This is the companion story I mentioned in my last update of Our Unpredictable Road. It will only be a few chapters. Hope you enjoy it.

TW for this story- drug addiction, rape, abortion, self harm

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 1

As the team relaxed on the plane on the way back from New Orleans, Reid thinks back to his conversations with Ethan and Gideon. He had admitted that he wasn't OK. And both had known already.

And they had both given him food for thought in different areas. Ethan had assured him that he was only fooling himself if he didn't think the team knew something was wrong with him. Gideon had confirmed that when they talked at the bar Ethan played out. Gideon had shared his own various feelings about the job.

And before getting on the plane to go back to Quantico, Reid had decided that he really did want to be in the FBI and with the BAU. It wasn't just what he thought he should be doing but what he really wanted to be doing.

With that decision made, he had also accepted that he was struggling as he tried to deal with the fallout from the Georgia case. Fallout that would be less complicated to deal with if he left the FBI. However he now needed to find a path forward that would allow him to stay on the team.

But how did he go forward? The nightmares he could handle and knew that they all had them. He had had them before but after talking to Morgan he had also talked through them with Gideon. The flashbacks were also getting better.

The part that he had no idea how to navigate was the Dilaudid exposure that he knew but didn't want to admit had turned into an addiction. As much as everyone on the team may know he was continuing to grapple with his experience, he was almost certain that none of them had figured out that he was still using Dilaudid. Someone would have called him on it as it would be too dangerous to be in the field with drugs in his system.

To stay in the BAU, he knew he needed to find a path to stop using it.

But he more than any of them knew the statistics on how hard it was to break a drug addiction particularly Dilaudid. If the Bureau found out either directly or indirectly through the psychologist or his medical insurance, he would most likely be reassigned away from the BAU and taken out of the field while going through the mandated treatment regimen.

But he also knew what the statistics were for how hard it would be if he tried to do it himself without help. Sighing, he didn't know what do.

As he sat thinking he heard a cough. Looking up he looked up and around the plane at the team before his gaze rested on Emily who was focused on the book she was reading. Sighing, he knew he needed to talk to her, apologize for how he had been treating her for weeks.

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When they entered the bullpen, everyone went to their offices or desks to complete their reports from the case before they head home. As Emily is working through her paperwork, she just wanted to be done. This case had dredged up thoughts and memories that she wished she could forget.

While what Sarah Danlin had done was gruesome, once they were able to pull back the layers they could see what led her to that point. Not that that reason had at all absolved her of her crimes. She had taken something irreplaceable from those men who had no direct role in what happened to her.

For Emily, the case had become all too personal when they went to the bar and spoke to William LaMontagne's former partner. His dismissiveness as he described what had happened to Sarah Danlin while simultaneously railing against his partner because William LaMontagne had believed her resulting in the disagreement causing a permanent fracture in their partnership.

The more he described what had happened that night, the more it felt like he was talking about what Emily had experienced over 20 years earlier. Having fun at a party. Ending up isolated with an aggressive guy. Another guy. Yelling for help that never comes. Not being believed by authority figures.

For Emily, her ally had been her friend Matthew. She had leaned heavily on Matthew during the months that followed. He had believed her and stood by her through even the worst of the aftermath. But it didn't appear that Sarah Danlin had a similar ally.

Thinking back about Matthew, she had been skeptical when he had suggested talking to their priest when she discovered she was pregnant. But he convinced her with the logic that she could talk to the priest and he couldn't reveal what she discussed with her mother which had been her biggest fear. However by the time that meeting was over, things were so much worse than just her mother finding out.

Matthew had been devastated that the church he was preparing to dedicate his life to serving would have a representative that would so callous in his reaction when Emily explained what had happened to her. The priest had greeted her story of what happened at the party with condemnation and victim blaming. He then went on citing eternal damnation and excommunication if she went through with an abortion for not only her but Matthew as well if he helped her.

But even with that threat, Matthew's support for Emily didn't diminished. That meeting had been the last straw for him, having become more disillusioned as time when on with his plans for the priesthood. Once she confirmed that she still needed to go through with despite the consequences, he made all the arrangements and accompanied her.

She sighed not wanting to think too much about what her life would have been like without his help. It had been a while since she had spoken to him. She had broken contact when she had joined the CIA and since she had returned she hadn't spoken to him. Now that she was back in DC, she needed to touch base with him again.