Not Everyone || Emily Prentiss

10.

«Seek what sets
your soul on fire.»

January 2024
(Months since Atalanta: 27)

April sat at her desk, spinning her phone around in her hands and staring blankly into space.

It had been a week since the New Year and the office was starting to settle back into something resembling routine after the holiday season.

Yes, everyone was finally getting back to normal. Everyone but her, apparently.

Her little run-in with Emily had hit her harder than she expected.

The woman was vicious.

Of all the possible scenarios she had run through in her head, Emily Prentiss going nuclear over what happened in Atalanta two years prior had not been one of them.

April slapped her phone down.

She really needed to stop thinking about that situation. Emily had said her piece, she wanted nothing to do with her, and that was that. She didn't particularly want anything to do with the chief of the FBI.

There was only one reason she couldn't stop replaying the conversation over and over in her head and that was her pride.

For her whole life, she had always been well-liked. She was a hard worker, and she did her best not to stand on anyone's toes that didn't deserve it.

She had even managed to win over Emily Prentiss once.

That was the first time she had ever burnt a bridge.

And that time the bridge was fucking ash and she didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of fixing it.

If there was one thing she hated, it was a conflict without resolution.

When she had walked away in Atalanta, it was one of the messier moments of her life but at least Emily's reference had felt like closure. Proof that the grey-haired chief didn't hate her. That maybe she'd understood why she had done what she'd done, to a degree.

Maybe she had understood it, but had she accepted it? Apparently not.

No, if New Year's Eve was anything to go by, Emily Prentiss had been clinging to some fairly choice words about her exit for quite some time.

Why would she even care? There were a million other agents lining up to replace her anyway, April thought in irritation.

She shook her head and flicked her phone away with the tips of her fingers, turning her attention back to her computer.

Dwelling on this was a pointless exercise.

It was done.

_____

Rossi stood outside Emily's office and watched as she dressed down her new agent in training.

As the new boy turned and bolted out the door, brushing past him in the process, he steeled himself and entered the lair, closing the door behind him.

Emily looked up from a file on her desk and raised an eyebrow at the closed door.

"Did you request a closed-door meeting? Because all I have on my schedule is a ten minutes to discuss the combined BKA re-contract deal after our collaboration, one of which you've already wasted"

"They're still running the numbers, as we're in our first year the board is discussing additional finance" - he shrugged.

"As expected. Is that all?" - Emily replied, her attention turning back to whatever was in front of her.