A Blessing in Disguise
~This was a pinch hit for the Silver Screen Challenge at the Chit Chat on Authors Corner forum. My prompt was 'The Devil Wears Prada,' and the pairing was Emily/Reid. This is my first time writing this pair, so I hope you enjoy it!
"Are the two of you engaging in a relationship?" Erin Strauss asked as she closed her office door behind the two agents.
Emily and Spencer looked at each other with wide eyes, they thought they were coming to her office to discuss the team's annual review, not be ambushed about their personal lives.
"What do you mean by 'relationship'?" Emily asked as she sat down in one of the chairs across from the section chief's desk. Reid sat in the other one and they waited for a moment until Strauss sat down behind her desk.
"I mean," she clarified, "Are you and Agent Reid seeing each other after office hours? Are you involved romantically?"
"Would you care to explain why our afterhours activities are any of your business, ma'am?" Emily asked in a tone that left no room for question as to how she felt about the woman; she said ma'am like it was a swear word.
"It is my business, Agent Prentiss, because the policy is clear regarding fraternization between agents, especially those on the same team," Strauss said frostily. "And if you and agent Reid are sneaking around and engaging in a romantic-"
Reid, who had been silent throughout the discussion, interrupted his unit chief. "Emily and I are not 'seeing' each other, we're in love with each other," he said firmly as he took Emily's hand. "At least, I'm in love with her."
There was dead silence in the office. Strauss had assumed she would have to interrogate the two agents well into the night in order for them to 'fess up about their clandestine relationship and she was shocked it had had happened so quickly. She was also surprised by the seriousness of their relationship, she had assumed they were just fooling around, she had no idea that it went so deep.
Emily was also sat in a speechless astonishment, but it had more to do with the fact that her boyfriend had just told her he loved her for the first time. When her synapses finally began firing again, she looked into his eyes and asked, "Really?"
Reid nodded, "I love you more than I ever thought I could love someone and I won't let Chief Strauss, or anyone else, make our relationship into a tawdry, cheap affair." He shifted his eyes from his girlfriend to his boss. "Chief Strauss, Emily and I have been seeing each other for over six months now and I believe Agent Hotchner would agree that our work has not suffered due to our relationship."
"Did he know? Did he know and keep this a secret?" Strauss asked as she finally found her voice; she was praying Aaron knew about their relationship so she could nail him to the wall with it. To her disappointment, Reid shook his head.
"No one on our team knows; it's none of their business since Agent Prentiss and I are two rational and consenting adults."
"Be that as it may," Erin said, "The rules regarding this type of thing are clear. One of you will have to leave the BAU."
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"That bitch!" Emily exclaimed as kicked at the bar table. "She wouldn't even hear us out; she's just bound and determined to break up our team. It's true what they say; the Devil really does wear Prada!"
"Well, she may have found the way to do it," Hotch told her as he took a long draw from his beer. "You two never thought to let me in on your little secret?"
"You never thought to let ANY of us in on your little secret?" Garcia squealed. "How could you keep this from me, Emily Prentiss? I'm supposed to be your best friend!"
"You are my best friend, you and Jayje both!" She reassured the woman as she looked over her head and rolled her eyes at JJ. "We didn't tell anyone because we didn't want to get any of you into trouble, especially you, Hotch."
"But if I had known about it, I might have been able to find a way to keep you both on the team. As it is, you're lucky Strauss isn't reassigning you both," he told them.
"There's really nothing you can do?" Emily asked in surprise; she saw her boss as a cross between Superman and Encyclopedia Brown and if there was a loophole anywhere, he was the one to find it.
Hotch shook his head, "There really isn't, they've really clamped down on the fraternization rule in the last few years. I wonder why?" He mumbled the last part and shot a glance at Rossi. Dave just grinned and took a sip of his scotch.
"Can't anyone help us?" Prentiss asked, also looking at Rossi.
"Hey, don't look at me," the older man said. "I used up all of my favors when I was caught in the supply closet with the new agent from counter-terrorism last month."
"Yes, that was a particularly good week," Hotch said sarcastically as he took another long drink of his beer.
"Damn, I was hoping…" Emily trailed off. She knew their relationship was worth whatever Strauss dished out, but she didn't want her team to suffer for it.
"So who leaves?" Morgan asked glumly. The team was his family and it always hurt to lose a member of the family.
"Strauss left it up to us to decide," Reid said. "We have until Monday."
"So she's giving you the whole weekend to decide?" JJ asked sarcastically. "That's big of her."
"I'm leaving," Emily announced as she sipped from her glass of diet coke.
"What?" Reid yelped. "Emily, no, you love being in the BAU. I'll leave, I can go almost anywhere and do research or teach. Hell, I've had offers from Georgetown, American University, Harvard, Yale and MIT in the last six months alone and that's not including all of the offers I've gotten from various think tanks."
"Spencer-" Emily tried interrupting, but the young genius was on a roll.
"Maybe I'll take time off and travel, or visit my mom…gosh I don't think I've had more than a few days off in a row since I was in grade school," he said somewhat wistfully.
"Reid, listen-" Once again she tried interrupting him and once again he wouldn't let her.
"No Emily, you're too valuable here. You're the one who can get through to victims and you're the one who's fluent in four languages," he told her and then looked at their unit chief. "Hotch, I'll give it to you in writing on Monday, but I'm resigning from the BAU, effective-"
"Spencer, I'm pregnant!" Emily interrupted loudly. This was not how she'd envisioned telling him about their impending arrival, but there was no way in hell she was going to let him resign from the team.
Reid's jaw dropped and he stared at her in shock, his normally pale skin turning even whiter. "What?" He managed to whisper.
"I'm pregnant," she said, this time with a small smile. "In eight months there will be a little mixture of you and me entering the world."
Spencer's mouth opened and closed and he looked like a fish out of water as he tried to process the news Emily had just given him. "You broke his brain!" Garcia said and the entire table chuckled, but it was an apt description; no one had ever seen Reid at a total loss for words before.
Finally, the genius shook his head slightly, as if to clear it, blinked hard and said, "Did you know that babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies? It's because some of the bones fuse together to create larger bones."
"Aaaand, he's back," JJ said with a grin.
"Researchers have also discovered that fetuses in the womb can hear. Also, a newborn baby's head accounts for about one-quarter of it's entire weight-"
"Okay, that's enough of that," Emily said. "I'm the one who's going to be pushing that head out of me!" Everyone laughed, including Reid, who looked a little less like he was going to throw up.
"Pregnant? Really?" He asked, just in case he had heard wrong earlier.
Emily nodded, "Are you okay with it? Because if you're not, I can do this by myself. Of course I want you to be in the picture, but-"
"Emily, I want to be very involved in our child's life, I don't want to be the type of father I had," he told her as he took her hand. "I love you more than I can imagine and I will love our child just as much."
"Okay, how weird was that?" Garcia asked and Rossi nodded in agreement.
Reid shot the two of them a dirty look before he continued, "But I still don't think you should be the one to quit."
"Spencer, I want to quit. Just like you don't want to be like your dad, I don't want to be like my mother. While she may not have abandoned me, she was still never around and the only times I did see her was when she needed me to do something or I was in trouble. I want to spend time with our child and I want it to grow up feeling loved and nurtured."
"Are you sure?" Reid asked one more time as he threaded his fingers through hers.
"I am," Emily said firmly as she gave his hand a squeeze. "I've already been looking at jobs at the state department and there are a bunch of them that would allow me to work from home. Besides, I'll finally be able to tell Strauss exactly what I think of her!"
Everyone laughed and then Reid looked into Emily's eyes and said, "I love you."
She leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss, "I love you too."
There was a moment of silence before Garcia and JJ simultaneously said, "Awwwwwwww!" After that, the moment was over.
"So what are you thinking of doing for the nursery?" JJ asked as Garcia shrieked, "I get to throw you a baby shower, right? RIGHT?"
Spencer zoned out as the women planned for the baby; he needed another moment to absorb everything. When he woke up in Emily's bed that morning, he was just…him; a genius, an FBI agent and a boyfriend to the most amazing woman on earth. Now the title of father had just been bestowed upon him and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. One thing was certain, though, especially if Garcia and the rest of the team had their way; their child would grow up knowing it was loved.