Premise- They could both live this life in solitary style or else they could choose to live it together to both their mutual benefit. Prentiss and Reid.

Note- This is a version of how Emily's story could have went during season six if Criminal Minds did romantic storylines, which I think they could. The show "Bones" does lots of romance and to me the show is all the better for it.

Only one thing changes from what was shown on Criminal Minds concerning Emily's storyline with Doyle: in this she went out with Reid to the movies the week before Doyle came back into her life. We pick up after Emily was hurt in her fight with Doyle...

Symbiotic

Reid and Prentiss

Chapter One

Tap, tap, tap, his foot patted the floor at a pace of thirty- three taps per minute. It had been 227 minutes since he entered this room (three hours and forty seven minutes). His foot had tapped the floor 7,491 times so far.

7,492.

7,493.

There are 16 squares on each ceiling tile and 44 ceiling tiles in the waiting room so there are 704 squares on the ceiling. Garcia has been slightly rocking back and forth for the last seven minutes and eight seconds. At her present rate of rocking, she will rock back and forth 1, 599 times in one hour.

Those kind of thoughts filled Dr. Spencer Reid's mind as the BAU team anxiously waited to hear if Emily had survived her surgery.

It was easier to think of mathematical equations than to remember her...the day she first walked into work with that nervous smile playing on her lips, the time she tried to help him with his drug addiction but he wouldn't let her, when she took a beating for Reid and then comforted Reid afterwards as if Reid had been the one who was more hurt, how she was the only person who had ever beat him at poker, the unexpected feelings they stumbled onto just three weeks ago...no, he wouldn't think of any of that.

He couldn't. It hurt too much. His headache pounded worse when he thought of any of that.

And when he thought of how Emily had shut him out of all this- kept the fact that an unsub was coming after her from the team- it pissed Reid off so much that he was sure he would never forgive her, that whatever they almost had together was never going to turn into anything more serious. The light that started to come into his quiet, small life had been snuffed out leaving him back in the cold, dark again.

He knew how to survive all alone. He could handle that. It was safer that way, actually. But for a while there he, damn it, had thought that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have to live out the rest of his life like that.

For a little while there Emily had him thinking that maybe they had lucked into something. For six days, twenty one hours and twelve minutes- between the moment she had said she would go to the movie with him and the moment she had told him it wasn't a good night to have dinner together- he had felt different than he felt in all his life before.

And then she started to blow him off, pull away, act secretive but tell him it was all okay. Reid had wondered if she was sensing he was keeping the secret of his headaches from her, that maybe she felt like he didn't trust her and wasn't open enough, so he had went ahead and confessed about them.

But it didn't make her tell him her secret. No, she kept that all to her damn self. Handled it the Emily Prentiss way- alone.

And now look where they had ended up. With her on a cold table, naked, surrounded by doctors who were trying to stem her internal bleeding. If they couldn't her heart rate would drop until it stilled...and she died.

The average healthy adult heart beats between 70 and 75 beats per minute. The average woman in the United States lives to be eighty years old and her heart beats, on average, 8,352, 000 times in her lifetime.

"Are any of you here for Emily Prentiss?" the doctor asked, as he walked into the room, pulling off his surgical cap and letting out a tired sigh.

"Yes!" Garcia chirped, jumping out of her seat.

"That's us," Ashley said, quickly, hurrying from her seat, as did all of the members of the team, hopeful looks on their faces.

Reid held his breath as he searched the doctor's face. His anger and frustration with Emily meant nothing compared to how much he wanted her to be alright, no matter if they never went on another date or even talked about that week ever again.

All that mattered was her life. Surviving this. All that he cared about was that she didn't give her life to try and protect all of them.

He didn't want a hero who saved him. He wanted a friend who he could still talk to.

The doctor said "She's stable for now but its going to be a while before she's back to duty."

Everyone let out a sigh of relief. Morgan took Garcia into his arms, Hotch smiled slightly, JJ whispered "Thank God," and Rossi said "That's our tough girl."

Reid hurried from the room. JJ chased after him. "Spence!"

"I just need some air, okay?"

She nodded, her eyes filled with worry. Touching his arm she said "We were all scared."

"Why did she do it this way? Doesn't she know what it would do to all of us if she died because she wouldn't let us help her?"

"Emily has a hard time letting people in, you know that. Its just her way."

"Its bull!" He stormed off, his lungs burning and head still throbbing. Outside the hospital he sat on a bench and let out a long breath.

She had survived. He was happy but still he was so mad at her. He had hoped that if she just survived that would be enough to take away the anger but it hadn't worked.

He felt betrayed. She hadn't trusted him. It hurt. It hurt because how could what he had felt for her had meant anything at all to her, how could she have felt anything similar, if she couldn't turn to him when someone had been trying to kill her?

If Emily didn't trust him in a moment like that, need him in a moment like that, then Spencer Reid had to conclude he was just fooling himself by ever thinking those six days meant anything at all to her.

He was a fool when it came to her. Thinking he could have fallen in love with her had been a mistake. She didn't trust him or need him. She wanted to do it all alone and that is not the way that love works.

Spencer Reid might not know much about love but he knew that much.

He put his face in his hands as he let himself remember those days now. Finally he let the memories he had held at bay since the moment they found Emily's credentials in her desk drawer wash over him- let each laughter, smile, kiss, hug, whisper, caress, joke, touch play through his head again.

An eidetic memory can make things much worse on a man sometimes because now he can remember so clearly what feels lost to him for good now- the closest he had ever come to love.