Second Time

The second time, he was too angry.

Shocked.

Hurt.

Betrayed.

But above all, angry.

Admittedly, the majority of his anger was directed at JJ, with a healthy dose reserved for Hotch, but once the brief searing flash of joy and relief had faded, once she'd stepped from his arms saying all the right words in a tone he recognized as genuinely contrite before reminding them of the urgency of the case, he realized that yes—he was angry with her too.

Furious in fact.

Ironic that within a team of seasoned profilers, it was Strauss who'd sussed out how he really felt. Not just the anger and betrayal but the true underlying reason. The old Reid—the insecure, easily intimidated child prodigy of the group—he would have been overwhelmed with concern that she'd attempt to use it as some sort of leverage. This new Reid, however—the Reid he'd become in the past seven months—he didn't care. In fact, he was well aware, having caught a familiar faint, herb-and-medicine scent on her breath just before she popped the powerful mint, that she had secrets of her own. Secrets that were every bit as damaging as his own. Which was why, just before he'd been called in to testify, he'd exchanged a long look with her, silently communicating he'd keep her secrets if she kept his.

To her dying day, she had.

He would always respect her for that.

Regaining respect for JJ, however, had come at a slower pace. He was well aware he was behaving in a manner that bordered on childish with her, but at the same time—

Each time he recalled the late night visits to her house, weeping over the loss of Emily; each time he'd resisted going to JJ and either stayed home or walked the streets of D.C., weeping alone because there was no way she could possibly understand the depths of his loss; each and every single time he thought of the nights of dry-mouthed desperation that had driven him to the neighborhoods where he'd once scored, sitting in his car, sweaty fingers tightly gripping the steering wheel with the effort it took to resist the urge making his pulse throb, the desire to simply escape into a darkness where he might be reunited with her—

Every time he recalled all of that, he simply couldn't bring himself to even look at her.

And then she had to go and make it worse—thinking that his anger had a damned thing to do with ego over his profiling skills. That she had somehow bested him and that was the true basis of his anger.

That felt almost like a second betrayal—her complete and utter lack of understanding.

In another twist of irony, it had been Emily herself who began the process of healing—approaching him in the plane much as she'd once approached him a lifetime before. Unlike that time time, her face was clear, the skin smooth and unblemished. Like that time, her expression was completely open and beseeching.

You mourned the loss of a friend—I mourned the loss of six.

He knew she wasn't singling him out in any way—she wasn't trying to say she'd missed him more than the others—but unlike JJ with her angry defensiveness, Emily was allowing him to see inside the world she'd been forced to inhabit for the past seven months.

She was letting him know, as much as she was able, that she'd felt as alone and adrift as he had.

By the time his birthday had come and gone and come again, with Emily's discovery that it had passed, the seeds of hope—however tentative—had begun to grow once more. He told himself he was a fool. But at least this time he was a thirty-year-old fool. And again, she was the one who truly understood him.

And I realized…I don't know—there's just something incredibly right about being here. With you guys.

That would then became the closest he would ever come to saying anything to her.

At least it beat confessions about headaches.

But it was still woefully inadequate. And in the end—not enough.

She left. Again.

This time, he at least understood why. The rootlessness. The sense of belonging, yet not. The lack of choice. She'd had no choice over leaving the first time and really, had no real choice in her return.

This time, she had a choice.

She might have had more than one if he'd chosen to speak—to make his feelings known. But instinct warned this was not the right time. She needed to go unencumbered by any ties to her previous life.

It didn't mean he wasn't angry all over again.

Just not at her.