Title: Postcards
By: patch-tank
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Summary: Emily misses her family
Disclaimer: If I owned Criminal Minds, there would have been much less bullshit than if CBS owned it. But I don't own it. So there that is.
Archive: Do people still do this? IDK. But you can, if you feel that you must, just let me know.
Warnings: Nah, not really. If you've seen season 6, you're good. Otherwise, spoilers.

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It was hard to know what to do at first.  Not in Paris, of course - Emily knew the city of love like the back of her hand, and for a couple of weeks it seemed like a surreal sort of vacation.  She revisited her old haunts, then made her way around all the tourist hotspots, sipping cappucinos and buying postcards.  It was only as she glanced over them later that she realised she could never send them.  Her team couldn't know she was tucked away in a tiny Montmarte salon - they thought she was gone.  But how was she supposed to be "gone"?  How could she pretend not to exist?

She was supposed to go to Zagreb, but somehow ended up in Philadelphia.  The witness protection officials hadn't been happy when she revealed her newest location - too close to home, they said, far too dangerous.  But she was a seasoned professional, and managed to convince them that her experience as an undercover agent meant she could effectively maintain anonymity.  She told them she was worried she'd been recognised in Europe - the truth was that she just wanted to be closer.

**************************************** ********


Garcia had been first.  Not the real, living, breathing Penelope Garcia - that would be too wonderful to be true.  But when Emily had seen a woman at the ATM wearing a pair of sky high red and turquoise  pumps with bows on the front, a wave of excitement had washed over her.  The woman was slightly younger than Garcia, perhaps in her mid-twenties, and a dark mahogany brunette instead of blonde - but the click of her ridiculous heels over the pavement was deliciously familiar.  Emily knew she shouldn't dwell on what she couldn't have, but found herself making a game of following the woman in Penelope's shoes.  She wasn't noticed - years of training had seen to that.  But she trailed after her at a slightly less than safe distance all the same, following the woman from the ATM to the drycleaners, a stationary supply store, then finally to a cafe.  Emily sat down a few tables away, not facing the woman, but with a clear view of her reflection in the window.  The other woman who sat down at the table was blonde, but otherwise looked nothing like JJ.  Emily put her iPod earphones in, but didn't turn the music on - instead she listened to their animated chatter, mentally slotting herself into their conversation about work, relationships and upcoming vacations.  She pulled a blank postcard with a picture of a saucy, topless cabaret girl on the front out of her purse and scribbled a quick note on the back.

Hey PG,

I had coffee with you and JJ today.  Your shoes are fabulous.  I miss you so much.

Love, Emily.


*************************************

Rossi was next.  She'd avoided bookshops as much as possible, after unthinkingly strolling into one in Budapest and realising too late that she was in the true crime section.  Dave's handsome face had gazed at her from the jacket of his latest book, and before she knew it Emily was assuring the concerned salesgirl in stilted Hungarian that she was okay, and trying to stop the embarrassing trickle of tears.  She knew better now, but there was no preparing for the dark-haired man who sat down next to her at the bar one night.  He was vaguely mediterranean looking - of Greek ancestry, she guessed, not Italian.  She nodded attentively as he talked, not bothering to remember his name, ignoring his poorly concealed innuendos and slightly sexist remarks - after all, David Rossi was nothing if not charming.  She took him back to her South Broad Street hotel room, ignoring his wedding ring too - David Rossi was divorced.

The man didn't stay the night - he'd been confused by her crying, and left at around two in the morning, clearly assuming she was too much drama.  He doesn't know the half of it, Emily thought, taking another postcard out of her bag and placing it on the nightstand.  This one had a magnificent photograph of Istanbul, the Blue Mosque under a glorious Turkish sunset.

Hi Dave,

I tried a vintage red tonight that you would have loved.  I wish I could have shared a glass with you.  I'm sorry we snooped in your office.

Love you heaps,
Emily


**************************************** ******

She saw Reid - not the real Reid, but her Reid - outside a community college one overcast afternoon.  A tall, skinny kid with floppy hair, he wore an anime t-shirt that exuded a contemporary coolness the real Spencer could never hope for, but when he caught a wayward rainbow-coloured hackeysack without so much as losing his place in his textbook, Emily couldn't help being reminded of Reid's sleight-of-hand dexterity.  She watched as he laughed with his friends, wishing she could see that kind of happiness on the real Spencer Reid's face - wishing she could see his face at all.  The college kids began to make thier way back to the main building and for a crazy moment she considered following them, of calling out to "Reid" and asking if he wanted to play chess with her.  Instead, she sat down on the patch of grass they'd just vacated, and pulled a postcard from her handbag.  This one showed an Albanian flag pinned to a wall, with two grinning children in colourful clothes standing either side of a donkey.  She made her handwriting small and spidery, trying to imitate his.

Hey Reid,

I lied to you that day on the plane.  There's nothing to hate about you at all.

Love Em


**************************************** ****

She kept a lookout for Hotch, knowing by now that she had to find him, she had to find them ALL - it wouldn't do to only find half her team.  At first she thought the man hurrying from a cab on Dock Street was him - after all, wasn't that exactly the way Hotch held his briefcase? - but then she realised she was trying too hard.  Deciding to call this waspish, hassled looking man Hotch would be cheating.  She had to wait - she'd found her doppelgangers, her "team" by a method she couldn't quite describe to herself, but it was something to do with feelings.  She would know Hotch when she saw him.

She saw him through the window at the gym.  She'd joined using an alias of course - "Christine Trevors" was 28 minutes into her 30 minute exercise bike routine, and the last 2 minutes on the uphill setting was a bitch.  But Emily's gasp for breath wasn't due to exhaustion - she'd just seen Hotch through the window of the "Junior Jym" area.  The man was slightly shorter than her supervisor, but his eyes were uncanny in their similarity to Hotch's.  He smiled as he threw a wiffle ball to a giggling boy, then tackled him playfully to get it back.  This was Hotch, he was in the next room playing with Jack, and she was sure they wouldn't mind if she joined in.  Emily climbed off the bike, but instead of running to join their game, she hurried back to the changeroom and opened her locker with shaking fingers.  No time to go home, no time even to shower and change first, this had to be done now.  She reached into her gym bag, praying she had at least one with her, fumbling through the bag's contents until her fingers closed on paper.  Emily's pounding heartrate subsided slightly as she took out the postcard - a British bulldog wearing a crown and union jack shorts, scowling at the teacup in front of him.  Not perfect, she thought with a wry smile, but it would have to do.

Dear Hotch,

I know you know.  I'm so sorry to put you through all this.  Please don't forget me - or do, if that makes it easier.  Hug Jack for me,


Prentiss.


**************************************** ***********************


She had no reason to be in this part of town.  It was a bad idea, made only slightly better by the four cocktails she'd already downed.  But it had been months now, and she hadn't found either of them.  She needed them all, and if she had to go out of her way a little, well, that wasn't really cheating.  That was using initiative.  That was what made her such a good agent.

She found JJ standing outside a closed bodega.  Her boots were scuffed, but her faux fur coat looked soft and luxurious.  She inhaled slowly on a cigarette, the glow from its tip reflecting on earrings that were larger and flashier than anything the real JJ would ever have worn.  She caught Emily's eye and when her voice spoke she sounded younger than Emily had hoped she would, and with a faintly Southern accent.

"Hey there.  You look a little lost, honey."

Emily shook her head.   "I'm not lost.  I'd like you to come with me, please".  Her breath seemed to hitch in her chest as she waited for a response.  The blonde woman raised her eyebrow and exhaled a delicate plume of smoke.

"Girls are extra baby, but I guess you know that.  Well, okay then.  Let's go.  My name is Kayla".  She started to walk away, obviously expecting Emily to follow her.  When she didn't, the woman turned around.

"There a problem?"

Emily handed her two fifty dollar bills..  "No.  No problem.  But your name is Jennifer."

The woman shrugged, but didn't argue.  Emily reached into her pocket - this time she'd planned ahead, writing her message on the back of a postcard with a beautiful flamenco dancer on it, five words smudged by tears.

JJ,

I'm sorry.

Love Emily.


**************************************** **************************

 

Morgan was really a pipe dream to her now.  It had been nearly a year, and she'd done well to get five of her teammates - six if she counted the woman who had been sitting behind her at the movies last week.  Her voice had sounded so much like Ashley Seaver's as she'd yammered away to her boyfriend - not that Seaver would ever have been that inconsiderate.  The movie had been fairly tedious, so she'd immersed herself in the sound of the annoying woman's voice - she had no postcard this time, but she could write one later.  Ashley was a nice girl and a promising agent, but more peripheral to her than the members of her team. 

Still, five was good.  Five in one year was an achievement, something she could comfort herself with at night when the the loneliness threatened to swallow her whole.  They were still out there - they had to be, because she'd written to them, hadn't she?  Those postcards may have been lying, unsent, in a pocket of her suitcase, but they were there, and they were real, and they meant that her team  - at least five of them - had been real too.  So she gave up looking for Morgan.  A year of playing pretend with imaginary friends was more than enough.  It was time to move on.


The next day Emily awoke early, and left her hotel to go to the airport.  It had been a mistake to come back to the states, so she'd cleared it with witness protection to go to Naples.  Hopefully the chaos, colour and love in that crazy city would distract her from her fantasies and force her to start living her life again.  She shook her head to clear it as she saw a man sitting in a parked car holding a disposable coffee cup.  He held his coffee the same way Morgan used to, but she wasn't going to play that game with herself anymore.  It was stupid.  It was meaningless.

It was Morgan.

Not a lookalike.  Not a random person with a similar habit or familiar looking sweater.  This was him.  Emily froze.  She had the perfect postcard - a German boy in lederhosen blowing on a traditional hornpipe next to a Saint Bernard with a barrel on its chest, set against the backdrop of rolling green mountains.  But what should she write?  What on earth could she write to the man who had held her as she "died"?

"Emily?!"

No more writing.  No more cards.  No more pretending.  She took a deep breath and answered .


"Derek ... I'm back".

 

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