A/n this peice was inspired by the Peter Gabriel song, "Red Rain."
Warning: Character death, suicide.
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Rain plopped down on the leaves that crackled under his feet while he ran. It trickled down his hair, soaking it and the collar of the white dress shirt he wore. It ran down his back and the flack jacket that was emblazoned with the letters FBI in gold letters.
The branches of the rain-soaked trees slapped his face in the deepening twilight that painted everything black and white like an old movie. Thunder crashed over his head and lightening forked across the sky.
His feet squished over more leaves and through mud. The smell of the leaves, the rain and the air of the mountains combined into a nightmarish miasma that had his stomach rebelling as he ran in the direction of the gun shot that had echoed over the last crash of thunder.
It was the direction she'd gone.
Water dripped over his wet face and into his eyes. It was cold as an abandoned tomb at midnight. He shivered and tried not to smell the rotting leaves that made his stomach roll. More branches slapped at him and left their burdens of rain on his shoulders, head, and face.
He blinked hard in the gathering darkness that was becoming more black then white. He dashed around a tree and tripped over a protruding tree branch that sent him sprawling into the mud and leaves. He staggered to his feet and limped on. He had to get to her and help her. He was her backup. They shouldn't have got separated in the first place.
Where was his backup? They were supposed to be behind him, but he glanced back and saw that they weren't there. He stopped and tried to listen for footfalls over the thunder and the rain, but he couldn't hear, or see them through the curtain of rain.
Another shot rang through the trees and he turned to run in that direction through the gathering gloom. The trees abruptly thinned and ahead in the shadows was a stream of water that rushed east to west. In the dimming light he saw her lying in the water of the stream.
"No…"
The word couldn't have come from him. The voice was his, but he didn't scream in despair like that. She lay without moving in the freezing water with the rain plopping off her flack jacket. He ran to her, slipping and sliding through the slick mud. He fell to his skinned knees but didn't feel the collision with the ground.
He got back to his feet and it felt like he was moving slowly through quicksand that wanted to swallow him. It was okay… It could be slow because if he didn't get there, he wouldn't see her face, or that she was looking up at the sky instead of answering his pleas for her to look at him.
"Please…"
Who was he asking to spare her? God didn't exist if it meant that He would take away the one person he loved more then anything else in this world.
He slid to a stop next to her and looked down with eyes that leaked tears to mix with the rain coming down out of the sky.
Her eyes were looking up at the darkening sky. The bullet had hit her in the head and she was gone. The rain was washing away the little bit of blood from the bullet hole and mixing it with the stream of water. She laid half in and half out of the water. Her legs floated and were pushed from side to side by the current, but it didn't take her away.
"Please no…"
He fell to his knees next to her body. He didn't want to touch her, and yet he couldn't keep his fingers from touching her cheek.
It was warm and it was cold from the constant dripping of the rain. He ran his shaking fingers down to her wet hair that he'd admired and never complemented when she was alive to hear it. One hand went to her neck and felt for a pulse that never came. She was gone.
"Emily…"
The tears that had been running down his cheeks and mixing with the rain water began to drop onto the face of his beautiful love.
Her dark eyes looked past him into the nearly black sky. She seemed to look into eternity and he wanted to know what she saw with those exceptional eyes.
"No, not yet, Emily… Oh God."
His heart shattered when she continued to stare into the unknown space that lives between life and death. It wasn't happening. It was a dream. He'd close his eyes and open them again. She'd be kidding around with him, and when he opened his eyes, she sit up and laugh at him for being so gullible.
He closed his eyes and counted to ten. He took deep breaths in the cold air and he imagined that he could smell her musky perfume over the smell of ozone and rotting leaves in the air.
He opened his eyes and in the darkening night, he saw that she hadn't moved. She truly was gone and the last hinge keeping his mind grounded to reality and sanity snapped in two. He felt it slip out of his control and all he could see was the water bubbling around her torso and legs. He only saw her raven hair floating in the water and dark mud.
"No… I can't let you go."
He pulled the small pocket knife out of his pocket that he'd taken to wearing and clicked it open. The blade was dull in the low light, but there was no pain when he sliced it into his wrist. There was just enough light to see crimson blood dropping into the water and mixing with the stream as it carried it down the hill.
He watched it drop slowly onto the ground. It was too shallow and too slow. The back up that he needed was too late, but if they found him before he could join her…
He took the knife in his left hand and made another deeper cut into his wrist slicing up toward his elbow. It was so strange that it didn't hurt.
The blood fell faster, staining his pants that were soaked through by purifying water. It dripped and ran dark red over the lifeless body of his beautiful Emily.
He opened the cut more on his other arm and it fell faster and faster now. He thought he heard voices near him and he lay down with his head on Emily's motionless chest.
"We'll both be quiet and stay together. I love you Emily."
The crimson, life-giving blood ran down to combine with the mud and the water. He began to shiver so he put his arms around the still warm body of his love. He should have told her when she was alive how much he loved her.
The rain was slowing and so was the blood that pattered down on the mud and the still body under his. The darkness that had descended over the mountain was inky black, but not as ebony as the darkness that was falling over his eyes.
"Reid…"
Someone was calling out to him, but he was too tired to reply. Another voice called to him from another direction. He tried to open his eyes because he knew that voice.
"Reid…"
"Emily," He mouthed through dry lips.
"Come with me?"
He squinted at the voice and saw her standing there in front of him bathed in bright golden light. She reached out a hand to him and some how he reached up and grabbed it.
"Reid, no," Someone shouted. He looked back and saw the still form of Emily and a man lying with his head on her shoulder. "Reid, what have you done?"
Hotch and Morgan, with JJ and Rossi behind him ran to where they lay. "Oh God Hotch… Are they -" JJ stammered through tears that shown in the light of all their flashlights.
"Yes… Damn it!" He shouted.
Morgan cursed and stalked off into the trees. JJ went into Rossi's arms and Hotch just leaned over the two bodies and was silent.
"Reid," He turned back to her voice that was like the most beautiful music he'd ever heard. "It's time to go. They'll be okay."
"Really!"
"Yes, now come with me. We're going to a place where there's no more pain for either of us. I love you Spencer Reid."
He walked away with her into a long tunnel of blinding light. The red rain was over and so was all the pain.