Disclamer: I own nothing, everything belongs to their rightful owners.
AN: 6x18 AU Aftermath/ Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid/ dark I guess
Between You And My Sanity
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- I -
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It's Spencer who finds her.
Sitting on the floor with her back against the wall next to Ian Doyle's body. His eyes wide open, her fingers curled around his lifeless hand. Her dark eyes brim with tears.
Grief and despair clouding her features.
"Emily," Spencer breathes and pushes his gun back in its holster. A second later, he's crouched in front of her, trying to avoid the blood that covers the floor. "Emily," he whispers. His hand reaching for her pale face.
The moment his fingers touch her cheek, she blinks and Spencer watches the distress vanish from her face.
"It's not my blood," she starts. "I'm not hurt." She sounds calm, the tears gone.
"Let's wait for the ambulance," Spencer tells her, but Emily shakes her head.
"I said I'm fine."
She lets go of Doyle's hand, pulls herself to her feet, one hand at the wall to steady herself. If Spencer hadn't been so close he might have missed the blood dropping from her sleeves.
"Emily, you're bleeding."
"It's not mine," she says again. But this time her voice is barely a whisper.
"Emily, what-" Spencer starts and steps forward just before her knees give out and she sinks into his arms.
"I'm sorry,"she mumbles. "I'm sorry."
Spencer yells for help as he watches her eyes roll back. His hands clamped on her wrists, blood pouring between his fingers.
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He's sitting on the hospital floor, Emily's blood still on his hands.
JJ tries to wash it off, but he yells at her to leave him alone. She does.
Spencer shuts his eyes. All he sees is red.
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"I don't remember," is what Emily says when she wakes two days later. Her face a mask of calm.
Spencer watches from his place at the window, searching her eyes for the truth.
He's too stunned to argue, when he realizes she believes her own lie.
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- II -
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It's like nothing ever happened. Yet everything's different.
She's not the same. And neither is he.
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They're at a crime scene when he catches her staring off into the distance.
"Emily," he asks. "Are you alright?"
She doesn't blink.
"Emily?" he touches the back of her hand and this time she spins around, her dark eyes wide with fear.
"Did you see him?" she blurts out.
"Who?" Spencer asks, looking at the other side of the street where she's pointing.
He finds nothing but trees.
"No one," Emily whispers.
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"I saw Ian," is what she tells him three days later when they're alone.
He looks up from his file and meets Emily's gaze from across the table.
"He isn't dead," she says. Her voice determined. "I saw him."
Spencer frowns.
"But he did die, Emily. When I found you, he was already dead."
"I died in car accident. But I'm not dead either."
Spencer swallows.
"You didn't die in a car accident, Emily. Lauren Reynolds did."
He watches as confusion clouds her expression. Her dark eyes glisten in the dim office light.
"Right," she whispers after what feels like a lifetime. "Of course."
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"I'm not crazy, Spencer!"
"Emily, just calm down. "
"You don't believe me."
Spencer watches Emily back away from him. Her eyes filled with disapointment.
"He's not dead," Emily tells him again. Her voice close to breaking. "I saw him!"
Tears glisten in her dark eyes. She's frustrated and it reminds Spencer of a scene years ago when he was standing in his mother's study.
"Emily-"
"Don't Emily me!" With an angry glare and a movement of her hand she sends papers flying from the table before she pushes past him and out of the conference room. Spencer is about to follow when he spots Morgan in the doorframe.
"What's going on, Reid?"
He looks puzzled and worried and Spencer wonders how long he's been there.
"I don't know," Spencer tells him. Wishing that it were true.
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"He's in the parking lot."
Spencer looks up from his coffee to find Emily point out the window of the police station in Minnesota. Before he has the time to stop her she's gone. She's already outside the building when he catches up to her.
"Emily!" he calls and grabs her arm to pull her around to face him.
Her dark eyes are wide, filled with fear and something else. Snowflakes caught in her eyelashes.
"I've seen him," she tells him. Her eyes frantically search the darkness. "He's been standing right here!" Her voice is on edge and she struggles in his hold before she manages to tear herself away.
With panic settling in the pit of his stomach, Spencer watches as she stumbles through the snow, searching for the dead.
He has no doubt that she's seen him.
He knows she has.
"What the hell is going on, Reid?"
Spencer turns around and meets Hotch's gaze. He's standing in the open door to the police station, staring at him and then back at Emily wandering around in the dark.
"What happened?" Hotch asks again, more determined this time.
Spencer just closes his eyes and hopes Hotch can't hear that she's calling for Ian Doyle.
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It's freezing. Snowflakes dancing in the brisk wind. There's a white blanket all over the rooftop of the building and it would look peaceful if Emily weren't be standing on the ledge. One step away from dying.
Spencer is a few feet behind her, his hands raised helplessly in the air. There are voices, hushed whispers and sirens waling in the distance.
"Please come down there," he begs, snowflakes blinding his sight.
"Just, leave me alone."
"You know I can't."
Emily laughs. It's cold and strange and bitter.
"Go," she tells him, her arms spread into the air like an angel on its way home. "Leave."
The wind tears at her clothes, sending her dark hair flying and carrying her voice over to where he's standing. She's singing the lyrics of I see the moon, an old Irish lullaby. Singing softly as if to a child.
"Over the mountains, over the sea, back where my heart is longing to be-"
Spencer counts to three, his voice sounds strange in his own ears when he interrupts her.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Lauren?"
Emily turns around. A mischievous gleam in her dark eyes and a smile on her lips.
"I knew you weren't dead," she whispers and he sees her eyes light up, snowflakes glistening in her dark hair.
Spencer steps forward, once, twice until he's next to her and pulls her off the ledge and into his arms.
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- III-
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There are days Spencer blames himself. Days when he wishes he'd done something else, days when he wishes he'd done more.
But deep down he knows it wouldn't have made a difference.
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He visits her at least three times a week.
She's been admitted to a private facility near Washington, nothing he could ever afford for his mother.
But of course Elizabeth Prentiss can afford it for her daughter. And of course she has every intention to since she wants nothing more than to keep the truth out of public.
"Maybe, maybe one day," that's what the doctors say.
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When he steps into her room at the end of the hallway he finds her sitting on the window sill. Lost in her thoughts, looking out into the rainy morning.
She looks even more beautiful than the last time he'd seen her two days ago. She's wearing a white blouse and white slacks. Pristine and flawless and nothing Emily Prentiss would have chosen to wear. Her dark hair framing her pale face in curls, falling down to her shoulders.
When he shuts the door behind him she turns.
"Ian," she says. A smile on her lips the moment she spots him. A smile that makes his heart flutter.
He steps closer, sits down on the window sill next to her like he always does. His hand already reaching for her face.
"I missed you," she whispers. Her voice soft and full of love, as she leans her cheek against the inside of his palm.
Spencer smiles and pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Meets her dark eyes with his, knows that for her his are blue.
"I missed you too, Lauren. I missed you too."
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Disclamer: I own nothing, Everything belongs to their rightful owners.
AN: Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read and/or review my stories, that really means the world to me! And of course a big thank you goes to my wonderful beta reader clairebare!