Chapter Text
It’s been a few weeks since Emily’s death, which meant people started healing. The BAU all had their own different ways of showing that. A commonality seemed to be that people mourn better with company.
Garcia and Morgan have taken to picking a different movie to watch every night along with a big blue bowl of popcorn and various different bottles of alcohol. This particular evening they went with Garcia’s pick of “E.T.”, what she argues to be the best childhood movie of all time and Derek, sitting next to her drinking his second bottle of beer, couldn’t bother to differ. He didn’t really care about the movie they watched because no matter which one it was Penelope would always make some sly comment while overreacting at a big scene and get popcorn everywhere. Everytime, without fail, it would make Morgan roll his eyes, let out a little chuckle and forget about all the wrong in the world. He really needed that lately.
Hotch and Rossi, on the other hand, tended towards getting a drink together at the bar on the nights Hayley’s sister was watching Jack. Otherwise, Rossi would come over and, as insisted by Jack, make dinner. This happened to be one of those times. Jessica was going on a date tonight so Hotch invited Rossi over to make some of his grandma’s signature ravioli. Jack was so excited that he begged them to let him help. Hotch couldn’t help but take a bit of offense given that Jack was never as energetic about his cooking. Nonetheless they put him to work rolling the dough and folding the edges. In the end Jack very proudly ate his masterpiece despite the mess of flour and misshapen pieces of ravioli that were created on the way. Rossi and Hotch could never be mad though, Jack always lifted their spirits, much more than their trips to the bar.
Of course out of everyone, these were the two that were dealing with the agent’s far-too-soon death the best.
Why you might ask? Well because Prentiss was currently across the world, traveling, trying exotic foods and meeting new paramours in France under a, once again, new identity. Which, definitely as a sudden change sucked. Double sucking with most of the people you left behind thinking you were 6 feet under. A user named cheeto fingers, however, helped make that journey slightly less sucky.
Anyway, Hotch was well aware of Emily’s not-so-deadness and Rossi, although not knowing straight up, had a hunch. Call it the senior profiler intuition.
Still, it’s nice to have a little fun after being estranged from a team member like that. Especially knowing that Doyle was still out there.
That was a thought none of the members liked to think about.
The one’s taking it the hardest, surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, were JJ and Reid. It wasn’t that JJ missed Emily, no not at all. She was probably the one who had the most communication with her still. Reid however, had gotten to know Emily pretty well in the past years. They bonded over their family issues, their struggles with drugs and talked for hours about their new queer crush of the week. Sure at first their friendship was pretty rocky but, given time, they were able to truly understand each other better than anyone else on the team.
But then Doyle happened.
Reid was never the same after that. He couldn’t help but feel helpless and empty. The first day after her death JJ had caught Reid asleep on Emily’s desk covered in tears.
“Reid..” She said quietly as she reached her hand out to gently pat his shoulder.
“Please don’t tell me you were here the whole night”. JJ looked down at him not sure what to do, sympathy and guilt eating away at her.
Truth is, the only reason JJ was taking it so hard these past weeks was because her friends were hurting and she couldn’t do anything about it. Quite frankly, to her, it was all her fault. If she could just tell them what she knew, they wouldn’t have to suffer so much.
Reid looked up at her with tears in his eyes and dark circles under them. He tried to hide how bad he’s been by wiping his tears and putting on a faint smile. He knew the team always treated him like he was weaker and he hated it.
“I’m fine, I- I just wanted to clean up Emily’s desk a little. You know she- she always kept her desk so messy”. He let out a little laugh at that. “I couldn’t go home knowing the mess will never be cleaned up before they just-“. He paused for a second to take a deep breath. “Just pack it all up and shove Emily’s stuff into some storage closet to get dusty.”
He kept looking down at her desk, saddened by the thought that she would never be sitting there again.
JJ broke the silence. “That’s it. You’re coming to my house tonight to talk about it, okay? You need a shoulder to cry on? I’m there. I will not let you stay in this office, not able to sleep.” She exclaimed, a smile plastered on her face.
Reid smiled right back. Weak albeit but it was a smile nonetheless. He considered the offer for a moment and reluctantly came to a decision. He felt bad and didn’t want any of JJ’s pity but honestly, at this point, he wasn't sure how he was going to survive. He also supposed it wouldn’t hurt for JJ to have someone to talk to as well.
“Sounds like a deal.”
And so from then on Spencer went to JJ’s house every night where they both cried and talked for hours. Each time Spencer would feel just the tiniest bit better and in turn so did JJ.
Tonight, however, went a bit differently.