Slightest spoilers for episode 3x17 "In Heat" and the movie "The Vow."
Late that night, Spencer Reid turned the lock on his apartment door and stepped inside, gratefully dropping his satchel onto the floor. He kicked off his shoes and made his way to his bedroom before making a beeline for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, he was already sacked out in bed.
It was days like these, with actions like those that he had taken earlier, that left him completely drained. Now that he was finally in his comfortable bed in his own home, though, sleep was evading him. Something about the showdown with Owen was bothering him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. So he laid in bed and played the scene out in his mind over and over again until it hit him what it was.
That moment with Emily before he'd gone out into the street. When he'd handed her his gun and she had realized what he was going to do. She had been utterly terrified for him, and not just the sort of terror that she had displayed before when one of their other team members had done something dumb.
In his mind's eye, he once again saw the horror in her chocolate brown orbs and heard the desperation in her voice as she had called his name. That wasn't normal for her. She had enough confidence in her own capabilities that at any other time she would have been okay, knowing that she could shoot the unsub if necessary.
So what had elicited the reaction that he had gotten? Was it simply because it was… him? And if so why? Was it just because he was considered the baby of the family, or was it something more?
Dare he hope so?
The final question crossed his mind quite without his permission, but it was an honest one. Although he thought that he hid it well, he'd had a "crush" on Emily for awhile - ever since he'd figured out that JJ was seeing someone else, oddly enough. For awhile he had considered it as being simply a weird rebound sort of thing, but after a year, it hadn't gone away. If anything his feelings for Emily Prentiss had intensified.
Not that he was going to tell her that, of course. He nestled back into the covers, determined to get some sleep. He would just have to wait and see where this went, if there even was anything going on.
The next morning, Emily tried hard to keep her distance from Reid, hoping that whatever was going on in her head would just go away and not come back given a little time. But it didn't. He still set her emotions into this weird tizzy, and she didn't like it. So she spent her entire day just trying to stay away from him and hoping that no one actually noticed that she was avoiding him. Of course, if they did notice, they could obviously chock it up to her still being mad at him about yesterday's escapade with Owen, but that really wasn't even a part of her motives.
Later that evening, she was glad to finally step back into her nice, quiet, solitary-occupant apartment and let her guard down. For supper, she settled down on the living room couch with a microwave meal, a bottle of wine, and a chic flick. It was time to do some serious relaxing, but more importantly it was time to reopen that file in her mind that she had created yesterday and finally figure out what was going on in her head where Reid was concerned.
It was in the middle of Chattum Tanning trying to woo his resistant, amnesia-stricken wife that Emily realized that she too was resisting the obvious facts. She was in love with Spencer Reid.
She was in love with Spencer Reid!
She slammed her wine glass down on the coffee table with a clatter, eyes widening as the truth really hit home.
No. No! Absolutely not! Not acceptable!
But true.
"Oh, h***," Emily breathed, sinking back into her couch.
It was true. She was in love with Spencer Reid! Of all the people in the whole freaking world and her heart decided to set itself on Spencer Reid.
Frack.
Emily took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down and rationalize this realization, think back to see if she could pinpoint a time during which these emotions might have began. She couldn't, not really. Maybe the Henkel case? She groaned and put her head in her hands as it hit her. The day that they met was more like it.
And what was worse, something told her that this love wouldn't be going away, not even if she slept on it for the next twenty years straight.
So she would just have to learn how to ignore it, or at least hide it when she was around the rest of the team, which was basically all the time. She sighed heavily once more and heaved herself off of the couch and headed towards her medicine cabinet in search of an aspirin… or two… or right now it might just take the whole d*** bottle for that matter.
But even with aspirin, Emily knew that none of this was going to go away.
She opened the medicine cabinet anyway. Man, was she ever going to need a major distraction.
And thankfully that came the next day in the form of a case in Miami.
"Hey, guys, we've got a case," JJ was practically bouncing on her tiptoes as she emerged from Hotch's office and looked down at the team members whose desks were in the bullpen.
As JJ rushed towards the conference room ahead of the others, Morgan remarked, "Well, someone's perky today."
"I believe that there's a certain detective involved in the case," Hotch told them after checking to make sure that JJ wasn't watching.
The team members shared smiles and knowing glances before they all followed Hotch into the conference room. This promised to be interesting... and more than likely just the distraction that Emily needed.
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