❝'Never trust a survivor,' my father used to warn me, 'until you find out what he did to stay alive'.❞

KURT VONNEGUT

✩

0.9 : we understand each other

OR

season 6, episode 16 : coda (ctd.)

WHILE HOTCH, EMILY, SHERIFF OLIVER, AND A SWAT TEAM CLEAR THE UNSUB'S HOUSE, FIN, MORGAN, ROSSI, AND SPENCER ARE STANDING ON THE DOCK, STARING AT BILL THOMAS'S BOAT. Sammy, beautiful, sweet Sammy, helped them figure it out. He was trying to tell them all along, drawing them pictures and playing them songs. Fin wishes she'd seen it earlier.

 Morgan's phone rings, and he picks it up. Fin hears Hotch's voice faintly over the tiny speaker: "Morgan, he's not here."

"I know, Hotch," Morgan replies. "We got him."

Fin rolls up her blouse sleeves, staring through the tiny boat window at Thomas. She glances over at Rossi, leaning on the SUV door, and then at Spencer, holding his gun down at his side warily.

Morgan raises his eyebrows at her, and she pulls her own gun out, nodding.

"Bill Thomas!" Morgan calls, stepping forward. "This is the FBI! Give yourself up! Your boat is surrounded! We don't want anyone else to get hurt, Bill!"

Thomas whips his head around to look at them, and then disappears, away from the window.

"Turn yourself in!" Morgan continues, but there's no response, no reappearance.

Another squad car pulls up, and Sheriff Oliver and several other cops jump out.

"All right, listen up," Morgan says, looking over at them. "We move in as soon as SWAT is in position."

"What's going on in there?" asks Spencer, frowning, and Fin shakes her head.

"I've got a guess, but I don't like it."

And then there's a gunshot and Morgan springs into action. "Move in!"

Fin takes a deep breath, heart racing, and follows him, Rossi and Spencer right on her heels. They hurry down the gangplank and onto the boat, the smell of saltwater, fish, and oil sharp in Fin's nose.

Morgan hurries down the stairs and the moment her head clears the ceiling, Fin sees Charlie and Alison at the other end of the boat. Charlie's propped up against the wall, head lolling lifelessly, and Alison's curled up next to his legs, crying softly. There's a gun next to her on the floor.

She looks to her right and sees the prone figure of Bill Thomas, a hole in his chest, blood seeping from beneath him.

Her guess was wrong.

Morgan glances up at Fin, gestures to her gun wordlessly. She nods and keeps it slightly elevated. He holsters his own and steps toward Charlie and Alison. "Ma'am. Ma'am, are you hurt?"

Alison lifts her head, almost dazed, and shakes it slowly. Morgan picks up the gun quickly and hands it back to Fin, who takes the magazine out, shoving it in her back pocket. She watches as Morgan kneels down, attempting to get Alison to stand up, but she refuses to leave Charlie's side.

Fin's no doctor, but even from here, she can see that Charlie's dead.

It's only when the EMTs arrive that Alison can be persuaded to leave, to let them examine her husband, and Fin helps her up the stairs and out onto the dock, where Spencer joins them to wait for Sammy and his aunt.

After what seems like hours of standing there, Alison leaning heavily on Fin's arm, a squad car pulls up, and a police officer opens the back door for Sammy. Alison gasps and stumbles toward her son, dropping to her knees on the asphalt, sobbing quietly.

And Sammy reaches out for her, grabbing her shoulder, patting her gently as he stares out at the boats in the marina. Behind them, the coroner zips up the black bag and loads it into his van.

Spencer sniffs next to Fin, and his hand brushes hers lightly.

She doesn't pull away.

✩

It is already late when the plane lands in Quantico, and Fin is exhausted. She would have slept on the plane, but lately her sleep has been infested with draining nightmares that usually end in her waking up screaming or yelling, and that's rather difficult to explain when you're supposed to have been away in Greece having the time of your life, rather than chasing down your serial killer mother and bringing up old trauma every ten seconds.

But she is craving pastries from her favorite café downtown, so she drives past her safe house into downtown Quantico, parking right in front of the cute little corner bakery. It's her favorite place because they're open until midnight, and for some reason, Fin always ends up craving a danish or a chocolate croissant around eleven p.m.

Five minutes later, with a cherry danish in hand and infinitely happier, Fin's about to get back in her car when she spots a familiar dark head of hair sitting at a table in the park just across the street, a cup of coffee in front of her and a second cup across the table.

Fin frowns. She's not sure what Emily's doing here at midnight with two cups of coffee, but something deep in her gut tells her it's not right.

So she crosses the street, plastering a smile on her face, and walks up to the table. "Emily, hey! What are you doing out here so late?"

Emily starts, apparently deep in thought, and whips her head around to look at Fin. "Oh, god–Uh, hi. I'm–I'm just meeting a friend." She gestures to the unattended coffee cup across from her.

"At midnight on a Thursday?" Fin raises her eyebrows. "That's an interesting time to meet a friend. Is it a guy?"

"Fin, you really can't be here right now." Emily looks over her shoulder, chewing on her lip anxiously. "It's–it's not safe."

Fin's stomach twists uncomfortably. "Emily, what's going on? Is something–?"

"Stop." Emily holds up her hand, cutting Fin off. "Please don't ask. It's something personal, and I'm handling it."

"Em, if you're in danger–"

"I am handling it," Emily repeats forcefully, eyes narrowed.

Fin opens her mouth to protest, but Emily cuts her off again. "If you ask me about my personal life, I'm entitled to ask you about yours. And I don't think you want that."

Emily's right. Fin shakes her head. "That's different–"

"Is it?" Emily raises her eyebrows. "I don't think so. I didn't spend eight months doing God knows what, but we both have things in our past. We both have ghosts that haunt us. But mine are for me to handle, and yours are for you to handle. We understand each other. Right?"

Fin desperately wants to push further, to force Emily to let her help, but she already feels like a hypocrite for even asking. So she just nods. "Okay. Good night, Emily."

As she walks away, Fin feels as though she's made a mistake, but Emily's right. If she wants to help other people, she has to let other people help her, and she can't do that. She just can't.

And despite the fact that Emily says they understand each other, she can't possibly have a serial killer for a mother.

She can't understand how it feels to have someone deluded into thinking you love them. Watching your every move. Wanting to take away the things you love most.

That's something you have to experience to understand.

~

ugh this chapter sucked and it was really short. i'm so sorry. but i've got to move the plot along somehow. 

but i promise the story picks up from here! so that's good at least.

edit: also i forgot to mention, yes i changed the location of em's meetup with doyle from dc to quantico because irl quantico is at least an hour by car to dc, and if the bau headquarters is in quantico, then it makes absolutely no sense for any of them to live or honestly do anything work-related in dc. so I'm fixing a minor plothole simply for my own sanity.