I am?"

"I meant... how have you been the last ten years?"

I inhaled sharply. Well. That was a loaded question. "I moved on. Is that what you want to know?"

She gave a sad smile. "I just want to know how you've been. I have no ulterior motives."

More questions circled the drain in my head, but I wasn't sure I'd like the answers, so I didn't ask.

The quiet between us was tense as I thought about how to move forward. Would I see her again? How would I go on?

"Why didn't you call?"

"I didn't gave your number."

"Bullshit. You work for the FBI, Emily, and you've used it to your advantage before. You could have found me if you wanted to."

Emily sighed, shrugging. "Yes, I could have, but when I came back from- from being dead, I had hoped to see you, but Morgan told me everything; and I just... you'd been through enough. I'd put you through enough."

I shook my head. "I did it because I loved you."

"But it wasn't fair to you. You didn't deserve-"

"It wasn't up to you to make that decision. I deserved to know."

"You did." She agreed, averting her gaze. "So, I had Pen look you up and I couldn't... you'd built a whole new life for yourself in Tennessee and I didn't want to disrupt it. You moved on and there was no sense in bringing you back into the past."

My heart sank. She knew. I could tell by the tone of her voice and the look in her eye. It wasn't something I was ashamed of, or something I regretted, but it wasn't what I'd had planned for my future.

A future where Emily no longer existed.

But I adjusted. I buried my grief and I moved on as best I could. I wasn't going to explain myself, like I'd done something wrong by putting one foot in front of the other for the last ten years, pausing only to look back when I found myself thinking about her and what we could have been had we be given the chance.

Turns out we had, but unbeknownst to me, Emily had once again made a decision that involved me without including me.

"Regardless, you didn't have the right to make that decision for me." I met her gaze, jaw tense.

I stood up, my legs a little unsteady. We'd been on a concrete bench memorializing somebody who was once important but probably wasn't anymore.

"I have to be going. I've already spent too long..."

Too long entertaining a ghost from my past, and now it was time to return to life as I knew it; the life I'd built for myself when I thought I'd never find love again.

How could I just go on like nothing had changed? When the entire reason I had created this life was because she was gone. It changed nothing, now that she was back.

"I'm sorry. It wasn't suppose to be this way."

"Right." I rolled my eyes, irritated. "I was never suppose to know you were alive. I feel so foolish, thinking they were my family." I said, referring to her team. "And of everything you've ever put me through, this takes the cake."

Emily nodded, morose. She opened her mouth to speak, but words apparently failed her as she pressed her lips together.

"Goodbye, Emily."

It wasn't the first time I'd walked away from her, and it wasn't the first time she didn't stop me.

Some things never changed, even in life after death.