#hurt emily

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Count the Cost [Emily x Reader]

Photo credits: Left (@lone-nyctophile) Center (@weemsicalweems) Right (@paracosmoon)

Prompt: An unspoken conversation rocks Emily and the reader's relationship when Prentiss gets shot on a case. 

Pairing: Emily x Non-BAU!reader. The reader uses she/her pronouns. 

Category: angst/comfort 

Word Count: 5.1K

Content Warnings:  Use of nicknames [sweetheart, love, etc.] throwing up/nausea, airports, Emily getting shot, not described in detail, hospitals [waiting rooms. IV’s, medical equipment.] brief mention of periods/chronic pain/migraines.

A/N: Hi loves! Here is another fic based on the amazing @imagining-in-the-margins January/February Writing Challenge. The dialog prompt this was based on was “There are a million reasons not to do something.” This is the fourth part of my Emily x Non-BAU!reader series. You can find Part I, Part II, and Part III here (all fics linked). However, you can read this as a standalone. You just need to know that the reader works for a senator. I had fun writing a bit of angst between these two. Of course, I hope I made the ending worth the angst. If you enjoy this fic, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated! I hope you’re having a great start to your week and thanks for reading.  Love Levi - ❤️

List with all stories 

_y/n_ = your name 

_y/l/n_ = your last name 

_y/f/s_ = yuur favorite senator 

_y/f/c_ = your favorite color 

The tiredness and dryness of _y/n_’s eyes didn’t stop her from keeping them open. There would be no sleep on the small dark cabin airplane tonight. The early morning flight to Kansas had been as unexpected as the call from a number _y/n_ had never seen at 2:47 a.m. At first, _y/n_ had thought it was just spam, but when she listened to the nurse on the other end of the line say he was trying to reach Emily Prentiss’s emergency contact, _y/n_’s stomach dropped like a stone. _y/n_ panicked, hit answer, and with a shaky voice said, “This is _y/n_ _y/l/n_. What’s happened to Emily?” There was a pause as the nurse took a moment to properly identify _y/n_, who was standing up and pacing with worry. Finally, the nurse replied, ‘Miss Prentiss was brought into the hospital about a half hour ago. She’s been shot.” _y/n_ nearly dropped the phone and said, “Shot! Shot where? Is she seriously injured, is there anyone there with her like law enforcement? She has a dangerous job. Someone might be after her. Try to kill her even.” _y/n_ realized that the last question was stupid because, generally, if you shot at someone, you were trying to kill them. But _y/n_’s thoughts were too paranoid and catastrophized to notice more than that. There was a pause that only deepened _y/n_’s fear. Finally, the man on the other end of the line replied, “Miss Prentiss was shot in the shoulder, has remained unconscious, and has lost a significant amount of blood. We aren’t sure about the type of bullet. And we can’t speak about anyone else on the hospital grounds, ma’am. The hospital is aware of Miss Prentiss’s situation.” _y/n_ took that to mean that they knew Em was an FBI agent. At this point, with  _y/n_ knowing that Emily was hurt, potentially significantly, without any idea if she was alone or not, convinced _y/n_ that she should get to the hospital as soon as possible. Even if it meant having to phone bank, raise funds for the campaign, and edit _y/n_’s _y/f/s_ speeches in a hospital waiting room. This was the first time that Emily had been in serious, medical danger since _y/n_ and Prentiss had started dating. Sure, Em had come home once with a few cuts and scraps from a fall or a scrap with an unsub. Fights that Emily always won, it seemed. But this, _y/n_ didn’t know what to do about this, as she threw some clothes into a backpack along with some work stuff. 

_y/n_ sat on the edge of her bed, the room illuminated by a single lamp, as _y/n_ looked for the earliest flight to Topek, Kansas. _y/n_ had at least had the foresight to ask for the name of the hospital from the nurse before saying that she’d be there as soon as possible. It seemed like a miracle that there was a flight leaving for Kansas at 5:00 a.m. that morning. It was a blessing, but the price of the ticket and the circumstances under which _y/n_ had to book them were like a living purgatory or limbo. Time seemed to barely pass. _y/n_ got to the airport, moved through security, and then waited for the plane to land on the tarmac. _y/n_ sent a hasty email to work letting them know that an emergency had come up, but that she’d brought her computer with her and could be accessed through email or her cell after she landed. The flight from D.C. to Kansas was no better for _y/n_’s nerves. _y/n_ had put on her comfiest _y/f/c_ sweater and kept ordering coffee after bland and burnt coffee. The acid taste of the hot liquid left _y/n_ feeling queasy and by the third hour of the flight, she was ready to be on the ground again. That wouldn’t happen for another hour and a half. Once in the Topeka airport, _y/n_ moved to the bathroom and threw up. The nerves and too much caffeine had that effect that made her body reject anything trying to keep it going. It was one of _y/n_ least favorite things about herself. 

Emily had been so worried one day after a very stressful workday when y/n_ had to run to the bathroom and threw up. Em had pulled y/n_’s hair back and then handed her a cool damp towel to run over her face. After _y/n_ had rinsed her mouth and sat back down on the bathroom floor to take a few breaths, Emily sat down across from her in the small space. Prentiss took hold of _y/n_ delicate hands and asked, “What’s wrong, love? Are you sick?” _y/n_ let out a sigh and said, “I’m not sick, sick. This happens pretty often actually. When I get very stressed, it just kind of happens.” Emily nodded and said, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. That has to be awful.” _y/n_ shrugged and replied, “You get kind of used to it, I guess.” Prentiss squeezed her hand and said, “Well how about we get off these cold tiles and make you a cup of ginger tea to settle your stomach?” _y/n_  nodded and accepted Emiy’s hand up. That was one thing about Em that _y/n_ would never get over, just how caring her girlfriend was. The warm memory washed over _y/n_, and she was reminded that Emily was now in a hospital somewhere, possibly alone. This thought had _y/n_ get up quickly and rinse her mouth in the bathroom sink. _y/n_ grabbed her backpack and moved outside, flagging down a cab. She told the driver the name of the hospital to take her to. The closer they got to the hospital, the more anxious _y/n_ got. She was almost buzzing in her seat. She was also feeling sick with worry, but there was no time for that now. At the hospital, _y/n_ paid the driver and moved into the bright light of the room. 

_y/n_ hadn’t gotten a follow-up call from the place of healing which made _y/n_ assume that Emily hadn’t taken a turn for the worse, but there was still a huge amount of dread as she approached the front desk. The charge nurse looked up at her and said, “How can I help you miss?” _y/n_ wrung her hands together and said, “My name is _y/n_, _y/l/n_. The hospital called me a couple of hours ago about my partner being shot. Emily Prentiss? Is she okay? I came as quickly as I could.” The woman gave her a soft smile and replied, “Let me check with the doctor for a moment. I’ll be right back.” _y/n_ stood and waited. The bright lights in hospitals always put _y/n_ on edge. She was more of a lamp and soft light person. Sometimes, when the lights were bright like these, _y/n_ could hear the electricity above. _y/n_ waited with anticipation when a slightly familiar voice called out, “_y/n_? Is that you?” _y/n_ whipped her head around and saw the bright colors of Penelope Garcia. A flood of relief washed over _y/n_, and she nearly ran to Emily’s team member. Penelope opened her arms and _y/n_ nearly fell into them. Garcia enveloped her in a hug, saying, “Sweetheart, what are you doing here?” _y/n_ felt the panicky feeling bubble up in her and said, “I got a call from the hospital. We’re each other's emergency contacts. It sounded bad so I came right away.” An older man, whom _y/n_ had never seen before said, “I guess y’all haven’t had the talk yet.” _y/n_ lifted her face from Penelope’s shoulder and asked, “What talk?” Garcia let _y/n_ go slightly and turned her toward the man, saying, “_y/n_, meet David Rossi.” Dave gave the young woman a small smile and extended his hand saying, “_y/n_ it’s nice to finally meet you. Emily talks about you all the time.” Rossi didn’t mince his words, as he added, “You make her very happy. I’m sure she’ll be glad to know that you’re here.” _y/n_ nodded, taking his hand in hers. Now that she was here, _y/n_ was beginning to feel better, but there was still the worry, and now _y/n_ had more questions than before. _y/n_ started with the big thing, asking, “Is Emily alright? The charge nurse was just going to check for me.” Rossi let out a sigh and said, “The last we heard the doctor in charge of her care was trying to stabilize her.” _y/n_ nodded and processed the information. The next thing _y/n_ asked, because her head was buzzing with many thoughts, and not all of them were as important as the rest. So _y/n_ just asked, “What’s ‘the talk’ Emily and I were supposed to have had by this point?” 

Before Rossi had a chance to say that was a conversation that should probably happen between Emily and _y/n_, Aaron and the doctor emerged from a hallway that led into the hospital's interior. _y/n_ didn’t recognize either man, but the members of the BAU team present, Rossi, Spencer, and Penelope seemed to. Everyone turned to the two men and waited with bated breath for information. The doctor approached the group and Aaron moved to the left flank of the team. The somber leader of the BAU noticed the new edition to the party immediately but didn’t want to cut off the doctor’s statement. There would be time for questions later. Doctor Smith took a breath before saying, “Miss Prentiss is more stable now. She left a significant amount of blood and the bullet was lodged in her left shoulder. The shot was dangerously close to her carotid artery, thus the excess loss of blood. However, I’ve managed to dislodge the bullet. It was a 9mm soft point bullet. The damage could have been much worse. I gave her a transfusion and stabilized the wound. She should make a full recovery. It will take time but she should be okay if she takes things slow. I’ll let you see her when she wakes in a few hours. I’ve given Miss Prentiss a mild sedative for now.” The doctor walked away to speak to a nurse nearby. The team seemed to instantly relax, but _y/n_ didn’t take the news so well. _y/n_was shocked to hear what Emily had been through, the pain, and the near-death experience of her partner The suddenly relaxed attitude of the team also surprised _y/n_. How the group could suddenly be so calm was beyond her. _y/n_ wanted to say something, but she was cut off by the last man that she didn’t know in the group. By his demeanor and solemnity, _y/n_ had to guess that the man was the leader of the BAU, Agent Aaron Hotchener. _y/n_ was proven right when the tall man said, “Hello. I’m Aaron Hotchner. I assume you’re _y/n_?” _y/n_ nodded and Aaron took on a look of understanding. With a tone that was slightly softer than his normal demanding voice, he said, “Can you give the team a few minutes to talk, alone?” _y/n_ wanted to protest, but then realized that this was all their job, she was just here. Emily was alive, and there wasn’t more she could do here until Em woke up. _y/n_ sat down in an uncomfortable chair. The tiredness seemed to hit her all at once and _y/n_ closed her eyes. She was too far away to hear what the BAU members were saying, but the tone was serious. After the conversation, _y/n_ watched as Spencer and Rossi left the hospital. This left Aaron and Penelope standing in the hallway. _y/n_ watched as Agent Hotchner put a hand on Garcia’s shoulder, said a few words, and then pulled a cell phone from his black slacks and took a call. 

Garcia moved toward _y/n_ and sat next to her. The normally bright and spunky tech wizard held out a hand for _y/n_ to hold and anchor to. _y/n_ took it and sniffled. _y/n_ asked, “I thought you didn’t go on cases, Penelope? At least, that’s what Emily said.” Gacia smiled and replied, “I don’t normally go on cases, no. They needed my tech skills in person on this one. I’m happy Hotch, Aaron, asked me to come because I was able to find Emily in time.” _y/n_ squeezed Penelope’s hand. She knew that Garcia was as upset about what had happened to Em as she was. _y/n_ knew the whole team was, even those not at the hospital. However, Penelope showed that concern more openly. _y/n_, like Garcia wore their heart on her sleeve. _y/n_ looked at the technical analyst and asked, “Can you tell me how you found her? Is the um…” _y/n_ tried to remember the word for unsub, and it clicked. “...unsub been caught yet?” Gacia gave _y/n_ a small sad smile and said, “I can’t tell you, _y/n_. The investigation is still ongoing. I know it’s frustrating, but I can’t say.” _y/n_ nodded in understanding. In some ways, it was annoying but more than anything it was just difficult. Up until that point, Emily’s job had been something exciting to talk about. And _y/n_ did worry about her when she was on a case, but Em had never been seriously wounded while they had been together yet. But now the possibility that Emily could die, could be stripped from _y/n_ forever, every time she stepped out the door to a case, became a possibility. This was a new kind of dread that _y/n_ realized she was going to have to live with. That possibility felt like the discomfort of knowing a period was coming next week. And that menstruation could be better or worse or not happen at all some months, but the possibility was always there. At least until menopause. Or if someone had migraines or other chronic pain. _y/n_ realized how gross and juvenile those comparisons were, but it was the best her brain could come up with at the moment. There was a shift when Aaron came back, the phone still in his hand and pressed to his ear. The tall man walked up to Penelope and said, “Garcia, Morgan has a question for you.” Penelope stood and took the phone from Hotch and moved over to the corner where he had just been standing. The hospital was pretty crowded and the chair Gacia had just vacated was one of the only ones open. Hotch looked down at Emily’s girlfriend. The woman had a look on her face of understanding of what a job at the BAU really meant. Aaron pulled _y/n_ from those thoughts when he asked, “May I sit here?” _y/n_’s eyes snapped to his firm ones, and she said, “Of course, Mr. Hotchner, Agent Hotchner?” _y/n_ strumbled through the possible names to call him. Neither she had tried to work. The man let out a small breath that might have been a laugh as he said, “You can just call me Hotch, or Aaron.” There was a small silence before Aaron said, “It’s nice to meet you, _y/n_. I wish it was under better circumstances than this.” _y/n_ nodded and said, “It’s nice to meet you too, Aaron.” The next half hour was spent making small talk and _y/n_ looking at her hands or the hands of the clock slowly ticking by. As the time moved, the dread returned and Aaron could feel it like a weight on _y/n_’s frame. 

Hotch understood. Not from _y/n_’s point of view, but the other way around. He knew how it felt to leave Haley and Jack and not know if he’d see them again. He knew how those feelings for Haley had been so great that she had to step away. He didn’t blame her for that. It was clearly all new to _y/n_ and he softly said, “It’s not fair.” _y/n_ looked over at him and said in a weary voice, “What do you mean?” Hotch shifted in the chair and sighed very softly before saying, “It’s not fair for the people who stay behind. I can’t speak for Emily, but I know she understands that too.” Feeling slightly defeated by the circumstances and new reality, _y/n_ replied, “I was living in a fantasy world where she never got hurt, and that’s been shattered for me. I know fantasies are silly things and we don’t live in them, but I’m not sure how to deal with this kind of uncertainty.” _y/n_ turned and Aaron, the man Emily had spoken so highly of as the fearless leader of the team, was looking right at her. Not just right at her, but right into her, with an understanding that _y/n_ was unaware was possible. _y/n_ suddenly understood why the man was so respected. Hotch replied, “I think that’s a conversation you should have with Emily. That’s the best advice I can offer you.” It was with that last full conversation they shared before the doctor returned and told them that Emily was up now. They both stood up, and _y/n_ realized that Aaron was going to need to speak to her alone. Emily probably had some information that he needed. Hotch turned and said, already a step ahead of _y/n_, “I’ll make it as quick as possible, _y/n_. You’ll see her soon.” _y/n_ nodded. The anxiety came back to the surface. She spent the next forty-five minutes pacing the waiting room and counting the ceiling tiles. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, a nurse came back and led _y/n_ to the back of the hospital. _y/n_ watched from the closed blinds as the shadow of Hotch stood from a chair near the shadow of the bed and the medical equipment. He opened the door and held it open so _y/n_ could slip into the small room. _y/n_ looked at Aaron and they exchanged a brief nonverbal “thank you” with each other. Once the door was closed, all _y/n_ could think of was Emily. _y/n_ rushed into the room and to her bedside. The brunette turned her head to see _y/n_ and tried to fake a smile. _y/n_ saw right through it as she sat down in the chair and took Em’s hands in hers. Prentiss had an IV in her arm and there were multiple monitors attached to her chest. Then there was the large bandage wrapped around Emily’s left shoulder. _y/n_ could see it under the flimsy hospital gown covering Em’s body. _y/n_ took a second to look Prentiss over and then asked, “How are you feeling, please don’t try and make it sound better than it is because, to be honest, you look rough.” Emily let out a shaky breath that _y/n_ knew to be a laugh. The sound could make _y/n_ cry at that moment. _y/n_ did start crying once Em started talking. Her voice was hoarser than usual and it sounded thin, but Prentiss said with sincerity, “Well I’m on a lot of drugs, so I don’t feel anything too much right now. Even with that being the case, my shoulder feels like a mountain either got dropped on it, or something burst out of it like Aliens or something. And there are some scrapes and bruises from when I fell.” _y/n_ nodded along noting how pale Em looked. _y/n_ was amazed that Prentiss could even speak as coherently as she was. It was a reminder that Emily could be tough as nails. However, _y/n_ could see the hints of pain in the corner of Emily’s eyes and the firm line of her mouth. She also looked tired. _y/n_ knew there needed to be some conversation between them to address what had happened with her injuries and _y/n_ being there at the hospital. Prentiss had seemed surprised almost when _y/n_ walked through the door, though it was clear that Aaron had told Em that she was there. Deciding to postpone that conversation for when Emily was a bit stronger, or at least in less pain, _y/n_ said, “Why don’t you rest for a while, Em? I’ll be here when you wake up.” Emily nodded and closed her eyes. The only sounds in the room were the soft beeping of the machines in the room and _y/n_ and Em’s soft breathing while both of them rested. 

An hour or so later the doctor came back and checked on Emily’s vitals and administered another dose of the various medications Em was on. A nurse also raised the head of the bed and promised to bring Emily some food. Once the medical professionals were gone, _y/n_ looked at Emily. They were both slightly refreshed in a way, and with the prospect of food on the way it gave them a timeline of something happening. It was helpful because time in a hospital just seemed to stretch on forever. Lunch provided a definite finite point in space. Both Em and _y/n_ just knew that their conversation was going to at least start before Prentiss’s food arrived. _y/n_ started the dialog by asking the hard question, “Am I not supposed to be here, Em? Is there something I’ve missed? The team seemed very surprised I guess when I showed up.” Emily, with her piercing eyes, looked at _y/n_ and sighed, knowing she couldn’t avoid this talk forever. She replied, “No _y/n_, it’s okay that you’re here. If it wasn’t, Aaron or Rossi would have sent you away by now. It’s just they didn’t expect you. Partners don’t normally come to see an agent until after the case is over.” _y/n_ furrowed her brow and said, “But how would I know that, Em? You never told me that. I just heard that you were hurt, maybe seriously, and I didn’t know if you were alone. How could I not jump to be here with you?” Emily nodded, knowing this wasn’t on _y/n_ and wanting to reassure her. Prentiss said, “_y/n_, you didn’t know because we haven’t had that conversation yet.” _y/n_ bit her lip wondering if this was “the talk” that they hadn’t had yet. _y/n_ released her lip from her mouth and asked uncertainly, “Em we’re almost five months into this relationship, what is this important conversation we haven’t had yet?” 

Em could see that this lack of information was distressing to _y/n_ and Emily said, “The conversation about what happens if I get hurt. If I die doing this job.” _y/n_’s eyes widened and she said, “That seems like a pretty important conversation to have. I mean, we’ve talked about the risks. I just assumed that if the hospital called I should come.” Emily looked at _y/n_ and replied, “It’s not always that easy, _y/n_. Sometimes they can’t tell you. Even if it’s bad. So bad that I might not make it. If the hospital does call, like I said, most people just wait until the case is over, or their partner lets them know.” _y/n_ struggled to process the information and said, “So if the hospital, or you, or Garcia tell me you’re seriously hurt like shot in the arm say, I just have to wait and see what happens? If that’s the norm, why didn’t you tell me that, Em?” Emily listened to the desperation in _y/n_’s voice, at the fear of being left out of such important information. Meanwhile, _y/n_ struggled to comprehend having to just wait and see for something as important as Emily’s life to be had or lost. Finding out that Emily being shot had nearly put _y/n_ into a downward spiral, having to just wait and hear if the love of _y/n_’s life had made it or not at the end of a case seemed unsurmountable. It was asking too much. Em watched these emotions play out on _y/n_’s face, and _y/n_’s expression of what she was being asked was why she had avoided this conversation for so long. Because the reality of what loving an FBI agent entailed often sent people running in another direction. To something or someone more stable. A place where the likelihood of pain and uncertainty was far less. Prentiss swallowed and said, “I let you down, _y/n_. By not telling you this earlier. At how much of a sacrifice this is. I didn’t tell you because I had been so lucky that I hadn’t been hurt before. At least not when I was with you. I suppose I was naive and just hoped my luck would keep going, but it didn’t. I also didn’t tell you because when that conversation happens it forces people to choose whether or not this is something they can take. I was careless with your feelings by not telling you. I just love you so much that I couldn’t think about losing you because of that conversation. I’m sorry, _y/n_. I’m sorry for putting you through this the way I did. What happens from here is up to you, _y/n_. If you don’t think you can take that stress, I understand. You just have to count the cost of if it’s worth being with me and understanding how it works sometimes. Just know that every time I step into the bullpen, or onto the plane, I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of making the world a safer place for you.” 

Emily realized that she wasn’t letting _y/n_ get a word in edgewise, because she was afraid of what _y/n_ might say or do. But it was up _y/n_ now, and Emily thought that perhaps _y/n_ was going to get up and leave right then and there. It had happened to her once before. _y/n_ sat silently in her chair and closed her eyes wondering if she could take it. _y/n_ did feel like Emily had kept this from her, but it had been out of a fear of losing her. Their relationship flashed through _y/n_’s mind and the love, passion, and warmth filled _y/n_ nearly to the brim. She tried to compare it to the anxiety she had felt and would feel in the future if Emily got hurt again. As painful the uncertainty was, the love outweighed the fear, and _y/n_ looked at Em and said, “There are a million reasons not to do something. A million reasons why you didn’t want to have this talk with me, a million reasons why I could walk away, but I just need one reason to stay, and that’s you, Emily Prentiss. I’m picking you. I’m going to pick you every time. But no more secrets. No more missed conversations. If we’re going to make this work for the long run, which is what I want, then we have to be honest with each other. Even if it’s conversations that are painful.” Em nodded with tears in her eyes as she said, “You’re everything to me _y/n_. I promise to tell you everything. The good and the bad, there won’t be any more surprises. I’ve never met anyone so willing to love me. To choose me over the uncertainty.” _y/n_ leaned in and kissed Em’s hand. She would kiss Em all over if it wouldn’t hurt her. 

Their brief moment of intimacy was interrupted by the nurse bringing in a plate of soft foods for Emily. _y/n_ pulled back, and the woman looked at them for a moment before setting the tray on the bed. The older woman said, “Make sure to use your right hand only. You shouldn’t move your left arm or shoulder at all.” Emily looked at the stern woman and nodded. With that missive, the nurse left them again. _y/n_ watched as Emily attempted to poke at some jello with a spoon unsuccessfully. _y/n_ couldn’t help but chuckle and Em looked at her saying, “Hey, no laughing at me. I’m injured.” _y/n_ fixed her face and said, “Well then let me help you because that jello is fighting for its life right now.” That comment had Em laugh slightly and it felt good to have their dynamic closer to their normal. Em teased, “Hey I’m a big girl. I think I can handle it.” _y/n_ sighed and took the spoon from Prentiss’s hand as _y/n_ said, “Listen, love, you’re the bravest person I know. We just had a brave conversation, now I just need you to be brave enough to let me help you, okay?” Em smiled and gave in saying, “Okay love, and for the record, you’re pretty brave yourself.” Though their relationship had been rocked, momentarily, their foundation was strong, built on trust and love that could endure hard storms and conversations. _y/n_ and Em were affirmed of their love for each other as Em allowed _y/n_ to feed her in an intimate act of caring. 

That evening when Morgan and Penelope moved back to the hospital to check on their teammate, Derek asked, “You really think Prentiss didn’t tell _y/n_ about coming during cases?” Garcia replied, “She couldn’t have, or why else would _y/n_ have shown up here?” Morgan nodded and said, “Well I bet that was a tough conversation.” The pair moved to Emily’s room and stopped. Inside the darkened space, they could see Emily sleeping while holding _y/n_’s hand. _y/n_’s head was resting on the edge of the bed and they both seemed to be at peace. Penelope softly said, “Maybe it wasn’t so hard after all.” Pen let out a sigh and said, “Let’s get a coffee or something, we should let them rest.” Derek agreed, and they let the couple rest and recuperate in the love they had for each other.

______________________________________________________________

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[nedlittle]

genuinely i think it's important for adults, especially in the plague times, to play pretend in our day-to-day lives. when i rub my back down with tiger balm so i can sleep without pain, i imagine i am a valiant knight tending to an old injury i received from a dragon. when i go to the store to pick up eggs and milk, i am a lone cowboy riding into town on a mission. when i turn my collar up against the wind i am a femme fatale who's killed 4 husbands and is scoping out a 5th. when i stomp around in the snow i am a doomed polar explorer. if being a little bit silly about my walk to the pharmacy helps me remember that life can be full of joy and whimsy, then so be it.

[pathologicalreid]

buried alive | S.R.

in which the BAU races against the clock to rescue you from a killer team

who? spencer reid x fem!BAU!reader

category: angsty

content warnings: kidnapping, case stuff (murder yk), suffocation, being buried alive, hospitals, blood, nausea, CPR, funerals, use of pet names, guns, and drugs. i think that's all.

word count: 2.9k

a/n: okay, so i've been reading so much spencer fanfic and i started writing it and yesterday i realized i have 20 fics written and they're doing no one any good just sitting on my computer. i decided to finally try posting one. i wrote fanfic in high school (so like seven years ago) but this is my first time writing for a TV show. i've also never really posted on tumblr so please bear with me while i try to figure out formatting. tysm for checking out my post.

part two part three

You walked into the conference room and dropped the file on the table, allowing it to land on the wood with a satisfying splat. “The unsub’s burying them alive,” you said, letting the rest of the team know the conclusion you had come to with the medical examiner. “The M.E. found metal shavings and satin threads under the nails of our last victim. The most common materials to make up a casket.”

“There’s no way someone could bury someone alive in a casket alone, we’ve got to be dealing with a team, at least three people,” Emily concluded, standing in front of the evidence board.

It was the team’s third day on a case in Nebraska, four women had been discovered dead. Asphyxiation by hypoxia. Carbon dioxide poisoning.

“Approximately 420 people in the United States die from accidental carbon dioxide poisoning every year,” Spencer said, grabbing the file off of the table and flipping through it, taking a few seconds to read through it.

Rossi looked over Reid’s shoulder to look at the file, “but there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. Who would have access to these caskets?”

You shook your head, placing a hand on the back of Spencer’s chair, “A funeral director seems most likely.” You looked around at the Omaha field office, different agents running about in an attempt to solve these very murders. “They’d have the most access, write it off as displays. It could be hard to match the materials since they’re so common.”

Hotch leaned over the table and pressed the conference phone, “What can I do you for?” Garcia’s bright voice rang through the speaker.

“Garcia, I need you to look into funeral homes within the comfort zone. Look for a director who’s ordered more caskets than they’ve had funerals. Find anything, nothing is too small.” He told her.

“Absolutely, I’ll hit you back when I’ve got something,” she said, hanging up the phone.

There ended up being four funeral homes in the unsub’s comfort zone, so the team split up. You went with two locals to a family-owned business, Garcia had sent you all of the files you’d need on the location. “It looks like the Varn family has been in the funeral business since the seventeenth century,” you read aloud to the two agents you were in the car with.

“Does it mean they’re more or less likely to be the killers if they’ve been in business for so long?” One of the agents asked you, a younger man named Harrison.

You pursed your lips as you continued to look over the files, “I’m not seeing any glaringly obvious stressors before the murders started, but over the years I’ve learned that’s no reason to write someone off. Psychopaths can be tipped off by the slightest thing. Things none of us would bat an eye at.”

Harrison nodded in the passenger seat, looking over to his partner Jimmy, “You and your guy sure do make an interesting pair.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment, so thank you.” You and Spencer never explicitly stated to the field office that you were dating, but you walked into the precinct this morning holding hands. The agents must have drawn their own conclusions.

The younger officer cleared his throat, “It is a compliment, ma’am. The two of you are very impressive, your whole team is.”

You smiled, “Thank you, Harrison.”

The funeral home was run by a mother and her two sons, you held up your credentials for the mother when you knocked on the door. “Are you Sheila Varn?” You asked her, raising your eyebrows.

“Yes, what’s this about?” She inquired. She didn’t really look the part of a serial killer, a middle-aged woman who was running her family business.

Pocketing your credentials, you spoke, “We’re investigating the recent murders in the area and we were wondering if you had samples of the materials your caskets are made out of. Might we be able to come in?” You asked, adding a charming smile for effect.

Something flashed across her face before she returned your smile, opening the door and welcoming the three of you inside. “Hold on, let me get my boys up here. They’re so much more versed in the goings on of the town than I am,” she said, opening the door and calling for her sons. Felix and Joss came up the stairs from the basement, now they definitely had the physique to load dead women into caskets and bury them alive.

“Why don’t you two men come with me? I’ll get you those samples,” Sheila said, motioning for the agents you were with to follow her. To your horror, they followed her around the corner. “Felix, Joss, show this young lady what you know,” she instructed.

You took a deep breath before you looked up at the two men.

They were tall, maybe Spencer’s height, but they were built like wrestlers. There was no way you could physically subdue them on your own.

You passed out before you even had the chance to pull your gun.

Hotch was in full Unit Chief mode, Spencer watched from the corner of the room as he separated people into groups and gave them specific instructions. JJ and Morgan walked into the precinct, “What’s going on?” JJ asked looking around the room.

“The Varn Family is the team; two agents were found drugged on the side of the road and when we went to the funeral home Y/N was missing. Her badge, gun, and phone were all there, covered in blood,” Spencer said morosely, watching as Hotch finished giving orders and called the rest of the team over.

Your picture was up on the evidence board with the word “missing” written in bold letters beneath it. All of your belongings had been put into evidence for the time being. “Reid?” Hotch said his name, causing his head to snap up. “Are you okay to keep working?”

Spencer nodded affirmatively, “Yes.”

“Good, I need you to estimate how much time we have, I want a clock on these screens,” he ordered.

Morgan turned to Reid, “What do you think she has, kid?”

“The tidal volume for the average adult is point five at rest. That ends up being about six liters per minute. The average casket is approximately 886 liters in total volume and the average volume of the human body is 66 liters, leaving 820 liters to be filled with air for her to breathe. If she’s been gone for half an hour already, I’d estimate she has less than five hours of breathable air left.” Spencer explained, doing all of the math in his head while Emily put a timer on the screen next to the evidence board.

After a moment, Hotch continued, “Rossi, JJ, go back to the funeral home. Tear it apart, there has to be something there we haven’t found yet. The rest of us will split the list of cemeteries in the comfort zone and search them.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover, we don’t have anything else to go on?” Morgan asked, looking at the list of burial sites he had been handed.

Hotch looked at Spencer, but Spencer stayed silent. “That’s all we have right now,” Hotch responded, “hopefully we’ll come across leads as we go.”

It smelled like a garden around you. The memory reminded you of spring with your mother, tending to the vegetable garden.

The only difference was that instead of the sun beaming down on you, it was pitch black. The space surrounding you was so dark that you weren’t totally sure your eyes were open.

Your head was throbbing just above your right temple, and you observed your surroundings. Slowly, you lifted your arm until it hit a ceiling.

Not a ceiling. A lid. You were in a casket. You pressed one hand to your chest and tried to slow your breathing. Chances were that the casket was already buried beneath the surface of the earth, trying to open it could be catastrophic. You patted the pockets of your jeans, only to find your phone missing, so the team wouldn’t be able to trace the location.

Even if you had it, there likely wouldn’t be service six feet under.

Your team would find you. They had to find you.

They found Spencer, they found Emily, and they would find you.

Spencer shifted in the passenger seat of the SUV, “You know, carbon dioxide poisoning is a rather peaceful way to die.”

“Reid,” Morgan said, turning the vehicle onto the main road, they had just finished scouring over another cemetery with still no sign of you.

He sighed and stared at his hands, “No, it’s good. We see so many people killed in so many different ways that it’s good that she won’t be in pain when she runs out of air.” He tried to convince himself.

Morgan cleared his throat, “We aren’t out of time yet, kid. We can still find her. Y/N’s smart, I’m sure she found a way to make more air or something.”

But they were running out of time, less than an hour remained on the timer set on all of their phones.

They pulled into the next cemetery, “There’s some fresh dirt over there, what are the names on the graves of people who were actually recently buried?”

Spencer starts to recite the names, and the two of them start to comb through the cemetery.

You had done enough research on this case to understand what was going on. The light-headed feeling had started not long ago, but now you felt like you were spinning, despite the knowledge that you were stuck in place.

It was a high. Not unlike the good kids high. Except instead of trying to chase a feeling, you were dying.

The timer went off when they were still scouring graves, shovels in hand. Derek stopped in his tracks, but Spencer kept going.

“Wait,” Spencer called out, reading the name on the card next to the fresh grave he was standing at, he moved to start digging. “Essie Dunbar was a thirty-year-old woman who was mistakenly buried alive in 1915,” he said, digging. “This has to be it.”

Derek called Hotch, putting the call on speakerphone so he could help Spencer dig. “Hotch, we got her, but she’s buried.”

“We’re on our way, Omaha police have one of the brothers in custody,” Hotch told Emily to have an ambulance dispatched.

What Reid knew that Derek didn’t was that it could take four hours to dig a grave by hand. The soil had been overturned, so maybe call it three. Your odds were still negligible. He didn’t stop, he didn’t stop when a caretaker came running at them, and he didn’t stop when Derek told him to get his digging equipment out here now.

Derek flashed his FBI badge to get what they needed. He had to physically pull Spencer back from the grave so the backhoe could dig, only going until there was less than a foot between them and the casket.

Spencer crudely attached a chain to the casket and the caretaker's vehicle. Carefully, the caretaker dragged the white container out of the earth and up a slant they had dug. It was locked shut, “Reid, move,” Derek ordered.

He leaned back and Derek fired at the lock, taking it off and opening the casket. Spencer gasped, there was blood on the side of your head, dried and raked through your hair. He was vaguely aware of Hotch and Emily arriving as they pulled you out of your satin prison. You had no pulse, but you were still warm. Immediately, Spencer started CPR.

“Reid let me do it,” Derek insisted.

What he was trying to say is that he shouldn’t have to be the one to try to save your life.

Morgan repeated himself and Spencer pulled away, allowing the other agent to immediately take over. There was a siren in the background, an ambulance. More people showed up, Spencer heard their voices, but he just kept watching you. CPR was effective if it was done shortly after your heart stopped, and even then, permanent brain damage was likely.

It had been eight minutes since they pulled you out of the ground. Clinically, you were dead for eight minutes before you gasped.

Spencer smoothed your hair back, away from your face, while you desperately tried to catch your breath. You weren’t moving, and Spencer started running through symptoms of hypoxia. His biggest fear was brain damage, that they had done more harm to you in bringing you back than they would have had you died.

The EMTs came running over to where everyone had gathered, dispersing the crowd, and placing an oxygen mask over your face. As they were loading you on the stretcher, you started trying to talk, reaching your arm out to your side. “Wait, what’s she saying?” JJ asked.

“Sometimes it’s hard to talk after CPR,” the male EMT said as they moved you closer to the ambulance. He listened to what you were saying, “It’s not coherent.”

Spencer didn’t move, all of the adrenaline that had been coursing through his body all day was leaving.

Aphasia. They were saying the lack of oxygen to your brain was causing aphasia. “No,” Emily said, realization dawning on her features as she strained to listen to you. You were whispering, rasping the same word over and over again. “She’s saying ‘Spence.’”

He stood quickly and looked at you, sure enough, you were reaching out your hand and whispering, “Spence, Spence.” Your voice no more than a whisper.

Grabbing your hand, Spencer squeezed it, “I’m here,” he answered. “It’s okay, it’s over,” he told you, moving your hair out of your face. Spencer secured your oxygen mask over your face as you tried to take it off, “You have to keep this on, angel.”

To his relief, you squeezed his hand back.

You had been instructed to get some rest, but you couldn’t close your eyes. You asked Spencer to go back to the hotel and change his clothes because he smelled like dirt, and it made you nauseous. Your head had been bandaged, you’d been run through an MRI, and you did an EEG, so far, the only brain damage that had been incurred seemed temporary.

According to the doctors, the nausea and fatigue should wear off, but they hadn’t been able to fully assess if any permanent damage was done. At this point, the worst of your injuries had been caused by being given CPR, resulting in cracked ribs.

Despite your headache, you kept most of the lights on in your hospital room, not quite ready to be left in the darkness again. “Hey,” a voice called from your doorway, Spencer stood, waiting to be invited in. He was wearing different clothes, a button-up with a green cardigan thrown over it, and clean pants. “How are you feeling?”

A nasal cannula slightly restricted your movement, but you were sat up in the hospital bed, “Better than I was, but not perfect.”

He shook his head, walking in and taking a seat next to you, “No one expects you to be perfect right now.” Gently, he reached out and took your hand, skimming the pad of his thumb over your knuckles. “They found the mother and the other son, and all three of them are going to go away for a long time,” he told you, speaking in the kind of hushed, reverent tones that are reserved for hospitals.

You sighed and tilted your head back, “Good,” you maundered. “That’s uh, good,” your voice was barely audible.

“So why do you look so worried?” He asked, leaning in closer to you.

In an attempt to dismiss his concern, you joked, “I think I owe Morgan some sort of life debt now.”

Spencer offered you a soft smile, “The two of you tend to trade those off, I’m sure you’ll find some way to make it up to him.” He inclined his head towards you as if to silently say, So what is it really?

You swallowed thickly, “I’m scared to close my eyes, Spence.”

His shoulders dropped, “oh, Angel,” he breathed. “Is there anything I can do for you?” He asked, looping a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. “Wait, what are you doing?” He asked, watching you as you lifted yourself, so you were on one side of the bed.

Shyly, you patted the new empty half of the bed, inviting him to sit next to you.

He had no choice but to comply, he had the hardest time saying no to you. Leaning the bed back slightly, Spencer kicked off his shoes before he laid down next to you, wrapping an arm around you as you set your cheek on his shoulder.

Your body relaxed into his and you sighed, “Spence?” You murmured.

He pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of your head, “Yes, angel?” He whispered back to you.

“Thanks for coming to save me,” you mumbled, slowly relaxing enough to fall asleep.

Spencer exhaled, “I’m always going to come to save you.”

part two

[emositecc]

Here's some more no context mind wipe au thing 🤭 Finally decided to post more of no context art, thnx @peppermint-whiskers. WE LOVE TO MAKE YALL PANIC 😈

[polubrony]

Some angsy stuff with the girls (with Emily after the fall)

This one was lying in my folder as a sketch for a long time and now it is done

(Next few art gonna be regular chaggie fluff though)

[wosostories]

Pranks

Prompt: Can you do a uswnt x teen reader, where reader gets hurt when someone pulls a prank on her or something like that?

Sonny pulls Y/N in to the aftermath of a prank and it doesn't go as planned.

You were heading back to your room from a meeting with coach. You had been told that you were going to be starting in tomorrow's game. You were so excited that you didn’t notice Sonnett running down the hallway. 

“Y/N watch out!” She calls out right before she runs into you. You wobble a little but she steadies you before you hit the ground. “Sorry! Got to run.” She is about to take off again down the hallway. “Actually, I could use you.” Sonny grabs your hand and drags you down the hallway behind her. 

“Why are we running? What did you do?” You ask her. 

“There is no reason for the running. I didn't do anything. Why would you even ask that?” Sonny responds. 

“Sonny, get back here!” You hear Kelley yell from down the hallway. 

“Did you prank Kelley?”

“Maybe?”

“Becky told you that you aren’t allowed to drag me into your prank wars. And I think that this constitutes dragging me.”

“I may be dragging you, but this is not a prank war so not breaking Beckys rules.”

You turn a corner and are all of a sudden heading down a set of stairs. Sonnett’s grip around your wrist made it impossible to get out of it without hurting yourself. 

“Can you let me go please. I was on my way to get ready for dinner. I am already running late.”

“You're fine, we can just go to dinner right now.” You are keeping up with Sonny until the final bit on the first floor. You trip over one of the stairs and let out a yelp as you fall down the final few stairs. You fall into Sonny and you both tumble to the ground in a heap. 

“Sonny! Y/N!” Kelley calls from the flight of stairs above you. This draws the attention of some of the other girls who are waiting in the meal room which is next door to the staircase. 

In a second they were at the bottom of the stairs as Sonnett peels herself off the floor. 

“Oh God, Y/N! Are you ok?” You let out a groan clutching your wrist to your chest. 

“Sonnett what did you do?” Becky all but yells. 

“I- I didn’t…” 

Ali came running in with the team doctor. 

“Y/N can you sit up for me?” The medic asked. She helped you into a sitting position leaning up against the wall. She took your hand into her own and started poking it in different spots. 

The rest of the girls turned back to Sonnett and Kelley knowing that you were in good hands. They were berating them as the medic made her assessment. 

You let out a cry and tears start streaming down your face as she continues her assessment. “I think it's broken. We need to get you to the hospital for x-rays and casting.”

“A- am I still going to be able to start tomorrow?” You ask through your tears. All of your teammates went silent waiting for the answer. 

The medic sighed, “It’s not the end of the world, you will have another opportunity to start. You are only 16.” 

“Y/N I’m so sorry.” You shake your head and let the medic help you to your feet. Her and Ali help you out of the hotel to head to the hospital. 

“You’re the one who is going to tell coach why Y/N can’t start tomorrow. And the part you played in it.” Becky told her. 

Sonnett nodded tears in her own eyes, “I hope you think pulling her into the prank was worth it.” Kelley said, walking past her leaving Sonny alone as the team made their way back to the meal room to wait on news of Y/N wrist. 

[zepskies]

Series Masterlist - Take Me Home

Pairing: Beau Arlen x F. Reader 

Summary: You are another lost soul at Sunny Day Excursions. You’re aiming to settle in Helena, Montana, where Beau Arlen is the new sheriff in town. But you both have a past you’re running from. 

AN: Welcome to my first ever Big Sky series! This is set towards the beginning of season 3.

Series Tags/Warnings: (**18+ only!) Angst and grief/trauma, PTSD, canon murder mystery, eventual smut.

🎵 Listen While You Read: The TMH Music Playlist (YouTube)

Chapters:

Part 1: All of Her Days

Part 2: It's Not Right, But It's Okay

Part 3: Welcome Home

Part 4: A Past & Future Thing

Part 5: Not That Simple

Part 6: A Man or a Coward

Part 7: On the Edge of a Knife

Part 8: Take Me Home

Part 9: A Choice to Make

Series complete!

Bonus One-Shots:

A Good Man Is Hard to Find** When Beau starts pulling away from you and Emily during a very difficult case, will the pressure make or break your relationship?

A Crime of Passion** When Beau Arlen decides to “make it up to you,” he’s damn thorough.

S.I.N.G.** Beau wishes you’d take this self-defense lesson a little more seriously.

Echoes Beau has another rough night, but you help him face a harder truth.

Ko-Fi Me ☕

Join My Patreon 🌟

Big Sky Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Series Tag List:

Comment below if you’d like to be tagged in this series!

@kazsrm67 @letheatheodore @agothwithheavysetmakeup @jacklesbrainworms @foxyjwls007 @wincastifer @iamsapphine @simpforbuckyb @roseblue373 @brianochka @branj19 @globetrotter28 @hazel-eye-coffee-shop-girl-blog @ades106

@charmed-asylum @waywardxwords @deanwinchestersgirl87 @this-is-me19 @rachiem4-blog @sweettimelady @leigh70 @clinicallydepresso @emily-winchester @xiphoidbones @skoveu @nyotamalfoy @kmc1989 @deans-baby-momma @tabsluvsu @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @deanwanddamons

@antisocialcorrupt @lacilou @deans-daydream @deans-spinster-witch @agalliasi @venicesem @chriszgirl92 @lyarr24 @iprobablyshipit91 @ladysparkles78 @solariklees @lostin-jensenseyes @deansbbyx @candy-coated-misery0731 @curlycarley @sarahgracej @bagpussjocken @deanfreakingwinchester @chernayawidow

[wistfulwatcher]

bau members + near death experiences

[anonymouscheeses]

This game is peak so i HAD to draw the girl boss and her goth girlfriend (well. Shes not goth, but i stand that she should be)

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

The Corn Cob (The Surprise, Part 14)

Emily Prentiss x fem!reader Warnings: explicit language, discussion of AFAB body parts, pregnancy times, blood, medical/miscarriage scare, invasive medical exams (hello, again, Pap smear), vague references to past abuse, happy ending Word count: 2.4k

Summary: When you find blood in your underwear, you panic. Emily races to you, both working against time to make sure the baby is okay.

Week 24: The Corn Cob

You’d thought it was going to be a normal day, a good day even. It was Friday. Emily wasn’t in the field. She’d even promised to be home on time. You’d just returned from the grocery store with ingredients to cook dinner, when you had to run to the bathroom. You were always running to the bathroom these days. Little corn cob didn’t leave a whole lot of room for your bladder.

But when you pulled down your pants, a flash of red made your stomach drop. You sat down heavily on the toilet, head reeling. You felt like you might be sick. You’d had cramps today, but that wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t supposed to be unusual. But the blood? This was way too much blood to be spotting. You looked down at your stomach, placing your hands on either side, and hoping, praying, with everything you had in you, that the little one was okay. But you hadn’t felt her kick all day. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Your breath was caught in your throat, and you couldn’t seem to pull it in. You pressed your hands to your face and noticed that you were crying, that your hands were shaking. You didn’t think you’d ever been so scared, so helpless.

You pulled out your phone, letting out a sob as your home screen came to life–one of the sonogram photos of the baby’s blurry little face. It was dialing, and suddenly you were even more scared to tell Emily. What if you had lost the baby? You didn’t think you’d ever forgive yourself if you lost her. How would Emily?

“Hi, honey!” Her voice was so bright, so happy. You felt paralyzed with fear.

You sucked in a shaky breath, and Emily’s tone changed immediately.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?”

“Emily, I’m bleeding!” you gasped, tears streaming down your face as you wrapped your arms around your baby bump.

“What!?”

You could hear her voice shift, could hear movement, and you knew she was coming. You felt the wave of panic subside just a little. Not much, but a little. Emily was coming. She was on her way. You needed her, and she was coming.

“What do you mean bleeding?!” she asked, frantic. “Bleeding where!?”

“Out my vagina!” you cried, sucking in big gulps of air that didn’t seem to ever get to your lungs. You felt lightheaded.

“Okay,” she said, and you could tell she was trying her best to stay calm, even as her voice shook, even as you knew she had to be panicking herself. “Okay. Honey? I need you to hang up and call Dr. Delgado.”

“I’m scared, Em…” Your voice was high and desperate, and tears dripped from your face.

Her voice changed again, and you heard the ambient noise of traffic. She would be here soon. She was coming. “It’s gonna be okay, baby. Alright? I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can. But I need you to call Dr. Delgado. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.” You nodded, even though she couldn’t see you.

“Okay. That’s good, honey. You’re doing great. Now you hang up and you call her. And then you can call me back right after, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you,” Emily added. And it was only then that you could really hear the fear in her voice, the absolute terror.

“I love you, too,” you told her, trying to stop a fresh wave of tears.

All the panic Emily’s voice had kept at bay came flooding back in after she hung up, and your fingers were shaky as you scrolled through your contacts to find Dr. Delgado.

The conversation was quick, no-nonsense. Just questions and answers. But as soon as Dr. Delgado determined that the bleeding wasn’t light, she got serious.

“Y/N, you need to go to the emergency room as soon as possible,” she told you.

“Is this…” You gulped. “Am I miscarrying?” You were afraid to ask, afraid to hear the answer.

“It’s rare in the second trimester, but I can’t say for sure. It’s imperative for you to get to the hospital as soon as you can.”

“Okay. I will.” You were suddenly even more scared than you’d been before.

“Give me a call once you’ve been seen,” she told you.

“Thanks, Dr. Delgado.”

Trying to pull yourself together, you got up, running to your closet for a new pair of underwear, adhering so many pads to it that you might as well have been wearing a diaper. You rang Emily on speakerphone, and she picked up immediately.

“What’d she say?!”

“I need to go to the hospital,” you told her, stumbling as you pulled on a pair of maternity leggings.

Emily exhaled shakily. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Meet me in the parking lot. Are you okay? Can you make it down there?”

“Mmhm.” You sniffed. “How’d you get here so fast?!”

“I took a Bureau SUV. Morgan’s driving. We’ve got the lights and sirens going.”

“Please hurry,” you said, quiet and scared, locking the door behind you and sprinting to the elevator.

“I’m coming, baby. Just a little bit longer. It’s gonna be okay.”

Emily quite literally leapt out of the passenger side of the SUV as it screeched into the parking lot. Her eyes were wide and alarmed as she ran to you, nearly tackling you in a hug. You were so relieved to see her you thought your knees might buckle under you. Seeing her triggered a fresh wave of tears, and she cupped your face, wiping them away.

“It’s alright, honey. I’m here.” She led you to the back of the SUV, never letting go of your arm, never removing her hand from your back where she held you steady. Then, slamming the door, she sprinted to the other side, jumping in the backseat with you.

“Drive,” she told Morgan.

“Jesus Christ, Derek!” you exclaimed, as you peeled out of the parking lot and onto the road, swerving and moving at speeds that would be illegal in any other situation.

“Sorry, mama,” he called back. “Gotta get you to the hospital.”

“Just close your eyes, honey,” Emily said, kissing the side of your head, and pulling you protectively into her.

Emily scanned you up and down, one of her hands resting on your baby bump. You were trying very hard to keep from crying.

“Are you in pain?” she asked quietly.

You shook your head, blinking back tears. “Cramps, but I didn’t think anything of it. I should’ve known something was wrong. I just– I thought she was sleepy today. I haven’t felt her move. God, I’m so stupid! What if she’s–” You sucked in a shaky breath.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Emily said, placing her hands on either side of your face. “You’re spiraling. We don’t know that anything’s wrong. Let’s not worry until we have to.”

But she was worried, too. You could tell. Your eyes were swimming. “I’m so scared, Em,” you squeaked.

“Me too,” she sighed, pressing her forehead to yours.

At the ER, you thought Emily might actually assault a health professional to get you seen faster. Your anxiety came out in tears. Emily’s anxiety came out in her being absolutely, terrifyingly authoritative. You kept tugging on her sleeve, hissing, “Em, don’t be mean! They’re just doing their jobs!”

But you had to hand it to her. She got shit done. You were in an OBGYN exam room with a doctor–”A doctor, not a nurse!” Emily insisted–within fifteen minutes of your arrival. Which, in your experience, was nearly unheard of.

The doctor sat and rolled over to the exam table. You sat, holding Emily’s hand tightly, already in the hospital gown one of the nurses had given. “Thank you so much,” you’d said, trying to make up for Emily’s brashness. He held a clipboard, reading the scribbled intake notes the nurse had taken.

“Alright, Ms… Y/L/N?”

You nodded.

“I’m Dr. Booker. I see you’ve had some vaginal bleeding today. Would you classify it as a lot or a little?”

“A lot,” you replied, voice shaky.

“Okay,” he nodded. “Any pain, nausea, fever?”

“Umm, just some cramps. Nothing really bad.”

He scribbled a bit more.

“Okay.” He set the clipboard down and slapped his hands on his thighs, rolling even closer to you. “Mind if I take a look?”

You gulped and nodded, tears threatening at your eyes again, as you watched him roll to the nearby cabinets and pull out a speculum. Emily squeezed your hand, watching you sympathetically. She knew that you did, in fact, mind if he took a look. This was your worst nightmare as far as doctor visits went. Not only did someone have to touch you, look at you, shove something inside of you, but it was a man. And you hadn’t had any time at all to emotionally prepare.

You trembled. Emily pressed her lips to your ear as the doctor pulled on gloves. “Do you want me to ask for a woman?” She was so quiet you could barely hear her.

You shook your head, staring hard at the ceiling. “I just want to know what’s wrong,” you whispered. “As fast as possible.”

She kissed your forehead, smoothing your hair as you lay back. You breathed deeply, trying to prepare yourself for the cold metal, the pressure, the feeling of being violated that somehow never went away, no matter how many times you had to do this stupid examination. But this time, it was for your baby. And you would do anything, anything at all, to protect your child.

So you braced yourself against the speculum, sucking in a shaky breath as the doctor forced it inside of you, seemingly oblivious to the ordeal he was facilitating. Emily held your hand tight in one of hers, the other gently rubbing the side of your face, catching any tears that fell.

She hated this. She hated this for you. But she loved you so deeply, so desperately for being so brave. She’d always known that you were the one for her, had known from the very beginning, but she knew even more now, in this moment, that she couldn’t have found a better person to have a child with. You were mothering, she realized. Right now, on this exam table, choking back tears, trying hard not to write away from the doctor’s hands inside of you. You were being the baby’s mom. And she loved you so much for it.

“Ah!” the doctor exclaimed, rolling away for a moment and leaving the speculum inside you. You felt your heart drop. You couldn’t breathe as you waited for him to roll back, to finish his thought. Emily’s leg bounced so fast and so hard that the sound seemed to take over the whole room.

The doctor rolled back with a petri dish, and you flinched as he reached back inside you. You felt a pinch and gasped, then grimaced as the doctor placed a small stalk of tissue into the petri dish and shut the lid.

“Cervical polyp,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. The little buggers just bleed a lot.”

“Oh, thank god.” Emily let out a shaky sigh, bending forward and pressing her hand over her mouth.

“So the baby’s okay?” you asked, terrified to hear the answer.

“Healthy as a horse,” he nodded. “I can do an ultrasound if it’ll make you feel better.”

You both nodded vigorously.

“What about Y/N?” Emily pressed. “Is she okay? What is a… cervical polyp?”

He waved her off. “She’s completely fine. Cervical polyps are just irregular growths. Very common. Almost always benign.”

“Almost!?” Emily exclaimed, sitting up rail straight, eyebrows furrowed.

“We’ll send it off for testing just to be sure, but 99% of them are benign.”

Your body shook with relief, but you couldn’t quite let the anxiety go. Not until you’d seen the baby.

Emily bit her nails as the doctor squirted the gel on your belly, rubbing the wand over your baby bump.

You let out a relieved sob as the baby’s head came into view, and Emily planted kiss after kiss on your cheek. The sound of the heartbeat filled the room, and you and Emily pressed your heads together, both weepy, both more relieved than perhaps you’d ever been.

“All’s well, ladies,” he said, removing his gloves and handing you a paper towel to wipe off the gel. “It’s been a pleasure. A nurse will bring your discharge papers by. You might experience some cramping, and the bleeding won’t stop right away. But it should slow and stop within the next 24 hours.”

“Thank you so much,” Emily said, rising to shake his hand. She was all charm now that you and the baby were okay.

But, even still, she did not let her hands leave you even once as you walked into the waiting room, Derek wrapping his wide arms around both of you.

“I’m not gonna lie, mama, you had me worried,” he said, squeezing your hand. He left to get the car, and you and Emily made your way outside to wait for him.

“Jesus Christ,” Emily mumbled shakily, her arm around your waist to steady you. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.”

You frowned at her. “You’ve literally been held hostage. You had to fake your own death.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, pulling you into her chest and resting her chin on your head. “And the thought of losing you or the little guy is way worse than either of those things.”

Emily held your face between her hands and pressed a kiss to your forehead before melding her lips with yours. You sighed into her, the anxiety and panic of the day rolling off of you.

You jumped at the sound of a car horn. Derek smirked, rolling down the window. “I swear, you two can’t go two minutes without being all over each other.”

You blushed, and Emily flipped him off, but you were both loose and happy with relief. You let Emily wrap you in her arms in the backseat, knowing that she’d need that for a while–to hold you close, protectively, to reassure herself that you were safe.

You knew you’d get home and lay down and she’d get you your heating pad, and then she’d pull your head into her chest, lace her legs with yours. And you’d feel like nothing bad in the world could touch you, not in Emily’s arms.

[propertyofemilyprentiss]

“Home”

Pairing: Emily Prentiss x female!reader

Category: Hurt/Comfort

Summary: While working on a case, the memories of your past came flooding in, and Emily was there to comfort you in the aftermath.

TWs: violence, guns, mentions of abuse, childhood trauma

Word count: 3.1K

It has been a horrible couple of days, to say the least, and you hated when this happened - when a case hit a little way too close to home. Sure, you’ve learned to compartmentalize pretty well in those 2 years you had been working for the BAU, but this time it was different.

You couldn't shake the image out of your mind, the look on that boy’s face who managed to murder -execution style- three happy families before you caught him on his 4th one. The fear, the pain, the desperation - the eyes always tell the unspoken stories. It was almost like he was pleading you to get to him before he could destroy another family.

—

“Let me talk to him”, you told Hotch on the phone while you were riding with Emily to the house, “I know I can get him to surrender before he hurts them”.

Of course, Hotch knew your background and he checked up on you multiple times during the case - which you were grateful for, even though you didn’t actually like the extra attention that was obviously visible to the rest of the team. In addition, you also hated that they knew, on some level, that your background couldn’t have been a lot more different than the unsub’s.

Emily, who was glancing at you from time to time, fought really hard with herself to say nothing at your request. It was not her place to make that decision, even though her mind was screaming at her to say no, or to say something at all.

Also, you were too stubborn (or determined, as you liked to call it) to be talked out of this. She knew, but that didn't make her heart race any less.

”And I need to do it alone-“, you added but were immediately interrupted this time.

“Absolutely not!”, she almost yelled at your crazy request.

It felt like suicide, walking alone into a house where the murderer would not hesitate to shoot her - he proved that many times with the other families.

”Emily-“

”y/n”, you heard your name coming from the phone this time, “I know you see him different than we do-“

”I don't see him any different, I just know that if we all go into the house he’ll feel too threatened to even have a chance to cooperate. His instincts will kick in and then he will for sure not hesitate to use his gun. If I go alone, he won’t perceive me as a threat, and I'll have the chance to talk to him, whilst you can have my back from the outside”, you were determined to do this and you knew you had a good point of view.

There was pure silence for a few seconds.

”If at any point you feel like he won't cooperate, we’ll be coming in”, Hotch told you.

”Thank you”, you said, but you couldn't bear to look at Emily, you knew exactly the look that she was giving you right now.

You noticed her tensed greep on the steering wheel, how her knuckles were almost white and you knew deep down that she just wants you to be safe. But this was not her battle to fight, unfortunately. It was yours.

—

As you stepped into the house, you heard a terrifying scream coming from the living room, followed by the sound of a gun. You knew you only had a few minutes before the room would go completely silent forever.

With your gun in your hand, you rushed there as fast as you could.

”Danny Brant, my name is y/n y/l/n and I’m from the FBI”, you quickly scanned the room then, noticing how the husband was laying on the floor, being the one who was shot - you figured- but not deadly, and the wife was standing frozen next to him while the unsub had their little boy, who was just 6 years old from what Garcia told you.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer or I'm gonna shoot him!”, he yelled, but you noticed his hand trembling on the gun that was pointed to the kid's head.

”Oh my god!”, you heard the mom sobbing, “please don't do this!”.

However, he didn't even look at her, his whole attention was on you and the weapon that was pointing at him.

”You’re not, Danny , we both know that you don't want to hurt him. You’re just trying to get rid of all the pain that lies within yourself right now, but this is not the solution”, you looked at him, almost as desperately as he was looking at you, hoping that he would understand, “you can still fix this, just let me help you”.

”You want to help me?”, he scoffed, “don’t pretend like you’re any different from the others, you don't care about me, you don’t understand-“

”But I do”, you took a deep breath, lowering your gun and putting it on the floor. There was no going backwards now. “I understand, the world didn't treat you with the kindness that it treats other people and it hurts. Your parents didn't give you the unconditional love that every child deserves and it hurts even more. You suffered alone through the abuse, through years of not hearing “I love you” not even once, and you wondered what was wrong with you all this time. You tried anything in your power to make them proud, to make them smile when they were looking at you, despite the fact that you were their punching bag every single day, and nothing worked. So the pain turned into anger until you couldn't control it anymore - it controlled you. I understand”, your voice almost cracked, but you knew you were getting through him.

Hope filled your chest as you continued.

”You turned your anger towards happy homes, towards the things that life did not give you, but it gave to others, because it's not fair, is it?”

”Why not me?”, tears pricked his eyes, but for once in his life, he finally felt understood - although he was not ready to let go yet.

”I asked myself the same question many times, Danny, and I still don't know the answer. But what I can tell you is that inflicting your pain on others will not make yours go away. What you already did cannot be undone, but you can still make the right decision here. Please, let the little boy go”, you pleaded, knowing that this was his only chance before the team would have to intervene.

Immediately, he just started crying, loosening his grip on the kid and putting the gun on the floor. No words were spoken, he just watched as you approached him with the cuffs in your hands, then glanced to the mother who was hugging her son like her life depended on it and ultimately to all the other agents that were entering the house

“I'm so sorry”, was all he said before you handed him to another police officer.

You hurried to get out of the house, not being able to stay there even for a few more seconds. Everyone worriedly looked at you as you passed through them - you knew they heard everything, but you were too exhausted to feel anything. You just wanted to rot in your hotel room for the rest of the night, for once being grateful that you weren’t leaving until the next day.

Only when you were finally outside, you felt like you could breathe again.

You went back to the hotel before anyone else.

—

You’ve lost count of how many times the scene played in your head, and each time, your chest felt a little bit heavier than before. You couldn't arrange the thoughts in your head, you couldn't do anything more than just breathe.

This wasn't like you, it wasn't supposed to get to you this much, especially after experiencing cases that were much more disturbing than this one. But it still did, and you hated it.

Hated how weak you felt.

The wound you tried so meticulously to heal over time reopened in a matter of days, but this wasn't even your main concern. You just wanted to show your team that you were just as capable to do your job as everyone else, but was the cost worth it?

Your thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door and you already knew who it was. You don't even know how much time has passed from the moment you left the scene until now, to you it felt like hours. And for the first time in those days, getting out of bed didn't feel like a chore anymore.

“Emily-”

”y/n”, you both spoke at the same time.

You saw the concerned look on her face and you wished you could make it go away. Wished that you didn’t have to carry so much pain within yourself, that you couldn’t even talk about it with the person you love the most.

She immediately hugged you and you melted in her embrace. With her arms around you, it was the only time your mind was quiet.

“Look at me”, she gently said, lifting your chin to look into your glossy eyes, ”Oh, my sweet angel. I know you’re not okay, and if you want to talk about it, I’m here. Always. I love you. You don't have to be alone in this”.

But it's all you’ve known in your entire life. You have always been careful about what you let out about yourself to others, too scared of confessing your struggles to the few people who actually cared and loved you, thinking that they would leave.

Because who would want to love the mess of a person you were?

“y/n?”

Shit, you’ve been silent for too long.

“Can we j-just, uhm, lay in bed for a while?”, your voice came out more of a whisper, fearing that you would break down right then and there if you actually spoke out loud.

”Of course, come here”, Emily took your hand in hers and guided you right back to where you were a few minutes ago.

Instinctively, you laid your head on her chest as she was holding you, taking in the scent of her perfume. You smiled - it was your favorite.

It was silent for a while, which you were grateful for. Emily never pushed you into doing anything you weren't ready to do. But it suddenly became too much - the comfort of her hand caressing through your hair, the dozens of kisses that she was leaving wherever she could - the top of your head, your forehead, your hand that she was holding into hers - the sweet, encouraging words that she was whispering to you with the most loving tone you’ve ever heard in your life, the tears that threatened to form from the beginning of the day managed to betray you and escape this time.

From that moment, it was too late to stop them. So you cried. You let the tears carry away the pain, the emotions that you’ve bottled up these past few days, the feeling of failure and the struggles that you’ve carried on your shoulders all your life.

And Emily was there, just as she promised, holding you, soothing you, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as your tears fell on her chest until you had no more left.

“I’m sorry”, was all that you were able to say.

“Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologize for”, she said, lifting you for a bit so that your eyes would meet.

There was nothing but sincerity in them.

”But I have, Em. I've ruined your shirt, I worried you all day, we've barely spoken since we got here about anything that didn't include the case and I’m so, so sorry”, your body fell back into her embrace, a part of you clinging to her in the desperation of not wanting her to leave.

”Angel, I don't care about the shirt, it will dry eventually. I care about you. So about the rest - yes, I’ve been worried, because I love you and I want to help you. You’re not alone, even if your mind is telling you that”, she sighed, rubbing circles on your back, “I wish I could take your pain away and only see that beautiful smile of yours, but life isn't that easy. So you never have to apologize for something that was never in your control, okay?”

You exhaled sharply, not even acknowledging that you were not breathing in the first place. She was right, of course she was, but apologizing was all you’ve ever known. And you wanted nothing more than to let her through your walls, but that was not something you’ve ever done with anyone.

You have always been alone.

“I love you too, Em”, you said, looking down at your intertwined hands, “I just don't know how to do this…where do I even start?”

”How about you tell me what’s on your mind right now?”

You sighed again, a chuckle coming from your mouth. At least you don’t have to tell everything, thanks to your conversation with the unsub.

“I guess I’ve never been good at letting things go. I mean, it was a long time ago. It technically doesn't matter anymore. And yet, I cannot let it go, a part of me always knew that, but I had buried it deep enough to not affect me until, well, now”.

You took a deep breath again before continuing, holding slightly tighter onto Emily.

”You know why I wanted to go in that house alone today?”, you asked, wanting to make her understand, “He's 18, the same age I was when I was finally able to move out of my parent's house. I applied to universities that were far away from where I lived and managed to get a good scholarship in the process. I've never talked to them since”, a single tear runs down your cheek as you speak, the sorrowful feeling of recalling those unwanted memories hovering over you, “I wanted to give him the opportunity to have his own life, away from his family, even if that meant in jail”.

”But that anger, I understood it. The anger of having to spend my life recovering from things that I should have been protected from. The anger of losing the carefree, happy child that I once was and being forced to grow up, to take care of myself on my own”, you spoke with the suffering that you endured, and Emily's heart broke.

She knew you weren't done, but she already hated your parents for everything they’ve done to you. But she didn’t say a word, instead she took your hand to her lips, while she used the other to hold you tight.

”And there was also the confusion, you know? Why wasn’t I ever enough, why couldn't I gain their love no matter how much I’ve tried. Sometimes I would lay awake late at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if I was doomed from the moment I was born or if I was at least loved when I was too little to remember it”, your voice cracked at the end, the too familiar ache in your chest consuming you once again, “Am I so hard to be loved?”

”No. y/n, look at me”, Emily said in an instant, cupping your chin for you to look into her eyes, “I absolutely despise them for putting you through this, for making you question your worth, because, my angel, loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, you hear me? I love everything about you, from your perfect eyes that I get lost into every time I look at you, to your beautiful, contagious smile that lights up the room and which makes my day go from 0 to 100 in a split second”, she immediately noticed the faint smile on your face, and her chest blossomed with love.

“But it doesn't stop here. I love how whenever we spend time at each other’s places, you always wake up a little bit earlier than me in order to make coffee, even though you hate waking up early. I love how your eyes spark with happiness whenever one of your favorite songs comes on the radio and how you immediately start singing it to me. I love watching the stars with you from my bedroom. I love the fact that I get to know the soft side of you which you never show around the others. I love every movie we watch from the start simply because you’re next to me. I love slow dancing in the living room with you even if you always say you're a terrible dancer”, she laughs at the memories of those amazing days that she wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

”Em, I am a terrible dancer”, you giggled with her, a new set of tears appearing.

But these ones weren't carrying the agony of your horrible past, but the comfort and gratitude towards the woman that turned your life around and showed you the definition of love.

”You're not!”, she exclaimed, wiping your tears away, “But this was not the point here. The point is, you’re not hard to love, not at all, not to me. And I’m so sorry that your parents couldn't see what an amazing daughter they had, but ultimately it’s their loss. I know it hurts you nonetheless, but you’re so strong angel, and I’ve always admired that about you. You’ll carry those memories of everything that happened for the rest of your life, but it's still going to be okay. And whenever it doesn’t feel like it, I’ll be there to remind you”, she placed a kiss on your forehead, hoping you understood that you’re not alone - not anymore.

You didn't know what to say, the shock of someone understanding your pain, your past, and still loving you put you at a loss of words. You slowly got up from her embrace and kissed her, softly and gently, with the weight of a thousand unspoken words.

Pulling back, you looked at her hopeful smile, her glistening eyes, and you wondered how you got so lucky to be able to call her your girlfriend.

“Thank you, Em”, you genuinely smiled, “Thank you for finding me worthy of love, despite the mess that I am”.

“y/n, we’re all a mess in our own ways. But thank you for letting me see yours, because it only made me love you more”.

You placed a tended kiss on her lips once more before melting into her embrace once again, exhaustion filling your body.

And right there, in her arms, with your head on her chest, listening to her beating heart, you’ve never felt safer.

You knew then - you have found your home.

[snixkers]

Lost & Found

Pairing: Spencer Reid × GN!Reader

Angst

For: Anonymous Request

Summary: After receiving notes from an unknown sender, you realize that your stalker is closer than you thought.

Content Warning: Abduction, stalking, restraints, canon compliant violence

Author's Note: Did my best! Anon wanted a PLL storyline, so I tried to incorporate that as best as I could.

Feedback is always welcome!

Requests are OPEN

It had been a week since the flowers had shown up on your doorstep with a note from ‘A’. You were certainly confused. You’d never dated anyone with a name that had an A, and none of your friends were confessing to it, so you were sure it was probably a fluke on the part of the delivery man.

Until it happened again. You were sitting at your desk when you got a call from an unknown number. You picked up, assuming it was a spam or a butt dial, when the voice spoke up.

How was work today?

The words sent a chill down your spine. Once could be written off as a mistake, but two times was enough to confirm what you were worried about. You had a stalker. Before you could reply, the caller hung up, leaving you dumbfounded at your desk.

You told the team, and they all did their best, but there wasn’t much even Garcia could do. The call had been traced to a payphone, and the flowers were paid for in cash. On the security cameras, the man was wearing enough to obscure any details that would have been important for identification. He was good.

The next couple weeks, you resigned yourself to just putting up with it. You carried pepper spray, tasers, anything you could. Your commute was now carpooling, and you used the buddy system to the best of your ability. But one day, the batteries in your smoke detector went out, meaning you were officially going insane from the noise.

You slipped into some sneakers to head to the convenience store down the street, grabbing your keys and phone.The streets were dark, with the occasional car passing by. You made your way inside and searched for the batteries before finally coming across a pack of AAs. The man standing at the register watched you come up, scan your items, and swipe your card. As you picked the package up, you noticed his nametag: Alex.

Oh, shit.

Something hit the back of your head and you passed out cold.

-----

The team had been searching for you relentlessly, calling in every favor possible. They tracked your credit card to the corner store, where they watched the cashier come up behind you and take you out. They found out he didn’t even work there, but they were able to track his car to a man named Alex Pinof.

The team pulled up outside his house, guns raised and ready to go. Derek kicked the door down and they swarmed the building, clearing the rooms. They found you in the basement, bound and gagged but otherwise unharmed. Hotch went to arrest Alex while Emily untied you, leading you out of the basement and up to the main floor.

Spencer pulled you into a tight hug and you returned the favor, gripping him as tight as possible.

“I was scared you weren’t going to find me.”

He shook his head, burying his face in the top of your head and giving it a small kiss.

“I’ll always find you.”

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Kintsugi  金繕い [Spencer x Reader]

Photo credits Left (@mon-petit-coeur-noir) Center (@whoisspence) Right (@shakespearesdaughters)

Prompt: When the reader gets kidnapped for being friends with Spencer, she is mentally tormented to get back at Reid, and the reader and team, especially Spencer,  have to find a way to communicate before it’s too late for her to make it out alive. 

Pairing: Spencer x BAU-Fem!reader, Nerdy!reader. The reader uses she/her pronouns

Category: angst/hurt/comfort [happy ending] 

Word Count: 15K

Content Warnings: Mention of death and sexual assault, mention of blood, mental torment [threat of assault, being unclothed, forced partial blindness - eyes glued open, forced partial deafness - loud music is played, degrading comments (reader)], physical harm [being cut with a knife, being put in a feezing unit, being beaten (reader)], distress, mentions of hospitals. If I missed any please let me know. 

A/N: Hi all! I hope you are all doing very well! If you are a student on Summer break I hope you are having fun and relaxing! As always, I return with a novel of a Spencer story. This story was requested by an Anon, thank you so much, and I hope you like it! I do throw in a few Star Trek and literary references in this fic, but I try and explain them well. My requests are open, so feel free to request a fic from me if you like anytime! I do want to encourage you to read the tags as this is a bit dark for me (though it has a happy ending). If you like this concept and would like to see part two of the reader’s healing process with Spencer, let me know. Please be kind to yourselves this week and do something you love, you are so special. If you enjoy this fic, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated! Love Levi - ❤️

List with all stories 

y/n = your name 

y/c/h = your color hair 

y/l/n = your last name 

t/c/s = tea/coffee/soda 

y/n’s head was pounding. It was throbbing with pain and the hard floor and air itself seemed frigid. y/n clutched her sides and rubbed. She was grateful that their clothes were still on. Given the unsub the team was dealing with, it wasn’t what y/n had expected. But then again, the man the BAU had been trying to find in the last week had been full of surprises. He didn’t fit the early profile the team had created, and now y/n was alone and scared, but she pulled together her strength and courage and opened her eyes. This was her job and she’d been doing it for a year. She’d seen team members taken, and harmed, and sometimes almost died, but if there was one thing y/n knew about the BAU, it was that they cared for each other. Everyone on the team would be looking for her. They wouldn’t leave a stone unturned until they found her. That was what had drawn y/n to the Unit in the first place. 

The BAU had done a joint operation with y/n’s Counterterrorism team where they were the unofficial data specialist and literary nerd. As soon as Derek had seen y/n and Reid together, he looked at Emily and said, “Well, this is going to be trouble,” to which both agents looked up and said in unison, “What?” It was during that case that Spencer had been in danger, and y/n was a bit too. Spencer had put himself in harm's way to ensure she was okay. Just seeing how the BAU responded with more than just professionalism, but also with care had sealed y/n into wanting a transfer. It wasn’t for another two years before that became a possibility. There was some issue with the documents that she had mailed to the Quanitco office, eventually, she sent fresh ones and drove them down herself. 

It was that knowledge, that the team was looking, at that filled y/n with warmth and shared determination. She opened her eyes and realized why she was so cold. From the looks of things, the white cement floor, the fluorescent lighting, and the crusted blood on the ground, y/n was in a meat packing plant. She sniffled and rubbed her shivering torso as she opened her eyes and sat up. There were conveyor belts on the far side of the wall, along with sharp meat hooks hanging from the ceiling. This setting would make sense given that the bodies of the three victims that had the team come down in the first place had seemed very fresh, even though they had passed a few weeks ago. The thought of the women and what the unsub had done to them and their bodies made y/n want to vomit. 

They had been killed excruciatingly. Not only had they been tortured, but they’d been assaulted as well. With this in mind, and possibly in her future, y/n moved away from the dried blood on the floor, not sure who or what it was from. y/n wondered how long the man kept his victims alive. The team had hypothesized that he was a sadist and loved long drawn out kills, to watch the victims suffer. The unsub had a type, and y/n fell into it. There was a sound at the far side of the room, and y/n moved to the center of the space. There was no point in cowering in the corner. She decided to face the unsub head-on. Show no fear, even if she was filled with it to the brim. The man’s outline filled the door making it unable for her to see him, but y/n knew that would change soon enough. 

As y/n waited to test wits with the man in front of her, the rest of the BAU, many miles away had set up a tent at the Kansas State Fair. Their team tent looked much less adorned than those of the food and game vendors with their bright colors and light. The satellite pop-up of the BAU and police presence were needed to gather information and vet the people leaving the fair since y/n had been taken. Their tent was on the far side of the fair. It would be unassuming if there weren’t loads of cops, police cars, state troopers cars, and a SWAT team all moving in and out of the space. Aaron and Rossi were heading up the operation and working through the bureaucratic tape and interdepartmental things that would otherwise slow the team down. There was a tension in the air that permeated each member of the BAU. It was palpable with all of them, but with Spencer, it was coming off him wave after wave. The lithe agent was with Emily and Derek, walking through the empty mirror house where y/n had been abducted. As Reid, Em, and Morgan move through each cranny and trick door for guests and employees. He caught his reflection in mirror after mirror and it all felt like a sick joke. Reid was absorbed in his own reflection for a moment before he heard Derek’s voice cut through his brain fog. Spencer snapped up and moved toward his friend's voice. Emily and Morgan were kneeling down next to an employee entrance. Reid was upset and angry, and the sight of a blood stain on the bright floor along with a few strands of y/n’s y/c/h should have made him feel good, but the blood only meant that y/n was already hurt, and probably being hurt more at this point made his stomach churn. 

Emily looked at Spencer’s serious face and re-asked “Can we get a blood sample vial, Spence?” The question finally registered with Reid and he replied sharply, “I’ll do it. Can you just step aside a bit?” Derek’s brow furrowed. He knew that Spencer had a thing for y/n. Everyone on the team did except, infuriatingly, the pining agents themselves. But that didn’t give Spencer a reason to be hot at them. Morgan replied, “Easy Spence. We’re doing everything we can.” Spencer couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Well not enough to keep her safe when she was with you both.” At that statement, both Prentiss and Derek stood and looked at Spencer disappointingly, like a child who had said a naughty word they had been told not to say. They both moved back and their physical reactions made Spencer drop his head in shame. He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes, and said to the floor, “I’m sorry.” He was trying to hold back all the emotions. Emotions he often didn’t let himself feel. He looked up at his friends and continued, “I’m sorry. I… I don’t think I know how to deal with this. I know it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything, and you both care about y/n as much as I do. I let my emotions get away from me.” 

Morgan and Emily looked at each other as Reid said that they both liked y/n as much as he did, knowing it wasn’t true. Yes, they both loved y/n, but not like Spencer, and that realization justified Reid's words for them. They both moved forward. Derek gave Spencer’s shoulder a firm squeeze, and said, “It’s okay, kid. Now, have you got that vial Em needs?” Reid released a relieved breath, pulled a sample kit out of his shoulder bag, and handed it over to Emily who was back on her knees near the evidence. As she began taking the sample, Morgan and Spencer moved down the narrow trap door to see where it led and to see if there were more clues about the unsub or y/n’s location. 

As the duo moved down the narrow hallway, it became apparent that y/n must have been unconscious or tightly bound as she was being taken away by the unsub. There would have been more of a struggle on y/n’s part if she’d been awake or free, but none of the boxes or supplies for the House of Mirrors seemed to be broken or messed up. Derek didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing, and Reid’s mind was moving too fast, even he couldn’t keep up with it. He knew the team needed to find all of the physical evidence first, to vet the guests and vendors that were leaving for information, but that could be a slow process and all Spener wanted to do was use his full brain power to think about the victimology, update the profile, make a map pinpointing the locations of the victims, but this process had to be done first. The team was a member short, and they all knew the police weren’t helpful in situations like this, so Reid sucked it up and kept moving beside Morgan, trying desperately to still his brain for once. 

Back in the freezer, y/n looked as the mountain of a man came into view. He looked disheveled and red-faced. He wore jeans and a button-down T-shirt. y/n looked at him. She wanted him to make the first move, to understand him better -- his ticks, any weaknesses he had. Anything she could use against him. Force wasn’t an option right now, but she had her mind, and that was worth a lot. The unsub grinned and said, “This will be fun. You’re prettier than I expected. That look of fear on your face, he’s going to love that.” y/n swallowed and replied, “‘He?’ Don’t you mean you. You’re the one taking and killing the woman. And thanks for the compliment.” The man chuckled and said, “You have a mouth on you alright, just like I expected. Of course, he’d like you the little bitch. And who he is doesn’t matter. For now at least. But it will be fun. Not for you of course, but for me it will be. I’ll get so, so very much pleasure from you. I just didn’t expect you to be so cute. It’s a shame, really.” 

y/n frowned. She couldn’t tell if this was dissociation or multiple personalities, but the constant mention of her looks and another person was odd. There hadn’t been any signs of a second unsub, nor was there any other DNA evidence on the victims. As the man made a fast step toward y/n, she moved away from him. This only had the unsub smile and laugh as he moved toward y/n again and said, “You can’t run away from me little bird. You’re only going to make it worse on yourself.” y/n stopped at that. y/n stopped immediately. She swallowed thickly. If she was someone else, like Hotch, Morgan, or Spencer who had the presence and size to act brave in a physical altercation she would bluster and make herself big and threatening. But y/n wasn’t them and didn’t take risks like they did. Firstly, because even y/n assumed Morgan would be physically intimidated by the man’s size and bulk, secondly, y/n was still new to the BAU. Not that she hadn’t picked things up quickly or was good at the job, but it was still more difficult for her to pick up small tells or things like Reid or Emily could. Plus, it wouldn’t help her in signaling the team in some way if the first thing that happened to her was to be fully incapacitated. 

The unsub noticed her submissive posture and liked it saying, “That’s it little bird, now I need you to get out of your things.” y/n looked up at him, biting her lip asking, “Why? What happened to the bird when it gets defeathered, defrocked?” y/n knew what to expect next, assault was part of this man’s MO and if she could postpone that, she sure as hell would. The man laughed again, harsh and cruel, like he was in on a joke that she wasn’t. The man replied, “I’m not going to break you like the others. I could, and I will if you give me too much bratty attitude, but that’s not the plan. All of that other shit with the women and how I treated them, that was to get your attention. Their attention. And I don't think physically breaking you would hurt him either, but don’t test me. However, for now, just take off your clothes and I won’t touch you, that way.” 

y/n didn’t look forward to being undressed in front of anyone. It was uncomfortable for her to be vulnerable with their body like that, even with close friends like Penelope and JJ. In fact, a memory of Emily trying to get her to buy a more revealing swimsuit for the summer popped into her mind and the coaxing it took for y/n to finally buy and wear the skimpy swimwear. Of course, Spencer’s attempt to not look over her body with rapt attention had made the discomfort worth it. When the unsub grabbed at her shirt, y/n began undoing the button of her shirt. It took longer than she expected as her hands shook with cold and fear. y/n expected the man to ask her to move faster, but he didn’t. Again, he seemed to have a sick enjoyment of watching her cower. y/n took this opportunity to think and think fast. The man had said he was trying to get the team's attention. Not only the team’s attention but ‘his’ attention. So that narrowed it down to four people. That was something to go off of. Second, this unsub was someone y/n would have remembered if she’d dealt with him before, but she didn’t, so he was someone from before her time. This was some kind of lesson. There was only a small glimmer of hope that y/n had for her health, both physical and mental because if the unsub wanted to break a member of the team through her, it was going to take more than just taking them captive and keeping them in a poorly regulated freezing unit. 

At this point, y/n was down to her undergarments, and she wondered how pushing the man would be. How quickly he would react, and with how much force? There was only one way of finding out, and she intended to know this early on. This way she could better gauge her actions and submissiveness. If that turned out to be a thing he liked, then she could use it as a small way of gaining control later. So y/n stopped when she stepped out of her pants, and the man quickly changed his demeanor saying, “Don’t stop now. I may not be interested in you, but I know he is, and it’s no good if we’re keeping this at a PG-13, scary movie rating. I need this to be the unrated version birdie, so get out of those panties and bra.” y/n now knew that the man’s emotions were volatile and could change on a dime. That was all she needed to know to get out of her last things. The cold chilled y/n further now that she was nude. 

y/n couldn’t stop herself as she moved her hands to cover her nudity. The unsub bent down not even noticing her discomfort as he picked up her undergarments and examined them to an odd degree muttering, “Do you think he knows you match your bra to your panties? Because he will soon enough.” y/n stepped back, slowly onto one of the patches of dried blood which made y/n cringe. The serious ‘he’ was back and the expression of rage on the man’s face was so intense that y/n wanted to run to the door to try and escape. Whatever this man who had supposedly wronged the unsub, there was a vitriolic rage for him simmering underneath the surface. Before y/n even had the chance to fully think through making a run for it, the man stood up and whipped his hand over y/n’s face so hard that the blow threw her back and into one of the metal supports of the conveyor belts. 

The pain in the side of y/n’s face shocked her into stillness as her jaw clicked oddly and she grunted in pain. Again, before y/n could react, the unsub was on her again. He kicked her torso, legs, and face with the steel tips of his boots breaking the skin every time another blow landed on her prone body. Along with the damage to her front, every time the man’s foot met y/n’s bare flesh, her back was pushed back and harder into the sharp corner of the convey belt. y/n quickly figured out that the unsub was being fast and efficient. When she looked up at his face, he seemed bored as he landed each kick. There was a callous disinterest in what he was doing. He seemed to not be affected at all by what was happening to his victim. Due to this y/n began planning accordingly. Shifting her position slightly so the blows landed on a more padded part of her body, and along with giving her lower back a break by shifting the hits to her lower shoulders, this meant her breasts getting hit, which was not pleasant in the least, but it was somewhere new, and somewhere padded by a bit more. 

y/n felt jostled to the core and rattled to the bone. The pain she was experiencing was blinding and she couldn’t think about much more than trying to protect her face and groin, both of which got hit anyway. What felt like an eternity’s worth of blows ended as soon as it began, and all y/n could do was lie on the ground and grit her teeth against the pain. Her attempt to stay strong physically and mentally was already being tested, but she refused to lick her wounds in front of her captor. If this was about being broken, then she wasn’t yet. The unsub knelt with a grunt and jerked y/n’s face up and into the light, looking at the bruising on her face examining her like a piece of meat for consumption. Something about her battered appearance didn’t suit his liking and he said like a painter finishing a masterpiece, “Just a bit more, right there.” His large stubby pointer finger gesticulated at her lower face and he gripped her hair more tightly and rammed her head onto the floor splitting her lip and jarring her jaw again. 

With that, the man dropped y/n’s face, stood, and walked straight out of the room. Just for the fun of it, he kept the door open for three minutes as he watched y/n turn onto her side to find any place that was comfortable enough to breathe. y/n looked at the open door and the look of delight on the man’s face as he stood by the entrance, and y/n realized that this was going to be her form of torment, an option in view but not accessible. When the large metal door finally swung shut and was locked from the outside, y/n closed her eyes and tried to use her brain. There would be time to assess her physical damage later, for now, she could use one thing that she had. She made mental notes: that the unsub walked with a limp, that he had a New York accent, that he wasn’t over fifty years old. He also had a large size footprint to match his large stature. He also had a mermaid tattoo on his left ankle. Next, she thought about his mental patterns. He was volatile and not afraid to cause harm, but he took no pleasure in doing so to her. It was about a certain result. He had also said that he had only killed those other women, and eviscerated them, to get a man on the team's attention. y/n could work with that. Try and use that to her advantage. If only she could find out who the man was. As the pain took y/n over, and her brain shut down to the basic feeling of hurt and cold, y/n’s mind turned to Spencer. How I must have looked at the moment. Stressed, tired, on edge. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, even if it was for her. She wished she could pull him into a hug and say “It’s alright Spence. I’m holding on. I promise.” The last sentence would stay silent, but he’d know. Because he always knew her. And with that thought, y/n closed her eyes, curled in on herself, and attempted to rest. 

The night was not pleasant for anyone but the unsub. But even Moore Eiarty, the unsub, was worried that his plan wouldn’t succeed, That he couldn’t break the genius of Spencer Reid. But all the pieces were finally in place, and now it was time to play. As the team finally got through vetting the people in the park, they got back to work. The main thing they had to go off of was that one of the performers, the Giant Man, was missing. He’d been added last minute to the tour and there had barely been time to get his paperwork in order before the Kansas Fair began. And it wasn’t until that evening that they discovered that the man, Mr. M. Earity, had very well-forged documents. Not just one, but all of them. That gave Penelope a lot to work on while the team took the angle of victimology and reworked the profile. The BAU had moved back to the police precinct except for Derek and Rossi. Spencer knew that Morgan was taking this especially hard because y/n had been taken while she was with him, but Spence’s head was too full of ideas and concerns to worry about how the others felt right now. 

Aaron watched the team do what the team did. Perhaps they were working a bit more hectically than normal, but this was one of their own on the line and Hotch would rather die before he stopped working to get y/n back. As he looked at Spencer, writing on over seven whiteboards with three coffees on the table, he considered that Reid might also die if they didn’t find y/n soon. That thought sat with the Unit Chief, and he tucked it in the back of his mind for later. This felt especially pertinent to this case, though he didn’t know why yet. Nothing much came in terms of developments for a few hours. JJ released a statement for the press, Derek and Rossi returned to the team, and the Fair was shut down for legal safety. The tip line ran nonstop and everyone felt the weight of time. It wasn’t until 3:00 AM that the first real forward momentum was given to the team, and target to Spencer specifically. 

It came in the form of an email from an unlisted account. It was labeled Urgent Dr. Reid - Re:y/n, y/l/n. Spencer looked at the email and decided to open it. He was tired, and his brain was beginning to numb at all the stimuli that were assaulting his mind. What he saw once he opened that email made him drop his coffee and whip his hand over his mouth in horror. Aaron and Emily were in the room with Spencer, and they both noticed their colleague’s distress. Prentiss moved to Reid’s side and looked at the laptop as well. Her mouth went slack and she whispered, “Oh my God. H-hotch…” It didn’t take Aaron more than four strides to see what had both of these friends looking like they were going to be sick. As soon as he saw the first picture of y/n, naked, heavily bruised and bloody, and head down he knew why Reid and Em had reacted as they had. y/n’s hands were forced above her head with zip ties and strung to a hook hanging from the ceiling. The position she was in had her knees barely brushing the floor which meant that all of her weight was in her wrists, elbows, and shoulders.

y/n wore a pained expression, and Hotch’s eyes darted up for a second out of proprietary. He didn’t want to have to see y/n undressed. To be forced into such a humiliating position and know others, people she trusted, would see it made Aaron pause. It hurt. He composed himself and said as professionally as he could, “We need this on the big screen. Em, can you get on that? Reid, is there any text in the body?” Prentiss and Spencer came back to themselves, though it took Spence a moment longer, and they registered their Leader’s questions. Emily nodded and moved to pull down the projector in the room and pushed some of the whiteboards Reid had been using aside; meanwhile, Reid scrolled past the 25 attached photos to where there was some text. He read it in a millisecond and said, “Yes there is. I’ll get Gacia on Zoom while you get the rest of the team in here.” Hotch nodded and took one more second to look at Spencer to see if he was okay. This was targeted at him, which was both a good and a bad thing, but right now, the smartest member of the team looked determined to get to the bottom of this, so Hotch moved to the door to get everyone else into the conference room. 

After the team looked at all of the photos and the attached email, they split into smaller sub-groups to work more efficiently. Aaron and Emily agreed to look at all of the images with a more critical eye. They would break down every angle and shot and bruise on y/n’s body. The one positive thing that the pictures did show was that y/n was alive. Or at least she had been, and given the unsub’s propensity to draw out his kills, there was a good chance that y/n was still alive. The time stamp on the email had been from only a half hour ago and didn’t appear altered. Hotch assigned Spencer and JJ to look at the body of the email. He gave this task to Spencer so he could do something he excelled at. He was the best linguist and forensic document analyst in the FBI after all. JJ was also excellent at identifying patterns in writing and could help Spencer. It also gave Reid an out for not having to look at y/n’s prone and exposed body. 

Aaron as the leader took that burden of looking at y/n with Emily because Prentiss was also very good at compartmentalizing her emotions related to her friendships and the job. Derek was working with Garcia, who was on overdrive to find the source of the email and pin down a location along with about ten thousand other things. She’d gone as far as calling in Janet, another Technical analyst at Quantico to come and help her because two computer processors and brains were always better than one. Lastly, Rossi coordinated with the police on-the-ground operation of searching for y/n. Even though a lot of moving pieces were happening at the same time, the BAU did what it always did -- work with excellence and as a team. Aaron looked at his team for a moment, proud of them. He was worried about Spencer, who was more on edge than normal. Hotch turned his eyes back to the screen, he’d check in on the genius in a few hours, for now, he had a difficult job to do. 

After a few hours that slipped by like grains of sand in an open palm, the team had discovered a few things. The first thing that Spencer and JJ broke down was the email which read: 

I have waited for a long time to get this opportunity. While I have watched you all, the most famous and infamous team in the FBI, I have been looking at one of you in particular. I wonder if you know who you are yet? Let me give you a hint. Last I saw you, you were just a child not even weaned on crimes or violence. Do you know now? Estranged from your friend, I wonder if you’re floundering like I have been before because of you. Sorry if this is all a bit obtuse, but this is fun, and I’m going to draw it out for you. Try not to get too excited yet, the best is yet to come. Rest assured that your friend will face the consequences of knowing you so well. Only when I see you so ruined as I have been ruined will I be happy. Yesterday you were so determined to catch me, do you feel that way now, or are you feeling the fear in your veins? You can find me eventually, but not before I find you. Other things may happen too. Under my control, I may make y/n do anything I want. Don’t worry though, I don’t have plans like I had for the others, this is different. Ready now. Ready now. Enough of waiting for you, and this moment. I’d start praying for y/n, and you, my friend. Dare we should meet in person and you’ll see what I’ve done to her and you’ll finally taste my revenge. 

It didn’t take Spencer more than a minute to read the ‘secret message of’ I will destroy you, Dr. Reid, in the unsubs email. He almost laughed at the grandiose nature of the writing. JJ then pointed out that y/n wasn’t even mentioned until the end of the rambling message. This told the team that this kidnapping was all about Spencer, as it was clear from the email, and had little to do with y/n. That y/n was being used as a tool to get at Reid. Of course, the pictures of y/n who was bruised heavily all over her body, showed that the unsub was still willing to inflict serious bodily harm on her. But this fact made Emily and JJ feel slightly better. 

Spencer had come up with at least seventeen facts, grammatical patterns, and hints at a personality based on egomania. After Reid had said about five of them in the span of a few minutes, Derek gave him a look and Spencer stopped talking. Aaron and Emily then broke down the patterns of bruising and how the depth of the day-old bruising was likely from one sustained moment in time. That there didn’t seem to be layer upon layer of bruising on y/n’s body. Also, from the look of it, there didn’t seem to be any sign of sexual assault. Hotch had caught onto the dark red-rimmed circles under y/n’s eyes, indicating that she hadn’t slept much if at all since she had been taken nearly twenty-four hours ago. It was also pretty easy for Aaron to tell that y/n was being kept in some kind of industrial freezing unit. This was concerning as staying anytime long-term in such a cold space could lead to frostbite and long-term nerve damage. 

After the team had gone through the information and made a start at a new profile that focused mostly on the unsubs' hatred for Spencer, this put even more pressure on Spence. The rest of the team took a small break to just breathe or step outside or get a drink of the bad coffee from the office breakroom, Reid stayed behind and furiously wrote in his notepad and looked at the photos of y/n while biting the inside of his cheek so hard that he broke the soft pink skin. Spencer turned off the bright light to let his eyes and at least his occipital cortex have a break. The rest of his body was working pell mill. Derek moved back to the room ten minutes later and Spencer was leaning, his hands forward, and head bowed toward the wooden table. He looked like he might collapse. Morgan could see his friend’s outline backlit against the brightness of the screen. He looked frailer than normal, skinnier than his usual tall body. Derek knew this was hard for Spencer because it was y/n who had been taken, and it was because of him. Even if Spencer hadn’t realized he had feelings for y/n yet, he still felt the weight of what was happening to her because of him. Morgan entered the room with a cup of coffee and said gently, “Spencer, I brought you some coffee.” Reid hummed softly like he hadn’t really heard Morgan and Derek said, “Reid,” a bit louder. Spencer’s head shot up and toward Derek and his hands gripped the side of the table harder, knuckles turning white. Spencer snapped a “What?” at Morgan before taking a breath and relaxing his shoulders. Morgan didn’t mind Spence’s tone now. It made sense. 

Derek moved into the room and said, “I brought you some coffee. Maybe we could step outside for a minute? Get some fresh air?” Reid dropped his head again and he said mournfully, “I can’t rest right now. I have to figure out who has y/n.  I don’t know who the unsub is, but they know me and I don’t want y/n to have to pay the price for that.” Derek sighed and replied, “Spence, y/n would never blame you for being her friend, for being someone special to her.” Reid sniffled and replied, “She won’t thank me if she’s dead and neither will I.” Spencer’s voice broke off halfway through his last sentence. Morgan stepped forward and placed his hand on Reid’s shoulder. He gave is a gentle squeeze and replied, “Well thinking like that isn’t going to save her. And you need that super processor of a brain of yours to cool off before it shuts down on it’s own. And y/n is a tough cookie, she’s going to make it Reid. If there’s anyone who can find her, it’s you. And if you start letting this guy get to your head, then he’s already won. And we don’t let fuckers like that win. I know y/n sure as shit won’t thank you for that. Now let's go outside.” Spence allowed himself to be led out of the dark room, and Morgan closed the door behind them. 

y/n was beyond tired, she dozed off on and off as she lay in the corner of the room. She was too sore to move around. She did take a look at her surroundings every time she woke abruptly from an unknown sound. She’d look for the man who called himself Mr. M., or to shift from side to side to try and increase her circulation and shift the pain to a new place if that was possible. Much to Mr. M.’s credit, he didn’t seem to enjoy stringing y/n up to the ceiling and he’d taken her down as soon he’d finished taking what seemed like an endless stream of photos. He’d positioned her more like a clay statue looking at angles and composition than as if she was a human in pain. This gave y/n an indication that he might be a sociopath given that he seemed immune to her pained sounds as he adjusted her body again and again. He’d muttered “He’s going to love these. To see what I’ve made of you so far.” y/n opted to stay silent. To see if she could get any more information from the man, but he didn’t do much more than complain about the lighting and make comments about the ‘he’ in question. y/n highly considered that the male member of the team could be Rossi or Aaron, whom Mr. M was muttering on about. M seemed to address this person with such dignified authority that would fit those two people on the team. But that didn’t make sense, as y/n didn’t think Hotch or Rossi held her in any higher standard than the rest of the BAU. Yes, she respected Aaron as a leader and he respected her back. And surely he was beating himself up for not looking out for her, but it didn’t seem to fit with the rage that M felt toward this person. 

It seemed even more outlandish for the ‘he’ to be Rossi. Rossi was like a father figure to y/n. He had helped her really learn the ropes of the team and cases. Especially the paperwork after a case was finished, but if Mr. M wanted to hurt Rossi, he’d surely know to find one of his Ex-wives or someone closer to Dave. It was the odd reverence that the unsub continued using that threw y/n off of the real person he was targeting. The next interaction that y/n had with the man would clear things up for her significantly, and give her an option to use her brain to help the team find her. 

Mr. M came back sooner than y/n had wished. Her exhaustion and numbness made not only her body weak but her brain slow. When she saw that he was holding her underwear and a knife, she sat up and crawled back against the wall clumsily, not liking that combination of objects together. The man snorted and said, “Trying to fly away bird, I’m going to clip your wings if you do that too much. Then you won’t be able to run, ever.” y/n slowed her movements,  not willing to test the huge man in front of her. y/n swallowed thickly and looked from Mr. M.’s passive face to his hands holding the mismatched objects. The intimate and the violent. The man watched her eyes,  tracked their movements, and when he saw where they landed he genuinely laughed and said, “I told you before, I didn’t like doing those things to those girls. It was to make a point. Touching people intimately is my least favorite idea of a ‘good time.’ I just plan on making him think I’ve had you that way. Send him a little surprise gift and watch as he tries to process his loss of that part of you.” Somehow this response baffled y/n’s sleepless brain even more. Who the hell on the team wouldn’t be upset if she got assaulted in that way? If fact y/n could imagine each member of the team taking Mr. M out in rather lurid ways. It was stupid, but it gave y/n comfort and she even smiled softly at the thought of Derek beating the man up, or Spencer setting some kind of trap of wits for him. M. saw her happy look, and struck her face with the back of his fist, now only a foot from her body. He sneered and said, “‘he’ won’t be as happy as you are right now when he gets our present.” M grabbed her left arm, placed the tip of the knife on her forearm, and pressed it into her skin. The man drew a line down her wrist. 

The red liquid bubbled up and out of the wound like a stream. The cold of the freezer numbed the pain a bit. In fact, the feeling of the hot blood dripping down y/n’s arm was warming and she would have spread it over her arm if she was just a bit more tired. However, she didn’t have the chance as M grabbed her arm in a vice grip, and with his other hand, grabbed her panties. He ran the crotch of her undergarments over her fresh cut, spreading blood over the inside seam. He then dropped them to the ground and turned her arm over. He pinched at the wound, causing the bleeding to increase and easing large red droplets onto her already-soiled underwear. 

y/n felt disgusted at being used this way and said to fill in the oppressive silence, “I don’t think Derek will find this appalling, mainly he’d going to think it’s gross as fuck.” y/n hadn’t really meant Morgan, she’d just said the first name that popped into her head. As tough as Derek was, he wasn’t great with blood, just like Gracia. The slip was the best thing y/n could do as M dropped her arm and looked at her like she’d grown a second head. He shook his head and said, “Lord, and I thought ‘he’ liked you for your brain. It seems you may not have one up there. Dr. Reid is who I am referring to bird. Not agent Morgan. Derek couldn’t figure this out if you put all the pieces in front of him on a board.” 

y/n was astonished for a moment. Not only at the apparent racism of Mr M. but his other statement as well:  Spencer! This was about Spencer! How the hell this guy knew and had been wronged by her best friend on the team was beyond her. Certainly, Reid would have told her about him if they’d had run-ins in the past. They spent so much time together that they basically knew everything about each other. The weariness and pain were starting to get to y/n and she muttered as she closed her eyes, “Why would Spence care about this, he’s seen me on my period before. He’s gotten my sanitary products before, hell I bitch at him when I get cramps, and he takes it.” M stopped looking at the work of art which was y/n’s blood-soaked underwear and said, “You really are hopeless. And I don’t see the appeal to the good Doctor. He’s in love with you and you can’t even see it. Hopeless bird, I’ll take care of that though. You won’t have to think for much longer.” The vitality that y/n had been lacking came back in a rush of heat as M said that Spencer was in love with her. y/n sat up and took her injured arm and cradled it to her chest. The pain finally registered in her synapses. She let out a prolonged breath and said. “You think Spencer is in love with me? That’s a bit of a stretch.” y/n knew in the back of her mind that this might get her hurt more, or killed, but she was finally getting answers and perhaps if she had more answers she could do something with that. Actually use her brain, which the unsub had insulted she didn’t. 

M sighed and replied as if this was a normal conversation, “Bird, the data adds up. Dr. Reid puts himself in forty-three percent more danger when you are in a dangerous postion on a case. He puts himself in the line of fire for you over and over. At least five times by the records I’ve seen. Not only that, the chronically lonely young man who shuns women’s attention chooses to spend time with you above his other friends, even the likes of Morgan or Penelope. If that’s not the start of a crush, then I don’t know what is.” y/n looked up at the man with awe. Not so much at his intellectual prowess that he seemed to think he had, but at how stupid he sounded. Perhaps, maybe, maybe, there were some more feelings between y/n and Spencrs than friendship, but the other things he said were just crap. His use of statistics, and characterizing Reid as a lonely hermit was laughable. However, y/n was more aware than ever now, and this time she kept their mouth shut. She knew that saying those things out loud might likely get her knifed to death, and although the current situation was far from comfortable, she didn’t fancy dying. M hadn’t broken her yet, and now she was more determined than ever to live through this moment. 

The unsub noted that y/n had calmed down slightly and said, “I’ll be back shortly. I can’t let you or him rest too often now. I need to pick up the pace, but I need to send this little gift his way. Any loving words you want to tell him with my little letter? Perhaps it will give the Doctor some comfort.” The man said it sardonically, but y/n pulled herself together and tried to do her best acting and used a sorrowful tone as she said, “Tell him I’m sad it was my first time like this. I’d wished that we’d done it in Tanagra when we had the chance, but he knew I wasn’t ready. I won’t be ready.” y/n let the words slip off her tongue like she’d said them with a longing sadness and it put M at unease to see the odd shift in emotions; however, he shrugged his shoulders and replied cooly, “I’ll be sure to relay your sentiments.” 

Once the man had left the room with the knife, y/n lay back exhausted. The unsub had said he’d be back shortly, but maybe he was playing a game and he’d just leave her there to rot or starve. Either way, y/n needed to use this renewed time to think, and not just about the fact that she was trying to come to terms with the fact that she might love Spencer more than she’d allowed herself to do before. She needed to leverage this situation and not let those feelings overwhelm her. She’d already hopefully set one clue and one trap, she’d just need a bit more information to let the trap work. She pondered these things as she rubbed her skin which was slowly losing sensation as the minutes ticked by. 

When the package arrived at the precinct, the team was more prepared for it this time. The police stopped the carrier to ask him a plethora of questions while the team opened the box with some apprehension. Emily took on the role of the person who opened the box. Given the nasty surprise of the pictures of y/n in a state of complete undress in the first contact with the unsub, nobody wanted Spencer to get that kind of a shock again, even if the box was addressed to him alone. Inside the well-packaged cardboard parcel was a letter which Prentiss handed over to Morgan and then she pulled aside a good deal more pink tissue paper than was needed for the pair of underwear in the box. It took Emily and the team a moment to realize what they were given the blood had caked and dried, wrinkling the thin fabric into a distorted blob shape. The team looked at the item not so much with disdain as confusion. Some members of the BAU, JJ, Emily, and Penelope, had seen y/n in her underthings when they shared rooms in a busy hotel, but none of them, especially not Spencer, could immediately identify that they were y/n’s panties until M stated that directly, and implied that he’d done to y/n what he’d done to all his other victims before slowly killing them. 

This information did seem to shock and horrify the team until Derek read this part of the letter aloud with a hint of awkwardness, “And the little bird has a song for the doctor ‘I’m sorry that this was my first time, and that she wishes you had both done it in Tanagra.’ How unfortunate for both of you that that wasn’t the case…” Spencer cut Derek off before he could go into more grotesque details from the letter about what the unsub had done to y/n by saying, “Wait, wait, say that again.” Morgan paused and the team looked at Reid with questioning expressions. Derek repeated the last sentence, and Reid let out a soft breath in relief as he confidently said, “He didn’t touch her,” then under his breath, “thank God.” The BAU was more baffled than ever, and JJ looked over at the soiled underwear now back in the box getting ready for processing by the forensics lab. With hesitation, JJ replied, “Spencer, y/n’s underwear is telling a different story, as does the bruising on her body” 

The team was at a loss for what to think. y/n had been a reserved person far before she joined the team, and the reference that she might have had sex with Spencer, or wanted to have sex with Reid was not totally a shock, given that the BAU knew the two agents were in love, even if they didn’t. But for her to state it like that either showed signs of mental duress or something of that nature. It was just incredibly out of character for her to say anything like that to anyone, even the women on the team. Reid’s response was even more shocking as he said, “y/n’s had plenty of sex. She’s been in a lot of relationships before, so why would she say this was her ‘first time.’ That doesn’t make any sense. Also, I think she would have singled out something more extreme if she had been hurt in that way. It’s all too faux intellectual.” The team stood in stunned silence for a moment before Derek said, “And you and y/n talk about your sex lives often?” 

Spencer flushed at the intrusive question, realizing that he was putting a lot out there about his and y/n’s friendship. Things they may not have shared with other members of the team and kept between themselves. But this was a case where revealing some private details could save y/n’s life, and Spencer would rather die than lose y/n, so he replied steadily, “Yes. Sometimes. When we hang out we talk about our relationships. Why they worked or didn’t? How we’re, different.” Spence omitted the line, “How we can be hard to love.” He meant it more for himself than y/n, even though she echoed that sentiment whenever he brought it up. Spence never really got that. When they’d lay sprawled out under a blanket arguing about the symbolism in Dr. Who, or what the best adaptation of Jane Austen was, he felt like loving y/n would be the easiest thing in the world. Of course, he’d never said that to her either. The team was still silent when Reid came back from his internal journey and Hotch, who most of the time came forward and realized patterns and trends asked, “And Tanagra? Is it a small island or something? I’ve never heard of it before.” Spencer’s eyes moved up and he said, “It’s a reference to an episode of Star Trek we both like called ‘Darmok.’” The team looked at Reid for further clarification because, unlike Spencer and y/n, they didn’t go on overnight watches of Star Trek the Next Generation. 

Again, Reid reddened but patiently explained, “In the episode Captain Picard gets sent to a planet without any weapons. There’s another alien there as well. The Enterprise crew thinks it is some sort of setup, as does Captain Picard. But as it turns out, Picard and the alien, Dathon, need to come together to fight a common enemy. They end up beating the enemy, but Dathon dies. The moral is that they had to find understanding to become united, not only as fighters but as a species.” After Reid quickly gave his recap highlighting the plot and moral of the episode, the team, with the new information seemed to be revitalized, and put at ease. It was just a sliver of hope because y/n had managed to gain some way of communicating with them. Aaron cleared his throat and said, “Alright, Reid, and you Morgan take the letter. If y/n is sending any other covert messages then you should be able to find them.” Hotch felt the weight of pressure from this case on his shoulders and raised a hand to his forehead closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. Rossi saw his friend's distress and continued the conversation, “Aaron and I will go and check some of the places Garcia flagged as potential locations that y/n could be kept. JJ, you and Emily accompany the forensics team and get us the information once they have some, stat. Is that really y/n’s blood, are there any toxins present, all that? Okay?” Everyone nodded. Now that they all had a direction to go and a specific task to do, it felt more manageable. 

Despite the bright light and thanks to sheer exhaustion, y/n had managed to get a few hours of sleep at some point after being cut by M. She woke with the sound of the door opening. y/n had lost all track of time at this point. There were no windows to tell if it was night or day, and her circadian rhythms were off. Logically y/n knew that it couldn’t have been more than a few days, but at this point, it felt like a week at least. The constant stress, hunger thirst, and cold had drained her so much that she struggled to get up to a seated position to see what her captor was doing this time. M seemed uninterested in y/n, but he did glance at her, the door, and then at her again, as if taunting, “Try me.” The man had brought in a bigger load of items this time. Thanks to his size and strength, he could hold multiple trash bags and a backpack which he could handle all in one trip.

y/n watched M with apprehension and fear as he pulled out a multitude of lights and stands. M set up the lights like a makeup influencer might. M set what looked like extra bright lights in a square formation only a few feet off the ground. y/n bit her lip. If the man was planning on filming something, mainly her, she would be so close to the ground that it would be uncomfortable for him to have to lean down like that. The setup seemed to make no sense, and y/n didn’t like that. In interrogation training, she, along with new FBI agents, were instructed to mentally prepare for what was going to happen to them to better not spill state secrets. However, in this scenario, she couldn’t guess what would happen and it really wasn’t about her. It was about what her deteriorating mental and physical state would do to Spencer. She was important to the extent that she was important to Spencer. 

The unsubs plan became clear as he pulled out a makeshift stand that looked like a prop from a horror film where someone’s eyes get removed. The stand, which M set down and then slotted the wooden frame into was so heavy that even he grunted as he set it down with a loud clanking sound on the floor. y/n closed her eyes and began trying to move away and toward the exit. But y/n wasn’t fast enough. She felt like she was running in knee-deep water as she moved and was quickly grabbed by the hair and pulled to the center of the room. y/n muttered, “Please no, please…” Her cries fell on deaf ears as M bound her hands to the rough wooden post with zip ties so tight that they felt like the plastic was cutting into her wrists. y/n dipped her head down but it was jerked up again as M set her chin on a portion of wood with a cut out for her chin. Just close enough to the skin of her neck was a sharp piece of metal that would slice at her jaw and chin if she tried to move her head; effectively keeping it in place as the unsub lowered a heavy plate for her head and secured it with screws on either side of her face like a vice. When the lights were turned on they were so bright that y/n tried to pull her head back but was stopped by her constraints. Even with her eyes closed the light was searing hot into her retinas and there was no espacing it. Even though the light was bright, y/n took this time to try and pry more information from the unsub as he moved close by her. 

y/n asked with false confidence, “Why do you hate him so much. He certainly doesn’t talk about you.” y/n appealed to his sense of ego which worked. She could hear his heavy footsteps fall silent. There was a long pause and M finally said, “I’d hurt you for that, but I’m planning on that already. If you think this is bad now just wait.”

The words were meant to intimidate y/n, but she knew there was nothing she could do right now but get info and try and relay it to the team. So she stayed firm and didn’t show how scared she felt. Again the silence seemed like a gulf between them but M liked the sound of his own voice and he continued, “And I don’t like the doctor because he bested me. And you did too funnily enough even though I don’t care about you. I applied to the FBI Academy twice. As a Vet with an interrogation specialization, I thought I was the perfect fit, but what happened? Jason Gideon picks some lousy, scrawny kid, and appoints him to the BAU straight out of college, and he didn’t even go to the academy when I DID. Then they hire some woman who ends up leaving under dubious circumstances anyway and then you you -- whore. I don’t know who you had to suck off to get onto that team but both you and the good doctor took a spot that I deserved. I got stuck working at a local college teaching government classes, but I was planning this too. I didn’t want it, but by God am I going to make the FBI regret picking either of you above me, because neither of you will be fit to serve when I’m finished? And I’m far far from finished with you. After M said this, he opened y/n’s right eyelid and instantly she was blinded further. It was with the full intensity of the lights on her that y/n did feel like she might be broken. She didn’t know if she could handle this. But the team stayed in her mind and she grit her teeth. She’d signed up for this, and y/n did her best to remain strong for as long as possible and not lose herself. Not yet, not when there was hope. And if that hope took the form of Spencer Reid, so let it be, it could hardly be a secret to her anymore anyway. Not after this. 

By the time the team got their next message from Mr. M. a few things had happened. The first was that Hotch and Rossi had crossed out a few sectors and limited the range of where y/n was likely being held. The second was that Penelope had caught a red eye and came down from the Quanitco field office to be closer to the action. Lastly, Spencer and Derek had made a solid guess from the tone of both letters that the unsub was likely in the military or the police force and had changed career paths to something like office work or business. This would explain his blunt prose yet stilted attempt at sounding academic or over-intelligent. The team was unprepared for when loud music blasted in their ears when Penelope opened the unlisted video link on her computer. Everyone covered their ears, and Garcia quickly turned down the volume. The team watched in horror, and Pen almost felt like she was going to be ill as the unsub circled y/n with a handheld camera. He zoomed in on y/n’s eyes which seemed glued open and directly facing a very bright light.

y/n was panting like she couldn’t breathe and she hardly looked alive anymore. Not that she wasn’t alive, just that her face was either so pained or slack with the torment that she was being put through that she couldn’t take anymore. All eyes were glued to the gruesome sight and it took a moment for anyone to notice that the music had cut out and the unsub was speaking. Garcia let out a sharp breath, skipped the video back ten seconds, and then raised the volume again. Once the music was cut, and in a calm voice M stated, “Smile little bird, you’re on camera. Have anything to say to the doctor?” y/n’s mouth moved for a moment before she let out a small breath and screamed in a worn and hoarse voice, “Oedipus and his lover, Mr. Dimmesdale was great at his job.” y/n cut herself off with a lot of coughing at the effort of even speaking. Even trying to say something. M pulled the camera back to get a better wide angle of y/n as the unsub said, “Isn’t she great? She sings such a pretty song. I hope you’re enjoying it doctor because I don’t know if she’ll be singing much longer.” 

While most of the team paid attention to what the unsub was saying as a coping mechanism of not having to fully process the mental agony that y/n was going through, Emily paid closer attention. Suddenly Prentiss said loudly, “Roll it back Pen. y/n is mouthing something while the unsub is talking. I’ve almost made it out. I just need to see it once more.” The team, who was looking at Spencer to interpret what y/n had just signaled, and some of whom feared that y/n’s mind was already cracking beyond repair, looked back at the screen as Garcia went back once more. Penelope muted Mr. M, and everyone’s attention went back to y/n, who was clearly mouthing something. Prentiss said softly, and then more loudly, “There are four lights?”  Hearing this Spencer couldn’t stop the tears that came to his eyes with relief, and he sagged with those words. Derek and Rossi helped support Spencer, and the team huddled around him as he brushed the tears aside and said, “She’s okay. She’s saying she’s okay with the ‘four lights’ line. He hasn’t ‘broken’ her yet. At least not her will….” Reid couldn’t stop himself from saying, like it was an inside thing between just y/n and him, “It’s another Star Trek thing.” 

Another thrill rang through the team at this news. They knew y/n was strong, but she was also a good actress as she had played up her first statement. It became less and less of a surprise that y/n and Reid had spent so much time together. That they knew each other so well. This interaction was just solidifying what they had already assumed. But the picture of y/n’s eyes glued open and looking at the bright light also stayed with the team. Reid had his hands in his hair in frustration now trying to parse out the clues that y/n had left him, but he couldn’t fully match those pieces of information with any one person he knew. Dr. Reid did have some enemies, he did work for the FBI after all, but he didn’t think about them like that often. He didn’t just have people hating him enough to go and kidnap and torture the person he cared about the most. His brain didn’t process things like that even though he had calculated the risk every member of the team took with each case. And he did make sure y/n’s score was lowered thanks to him. But it wasn’t clicking because his brain was doing too much. Reid had jotted down a list of people that might come after him for various reasons and he’d given it to everyone in the BAU to see if they had any ideas. Of course, Penelope had made a whole spreadsheet and also found all the information about each person on the list as well. Spencer had gone over those fifteen names thousands of times now and was doing it again, trying to expand it to make something fit. 

Emily finally broke his train of thought and asked, “Spence, what about the other things y/n said? Is that more Star Trek stuff? It honestly sounded like a foreign language to me.” Only after Prentiss said this did Spencer realize that the rest of the BAU didn’t get all the references or implications in y/n’s words. Reid took a steadying breath while he composed himself. Aaron and Rossi simultaneously pulled out legal pads and pens to try and keep up with Reid’s speaking speed. Spencer started with the first part of y/n’s shouted sentence, saying, “Well. It’s kind of Star Trek. You actually just made me think of that Emily.” The parts and y/n’s wit began to click better and Spence continued, “We have to go back to the thing y/n said in her first letter about Tangra.” The team nodded and Hotch was already writing furiously, his hand gripping white on the pen in his grasp. “So Pircard can’t understand Dathon because their species speak only in metaphors, so I think y/n is giving us, me, a metaphor about who the unsub is.” This is where Hotch jumped in and said, “Then it’s not directly related to Trek. Just a way of signaling something. The first part of her metaphor was a reference to Oedipus Rex.” Everyone’s eyes moved to Aaron and they seemed surprised, but he brushed off their apparent shock at his classical literature knowledge and continued for those who didn’t get the reference, “Oedipus Rex is a tragedy about a prophecy that the son of a king will end of killing his father and marrying his mother. The king is horrified and has his newborn son, Oedipus, arranged to be killed. The man meant to kill him takes pity on the baby and spares him, thus many years later the prophecy comes true.” 

Spencer nodded along, and Garcia couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Wow, that’s really messed up.” Before Aaron could remind the technical analyst that it was a thousand-year-old work of fiction, Reid replied, “Yes, Oedipus does end up fulfilling the prophecy, but he didn’t want to. He doesn’t even know about it until later and he leaves his town to try and not fulfill his destiny, but he ends up doing that anyway. That’s why is a tragedy.” The team took in the information and Rossi offered, “So the unsub wanted to do the right thing but ended up doing the worst possible option?” Spence nodded along and then said, “And the second part about Mr. Dimmesdale being good at his job, I assume that’s a reference to The Scarlet Letter. Arthur Dimmessdale is the pastor who gets the protagonist pregnant and ends up being shunned from the Puritan society.” Emily asked, “So are we looking for someone who was thrown away for no reason? Or for doing something that appears bad?” Spencer nodded no, and thought through his list again, expanding it to the new parameters saying, “No. y/n specifically mentioned Dimmesdale, so I think we’re looking for a man. Clearly, Mr. Dimmesdale didn’t love his job because he did something that he shouldn’t have done either. He ends up having a breakdown because he can’t keep his secret. He ends up getting publicly humiliated.” 

The team thought for a moment and Penelope asked, “So is there someone you ended up humiliating enough to do something this horrible? I mean, not intentionally, but like when you were in grad school or at the Bureau? Anything?” Reid shook his head unknowingly. He couldn’t place someone he had specifically wronged except for those he’d put in prison, and thankfully many of those men and women were already dead or sentenced to life, but a picture started forming in Hotch’s head. The Unit Chief stated, “I don’t think you’d know him. Or have even met him, yet? Oedipus didn’t know his father when he killed him. He only figured that out later. So this is more about what you did to him than anything else.” Dave looked at Aaron and asked, “Do you have an idea of who he is?”  Hotch nodded and said, “Yes. This was while Jason was still here and you were ‘retired.’ You know Gideon hand-picked Spencer for the BAU much to the chagrin of the director. But it wasn’t only them, there were other members of the academy who wanted Reid’s spot. There were a few NATS that were more than flustered. Jason and I fielded quite a few complaints. There was one man in particular, an ex-Marine who threatened Gideon and me. That instantly excluded him from our recruiting, and once Gideon invited Reid, we started getting real threats. That man dropped off the map, but he continued sending threats through alternative accounts, and many were targets to you, Spencer. Garcia took care of them actually, took care of blocking them so you didn’t ever see them.” 

Spencer looked up at Hotch shocked and said, “Why didn’t you ever tell me this.” Hotch dropped his head and said, “You were so young Spencer. So much was happening in your life at that time and Jason and I thought it was for the best. I apologize. That was a mistake.” Reid let out a breath, knowing now wasn’t the time to be upset with Aaron. Instead, he asked, “Do you still have his contact information? Do you have anything at all on him?” Before Aaron could even reply, Penelope said, “I do. I keep everything, and this time it’s legal. Any threats that are filed against an agent or a former agent are kept in a database that I helped update.” Morgan said with a happiness he hadn’t felt since arriving in Kansas, “God bless you, woman. Now is the time to show us those computer skills of yours” Penelope smiled and turned back toward her screen, cracking her knuckles, “Glady my friends. Watch me do my thing.” 

y/n slumped onto the ground limp. When M finally released her from the contraption that had held her in place, y/n was too overwhelmed to do anything else but lie. Once the light in front of her had been turned off, she felt like she was in an abyss of black. Even though the man had unglued her eyelids after what felt like an eternity. Just being in front of the light with her eyes shut was still like looking at the sun without shades. Again time was a reality that had left y/n out of place, out of being. It could have been months or years since she’d been bound since she’d been put in this place. Because of the loud noise from the speakers M had brought in, y/n couldn’t hear him moving around. Her ears were constantly ringing even though the sound had ceased. Besides that, y/n didn’t have the energy to try and figure out what was happening around her; she knew whatever it was wasn’t good. At this point, y/n didn’t even feel she was in her own body anymore. She was somewhere else entirely. 

y/n didn’t register anything much apart from pain until the unsub, who had set up the room as a trap, started a livestream that he sent to Spencer, and kicked her in the side. The sharp pain radiated up y/n’s ribcage and she let out a moan though her voice was gone from screaming. Even M had to shout and shake y/n to get her to hear him say, “I’m letting you go. All you have to do is get to the door. You’re useless to me now. I don’t see your doctor coming to save you, so you might as well get out. I guess you’re not as important to him as I thought you were.” Deep down, y/n knew that the man wouldn’t let her go. She’d not leave this place alive. She also knew she was special to Spencer. That he would do anything for her, and that he and the team were still looking for her, but she was so tired and mentally broken that she began to believe it. It felt like for no reason other than to just move instead of being killed not trying, that y/n began to move on the floor. She was too weak to even get on her hands and knees.

Instead, she just moved on her stomach in a direction even though she couldn’t see anything except bright spots covering most of her vision. The rest was so blurry that it only added to the migraine she already had. y/n hardly noticed that there was glass on the ground until the warmth of the blood from her stomach made her realize in horror that she was crawling on a sea of broken glass. y/n stopped and M began berating her for not being strong enough. Not having the willpower to want to get away. That he had won. It took the last of y/n’s strength to speak her mind. To tell the man the truth. She knew it would get her killed, faster, but she would have a clear mind. 

“You’re an idiot.” Y/n couldn’t hear her own voice, but she assumed M was listening and she didn’t let anything he did distract her from continuing, “You are the dumbest person I’ve met. You got Spencer all wrong. You don’t understand him at all. He might like me, and I like him too, but Spence isn’t some weirdo who doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t stay up at night plotting revenge on people or thinking of zany puzzles because he’s so bored and doesn’t have friends. Spencer is a smart guy, but that intelligence doesn’t push him away from people or relationships. He’s just a smart guy who works for the FBI. It’s clear to me that you’re the weirdo with no friends, and you’re just going to have to accept that you couldn’t cut it in the FBI, forever. It sucks to suck.” Mr. M moved to grab a knife he had brought in the room to finish the job. He couldn’t handle y/n insulting him,  and he was going to finish her off, slowly. He had very little restraint when he was scorned. Before he could get to y/n, he was knocked back by a load of gunfire as the BAU along with a SWAT team swarmed into the room. y/n was so far gone that she couldn’t even tell as Reid knelt next to her and wept. 

The next few days stretched into apparent eternity for many of the team. y/n was taken immediately to the hospital, accompanied by Spencer and Emily, while Derek and Aaron took the unsub into custody for interrogation and criminal proceedings. Rossi, JJ, and Penelope stayed behind to handle the police presence, forensics teams, and clean-up process. In part, the BAU was relieved to find y/n still alive, it was a weight lifted, but the reports from y/n’s team of doctors at the hospitals painted such a picture of pain and mental suffering that y/n must have endured that it broke their hearts. How they could ever forgive themselves for what had happened, to y/n? They didn’t know. But they had to keep moving because that was what the job required. That was the nature of the work, and they all prayed that y/n would get better, and also understand what they had to do. 

Spencer felt shielded from most of the work side of things, as he stayed mostly at the hospital and heard the doctors and nurses' multifaceted and comprehensive care plan for y/n with the majority of it working on how to deal with y/n’s partial loss of vision, mental health, PTSD, and the chronic pain that would likely come in the months ahead. Spencer took in this information and researched and planned and found medical trials and anything that he thought might help. He mostly did this to fill the time. y/n had been put in a medical coma to help facilitate her physical healing. Spencer knew in the end that no amount of research he did it would but y/n It would be up to her to want to keep living after this. And given all that she’d been through, he wouldn’t blame her if she decided to just be whatever was left of herself because of him. Reid was trying to take in the very real possibility that she might never want to see him again given that being his friend had made this fate happen to her. Spence was only out of the hospital when another member of the team tagged him out for a day or a few hours. Even then, Spencer didn’t rest. He just tossed and turned. 

When y/n was taken out of her coma four days later, it was Penelope who was there when her fingers twitched on the sheets and felt the crisp material. y/n’s eyes opened, seeing only the blurred brightness of the room which she quickly closed them again. Garcia leaned forward in her chair and said softly, “I’m here y/n. You just rest for now.” Penelope stayed with y/n for the next few hours as the doctors and nurse checked on y/n’s vitals and her sight and she lay exhausted in every way, just let these things happen to her. Her mind was somewhere else. It wasn’t in the hospital room, part of it was still on the team, like an outsider looking in, and part of it was at her apartment watering the one plant she’d kept alive since college, and another was in the park where they sold a t/c/s that she loved to drink and people watch with, but the majority of her brain was still in that freezer, waiting for death, waiting for the worst to happen. And even though part of her mind knew she was alive and being helped, it couldn’t register beyond what had happened to her. y/n stayed in this state of being in and out of herself and her body for another day. The next time y/n came back to herself, it was still Penelope sitting by her. 

Garcia came back into the waiting room where Spencer was, as always, sitting and waiting for news, waiting for anything. Penelope walked over to him and leaned over his seated form. Reid looked up at her, his brown eyes lit up slightly. He asked something quietly back and Penelope nodded her head. Spencer got up and shook out his legs. They’d gotten stiff with all his awkward sitting positions. He followed Garica and a nurse to y/n’s room and took the place where the blonde and spunky Technical analyst had been for the last two hours. The nurse gave Reid a few words before leaving the room. The mood shifted a bit. Penelope just lit up a room where as Spencer brought a more calm mood to the room. He looked around the space which he’d seen while y/n was unconscious. It was still light, a sad beige color, and lots of pretty soft flowers from the team and friends. It seemed that Reid could look everywhere but y/n. The nurse and Penelope had both warned him that y/n still hadn’t said a word since she had woken up apart from his name. Reid didn’t expect y/n to just become whole because he was near her, but the fact that y/n had called for him had given him hope. But as his eyes finally landed on her face which was healing from the heavy bruising she’d received, her eyes remained mostly closed, but every now and then they opened, took in whatever they could, and then closed again. One time she turned her head slightly toward Spencer, and he wondered if she could even see him, or if she knew he was there. 

It wasn’t until the next day that y/n said in a very soft and hoarse voice, “Spence?” that Reid looked up from his lap and shifted forward in his chair. He didn’t want to be imagining things, but y/n’s voice had been so faint that he could have just made his name up. Anyhow, he softly replied, “Yes, y/n. I’m here.” y/n swallowed and turned her face toward him. She couldn’t see him, but she’d left like he was there. It didn’t seem like Penelope anymore but given how she’d felt, and the things that weren’t real that she’d seen before being saved had messed up her sense of reality. Hearing Spencer’s response helped, and she held back a sob as she asked, “How do I know you’re real? How do I know if any of this is real?”

Spencer desperately wanted to take her hand and reassure her that everything was going to be fine, but he didn’t want to promise things he couldn’t guarantee. He also knew touching y/n might make her nervous and panicked. Spencer looked over y/n and replied, “It’s real because you know it is. Because you’re strong enough to wake up and talk. Because maybe life isn’t so cruel to let this be a dream for either of us.” y/n turned her head toward him again and tried to make out his face. She’d have liked to see what he looked like right now. Was he sad, relieved, or feeling as empty as she was? She wanted to know because she didn’t know how to feel or act or do. For now, there wasn’t more than resting and waiting to see if this was all a charade. To see if she’d suddenly jerk awake to see death in the face again. To be back with M. again. For now, she let out a sigh and tried to feel anything in her body. Her pain receptors were either shot from what she’d been through or she was on so much pain medication that it was intentional. Either way seemed preferable, and yet the pain had grounded her in her time in captivity and now that it was gone there was a strange void where it had pulsed all over her body. y/n rested her head in a more comfortable position and let the sleepiness come back to drag her back under. 

The rest of the BAU shuffled through sitting with y/n as Spencer got his mandated rest and time off ordered by Aaron. The presence of the others and the changes in the atmosphere with each of them helped y/n pull herself back together. The next time Spencer came back she was slightly more herself. She was sitting up on a few pillows and she sensed when Reid stepped into the room. They sat together for a few minutes in silence before y/n said, “The last time you were here you said I was strong. But I don’t feel strong Spencer. I feel broken. I mean I am broken. I can’t see anything and my hearing’s shot too.” Reid bit his lower lip and thought for a bit before responding. He could tell her that she was very likely to get her hearing back and that her vision would improve in time. That with time and care she could resume a pretty normal life. 

But a pretty normal life didn’t feel fair. None of this felt fair, and Spencer knew that. He also knew that the team in charge of y/n’s care would have told her that as well. They would have been doing everything that would attempt to boost her spirits. As it was like Spencer to do, he chose to go with a more metaphorical take on things. It was one of the things that had drawn y/n to him in the first place, and he hoped it would bring her comfort now. He focused on her hands which were gripping the sheets tightly as he said, “No one chooses to be broken y/n. That’s not their fault, but that doesn’t mean that the thing isn’t beautiful, it’s just changed.” y/n let out a breath and said, “I’m not Fitzgerald or Beethoven. I don’t think the tortured broken artist thing will work for me. I’m just a profiler. Was just a profiler.” Spencer could see the disappointment and pain on her face, and he replied, “Not that exactly, but your knowledge about art and literature did make it possible for us to find you. I was useless on this case, and I’m so, so sorry for that. You saved yourself on this one, and given what you’ve been through, you deserve a good life after this, a peaceful life if you want it.” 

y/n wanted to believe Spencer, but his speech so far was giving, “A broken clock is correct twice a day,” and that wasn’t the most uplifting thing she’d heard so far. She didn’t know what she wanted after this. Didn’t know how to want anything after she’d thought she would die over and over again. However, y/n knew that Spence wasn’t done yet. It was a tell in his cadence, and just as y/n expected, he continued, “Have you ever heard of kintsugi?” y/n nodded her head no, and Reid explained, “It’s a form of Japanese pottery. When a plate or vase or anything that’s been fired breaks; the potter puts the pieces back together with gold.” y/n let out a breath, it sounded like a beautiful thing, and it was a nice metaphor, but her pessimistic side said, “So I’m just a broken thing and painted pretty so I’m not a profit-loss?” Spencer sighed and said, “No. What I’m trying to say is that. What I’m trying to say is that things that are broken still have value and beauty. They still deserve to be cared for and looked after. They’re different, but it’s still a precious thing. It is to me at least.”

y/n couldn’t hold back the tears that were now overspilling from the corners of her eyes, and she moved her hand out, palm open. An invitation to let Spencer take it, which he did. Spencer bowed his head over their joined hands and y/n felt his soft hair on her skin. It was the first time she’d felt grounded since waking up. It was the first time she felt real again. y/n sniffled and said, “I don’t know what to do Spence. I don’t know who I am anymore.” Reid nodded and said while gently squeezing her hand said, “I know. And you don’t have to know that right now. Every part of you is still there, but it’s going to be a hard time to dig those things back out of yourself. Maybe some of them you’ll want to leave behind. But I want to be with you as you try to become this new version of you. If you’ll let me. I was such an idiot y/n. I’m so sorry,” y/n nodded and said, “Don’t be. I don’t regret it, Spencer. It’s worth it to know you. I want you here, please.” 

Spencer nodded, and y/n felt tears that weren’t her own on her hand and arm now as Spence ever so lightly brushed his lips over her knuckles. Neither of them said it, but the love in the room was so much more than what it had been before. Perhaps it wasn’t the fluffy teenage love they could have had if none of this had happened, but it was clearer now than ever, and that was worth it. There was a future in that, whatever it looked like. After a few moments y/n asked, “Can you read to me? I knew you had a book in your lap before I said anything and the quiet is slowly driving me insane.” Spencer sat up and said, “Well it’s just a collection of Ginsberg poems and I know you don’t like Ginsberg.” y/n scoffed lightly and retorted, “What do you mean, I love Ginsberg.” Reid shook his head and said, “Liar.” y/n pouted like a child at being read so easily and said, “Fine, but maybe I love Ginsberg when you’re reading him to me. Please?” Spencer chuckled and said, “Anything for you, y/n. Anything.” As Spencer began reading, and y/n listened, neither of them thought about the future or the past, they were just there, and for now, that was as meaningful as gold holding something broken yet precious together.

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[pathologicalreid]

could you do a third part to buried alive where the reader finally gets a bit better and goes out into the field for the first time and then the team goes and gets drinks after bc they are so proud of her :) -🌱

back again | S.R.

part one | part two

in which you go back into the field (and kick ass)

who? spencer reid x fem!BAU!reader

category? angst and then fluff

content warnings: established relationship. PTSD undertones. guns and physical fighting. reader is paired with morgan and kicks ass. usual cm case stuff. going to a bar and alcohol consumption. use of 'ass'. reader is referred to as a girl.

word count: 1.8k

a/n: hey anon i love you!!! i never expected people to like this story so much, but im so grateful i hope you enjoy!! thanks for reading <3 don't forget to like and reblog <3333333333

It felt good. Standing outside of a suspect's house with Morgan felt normal to you, having your firearm holstered, felt right.

He was trying to get ahold of the team, but the two of you were far from the town and, apparently, cell service. “The call keeps dropping, but they know where we are. They should be on their way,” he told you, getting out of the car. “If you’re uncomfortable going in, you don’t have to.”

You rolled your eyes and got out of the SUV. “I’ve got your back,” you responded self-assuredly. It was your first case back in the field, and besides, you weren’t about to let Derek walk into the lion's den alone.

Despite your attempt at confidence, you hadn’t planned on going to a suspect's house. The two of you had been on your way back from talking to a victim’s family, meaning you didn’t have vests. “I know you do,” Morgan confirmed, removing his sunglasses and snapping the temples down. “Go around back, I’ll take the front,” he said.

Nodding, you unholstered your weapon and kept it pointed toward the ground, you took a deep breath before wrapping around the white farmhouse.

Paranoid thoughts pelted your brain. Did you remember to shut off your phone’s ringer? What if the suspect had a gun? What if the information you were given was wrong and you didn’t have probable cause?

You shook your head, peeking in through the open blinds, you saw the kitchen. The town you were in was on the smaller side, and the only thing that surrounded you was farmland. You saw movement out of the corner of your eye and wished you had been given more time to prepare, having comms right now would be remarkably helpful.

Approaching the back door, you leaned against the siding before reaching over and turning the doorknob. It was already unlocked, which could either be a good thing or a bad thing. You swung the door open and stepped inside the house, pointing your Glock around the kitchen, you saw Morgan entering the living room in your peripheral vision. “Clear!” You called out, and shortly after, Morgan called the same.

Once you had cleared the main floor, Morgan moved upstairs and you moved downstairs, pulling your flashlight from your belt, you pointed it down the steps.

“Jackson Fike this is the FBI,” you called, making yourself known. You reached the bottom of the stairs, just to see another door, wide open. “Damn it,” you cursed, “Morgan, he’s running!” You shouted, hoping your voice would be able to carry up two flights of stairs.

You pocketed your flashlight and took off running out the door. Distantly, you saw a man fitting the suspect's description sprinting towards the woods. Without a second thought, you followed, expecting Derek to be not far behind you.

Thankfully, it was still light outside, the scent of the damp earth filled your senses, but it didn’t overwhelm you. You wouldn’t let it.

You skidded to a halt in the forest, keeping your back to a tree so you could be attacked from behind, “Jackson Fike, you can’t keep running like this. You know as well as I do that the road ends here.” You spoke loudly, hoping he heard you from wherever he had disappeared into the woods.

His choices here boiled down to giving himself up or being on the run for the rest of his life. Based on the profile the team had put together, he would never be able to leave this town. Not by choice, at least.

The snap of a twig gave his location away, you twisted your body in the direction of the noise. Your ears perked up like a bloodhound. “Jackson, if you come with me and tell me where the girls are, maybe I could see about keeping you close to home. Close to your house, that’s what’s important, right?” You tried to negotiate with him. You didn’t know if he was armed, but you did know that suicide by cop wasn’t in his profile. It was also less paperwork if you cuffed him without a fight.

“You can’t make me that promise, agent,” he responded. His voice was gravelly despite only being in his late thirties. “Why would I negotiate with a fed when I could just kill one instead?” He asked.

His question sent a chill down your spine all the way down to where your handcuffs rested on your back. “You’re right,” you ceded, “You’d be worshipped in prison for killing a fed, but why take that chance?”

In a flash, the UnSub smacked your wrist, causing a misfire into the trees, and making your weapon hit the ground.

That was fine, your marksmanship was good enough to pass your qualifications, but hand-to-hand was where you really excelled. He charged at you, but you jumped out of the way.

Closer to the farmhouse you heard voices, but you didn’t let yourself get distracted. Instead, you used your one boxing lesson with JJ and kicked. The inside of your foot provided enough surface to daze your opponent, he stumbled around, and you made sure to keep both of your feet firmly planted to the ground.

He swung back, but you ducked just in time to feel the breeze of his swing against your face. In response, you swung back, hitting him across the face.

Jackson retaliated, using both hands to push you into a tree, crushing your shoulder but not doing anything to stop you from throwing another hit, striking him on the head, and causing him to fall to the ground. He groaned as you crouched down and pulled your cuffs out, fastening them around his wrists.

As you read him his rights, the local police and the rest of your team approached you. Emily looked at you warily, Spencer was searching for injuries, but Morgan was grinning. He was like a giddy little kid who had heard the ice cream truck turn on his street.

Handing off the UnSub to a local, you eyed Morgan suspiciously, “What are you smiling at?” You asked, rotating your shoulder in a failed attempt to make it feel better.

“You took that guy down,” Derek said, gesturing to where the police officer was now taking the UnSub.

Confused, you shrugged, “Yeah, and?”

He laughed again, “Oh, you are so back, pretty girl.”

A flight later, you were hunched over takedown paperwork, something you certainly hadn’t missed during your time away from the field. At the desk adjacent to yours, Spencer was flipping through a book, waiting for you so you could go home.

After initialing each page and signing the last one, you placed the papers into the confidential file. Going up the stairs to Hotch’s office, you knocked on the door, “Come in.”

You stepped into the office and reached over to hand him the file, “My takedown paperwork for Jackson Fike.”

He nodded, the stern look on his face fading as he looked at you, “You did impressive work today, Y/L/N. By taking the initiative to arrest Fike, you saved the three girls he had captive.”

Shrugging, you fiddled with his nameplate, “I just did what felt right.”

“Other agents would’ve shot him, and it would’ve been justified, but you didn’t,” Hotch said, raising his eyebrows. “It’s good to see you out in the field again,” he told you in that fatherly, parental tone of his.

You looked out the window of his office, “It’s good to be back out, sir.” Watching as the rest of the team gathered back into the bullpen, “I thought everyone had already left?”

Hotch set your file down and stood from his desk, “I believe they were all waiting for you in Garcia’s office.”

Confused, you walked outside of the office and down the steps, “Hey?” You said cautiously, looking around at everyone, “What’s going on?” You looked at Spencer, but he just shrugged like he didn’t know any more than you did.

“We,” Derek said, “are going to O’Keefe’s,” he said, grinning as you reached over your desk to grab your bag and your coat.

Shoving your arms through the sleeves of your coat, you looked at the team curiously, “I’m getting the sense that I don’t have much of a choice in this outing.”

Grinning, Penelope excitedly walked towards you, looping her arm through yours and leading you out of the bullpen, “you don’t!”

You laughed, looking back at Spencer, who was just smiling at you. It wasn’t in your nature to turn down what Emily called ‘team bonding’, so the lot of you went to the familiar bar, a place you hadn’t been in nearly four months.

At the same table as always, standing room only with the eight of you, Rossi paid for all of your preferred drinks. Something you had learned to not protest over the years, as long as he was there, he’d never let you pay for your drinks.

Casually, Spencer had his arm around your waist, the two of you were more affectionate outside of the office. “How’s your shoulder?” He asked, gently skimming the pad of his thumb over the sensitive skin. Naturally, Spencer didn’t say anything in front of the team when you mentioned being shoved into a tree, but behind closed doors, he had asked to take a look at it.

You hummed in response, leaning into his touch, “Better, just bruised a bit.”

He dropped his hand back down to your waist, “good,” he whispered, ducking his head, and pressing a kiss to your cheek, causing you to smile.

Grabbing your attention, Derek cleared his throat and raised his glass in your general direction. “Tonight is about you, pretty girl,” he said, causing everyone else to turn to you. Your cheeks burned, “not only did you kick some UnSub ass, but you threw yourself back into the field after months on the sidelines.”

At your side, Spencer squeezed your hip, you were grinning like a fool.

“It has been an honor to be able to watch you reclaim yourself. I, for one, am proud of that accomplishment,” Morgan continued. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, too.”

You nodded enthusiastically, “Thank you. All of you, really.” You reached forward where everyone was clinking their glasses before taking a sip. Setting your glass down, you turned and looked at Spencer, “I love you,” you whispered to him.

He dropped a kiss to your lips, earning a whoop from Garcia. When he pulled away, he smiled at you softly, “I love you too.”

[hotchscoffeecup]

reconciliation (pt.2 to how do we carry on?)

pairing: hotch x bau!reader

rating: t

genre: hurt/comfort with a happy ending

word count: 7.2k

tagged readers: @izakopanyi2 @polireader @jihyowrrld @twilightlover2007 @queenanababy @feyrecarol @rousethemouse @endofthexline @jxvipike @donttrustlove @hiireadstuff @jenna50 @michasia24

The coffee that was hot an hour ago is cold and bitter now. You grimace as the acrid taste slides down your throat. You try to place the disposable cup into your cup holder without taking your eyes off the road, but miss.The lid slips off and brown liquid sloshes over the edge onto the passenger seat. You curse as you grasp the wheel with one hand while you try to mop up the spill with what random napkins you’ve acquired since you started driving. Fortunately, your purse is spared any damage, but the road map and photograph you’ve kept on the seat aren’t as lucky. Ignoring the map, you pick up the photograph and shake it, splattering drops of coffee across the dash. The edges curl slightly, but the photo itself is fine. You hold it awkwardly between your fingers as you return your hand to the steering wheel.

There aren’t many cars on the road at this hour. You glance down at the dashboard and see 02:32 illuminated in green. You aren’t sure where you’re going, you just know you can’t stay there. Even your own apartment didn’t feel secure, not with how much of him is there. Your lives are so intertwined, you see and feel him everywhere you go. It’s what makes, made? God, you don’t even know anymore. It’s what is so beautiful about your relationship, how seamlessly your lives blend together that you’re not sure where yours and his start and end. You’re both so fiercely independent while being so devoted and wholly part of the threads that make up one another’s lives.

Or so you thought.

As you slow to a stop at the red light, the only car at the four way intersection, your eyes fall to the coffee stained image between your fingers. You’re smiling at the camera meanwhile Aaron is looking and smiling down on you, the soft shimmer in his deep brown eyes captured by the lens. It’s your favorite picture. You took it from the frame at the front table before leaving. The sound of his sobs echo in your ears as the red light reflecting on the photo paper shines green. You blink and drop the photo onto the center console before shifting your gaze back to the road. A sign ahead reads to keep left to stay on I-95 South. Richmond and Virginia Beach are in big white letters under it.

Three years you’ve lived in Virginia, and you’ve never made it to the coast. Shifting the steering wheel, you guide the vehicle into the left lane and take the exit.

•

As the waves lap at your ankles, you close your eyes and turn your face toward the sun, the briny sea breeze gently tossing your hair. You inhale deeply and the sigh you exhale is overtaken by the quiet roar of the ocean.

Turns out getting a beachfront house isn’t as expensive as one might think in the off season and fortunately for you, Virginia afternoons in September still reach the high eighties.

The beach house is nothing fancy, more like a beach shack if you’re being honest. It’s one floor supported on high rafters, old wooden steps leading down to the sand. You climb them now and they creak beneath your weight. A half rusted outdoor shower squeals to life when you reach the deck and twist the faucet. You shiver as you rinse the sand off of your legs and arms, and well, everywhere. There aren’t many crevices it doesn’t manage to stick to. You swipe the pink and white striped towel you’d found in the linen closet off the railing and wrap it around your body. Once it’s tightly secured around your chest, you work off the cheap bikini you’d purchased at a year round souvenir shop down the road and spread it out to dry.

The screen door squeaks on its hinges as you enter the house. You should probably go for a proper shower and wash the sea out of your hair, but you can’t be assed. Instead, you crack open the fridge and inspect the pathetic hodge podge of groceries you’d purchased at the corner store. Food doesn’t even sound appealing. It hasn’t for days. Every time you try to eat, you just feel sick. Your stomach roils at the thought and you grab a seltzer water before closing the fridge with a grimace.

As you exit the kitchen, your eyes catch your phone and keys on the chipped granite counter. The black screen of your phone glints beneath the fluorescent kitchen lighting. You’d turned it off when you’d arrived, ignoring the fact that you had 8 missed calls from Hotch and twice as many unread messages from him. There’d been one missed call from Emily, a name you never thought you’d see flash across your screen again. God knows how many times you’d called her phone just to hear her voice recording before leaving a message about how much you missed her and wished she were there to give you advice or talk through a case. For a fraction of a second, you wonder now if she’s gotten the chance to hear those voicemails you’d left her. Did she hear the pain in your voice? Did she feel guilt over the messages where all you’d managed to choke out were incoherent sobs? All this time you thought you’d been talking to a ghost, but she’d been out there all along.

You tear your gaze away from the counter, leaving your phone where it is and cross the cream colored carpet to the small bedroom. Yellow wallpaper splashed with repeating patterns of palm fronds plaster the four walls. The bed frame is made up of white wicker and you fall back onto the comforter, the front of which is decorated with images of shells and starfish. None of the patterns in this house match, but you don’t care. You care about very little right now.

Before you can run away down that thought pattern, there’s a knock at the door. You sit up, brow furrowed, as you lean forward on your knees, as if doing so will suddenly grant you the ability to see through walls and who could possibly be here.

Maybe the owner? A neighboring off season beach goer? Hesitantly, you rise from the bed and tug on one of the guest robes that had been hanging in the bathroom. You drop your towel and shrug it on, tying it tightly around your waist before approaching the front door. You move slowly for two reasons: one, no one should know you’re here and you don’t know why someone would be calling on you, and two; what if it’s Aaron?

The knocking repeats. It's light but firm, definitely not Aaron. A woman, you think. You twist the deadbolt and pull open the door, surprise etching into your features as a woman a few years older than you stands behind the second screen door.

“Hi, uh, can I help you?” you ask awkwardly.

The girl’s dark eyes travel up and down your body. She looks at you through the door from beneath long lashes, a knowing smile playing on her lips. You can’t control the shocked gasp that leaves your mouth when she asks for you by name.

You try your best to school your facial expressions and by the slight smirk that crosses the girl’s face, you know you did a pretty poor job of doing so. “Who wants to know?” you ask, wondering if she’s someone who’s crossed paths with you before through work.

“Aaron Hotchner,” she answers, drawing out the last syllable of his name with an amused glint in her eye.

You can’t fight the eye roll that follows. Unbelievable. “Sorry, he wasted your time.” You move to close the door, but she throws open the screen door and catches it with her foot.

Your eyes flash to hers and you see the challenge in the depth of her hazel gaze, equal to the one in yours. “Hotch wouldn’t have reached out to me unless he was desperate,” she adds. “I think you might want to hear me out.” She extends a hand toward you. “I’m Elle, Greenaway to the BAU, but when I left I shortened it to Greene.”

Your brow furrows as the name rings the slightest of bells in the back of your mind. Hesitantly, you accept her ring adorned hand and shake it as your brain sifts through the number of agents you’d heard stories about in the time before you joined the team.

“How did you find me?” you ask as you step aside and admit her into the house.

Elle nods graciously as she looks around, though there’s not much to size up in the small rental unit.

“You think Hotch didn’t immediately have Penelope ping your phone when you left?”

You exhale sharply. “I turned my phone off.”

A short laugh leaves Elle, “Not soon enough.” She turns, a hand on her hip. “You got any beer?”

Your brow furrows, wondering who the hell you just invited into your house. You shake your head as you cross into the kitchen and open the fridge. You withdraw a big bottle you’d bought at the corner drug store. “I’ve got wine.”

Elle smiles. “That’ll work. Let’s head down to the beach.”

•

“Thanks,” Elle says coolly as you finish tipping wine into the plastic cup in her hand. You cap the bottle and shove it down into the sand between the foldable beach chairs you’d dragged down from their place on the deck after you’d gotten changed into something more appropriate to wear outside than a bathrobe.

You retrieve your cup from where you’d been holding it between your legs and take a long sip before sighing and settling back into your chair, the canvas stretching as you do so.

For a moment, you and Elle sit there in silence; watching the orange pink colors of the sunset start to streak across the sky as the waves crash against the sand.

“I had no idea about Haley,” she says after another minute goes by and you stiffen. It isn’t that you and Aaron never talk about her. Keeping her memory alive is so important for Jack and you know a part of Hotch will always love her. That’s never bothered you though. Aaron had told you that he and Haley had talked about that if something ever happened to either one of them that they would want the other to eventually move on and find love again, that they didn’t want the other one to spend the rest of their life lonely. I’m sure neither one of them ever imagined something like what had happened to Haley would ever come to pass though.

“Did you know her?” you ask, your voice tight with emotion at the thought of ever having to endure a loss like that. You’d joined the team years after her death and hadn’t known Hotch during the time he’d grieved her loss. From the stories he and Jack had shared, she seemed like she’d been a kind soul and a good mother.

Elle nods, her gaze fixed on the view though you see a glint of memory in her eyes. “Hotch wasn’t as serious then.” She pauses and smirks to herself. “Don’t get me wrong, he was still a hard ass, but there was also a lightness to him before and right after Jack was born. I remember when they first brought him into the office, such a tiny little thing all bundled up in his arms. Him and Haley had looked so at ease.” She sighs and takes a swig of her wine before continuing. “I think that’s when the job started to get to him, after he had a kid.” Her brow pinches for a moment. “I think Hotch started to see the men and women we put away more as the proverbial monsters that kids fear are lurking in their closets, except we know what horribly evil things the monsters are really capable of versus what a kid’s imagination can drum up. The worst their little minds can conjure up pales in comparison to the heinous files that cross his desk. I think Hotch wanted to protect that innocence so badly and shield Jack from all of the evil in the world that he threw himself further and further into his work, especially after how things with The Fisher King went down.” Your eyes don’t miss the way her hand presses against her abdomen. The stake jutting out of Emily’s stomach flashes in your mind and you flinch at the memory.

“Something happened,” observes Elle. She sits up in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees as she looks at you.

You scoff and take another drink, shaking your head as you do so. “Once a profiler, always a profiler.”

Elle chuckles and shrugs. “Old habits die hard.” Her features soften as she turns toward you. “Something happened though, didn’t it? I know you probably can’t share too many details. Hotch didn’t in the voicemail he left you.”

You perk up at that. “Voicemail?”

Elle nods, the gold hoops in her ears swinging as she does so. “Sorry,” she laughs coolly as she reaches into the pocket of her jeans. “I probably should’ve led with that.” She fishes her cell phone out and swipes her thumb across the screen. You brace yourself as Aaron’s throaty tenor echoes from the speaker on her phone.

“Elle, hi,” he starts and stops. An exasperated sigh follows. “It’s Aaron Hotchner with the BAU I—of course you know I’m with the BAU I don’t know why I led with that. Look, I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from after all of these years but I didn’t know who else to call. I can’t,” his voice wavers here for a moment. “I can’t share details about the case we’re working on, but it’s bad and I had to make a decision.” He stops and clears his throat. “It was a decision that impacted the whole of the team and where it was for their protection, I may have ruined the best thing to have happened to me in years. Look, I know you left the Bureau. I know you changed your name to put distance between you and the BAU, and I don’t blame you. In fact, I think I understand you now more than ever. This job, the toll it takes—” his voice trails off and you hold your breath in anticipation. He goes on to explain who you are and why you left, obfuscating the exact details of the Ian Doyle case for security reasons. He explains how after no one had heard from you for forty eight hours that he’d worked with Garcia to ping your location, how he was more worried than anything else and just needed to know that you were safe. When Penelope had located you, he remembered that Elle had always talked about living on the coast. It had been a shot in the dark, but Penelope being Penelope, she’d been able to find Elle in a matter of hours. “I just need to know she’s safe,” he breathes. “Please, Elle. If anything happens to her, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t lose someone else. I have to do better; by you, by Haley, by the team. I’ll spend the rest of my life making amends, but please, with this case still active, I just need to know that she’s ok. Call me back,” his voice quavers. “Please.”

The line goes dead and Elle slides her phone back into her pocket. “That was three days ago.” Elle’s brow arches, looking for a response. “So,” she adds, drawling out the ‘o’ sound. “Sounds heavy.”

You draw in a deep breath and down the rest of your wine. Aaron had sounded so tired on the phone. Guilt squeezes around your heart as you think about what he and the team must be dealing with. It’s reckless and stupid of you to have just up and left when Doyle is still out there with you and the rest of his team in your sights. You didn’t even bring your gun, sure that you’d be sending in your resignation after this cover up; but hearing his voice on Elle’s phone, the pain in it. What you’d been trying to ignore this entire time begins to wriggle its way toward the forefront of your mind; and that’s the hell this must have put Hotch and Emily through. You know he’d never do anything to hurt you, not intentionally, but how are you supposed to trust him if he could watch you suffer through the agony of her loss knowing at any point in time he could’ve put a stop to it? You squeeze your eyes shut because you know the obvious answer. There are things he has to do as Unit Chief, choices only he can make. Choices that don’t involve you or the rest of the team, and that doesn’t change because you two are an item. Still, the conflict wages on inside of you. All of this is true and he’s made choices and decisions that impact the team before, just never on this scale; not something that alters memories and fucks the psyche so irreparably.

“The heaviest,” you finally respond.

“You can talk to me about it,” she says, and you know her words are genuine. “I know I don’t have clearance anymore, so the cliff notes version works too.”

So, you tell her. About Emily, about Hotch, what you can about Doyle, the circumstances around Emily’s death, the grief, her undeath, the betrayal you felt, and everything that brought you to this moment with her.

Elle releases a low whistle and scoops the wine bottle up from the sand, pouring herself another glass and topping yours off. “That’s—” She pops her lips, considering. “Elaborate.”

“I’d say mind-fuck, but elaborate works too.” You quip bitterly and take a drink.

Elle cocks her head. “Hotch doesn’t do anything without careful consideration.”

You inhale deeply before taking another drink, a warmth starting to crawl beneath your flesh as the alcohol sinks in. You hang your head as you respond. “I know.”

“There’s a reason that I left the Bureau,” Elle says after a long stretch of silence. “I made a decision that ended my career, and it’s one I’d make again if I had to.” Her voice grows tight for a moment before she clears her throat and continues. “This job will drain you until there’s nothing left. I remember on the day I left I told Hotch about how I’d get so excited when my phone rang because it meant we had a case; but after I got shot in my own house and was lying on the floor feeling that man’s fingers inside of my gut, something changed in me forever that day. I went back to work after some time, but it was never the same. After that, every time my phone rang I felt paralyzed with fear because I knew what it was like to feel the way those victims felt in the moments leading up to their deaths.” Her voice quavers for a second and she swipes at a stray tear before choking out a laugh. “You’re not the same after something like. I know what it’s like to come back from the brink of death, and it sounds like this Emily knows too.” She stretches out a hand and grips your knee. “The only difference is that after I nearly died, I had the team. I had Spencer, Derek, Penelope, and JJ, hell Hotch was the one that came to my house and scrubbed the blood off of my walls before I got out of the hospital.” Her brow arches in response to my widening eyes. “Didn’t know that, did you?” She smiles and reclines back in her seat. “Emily didn’t have that. She didn’t have her friends, family,” she corrects. “Let’s be honest, the BAU becomes your family after a while.”

You nod in agreement.

“She went through that alone,” Elle continues and a pang of guilt shoots through you. “She didn’t have her family to turn to in a time where she probably needed you the most.”

It’s your turn to swipe at the tears that loose from your eyes. “I know that.” Your voice is tight as you choke back a sob. “I’ve always trusted the team, every one of them. How—” you suck in a shaky breath. “How am I supposed to trust them after this? What’s to stop something like this from happening again?”

Elle’s lips purse. “That’s the job we signed up for, isn’t it? Working for the government and all the shitty red tape they weave in and around the work we do.”

“If I go back,” you start. “I don’t think they’ll forgive me. I left when they needed me most. Doyle is still out there.”

Elle frowns and tilts her head back and forth. “You’ll never know if you don’t though. I couldn’t go back. My actions decided that for me. You have a choice, but you’re the only one that can make it.” She glances down at her watch and then out at the sun. It’s almost completely sunken down beneath the sea over the horizon, the orange and pink sunset fading to the purple gray hues of dusk. “I should probably get going.” She sets her cup down in the sand and stands, turning to you as she does so.

“Here,” she says, passing you a card from the back pocket of her jeans.

You take it, fingering the edges of the sturdy cardstock. Elle Greene: Social Services Coordinator is embossed in dark blue font followed by a cell phone, office number, and email listed beneath it.

“Call me if you ever want to talk. There are ways to do some good in this world without sacrificing your own happiness in the process.” She smiles at you before she starts toward the path that leads around the house and back to the road.

After a few moments, you jump up and call after her. “Hey Elle!”

She turns, brow arched toward her hairline as she waits for you to continue.

“Why’d you come?”

She slips her hands into her pockets and doesn’t say anything for a while, her green eyes focusing on her feet. When she looks up at you, there’s the faintest of smiles on her lips. “The day I left the Bureau I looked Hotch in the eye and told him that I used to wonder why he didn’t smile. When I heard that voicemail, despite how defeated he sounded, there was something in his voice that made me believe he’d found something to smile about again. When you work the job that you do, that I used to do, you have to hold on for dear life when you find the things that can make you smile after witnessing the things we do. I guess I don’t want him to lose what made him find his smile again; even after all these years I’ve spent angry at Hotch, I never hated him.” She sighs and looks like she wants to say more, but chooses not to. “Running away doesn’t solve your problems, it just keeps them at a distance until you’re finally brave enough to face them. I hope you find clarity faster than I did.” Her jeweled rings catch the last rays of sun as she raises a hand in farewell. “I’ll see you around.”

•

You pull your knees up to your chest and wrap your arms around them, the blue and green plaid fabric of the couch scratching the backs of your legs as you do so. You bite at your thumb nail as you eye your powered down cell phone from where it sits on the glass coffee table in front of you.

Elle’s words from two days ago hang heavy in the air around you.

Running away doesn’t solve your problems. It just keeps them at a distance until you’re brave enough to face them. I hope you find clarity faster than I did.

If you turn on your phone, you know there will be a barrage of voicemails and text messages waiting for you. Or, there won’t be anything more than there was when you first shut it down. You turned your back on them when they needed you. It would be easy to write you off, after all that’s what you did isn’t it?

You drop your head back against the couch and groan, the feelings at war within you tearing at your insides; your guts twisted with equal parts betrayal over Hotch not telling you and the guilt of leaving the team instead of facing that anger and hurt head on.

It’s a giant mess; a tangled web of necessary lies and the red tape that binds the hands of those in positions over you and the rest of the team. The rational part of you understands this. In black and white terms, you understand that Unit Chief SSA Agent Aaron Hotchner had to make a decision to protect another agent, SSA Emily Prentiss. While Ian Doyle is a fugitive from the law believing her to be dead, her going into hiding not only took the target off of her back, but off the backs of all of your team members, yourself included, who otherwise would’ve been collateral damage in Doyle’s relentless pursuit of vengeance against Emily. All of this makes perfect sense.

It’s when the emotional, feeling half of you comes into play that the black and white turns to splotchy streaks of gray and you struggle to make peace with the rational side of things. When you look at it through this lens, your boyfriend and long term partner, Aaron, watched you throw up from dehydration over how long and how hard you’d sobbed over the death of best friend, Emily. At any point, he could’ve put a stop to your pain and didn’t.

Your fingers slide into your hair, gently tugging at the roots as you try to sort through these warring versions of yourself and the pieces of information and emotions that come with each. Because in your heart, you know and understand it’s not black and white. It’s gray and it’s messy. So, why can’t you reconcile both halves of yourself and just be okay with this then? Why can’t you just be overjoyed by the fact that your best friend is back from the literal dead? How many people in this life can say that that’s happened for them? Why can’t you just tell Aaron you understand what he did because you do, but at the same time you don’t? You wouldn’t have told anyone, but then that would be Aaron showing you preferential treatment and you’d be in no better position than he or JJ when it came to hiding this fact from the rest of the team. It’s something you’d talked about extensively when you first started dating and so far, it has been fine. He makes decisions that sometimes you agree with, sometimes you don’t. It is always just part of the job. So what does it all boil down to? Where does this leave you?

“Fuck me,” you whisper aloud as you dive forward and swipe the phone off of the table before you can really think about what you’re doing. You hold down the button on the side and it titters to life. For a moment, you close your eyes as you feel the vibrations pulsing in the palm of your hand, each one a notification of some sort. When they cease, you swipe directly to your contacts and select Aaron’s. His is the first to show alphabetically anyway. Your thumb hovers over the call button for only a second, before you exhale a shaky breath and hit the dial.

The phone barely presses against your ear as you catch the tail end of his hello. It’s after hearing his voice, that you’re rendered speechless.

“Baby, are you there?”

Your chest rises and falls, your heart rate quickening beneath your chest. You sniff as tears prick your eyes, not realizing how much you’d missed his voice until now.

“Aaron,” you squeak out, your voice cracking on his name.

“Baby, I’m so sorry,” Hotch says, a plea in his apology. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to fix this. I miss you. I love you.”

A sob shudders free from your lips as all of your walls come tumbling down and you let yourself break down to pieces of ash and stone. “I’m sorry I ran when you needed me.”

“It’s okay,” Aaron soothes. “It’s okay. It's over. We got him.”

You sit up and swipe under your eyes with the backs of your hands. “Doyle?”

“He’s dead.”

Panic rises in you. “And the team? Is everyone—”

“Everyone is fine. No one was hurt.”

You close your eyes and sink back into the cushions as your pulse levels out. “I’m on my way.”

“There’s no need,” he replies coolly.

Your brow pinches. “I don’t—”

The sound of a car door slamming echoes beyond the front door. You stand and the old t-shirt that belongs to Aaron falls to your thighs as you do so. You’d not even realized you’d packed it until you pulled it on after your shower earlier. The linoleum creaks beneath your feet as you cross through the kitchen and unlock the deadbolt. When you pull open the door, you gasp and drop your phone.

Aaron’s lips tremble as he smiles at you and takes the phone down from his ear. He ends the call and slips it into the pocket of his slacks. “I got in the car and just started driving,” he says as his glimmering eyes flit across yours, always the profiler checking for micro expressions. A desperate smile clings to his lips as he looks at you. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you breathe in response; unable to think of what else to say at the moment

His smile falters as he takes a step closer to you. You see his hand twitch ever so slightly at his side.

“Honey, I—”

You leap forward and throw your arms around his neck. He breathes a sigh of relief into your hair as his arms fold around you, his hands pressed flat against your back as if he can somehow hold you closer than he already is. His hands slide up your spine to curl around the back of your neck. When he pulls away, there are tear stains on his cheeks.

You reach up and swipe your thumbs under his eyes, his skin smooth beneath your touch. A smirk tugs at one corner of your mouth as you wonder when he had time to shave.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” you say, still cupping his cheek in your hand.

He nods as he leans into your touch. “I know,” he says softly.

“I know why you had to do what you did.”

Another tear leaks from his eye as he presses his forehead to yours, cradling your hand against his cheek. “I never wanted to hurt you or anyone else, but I had to protect you.”

“I know,” you say and you mean it. “I also know why you couldn’t tell me. I’m a coward for running away, but I just—I was so overwhelmed by everything. I didn’t know how to cope with your return, with Emily’s, with everything. I would’ve been a hindrance if I’d stayed, but I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run.”

Hotch shakes his head as he steps back to look at you, the dark slash of his brow set as he does so. “What you did was not an act of cowardice. Trust me when I say you are not the only one that has a lot of anger and frustration aimed at me right now. Spencer snapped twice at JJ. Morgan laid into me, and I deserved it. JJ and I always knew that if and when this came to light, that there would be consequences for our actions. It was a calculated risk, and I take full responsibility for it. After you left, I gave everyone the option to leave if they didn’t think they could work the case. You knew you weren’t in the right headspace and pulled yourself out. It was the right decision and no one faults you for it.”

“I’m still so mad at you,” you say.

Aaron’s lips form a tight line. “I know.”

“But I also love you.”

His brow relaxes at that admission and relief floods his gaze. “I’ll take your use of the present tense as a good sign.”

You both chuckle at that and a shiver races through you as a sea breeze catches your hair and sends goosebumps up and down your arms. You wrap your arms around yourself and incline your head toward his SUV. “Your go bag in there?”

He nods and you flick your eyes up and down the length of his figure. “Go on then,” you encourage. “Get it and come inside before I change my mind.” You smile and you feel it reach your eyes for the first time in nearly a week. He withdraws the key fob from his pocket and smiles at it in his hand, before shaking his head with a quiet laugh and turns to head toward the car.

He pops the trunk and returns with his bag slung over his shoulder. “You look good in my shirt,” he compliments you with a sly smile as he passes through the front door. You close and lock the door behind him and point towards the bedroom. “Don’t think flattery will get you off the hook, Aaron.”

“You’re pointing me toward the bedroom, so I can only hope that’s a good sign.”

“Nearly a week has given me a lot of time to think,” you call after him as he disappears inside.

When he returns, his suit jacket is off and he’s loosening his tie from around his neck. “And what conclusion have you come to?”

“To be determined,” you muse as you approach him. You finger the tip of his tie and curl your fingers around it before tugging it free and dropping it to the floor.

One of Aaron’s brows arches as he regards you curiously. His hand curves around your hip and you press yourself against him. Heat pools in your belly, but you ignore the sensation, hard as that is after nine months without him. He dips his chin to kiss you and instead of meeting your mouth, he meets your finger instead. You press it against his lips and arch a brow. “Not so fast, Hotch.”

He winces and inhales sharply, a pink blush quickly coloring his cheeks. “I should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy.” He admits against your finger. “You only call me Hotch when I’m in trouble.”

Something between a scoff and a laugh leaves your lips as you poke him on the tip of his nose, the slope of which you’d missed so much since he’d been gone. “How about,” you start and loop your arms around his neck, “we just talk? From the beginning, tell me what went through your mind and what led to the decision. We can talk about Emily, her funeral, the grief. You can tell me what you can about Pakistan and I’ll tell you about how hard it was when you were gone. Tell me about when you and JJ knew you had to tell the team and I’ll tell you how it felt like I’d had my heart carved out of my chest and put through a blender. Tell me how it felt when I left and I’ll talk about the ways in which I wish I hadn’t but why I felt like I had to. Tell me why I should trust you and I’ll tell you why I want to, but am afraid. Tell me—”

Aaron catches your wrists in his hands and plants a firm kiss upon your lips. You envelope him with your own and revel in the familiar way they meld together, the taste of him like coming home. He pulls away, though his lips still hover over yours. “I promise I will tell you everything and more. We’ll talk until the sun comes up if that’s what it takes.”

You smile and when you speak, your lips brush against his. “I guess I ought to put some coffee on then.”

•

White rays of early morning sunshine break through the sheer curtains, casting soft light across the bed sheets. For the first time in nearly a year, you wake with Aaron’s arm securely around your waist. You breathe in deeply and the faint smell of coffee lingers in the air, two empty mugs leaving brown rings on the nightstand.

You don’t remember when you two had laid down to go to sleep, but remember laughing about it being 3:00 AM at one point and continuing talking in spite of that; and talked you two had. You’d tackled everything from the decision he and JJ made at the hospital all the way up until right now. You laughed and cried, and so did he. You’d never seen Aaron cry before last night, and you were grateful that he’d felt safe enough with you to be vulnerable like that. As the night had worn on, you’d felt the fractured pieces of yourself slowly start to pull together; that you can both heal from this and maybe even come out stronger on the other side.

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand and you reach for it, now being as good a time as any to tackle the number of unread texts and unheard voicemails. You can’t avoid them forever.

8 voicemails from Hotch, 2 from JJ, 6, from Penelope, 1 from Derek, and 1 from Emily. Your brow knits together as you view the time stamp next to her voicemail and it’s marked only an hour ago. Why would she have called you so early? Surely, Hotch would’ve let the team know that you’re safe and that he’s with you.

You open the app and press play, bringing the phone to your ear to avoid disturbing Hotch and Emily’s voice fills your head as you listen in.

“I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now…” Her voice is tired and her tone is genuinely apologetic. “…I missed everyone so much, but you. It tore me up inside knowing we didn’t get to say goodbye, that I didn’t get to explain to you why all of this had to happen and you had to mourn me. I knew Hotch would take care of you.” She chuckles softly and you picture her shaking her head. “God, that man adores you, you know that right? Knowing he’d be there to help you through things was a small solace, but I knew that the weight of asking him to keep this from you and the rest of the team would take a toll on him. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Doyle, he never—he never would’ve stopped hunting me and he would’ve used or killed everyone close to me to do so. If there had been any other way, I would’ve done it.” She sighs heavily. “Anyway, Hotch texted the team and myself last night that he’d gotten to you safely in Virginia Beach. I imagine you and him had a lot to talk about last night. It’s probably going to look like I’m copying a page out of his book, but you’re the only person I haven’t looked in the eye and apologized to, so I’ll be there in about an hour or so. Hopefully, you open the door.”

Your eyes widen as you drop the phone back onto the nightstand. After glancing at the clock and noticing it had been an hour and fifteen minutes since she called, you slip out of bed. Hotch stirs, but doesn’t wake and his hand moves to shift under the pillow and he nestles deeper into the blankets. God, he must be so exhausted. From the red eye flight from Pakistan to immediately leaping into and closing the Ian Doyle case, this is probably the first proper sleep he’s gotten in weeks.

The sound of tires crunching over gravel draws your attention to the living room. You pull on a pair of sweats and throw off the oversized shirt you’d slept in in exchange for a tank top, forgoing a bra in the process. You rush into the bathroom and rapidly brush your teeth, accepting there not being any time to fix your tousled bed head.

Footsteps echo up the walkway on the other side of the front door as you approach and before you can think it through, you throw the door open. You only take a second to confirm that it is in fact Emily on the other side of it before rushing forward and throwing your arms around her.

A loud oomph erupts from lips, the sound muffled as you turn your face into her neck. It takes a few seconds for her to react, her arms slowly folding around you as she realizes that it is in fact a hug that you’re giving her and not an attempt to take her to the ground.

Tears leak from your eyes onto the fabric of her purple top. “I’m sorry,” you murmur into her shoulder.

Emily pulls away, her hands not leaving your shoulders as her brown eyes flicker across your face; her features drawn. “You’re sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for. I came here to apologize.”

You shake your head as something between a laugh and a sob bubbles up from your throat. “I’m so mad at you,” you start and reach forward with both hands to clasp her face in yours. “But I am so happy that you’re not dead and I understand why you had to do what you did.” You smile and drop your hands before playfully shoving her. “A bit though, isn’t it? Faking your death and fleeing the country? Where’d you get that idea? Lifetime?”

Emily smiles, flashing her teeth as she inclines her head this way and that. “I did always have a flair for the dramatics.”

The door creaks then and you turn to watch Hotch push the door open. He smiles as he takes in the sight of you and Emily reconciling. “I put on a pot of coffee,” he says. “How many mugs should I bring out?”

You look between him and Emily. “Three,” you answer, turning your attention back to Emily. “Definitely three.”

Emily smiles and follows you inside, greeting Hotch with a short hug before joining you in the living room. As Hotch busies himself in the kitchen and the smell of coffee starts to fill the air, you start to feel like life might finally start to return to normal.

[violetrainbow412-blog]

Wheels up [S. R]

word count: 4k

summary: Spencer has just been released from prison and things seem to get complicated when Mr. Scratch attacks again. You want to know what's going on with your boyfriend, but when you confront him, you don't expect him to yell at you like he does.

contents: spoilers for season 12-13, directly based on the episode of the same name, established relationship, hurt/comfort, spencer being mean for a moment, mentions of migraines and schizophrenia, apologies, crying and I think that's it.

To say that you were worried was an understatement, because to cut all the tension around the team you would no longer even need a knife but a sword.

You had just gotten over the bitter pill of the fact that your boyfriend had been unjustifiably imprisoned when now Scratch had done this: the ambush, Walker's death, Emily's kidnapping… he just couldn't seem to get enough of this sick game.

“We also never stopped to ask why Scratch was in Honduras in the first place,” Simmons murmured next to you.

García, he and you were trying to review as best as possible the existing research on Peter Lewis that you found in your deceased friend's office to see if you could discover any other details, even if it were the slightest thing that could reveal the whereabouts of your unit leader. 

“Reid'll figure this out. “He's really amazing at this kind of thing.”

Garcia had barely finished saying this when a roar made her jump in her place and look back. Spencer Reid had just furiously thrown a book against the glass windows. You exchanged a worried look with your friend and the three of you silently agreed to go to the meeting room to investigate what was happening.

When the doctor arrived, he began to rant about what he had managed to discover. He talked about hallucinogenic plants found in Honduras and how this was related to Scratch, but you honestly couldn't pay attention to anything he was saying. You could only focus on the purple spots around his eyes, his messy hair jumping every time he said something, the sweat that glistened on his forehead, the erratic and rushed tone of his words and how he constantly rubbed his face or neck. 

Spencer wasn't well. 

You had seen him like this when he had feared he was developing an outbreak of schizophrenia and you had hated every second you had accompanied him to get tested, every second of uncertainty, every time you knew his vision was blurring. And now this was a thousand times worse, because you didn't even know how to help him. Shit, you didn't even know if he wanted your help.

While he was in prison he had refused to see you many times and it had broken your heart every time. He claimed that he didn’t want other prisoners to see you talking to him because they would try to use you to threaten him or that he didn’t want you to see the state he was in because he feared that after seeing the bruises and wounds you would no longer love him.

You respected him, but at the same time you felt that he was building a barrier between you so that in case he couldn't get out of there you wouldn't be tied to a prisoner and could live your life normally. That was why when Emily managed to build a solid case to prove his innocence you felt like you were going to die of joy, and when you saw him leave the prison the first thing you did was run into his arms to make sure he was safe.

But Spencer wasn't, because you knew he had only left there so he could help look for his mother: Diana Reid. During the course of everything you had barely seen him, you two were too busy with your own affairs to have a moment as a couple, but even so when you solved everything you let him go with her; after all they deserved it and you were happy that he had a quiet moment.

But Peter Lewis seemed to have other plans.

“What?” Spencer asked, noticing the way Penelope was looking at him. She looked like she was about to cry behind her blue glasses and you felt sorry for her.

“You threw a book at a window. It was jarring”

“Took me 60 minutes to deduce what should have taken me 60 seconds,” he muttered, clearly sounding furious with himself, “and if Emily dies because I was too slow, I'll be throwing a lot more than books.”

“Spencer” you tried to stop him, but he had already started on his way to the exit.

You always wanted to believe that you were his weak point, he had told you that on more than one occasion. When the team couldn't reason with him, they sent you instead.

Reid will do anything you tell him, Morgan used to say, whether it's convincing him about something silly between friends or something more serious. 

And so it was, because every time he was upset all it took was for you to make flirtatious eyes at him and steal a kiss for him to forget about it.

One day you're going to be my downfall, did you know that? he used to laugh. You're going to ask me to bring the stars down from the sky and I'll have to figure out a way to do it because I don't know how to say you no.

However, this time he didn't seem to understand any reason. He was just walking towards the exit and you were stumbling after him to catch up with his quick pace.

“Spencer,” you insisted, reaching out to grab his arm in an attempt to stop him. You didn't expect him to stop abruptly to the point where you collided with his chest, in the middle of the desolate hallway you had arrived at.

“What?”

The sharp tone and angry look he gave you unnerved you slightly, but you managed to clear your throat in search of your voice.

“Honey, it's obvious that you're not fine. You need to rest"

"Rest?" he spat, incredulous. “Do you think I can think of resting when we have a situation like this?”

“That's not what I meant. I'm just saying that no one expects you to be here after what happened, you can at least take a break” 

The sigh he let out was enough for you to know that whatever was coming was surely not good.

“Huh yeah? And what is that break I'm going to take going to cost us? Emily’s life?”

“You know I'm as worried as you are.”

“I'm not worried, I'm sick. I'm sick of this damn case, I'm sick of one thing after another happening to us and I'm sick of failing." 

"I know but…"

“No,” he interrupted you, leaning back when you tried to lay a hand on him. “There's no but. Today I don't need you to tell me what I have to do” 

“I'm not telling you what to do, I'm asking you to take care of yourself. How much sleep have you even had? When was the last time you ate?"

Your tone of voice had come out more recriminating than you intended and if you were already tense, this exchange was not helping at all.

Hearing no response, you continued.

“If you're not going to rest, at least let me help you.”

You wanted him to have the confidence to tell you anything, to be able to explain why he was acting so strange or to at least take two minutes to admit that things weren't right. But Spencer had changed a lot in that prison, because if before it was difficult for him to talk about his feelings, now it seemed practically impossible. You were the only one he dared to do it with and you didn't even think you were that exception to the rule anymore.

If you had known what was to come you would have preferred to stay for the moment he took to take a deep breath.

“Do you know how you can help me? Stepping aside”

“Spencer”

“I'm sick of this too! I'm tired of everyone coming and offering me their faces of compassion and their words of encouragement as if they really understood me. They don't do it, nobody does it, not even you. This is... it is a huge and heavy accumulation that has accumulated for years and years and when I think that it can't be worse, life surprises me by saying that yes, it can be worse. So just shut up, let me do my job, let me catch Scratch and for the love of God stop treating me like I'm a child because on top of all the stress of the case I have to deal with that too and honestly it's killing me” 

Your boyfriend turned around without waiting for a response and a part of you was grateful that was the case, or else he would have seen the tears that had already gathered in your eyes.

You were shocked and felt your face burning with shame, with a hole in your stomach that wouldn't be easy to fill. You were no longer even worried about the man, nor sad, but you felt very different; it was as if Reid had infected you with his anger.

Still with wet cheeks you hurried to walk in the opposite direction, finding yourself at the end of the hallway to meet a very worried Penelope García. Without letting her tell you anything, you asked her to continue with the investigation and the entire time you swallowed your pain.

You knew that Peter Lewis' desperate face when he was hanging from that building and the way you and Luke left him to die would haunt you for a lifetime, but you didn't feel even the slightest bit sorry for it. Even a part of you wished that man had died a slower and perhaps even painful death. Whatever the case, he was gone and you could feel a second of peace at night.

Spencer was right, the most important thing now was to save Emily. Later there would be time to attend to marital discussions.

When you got home you were sweaty, tired, and had a headache that you knew a shower could probably solve, adding a glass of good wine just to be safe. However, clinging to that peace of mind that solving the case had provided you was only a mechanism to postpone confronting the problem that was still latent. You hadn't spoken to Spencer for the rest of the day since your fight in the hallway and although your heart ached you knew this was the prudent thing to do.

Fighting had never had a place in your relationship because both of you were too rational to be carried away by impulse. You had disagreements and arguments, but you had tried to resolve them like adults or you had let the matter rest until you were cool-headed enough to speak calmly. You suspected that right now you were doing the latter, but you knew for a fact that you wouldn't be the one who would look for your boyfriend to talk to.

You were hurt by the way he had reacted to your advice, but a part of you also understood that Spencer had been going through too much and that, in some ways, he had some right to want his own space. Or maybe both of you were partly to blame; you for demanding something that didn't belong to you and him for not having said things tactfully enough.

But you couldn't help but miss him. You had spent so many months away from him that you longed to be in his arms, shower him with kisses and hear the soft beat of his heart just to make sure he was real.

Still lost in your thoughts you searched the living room for your briefcase to grab your cell phone, hoping to find something to distract yourself, and upon unlocking it you discovered that you had several missed calls from Spencer. It wasn't like you were ignoring him on purpose, rather it had been an oversight on your part, but when you were about to dial his number a new call was announced on the screen. It was him.

"Hello?"

“There you are,” he murmured, sounding tremendously relieved “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I just left the phone in my briefcase and that's why I didn't hear your calls. I'm sorry"

There was silence for an awkward moment and then he spoke again.

“You went home early.”

"I was tired. I told Emily.”

“Yes, she… he told me, but… Do you think I can see you? I would like to talk to you about something and I don't think it is appropriate to do so on the phone.”

You evaluated your options, looking at everything around you. Spencer was welcome whenever he wanted in your house and you knew a mess wouldn't matter to him, but you were more worried about him noticing the emotional mess, not the physical one.

“Y/N?”

“Yes,” you responded when you heard your name, without thinking too much. “You can come”

Spencer responded with a monosyllable and then he hung up. You were about to get up from the couch to look for something more decent than colorful pajamas when a knock on the door startled you. When there was no response, the person knocked again and when you tiptoed until you reached the peephole, you met a familiar silhouette who was visibly nervous. Apparently the look of confusion on your face when you opened it was enough to express a silent question to Spencer.

“I was in the hallway,” he explained to you. “I didn't want to take long if you said yes.”

You knew you shouldn't give in so easily, but it was hard when Spencer said things like that and he came to your house looking completely disoriented, sad, and regretful.

"Can I come in?" he asked. Although your silences were not with that intention, the truth was that you were making him even more nervous.

"Yeah, you can”

You turned around only when you heard the click of the door closing and leaned against it, waiting for him to say something. You took a moment to observe him and noticed that his clothes were slightly disarrayed, while his hands played with the leather strap that was still across his chest. When he noticed that you were looking at his hands he interpreted it as a sign to get rid of the garment, and so he did.

“Wine?”

“Rossi gave it to me,” you responded, following his gaze to the bottle on the coffee table along with the crystal glass.

Spencer opened his mouth slightly in understanding and then there was silence again.

“I think it's obvious why I'm here, right?” he murmured in a low, cautious voice. You looked at him with sealed lips. “I want to apologize.”

“Yeah?”

"Yes. I know I shouldn't have talked to you like that in the office”

“No, you shouldn't have done it,” you responded sternly “And I accept if you don't want me around, but…”

“No,” he interrupted you, lunging forward to take your hands. You didn't refuse. “It's not that. I want you close, I don't want you to go away”

“I want you close too, Spencer. And I care about you. That's why I tell you things, not because I want to bother you."

“I know not. I was wrong, okay? I was wrong and I had no right to yell at you just because I was upset. And I wasn't upset with you, I was upset about the case and… it was just too much. This is all too much” by this point Spencer’s voice had already broken and your arms were already open for him.

It didn't take much for your boyfriend to start sobbing.

"I'm sorry"

“I know, Spencer.”

"I was an idiot"

“Yes, you certainly were,” you responded, speaking barely above a whisper. You couldn't stop feeling empathy for your boyfriend, but you couldn't ignore your own pain either. “You made me feel so hurt.”

“Forgive me, you know that was not my intention.”

“I just want to see you well. I want you to be safe and help you, but you won't let me do it. And it's okay if you don't want my help, but you can't deny that you need help. We need help. Do you think I wasn't stressed too? Do you think I could care less about finding Emily?”

“I know not. I know…” he sobbed.

“And I understand that we were both going through a hard time but you had no right to treat me like that.”

"You hate me?"

“Of course I don't hate you. I love you very much and I always will, but when something bad happens we don't yell at each other. And I'm not hating you for this, did you hate me that time in Georgia when I went into negotiating in that hostage situation without consulting anyone?

"No. I was very angry and worried about you, but I would never have hated you.”

"You see it? It's the same” you said softly.

You weren't going to torture him with this and you didn't want him to kneel and ask for forgiveness, the message you wanted to give him was already more than clear. And you knew that the simple act of accepting his mistake was something that showed you that he cared about you.

“It won't happen again, I promise.”

“Oh, it may happen again. We are both dumb sometimes and the older we get the grumpier we become” you tried to joke. Although you didn't hear him laugh, you knew that it had lightened the atmosphere. “But talking about it makes him feel better, right? Just like now”

He nodded at your question and then your hand went up to his head to stroke his hair. The contact seemed to melt him against you, as if with this you had also given free rein to his crying. You knew he probably wasn't going to tell you about the horrors he'd experienced in prison yet, but maybe this moment could be a start; you were being honest with each other and after all that was what was important.

Spencer calmed down after a long while and when you separated you made sure to get him some napkins so he could wipe his tears and blow his nose.

“You're seriously not upset at me?”

“No,” you assured him, shaking your head at the same time. You approached him and raised your hands to his cheeks to hold him gently. “It's okay, Spencer. I would be upset if you hadn't apologized."

“I wanted to do it sooner, but I knew that maybe you needed time to… you know, not want to strangle me”

“You're always so smart,” you complimented him and this time he did laugh.

The man's hands were experimentally placed on your waist and upon noticing your approving smile he pulled you a little closer to him until you collided against his chest. The puffiness in his eyes didn't stop him from giving you a sweet look.

“I haven't kissed you since I came back,” he observed absently and after thinking about it for a second you realized it was true.

You hadn't even kissed him. You had gone three months without seeing him and you still hadn't had time to kiss him.

You opened your mouth slightly, but before you could say anything he had already leaned down to capture your lips in a kiss. With the help of your hand sliding to the back of his neck you deepened the contact and Spencer wasted no time, wrapping his thin arms around your torso.

Even if you didn't want to admit it, you had already forgotten how good it felt to kiss him and amid everything you thought that you wished you could capture that moment in a jar to turn to it when necessary. Because after everything that had happened that day you really needed that moment of peace with him.

His lips were slightly parted, but your gentle tongue took care of moistening them and when the air began to fail you just let him go for a second, kissing him again when you breathed enough. Your kisses were sweet and soft enough to dissipate the rest of the guilt that remained in your lover's body.

"Better?" you asked once you two were satisfied. It took him a moment to compose himself from the intoxication of your kiss to be able to answer you.

"Yes, I feel better"

“How is Diana, by the way?” you said quietly, leaning back a little to look him in the eyes.

“She is fine, I managed to admit her to a sanatorium before García called me. It will only be for tonight, tomorrow I will look for where she can stay permanently” he answered you, rubbing his tired face with a hand “I think it would be best for us to return to Las Vegas”

“You should go to her now” it hurt you to give him that advice, but you knew that he must have other priorities now. One of your hands kindly caressed his bicep, feeling how he had lost considerably in weight.

“You don't want me to stay here?”

“I don't want you to feel obligated. I know Diana needs you more than me."

“She'll be fine today,” he murmured. Apparently he wanted to be with you more than you thought. “I left my number and she'll be asleep right now. As much as he wants to deny it, I think… that she is better off with professionals”

“So you want to stay here?”

You had sounded more excited than you intended and just because of the sparkle in your eyes he felt the urge to steal another kiss from you.

"Of course I want to. I missed you so much, I just want to feel you close to me."

“I can stay only if you promise me two things.”

“What is it?”

“We’re going to try to sleep,” you asked him, passing the tip of your index fingers under his eyes. “I don't like that look at all and I think you could use some rest. I have a comfortable bed waiting just for you.”

“I'd love that,” he smiled weakly. “What's the second thing?”

“Tomorrow you will let me cook you something delicious before we go to your mother.”

The thought of you spoiling him so much made him smile.

"Done deal"

You carefully guided him to your room and once there you kissed him again. Spencer felt like he was going to cry again when he noticed that you still had the change of clothes that he had left in your closet over three months ago and the soft fabric along with the familiar scent filled his chest with joy.

You two snuggled under the warmth of the sheets and you made sure to kiss your lover's face countless times while your hands touched every piece of skin you had within reach, trying to show him that he didn't have to worry about anything; you wanted him to know that you loved him and that he was somewhere safe.

"Are you okay?"

You spoke in the middle of the darkness, while Spencer had his full weight on top of yours. His nose rubbed slightly against your bare skin and he found it necessary to leave another kiss there.

“I am now.”

And even if it only lasted for a brief moment, Spencer knew that nothing compared to the peace and tranquility of being with you.

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