This was done for Fanfic Challenge 21 – The Future Fic Challenge. My pairing was Spencer Reid and Emily Prentiss. I hope you all like it.
XOXOXO
Truth
XOXOXOX
Forty year old Doctor Spencer Reid takes another sip of his coffee and sighs contently at the taste of hazel nut. It was a good morning, for his first back in D.C. anyway.
"Spencer? Is it really you?"
Spencer looks up to see the familiar face of Emily Prentiss staring down at him.
"Hey, Emily."
Spencer doesn't smile and, even though she doesn't say anything, he can tell that Emily is upset at this.
"Can I sit with you?"
There was a nervousness unbecoming of Emily but he doesn't ask about it.
"It's a free country."
He supposes, when he really thinks about it, that his response is a sarcastic and rather, for lack of a better word, rude. But he doesn't truly care.
Emily sits across form him not saying anything about how he responded. There was no doubt in his mind that's she profiling him. It had been against the rules when they were teammates but he had quit years ago.
"How have you been?"
"Good."
Silence.
"What have you been doing?"
"I was teaching at The New York Institute of Technology."
"I bet you were good at it."
"Yeah, I really enjoyed it."
Silence.
"You left us."
"You left first."
Not entirely true on Spencer's part, but Emily faking her death had hurt because it implied that he wasn't worth the truth. It didn't help that he loved her and she loved Hotch, of course Hotch loved J.J. and J.J. was married to Will at the time. Lots of unhappiness there.
Emily is visibly hurt at his words but, he knows, she knows the real reason for his words.
"Did you hear that Hotch and J.J. got married? And Rossi's on wife number five?"
"Yeah, Derek told me."
Emily looks surprise at this.
"You kept in touch with Derek? But I asked him and he said–"
"I asked him to lie."
He doesn't want Derek to be seen as a bad guy for this. He asked this of the man because he hasn't really wanted to talk to anyone else from the team. Penny is the only other person he's spoken to from the team in the past ten year. (He sends Henry letters daily but…he hasn't spoken to J.J., and Henry doesn't tell him much about his mother, at his request).
"Why?"
"You know why, Emily."
Emily sighs.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
Spencer doesn't want the pity.
"I'm married."
He's not really sure why he says this but this makes her see that, besides a lingering hurt, he's moved on.
"Do you love her?"
"Yeah, I do."
He does, he loves Liz. One of a kind, that's for sure.
"How'd you meet her?"
"She was a student of mine when I was teaching."
"Student teacher relationship? Naughty boy."
Spencer crakes a smile at this, remembering when he'd lied to Hotch about being clear to fly.
"What's she like?"
Spencer's not completely sure what to say. Liz is incredibly sweet and eager to please but she is terribly shy when talking to new people and obviously has some emotional baggage.
"She's sweet and she loves to modify computers, gets so into it it's hard to pull her away to eat sometimes. She's taught me more than I've ever wanted to know about them. And…and she's understanding, she accepts that there are things I don't want to talk about. But she's very much a feminist. Believes that she deserves the same treatment and I give that to her. But we comfort each other when we need it."
"What's her name?"
Spencer wants to bang his head on the table, already knowing where this is going.
"Her name's Elizabeth, she prefers Liz. Penny has already done a background check, yes I kept in touch with her too, Henry as well, and even though Penny didn't tell me anything personal she did say that she was a sweet girl and she's gone through a lot. And that I shouldn't hurt her."
Spencer already knew that when Penny told him. He's able to tell by the scares on her wrist.
"How old is she?"
"Thirty-six, and she just received her doctorate in computer engineering a year ago."
"You sound proud of her."
"I am. She got a job offer here so we moved back, right down the street from here. I plan to rejoin the BAU."
"Really?"
Emily looks pleased at the prospect. And Spencer wonders if she wants to make up for hurting him.
"Yeah, it was Liz's idea. She sai–"
"Spencer! You're still here, good."
Spencer and Emily jump back as an open computer monitor is put on the table. Spencer says nothing as Liz chats enthusiastically about some modification she's made.
"Liz, did you run down the street looking like this?"
There's nothing bad about it but she's in her pajamas and her long black hair is messy, she even has a small computer chip stuck in it.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't of – I didn't – I mean––"
Spencer places his hand on Liz's.
"Relax sweet heart. It was just a question. How about you go back to the apartment and put the monitor away. You have to get ready for work right? It's your first day."
"Yeah."
Spencer sees slight apprehension in her brown eyes.
"You'll do fine. Just stay calm."
She nods, leans down and gives him a peck on the cheek.
"Thanks. Bye bye Spencer."
She's out the coffee shop door before he could say anything.
"I'm happy for you."
"Thanks Emily, that means a lot."
Emily stands to leave.
"See you later?"
"You should."
Silence.
"Bye then."
"See you around Emily."
Spencer watches Emily leaves, sighs and gets up to go himself.
XOXOXOX
Willing to continue if you want but please tell me in the reviews or pms please.
This is a little angsty for me. Yes, I do, do unrequired love but mostly for my O.C.s cause it's fun to make them suffer. But I made that my premise so… *Shrug*