Cleopatra With a Gun

DAY ONE

Chapter 1

When ASAC Scully came for her, Prentiss was not expecting it. Scully stalked into the BAU office unapologetically. She ignored the stares and stopped at Prentiss's desk.

"Agent Prentiss? Would you please accompany me to Agent Hotchner's office?"

Prentiss hadn't seen her in years. Long before JTF-12, while still a young agent earning her investigative stripes, she and other agents in her branch office had been called to assist in the takedown of suspects identified by Scully and her partner, Fox Mulder. Scully had had redder, slightly shorter hair then, in a somewhat unforgiving bob hairsprayed off her face and into tractability. Prentiss had simply followed the orders of her immediate superior and it hadn't been an especially remarkable case from a junior agent's perspective. She'd put it aside in her memory, confident that it would not rear its head again. She hadn't had the time to follow either of their careers after that beyond noting from Bureau internal updates that Scully rose through the ranks and after a time, Mulder's name never appeared.

Prentiss had been one of many junior agents then. She had no reason to believe that Scully would remember her personally but this greeting implied the older agent recognized her. This meant that either Scully had a memory like Reid's or more likely, that she had read the personnel files and chosen Prentiss for whatever she had in mind ... and Prentiss was hardly going to find out what that was by staying here in the bullpen.

So she followed Scully, ignoring Reid and Morgan's curious and perturbed gazes and an uncharacteristically pissed-off look from JJ which she made a mental note to follow up on. As the two of them passed Rossi's room, he looked up and went carefully expressionless.

...

Inside Hotch's office, Scully began without preamble. "Agent Hotchner, I have a case that would benefit from the attention of a profiler. With your consent, I would like to consult with Prentiss on it."

"I can't readily spare her," Hotch replied without hesitation, "so unless she wants to help you, I won't order her to."

Prentiss had begun to shake her head but Scully turned her pale blue stare on her. "I didn't imagine this would be easy considering your history, but hear me out. The target is an international arms dealer ordinarily resident in Virginia. So far he's managed to keep his hands clean on US soil. No undercover work would be required of you, Prentiss, only the skills you exercise now. If we have to mount a sting, you won't be in the field but you would assist in planning and overseeing it and you would listen in on it and on the takedown, providing such guidance as you may. You're my first choice because unlike your colleagues, you already have experience of what participants in that trade are like. No other profiler in the Bureau would be as familiar as you with the spectrum of personalities and behaviour to expect of them."

She directed her cool regard at both of them impartially. Prentiss noted with detached envy that she was still a very attractive woman for her age. But though the hair was a softer look, she carried herself with more steely certainty than before. "It should be clear to you both that this is also a leadership-in-training opportunity. Prentiss, you have the seniority and the potential. Agent Hotchner, I imagine you can see the possible benefits for her and that you wouldn't want to hold her back."

Smooth, thought Prentiss. An attack on both fronts: temptation for me, emotional blackmail for Hotch, and all as deadpan as Hotch himself.

"I'd like to discuss this with Agent Hotchner in private," she said. "One of us will revert to you by the end of business today. How do we get in touch with you?"

"We're on the Counterterrorism floor. I believe you know Agent Todd. She's on this op. If you agree, I'll have a desk set up for you but of course, your permanent posting, and therefore your permanent desk, will still be here. It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that all this is need-to-know ... until it isn't. Agents." Scully nodded to them in farewell and left.

Prentiss looked at Hotch.

"She has a point, Prentiss. You deserve the opportunity for advancement I can't give you. We rarely carry out ops like that and when we do, I co-ordinate and lead them because in my position I must."

"I'm not looking to advance out of here!" Prentiss said with a note of outrage.

He held up his hand peaceably. "I know and I don't intend for you to go anywhere you don't want to. But consider the acquisition of additional skills, or reinforcement of existing skills you don't get to use here ... all of that will stand you in good stead. We never know what the future will bring."

He paused for a several seconds of thought, then waved at her to sit down. It had taken someone outside this unit to shake him out of his complacent belief in the status quo. Prentiss had been profiling for years in the field with JTF-12 before she came to the BAU. Morgan had come from SWAT and bomb disposal. So although he'd been with the BAU longer, Prentiss had as many years in profiling as he, just not here, and she had done a lot of that and a lot of behavioural analysis alone in the field under pressure. She was as senior as Morgan in service as a whole.

In hindsight, Hotch realized that Prentiss had been unofficially, mostly unconsciously, mentoring JJ and Reid from the very beginning. Morgan wanted people to lean on him and there was ego involved in that along with the loyalty and affection. Prentiss wanted the younger agents to stand on their own two feet, just better equipped for it than before she came along. Her instincts towards agents junior to her were those of a born leader.

And Morgan's reaction to her return, as well as Reid's, had been troubling Hotch ...

He said, "This is a good opportunity. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that you should take it. Scully had a rocky start but she's gathered for herself a formidable rep since she got out from being stuck with Mulder. You've said you hate politics but think of it as a chance to make a good friend who just happens to have rank. You'll learn things from her I can't teach you just because she's a different person with different experience. But as I said, I won't force you into anything you don't want to do and I'm going to hang onto you just as tightly as you want me to." He stood. "Stay in here if you like, and think it over. We'll talk again at four o'clock, since we have to give her a final answer before five."

He left. Prentiss drew the blinds between his room and the rest of the office and went to stare out of the window.