Spencer Reid took a deep breath as he looked out the window of the plane, knowing that the familiar movements of the landing of an aircraft weren't what were causing his flipping stomach. Neither was the fact that he was an ocean away from home, coming to a smooth landing in London, England. No, his nerves and stomach upset were caused by the thought of the woman that he knew he was going to see once he got off of this plane.
He and Emily Prentiss had still remained friends after she had left the Bureau three months ago. Good friends, actually. Back when she had returned to Quantico from the dead, or from Paris, or from wherever you wanted to think of her as having been, they had even gone out on a couple of random, spontaneous coffee dates. And once, just once, that date had ended up with them back at her place, doing… you know… it.
And that "it" was why Spencer had known that he had to come see her. She had left the Bureau a little over three months after that night, and since then, she had become increasingly strange in her interactions with the team, especially him. Something was going on, and he had a feeling that if he didn't confront her about it face to face – or at least go check up on his suspicions – she wouldn't give him an honest answer. And if he was right, he absolutely needed a completely honest answer to the question that must be asked.
Spencer took a deep breath and stepped off of the airplane, his eyes immediately drawn to Emily Prentiss in the crowd. And she looked to be about six months pregnant.
"Hi!" When he reached her, Emily threw her arms around him and gave him a hug like nothing in the world had changed. "How is everybody? You? The team?"
It took him a second, but by the time that the two friends pulled apart, Spencer had put a smile in place, ready to play along until she was willing to talk about it.
"We've all been doing fine. We miss you, though." Spencer tried not to frown as he asked, "And how about you? How have you been?"
"Oh… just peachy. Absolutely rosy so far. London is such a great city."
Spencer saw Emily bite her tongue as she realized that she was standing on the edge of starting to babble. That was a dead give-away to the fact that she was nervous, not that she wasn't already putting that fact on display in a million other small ways.
Silence stretched awkwardly between them as they walked out to Emily's car, so different from the way things were between them back in D.C. At least in a way, it was different. Right now, both of them was obviously uncertain as to where they stood with the other, and that wasn't so different from D.C. Only in D.C., they constantly had the rest of the team around them to act as a buffer towards any awkwardness that might have sprang up between them.
Once she had came back to the BAU, they had worked together to try and get their relationship back onto the friendly level that it had previously been on, but they had tried too hard and ended up overcorrecting – at least that's what Spencer told himself they had been doing – when they had gone on those dates, and… done it. While he knew himself to still be in love with the commitment-shy brunette, he was pretty sure that she didn't feel the same way towards him. Heck, he didn't even know if she had ever really felt that way about him. While it pained him to consider it, the thought had lingered in the back of his mind that maybe he had let him take her out; maybe she had sex with him, just to try and regain his trust. After all, wasn't that exactly what she had done with Ian Doyle?
Yes, finding out where they stood with one another was definitely number two on his priority slash to-do list for this trip.
Spencer threw his bag into the backseat of Emily's car and then climbed into the passenger seat.
The silence between them grew thick between them before Spencer decided to heck with waiting for her to talk about it. Knowing her, she never would bring it up, but would choose to ignore the subject of her pregnancy as a whole while he was here.
"So… it looks like there's been a little pink plus sign in your recent past," Spencer stated, albeit somewhat hesitantly.
He needed to ask the question, but that didn't mean that he wasn't afraid to know the answer.
Emily nodded, keeping her eyes locked straight ahead on the road. "Yep." She forced a tense smile onto her lips. "Like I said, everything has been absolutely rosy so far. Even the sign on my EPT."
"Well, that's great, Em!" he said, hoping he sounded more convincingly carefree about the situation then he felt.
"I'm going to tell the team soon, I promise."
Spencer nodded once and they lapsed back into silence. Emily reached over and cranked up the volume on the radio.
For the rest of that day, Spencer reverted back to plan A: don't bring her pregnancy up. But this was only a weekend trip; he had to be back at the Bureau on Monday, which meant leaving London Sunday night. He didn't know if he could make himself leave if by that time he didn't have the answers to his two all-important questions.
But how the heck was he supposed to ask her those questions? Was he supposed to just walk up to her and demand to know whether or not he was the father of her child? What her feelings really were towards him? Maybe he was just supposed to bring it all up over breakfast?
What he actually asked Saturday morning over breakfast was a far more generic question.
"What do you have planned for the day?"
Emily shrugged. "I've got paint, and I was going to paint the guest bedroom – start turning it into a nursery for the baby – but I don't want you to sleep in there with paint fumes floating around."
"Should you be in there if there are paint fumes floating around?" Spencer asked with raised eyebrows.
She rolled her eyes, insisting, "I'll be fine."
"Well, in that case, I'll be fine with sleeping on the couch tonight if you want some help with the painting."
"Are you sure? Don't you want to do some sightseeing or something?"
"Nah; I'm sure. I came here to see you, not Big Ben or the Tower of London."
Emily smiled at that. "Okay, then. Today we paint!"
And so they found themselves clearing the furniture out of the guest bedroom and laying down tarps before opening cans of paint that Spencer found to be a rose-petal pink. His stomach flipped inside of him, and he vaguely thought to wonder if Emily would guess why.
"Wow," he stared down at the paint in the can. "Everything will be rosy by the time that we get done in here, huh?"
Emily laughed at his expression. "Yeah."
Well, the one-shot that I promised you guys has become a three-shot! I hope you guys like it!:)