Hotchniss romance

Chapter one

When Emily Prentiss had first joined the BAU agent hotchner was sceptical of her at first. But, Prentiss had proved herself time and time again.

Emily pulled up outside the bar and decided that she needed to go inside wheather she wanted to or not.
"Hey" she said to her friend.
"Hi, look at you" he said embracing her.
"Sorry I'm all wet" she said pulling away awkwardly.
"I'm sorry to make you drive in this" he apologized.
"It sounded urgent"
"It's really good to see you. It's been forever" he half smiled.
"Johnny what's going on?" Emily questioned wanting to end the awkward exchange.
"It's about Matthew"
"Benton?" Emily nodded.
"He's dead Emily. I didn't want to tell you over the phone" he said as they took a seat at the bar.
"How?" Emily asked still in shock.
"His parents said that he died of a heart attack. I'm sorry" John said as he saw Emily's eyes begin to fill with tears.
"Had you seen him?" She said changing the subject.
"Yeah. A couple times"
"And? How was he?"
"He was Matthew, he was rambling and a little chaotic"
"He was using" Emily nodded.
"I don't know. Probably" he admitted. Emily read his face, he was holding something back from her and she needed to know what.
"There's something your not telling me"
"The last time I saw him, there was something different. He was talking crazy but the fear. I can't quite explain it but I know it was real"
"What was he saying?"
"He said 'Johnny they're going to kill me'"
"Who's they?"
"He wouldn't say. He said they already murdered a guy from Georgetown called Tommy V, and made it look like an accident"
"Do you know anyone named Tommy V?"
"No. Look he's probably just being paranoid but with what you do for a living now-"
"Yeah, yeah"
"I mean your one of the only people he ever trusted Emily"
"Okay" Emily said getting up from her stool she left the bar.
Matthew was dead. She needed time to deal with that and find out why he was acting so strangely so she went to the one place she knew felt safe.
As Emily got off the elevator she came face to face with Garcia.
"My goodness it's raining kitties and poodles out there did you hear that it might even snow?" Garcia said in her usual chipper mood.
"Did you manage to find anything on Tommy V?" Emily asked ignoring Garcia's question.
"If by any chance you mean Thomas Valentine aged 35 found dead in his home from dehydration, as a matter of fact- what's going on?" Garcia cut herself off seeing Emily frown at the report instead of smiling at her unusual musings.
"Is Hotch still here?" Emily asked as she began walking away, her nose still glued to the file.
"Oh I'm pretty sure he lives here" Garcia said.
"Thanks Garcia" Emily muttered walking off towards his office, leaving a very concerned Garcia behind her.

"What's wrong?" Hotch asked as Emily appeared at his doorway, broken.
"I just found out that an old friend of mine died"
"I'm sorry. Do you need to take some time?"
Emily let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding.
"There's a chance that he could've been murdered, and there might be a second case"
"What do you need?"
"Just some leeway to check it out"
"Of course anything"
"Thank you" she said turning away from him and leaving his office.
"Emily if you want to take a few days and let us look into it"
"Matthew was incredibly messed up, and I hadn't seen him in a long time but he was important to me" Emily managed to say, her voice breaking as tears threatened to fall.
"At least let us help"
"Thank you" Emily whispered before leaving his office. Hotch knew that Emily wanted to do this by herself. She hadn't let the team see her like this. Broken and lost. Hotch knew that Matthew was important to her because she hadn't let anything break her yet, but this. Losing him. It broke her.

Hotch called the team to gather in the conference room.
"Thanks for coming in early" Hotch said as they entered.
"Where's Morgan and Prentiss?" JJ asked.
"They're at the morgue examining this man. Mathew Benton a friend of Emily's. She believes that his death may be connected to that man's" Hotch said handing them each a file on the case.
"Thomas Valentine, dehydration? Did she know him?" Rossi asked after reading the file out loud.
"No, but Benton seemed to believe that someone was after both of them" Hotch explained.
"Wait one death was a heart attack the other was from dehydration what's the connection?" Reid asked.
"I don't know if there is one" Hotch admitted.
"Are the police investigating?" JJ asked.
"No, right now we're just helping a colleague"
"So we talk to the families see if there is anything suspicious" Rossi said.
"Is Emily ok?" JJ asked.
"I don't know that's why I sent Morgan to go with her" Hotch admitted.

Emily knew walking into the morgue would be hard but to see him dead was going to be much harder. She had lost friends and colleagues before but Matthew was different. Looking down at his dead lifeless body broke her heart.

"I'm scared" Emily admitted to him as she sat on the paper that covered the exam bed.
"Don't worry. It'll be alright" Matthew consoled her.
"Hold my hand?"
"Always" he smiled down at her holding her hand tightly, squeezing, telling her that she wasn't alone in this.

Matthew had always been there for her even at her lowest. Matthew meant so much to her.
"Is it possible someone could've induced the heart attack?" Morgan asked the medical examiner.
"They would've need to inject potassium and I would've found traces" she explained.
"There's no other way?" Emily asked, her eyes still fixed on Matthew.
"I suppose it's possible he could've been injected with epinephrine. It wouldn't register because it's similar to the natural adrenaline in the body" she explained.
Emily lifted the white sheet off his arms wanting to hold his hand but instead she found bruising.
"Was he tied?" Emily asked.
"The wounds are superficial" she explained.
"Anything else out of the ordinary?" Morgan asked.
"He bled heavily from his nose, the damage to his septum my guess is that there was prolonged abuse of cocaine" she explained.
"Yeah" Emily said faintly.
"And what about the other autopsy of Thomas Valentine?" Morgan asked.
"He died of dehydration. There were traces of prescription antisychotics in his system. I understand from his family he had a history of mental illness" she explained.
"Are these ligature marks?" Emily asked looking through the pictures in his report.
"Considering the history of self inflicted wounds and mental illness the police didn't suspect foul play" she explained.
"So you have two bodies with ligature marks"
"Each superficial"
"But you just dismiss them?" Emily questioned her growing more and more angry the more she spoke.
"There's no medical reason to connect these deaths" she explained.

JJ and Hotch were at the home of Mathew Benton hoping that his parents could offer some insight into their sons life.
"I don't understand why the FBI is interested in our son's death" Mrs Benton grumbled.
"We're investigating another death recently under similar circumstances. We just wanted to make sure there was no connection" Hotch explained.
"He suffered a heart attack" she grumbled again.
"It's just routine" Hotch said.
"There is nothing routine about investigating a heart attack" she grumbled once again.
"Andrea it's ok. I assume your investigation is drug related" Mr Benton butted in.
"We're just trying to rule out foul play. May we come in?" Hotch asked politely. Mrs Benton walked off further into the house and Mr Benton allowed them to enter.

"Do you mind my asking have you been burning insence?" Hotch asked.
"After Matthew died I burned some in the room to cleanse it" Mrs Benton explained.
"So he was living here with you?" JJ asked.
"We were hoping he could turn his life around. We were in New York for the weekend and when we came back we found his body here" Mr Benton explained.
"My son's soul was in the possession of evil" Said Mrs Benton.
"Do you have any experience dealing with drug addiction?" Mr Benton asked.
"We see a lot of it through our work" JJ said.
"Well it's an impossible thing to see happen to someone you love" Mr Benton said sadly.
"We're you aware that in the days before he died Matthew thought that someone was going to kill him?" Hotch asked.
"Where did you hear that?" Mr Benton asked.
"One of our team members agent Prentiss"
"Emily Prentiss?" Mrs Benton asked, her head spinning round at the mention of her name.
"Yes ma'am" JJ replied.
"She's the reason your here?" Mr Benton asked.
"We'd like you both to leave. Now" Mrs Benton said calmly.

"I told you not to mention me" Emily said.
"You didn't say it would get us kicked out" JJ threw back.
"Is there something we should know?" Hotch asked.
"Matthew and I met in Rome when we were 15, my mom was posted there. His parents didn't like us hanging out" Emily explained.
"And they still hold a grudge?" JJ asked.
"They were extremely religious. They thought I was a bad influence" Emily vaguely explained.
"You?" JJ asked.
"Yeah"
"And that's it?" Hotch asked.
"That's it" Emily lied to him. She hated lying to her friends but this was one secret she would take to the grave.