Emily Prentiss One-Shots

Emily/Rossi

Title: Gold Star For Trying - SSAScorpSik(Ao3)

Summary: Emily and Dave reconnect after the events in CME

Rating: General

A/N: I have absolutely no excuse for my ghost. Forgive me please? Anyway, love y'all <3

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David Rossi grunted in discomfort as he made his way to the door. He had only been back a couple of hours... Hell, he'd only returned to his home at all a few weeks ago and it still felt strange. Quiet. He never minded the silence when he'd been a bachelor – but as a widower? It was unbearable. The house was growing messy and he hadn't yet bothered to reactivate the alarm system or camera, so when there was a soft but persistent knock at his door, he opened it blindly.

Stood at his doorway was Emily Prentiss, her eyes already filled with emotion, her face betraying a nervousness at being here. It was the same look she had some fifteen years ago when they had been alone and she opened her heart to him about her past.

"Dave." she whispered, her hand reaching out to softly touch the fresh wound on his forehead.
He was about to step back, to step aside and invite her in, but before he could do any of that, she moved towards him, her arms around him, pulling his body against hers.

"I'm okay." He assured her.

She didn't let go, one hand stroking the short hair at the back of his head, the other still wrapped around his shoulders.

Dave closed his eyes, smelling her scent and feeling her soft hair against his cheek and neck. For a moment, he thought it was Krystall in his arms and he squeezed more tightly, his tears absorbed by her hair, his shaking shoulders caressed by her hands. And he cried. He cried until he had nothing left and still she held him.

Emily had been worried since the second Dave's phone went dead. She was scared when she learned that Tyler Green had been tracking him. She had been terrified when it became clear that Sicarius had Dave. She had almost thrown up when that image appeared on screen – Dave; beaten and afraid, somewhere in the dark, calling for help. 'Help. Help. Help me.'

She nearly lost it at that point. She wanted to run to him. She would run through Sicarius' traps for him; through his explosions; through his fucking spiders. Whatever It took. She wanted to put a bullet in Sicarius' brain. She wanted to empty her magazine into that son of a bitch for hurting Dave.

And then? Then as she stood, impotent, in her office, hearing the reports and watching on the vest cams, she thought everything was crashing down around her. Dave was still missing; Will was shot in the vest and then...

"Emily?" Dave whispered, prising her arms from around him. He could see the tears still pouring from her eyes and he gently wiped as many as he could away. "This isn't just for me is it?" He paused. "Bailey?"

"He should never have been there!" she hissed.

"He thought he could handle it." Dave noted.

"He never even fired his gun in the field, you know that?" she said. "Shit, he'd probably never even BEEN in the field! It should have been me, Dave."

"Lying on Voit's kitchen floor with a bullet in your head? No."

"But I could have –"

"NO Emily." He said more firmly. "I know you worked with the guy, and I know you got to know him more than the rest of us... but he made a choice, Emily. Gold Star? Whatever the Hell that is it links the DOJ to a killer like Voit and he CHOSE to keep that a secret and try to bluff his way through. That's dumb, Emily – you know it, right?"

Emily nodded sadly.

"We all make choices. Our job is to put away the bad guys right? No matter what."

"No matter what." Emily agreed.

"You've been doing that for years. You put your life on the line more than once because it was the right thing to do. So have I. We are alike in that. But he chose to keep that connection a secret. He could have confided in you and broken the chain but he didn't. That's on HIM. He's not like us, Emily. He was all about the politics and not about doing what is right." He stopped and gauged the reaction in Emily's eyes. "I know that's tough to hear, but it is the truth. And now we have to try and find out what this Gold Star actually means – because if we can't trust the people who send us out into the field, then we are all dead."