Quick Note: Takes place as being the case after the one when Prentiss tell Hotch about playing Scrabble with JJ. Read on…
"It's like when you died, part of me died with you," Reid said as he sat across one of the jet's tables from Prentiss as they flew home from the case they had just finished.
"I know Reid, but when I had to leave, I had to leave more than a dozen parts of me behind, I had to leave a whole life behind."
"Yes, and you got it back. You can't keep pulling the pity card Emily, I've heard you talking. Not just with me, with Morgan and everyone else. To me, when we first talked about this, you just about said the same thing you said now, 'You mourned loss of a friend, but I mourned the loss of six,'" he took a deep, calming breath then continued. "Then later when you were talking with Morgan, you said, 'I know what you went through, grief counseling, you carried my coffin' you can have no idea what that was like, the amount of overwhelming heart break that surrounded us.
Not waiting for a response, he plowed on. "And then later, I hear you saying that you passed most of your time playing Scrabble with someone with the username of 'Cheetobreath' and someone just so happened to be eating said snack, someone who has connections to all of us. And I'm pretty sure that these Scrabble game rooms have chat boards where the two of you could talk.
"Now, I don't know about you, Emily, but it sounds like while I mourned you, while I thought you were dead, when I thought I lost a friend and I'd never see you again you had someone to talk to. You got to know that all of us were all right that we were okay. Did JJ ever mention how I came over to her house every other day for ten weeks crying my eyes out, how I wouldn't just drive over but walk whether it was raining or if it was the middle of the night because I couldn't trust myself to drive," her eyes widening was a clear indication.
"Of course she didn't. The fact that you died was a horrible one, one that could only leave gaping scars that just might fade away ever so slightly after years and years of-" he cut off, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. Leaving them closed, he said, "That pain I felt, never left me, not even now. I considered using dilaudid again to ease that pain but I couldn't that would have made everything worse, but believe me, Emily I was this close," he held his hand up, measuring about a pinch between his thumb and index finger.
"But the fact that thinking you were dead, was nothing, nothing, compared to the hurt I feel now, not over my friend whose coffin I carried, but for someone I thought was a friend but was someone who just threw my trust in them away, to find that that person was alive the whole time.
"And to make things even worse, to find that two of my closest friends knew that you were where you were, destroys me inside. I see absolutely no reason why the rest of us couldn't have been in the know. If JJ or Hotch were in any type of danger by knowing, then you could have kept it between you and whoever was saving your life. If they weren't in any real danger that we couldn't somewhat prepare for then what difference would four other people knowing have made?
"I just don't get it, Emily, I just don't."
"Reid," she started calmly, quietly. "I have always regretted having to make that decision, I thought it would have been best, to keep you and everyone else in the dark, to keep you safe. If Doyle had ever been able to find out the truth and get his hands on you, he would have tortured you to the point of death to find me, but without you knowing, he wouldn't have touched you."
"Emily, he did manage that, what difference would it have made to him, why would he believe me that I didn't know? It was all part of the plan to keep you safe, have everyone lie to protect you."
"I gave them the instructions to get ahold of me how every they could and we'd have made a plan to get you out alive and finally end my war with Ian."
"But why not just tell me, so we could have set a trap instead of just waiting, I could have been the bait, and we could have stopped him together, without involving the rest of the team?"
"Because I know you and you would have let him kill you before you gave away anything about me." Reid looked down.
"So?" He said. "My life for someone far greater, with so much more to lose, I wouldn't have minded."
"But that's just it, Reid, I could never have let anyone my friends like that-"
"And so instead you choose to hurt us in a way that no unsub could?" He interrupted
"I did what I thought was best for everyone."
"No, you did what you thought was best for you."
"I can't say that I regret what I did when I know that you guys were safer. I can offer you my apology, but I can't change the past and even if I could, I wouldn't because I know that that was all I could do to protect you. I can't make you accept it but I can't do anything else."
"Fine, I can accept it, but I can't trust you, not for a long time, not until I can fell whole again. Don't feel too bad though because I can't fully trust Hotch or JJ either."
"That I can understand, just please don't let that change our friendship."
"I can't make a promise like that when it can't be kept. There will be differences, friendships are based on trust."
"Just don't give up on me."
"I could never."
"Trust is like a vase... once it's broken, though you can fix it, the vase will never look the same." ~Anonymous
A/N: Yeah for being the last one to write anything pertaining to this incident. Well, you can't blame me alone, I had a lot of help writing it from a random word generator thingy and got Reid/Prentiss/never be whole again and so I thought of this… let me know how you feel about this by leaving a review, Thanks.