"I know who you are! I thought you looked familiar."

Yep…Seph had thought he might. Not everyone would have recognised the family name, but given how smart he was and his line of work, he was bound to pay attention to business news.

Seph's family owned a large range of luxury business hotels, Lux. Her Great Grandpa and his brother had started them in the thirties, the business somehow surviving through the war. The brand had grown and expanded throughout the years and now almost every major city in Europe and the USA had a Lux hotel or two.

The Bella-Morte name was widely associated with the Lux brand, the hotel bars even having its own cocktails and dessert range featuring various puns on the name.

Persephone had a love/hate relationship with her name. The surname itself was ridiculous enough without being paired with Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Once her friends had started to study Greek mythology at school and learnt what the literal translation of her family name was, the nicknames had started. It didn't help with the film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel "Queen of the Dammed" coming out during Seph's teenage years.

By then though, shed started to embrace the name. She'd been heavily into the grunge scene, her parents having a fit when she'd come home with a lip piercing and her auburn hair dyed black, and the nickname her friends bestowed upon her because of the name, fit her new look. Growing older, Seph had replaced the lip ring with a nipple bar and a few tattoos in places that weren't visible unless she wanted them to be, gradually returning to her natural hair colour.

"I am so pleased I came across you tonight then and stopped you. Your case would have ended up coming across to the BAU if I hadn't."

"Do the FBI routinely investigate suicides then?" She definitely didn't think so.

"You're a high profile name… Well, at least your family is. And with it happening in D.C too it would have definitely come our way." He took a sip of his drink.

"Then it will still come across your desk then. Nothings changed. I still intend on doing it."

"Really?…. Perseph…. Seph, I don't understand though. Surely, given who you are you could have anything and everything you wanted? Your family are millionaires and from I understand you'd have a job there for life."

"I can feel you judging me… And I know I lied when I said I wasn't some poor little rich girl like Rose from that film. In fact, I have more in common with her than I'd like, right down to the red hair" she pulled on a strand of her hair, wrapping it around her finger before pushing it back off your face again.

"I'm not judging you I promise, I just…. If you're going to come across my desk, help me understand."

"I can't though. That's the thing. When I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. Because I should be happy. Alright, my best friend is dead, and my now ex fiancé was a bit of a dick head…. but I wasn't overly into him anyway so whatever. But my family do love me and I can pretty much anything I want. But that comes with conditions."

"Conditions?…. And ex fiancé? Or is that another story?" He asked cautiously.

Seph downed the last of her coffee, looking at him and holding out the empty mug. "Got anything stronger?"

"Whiskey… Somewhere."

"Well don't just sit there Spencer Reid." If she was going to keep talking then she'd need a stronger drink.

He rummaged around in a cupboard, coming up with two tumblers and a bottle of Jack.

"Technically it's bourbon…. " He poured two generous measures and handed one over. "Do you want to actually sit down?"

"Sure."

He led the way through to his living room bringing the bottle with him, taking a seat at one end of his couch. Persephone removed her coat and slid her heels off, taking a seat the other end and curling her stockinged feet up beneath her. Taking a sip, the amber nectar warming her throat instantly, she began.

"Yes conditions. And the fiancé… Ugh. He's the reason I'm in D.C. I've been…. distant from him over the last few months, given what happened with Alex and well, you know, contemplating my whole existence and all. When I think about it now, I've probably been distant from him for a lot longer than that. In fact, I'm not sure I was ever really that close to him in the first place. He's the son of one of Daddy's lawyers. So gosh, maybe the marriage of convenience thing applies too, except from his side rather than mine… Anyway. So he's here on business and I thought….well, I was bored so I thought I'd come surprise him. Maybe a good couple of fucks would have taken my mind off wanting to slit my own wrists or jumping off a bridge. So I get here this morning, go to his hotel which given his connections, was not a Lux. Obviously I know why now. I slipped the receptionist a hundred for the key to his room and find him balls deep inside of his secretary. A pretty little nineteen year old. Needless to say, me and him are over. Although, I'm surprising not that bothered. It just kinda helped my decision." Seph saw the look on his face. "Don't worry, I wasn't going to kill myself because of him. I was planning it anyway. Today just… Made me want to get it over with sooner rather than later. Made me bring my original deadline forward. "

She took another sip of her drink, holding it out for a refill. Spencer obliged, topping up his own which he was quickly draining. Poor thing, oh how she'd ruined his night.

"The conditions I referred to. Everyone in my family is expected to work at Lux. I don't want that. I want my own business. I want to start my own clothing line, my own fashion brand. But the parents have my own future planned out for me. I worked there until until I was 27 and then decided I'd had enough and that I needed to try and get this business off the ground. But I'm expected to start working back at Lux the week after my thirtieth birthday. Apparently I've had 'Enough time to arse around trying to make something out of myself.' I was so close to getting it off the ground, but then with Alex dying, I missed some important business meetings and the funding fell through."

"If you don't want to work for your family, then don't work for them. You're an adult, you can make your own decisions. They can't force you."

"It's not that simple…. Well. In theory it is. But it's a family run business. They heard me out when I said I wanted to leave two years ago. They agreed to give me until my thirtieth birthday to do it on my own, which is how I wanted to do it. I could have taken their money, and to an extent I did use some of my trust fund to help make a portfolio and designs and stuff but I won't use their money or name to launch the brand. It was agreed that if I couldn't do this by the time I was thirty then I go and take up my rightful place back at Lux. If I don't, I get cut off completely. No trust fund, no nothing. And I don't have any money of my own, I was meant to make some but that didn't happen."

"So still…. Talk to them again." His brow furrowed.

"I have. After Alex died, I asked for an extension. And they were sympathetic, but refused. I've had long enough….. Look I sound bratty I know, and I'm a walking contradiction. I don't want their business, but I can't function without my trust fund. I don't want to work for them, but I've failed at being able to work for myself. Lux doesn't interest me at all. But I made an agreement with them. And it would would be letting the family name down to back out of said agreement and blah blah blah family honour and such. Have you seen Beauty and the Beast, the Disney film?"

Her sudden change in track surprised him, but he nodded.

"I've watched it with my godson a few times, yes." He nodded and Seph explained her question.

"The first song…. There's a part goes:

I want adventure in the great wide somewhere,
I want it more than I can tell.
But for once it might be grand, to have someone understand.
I want so much more than they've got planned.

You know it?"

"Yes, I remember it." He pushed his hair back behind his ear, thinking. "So you feel trapped by your obligations to your family, downhearted because of your own perceived failure, and disillusioned by life because you haven't achieved the things you wanted to. Add your best friend dying to that and… whilst I don't agree suicide is the way out, I can maybe understand how you might feel that it is."

He could?

He could.

Oh.

Huh.

"Pers… Seph…. You mentioned an original deadline. What was it?"

"Erm… I was planning on doing it on my birthday. I figured… Why not."

"Okay. Will you consider reverting to your original date?" He asked quietly, his eyes intensely studying her.

"Whhhhyyy?" Seph dragged the word out, suspicious.

"I want to see this list. Your birthdays twenty four days away right? Seph, suicide is never the answer, although I know it sometimes feels that way. You want more from life. Then let's go and get more. Please. If I can help you tick off some of the items on that list, and maybe together we can come up with a way to get your business plan back up and running, will you reconsider it?" He seemed so earnest.

"You want to try and fix me?"

"No… Because you're not broken. You're not even a lost soul that needs to be found. You know what you want, you just can't work out how to get it. So let me try to help." He reached out across the couch, hesitating before taking her hand. Normally Seph would recoil if a stranger touched her like that when it wasn't in a professional environment…. But she was in his apartment, on his couch. When she'd originally intending on taking up the throne next to Hades by now.

"Why do you want to help me?" She asked. He considered her question carefully before answering.

"Because maybe I need some purpose in my life too. I try not to believe in fate. It doesn't fit in with my logic. But….. A lot of people would say that we met tonight for a reason. I don't normally walk that way home, you're not normally in D.C. I've had a pretty shitty year myself. Maybe this will help me too."

"And if you don't succeed and I still do it? Because I will."

"Then at least I gave it my best shot."

Seph considered his offer…. What was another twenty four days really?

Although he'd laugh when he saw how pathetic the list was. But…. Well, he was a genius. Maybe he could think of another way out of this for her. And if not… she could just stick with the plan. Another twenty four days.

Okay. Seph could stick it out for that long.

"Okay. Fix my life Spencer Reid."