Destructive Secrets

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.

Spencer looked back and realised his lover had been acting withdrawn for a while. He cursed himself for not noticing earlier but in his defence it had been one hell of a week. Emily's funeral had been on Monday and they were all reeling from the loss of a team member, especially under the circumstances. Emily had been caught up in something from her past undercover work and had died in Morgan's arms after he had been mere moments too late to save her. So he had expected Aaron to be upset, he'd even expected the unit chief to feel guilty over the loss of one of his own even though it wasn't in anyway his fault. What he hadn't expected was Aaron withdrawing from their personal relationship and treating him like a colleague in their own home.

Spencer and Aaron had been seeing each other for nearly two years now and Spencer had all but moved in with the older man and his son about six months after that. He still kept his own apartment to maintain the illusion of a separate address for their bosses at the FBI and used it mostly as a place to store his extra books but the apartment with Aaron and Jack was his home and they were his family. They hadn't told any of the team about their relationship but neither man would be surprised if the entire team were merely humouring them by pretending not to have noticed, it was hard to keep secrets in a team full of profilers and while they had a moratorium on intra-team profiling it was something they all frequently failed to keep to.

Spencer had been especially upset by Emily's death, he had abandonment issues stemming back to his father walking out on he and his mentally ill mother when he was a child and his childhood made it difficult to make friends or to trust others. Emily was one of the few that had successfully broken through the walls he'd put up to protect himself and he saw the woman as an older sister and he missed her deeply.

As he began to re-establish his equilibrium, he noticed Aaron's avoidance of being intimate with him. The older man was seriously withdrawn, trying hard to seem normal for his son but retreating to his office for hours as soon as the child was asleep. He'd refused to tell Jack about Emily's death stating that the young boy had only just recovered from the loss of his mother and he didn't want the memories of the tragedy stirred up again. This made sense to Spencer and he agreed with it in the beginning, he didn't want the little boy to return to the nightmares and fear that had plagued him in the year after Haley's death either. Jack had accepted Spencer's new part in his life and the he loved the little boy. Now though he was worried that keeping the secret from Jack was stopping Aaron from being able to express his emotions and heal. He wasn't quite sure though that that was the only problem and as Aaron continued to withdraw began to feel insecure about their relationship and Aaron's feelings for him. Perhaps Aaron had realised what an emotional wreck Spencer was and was just waiting until Spencer got over the loss of Emily enough that he could end their relationship.

"What's wrong?" Spencer asked.

"I'm fine" Aaron replied.

There was silence for a while and Aaron thought Spencer had gone to sleep. He was a little surprised his lover had been brushed off so easily.

"Is it something I've done?" Spencer asked in a small voice.

"No Spencer it's not you" Aaron said turning to hug him.

"Then why are you shutting me out. Do you need some space? I could stay at my apartment for a couple of days" Spencer offered shaking.

Aaron sighed and sat up. "No Spencer please don't go" he begged. "You're right I need to talk to you and stop shutting you out but I can't. There's something going on at work that I've been forbidden to tell my team or discuss with anyone. You know how sometimes you tell me things as your lover that you don't want me as your boss to know?"

"Yes but if you're not allowed to tell me or your partner then you definitely shouldn't say anything" Spencer said concerned.

"I'm afraid you're going to hate me for lying to you once this all comes out" Aaron said anxiously.

"I understand that there's things going in your job that I can't and shouldn't be told. Just like if you were in a relationship with... with JJ I wouldn't want you to talk to her about stuff I told you in confidence. I won't hate you for being good at your job" Spencer said reassuringly.

He frowned when he saw Aaron wasn't reassured at all. "This is really eating you up" he said quietly laying his head down on Aaron's chest. "I could never hate you."

"I know you're good about understanding when I can't tell you things and believe me I appreciate it but this is much bigger than anything I've had to keep from you before" Aaron said still worrying.

"You've done what you can by telling me that there's something going on that you wish you could tell me" Spencer replied.

'But you still might never forgive me for putting you through this' Aaron thought to himself closing his eyes and trying to enjoy the feeling of Spencer snuggled up to him.

The subject wasn't raised by either of them again though Spencer could see it was still worrying Aaron. He was seriously concerned about his older lover who seemed to be vacillating between pushing Spencer away and clinging to him desperately as of afraid he'd leave him. Spencer was still feeling too overwhelmed by the grief of Emily's death to be interested in working out what the secret might be and he began spending more time with JJ and Henry to avoid burdening Aaron with his emotions but the distance between he and his lover only made Spencer (and Aaron unknown to Spencer) feel worse. Spencer also started attending NA meetings again and talking to his spinster more frequently as his depression and the awkwardness that had snuck into his relationship with Aaron left him increasingly craving the oblivion of Dilaudid.

Aaron hearing the hushed phone calls and the time spent out without explanation of where he was going was uncomfortably reminded of the last weeks of his marriage to Haley. It seemed to him that he wasn't enough for yet another partner. This time though he wasn't prepared to just ignore the situation and hope it went away.

He stayed up to wait for Spencer.

"Where have you been?" He asked quietly when Spencer returned late that night.

Spencer turned to him surprised. "At JJ's" he replied tiredly getting ready for bed.

Aaron was pleased to see a total lack of guilt or deceit in Spencer's response. "Henry would have been asleep hours ago" he said.

"Yes" Spencer agreed sadly. He looked directly at Aaron for the first time and Aaron's heart clenched to see the puffy red ringed eyes of the man he loves. He obviously had spent the evening crying not out on some illicit tryst.

"Who's John?" Aaron asked next having seen the name frequently in Spencer's list of recent calls.

"My sponsor" Spencer replied. "Have you been checking my phone?"

"I'm sorry Spencer I should have trusted you. It's just all the calls you've got lately reminded me of just before Haley left" Aaron apologised sincerely.

Spencer understood how hurt Aaron had been by his wife's infidelity and how much damage it had dome to his lover's self-esteem and tried not to be angry with Aaron for not trusting him. Still it was another blow to their relationship and Spencer wasn't sure how much more it could take without fracturing.

"I'm not going to leave unless you want me to" Spencer replied.

Aaron could see the hurt and uncertainty in Spencer's eyes and he quickly got off the bed to envelop his lover in a hug. "I don't want you to go" he said gently. "I love you Spence. Jack and I have been trying to give you space to grieve but we miss you."

"I just didn't want to burden with you my grief or add to your worry while you're struggling with that stuff at work and trying so hard to keep things normal for Jack" Spencer tried to explain.

Spencer was clearly miserable and as Aaron watched him reach to scratch his left elbow, a habit Aaron had thought he'd stopped doing except in times of extreme stress, ice filled his veins.

"You've been craving again?" He asked horrified by the effect his actions were having on the man he wanted to protect from the rest of the world. All the calls from his sponsor now made sense.

"I haven't used" Spencer said defensively. He ripped his jacket, vest and shirt off and held his arms out for Aaron to see.

"I wasn't accusing you Spence" Aaron said taking his arms and rubbing his thumbs over the faded scars he knew Spencer hated. "I just hate that you're feeling like this. What can I do to help?"

"Just hold me" Spencer said.

Aaron wrapped his arms around his love and drew him to the bed lying down with Spencer cradled to him. "I'm so sorry" he whispered despairingly. "I wish I could tell you, I need to make this better."

"It's not just us. I'm still having trouble with Emily's death. You know I don't do very well with people leaving" Spencer tried to reassure his older lover.

All of a sudden Spencer's brain connected the dots and made one of those intuitive leaps that made him so good at his job.

He went deathly pale and started to shake. "Emily" he breathed afraid even to whisper it. "Emily's alive?" he asked with unbearable hope.

"You can't let anyone know or suspect, even for a moment. You must continue to grieve for her as if she were dead Spencer" Aaron said urgently. "Her life may depend on it."

"Is she okay?" Spencer asked remembering how grievously injured his friend had been when he last saw her being loaded into the ambulance.

"She's out of hospital and making a slow recovery. Faking her death allowed us to transfer her to the care of one of the top gastrointestinal surgeons in the country" Aaron confirmed.

"Are you in contact with her?" Spencer asked.

"No. She's been given a new identity by the state department" Aaron said. "She may be still alive Spence but until Doyle is caught she can't come back."

"So are we looking for him?" Spencer asked.

"There are agents looking for him but it isn't the BAU. We're not equipped to deal with terrorists on the international level, but I've been assured that the people whose job it is are keeping an eye out. He'll eventually surface again and they'll get him" Aaron replied. He hugged his lover glad to finally have it all in the open. His doubting mind reminded him that Spencer was still in shock though, he hadn't yet had time to get angry and Aaron might still not be forgiven.

"You know it won't be easy not to let anyone know you know" Aaron said.

"I know I'm socially awkward but I'm really not a bad liar" Spencer said defensively. "I've managed to keep us a secret haven't I?"

"I didn't mean that" Aaron said peaceably. "Garcia and Morgan are still very upset about Emily and everyone's been worried about the way you were handling it. You're going to have to keep grieving as if Emily were gone."

"She is gone, and it hurts that she left without saying goodbye. I'm glad she's alive but it doesn't make me feel much better" Spencer replied.

"Can you forgive me for lying to you?" Aaron asked shakily. "I'm more sorry than you'll ever know that I've put you through this."

"I love you Aaron. I'm kind of pissed off with you for keeping such a huge secret but I'm more angry with the people who decided that the team couldn't be trusted to know Emily's alive. We're a family, we had the right to know" Spencer replied beginning to get himself worked up about it. "Why didn't they trust us?"

"It's more a problem of where do you draw the line. The more people who know a secret the less of a secret it is."

"Yeah but Morgan's tearing himself up thinking he failed his partner and that Emily's death was his fault! Didn't they see we needed to know?"

"And Garcia, would you trust her to know?" Aaron asked. "She's not an agent."

Spencer didn't answer. He knew Garcia would rather put her own life at risk that any if theirs but with her enthusiastic and often highly inappropriate chatter could she slip without meaning to? She wasn't good at keeping secrets, at least from the team. And it wasn't always just their team hanging around the bullpen, Garcia provided tech support for all the BAU teams and there were often other agents coming and going. And Aaron was right he realised, if they couldn't tell Garcia then maybe they shouldn't tell Morgan or himself either.

"Should I tell JJ that I know?" Spencer asked.

"She's been very insistent that you not be told" Aaron replied. "She's under an abnormal amount of stress with her new job."

"Yes but me going over every other night and crying on her shoulder can't be helping that and it seems silly to pretend to keep it up if I don't have to" Spencer replied.

"You could stop going over there without telling her you know the truth. She doesn't know about us so if you told her you figured it out she's going to think that something she said or did gave away the secret" Aaron replied. "If the higher ups find out that one of us gave away the truth then JJ and I could both lose our jobs, the fact you worked it out without either of us deliberately deciding to drop you hints only makes it worse."

"If things work out and Emily eventually comes back Morgan's going to have a hard time forgiving JJ and I for not telling him. If he realises you found out and didn't tell him, it could ruin your friendship."

"So if I don't tell him the truth now then I'll need to keep the secret forever" Spencer said thoughtfully. "I can't tell him can I?" He realised in that moment exactly what Aaron had been dealing with.

Aaron watched Spencer closely over the next few days. Nobody who didn't know him extremely well would be able to tell that he was no longer grieving for a friend killed in the line of duty, though he did seem a little less distraught he was still visibly sad and quiet. The changes could easily be attributed to natural healing which even the rest of the team assumed it was.

"You were right about JJ" Spencer said sadly a couple of nights later as they got into bed.

"What happened?" Aaron asked concerned he pulled Spencer towards him and wrapped his arms around him.

"I kind of hinted that I thought Emily was alive. I thought that maybe she would take the bait and stop worrying about me so much" Spencer began.

"And…"

"She told me I was delusional and that I was trying to hide from the truth because I wasn't strong enough to face it and I needed to talk to a psychologist to help me get over my feelings of abandonment" Spencer replied tears coming to his eyes.

Aaron just held him closer as he cried. There was nothing he could say to make this better for his lover and anything he did say would be misunderstood as support for JJ which was the last thing Aaron wanted to do. Over the next couple of days any improvement in Spencer's mood from finding out Emily was alive were negated by his feelings of loss from the ending of his friendship with JJ.

A/N: it never made sense to me that Reid, Morgan, Rossi and Garcia weren't told Emily wasn't really dead. If Hotch and JJ could know surely Reid and Morgan could be trusted. They're federal agents not the general public. I get maybe not telling them until after the funeral in case Doyle had someone watching it but it seemed incredibly cruel to leave Morgan feeling guilty for failing to save his friend and Reid floundering in such grief that he spent ten weeks crying on JJ's shoulder. Not to mention if I had been Reid or Morgan I don't think I could've forgiven Hotch or JJ or continued to work in a team where I felt such a lack of trust.

A/N2: Thank you to DarkJediQueen, diehardcriminalminds, Sue1313, ahowell1993, himewolf, havenlystarrs, starshine006, criminalmindsrocks, Meghie03, Wild Rose 900, falconer54, Smurfanator, Vraigard, jinx-tiger-13, dragonsfae, harrietamidala1691, Noskilz, Padfoot-Moony-Pronglet, Hagu, fishtrek, giderasia and Rori Potter for your support of my last oneshot "Overlooked in the Crisis".

Thanks also to falconer54, koeskygle, Smurfanator and Meghie03 for your recent support of "The Confidence to face your past".