Remembering The Girl

Reid and Elle

He stared at the picture while holding his breath. If he held his breath long enough he knew he would pass out but that wasn't enough to kick his involuntary reflexes back into gear to do what they were supposed to do without him having to think about it- keep him alive.

Shivers ghosted over his arms, making the hair stand on end, as his body leaned just a little closer to the screen. His eyes narrowed on her image.

"That's her," declared Penelope Garcia as she pointed at the computer screen. Her voice was confident and dared the rest of the people huddled around her computer desk to disagree.

The team had just come back from a case where their tech Goddess had to hack into security cameras for downtown San Francisco. On one of them Penelope had been sure a face she spotted was their former co-worker Elle.

JJ squinted at the screen. "That could be anyone."

"It could be anyone but its Elle," Penelope said.

"Baby girl, its hard to really tell."

"I knew it the second I saw her. It was like I got shivers from head to toe."

Emily asked "And shivers mean it has to be true?" in her teasing way with her eyebrows raised.

"Shivers," said Penelope in a dead serious tone "are very reliable, I will have you know. Derek, back me up here."

He kissed her forehead. "It could be her, silly girl." Then he straightened "Can't say for sure though. What does it matter anyway? She walked away from the BAU and all of us without a second thought. So why are we giving her one now?"

Penelope shrugged. "I guess you're right. I just wonder, you know, what she's up to."

Soon after that everyone left Penelope's office and headed to their own desk. The mysterious maybe Elle on the video footage was pushed to the back of most of their minds while they finished up their paperwork so they could head home.

But Reid couldn't forget the image he saw on the screen. He thought most of his co-workers didn't realize just how close he had gotten to Elle before she left. Because of that he always felt a lingering sense of guilt that he hadn't saw how much trouble she was in emotionally and mentally after she was shot by The Fischer King. He knew she was struggling but he didn't know she was at the end of her rope. That she was about to throw it all away- her career, her morals, and even her freedom, if she had been arrested for murder.

And that's what it was when she killed that rapist unsub. The whole team knew it. They carried it every day. Someone should have helped Elle.

But only Reid thought of her every Christmas and every Cuban holiday, because her father was from there, and every time certain songs played on the radio and when he was stopped at a train or drinking the same booze she offered him that night they talked in her hotel room.

He didn't obsess about her. She was gone and she wasn't coming back. Still sometimes, in moments like this, he thought of her and wondered if she was happy now....wherever Elle is.

It would make him feel better, like he feels when he hears his mother's latest medication is working, to know she is happy. Elle is much like Gideon in Reid's mind now. It's the not knowing that hurts the most.

Sure he could ask Garcia to track them down. In under a minute he could have an address and know intimate details about their lives, from where they shopped to what movies they rented last weekend. But Reid would never do that.

If Elle wanted him to know she would call. But, like Gideon, she has never called and never will. At first he was angry at both of them but now he just fears for them. He just wishes he could go to sleep tonight knowing that wherever she is now, and whoever she leans on since she won't lean on him, that at least some part of her has found peace and that someone is holding her tonight.

That she's at least not haunted anymore. If he knew that....it would make all the difference. But he'll never know.

He gets back to his paperwork but his mind is only half on the words on the page. The rest of his mind is still back in Garcia's office looking at a dark haired woman that could be Elle.

(You could be happy

and I won't know.


But you weren't happy the day I watched you go

-

And all the things

that I wished I had not said
are played in loops

till it's madness in my head

-

Is it too late to remind you how we were?
But not our last days of silence, screaming, blur

-
Most of what I remember makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking out the door

-

You could be happy, I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far) (snow patrol)

XXXXXXXXXX

She had her phone on speaker as her fingers flew over the keys, Penelope said "Maybe we shouldn't care, Hot Stuff, but I do."

"I think you oughta leave it alone, sweetheart."

"Too late," she said as the information filled her screen. She read it off to Derek, telling him where Elle lived now. "See....San Francisco....am I good or am I uber awesome and amazing?"

"You are the best, woman. Now that you satisfied your curiosity about the mysterious case of the disappeared Elle Greenway can we let this rest? So she lives in San Francisco. Good for her."

"You used to care about her too."

Long silence and then a sigh. "She made her choice. I just think we oughta respect it. She obviously don't want contact with us."

Penelope sighed. "Guess you're right. But it's a shame. She could need friends, you know?"

"I'm sure she's fine, baby girl. Don't let it bother you. Just forget about Elle, okay?"

"No promises." Click.

Reid had listened to Derek's half of the conversation from his nearby desk. "Garcia tracked her down?"

Derek sat back, looking very tired, and rubbed his hand over his bald head. "Yeah."

Without any forethought, his body moving and then his mind realizing what his body was doing, Reid got up and headed to Penelope's office. Halfway there he thought of forgetting about it. Looking back he saw Derek watching him. His friend knew somewhat of the damage that Elle did to Reid. Reid hadn't let someone as close as he let her since Reid was nineteen. That time had ended painfully and he didn't want to trust again. Didn't feel like he could give his heart to anyone. Didn't feel like he even knew how to interact with women. He felt out of his league when, with everything else, he was the one who was head's above the class. But Elle hadn't looked at him like a social reject who couldn't get a woman. She told him just to ask someone else and he'd have a date, as if he was worth someone saying yes. As if there was no question in her mind.

Because, he later learned, there hadn't been. She saw him as a man, a friend, and she saw him as someone she wanted to be her lover. He wasn't sure but she was. She wasn't able to let down her walls with anyone else but him. She was the tough girl for the rest of the team but she was beautifully complex and painfully broken with Reid....laying herself bare in every way.

When she gave him all that how could he do anything but fall for her? Before he knew it a few nights in hotel rooms during their cases led to his heart being filled up with only her, to the point it ached when she went home after work and didn't call him. They only found stolen snatches of time when cases were too much to bear to be together and, before he even was used to being her lover or even said "I love you, Elle, so much I think it could kill me," she was shot and then she was gone.

Reid knocked on Garcia's door.

"Enter the Oracle of Quantico's kingdom, minion."

Reid limped inside. Why was it his leg hurt more when he was emotional?

Seeing him a wide smile went over Penelope's lips. Though Reid had never told her even one word about being with Elle, and though Morgan was supposed to keep his mouth shut, it was clear that Penelope either knew or had strong suspicions because she said "I thought you might come back."

Then she tapped a red painted nail on the computer screen. "Behold the current address of one Ms. Elle Greenway, still single and the only resident of her condo. No marriage record or divorce decrees on file so she must never have found her prince since she left."

"That was her on the security camera."

"Even in a crowd I could spot her a mile away. Am I good or am I good? I was looking for someone else but when I saw her....well, the shivers. I mentioned that already. I just knew. So, boy genius, the question is do you agree with my Sir Derek....should we just leave this alone?"

"Probably. I mean....she knows where we are if she wanted to contact us."

"Maybe she doesn't think we care anymore."

"It has been a long time."

"Not too long."

"I have to get back to my paperwork." He started to limp away.

"Sweetie......don't you want to take her phone number? Just in case."

"In case of what?"

"You change your mind about calling her. This could be the universe telling you to reach out and touch base with her."

"The universe?"

"This could be cosmic."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Rarely do matters of the heart make sense. That's what makes life so much fun and so hard at the same time." She jotted down the phone number and address and pressed it into his hand. "Just between you and me."

That night he sat on the couch in his apartment, books scattered on the coffee table and nearby chair, and tried to not think of the piece of paper that was now tacked on a board in his home office. The number he could dial to see if she was doing okay after all these years gone by. If she had recovered. Ask her why she pushed them all away. Why she couldn't stay in touch? Why she left Reid with not so much as a letter, like Gideon gave him, or whispered words of regret, like when his father walked away. Neither gestures were much comfort but they were something.

She left him with nothing and it was still all he had. But he didn't hate her at all. He just wanted her to be doing well.

He wasn't gonna call tonight. But when he thought of her this time he pictured her face on that computer screen, how she looked deep in thought, and hoped that whatever her life was like now she was happier than she ever was when Reid was all she had to get through the dark times.

Because he knew he hadn't been enough. If he was then she would have never left him. So he won't call. She needs someone who is enough and that's not him.

(Do the things

that you always wanted to

-
Without me there to hold you back

Don't think, just do

-

More than anything I want to see you, girl,
take a glorious bite out

of the whole world)

Standing behind her in her office Derek asked Penelope, in an exhausted tone, "Garcia, why couldn't you leave well enough alone?"

Penelope had just hung up the phone with Elle. "Because everything happens for a reason."

Derek raised on eyebrow. "So....what's up? What did she say?"

"I asked her to visit us sometime when she has vacation days. It turns out she'll be in New York next month and she could take an extra day to come down here. So you see, baby," she smiled widely "that call was not wasted. And she sounded like she was relieved to hear from me. I should have done this years ago."

"I don't want her messing with our boy's mind again."

"If I'm not mistaken, handsome, its Reid's choice if he wants to risk getting hurt again. You can't protect him from heartache. Everyone who plays the game takes the chance of getting burned but they also have the chance to get everything they ever wanted."

"Baby girl, you are a romantic."

She smiled and grinned, nodding up and down. "I think this is a good thing. I could tell Reid was curious about her still. So we'll all have lunch and let destiny decide."

He shook his head at her, in a playful way, "Playing matchmaker might bite you in the ass."

"I'd love to bite you in the-"

"Hush!"

THE END