A/N: There are stories that you keep and there are stories that you let go. I guess I've decided to keep this one. Stay tuned!

He wakes up alone.

The morning sun is stretching its way into his room, expanding across the carpet and up to the edges of the bed. He is caught under the covers, his one exposed hand languishing in the warm beam of the sun, the heat from it stirring him back into consciousness. Instinctively, he reaches out to the other side of the bed, half-expecting to touch warm, delicate flesh, but comes away only with the cool sensation of the bedsheet against his skin.

For a brief moment, he knows it was just a dream; of course he is alone, when has he ever not woken up alone? Mentally, he scoffs at himself for being so presumptuous; why on earth would Emily Prentiss ever come to him for relief or release?

But as he slowly approaches full awareness, spurred on by the sudden chiming of his bedside alarm, he starts to realize that it quite possibly wasn't just a dream. The doorbell ringing in the middle of the night, Emily walking in through the front door, her sudden move to kiss him in the dark entryway...

And how could he ever forget that horrible, aching terror in her eyes?

That what was did it, really. In that moment, when he'd looked down and seen that endless fear in her eyes, he knew he couldn't turn down her request. He knows, of course, what it was (and what it is) like to search for something, anything, to dull the pain and the fear and the anxiety spurred on by total loss of control. He'd once found his respite in the form of a narcotic, injected straight into his arm. It was only natural that she too would find her own form of release, her unique form of physical and psychological relief.

However, he knows even now as he lies in bed that that's the analytical Spencer Reid talking, the profiler profiling. Removed from everything, from emotion and from feeling, he can observe Emily's need for comfort and for release as a perfectly natural response to environmental stressors. But the emotional part of him, the part that let her kiss him and the part that kissed her back, knows no such level of detachment.

Reaching the top of the stairs, she pushes him against a wall – hard. He gasps as his tailbone strikes first, but he can't feel the pain, he is much too distracted by the warm feel of Emily pressing against him, pinning his wrists securely against the wall. He gives in completely to her control, knowing that he isn't assertive enough or even nearly experienced enough to be the one calling the shots. As her lips eagerly devour his, some distant part of his brain wonders how long it's been since he'd been with a woman. Four years? Five maybe? And even before then, how experienced had he ever even been?

However, any doubt that had surfaced during his impromptu reverie was instantly silenced as she twisted him sideways, pulling him off of the wall, and pushing him (backwards) down towards the bed. Any coherent thought at that moment is immediately lost to him, as he falls down towards the mattress, fingers tangled up in her hair and his capacity for intelligent thought all but extinguished by his primal desire to somehow put an end to that awful terror in her frantic eyes.

He blushes to himself, cheeks burning with his recollection of the night before. Why had he let that happen? Why had he barely said a word in protest, barely even putting up a fight? This was his co-worker, his teammate, his friend – and yet he'd crumbled in an instant, letting down his defences immediately simply to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. He could have – should have – fought harder; anyone could have seen how vulnerable and lost she was in that moment, and yet he let himself give in.

He knows, of course, why he let it happen the way it did. Why he let her into the house without any hesitation, why he let her kiss him in the dark, and why he let himself slide his hands down her body, pressing her down into the mattress beneath them. How many nights has he returned to an empty house, to an empty bed, to an empty life? For years, he's watched Hotch go home to his son, JJ to Will and Henry, Rossi to his occasional female companions, Morgan to his women, even Garcia back to Kevin. Sometimes they aren't always happy, sometimes things aren't always right, but at the end of the day there's someone there for them to hold on to, someone there to fill the void deep inside. He thought he was immune, thought that he could fight it, but when he looked down into Emily's eyes and saw what haunted him reflected in her own eyes, he knew couldn't fight it any more.

For all of that though, isn't he still waking up alone?

He pushes himself upright, swinging his legs over and out of the bed. Her clothes, her shoes, her gun (and why had she brought her gun?) were all gone – it was as if she had never been here. She had stolen out in the middle of the night, leaving as quickly and mysteriously as she came. For his part, he knows he's never been this confused in his life. Why had she come to him? What was she running from? Where was she going?

He slowly starts to get dressed for the day, mindlessly pulling on pants and socks and buttoning up a fresh cardigan, all the while consumed by his analysis of the prior evening's events. He can feel an unnamed, unidentifiable feeling of dread in the bottom of his stomach, a nameless sensation of something having gone horribly wrong. He wasn't blind to the fact that something had changed in Emily's life, something big enough to transcend the barrier between her personal and her work lives. She had been more distracted, more emotional – and it was getting worse all the time.

No matter. He'd be at work in a half hour or so, and he'd simply ask her then. That is, of course, if he's even able to look her in the eyes ever again...

He makes his way downstairs, picking up his sunglasses from the hallway table (the light still stings his eyes), and reaches out for the doorknob. As he goes to open the door, his phone rings, causing him to drop his keys onto the floor.

He mumbles a curse under his breath even as he flips open the phone. "Reid," he states, having forgotten to look at the caller ID.

"It's Emily," the voice states, and it takes him a second to recognize Garcia's unusually serious tones. "You need to be here."

He's out the door before she even finishes speaking, heart pounding in his chest as he races towards his car. Even as his mind kicks into overdrive, mulling over the details and attempting to avoid colliding with other vehicles on the road, he can't help remember the fear in her eyes as he grabbed him, the fear that stayed there even as he held her close.