Title: Watch as We Start Again

Author: The Color Grey

Summary: Some people bond with their boss over sports and drinks. Reid bonds with his boss over dead women. Takes place after "Zugzwang"

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be.

A/N: I may or may not continue this at some point. I kind of like where this could go.

Watch as We Start Again

Reid's okay.

Everything he believed in, smashed into the mud. All he's worked towards, pulverized into dust. But he's okay. Who wanted all that, anyway? Who needed an unobstructed road to a tidy little future, when really the fun is breaking trail towards some unknown destination? Any sane person would say you should not put every shred of hope into one human being, especially one you've never even seen before. The perfect human being, no longer with him.

But, hey, Reid's okay.

"Are you sure you're ready to be back?"

Okay. Hotch was really starting to piss him off. Isn't he old enough to know when he's ready to come back to work? If he says he's ready to come back, then he's ready.

Reid grit his teeth. "I can assure you, sir, that I am ready to be back at duty."

Hotch sighed and leaned forward in his chair, eyes softening. "Reid," he said softly, "this isn't something you just take a couple months off and you come back and everything's fine. These things take time."

"You think I don't know that?" Reid snapped. He swallowed against his dry throat and brought a hand up to scratch the stubble growing on his chin. No wonder he never grew facial hair, the damned thing was so itchy.

Reid realized Hotch was waiting for him to say something more. "I just..." Reid trailed off and wondered if it's physically possible to crawl out of his own skin and decided to deflect the attention off of him. "What did you do when you lost Haley?"

Hotch looked like he was expecting that. "I went off the deep end for a while," he admitted, "but then I realized I had my team- my family- to help me from drowning."

"How?" Reid almost demands. It felt scared and desperate in his throat, but it came out almost savage.

The older agent smiled sadly. "This morning I saw an agent wearing a jacket that reminded me of her eyes."

Reid felt like he could throw up.

"You're not going to forget her, Reid," Hotch continued. "It isn't about forgetting. It's about learning to cope with the pain."

"What if I don't want to?" Reid whispered, and this time it sounds the way it felt, hollow and desperate.

He was answered with eyes filled with pity and sympathetic words saying, "Go home, Reid."

And so he went.