#MY CO-PILOT THROUGH LIFE : KRYSTAL | ✰

[brywrites]

Flight Risk (Bonus)

You know I can’t leave well enough alone and I just couldn’t resist writing about that scene in the series finale in the context of this story. Spoilers for the finale below, of course! Summary: An answer to the age old CM question, “who’s flying the plane?” And the story of a pilot and a profiler. 

Bonus Part: In which a profiler protects a pilot and a pilot loses something important. Five years later.

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“We’re gonna have to make a trade,” Rossi declares. Every head in the room turns to him.

“What kind of trade?” Luke asks.

“Lynch wants to make a clean getaway,” Rossi says. The words hang heavy in the air. Nervous glances are traded across the roundtable as they begin to understand exactly what this means.

“No,” Reid says. “No, we can’t.���

“If we play the cards right, maybe we won’t have to,” Rossi counters.

“Maybe?” he shouts. “I’m not going to risk my wife flying a psychopathic killer across the country in the hopes that maybe we’ve profiled Lynch correctly!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice but he can’t help it. He won’t allow this.

“Hey,” Rossi snaps back. “Right now that psychopathic killer is holding my wife hostage, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Reid signs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.” But still – it’s Y/N. He cannot lose her, not after everything they’ve been through, not when he’s let himself believe for so long that he can keep her safe. Not now, especially not now. “But I don’t want her on that jet with him. And I don’t want Arthur or Martin or Fikayo or any of the BAU pilots on that jet. They’re part of her team, and I won’t do that to her.”

The tension in the room is palpable as he and Rossi stare each other down. They’ve never argued like this before, and Reid hates it but he won’t back down.

“There might be another way,” Emily offers. “We can get a few of the Corps pilots on standby. They’ll have the training to take Lynch out if needed. We tell him they won’t leave U.S. airspace and we go from there. I’ll even have one of them bring the jet out. Y/N doesn’t even need to know.” Right now, Y/N is safe at home, maybe even asleep by now. He tries not to think of how she’d react if she knew that they were about to pawn Geff off to a serial killer. They’ve always treated it as their jet, but while it may fall under their department, they merely use it as a means to an end. Y/N is the captain, if Geff belongs to anyone he belongs to her.

But he knows that if Y/N were the one being held hostage, he’d do whatever it took to get her back. “Okay,” he says.

---

As it turns out, Lynch knows how to fly a plane. He’s taken Rossi as collateral, and Geff is prepared for takeoff. “Prentiss, come on, you said we needed a great plan,” Matt says through gritted teeth.

“And we have one,” she says. “There are things none of you know about that jet.” But Reid kows precisely what she’s talking about, because Y/N knows all of Geff’s secrets. There are hidden compartments Gideon commissioned, and one of them happens to hold a gun. He only hopes it’s enough to stop Lynch and save Rossi. Maybe they can still pull it off and save the day and the jet can return to the hangar without so much as a scratch.

A gunshot rings out through the darkness and they hold their breath – but then it’s two and then three and then Rossi is tumbling down the jet stairs. Prentiss and Matt rush over to grab him off the ground and pull him to safety while the rest of them keep their weapons trained on the cockpit. A smug grin peeks out at them and it makes Reid furious. That monster shouldn’t be sitting there in her seat, on her plane.

As they try to gauge Rossi’s status, Reid fires towards Lynch. Every shot just ricochets, the plane that has kept them safe protecting the man who wants to destroy them. The engines of the jet roar to life. Geff is starting down the runway. Reid and the rest of the team take off running. They shoot at the plane, some aiming for the cockpit, others aiming for the body of the jet.

“Fire at the fuel tank!” Prentiss yells. And so they do, hoping to ensure that Lynch can’t get off the ground. The fuel begins to leak from the tanks, an acidic smell rising in the air as it trails behind the jet.

“Get back!” JJ shouts. “Take cover!” They all do so without hesitation. Reid barely has time to look over his shoulder and see JJ fire the flare gun. This wasn’t part of the plan. The trail of fuel alights in a terrifying blaze and Reid realizes exactly what is about to happen. He can’t help but stare at it one last time – at Geff, the name his beloved pilot has always insisted on calling the jet. The jet that has carried his team to hell and back again. The plane that led him to the greatest love in his life. It’s just a plane, he tries to tell himself. But he knows it’s much more than that.

The explosion is loud and bright and violent. As he ducks he can see the aircraft break into pieces from the force. And when he looks up, it is nothing but a frightening field of flames with a barely intact metal tail sticking out from the fire. The team stands there, staring at the wreckage in a somber silence. The jet meant something to all of them. It only feels right to mourn its passing quietly.

But then it hits him. “Y/N is going to kill me,” Reid says. Luke is the first to laugh, and soon the whole team is chuckling, shaking their heads. It breaks the tension hanging over them.

“Yeah good luck with that,” Luke says, trying to suppress a smile.

“I’m serious!” Reid squeaks. “How am I supposed to tell her we killed her plane?”

“That’s rough buddy,” Matt says, clapping him on the shoulder. This sends JJ and Luke into further laughter. The smell of kerosene is strong, and it’s time to go. They get Rossi and Krystal and pack into the SUVs, leaving the burning past behind them.

---

Love is a safe place to land, and there’s nowhere he wants to touch down more than in her embrace. When he gets home, he finds Y/N still awake in their bed, rereading Peter Pan. “Oh thank goodness you’re home,” she says. He sits down beside her and she throws her arms around him. “I was so worried about you. What happened? Is everyone okay?”

He kisses the top of her forehead. “Lynch is dead,” he tells her. “And we’re all safe.”

“I’m so glad.” He keeps his hold on her though, and she pulls back, her eyebrows knit together. “Something’s bothering you though,” she says. “What is it?”

He sighs and she weaves her fingers through his, holding tight. “It was a hard case,” he admits. “And I was so scared that something might happen to you. But um… there was something that we didn’t plan for.” She blinks at him, waiting for him to continue. “Lynch was trying to escape first. He took Krystall hostage and threatened to hurt her if we didn’t make a trade.”

“What kind of trade?”

“He uh… he wanted Geff?” The word comes out like a question as his voice betrays his anxiety.

“No.” A single syllable of disbelief.

“We – we had to bring the jet to him. But we couldn’t let him get away, so we had to improvise?”

Her expression changes. She stares at him as though he’s told her an awful joke or made some sort of outrageous claim. As if she is desperately waiting for him to tell her it’s all made up. When doesn’t say anything, she narrows her eyes. “Spencer Reid, what did you to my plane?”

“Angel,” he says, dropping his voice to as gentle a tone as he can muster. He doesn’t want to hurt her but there’s no way around this. “I promise I tried everything. But we didn’t have a choice. He took Rossi hostage and then forced him down the stairs by shooting him. If we didn’t stop him, who knows what he would have done.” He pauses and squeezes her hand. “We tried to shoot out the fuel tanks but we weren’t fast enough. The leaking fuel made a trail though and JJ found a flare gun and… um, we kind of blew up the jet.”

“You what?” she gasps.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“Geff is gone? You blew him up? Spencer, that was my plane! My plane!” She begins to cry and he hugs her close. At first she resists him, but after a moment she leans against his chest. He rests his head in the crook of her shoulder, breathing in the fresh smell of her perfume in the hopes it will erase the scent of burning kerosene. “I’m sorry,” she says, sniffling. “I know I’m being silly. I would rather have Rossi okay, and I’m glad he’s safe. I just… Geff meant a lot to me, you know?”

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

“It’s like saying goodbye to a dear friend. Oh and I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye!” she cries. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional. Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones.”

He pulls away to smile at her, running a soothing hand through her hair. “It’s a little too early for that. I think you’re just grieving something very important to you. A captain and her jet share a special bond,” he assures her, parroting back a phrase she and Arthur have said many a time. But he believes it. That jet has been an extension of herself for nearly four years. “But maybe this will be a new chapter. A new era, a new jet… and in seven months, a new member of our family.”

Y/N wipes her eyes, nodding. “Yeah. A new chapter.” She gives him a slight smile. Amelia leaps onto the bed between them, nudging her head against Y/N’s arm and purring, as if to reassure her that all will be well. She smiles and strokes the cat’s soft fur. “I’m grateful though, you know?” she says. “That that plane brought us together. And so much has happened since then.”

And so it has. True to his word, Arthur retired the day after Christmas that year, and she was promoted to captain. Fikayo was hired as her co-pilot, and instantly fit in with the BAU team. Y/N, and that first conversation they had together, completely altered the relationship between the pilots and profilers. Suddenly their worlds didn’t seem so separate anymore. Yeeqin and Saoirse got married in the most wonderfully non-traditional celebration that involved fireworks, a wall of donuts, and neon-colored gnomes. He moved in with Y/N, and soon enough their was a proposal and a wedding of their own, one attended by profilers and pilots alike where he nearly tripped over her feet as they swayed to Birdy and when she kissed him he could’ve sworn he was floating. There were dozens of cases, being framed for murder, a cult, and more. A new house and new team members and a baby on the way and a million stories and kisses and flights between it all.

Y/N reaches a hand up to caress his cheek and that smile of hers still manages to melt his heart every single time. He leans in to kiss her as sweetly as he did after their first real date and as deeply as she did the time she managed to pull from him exactly how he felt about her uniform. Eventually Amelia meows in indignation at the lack of attention she is receiving, and he pulls away to placate her by rubbing her ears.

“So I think you owe me a plane, Doctor,” Y/N teases.

“On a government salary?” he laughs. “That might take a while. But I’ll put in enough overtime to buy you a whole fleet if that would make you happy.”

Through it all, they’re happy. Reid is happy. So incredibly over the moon happy every single day that they’re together. They lie down in bed and he holds her close and whispers promises of the jet of her dreams and he can feel her laughter against his chest.

If he had to do it all over again, he would in a heartbeat, so long as it means being here by her side. A profiler and his beloved pilot. The future stretching out before them like the infinite horizon.