This is my contribution to the speculation on how the writers will handle the network's incredibly boneheaded decision regarding AJ Cook and Paget Brewster. It's dark. It's not happy.

Warnings: Character Death ahead. Graphic descriptions.

It had been almost a year since that day. Sunday would be the official year mark, and he'd be doing anything to avoid thinking about it. Or rather, he wanted to avoid any reminders of it like the proverbial plague, but knew that wasn't going to happen.

His pain wasn't as bad as hers, Morgan knew that, and he also knew he wouldn't let her be alone on Sunday. Emily would want to; she'd try to throw him out, push him away, and stew in her misery alone. And, he'd push back. A year ago, he'd have said she would end up shouting at him, and threatening him with bodily harm. Now though? Now, she barely raised her voice past a loud whisper.

Emily Prentiss was barely recognizable now. And, it had nothing to do with the physical scars.

Like every day she'd been at work since, she was wearing long sleeves. A white blouse, clean, pressed, as perfect as she could make it, and one of the few places she had control. Screw the no profiling rule, he hadn't adhered to it in year, not with her anyway.

She sat at her desk, carefully scribbling notes on a legal pad, reviewing one of her stack of consult requests. Her usually neat, elegant penmanship was not as tight as it used to be, not as precise. The loops were awkward, the lines slightly crooked, the letters not quite all the same size. No matter how hard she tried it wasn't what it used to be, and she did try, so hard it was like she was paying penance.

She was.

But, it wasn't her fault.

Emily sensed his gaze, and instead of meeting it and asking what the hell he was staring at, she ignored him, and tugged her sleeves over her hands. She didn't need to hide it from him, Morgan wished so much she'd realize that. The twisted, distorted skin on her hands, red and shiny, still hideous even after several plastic surgeries. It disfigured both hands and traveled completely up her right arm, and her right side, stretching across the bottom of her right breast, down over most of her tummy. The same raw, destroyed skin was smattered over her right thigh, and lower back.

He knew her injuries that intimately.

Not from what would be the obvious assumption. He'd never slept with her. Though, he still found her beautiful, even with the horrendous scarring marring her pale skin. To him, it didn't say damaged, it didn't say ugly; it said one word he found more beautiful than the rest: survivor.

He was the one that got to her first, that caught her when she fell, hysterical into his arms, begging them to help JJ. The bomb went off at 10pm the night before, destroying most of the police precinct, killing over 3 dozen cops and assorted personnel, and trapping two FBI agents in a parking garage.

No. Just one FBI agent.

They managed to bust in and find the girls just after seven a.m. After Morgan caught a trembling, crying Emily, Rossi, Reid and Hotch had walked ten feet to find JJ. Emily had been partially protected from the blast by thick column. JJ hadn't been protected by anything.

The only recognizable part of her had been those brilliant blue eyes, staring up blankly at nothing. Her flesh was blackened and burnt flaking and cracking, revealing red fissures where it exposed her insides. Most of her long, blonde hair was gone. The air had smelled liked meat left to cook too long in the over, with just the tiniest hint of decomp. JJ had been dead since the blast went off, and it was both women who'd cooked.

There was no way Emily should have been standing, not with the extensive burning on her body—third degree on her hands and forearms, severe second-degree everywhere else. They eventually determined that Emily had come-to not long after the blast, and beat away the fire still eating at JJ, burning herself further. That she'd passed out soon after that, a concussion consuming her, and woken up at some later point. Something in her must have snapped, because she hadn't believed her friend dead.

They'd found pieces of Emily's burnt skin on JJ's right hand—the one Emily had held, trying to bring comfort to a dead woman. Morgan couldn't confirm it, but he'd bet that Emily had probably talked to her as well. They'd also eventually found the piece of concrete floor with her blood on it, the cause of the concussion, which had been severe enough to be classified as a traumatic brain injury. As far as those go, the doctors said hers wasn't too bad. She got lucky.

They hadn't bothered trying to tell her that JJ couldn't be helped at the scene. She wouldn't have believed it, between the head injury and trauma she was barely coherent. Morgan had promised her that Hotch and Rossi would look after JJ, and carried a very weak Emily out to the paramedics.

Reid had been throwing up in a corner. Morgan had thrown up at the hospital. He assumed Rossi and Hotch found a place to puke when they got a chance. Garcia had sobbed uncontrollably for a week.

He'd ridden with Emily in the ambulance, and stroked her head while the paramedics tried to separate her burnt clothing from her burnt skin. She'd writhed in agony, the pain finally registering, and eventually passed out. He'd seen the damage. Seen the frustrated, sick look on the EMT's face as he gave up trying to get her burnt clothes off. The doctors had handled that, as well as the numerous surgeries afterward.

Emily hadn't been able to go to JJ's funeral because she was in a hyperbaric chamber being pumped full of pain medication. He'd taken her to the grave site after she was released from the hospital, months after the bomb. Six months after it, she'd walked back into work. A year later, she still wasn't cleared for the field, and they weren't sure she ever would be.

Now, she primarily handled consults. She handled all of her own, and he and Reid frequently found their stacks shrinking instead of growing. She did come on some cases, after Hotch had assessed her physical and mental state for that particular day. Her mental state didn't change much, but if she was fighting a migraine, or the deep nerve aches in her fingers and palms, she stayed home. And, she never argued.

That's what bothered him the most.

Physically, she was alive, but mentally, she was as far from the Emily he knew, as he could imagine. She hardly talked, rarely cracked a joke or even uttered a sarcastic sentence-never argued, never debated, never flirted, never teased…she just existed. She did her work, stayed late if it was a good day, went home, and came back in the next day. She didn't even really smile, only when nothing short of faking one would get them to leave her alone. Even the ray of sunshine that was Penelope Garcia couldn't pull a genuine one from her.

Of course, they couldn't expect to pull a smile from her while her eyes were utterly lifeless. Not glazed, not unfocused, just not alive. Not the same eyes that had erupted in brightness when he admitted to being familiar with Kilgore Trout. He missed those eyes. He missed her.

She'd stopped writing, and he noted that her eyes were unfocused now, staring somewhere past him. That look was usually reserved for when she came near JJ's office. Emily had gotten into a habit of freezing outside of it, and standing there and staring at nothing for several minutes. He knew she was seeing something in her head, and he often wondered what memory was playing out. Morgan hoped it was happy, and not the bomb.

Their new media liaison had been rather freaked out by this little mannerism. The woman was barely 25, far too young to be on the team, but fresh-faced and attractive enough to represent the Bureau. Morgan had explained the situation to her, and after a minute of quiet empathy, she'd reiterated her feelings. It was creepy, she didn't like it, and maybe Agent Prentiss shouldn't be at the Bureau anymore.

Morgan had never struck a woman, at least not one that wasn't an unsub, but god help him, he'd wanted to show that girl a fast right hook. Instead, he'd warned the girl to watch herself, and walked out, almost looking forward to the day one of their cases gave her a figurative right hook. Still, she hadn't said anything to Emily, and he thanked her for that, though he suspected it was because the girl was completely freaked out by her.

He couldn't entirely blame her for that. JJ's memory haunted all of them, but Emily herself was like a living ghost wandering the BAU. Part of her died that day with JJ, and he was just hoping it wasn't such a big part that she couldn't be resuscitated. Some days he wondered if she hadn't really died that day, and the woman they saw wasn't some spirit conjured up by their own desperate need.

Then she did something unghost-like, and he knew she wasn't. Like now.

Her hands were on either side of her head, resting against her temples, her eyes squeezed shut. Normally, she'd be trying to massage away the approaching migraine—a gift from the concussion—but something was stopping her.

"Why don't you go home, Prentiss?" He said gently.

Without opening her eyes, she said quietly, "Wouldn't be able to hold the steering wheel."

And, he realized it was one of those days. The migraine and the nerve pain hit together, and she could barely function the pain was so encompassing. "I'll give you a ride."

She looked at him, squinting slightly against the light, tears hanging in her eyes. Then she nodded, accepting his help.

"Reid," he called. The younger man looked up, and Morgan nodded to Emily. "Going home."

Reid nodded then. If Hotch asked, he'd tell him where they were. The genius had been much quieter since the explosion as well, but made a point to visit his godson every single week, since JJ died. Morgan was proud of him.

He let Emily push herself out of the chair, but gently guided her out with a hand on her back. She didn't seem to mind, but then she was struggling against the light and sounds around. He wondered if she'd taken her migraine medication. In the car, he snapped her belt on, so she didn't have to use her hands, and headed toward her home.

"It'll be a year on Sunday." Her quiet voice startled him into nearly careening off the road.

"Yeah, I know," he managed once he'd gathered his wits.

"I don't…I don't want to be alone." Head tilted back, eyes squeezed shut, hands cradled protectively against her chest, and he was surprised to see tears silently sliding down her cheeks.

It wasn't the pain, or rather, the physical pain.

Morgan touched her tentatively, gently squeezing her shoulder in lieu of her hand. "You won't be."

A nod and a shaky inhale was her only response, as she went mute again, and struggled not to let the pain overwhelm her.

And, Morgan had a little hope.

My intention was to develop a scenario where JJ was gone and Prentiss was only part-time on cases. The latter was more difficult, because well, I can't see her happy riding a desk. This was the first thing that popped into my head (yes, it's that dark there), so I went with it.

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