Note- This story is slightly spoilerish.It is also very angsty so don't expect any happy moments until the end.
A Bad Goodbye
Chapter One
May 2012
"I wanted to be the one to tell you all," Emily Prentiss said as the BAU team all stood around the round table room after a particularly brutal case "I've decided to take a job with Interpol. I leave next week."
A gasp rose up in the small confined space as she caught them all off gaurd- especially Dr. Spencer Reid, who hated goodbyes.
His throat started to close, in panic, and all he could manage to squeak out was "You're leaving us?"
The tender apologetic look she gave back said it all. Soon she would be gone from his day-to-day life again, leaving an empty hole that could never be filled by any new team member who might one day replace her.
No one could be who Emily was to them all. Who she was to Reid.
Suddenly there wasn't enough air in the room and Reid knew he had to get out of there as quick as possible. Pushing past his co-worker, Derek Morgan, who tried to stop him, Reid fled out the door and ended up near the elevator.
"Reid!" Emily called, hurrying to catch up with him. "Wait, please!"
When she reached him she touched his arm, but he refused to look at her, as he blinked back tears. He hated how emotional he could get. It only made him feel childish and after all he had been through in his thirty years of life he was very far from being a child. The innocence that once resided in his spirit had been trampled down and stomped on way too many times for much of it to remain- or much trust in anyone, much hopefulness, or much happiness either.
Working at the BAU was a bitch on a soul.
It ripped a person apart, broke them down to their basest level and didn't give a damn if they ever got built back up again. It took things, pieces of themselves, they couldn't live very well without and couldn't ever get back after they were gone. It destroyed relationships, ended lives, took sanity and health and played with both like they were whims.
Yet he stayed here, despite wondering why he was doing this to himself, all because his co-workers were more than just teammates to him. They were family and what they all did when they were together, catching serial killers, was important.
But he didn't want to do it anymore without Emily. She was only one person on a team of seven but she had come to mean so much to Reid. She understood him in ways that the others didn't. Treated him like an adult when he would forever be a kid to Morgan, Garcia and Hotch. Emily could get Reid to talk about things he didn't want to talk about, to understand feelings he was having about his life, his mother, his choices and goals.
She just had a way with him and he didn't want to lose that again.
A year before he had been told she was dead- killed by an unsub. His world had seemed to fall out under his feet. It didn't seem right that her beautiful life was snuffed out because the team couldn't get to her in time. He still needed Emily but she was just gone. Reid had wanted to use drugs desperately then, wanted to fall into emptiness and madness. His headaches worsened, brought on by stress, and he wondered if he was having a psychotic break.
He had never known how much he really needed Emily's friendship until he believed she was dead and gone forever. Then the world didn't make sense at all anymore for him.
But it had all been a lie. She was hiding in Paris, waiting for the moment she could safely return to them. She hadn't wanted to leave them.
This time wasn't like that. She was choosing to break up the team, to hurt Reid this way, choosing to leave them all...to leave him.
Feeling her hand resting on his arm was a burning warmth he didn't want to feel so Reid jerked away. "Don't!"
"I'm sorry! This is just something I have to do!"
Quickly he turned and looked at her, tears burning in his eyes. "No, Emily," he hissed "this is something you are choosing to do!"
She sighed and titled her head to the side. Dropping her voice, she whispered "I am not disappearing from your life, I promise. We will still talk all the time."
"It won't be the same!" The elevator doors opened and he walked on.
Turning to look back at her, as their eyes met and held, he wondered how he would keep from crying on her last day of work. Right now his nose ached from unshed tears and his throat was clogged. Reid had never been able to get through goodbyes without feeling gutted inside, abandoned and rejected, wondering why he had ever bothered to let his heart feel at all.
Right before the doors of the elevator closed, Emily said "You're right. It won't be the same between us anymore but it could be better...Reid, it's your choice."
The doors closed, leaving him wondering what kind of choice he really had. At the moment all it felt like he could do was mourn losing Emily from the team, from being able to see her nearly everyday of his life, from working with her, from the chance to have the meaningful talks just when he needed it most.
She had come to mean more and more to him everyday since she returned back to the BAU but now it was all ending. This time she wasn't forced to go into hiding. This time she decided she could do without the team, without Reid.
Once he made it to his car, he lay his head back against the driver's seat and closed his eyes, as he blinked down the tears. This time he would not let himself cry over her.
Emily had chosen this path. The road that would take her far from the BAU, far from him. If she was okay with that then somehow Reid would have to be too.
Even though it tore him apart inside to lose another person who meant so much to him. Somehow he would get through this, knowing all along he would be less for the loss, because life would give him no choice but to survive this pain, without the aid of pharmaceuticals.
No, it wasn't life giving him no choice. It was Emily.