A/N

Normally I don't go there. I pretend season 9 finale never happened. So I guess I decided to fix it, and also take the chance to reverse their roles a little.

Reid watched her getting into a cab, and while he could understand her actions, sympathise with them even, it also hurt him at a profound level. A level he hadn't been hurt at since JJ kept quiet about Emily still being alive. Suddenly all the abandonments and losses he'd suffered in his life all crashed down upon him in this single departure. In this damn copout. And instead of reacting with sadness of losing yet another close friend, he found himself furious with Blake. Fist-curlingly, blood-boilingly furious.

He reached for his phone and called her. She wasn't picking up. He didn't hang up, insisting, until he was certain she'd simply turn the phone off. If she did, he'd call her at home. She was not getting off the hook here. Almost as if she sensed this, she finally did pick up.

"You forgot something at my place," he said.

"I think you know it was on purpose," Blake replied.

"I do, but I hardly think it's my responsibility to tell our boss and our team that you're quitting, do you?"

He barely recognised his own voice; it trembled but was hard and cold at the same time. Blake kept quiet, and that was probably good, because he had more to say to her and didn't want to be interrupted.

"I never took you for a quitter. I looked up to you, I felt safe with you. Now I see you're a coward, just running away, too scared to even own up to your own decisions. Go on running then, Alex. You're not the first one I needed who left me. But I think you're the one who hurt me the most, because you're leaving when you have the choice not to."

She was still quiet, but he could hear her breathing.

"If I remind you of Ethan…" he took a deep breath. "… I can't do anything about that, Alex. But I'm Spencer, and if it matters at all to you, I still need you."

He could hear her swallow hard, but she still wasn't speaking. He couldn't do much more to change her mind, at least not when she refused to speak to him.

"I expect you to come and retrieve your things. I won't hand in your badge for you, if that's what you were hoping. I'll be up for another hour, so I suggest you tell the driver to turn around. I will not send it to you by mail." He felt an urge of telling her the statistics of how many packages got lost in the mail every year, but managed to quell that urge.

More silence.

He was just about to hang up and hope for the best, when she finally spoke, in a small, almost timid voice that efficiently defused most of what was left of his anger. He had never heard Blake sound so subdued before.

"I'm on my way."

She hung up before he could. He supposed it wouldn't hurt to give her that victory.

"Seems like a pointless trip if you end up where you started," the cab driver remarked as he pulled up outside Reid's apartment building.

"Isn't that where we always seem to end up?" Blake said as she reached for her wallet. She meant it rhetorically, but the driver either didn't get that concept, or just didn't care.

"If we do, that's maybe because we have to change something," he suggested, and when Blake gave him a surprised look, he continued; "I'm guessing you're either giving a second chance, or getting one."

She handed him money almost in a daze, but before she could gather her thoughts enough to respond, he drove off in the night, and she was alone on the sidewalk. She knew Reid was watching her, she knew without looking up at his window, she could feel it. Yet she remained outside for a while, breathing in the night air that was chilly and humid after the rain earlier. She hoped the chilly air would help clearing her mind, but all it did was making her shiver, and she decided she couldn't put it off any longer. She would go straight in, take her things, and…

"Oh damnit," she exhaled when she realised she hadn't thought about the trip home. She could have asked the cab driver to stay put and she'd be on her way home in two minutes. Now she'd have to get another cab. Oh well.

As she made her way up the stairs she could finally identify the exact emotions that held her in a tight grip. It was fear and shame. Shame over her decision and her spineless implementation of said decision. And she was afraid of Reid saying he needed her. Hadn't she just proven conclusively that she couldn't be trusted? Meaning well and ending up causing more harm than good, that was the story of her life, and wasn't it better to simply withdraw if that was the case?

You're either giving a second chance, or getting one.

Or getting one.

Blake decided she'd take it, whether she deserved it or not.

When he opened the door for her, it was a very submissive and actually quite pitiful linguist who reluctantly met his eyes. She gave him a pale smile that was so devoid of joy it could have been painted onto her face.

"I'm sorry." She fumbled for words, but eventually whispered the same apology again before tears welled up in her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. All through their relationship she had been the one comforting him, but he found it was not at all difficult to reverse the roles. He gently pulled her into his arms and held her, and he could feel how the tension left her body, as if she was too drained to stay tense.

"It's alright, Alex," he murmured and stroke her hair, which seemed to relax her even more. "I'm sorry too." He wondered what to say next, and Garcia's home remedy for most things was the first thing that got into his head. "Would you like some tea?"

She nodded against his chest and slowly let go of him.

"I'll be right back," he said and went into the kitchen.

He wasn't gone long, but when he came back with two cups of tea, Blake was curled up on his couch, fast asleep. There were still tears clinging to her eyelashes and slowly drying on her face. She looked like a little girl crying herself to sleep after an exhausting day with too many impressions. He decided not to add more impressions to the pile by waking her. Instead he draped a blanket over her and turned off the lights in the living room.

He was pretty sure she'd come to work tomorrow. Not because he wanted her to, but because she did.