THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

See End for Author's Notes

"Well that was awkward."

Spencer loosened his bowtie and unfastened the top button of his dress shirt with a sigh as he walked into the apartment. Behind him, the deadbolt slid home with a quiet click that prompted another sigh. Nowhe could fully relax.

"Thank you for the save, by the way," he called back over his shoulder. "It was phenomenally timely."

Emily met his gaze as she hung her shawl and purse on the coat rack.

"Well, your tell gave you away."

He reared back as if she'd hit him. "I don't have a tell."

She snorted lightly, fondly patting his chest as she walked past. "Of course you do."

He began running through every physical tic he knew he possessed as he made his way into her kitchen. "I do?"

"Yup." She kicked her shoes off and dropped onto the sofa with a tired sigh. "It's pretty remarkable, actually. Your gaze twitches and darts while at the same time you manage to maintain fairly steady eye contact with whomever you're speaking to. It's very nearly undetectable. Still haven't figured out how you manage it."

He emerged from the kitchen with a pair of brandy snifters. Settling on the sofa beside Emily, he handed one of the snifters to her and raised his own in toast before taking a grateful sip, feeling himself relax even further as the alcohol burned a pleasant trail down his throat before settling into a comfortable warmth in his chest. He'd stuck to water at the wedding, well aware that JJ would likely corner him at some point. He didn't want to be impaired in any way when that happened, so water it had been, despite Garcia's pouts that he was rejecting her carefully crafted artisanal cocktails and that it was a wound—a deepwound—from which her soul would never recover.

To her credit, she hadlooked impressively wounded—at least until Luke had requested a cocktail.

After another sip, he cradled the bowl of the snifter in his palm and studied the amber depths.

"That's impressive, Em. Takes studying microexpressions to a whole new level."

"It has less to do with studying microexpressions and more to do with knowing you, and you damn well know it."

An instant later her feet landed in his lap, their weight warm and familiar.

"Touché, Agent Prentiss." He dropped his free hand to her ankle, his thumb finding and pressing into the sensitive point of her arch. He smiled at her groan as he began the slow, methodical massage he knew turned her into putty—literally in his hands.

"Don't you 'Agent Prentiss' me, Doctor." She wiggled her toes, tipped in a bright blue nail polish that had been part of her Ultimate Spa Day Secret Santa gift from Garcia.

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch at her imperious tone. "Yes, ma'am," he replied quietly as he applied himself to his task.

Outside of yet another derisive snort, she was content to remain quiet for a while, but he knew it was a temporary reprieve. After all, he was the one who'd opened the door to this conversation.

"Why'd you do it, Spencer?"

He lifted a shoulder and switched his attention to her other foot. But Emily was patient. And despite her misdirect the other day, as good a poker player as he was. He smiled to himself as he recalled his bafflement when she'd beaten him that first time. When she'd taunted Morgan about her Sin to Win weekend. Derek—being Derek—still asked her about that from time to time and Emily—being quintessentially Emily—still answered with that same mysterious smile that had so enchanted Spencer at the time.

There was no way she was that genuinely baffled by the game Tara had been dealing. Even if it was a variation with which she was unfamiliar, she would have picked it up in a heartbeat. She was too good not to.

But when he'd asked her why she'd feigned ignorance, she'd merely shrugged and said she just wanted to play for fun. Observe the others. That had earned a full on laugh from him, because he damn well knew it as Emily code for filing away the information for another day. A day when she felt like winning. Which he had no doubt she would do, in cool, cutthroat fashion.

See? Patient.

She she would wait for him to be ready to answer and not push. For which he was infinitely grateful—and ironically, made him far more willing to talk. Which she knew. Knew him so well.

"Why'd I ask if she meant it or why did I frame it in the form of a truth or dare question?"

She slid her feet from his lap and sat up, close enough that when she tucked her legs beneath her, her knees brushed his thigh. As if she knew he needed the physical reassurance that she wasn't upset. Which, intellectually he knew, but occasionally, his emotions and insecurities still got the better of him. Which she also knew. Which he figured was why she felt they needed to have this conversation.

Because where JJ was concerned, there was a lot of history. A lot of emotion.

"Both, I guess." Her fingertips crept beneath his hair to brush the nape of his neck.

"I think I used the truth or dare format to frame the question because I wanted to put her back in the moment when she said it. I figured it was the best way to get an accurate measure of her emotional barometer."

"That's a little manipulative." Her voice was mild; nothing more than an observation, served without judgment, but his hackles still rose.

"I think given the circumstances and the individual involved, I'm entitled to a little emotional manipulation."

Her fingers never ceased their soothing rhythm against the sensitive skin of his neck. "You're still mad about me, aren't you? It's been nearly eight years, Spence."

Her voice was laced with a deep pain—a pain he saw reflected in her eyes when he turned his head to meet her gaze. They'd had their version of his conversation long ago—he'd long forgiven her. JJ, on the other hand…

"I know. And I'm not mad…not really," he said slowly, holding her gaze. "But I can't deny that any remnants of romantic feeling I might have had for her, which were pretty faint anyway by that point, completely died when I learned of her deception."

He lifted a hand, forestalling Emily even before her mouth had fully opened. "Emily, you know I understand the why of it—intellectually, it's the only thing that made sense and it was a damn near impossible judgment call she and Hotch had to make. But—"

He lowered his hand to her knee, needing to anchor himself more fully to her. "It never even occurred to her what your loss could conceivably drive me to do. Despite the fact that for weeks on end, I came to her house, utterly broken and barely hanging on by a thread."

He took another sip of brandy and after swallowing, released a deep breath. "And again, I get it. She was juggling a lot. Keeping this secret, completing her profiling training, managing a young family, and dealing with me on the verge of a breakdown."

He shook his head, his thoughts drifting back several years. "She was so genuinely shocked when I told her how close I'd come to relapsing."

Warmth encompassed his hand. "And as I told you, I have to bear at least part of that responsibility."

Shaking off the memories, he glanced down at Emily's hand over his; breathed deep as he relaxed further into the warmth and security her touch offered.

"It honestly didn't occur to me either, Spencer." Her voice was very soft. "If it had, I would have reached out somehow—protocols be damned."

"I wouldn't have expected it to. You weren't here, dealing with me. You didn't see me every day." He swallowed hard, recalling the wretched darkness of those days and weeks. "You were busy trying to survive."

"So were you." Her sharp exhale ruffled his hair. "She never said anything to me either. About you."

He looked up in time to see her mouth thinning in obvious annoyance.

"Then again, it's not like endless bouts of Words With Friends provided a lot of room for intimate exchanges. Anything more could've potentially tipped Doyle off I'd survived."

He chuckled softly which relaxed her expression into surprise.

"What?"

He shifted his hand beneath hers, turning it to thread their fingers together. "Oh, just that thinking you were dead is pretty much the reason I'm a crack shot now. Ironic that I then used that skill to save JJ's life."

"Mine too," she reminded him softly. "It was a helluva shot that took out Chloe Donaghy."

He regarded her with a fond smile. "True."

She grinned at his rare display of braggadocio and dropped her head to his shoulder with a contented sigh. They once again lapsed into a comfortable silence, interrupted only when Spencer rose to refill their snifters and light the fire. Returning to the couch, he kicked off his shoes, propped his feet on the coffee table, and drew Emily more fully against him, her head once more resting easily on his shoulder. As if it was exactly where it belonged.

Staring into the flames, he finally said, "I asked her if she meant it because I wanted to see her reaction. But mostly, because I wanted to see how she saw me."

Emily's shoulders rose and fell beneath his arm. "And?"

The flames flickered, intense, changeable shades of red and orange with hints of black and bright blue deep within. At its most elemental, fire was always fire, but at the same time, so mutable and different, even from moment to moment. He could relate.

"Sometimes, I think she hasn't progressed past seeing me as the awkward twenty-four year old genius with the bad greasy hair and utter inability to conduct a conversation that didn't contain a multitude of useless facts. Who was so physically inept, he couldn't pass his basic weapons certification. The baby who always had to be protected."

He winced at the barely veiled resentment underscoring his words, knowing Emily would be able to hear it as well.

"Admittedly, you havehad some dreadful hairstyles over the years."

He snorted, half-exasperated, half-grateful for her ability to bring levity to almost any situation. "Shut it, you."

She laughed lightly as he continued studying the flames, breathing deep of the smoky wood and savoring the rippling crack as a log broke apart, sending a shower of sparks flying upward, like a fireworks show.

"I honestly think that's why she felt the need to take me aside, to babble the way she did—make excuses for her confession—I think she was afraid I was going to fall apart all over again and she didn't want that on her conscience."

"That's a pretty clinical analysis."

"It…seems to be what she inspires, Em."

She nodded slowly, her hair gently brushing his jaw in a comforting caress. A faint whiff of vanilla—her shampoo—rose to blend with the warm, homey scent of the fire and the sharper taste of the brandy still lingering at the back of this throat.

"What about the actual confession itself? When Pinker had you at gunpoint? Do you think she meant it?"

This time he didn't hesitate. He'd had more than enough time to parse it for himself, the only question remaining, JJ's reaction if he confronted her with that same question.

"I think maybe—at some point—she might've felt something for me. Or at least had the possibility of it lying within her." He lowered his head enough to rest his cheek against the top of Emily's head. "But at the time she might have had those feelings, I sure as hell wouldn't have been ready for them. And she had so many of her own issues to work through—so unable to admit, well…anything, to herself."

The edges of his mouth twitched again. "If you're the queen of compartmentalization, she's got to be the Empress of Denial and Excuses."

"Ouch." Her laugh vibrated against his side. "But you're not totally wrong. Look how long it took her to admit what she felt for Will—how shocked she was that he was willing to uproot his entire life for her. Even give up his shield, if that's what was necessary."

"And we know she loves Will."

"She does." Emily leaned forward and put her snifter, then his, on the coffee table before settling even more fully into him, her head now more on his chest, her hand toying with the buttons of his dress shirt.

"I do love her, Emily."

"I know you do, Spence. And she does love you. When you and Penelope were kidnapped last year, she was absolutely gutted. Terrified she was going to lose both of you. She even told me about the Redskins game."

"Oh, God," he groaned. "She didn't."

"She did. And how Gideon and Derek were giving you…tips."

"Oh, God." His face was flaming hot enough to rival the fire.

"I can only imagine what kind of advice those two were giving you."

"Nothing useful, I promise."

After a beat, Emily added, "She also confessed she'd had no idea until afterward that it had been meant to be a date."

"No real surprise there. I was so incredibly awkward, I couldn't even properly communicate that I meant it to be a date. And even if I had, it wasn't anything she wanted to hear, so she wouldn't have heard it as such."

"I have to wonder, though, if you two being kidnapped didn't start something of a chain reaction of 'what ifs' for her that culminated with what happened this week." She leaned back and with her hand on his cheek, turned his head to meet her gaze. "I know it did for me."

He felt himself falling into her dark brown gaze, much as he had for…years, really. "That makes sense, though. You and I had history with the Benjamin Cyrus case. You sacrificed yourself for me." His brows drew together. "Which kind of brings me to what was really driven home for me this week."

Her brows rose in question.

"I love Jennifer," he repeated slowly, "but she's too closed off. Too…inherently selfish and self-serving for me. There would never be an 'our' way with her—it's simply her way—which too often renders her blind to what's right in front of her. As we've seen demonstrated time and again. Going back to Will, remember how mad she was that he outed her as pregnant to the team before she was ready to say anything?"

Emily's eyes rolled skyward in a familiar expression of exasperation. "Do I ever remember. I honestly thought they might be done for right then. Especially considering how upset Hotch was. He always took the safety of the team so seriously—he was furious she'd put herself so directly in harm's way. He told me later he was close to writing her up for reckless behavior. If he had, that really would have been the end for Will and JJ—baby or no."

"I had no idea."

"Oh, yeah—he was pissed."

A detail of which he'd been unaware. But then, he knew that Hotch had considered Emily, along with Dave, the most trustworthy of their colleagues. He suspected that even back then, Hotch had imagined Emily one day leading the team.

Armed with this new information, he went on. "So even then—with everyone pretty much in agreement that she'd behaved rashly—she still dug her heels in. No one was going to tell her what or how to do things even if it was in her best interests."

"Hm."

He regarded her curiously. "What?"

"That's not familiar at all."

Trust Emily to play devil's advocate. And wasn't that one of the things he loved best about her?

"Which time?" he sighed.

"So many," she drawled with a slight smile that faded into faint hurt. "But one that's particularly vivid is you telling me off when you were in the throes of your addiction and I tried to reach out."

He flinched as he recalled how deliberately cruel he'd been to her. How he'd lashed out. And yet, here she was. Next to him. Still the rock she'd promised to be so long ago.

"I was an ass," he admitted.

"You were hurting," she countered. "And you were so accustomed to internalizing. To fending for yourself. You didn't trust anything that came from the outside because you'd so often been betrayed by those very forces."

"You're not wrong." He smiled even as he felt the pain of those days. "But if there was anything prison taught me, it's that I no longer had the luxury of fully retreating into myself. Of hiding from the outside world. My survival depended on being present. Kind of ironic now that it's JJ who's the most internal of us. Who hides the most."

"There is a certain weird sense of having come full circle, I guess."

"I don't think it's so much full circle as the rest of us having moved on while she's still treading water. Still falling back on the same old excuses despite multiple opportunities to work through her issues. What's ironic about that is that in a lot of ways, she was the one who seemed the most outwardly healthy of all of us." He laughed softly. "I guess we were all fooled."

Suddenly exhausted, he leaned forward until his head came to rest in Emily's lap. Sensitive as ever to his needs, she shifted along with him, scooting to the end of the sofa to better accommodate his length. As she began stroking his forehead and hair, he studied the flames, seeing in them a montage of scenes from…a lifetime, really. Experiences that could have filled three lifetimes.

"I hope once she gets past this, she realizes exactly how good Will is for her. I think he's well aware of her emotional walls and he's got the patience and generosity to work past them. He's got enough emotional energy and openness for both of them. And God knows, she loves those boys wholeheartedly."

Emily's voice floated above his head. "But…"

"But I need more, Em. I need balance. I need someone who'll give as much to me as I give to them. I can't do all the emotional work. After everything with Maeve and Mom—with Gideon and Hotch and…with you—"

He hatedhow his voice broke—he'd worked so hard to put such weakness behind him, but it appeared that with the things that really mattered, that betraying crack would forever be his tell.

"I… just don't have it in me," he finished quietly.

"I know." The warmth of her body encompassed him as she leaned forward and brushed her lips first, against his forehead and then slower, more lingeringly, against his mouth. "You've got so much to give, though, Spence. Don't sell yourself short."

He breathed deep, sharing her breath and savoring the lush feel of her mouth against his. "It's not about selling myself short, Em—it's about an equal partnership. I think I've earned that."

"You have," she whispered against his mouth. "And I'm so grateful you trust me. Especially after everything we've been through."

He kept his gaze fixed on her face as she eased back and resumed stroking his hair. "You never made me feel as if my trust was something you took for granted. Every time it broke, you made as much effort as I did into repairing the breach." Once again his thoughts floated back across the years. "When JJ confronted me about my anger over your faked death, she apologized—but she didn't mean it."

"Oh, Spencer, I'm sure she did."

"Nope." He shook his head, sinking more fully against her thighs.

"When I refused to accept her apology at face value, she turned on me, saying that my anger was less about the deception and more about ego. About not being able to read her microexpressions and tell that she was hiding such a monumental secret from me. It's almost as if she found it inconceivable that I could have been so devastated by your death that I wouldn't have given a fuck about microexpressions."

He practically spat that last word, remember how utterly derisive she'd been in the face of his pain and anger.

"Jesus…"

"I'll always been her friend. I'll always be there for the boys, but as far her the two of us romantically? We would never have worked, Em. We are just fundamentally too incompatible."

After several moments of silence, Emily finally said, "You are truly something, Dr. Reid." Her voice held a multi-layered fondness that warmed him more completely than even the brandy had and was ten times more intoxicating.

"Don't you 'Dr. Reid' me," he teased, reaching up to pull her hand down to his mouth. He pressed a light kiss against her palm, the tip of his tongue tracing the faint lines crisscrossing its surface, feeling himself warming further at the light sigh the gesture elicited and the restless shifting of her thighs beneath his head. The only question that remained was would they stay on the sofa or move to the bedroom? The bed was infinitely inviting, but then again, he was so comfortable right here…

"Hey Spence?"

"Hmm…?"

"Just wanted to warn you, I did sign the gift from both of us. In case one of them says anything."

He kept his eyes closed, all but purring at the feel of her fingers playing through his hair. "Makes sense, since Dave and Krystall are the only ones who know."

"Well, he had to know, given I had to share your performance reviews with someone else, even if I'm the one who signs off on them."

"Since no one actually knows, you didn't have to, per se, but I understand why you felt as if you did."

"My emotions where you're concerned have gotten me in enough hot water in the past. The moment it's discovered we're in a relationship while you're still technically my subordinate, I'll be done."

It still left him more than a little awestruck how casually she said that. It was the first thing he'd brought up when they started down this road and she'd answered so quickly and confidently, he'd had no choice but to accept she'd given the matter a great deal of thought. And for a very long time.

"You know, you could've avoided all of this if you'd just stuck with Mendoza."

"Maybe I should have," she said so agreeably, his eyes snapped open. She was staring down at him with the smug grin she'd always flashed when she knew she'd successfully called his bluff.

"That was mean."

Her smile deepened into downright self-satisfied. "A little, yeah. But saying I should have stuck with Mendoza was kind of stupid."

"Why? He's a nice guy."

"He is," she agreed. "A very nice guy and I'm sure we could've made a nice run of it. But Spencer—" She nudged him up until he sat facing her. Taking his face in her hands she looked straight into his eyes. "I've had a lifetime of 'nice' and definitely more than my fair share of downright shitty. For once, I want extraordinary."

She took his breath away. Pure and simple, literally took his breath away.

"She would never have seen me as extraordinary." There was no rancor or even regret behind the words. Just a clear-headed assessment of a fundamental truth.

She leaned forward until her forehead touched his and her mouth barely brushed his.

"But I always did."

Which in the end, rendered any truth of JJ's statement inconsequential.

This—Emily in his arms, the two of them secure in who they were individually and together—was the only truth that mattered to him.

Notes:

So. That finale. Not one of the series' finest moments. Outside of JJ's confession, which I'll get to in a moment, I was bothered by some continuity errors that I'm sure for many are slight (Emily's knowledge of/expertise with poker, for example), that really made me feel as if this episode was a throwaway because by the time they wrote this, they knew they would be heading into their final season. And with respect to JJ's confession, I felt as if that was just a cheap gimmick which does a tremendous disservice, especially to JJ. Which I'm sure is going to sound odd once you've read this, because it's going to seem as if I'm JJ-bashing.

Let me be clear—I am not. I'm just reflecting on the character as she's been presented to us over the years. So in a way, I do buy that she might have once upon a time imagined herself in love with Spencer and would confess it under duress, but—nothing beyond that. Actually, the more I watched those scenes, the more I feel as if they were there to show us how much Spencer has grown as a character. But it makes me mad that they felt had to sacrifice JJ's character growth in order to do so.

And of course, I've been an Emily/Spencer shipper for yonks. Almost since she first appeared, I felt as if she was the only one who's not only been even remotely close to being Spencer's intellectual equal, but also a good emotional match for him.

So—I combined my observations with what I really wish would happen, especially given their history.