Side by side || Emily Prentiss

4.

"No, come and sit. Better now than to keep putting it off." - said the boss, finally raising her eyes and fixing her hair

Those pitch-dark eyes, so different from Daisy's which were so warm and reassuring, were shiny, as if tears had previously wet them and dirtied them with their memory.

"Everything alright?" - Daisy asked, approaching Emily and sitting in front of her

"When I heard Jasper's words I really thought Mary had committed suicide." -Emily said, vaguely trying to explain the reason for her upset

Luckily for the older woman, Daisy was a profiler with a beautiful, turbulent and problematic adolescence behind her. She had immediately understood, as soon as she entered her office, that Emily was very upset and that she had to do something to help her: it was her moment.

"There are always cases that touch sensitivity more than others, right?" -Daisy asked, reaching out her hand to hold Emily's

Her boss looked at her dumbfounded, but she didn't withdraw her hand, she remained there, still, observing their hands one on top of the other and that young hand that held her now aged a bit more than she liked to admit.

"You don't have to worry about that, you were here to talk about something else, right?" - she replied trying to change the subject

What Emily didn't know was that there were few people in the world as determined and stubborn as Daisy, and that by now the young woman had made it her mission to at least try to raise her boss's morale.

"So, who was?" - Daisy asked suddenly, boldly, squeezing Emily's hand a little tighter, as if to give her courage.

"My father. He had already tried once before, pills, but I found him in time. Then one morning I saw that strange light in his eyes again, but he swore to me that he would be fine, so I went to school and when I came back...
How could I know that he would actually do it that time?" - her boss told her, her voice shaken by tears.

"I'm so sorry Emily." - said Daisy, sincerely surprised by that confession

Her proxies told her everything they knew about Emily, including that she had lost her father as a teenager, but not what her boss was telling her at the time. Daisy convinced herself that it couldn't be a lie, Emily was visibly too involved in what she was saying.

What surprised her was that her proxies had given her an abnormal amount of information about Emily, which meant that few people in the world knew the truth about the death of her boss's father.

"Yes, that's what the note said. I'm sorry. That. I don't have a father for the rest of my life and he thinks those two little words could make up for it." - Emily replied, continuing to speak with her voice shaken by tears

Daisy wasn't sure what to say, she wasn't particularly good at consoling people. She gripped Emily's hand even tighter and stroked the back of it with her thumb, trying to calm her slightly.

"Can I do anything for you? I know there aren't things I can do, but if there's even one little thing I can help you with, I'd love to do it." - Daisy said finally, unable to find better words

"Let's talk. You came to talk, right? Let's do it then." - said her boss, separating their hands and putting on her ice mask again

Daisy was particularly taken aback by that sudden change of mood, but she nevertheless admired and appreciated Emily's ability to easily push her feelings away. It was something that should have scared Daisy.

"Yes, I thought you wanted to talk to me." - said the younger agent

At that moment Emily's gaze became furious, as if she had suddenly remembered all the reasons she was angry at Daisy and had shifted all her negative emotions onto her.

"Do you have a kid?" - she asked, still maintaining a surprisingly calm voice

"No, I already explained what happened." - Daisy said, keeping the thread of the lie she had told that morning

"To hire you here on a regular basis, I obviously received your medical records and nothing you said is listed. Do you want to explain to me how this is possible?"

Daisy took a big sigh, she necessarily had to tell that lie trying to make Emily pity, so that she wouldn't press her further with questions and leave her alone, as she had done with the questions about her transfer.

"A month after Claudia's death I went out drinking alone, I was very drunk, I don't remember anything except finding out three weeks later that I was pregnant. This state doesn't let me have an abortion and I'm a federal agent, I couldn't go somewhere else to do it. I didn't want that child, I never had a check-up, I gave birth at home and then proceeded with a closed adoption. It's within my rights not to necessarily have to include it on my CV."

Of course, the story had gone a little differently. Her Rose was the daughter of Claudia's frozen eggs, conceived with IVF, but all the medical reports that spoke of her had been destroyed by those responsible, making Rose untraceable and making the threat to Daisy even more effective.

"Should I be worried about you being suicidal? Do you know how fucking dangerous it is to do what you did?" - Emily asked, raising the tone of her voice exponentially

"No, no suicidal tendencies. I felt terrible, but then I sought help and learned to feel better." she said, referring to the sessions with the psychologist actually reported on the CV

She had been in therapy from the week after the fire until Rose was born, then she refused to go back. She knew she was at the peak of her mental instability and that a professional would realize it sooner or later, so she had only returned once, to say goodbye to her psychologist, and to thank her for everything she had done for her, explaining that her daughter was the light she needed in her life to feel better.

"Get out." - Emily told her, still visibly nervous

Daisy didn't have to be told twice.