Emily's car could be seen pulling up, Vanessa quickly heading over and sitting in the passenger side.
"Oh wow," Prentiss gasped once she saw how beaten up her nose was. "Are you sure you were just working out?"
Vanessa looked over at her and nodded, also smiling to make it believable.
The drive was quiet. They both didn't want to say anything that'll make this any more awkward. But Emily could never stay quiet for that long.
"I thought you were going to visit your mom?" She questioned, keeping her eyes on the road.
"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," Vanessa lied—again.
"Ohh." Nodding, Emily looked over beside her, seeing Vanessa fiddle with her fingers. She frowned at the sight, but went back to looking at the road.
After checking into the ER, a nurse came over with an ice pack to help the swelling while she waited. Emily stayed with her, gripping onto the girls hand.
"When this is all over," Vanessa started. "Don't tell the team?"
"Nessa—they need to know," Emily laughed slightly in disbelief.
"Emily, please? I don't want them knowing about this."
Prentiss bit on her bottom lip, contemplating whether she should at least tell Hotch.
"Not even Hotch."
Emily's eyes shot over to her, they were wide. "Did you just read my mind?"
"Possibly," Vanessa managed to crack a smile. "Maybe I have super powers that no one knows about." Emily chuckled and tilted her head down.
"You're a such a dork," sighed out Prentiss, looking back at her. "It's no wonder Reid is so consumed in you." That made Vanessa's smile go down, Emily noticing. "Oh no, did I say something wrong?"
"No, no—" she sighed out, smiling again. "It's just—" She stopped herself, debating whether or not to tell Emily about what Reid said about her. "Can I tell you something?"
"Anything..."
Vanessa studied her friends eyes for a long moment, noticing Emily genuinely concerned now.
"I don't usually do this with just anybody, you know that, right?" Vanessa asked for clarification, Emily nodding in response. "Okay..." She took a deep breath, getting ready on what to say. "When we got back from our last case, I was worried about Reid, because—well, you know...the whole Tobias thing." Emily nodded again, paying close attention to what she was saying. "So I asked him about it of course, and he kinda went off on me? He was just saying all these things, it hurt my feelings I guess." Her brows furrowed. It felt so weird for her to reveal her feelings to people that weren't Hotch or a therapist that she was forced to talk with. "He did the same earlier before I left work, instead he did it with Morgan."
"Morgan told you?"
"I overheard them when I was going to get a bag of pretzels," she laughed slightly to make herself feel better.
"What did he say exactly?"
Vanessa was now looking at Emily. "That if I really cared for him, I'd leave him alone..." Although that wasn't the only thing said, she didn't want to say more.
Emily's mouth was open in shock. "He said that?" Vanessa nodded her head. "What hell is wrong with him?"
The doctor came back over to them as Vanessa was shrugging.
"You ready for your surgery?" The lady questioned as the two in front of her looked up, Vanessa nodding before standing up.
"You can go home if you want, Em."
"I think I'll wait," Emily replied, Vanessa smiling at her before walking off—and her watching her colleague leave with dismay in her eyes.
...
The surgery was done rather quickly, and Emily came into a private room where Vanessa and her doctor was, but they both didn't know she was in.
"You're a federal agent, and you're letting your significant other hurt you like this?" She heard the doctor's voice say.
"No one hurt me..." Vanessa said back with a low voice.
"Yeah, try telling that to your friend out there..."
Emily's eyes went wide, wondering if Nathan is the reason why this trip happened. She brushed off the reaction quickly and acted like she didn't hear it before knocking on the door.
"Come in!" The doctor shouted slightly as Emily came behind the curtain.
As the doctor was grabbing a bottle of prescribed pain killers, Vanessa smiled at her friend who gave her a half smile with worried eyes.
"Thank you, Dr. Miller," Vanessa said once handed the bottle.
"You guys are free to go," Miller said to the two girls as they smiled in response, shortly leaving the room afterwards.
The two got back to Emily's car. Once they got in, they both let out a deep breath.
"Thank you for bringing me here, Em," Vanessa thanked, staring at her fingers.
"Of course," Emily replied. "I'd do anything to help..." She smiled at her, waiting to see if Vanessa was going to say something. "You wanna go back home?"
"Yes, please."
Emily pressed her lips together. She didn't want to take her back to that place with the thought of Nathan even laying a finger on her. She'd quite literally would be the one to hurt him if she ever found out the truth.
...
Vanessa thanked her colleague again one last time before walking back up to her apartment. She quietly opened the front door and slowly crept back into her room.
Nathan was sleeping again. She was still fearful that he'd wake up again and hurt her; she didn't even know why he did that in the first place.
Vanessa changed back into her pajamas and went under the covers, making sure to stay quiet so he wouldn't wake up.
A breath of relief escaped her when she managed to do that with no noise and little movement. She stayed at the edge of the bed, laying face up.
Thinking back over the night, she started to regret coming back to this home. But she had no where else to go. Luckily, she had Emily there for her to take her to the ER. Who knows what would've happened if she never picked up the phone.
Closing her eyes, she let all the stress wash away for a split second to help her fall asleep. It felt nice to not feel any of it—to not feel any pain...and then she thought about what her doctor said.
You're a federal agent, and you're letting your significant other hurt you like this?
She never really thought about that. Yeah, she knew she could always send him away, but she'd never actually do that. She could always fight back, it's not like he'd actually be able to do something about it—even though he's constantly abusing her. She carries a glock 19 on her almost all the time. She hunts down the bad guys and puts them away forever, but can't even defend herself to her abusive boyfriend.
Pushing everything to the back of her mind, she bent her leg up slightly and let herself go to sleep.
...
Quantico.
The next morning, Garcia came bursting through the doors and over to the group of 3 that had arrived at work not too long before.
"Oh. my. god." Penelope gasped out once she got to them, all three of them giving her confusing looks. "Did you guys know Vanessa was in the hospital last night?"
Reid's eyes widened while sitting straight up, clearly concerned about what happened.
"What?" Morgan questioned with crossed brows.
"Yeah, she was in the emergency room!"
"Is she okay?" Spencer then asked. "What happened?"
"I have no idea—" Garcia responded. "Should we go visit her?"
Emily had to fake an expression. She already knew that Vanessa was there, and about what happened. But she kept her word to not tell anyone.
"Yeah!"Spencer got up to his feet immediately, grabbing his satchel.
"Well—she didn't stay over night—" Garcia stopped him. "She's probably at home right now."
"So let's go to her apartment?"
"Let her rest, Spencer," Emily said coldly, scribbling back onto her paperwork.
The other three looked at her with confused expressions. The reason why she acted that way was because of how Reid was making Vanessa feel.
"I'm sorry?" Spencer asked, wondering why she was upset, but Emily didn't respond—she just shook her head and focused back on her case file.
Derek looked at Emily with rose eyebrows and a partly opened mouth, surprised, before looking over at Reid and Garcia.
"Well then..." Garcia spoke out. "I guess we should let her rest..." She let out an awkward smile at the two boys before petting Reid's shoulder and walking of the the bullpen, back to her office.
Spencer took his seat, looking over at Emily slightly before going back over his reports. He wanted badly to visit Vanessa, but he didn't know if he should after the way Emily bursted at him. She obviously did that for a reason, he just didn't know what.
—