A/N: So I don't usually write for Criminal Minds but Zugzwang was so beautifully cruel and my girlfriend gave me such a good idea that I couldn't help myself. This little drabble is the result. As always reviews are appreciated and I hope you enjoy!
"Spencer, are you crying?" The words cut into the silence he had carved for himself, scarring its perfectly sculpted surface and shattering it to pieces.
"No," his wavering voice declared but his eyes, brimming with tears, betrayed him. It had been six months since it happened; six months since his last personal day from work. He had struggled and fought against all odds and he had failed. Diane had won.
Zugzwang was the knowledge that the game was close to checkmate and the choice to play on until the inevitable. Spencer hadn't really believed that. He didn't believe that their game was so close to its conclusion and that he would not be the victor any more than he believed that Diane's cell theory was true. That she truly was a genius. Every day he had been forced to confront the truth: Spencer Reid, supposed genius, was fallible and the love of his life had paid the price. Every day he drowned in more and more guilt. It consumed him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Blake was still standing there, examining him under a critical eye. She fully expected him to say no as he had on every other occasion they had shared this cramped bathroom stall. What he said instead shook her to her core.
"What if she was right?" Blake's eyebrows briefly shot up in surprise and she edged further into the single sex stall and bolted the door before tilting her head in an invitation for him to continue. "What if Diane's theory was right? That when you feel like giving up, your cells start to die one by one? I have nothing. I had one hundred point five days and now I have nothing. All that time just for it to be taken away— for her to be taken away. I'll never hear her laugh again; I'll never hear her joke about the Penrose triangle again and I will never ever tell her I love her. I have to live with the knowledge that the last thing I ever told her was that I don't. How can I do that Blake? It's getting easier and easier to give up and I feel like I'm dying. My entire body feels like it wants to shut down at any moment. Maybe Diane Turner was a genius."
"Then why are you still here?" his colleague asks, no hint of malice; mere curiosity. "If she's right then why are you still here?"
"Because I don't want to be the one to prove it."