Damned If You Do

Written for the /r/fanfiction challenge "random word prompt"

The randomly generated words were: Amnesia. Glutton. Moth.

I can't thank DeejayMil enough...for encouraging me to write this, for pushing me when I hated it, for beta'ing this, and for her general loveliness. THANK YOU, my friend.

She's alone when it happens. She shouldn't have been, but Hotch failed her.

He kept reminding himself that she wanted to go alone, insisted even, that it was a routine follow-up with a witness and that she'd be fine.

"You've all got paperwork. I'll be back in an hour." She'd dismissed his concerns with a joke. "Faster than it takes Reid to finish reading the Encyclopedia once through."

One hour passed, then two, and a third without a word. Finally, Garcia failed to land a trace on Emily's phone so he gathered the team with an impending sense of dread.

There's an FBI-issued SUV in the driveway of the remote Virginia farmhouse and Emily's nowhere to be found, so they break down the door with Morgan at the helm.

A coppery tang assaults his nostrils, the air feels heavy and thick, and Hotch knows this isn't good. It's dark, the impending winter bringing nighttime earlier and earlier, and the farmhouse is cloaked in darkness. His eyes adjust quickly and he sweeps the space with his flashlight, illuminating his team fanning out around him and the gruesome scene in front of them.

Their 'witness,' a one Mr. Roger Denning lay splayed out unceremoniously on the unsightly carpet. His white collared shirt is saturated in blood, the beige wall behind him splattered in the spray. The bullet hole to the left of his chest is a flawless shot, the shooter obviously trained. Someone turns on a dim light-JJ, maybe-and she checks Denning for a pulse.

Hotch's eyes land on Emily and then nothing else matters.

He vaguely hears Dave mutter something that sounds like 'fuck,' and JJ's sharp intake of air, but he doesn't register anything except Emily's unmoving form slumped in the chair to Denning's left.

His voice doesn't sound like his own when he orders Morgan and Dave to clear the rest of the house and JJ to call an ambulance. Holstering his weapon, he drops to his knees beside Emily, pressing two steady fingers against the waning pulse in her neck with his free hand.

He assesses the damage. It comes to him in fractured pieces, like from behind the shutter of a camera lens.

Lengths of aramid rope bind her ankles to the rickety chair, and he swallows against a lump in his throat at the splotches of blood on the thighs of her khaki cargo pants.

Hotch's gaze travels upwards. He's seeking out the source of the blood. It becomes clear, even in her slumped form. The blood is coming from somewhere on her head. Stumbling to his feet, he cradles her head and gently guides her torso to rest upright. He's acutely aware moving her with a head injury could be dangerous.

Sweeping the beam of his flashlight over her, it illuminates where the chest of her blue fitted shirt has turned scarlet. There are sticky rivulets tracing her cheek and neck from two ugly, jagged gashes across her forehead. He swings around to appraise the back of her head and nearly chokes on air when he sees the mess.

Even against the sable color of her hair, he can see the injuries there. A tangled mess of hair, blood, and tissue converge on what looks like an open, golf ball-sized wound.

No wonder there's so much blood.

"Jesus fuck," Dave murmurs suddenly from beside him. He and Morgan have returned from searching the house. "It's clear. And her arms aren't bound. Which means she must have shot him before she passed out."

"How's she looking, Hotch?" JJ's pacing near the door, keeping watch for the ambulance. "Why is there so much blood?" She looks a little green, even in the dim light of the farmhouse.

Reid is there, too, hovering anxiously.

It's always different when it's one of them.

"Head injuries result in heavy bleeding due to the large amount of blood vessels in the area," Reid chirps nervously. He's trying to be helpful and Hotch is grateful. "And losing consciousness is quite common with a blow to the back of the head. Victims often recover with minimal complications, though it depends on the force of the blow and the type of instrument used-"

The glaring white beams of headlights slashing through the dark yard cuts Reid off mid-ramble, announcing the arrival of the ambulance. It carries Emily away in a flurry of activity.

The next time she's conscious, she's forgotten it all.

*. *. *

They treat the more dire of her injuries with surgery and manage to stabilize her.

They're all there, all six of them holed up in the waiting room, but Prentiss isn't and that's unsettling.

Clutching a cup of coffee that has since gone cold, Rossi stands with Aaron in the hallway, away from the others, noting his stiff posture and mouth set so firmly in a line, it twitches with the effort.

"Aaron," he starts, "You know it's not your fault. She insisted on going alone, knowing full well the risks of interviewing alone."

Hotch looks at him, and the silence stretches on so long, Rossi's not sure he's going to respond at all.

"I should have insisted," Hotch remarks, the tension still evident in his face. "We always interview in pairs. It's protocol."

"That woman is a glutton for punishment, Aaron, and you know it," he snorts. "If it's difficult or unpleasant, she wants in."

Hotch sets off the down the hallway then, away from his team, a beacon of guilt and worry and fierce indignation.

"It doesn't matter," he mutters in passing.

Rossi sighs, turning to rejoin his stricken team.

*. *. *

JJ is the first to see her once her surgical team permits visitors (one at a time, they said). They explain that while surgery was successful, Emily's in a coma and it's impossible to ascertain her prognosis.

JJ squares her shoulders defiantly and sucks in a breath before pushing open the door; she wants to be nothing but brave for her team, for Emily, for herself.

The door clicks shut behind her, and she wants to scream. There's something so unsettling about the garish fluorescent light of the small room and the heavy smell of hospital antiseptic and the heavy, deafening silence, and when JJ's eyes land on Emily, her breath hitches in her throat.

Emily Prentiss is all confidence and gunpowder and it all makes her somehow bigger, which turns how tiny she looks against the stark white of the hospital bed jarring. She's wrapped up to her shoulders in blankets, her face is an ugly patchwork of sutures, bruises and drying blood they haven't managed to wash away, and there's a terrifying looking drain peeking out from underneath the heavy gauze around her head.

Beside her, monitoring her vitals and brain activity, are far too many machines that blink and beep and whirr and could rival Henry's best toy truck collection.

Oh god.

JJ sits in the hard-backed plastic chair by her bedside and reaches in silence for her hand. They've all been injured before, yet somehow this feels different. For the first time, she realizes that she's not just scared.

She's goddamn terrified.

*. *. *

"Now, Gumdrop, I brought you sunflowers and chrysanthemums and daisies because that's what the florist said goes best with the sunflowers and I just can't help myself from trying to brighten up this room a little," Penelope trills, flitting around the bare hospital room, placing vases of flower arrangements strategically around the small space.

She claps her hands together triumphantly upon completing her task. "There! Much better."

She approaches the bed and bends at the waist to give Emily a kiss on the cheek, effectively ignoring the fact that it has been nine days and no change in her condition.

Emily's skin is warm to the touch, just as it is every day Penelope comes to visit, and although her eyes haven't opened, Penelope hangs onto the fact that her skin is warm because warm skin means alive.

She straightens, taking in the bruises on Emily's face that have started to yellow and the raised, zigzag network of suture scars. Penelope notes with delight that they've removed the gauze from around her head, but that delight turns to sorrow at the patches of hair they shaved during surgery.

"It's okay, Em," Penelope soothes the sleeping form, reaching to gently twine the remaining silky strands around her finger. "You totally rock this look anyway."

It's late, after six pm, and she came straight from the solitude of her lair after work because life must go on, after all.

And-because it's semi late, and her team has been falling apart with worry over Emily, and because it's exhausting for Penelope to try hold them together with just baked goods and hugs and platitudes-she falls asleep shortly after resting her head on Emily's blanket-clad thigh.

The gentle tap-tap of Emily's fingers on her shoulder nudge her awake, blurry eyed and confused. Penelope realizes that Emily has woken up, and a burst of utter relief shoots all the way to her toes.

Thank all of the gods there ever were!

Knocking over her chair in her haste to jump up and call the doctor, the loud crash startled the heck outta poor Emily, who stares at her with wide, painfully disoriented eyes.

"Em, oh Emily," Penelope gasps with a cry, reaching forward to grab her hand. "I'm so happy to see you right now, you have no idea. Oh, the team will be so happy! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," rasps Emily in response.

There's the Emily Prentiss I know and love!

Emily reaches up gingerly to touch her head, and her eyes go from confusion to horror at the feel of the shorn hair and the tender points on her skin. Penelope's heart does a funny tightening thing, wanting to scoop Emily into her arms and never let go.

So she does. Well, she tries.

Emily stiffens noticeably, shrinking back from her touch.

"Who are you?" she squeaks.

And Penelope bursts into tears.

*. *. *

Post-traumatic amnesia is a state of confusion or memory loss that occurs immediately following a traumatic brain injury. The amnesia may be retrograde or anterograde (Emily is suffering from retrograde amnesia). Forty-five percent of those afflicted with amnesia experience memory loss for longer than a month. Seventy percent of traumatic brain injury survivors continue to experience memory problems one year post injury.

"Spencer? Hey, Spence!" JJ's voice jars him from his reverie.

"What, huh?" Reid blinks, and what they're doing at the moment comes back to him.

They're in Emily's apartment picking up some clothing and other personal items to bring to the hospital. Sixteen days in the hospital, seven of them conscious, and she's demanding she be allowed to wear her own clothes (he's surprised it's even taken her this long; personality altering brain injury be damned), even if she doesn't quite remember the people she's asking to bring them for her.

Reid's the only one with a key to her apartment, but he didn't want to go alone because women's underthings aren't exactly his forte, and even if they were, the last thing he wants to do is rifle through their amnesiac teammate's underwear drawer.

So he'd brought JJ along.

He busies himself with thumbing through the books on Emily's shelf while JJ gathers belongings from the bedroom. He's putting Vonnegut's Mother Night back in its place when a framed photograph of the team looking so happy and wholesome catches his eye and his chest tightens with such sadness, all he can do is recite traumatic brain injury statistics to himself to stop from turning away.

In situations he can't control, he reverts to dipping into his wealth of knowledge to stave off his emotions.

JJ interrupts his internal recitation, holding a duffel bag over her shoulder, and looking like he feels.

"I'm done. You ready to go?" She lays a hand on his arm, following his line of sight, and her face softens when she sees what's captured his attention so fully. "Ah, Spence," she murmurs. "She'll be okay."

He almost feels like laughing and shrugs her hand off. "She has amnesia, JJ, she doesn't even know who we are."

"You know the statistics better than I do, but we have to believe she'll get her memory back."

Reid tears his eyes from the photograph. "Yeah, I know the statistics," he repeats slowly. And they're not promising.

He doesn't say it out loud; instead he grabs the picture and tucks it gingerly into his shoulder bag.

*. *. *

"Here," Morgan announces, placing a framed photograph on Emily's rolling bedside table. "Reid wanted you to have this. It's from your apartment."

She thanks him and smiles, but it's an empty smile. Like he's a stranger to her.

Though he supposes he technically is a stranger to her in this state.

He watches her reach for the photograph and sees the utter lack of recognition in her eyes as she studies the image. Her eyes used to be warm and bright, but now they're empty.

"We look happy," she says, a tinge of misery in her voice. "I wish I could remember it."

"You will, Prentiss." He's trying to stay positive, but it's increasingly difficult when everything that makes Emily Emily has been snuffed out.

"How do you know?" she says bitterly, placing the photo face down next to her.

It's retrograde amnesia, allowing her to form new memories, but she has no recollection of the people and events in her life in the eight years leading up to the injury.

But they're teaching her. God, how they're teaching her. They're teaching her that Aaron Hotchner is their unflappable unit chief, a noble, dedicated man with a smart and kind son. They're teaching her that David Rossi is the grandfatherly type with a penchant for vintage cigars and nice cars, hiding it all behind his snark and wit.

They're teaching her that Spencer Reid is their resident genius and the youngest member of their team, but with the biggest heart. That Jennifer Jareau is both the bravest and most gentle member of them all. That Penelope Garcia is not only their technical analyst, but also the glue that holds their odd bunch together.

And they're teaching her that Derek Morgan is fiercely protective. The picture perfect example of a man whose past does not define him.

Today, Morgan wants to teach her about the past she can't remember.

"Hey, c'mon, none of that. Lets talk about something else," he says in a way that he hopes doesn't sound dismissive. "Want me to tell you about one of our old cases where you kicked ass?"

She seems to brighten at that, nodding her head eagerly.

"Last year," he starts, settling back in his chair. "Colorado. We were investigating accusations of child abuse at a compound of an underground cult. You and Reid went undercover as social workers, and it all would have been fine, except the dumb ass state police decided to raid the compound with the tactical prowess of a sloth."

Emily snickers then, a real moment of amusement, and Morgan's heart warms.

She's still in there.

"You guys were taken hostage by the cult leader, and because of the same dumb ass actions of the state police, your covers were compromised," he explains, then falls silent. "Well, one of your cover's was compromised."

"And?" Emily prods with narrowed eyes, sitting up further in her bed.

"Cyrus knew that only one of you was FBI. You told us he was waving his gun around, threatening to shoot, unless the agent came forward. You came forward. And Cyrus beat the shit out of you, to put it simply."

Her brows furrow, chewing the corner of her lip, and Morgan can't read that expression worth a damn. "Why would I do that?" she asks quietly.

Now it's Morgan's turn to laugh. "Because you're our resident glutton for punishment, Prentiss. Always takin' on the tough stuff."

She wants to sleep then, she tells him. The brain injury makes her tire easily. So he plants a kiss to her head (she stiffens and he hates it) and assures her one of the team will be round tomorrow, and leaves.

It's out in the hospital corridor that he's overcome with anger and sinks his fist into the wall without even feeling the pain.

He's her partner, and she shouldn't have been alone.

*. *. *

Twenty-seven days after Roger Denning beat her with a tire iron, Emily is discharged from the hospital.

According to her doctor, she's made great strides in regaining her memory, but there are still plenty things that leave her puzzled. Her brain is in a fog, as though she's reaching reaching reaching for something but can't quite get there.

Like when the team comes to visit and there are five of them crammed into her tiny hospital room, shooting the shit, discussing old cases, but Emily can't remember the name of a victim. Or if Garcia breezes in, bitching about how the coffee Kevin makes in the morning tastes like tree bark, and Emily just wants to ask, "Who's Kevin?" Or when the night nurse sneaks her another jello cup at midnight and she can't remember if she likes lemon or cherry.

But she's being discharged and that's a miracle in itself.

The team has been so good to her, even when she didn't remember them. Even when she returned to her room after physical therapy, crying with frustration, and tossed a waiting Spencer out of her room. Even when she wanted nothing more than to spend her days sleeping, or hitting the morphine pump when the incision on the back of her head ached. Even when she pushed for more and more stories about the things she had forgotten and kept JJ telling them long after missing Henry's bedtime.

She's had a hard time, for forgetting who she is and what makes her her is too reminiscent of the flashes of her time undercover that come to her sometimes when she's sleeping, yanking her from sleep with the name Ian on her lips and no idea who Ian is.

But today is a good day, and Hotch has come to drive her home after twenty-seven days of hell.

"Prentiss," he says, gripping the steering wheel so tight it's a wonder his fingers haven't frozen to the damn thing. "About Denning…"

"Hotch," she cuts him off before he has the chance to continue. "I know what you're going to say, and it's not your fault."

He glances at her then, lips pursed. "But it is. And I just want to say that I'm sorry."

"Really, Aaron," she says, idly running her hand over the bandana that hides the hair growing out all funny. "I don't even remember the damn thing beyond what you've told me. So even if it is your fault, I don't remember shit. You get a free pass."

She's trying for levity, and the old Emily would know but the new Emily doesn't: Aaron Hotchner doesn't do levity.

But he lets it go.

He carries her bag up to her condo, and she even lets him start a bath for her. But that's it, because he's her boss and because she can do it by herself, damnit. So he slips out after she assures him she will call if she needs anything.

Emily does take a bath. She's desperate to smell like something other than antiseptic and sickness, and she does fine, but then it all goes to shit because she's alone in an apartment she remembers nothing of, and who'd have thought they'd need to help familiarize Emily with her own damn apartment?

She's naked and shivering in front of her steamed up bathroom mirror, realizing she doesn't know where she keeps the towels.

This new Emily thinks maybe one would keep towels in a bathroom closet but her search proves futile, and she's left hesitantly wandering down the hallway. How ridiculous she must look: a grown woman, naked and soaked post-bath, traipsing through her own apartment with not the slightest idea where to find a damn towel.

Is she the kind of person who keeps the towels in her bedroom?

Four dressers in the bedroom come up empty before she flings the bed sheets piled up in her arms (because that's all she can find) onto the floor with a cry of frustration.

"God damnit! Where are the towels?" There are hot tears slipping down her cheeks, and she can't help but wonder if this outburst is old Emily or new Emily.

She also wonders if it's old Emily or new Emily when she pulls one of the previously discarded sheets around her body and fumbles for the cell phone Hotch left for her on her bedside table, pulling up JJ's number and crying breathlessly into the receiver.

"I can't find a towel, JJ. Please, I just want a towel."

JJ comes to her then, bringing soft terry towels from her own home, and the reassurance that Emily is only human.

*. *. *

The next night, the team gathers for drinks, and Emily manages not only to wrangle their plans out of Reid but a ride to the bar too.

She can't remember which shoes she likes best, but she manages to pull herself together for a night out. Save for the bandana that still covers her hair, she manages not to look like a traumatic brain injury patient.

"Are you sure about this, Emily?" Reid studies her with an intensity that she hates when she slides into his car. "A noisy bar might be the worst thing for you right now."

"Reid." She levels him with a glare. "Drive the car."

They're all surprised when he shows up with Emily at his side. Garcia is a little more than mildly neurotic, Morgan hovers protectively over her shoulder the entire evening, and she doesn't bother to hide the wince when the bass drops a little too heavily or the droop of her eyelids when the fatigue hits.

But she wants to be here. Her memory comes and goes, ebbs and flows, like waves in an angry ocean, but she feels safe around these people in an inexplicable way. And if the new Emily feels it, the old Emily must have, too.

They each raise a glass in her direction, and Rossi makes the toast.

"To our little glutton for punishment," he starts, voice booming over the music and din of the crowd. He winks at her, and Emily remembers that wink and smiles at the warmth settling in her belly.

"It's really goddamn infuriating when you run off with your gun half cocked," Rossi continues, earning a snort from Morgan and a glare from Hotch. "But we're glad you made it, kid."