This story mostly takes place in season 11 on, with a little tweaking of the timeline on my part, but there are also characters/plot points from earlier seasons. Some more notes at the end.

It had all started in the BAU headquarters, and it was fitting that was where it would end too. In all fairness, it wasn't an ending. It was a new beginning. But to her it felt like an ending. She had been called back three times. The first wasn't a choice, and neither was the second. This time it was technically optional, but it didn't feel like it. It felt like an obligation, strangely enough a familial one.

After all of those years that feeling of kinship hadn't changed, but a lot of things had. She looked out from his- now her- office at the BAU bullpen. People had passed through the block of desks. Different agents of different ages and backgrounds had drifted in and out of the bullpen. Supervisors had come and gone- even permanently gone in the way of death. So much had changed and here she was yet again. The rest of the unit had felt like it was all sorted. To them everything was finalized. The BAU was going to be okay. Granted, Hotch was gone and so was Morgan, and even Strauss, but Emily Prentiss had just taken the job as Unit Chief. She was officially there to save them. She was there to bring them stability, and they were going back to the good old days. Things would feel familiar, safe, and most of all normal again. But to her, well, she knew it was just the beginning.

There was just so much she had left unsaid after she moved to London. She could lie to them, and herself even, and claim it wasn't done on purpose, but the fact was that it was. Years ago she had cut herself off out of self-preservation and now she had to come back into the flock. It would be easy to blame it on Doyle. It would add up as cop-outs go, but Emily's shutting off from the BAU's world was about someone else entirely. As a consequence, there was so much she needed to tell them. Strangely enough, it was the newest Agent Alvez who had noticed it first.

Sure, the first signs had been around six months earlier, but no one knew to the extent. First, Rossi had casually dropped in conversation that there was a "someone" in Emily's life. It was something she had off-hand mentioned to Garcia. It was nothing she thought that would be overly fixated on. Then again, it was Garcia so maybe she should've realized it would be spread around. Yes, a year prior she had sneakily- well she had hoped- dropped into conversation there was someone in her life. "Someone" was where the information began and ended. On the copycat murder case, after talking with Rossi and JJ about the resignation of Derek, he had mentioned it.

"You know, I can't believe it," Rossi said as he feigned hurt, "The whole ride down here, you didn't mention them once." Confused, Emily looked at the man before he continued on, "I'm just saying."

"What? Morgan? Ok, guys, I'm sorry. I was going to. I was just giving you space. I mean, he just left…You must still be raw. I remember leaving you guys both times. I was heartbroken. I'm sure he's gonna be ok. He's with his family, and he's- Morgan. How are you guys doing? You holding up?" She rambled on awkwardly.

The blonde also not catching on to whatever Rossi was hinting at answered, "Yeah. I mean, some days are better than others."

"Actually," Rossi cut in with a devious smile, "I was giving you a hard time over your someone." Rossi chuckled as he looked over to JJ, who covered her own confusion with a slight laugh.

"Wait-how do you know about that?" Emily shot back. Her expression was of confusion, but also slight irritation and distress. Before the older profiler could really focus on it though, JJ had inadvertently covered for her.

"Oh, come on, I'll give you one guess." JJ has said it flatly, devoid of emotion besides a touch of amusement.

And immediately as Emily had simply replied "Garcia," for some inexplicable reason she felt hit by a feeling of sadness. Just like that, the moment was over, but it was a moment she had been purposefully avoiding. She could never explain why, but for some reason she felt the need to shield JJ from that part of her life. She felt guilty. It was why she was so cagey with the technical analyst to begin with. Garcia had more leaks than the Titanic and Emily desperately didn't want JJ to know.

Emily had carefully guarded this "someone," but the brunette definitely noticed JJ noticing her taking personal phone calls from her partner. She knew the younger woman picked up on how quick she was to write off talking about her "person," at the end of the case under the guise of talking about it on some "girl's night" that they both knew would never come. The case had been hard on Emily. It had been painful to her, and if it was five years ago Emily probably would have confessed to JJ in a corner of some dark room that it was one the few cases that made her feel a compulsive need for revenge. But it wasn't five years ago. It was now, so those feelings went unsaid.

And like clockwork the subject of Emily's new life was brought up again few months later when Tara had sympathized with Emily being torn over taking the job.

"But you've got a life back in London and someone waiting for you at home."

It was complicated for her. She did have a life back in London. Could it compete with life at the BAU? Well, not much could. On somedays, when it was quiet and she was left alone to get lost in her thoughts, she would find herself drifting back to ten years prior. Before Doyle and Haley's death and Will- back to when she was young and brand new and no one trusted her but JJ. Oddly enough, when she was living through that time she thought she was so unhappy- so frustrated with the BAU and its own version of mistrustful hazing. Now she looked back on those years like they were her best. But, as time does, the years had passed and it felt like life had been slowly pushing the group down a path where she was constantly being broken. Whenever she would start to idealize her time at the BAU she would have to remind herself it wasn't all 2006. There was a reason she left. There was a reason she rebuilt.

She had let on to Tara that it was something that was hardly on her mind given the circumstances, but the fact was that every spare second since talking to Rossi she mulled over the decision. She felt compelled not to intermix her old and new lives. It had been hard to even create a new life. It was painful and taxing to move on, and now she was throwing all her hard emotional work away. She had created distance when she had thought it impossible for years. She had finally moved on. For once, she hadn't spent her time waiting and pining. Even with all these things considered, Emily had called home to let her know she would be staying a little longer than anticipated. The other woman had offered to visit her the next week. Even on the phone call Emily had claimed that she had yet to decide for sure one way or another. It wasn't until she really looked into those familiar blue eyes that she decided.

"You ok?" JJ gently asked after she tentatively approached the brunette who had been gazing out the window of the jet.

"Yeah, I'm just glad we found those kids," Emily replied in a tired voice as she moved to face JJ and Reid.

"Oh, yeah, me, too," JJ slightly fumbled before she continued on, "But, uh, I was talking about that other thing." The truth was she sick of Emily's coming and goings. She had gotten used to seeing her everyday. She had missed seeing her everyday. She had missed the coffee and snacks and snark. She had desperately missed looking over and sharing looks of frustration, comedy, reassurance, and idea-sharing with her. All these years later and she still really didn't know how to articulate who Emily was to her. What she was sure of though was that she had missed Emily so, and couldn't explain the sense of elation she felt when Rossi had told them Hotch had recommended Emily for his old job. Truthfully, even though she had known Hotch longer and he was more consistently in her life, she didn't even feel an urge to grieve their departed long-standing boss. It felt like purely good news: Emily was back.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to you guys. What do you think?" Emily asked, and JJ was content to let Reid respond for them both.

"I think we've been through a lot of changes and we always figure it out, you know? Morgan left, and now Hotch, but if you stay, it'll be ok."

JJ observed the other woman's body language, the little cues that only she had picked up on over the past few years, and was visibly happy when it looked like Emily was receptive to what Reid had been saying. "Well, I made some phone calls…"

"And?" JJ cut in.

"I'm working on it."

"Well, that's a good start." JJ felt like such a child, but she felt compelled to remind the other woman there was a time frame. There would be nothing crueler than Emily losing out on the job because she took too long to answer, "But they need an answer in the morning, right?"

"I know."

"Here's the truth," Reid began, and JJ was eternally grateful he was helping in lobbying Emily to stay, "If you don't take the position, they're gonna bring in some stranger to be the Unit chief. And I don't know how that'll turn out, but the learning curve could be brutal."

"It'll probably stink for us, but look, we're your friends and we'll support you no matter what you decide," JJ had offered, but Emily could see it in her eyes: the desperate hope. It was the yearning. It was the same look they had continued to give each other over the years that had gotten them into so much trouble; that had given them so much heartache. In that moment Emily didn't think of the mixing of her past and present. She didn't think of all the hurt and love and pain and affection she and JJ had shared over the past nine, nearly ten years. No, before she could even think about what she was agreeing to she said it.

"I'm gonna stay."

And there she was a few hours later, alone in the BAU she was now leading. She had made the decision, and now she had to make the call. Actually, she had made a decision and told the team first, which she was sure was against the rules. She fidgeted with her left ring finger and thought back to the conversation she had with Luke a couple weeks prior. It had happened just a few days after Rossi had once again brought up the dreaded personal life questions. He had simply asked her if things were going okay and if she was being treated well, both of which she could honestly answer "yes" to. However, later Luke had pushed it a bit farther. Right as she was going to leave him to catch up with JJ and Garcia for a drink, after she had promised to keep his Army assignment between them, he had called back to her. "One more thing I noticed."

"Whaaat," Emily jokingly drawled out. Although, she really did want to leave to get that drink.

"The control thing- I will admit I did not pick that up from you not wanting to piss in the woods."

"Mhmm."

Alvez shared a small smile with the woman before he shook his head, "It was about. It was about how, you know, people who normally do that," he nodded toward her twirling of her fingers around her left ring finger, "They normally wear rings." Emily immediately stopped before he continued on, "That's the control thing I meant: controlling the flow of information." Slightly annoyed, the older woman had made a point to laugh good-naturedly and remark she was getting profiled too much that week. But even as the month went on it stuck out to her. She knew they would all notice eventually.

Emily thought of the interaction as she sat down at the stately wooden desk that now belonged to her, and picked up her phone. She traced the spot on the desk where Hotch had kept a picture of Jack. She thought of the perfect picture of her blonde wife she was going to put in its place before her call was answered.

"Hey, about our earlier conversation, yeah, I think you should ask for that transfer."

I got some requests to write something using the later seasons (and also to make it a little happier) so this is a slow-burn story that I think meets both of those requests. A lot of Emily/JJ stories seem to have a similar trajectory and I think I've found a way to do it a little differently.

If this is something you're interested in, drop a review and I'll keep going with it.