Hi everyone! I was watching the episode "Paradise" the other day, and this post-EP scenario came to mind. It's just a one shot, so enjoy and Happy Friday! :)
"Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness-
Being walkers with the sun and morning."
-Langston Hughes "Walkers With the Dawn"
Agent Emily Prentiss wanted to sleep. Possibly, she wanted some scrambled eggs and toast first, but, then, she wanted glorious sleep with its edges of naive oblivion. In the back of her mind, she remembered the over-the-counter sleeping aid in her medicine cabinet. The two white capsules are a security blanket, covering her with darkness, blocking nightmares and residual affects from cases.
In the BAU parking lot, the wind is unforgiving, tearing through any exposed flesh. The tight prickles line her skin, but Agent Prentiss doesn't mind. She closes her eyes, feet still traveling to their destination, inhaling deeply at the harsh air stinging the insides of her nostrils. The familiar scents of early morning dew and damp earth calm her aching muscles, and Prentiss flickers her eyelids open, arriving at her car with cold metal keys in hand.
What Emily Prentiss was not expecting when she reached her blue sedan was the tall, lanky figure leaning on the passenger's side door. If she had been more alert, Emily figured she would have seen his long legs sticking outwards at an odd angle. She would have recognized the familiar scuffed converse tops, the flapping corduroy pants, and the skewed curls that accented the oval-shaped face. However, with her down comforter on her mind, Prentiss found that her muscles tensed involuntarily when she heard the familiar voice.
"Hunting's on my list." His voice shatters the stillness, and Emily's not expecting this intrusion.
"Jesus, Reid! You scared me!" She can't help it when she rockets upwards, grabbing her chest, which is rising in rapid unison to her heart underneath. She can hear its thundering echoes in her ears.
"Sorry." Through the early morning gray dawn, she sees the small smile that's sent as an offered apology.
"Do you want a ride?" She asks the younger agent in a soft voice. He looks so lost standing there next to her car, shoving his hands in his pockets and shivering slightly. It's cold, but Emily doesn't mind. She lavishes in the part of the morning when the wet dawn arrives, shimmering everything in a crystal clear liquid dust.
"You said roadside motels were on your list of things not to do." He explains, and Emily's mind wanders back to a few hours earlier.
"That's one of them, Reid." She returns the small smile and watches as he shuffles his feet. Bits of loose gravel grate against the pavement in the BAU lot.
"I do have a list," Reid admits, meeting her eyes before dropping his gaze to his feet once more. "I won't go hunting." Something tells Prentiss that Reid wouldn't go hunting before he joined the FBI.
"I'm not surprised," she comments sarcastically.
"I won't stay in a cabin either." Reid's admission makes sense, too much sense, and Emily can't help the comprehension from spreading to her face. She knows Reid sees the softness, the empathy, and he studies her for a moment, willing her to speak.
"The Hankel case?" She asks, daring to breathe the memory into the air. The visible vapor hangs heavy in the morning before dissipating into nothing. Just like that, it's in the past.
"I figured that avoidance is understandable." Reid jokes, although Emily hears the sadness etched between the words as he hunches his shoulders forward. Wanting to reach out to comfort him, Emily resists physicality for his sake, shoving her own hands in her coat pockets.
"I'm not a big fan of fire, you know, candles, fireplaces, that kind of thing..." she confesses. He nods, but doesn't ask her to elaborate.
"JJ says she'll never buy a dog." He brings back Hankel once more.
"Hotch won't take Jack to malls." She throws their boss under the proverbial bus, and Reid counters with an admission she never would have guessed.
"Morgan's afraid of elevators."
"Garcia hates anything to do with guns, even squirt guns." She says the obvious. Reid raises his eyebrows.
"Can you blame her?" Emily shakes her head no before speaking once more.
"Rossi hates carnivals." They're both laughing now because it seems odd that their teammates all have idiosyncrasies associated with cases.
"We're a messed up group," Emily says with a grin. Spencer nods, his jaw aching from laughing.
"You can't take us anywhere." He agrees. And, as if the wind has stopped their sails, the heaviness is back. Whether it's from the dew in the early morning air or the acknowledgment of what they've seen, Emily can't tell.
"I'm petrified of becoming my mother." Her voice is serious, and she knows Reid understands.
"I really don't play chess anymore." He confesses. They're silent, allowing the environment to fill the empty spaces: the distant freeway, the occasional crickets, and the wind whistling around treetops.
"I thought if I didn't have a list," he speaks with his face pointing downward, avoiding her eyes once more. "It would be better that way, you know?" She nods because it does seem like a nice alternative. Fear nothing, conquer all. With their job, however, she realizes it's downright impossible.
"You thought that, maybe, if you didn't categorize things as good and bad, you wouldn't be affected by this all?" She asks.
"Exactly." Reid's wording is precise, pointed, and bare. Emily wonders if Spencer feels the same-sharp and alone, singular in his knowledge and experience.
"I think it's good you have a list," she debates. "As opposed to not having one."
"What's the good in that though?" He argues. "Who wants to miss out on things?" She smiles because even though Reid's intelligent, the obvious is sometimes too transparent for him to notice.
"I guess if this job stops affecting us, we have more problems than avoiding its negative triggers." In the wind, his hair shifts, and, when Reid looks at her, she sees the soft curve of understanding etched in the hazel mixture.
"Tell me if I ever get to that point." He says. She nods yes, insinuating that she wants him to do the same for her. From the look Spencer sends, Emily knows he agrees.
"So I know it's early, but how about a diner for some breakfast?" His smile sends a warmth straight to her heart, extending to all of her wind-bitten extremities.
"You buying?" He teases, climbing into her car that does not have enough room for his long legs. With his squashed shins and jutting knees, she thinks he looks like a human accordion.
"All the burnt coffee you can stomach." She jokes, dropping into the driver's side, habitually turning on the radio before she even snaps her seat belt into place.
"You better bring your credit cards." This time, she can't tell if he's serious or kidding. When she pulls out of the parking lot, Reid is rattling off some statistic about the song on the radio. She leans back against the headrest, enjoying his banter.
Emily Prentiss was expecting to dislike and avoid a lot of things because of her job, but she was surprised about the things that made their way in, inching closer and closer to the walls that had been built so long ago. It's a weird contrast, she understands, to see atrocities on a daily basis and to be so utterly appreciative to know that the people seeing these same things understand what it's like, and how it mingles with the everyday world. Emily did not expect this support when she entered the BAU, although she does not think she'll ever be able to verbalize it all the same. She thinks she's starting like the way she has multiple lists: one for the things not to do, and one for the things she wants to do. Stealing a glance at Reid, who's partially covered in thin light, she smiles, thinking of the last, and most important, list- the one for the people she wants by her side.