Chapter Four: The Encore
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They didn't exactly dress the part. He's wearing black trousers and his favourite black vest buttoned neatly over a white shirt. She's wearing jeans, a purple shirt, and a wicked grin. Elliott is the best dressed out of all of them, wearing a cream-white dress Elizabeth brought her and being bounced on the knee of 'Grandpappy Rossi', who's watching them with a gleeful kind of excitement that has Reid suspecting he's already planning for one inevitable day, sometime in the future, when he gets to smirk at the rest of their team and say, "I knew all along."
They needed two witnesses, and there's one thing Reid has learned about Rossi in the months they've known him. The man loves a laugh, and if phrased correctly, it turns out that Emily can make anything sound appealing. Even witnessing the secret wedding of two of his colleagues. At least, that's how Emily justifies it.
Reid's pretty sure Rossi's also here because the man has a soft spot for Emily that's a mile long, and a genuine fondness for him that's the kind that only grows. This is a family moment, and no one ever told Rossi that you can't declare yourself family after only eight months of working with them. But he doesn't tell Emily that, because she's avoiding assigning any kind of emotion to this day, and he's humouring her.
Despite the something in his chest that's growing frighteningly huge and declaring that it's probably a dangerously pervasive measure of love.
Their other witness is watching with a barely hidden glower, and Reid knows that he's highly disapproving of this moment but, like any good parent, picking his battles wisely with his wilful children.
"Strauss is going to have all of our heads," Hotch says, eyeing Reid with the kind of expression that makes Reid's insides curl up small and worried. But he's dressed impeccably, with the kind of care that suggests he chose his suit with more thought to the day than Emily (Reid is attempting to be nonchalant, but his hands are sweating and his heart is hammering and there's a giddy kind of joy whirling in his brain that's making it hard to stop smiling), and he is here. "You do realize this is insane, Reid."
Reid shrugs, and looks at Emily. She's waiting, chatting with the minister, calmer even than the time they took Elliott to get her first round of vaccinations. There had been tears that day, and only some of them had been Reid's. "It's not," he says, and watches her smile and laugh, her gaze skipping to Elliott on Rossi's knee and softening imperceptibly. "This is the sanest I've ever been."
And Hotch just watches them and nods, as though he's seem something they haven't. Which is entirely possible. Reid's fully aware that he's blind when it comes to his family. He suspects he always will be.
He's also a little bit ill-behaved.
Emily said no vows, and he'd planned to abide by this. In and out. Ten minutes max.
And he's also a bit of a liar, sometimes.
"Wait," he says, as they're about to finally sign the paperwork that legally binds them, and he thinks that this really is the oddest way to make a family. "I, ah…"
"No vows," she hisses again, flushing, and he thinks in that moment that even in jeans, she's beautiful.
"They're not vows," he says defensively. "Just… I want to say something. Something short."
"Ah heck, it'd be worth the price of admission if the kid can actually keep something short and sweet," Rossi says, grinning, unwrapping a gummy sweet that he keeps procuring for Elliott and splitting it with her. She kicks happily at the gift, fingers gloopy with saliva and sugar, and clings to his thumb with the hand not currently ramming the head of the snake down her throat. Hotch sighs at them.
"Fine," Emily mutters, rolling her eyes, and the minister is staring at them both like they're the oddest things he's seen all day. Which is likely. Emily had begun the ceremony by walking in and declaring, you guys do refunds if he turns out to be a bunk choice, right?
Reid slips his hand into his pocket, knowing she's going to hate this, doing it anyway. "These aren't wedding rings," he says, to forestall the storm that shifts over her face when she sees them, and she exhales warningly. The bands are plain. Silver and plain and completely unadorned. "I love you, Emily. I'm standing here declaring that I'll happily spend the rest of my life with you, because I believe that love is built from companionship and friendship… and you're my best friend. The mother of my child. The person who taught me it's okay to ask to help, that it's okay to fall… the person who helped me get up again when I did…" He reaches for her hand and she lets him, and he presses one of the rings into her palm, holding it there as he holds her. "These rings are to signify that I'm going to stand by your side, as your best friend and—secret—husband for as long as you'll have me. We're going to raise our child together. And we're going to be fantastic at it."
"You idiot," she mutters, staring at his shoes with her cheeks prettily flushed. "I thought you said this doesn't change anything."
"It doesn't," he says honestly. "I've always felt this way about you. And I always will."
Hotch and Rossi are quiet as the registry is signed, as they become husband and wife but only really in name—barely even in that, because Emily is keeping her name and they're not telling a soul—but when they hug them after, they're slow to let go and their eyes are bright.
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Her lip is bloodied and fat, her tongue a thick mess in her mouth, bitten through when the boot slammed her jaw shut, but he still looks worse. They drag her into the room they've been keeping him in, and it's a room of fucking horrors. He's slumped against a wall, one leg thrown outward with uncharacteristic abandon and the other drawn tight against his chest, arms draped over it and head rocked forward so that his hair hangs lank over his face and hides the worst of what's to come.
Cyrus has one hand wrapped through her hair, close to her scalp, and her eyes prickle with the pain of that as her feet stumble and scuff on the pink-splattered floor.
Don't look up, she thinks suddenly, because maybe she doesn't want to see him like this and he's never been good with watching her hurt.
But he looks up. She's weirdly relieved to realize they've mostly spared his face. Mostly. There's a split across his cheek that looks deep and sore and a bruise that's coming up dark and wide enough across his temple that she's already planning the concussion check in her head just looking at him.
And his face empties when he sees her, like it hasn't since before he'd come back. He stares at her throat, the red-thin line where Cyrus had nearly garrotted her with the gift Reid had given her. In a split second, he's the Reid of two and a half years ago; the Reid that Hankel took and taught to hate.
He's very, very quiet, his face grossly blank. He's never been one for masochistic shows of overt masculinity, but he's never been one to stand aside while someone is being hurt either, and she knows there's anger hidden inside his sweater vests and mild smiles. She wonders, abstractedly, what he'll do when they hit her in front of him.
She finds out.
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Ellie has claimed the knee of every BAU member thus far, and seems to be steadily ensuring her right to them. Reid watches quietly as she has a short but intent battle with Hotch over whether or not she can eat his tie, consisting mostly of Hotch quietly saying no, Elliott, and her responding crankily but why?
Around them, as Reid has discovered, the party is very much taking place without the birthday girl. Despite his loud and consistent reservations about the point of throwing a birthday party for a one-year-old, he's starting to realize that parties for one-year-olds are mostly an excuse for the one-year-old's extended family to get drunk and eat tiny snack-sized versions of adult food.
He's not really complaining, since JJ left the bowl of gummy snakes near him and he's quietly working his way through them.
"She likes hands," Reid offers, noting that Hotch still hasn't won the tie-battle, and two heads turn to face him, both wearing cheerful party hats. Hotch's, Reid notes, is pink. It's the only pink one in the house. Reid's pretty sure they didn't buy any pink party hats, so he's really not sure where it came from. "Like this." He shuffles forward, abandoning the candy, and holds his hands in the air with his palms to his daughter.
The smile is instant and focused as she reaches for his fingers, carefully mapping out the lines and curves his hands despite her having probably memorized them already. He flicks his fingers, making what would be shadowy shapes if there was a light to cast shadow, and she cackles and attempts to clumsily mimic his movements.
"Huh," Hotch says, turning her slightly and replacing Reid's hands with his own. Given the opportunity for novelty, Elliott immediately latches on, whispering phin-ga, phumb, as she taps at the labelled parts. Reid swallows his misgivings. "She's… advanced."
"Thirty percent developmentally advanced on her cohorts in verbal abilities, by my calculations. She'll keep that up for far longer than you'll be able to." Reid is quiet, hearing Morgan walking up behind them. "Tunnel vision. Watch what happens if you stop." Hotch does, and the whining is immediate as the toddler shakes her head and grabs at his hand. "And this. Which is the index finger, Elliott?"
"Dis," she says, and grabs Hotch's ring finger, face furrowed in concentration.
"Once more. Try again."
This times she's silent, shifting her grip to the right one and earning a gentle yay from Hotch, who smiles sadly. Thinking of his son, most likely. Reid aches for him.
"Aw hey, Reid two point oh," Morgan jokes, flicking Reid's party hat and grinning down at him. "We'll be sending her to Harvard for her tenth birthday."
There's a terse laugh from the doorway at that. Reid winces. "She is what she is," Emily says, and her voice is thin. She's hovering, her face torn between amusement and worry, and as she quickly ducks back out of sight, he follows.
"This was a possibility from the beginning," he says to her back as he gently closes the door between them and the rowdy sounds of Morgan distracting Elliott from Hotch by aeroplaning her through the air. "We knew this. It's not just genetics, it's upbringing, and I can't help but be how I am around her… some osmosis of that was to be expected…"
"I know, I know," Emily snaps, reaching for her drink and gulping it far too quickly. "Jesus fuck, Spence, don't I know. It's good, she's smart. Going to probably be smarter by the end of it. What parent wouldn't want that?"
"But you're upset," he says, and it's a statement, not an accusation. His own emotions on the subject are a jumble, he can hardly blame her for her confliction. But he grew up alone, isolated, and Elliot wouldn't be... "Talk to me."
"That's the thing," she says, and puts the drink aside to step into his arms, accepting his support. "I don't know how to reach you half the time, when you get all wrapped up in that brain of yours. By the time she's five, I'm going to be alone at the dinner table while you two bounce off into your own world that I can't follow. What use am I to her?"
Resting his chin on her hair, he folds his body around her, letting her lean into his comfort. "How can she not have a use for you?" he asks, honestly, and reclines back slightly so he can find her mouth. "Her clever, sensible mother. Brave. Strong. I can't be those things for her, but you can." Every statement is another hungry kiss, punctuating his assertions to her. "She needs you like I need you." Flickering his glance back towards the closed door, assuming that they're being given space by their perceptive friends, he takes the opportunity to slip his hand up her shirt, along the firm skin of her belly, tripping on the wire of her bra and finding the ring that hangs on the chain between her breasts. Tracing his finger over it, the heat from her skin warming the metal, he murmurs, "Unequivocally."
"Christ," she whispers, arching into his hand. "Stay after the party?"
"As long as you want me, I'm here," he replies, and finds her mouth again with his own.
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There's a window. Which means there's every possibility Hotch can hears this.
She really fucking hopes not.
She can take it. She can take anything they throw at her. Nothing they do to her will break her; not when she has to be silent and strong so he doesn't panic, not when she has to survive for their daughter. She can't fight back; they have guns and itchy trigger fingers and Reid will get involved. She has to. Take it.
That all becomes hazy as the world becomes pain and her focus tightens. Elliott Elliott Elliott EliottElliottElliott…
Elliott as her head hits the ground and she curls to avoid another blow that will incapacitate her beyond this moment. Elliott as a boot rams into her hip. Don't blow this for me, Hotch, she thinks once, and hears a grunt that she doesn't think is hers. Is pretty sure isn't hers. I can take this. Don't… react…
But someone reacts.
She makes a noise, a single husking gasp as a hand grabs her collar and drags her up, twisting it against her already bruised throat, and there's a snarl that doesn't sound like anything she's ever heard a human produce. Reid doesn't say a word. Just makes that noise, and surges upright, and she hits the ground on her arse as the world wavers and stops making sense.
Blinking it back into focus takes a minute. A minute too long.
A minute of the three men turning on Reid as he silently puts everything she and Morgan have tried to teach him into play. They've got guns, but they don't take him seriously.
A blink and he ducks a punch, weaving back, and she knows he can't win and tries to scream at him to just fucking stop, idiot! Another blink and he's slammed his hand against a man's throat; the man drops like a stone. Reid's physically inept, but he knows how human bodies work. How human bodies break.
Another blink and they've got their guns up. He's a threat now.
Another blink and he throws himself forward, a tackle. Hits the ground on top of one of the men. There's a thud of body against stone, a gun goes off, the window shatters. He rolls out of the impact and staggers up, foot lashing out. Bone breaks. It's not his.
Another blink and she's up now. There's a gun in his hand; his eyes are cold. He hasn't said a word. He brings the butt of the gun down on a skull; the sound is wet and horrifying. There's one man left. Two guns. Emily wobbles up, finds the man's semi-automatic. He's dead. There's no denying it. The memory of a voice whispers to her: each year, traumatic brain injuries contribute to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability.
Two guns versus one. The remaining man hesitates. It's the one who'd tried to choke her. "Get on the ground," Reid says, and somehow his voice is more frightening than the blood on his hands and shirt. "Now."
Instead, the man goes for the trigger.
Reid shoots first.
Then he turns on Emily without missing a beat; takes those few yawning steps between them and lurching into her arms, dragging her close and kissing her like he'd never expected to do so again. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much, her face is a bruise and his is bleeding, and still she returns it because she'd considered never having this again. It's over in seconds and he pulls away.
But it's long enough.
He kisses her like he's madly, impossibly, violently in love with her, and he just killed two men and incapacitated a third because of that. She feels sick. She feels wild.
He kisses like he was terrified.
"We have to get to the children," Reid says, moving to the door without allowing his battered body to slow him. "They would have heard the gunfire outside. They'll be moving in."
It'd be a massacre.
Emily touches her mouth, just once, to see if it's as broken as she feels it might be, and then she grips the gun close and follows him out the door.
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Elliott finishes her birthday by politely waiting until their guests are out the door—bye bye Wossy—and then vomiting on her mother. Biting back laughter at the expression on Emily's face as she hands their red-faced and squirming daughter over to him with a pert adoption papers now, please, he wisely decides that it's probably clever to change and wash the child and then tuck her out of sight for the foreseeable future.
"Ow," Elliott says sadly, patting her stomach. "Daddy, ow."
"Well, that's what happens when you pretend you haven't had any sweets to every new person who walks past you," he informs her. "I know. I do it often. It's only worth it at the time, Ellie, trust me. Bath and bedtime now?"
She doesn't really seem keen on that idea, but as soon as her head hits the crib, she's out like a light. Which is fortunate.
It's occurred to him that Emily is very likely in the bedroom getting changed. Which means, less clothes.
This is a pleasing idea. A pleasing idea that is, unfortunately, foiled by Emily not being in the bedroom. Or the bathroom. Sadfaced, he pads morosely down the hall and finds her pantsless in the kitchen, grumbling as she tosses her clothes into the washer, seemingly unaware of him prowling behind her.
Well. Never let it be said he's not adaptable.
"Wha—fuck!" she yelps, as he picks her up by her hips and turns her to face him, almost earning a foot to the crotch. He's glad she clicked on quickly, distinctly not at all interested in finding out how it feels to be kicked there in his current state. "You're like a cat! Wear a damn bell!"
Lifting her onto the washer, he crowds against her, making sure his hair is hanging in his eyes and giving her the best plaintive want expression he knows through it. "Hi, hello," he murmurs, wiggling forward until he's flush against her body and mouthing damply at her neck. "I'm a fan of this." He trails his hand up her bare thigh for emphasis, rubbing his fingers in the sensitive fold between her thigh and hip.
Her breath hitches sharply. "Pervert," she breathes, rubbing against him despite her mock scolding, her leg bumping against his front. "Jesus, feel that. Not half keen, are you?"
"Thinking about you all night," he replies, dropping to his knees and ignoring her shocked what are you—and doing exactly what he's been thinking about all night. She's stunning. Stunning with her leg hooked over his shoulder and his head heavy between her legs. Stunning as he uses his mouth and his tongue and, eventually, his fingers as well, drawing her against his lips and exploring her greedily. She's striking, glorious, heady, and he's head over heels for this. Her hand threads through his hair with just the right amount of pressure; she's rocking into his mouth as he uses his tongue to tease her open, his thumb tracing patterns that make her moan in just the way he likes, vocal, and he has to take a respite to undo his own pants and tug himself free before the constricting pain turns biting.
"Not gonna… get, ah, fuck, let me, ah… get me off in the kitchen, are you?" she gasps, writhing against his mouth with her eyes locked on his, and so he slips his fingers inside her as an unspoken, I absolutely am.
"In the kitchen," he murmurs, standing with his hand still working her apart, "then in the bedroom, perhaps the bathroom after… I've calculated my refractory period. I can…" He has to take a breath here because her hand has found him, trying to coax him forward and into her, but that's not the plan here. Yet. By the time that happens, he wants her blissful, pliable, almost shattered. He wants her slow and lazy, so he can show her exactly how he feels with the sedatest sweep of his hands and his hips. "… keep this up for steadily increasing incremental periods over the next several hours. You might not be quite so lucky, however, age does—"
"Holy shut the fuck up," she chokes, cover his mouth with her hands. "You were doing so well." He twists his wrist, curves his finger. He is doing well.
She comes with a groan, for the first time. But not the last.
His brain does come in handy, sometimes.
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There's two men guarding the children and the women, but the men don't argue when Emily walks in there with Reid at her back and semi-automatics in their hands. Reid holds his awkwardly, unhappily, but he is holding one, and the two men and their Glocks quickly decide that maybe a quick retreat is the best of their options.
As soon as the men's footsteps have died away, the sounds of gunfire building overhead, they lower their weapons. "We're not going to hurt you," Emily soothes, and Reid says nothing because he's still wired as fuck and dancing on adrenaline's edge. The women watch, their arms around as many kids as they can handle, the rest clustered behind them. "But we need you to listen to us, please. We're going to keep you and your children safe, if you listen to us."
Reid moves forward. "Down on the ground, bellies flat, quickly," he coaxes, and the woman exchange a glance between them before slowly complying. He's getting them out of range if someone comes in shooting, making them smaller targets, and she decides to trust him and turns back to the doorway, shoving a desk in front of it. Anything to give them a few extra seconds to process, react, respond.
The gunfire moves closer.
She tilts her head back. Reid is crouched, butt of his weapon steady on his thigh, his eyes locked on the door. Not aiming. His hands shake against it, the knuckles split and oozing, but his bloodied fingers are firm. There's a girl huddled against his back—the jacket she's wearing is Emily's, her eyes locked on his face—and he's allowing it. For a bullet to hit her, it has to punch through him first, and Emily wavers. Thinks of Elliott.
"Everything is going to be okay," she says firmly, readying her gun. She's the one who'll shoot first. Reid is wired and he knows it. He'll wait for her cue.
The gunfire shifts closer.
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JJ is taking to being pregnant with an ease that reminds him that he didn't get to see how Emily had handled those first few months. He slinks up to his friend, watching the sly smile teasing her mouth, as though she's ever aware and content about the state of things, and the confident rest of her hand on her still-flat abdomen. It hurts.
He's so, so happy for her, but he's equally as heartbroken that he missed this with his child. And he knows there's no getting that time back; it was the price extracted for the pleasure he'd obtained from the drugs that still whisper alluringly to him, on the nights he sleeps at home instead of Emily's.
Oddly, on the really bad nights, he's never really alone. He doesn't know how Emily knows… but she always does and his phone hums with a pert Elliott won't take a bath tonight and I have no idea why, why aren't you here dealing with this or a cheeky thinking about you tonight ;) or even, once after a case had gone horribly wrong in the worst possible way, a simple I'm proud of you.
And he's never slipped.
"JJ," he says, standing awkwardly in front of her, and she turns to him. The bullpen is dim, everyone else is gone. Emily was with him for the other half of this duty, the day they'd gotten married, and Reid feels the weight of that secret hanging heavy around his neck. But they're on thin, thin ice already with their jobs, and the others knowing will change the unit irrevocably. JJ smiles at him, worry slipping onto her expression, and he knows he's stalled too long.
"Spence, what's wrong?" she asks, tapping the desk. He slips onto it, crooking his leg against the drawer, and traces his fingers across the surface.
"I know we should have done this earlier," he says. They should have. They didn't. They're reckless, the both of them, both ever aware of their mortality and flaunting it at the same time, and they need to do better. "But… we, that is, Emily and I… we want you to be Elliott's godmother."
JJ is stunned, eyes widening. "Spence, oh," she breathes, and takes his hands. Hers are small, careful, and he imagines her holding their daughter if they can't and something tight and worried in his chest eases a little. "Of course."
It's the work of a second to ease down and wrap his arms around her, thanking her with his awkward hugs and stammering words. "You and Hotch," he tries to explain, shrugging helplessly. "You're the ones we'd trust with her if… if we can't. For any reason. Please?"
"Yes," she promises, and he relaxes. "But nothing is going to happen to you, silly. Don't be paranoid."
But it's his one duty as a father; making sure his daughter will never be alone.
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He's sitting on an unmade bed in the emergency department, looking sore and tired and completely fucking done with today. Oddly, Morgan isn't by his side, despite having glued himself to him since dragging them both out from the bowels of the compound.
She steps inside and tugs the curtains shut, giving them the illusion of privacy, and inches closer to study him. He smells faintly of sweat and stronger of the glue they've stuck his cheek back together with. Antiseptic, smoke, fear, and underneath it all, the familiar intricacies of him. She remembers standing this close so many years ago, and wishing she could know that scent.
She knows it now. Stepping closer still, she takes his hands in hers and presses their knees together. His fingers tease hers, deft and loving, and she can look down and visualize them holding a gun and a baby and her body and everything in-between.
"Can we go home yet?" he asks, his voice rasping and strained, and she wonders what other damage he's sustained. Glances at his chart, tossed on the bed beside him where he'd been skimming it. "Don't look at that. That lies. Trust me." A shaky smile. "I'm a doctor."
"Grade three concussion. You lost consciousness?" she asks, and he looks down and away. She hates Cyrus so much fucking more. "Fractured cheekbone. Suspected broken ribs? Should you even be sitting up? Where's your doctor?"
"My torso is a Picasso painting of purple and green," he replies, ignoring her questions, and winces as she her fingers accidentally skim the bandaging around his knuckles. Underneath the cotton weave, they're split and raw. "Do you know how much blunt force trauma it takes to break the average adult bone, assuming a healthy diet and no genetic influences affect—"
"Marry me," she interrupts, and he blinks sluggishly at her as his battered brain whirs and chugs and fails to process her words.
"I think we did that," he says finally, pulling one hand free to scratch tentatively at his nose. "Ow. Ow. I don't know if that's my nose hurting or my hand, ow. We did that, right?"
"Marry me properly," she clarifies, and uses her free hand to draw his ring from her pocket. It's clean, scrubbed free of dirt and his blood and Cyrus's touch in the ladies bathroom before she came to find him. The chain is fucked, lost, probably a melted spool back in hell somewhere, but she saved the ring. "I mean, shit, it's not like we're traditional so far, what's getting married twice? Except this time, we tell more people than Rossi and Hotch. We do the whole shebang. You can be all sappy and cry and I can dress up pretty and make Garcia coo and Morgan and Rossi can flirt with all my single friends."
She finds a finger that doesn't look too sore, an interesting task indeed, and slides the ring overtop to hang loose around the second joint. Lets him slip it on the final length. Rests her own hand over-top so he can see her own hand, the silver around her ring finger.
She almost lost it once. She refuses to take it off again.
His fingers trace over it, around it, testing it. It fits perfectly, of course it does, because the one thing the genius is apparently great at is estimating the size of her finger. And also kissing her. Which he does.
"Ow," she breathes into his mouth as his lips brush gently against her jaw, avoiding the bruises and the neat line of stitches along her bottom lip. Despite this care, this painful reverence, the kiss is lingering and something in her shifts and settles at the touch.
"Okay," he says, closing his eyes and pressing their mouths together one more, not kissing or moving, just breathing, his hand rubbing small circles into the skin of her arm. "Yes."
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They're clingy that night. Emily is so rarely clingy that it's almost more frightening than the events of the day.
She brings Elliott into the bedroom and holds her firm on the bed, wide hazel eyes watching Reid carefully from under the neatly combed blonde-brown curls that Emily battles her nightly to get brushed. Reid tilts his head to the side, sucking in a sharp breath as his ribs react to the movement, noting where his daughter's hair is already darkening at the roots, losing its baby-blonde. They're all exhausted, too exhausted to do more than offering to drive their nanny home, and this knowledge only tires him more. Stop growing, he thinks, bizarrely, because it's illogical that he would even think that could possibly work.
"Okay, baby, you've got to be careful," Emily is explaining, and Elliott listens intently. "Daddy is sore. We're going to lay down quiet and tell stories instead of bouncing around, okay?"
"Okay," Elliott repeats, nodding, and when Emily releases her, she crawls awkwardly next to Reid and curls up next to him. Reid winces as her palm smacks his rib accidentally, but smiles anyway when she jolts and looks up at him, startled at his noise. "Ow, Daddy?"
"Ow, Daddy," he agrees, and hugs his arm around her, letting her press against his side like a kitten. Emily does very much the same, cocooning their child between them, her face a mass of bruising that he aches to look at every time he does.
Elliott falls asleep first, but neither of her parents do. They lay there listening to her breathing and being thankful for every moment.
.
.
It's a respite from the strain of work. They're both restricted to desk work, both while they heal and while they're under investigation to ascertain whether the force used during the Cyrus case was appropriate. Emily is pretty sure they'll both pass, and it's probably the only time she's grateful that Cyrus didn't pull any punches.
But there's no hiding it now. There's recordings of the beatings, recordings of the questioning, recordings of the exact moment Cyrus had said to Reid well, this is a surprise… I wonder how emasculated someone has to be to bring their wife along to protect them.
And while the Bureau knew about their impromptu wedding, they're listed as husband and wife, the rest of the team didn't. And there was every chance that two people died because of it.
They're shocked. Morgan is angry. JJ is speechless. Garcia alternates between excited and teary.
And Hotch says nothing, because the higher ups are coming down hard on him, on Emily and Reid as well, and there might be nothing they can do this time to forestall what's coming.
So, this is a respite.
And an apology.
"Reid's planning something," Emily says to JJ as they prepare together, JJ clucking her tongue over Emily's hair and fiddling with the back. "He's all quiet and squirrelly."
"He's going to resign to save Hotch's career," JJ replies, and Emily winces. She'd suspected as much, caught him browsing suspicious looking emails from surrounding colleges three weeks back. "Or step aside. They'll scramble to keep him if they think he's going to leave—he'll get transferred to White Collar or counterintelligence."
"Bastard." Emily yanks her dress into place angrily, already planning on walking out there and giving him a goddamn piece of her mind, guests or no damn guests… "He hasn't said a word to me."
"Of course he hasn't," JJ says pertly, her own dress tight around the swell of her belly. Emily's glad they're doing this in Rossi's bathroom and not her own. The walls there are always a minefield of possible Elliott handprints or Reid science experiments. "Because you love the BAU, Em."
"So does he."
JJ sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, looking sad and amused all at once. "He loves a puzzle," she corrects. "And he loves you. The BAU comes third on that list. You… you need the savagery of the unsubs we tackle so you can stay mad at them, focused. That's what drives you. Seeing the lives we save, facing the evil and staring it down. Spence? I think he gets scared by looking into the darkest sides of humanity, sometimes. I think… I think he worries he'll see something he recognises looking back out. This might not be the worst thing for him."
They're thinking of the drugs. Of Hankel. Emily chokes something down, something hard to swallow and bitter tasting.
There's a knock on the door. A voice floats through, Emily's mom: "Are you ready, sweetheart? It's almost time."
JJ smiles. "Come on," she says, gesturing to the door. "Let's go get you married. Again."