When Emily awakened, she was momentarily disoriented. Underneath the feathered comforter, Spencer's long lean arms were protectively encircling her waist, his bare chest pressed against her back, his breath warm on her neck. To her surprise, she realized that she didn't recall falling asleep or hearing Spencer disrobe down to his briefs - or feel him slide the blanket from underneath her, pulling it over both of them, and placing his arms around her. Typically, even in sleep, she was always on guard: roused by the slightest sound or movement nearby. They all were. It was an occupational hazard of sorts.

It must be the residual effect of the OxyContin, Emily told herself uneasily. The drug must still be leaving your system. This doesn't have anything to do with feeling safe in someone's arms for the first time in years. It can't. Because an unsub doesn't give a shit if you feel safe or not. Which means you're never safe. Never. And if you forget that, even for a second, you'll be less safe than you've ever been before.

She laid there for a long time, trying to silence the cynic in her, forcing her eyes closed and reliving the events of several hours earlier. Spencer's wise eager eyes fixed on hers from between her thighs while his tongue lapped against her. The expression of bliss on his face when he held her panties to his nose and licked them. His low voice insisting "I want to drink your come" and the feeling of letting go completely, gushing fluid all over him and soaking the bedsheets while he swallowed and sucked her. The brief moment she felt his large cock pressing against her through his clothes, and the words he groaned as he masturbated in the bathroom - "please fuck me, Emily" - ringing in her ears.

She didn't mean to start shifting her hips up and down, rubbing her body against his. Wasn't even aware she was doing it until she felt his cock twitch and rise against her back. It felt so fucking good that she kept going, gyrating her hips more forcefully.

"Stop it, Emily."

She jumped, startled, before turning toward him, unable to hide the guilty look on her face. "I was just trying to ..."

"I know what you were trying to do," Spencer laughed, his hazel eyes lighting up almost mischievously. "Now stop it."

He kissed her lightly on the mouth, just once, and even after everything that had transpired between them, that one little kiss still made her heart soar with love and longing.

"We've got ..." Spencer checked his watch. "... about an hour and a half until landing. I think we need to discuss victimology."

Emily flinched at the idea of profiling Mandy with such a textbook term as "victimology." Mandy wasn't just a victim. She'd been a friend, a partying companion, a confidante. She'd been Emily's only regret upon leaving Paris and boarding that flight back to DC.

"Let's go over everything again, starting with how you met."

Emily began to recite the story in detail but after only a few sentences, she paused, biting her lip in confusion. In the bathroom at the art gallery, Mandy had definitely told Emily that her father had been killed the previous year. And yet the death certificate indicated that the murder had occurred six months prior to the present date, with Mandy purchasing plane tickets and obtaining a travel visa less than a month later. Which meant that Mandy's father had died only weeks before Emily first met her.

"So either she's suffering from complicated grief and her calendar simply stopped the day he died, or ..."

"Or what?" Emily asked sharply, her dark eyes narrowing.

"... or she lied to you," Spencer finished, grimacing apologetically.

How dare he? she fumed. How dare he suggest that the only friend I've had outside of work since college was lying to me about something like this?

Spencer sensed the change in Emily's attitude before she even opened her mouth to speak, rising and sitting up against the pillow behind him, pulling his arms away from her and crossing them protectively against his chest, as though shielding himself from an anticipated blow.

"I want you to listen to me, Reid, and I want you to listen carefully," Emily said in an even, deliberate tone, challenging him with her unblinking dagger-like stare. "Mandy was quite possibly the only real friend I've ever had. She never would have lied to me on purpose. Never. And if she did lie about her father the first time we met, then she would have told me the truth later."

"You mean, kind of like you told her the truth about being a former FBI agent who faked your death and left your friends - your real friends, Emily, whether you want to acknowledge that or not - completely destroyed and incapacitated with grief? Did you ever tell her that 'Leigh' was a pseudonym? Or that you'd left the US to escape an Irish terrorist who tracked you down after you had a ... a relationship ... with him when you were undercover for Interpol? You know, like a real friend would have? Did you ever tell her anything about the family you left behind, Emily? Did you ever tell her about me?" The words shot out of his mouth at rocket-fire speed, sarcastic and bitter and anguished.

"No," Emily responded quietly, hugging her knees to her chest. "No, I didn't."

Spencer softened when she turned her head away in an obvious attempt to prevent him from seeing the glassy shimmer of tears filling her eyes. He didn't need to continue. He'd made his point.

"What else did she tell you about her life back in America?" he prodded gently.

"Not much," Emily admitted, furrowing her brow. Those months, those days, they were all a blur to her now. It seemed like it had all happened a lifetime ago. "Oh, wait!" she exclaimed. "One night, we were on Ecstasy ..."

Spencer sighed audibly.

"I'm going to be in a lot of trouble when we return to Quantico, aren't I?" Emily suddenly realized, her voice quivering.

He didn't answer.

"I couldn't have come back here with anyone else," she confided, those dark eyes looking at him askance. "You do know that, right?"

"I know," Spencer replied, rubbing her shoulder and tentatively putting his arm around her so she could place her head on his bare chest. "So tell me what Mandy said ... what she said when you were on Ecstasy."

Not having to see his face made it easier for her to talk. "She told me that when she left the States, she also left behind a boyfriend. They met when she was in high school and he was going to a ... a trade school or something. He lived nearby, but in a bad neighborhood. Not like hers."

"Probably Yonkers," Spencer murmured to himself. "It's a part of Westchester, bordering the Bronx, and their high schools are all trade schools."

"Mandy said he introduced her to drugs back in high school, but ..." Emily paused, confused. "But she told me they also used drugs together when she was in college. So he must have ... followed her to college?"

Spencer shook his head above her. "The case file said that she received her undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence. It's in Bronxville. Only a few train stops from Scarsdale and directly above Yonkers. Did she ever tell you his name?"

"No. Just that ... her father hated him. That he wanted her to be with someone better. And that it was the only time she ever defied his wishes. Even medical school was her dad's idea. Mandy didn't want to be a doctor. But she believed that the only reason her father lived through her mother's death when she was three was because he couldn't leave her an orphan. So she felt like it was her responsibility to live out his dreams."

"Did she cry?" Spencer interjected.

"What?" Emily asked, momentarily jarred out of her memory of that night.

"When she told you those things. Did she cry?"

"We were on Ecstasy, Spencer. It's physically impossible to cry on Ecstasy ... which is what makes it so amazing," Emily couldn't prevent the smirk that crossed her lips at knowing more than he did about something for once.

"This is what doesn't make sense," Reid mused. "Her whole life, she was conditioned to honor her father. But when he dies, instead of going to medical school as the ultimate tribute to his wishes, she takes off to Paris and turns her life into one nonstop party. And not only that, but she also leaves behind the one person she was willing to defy him over. Why?"

"Could it be ..." Emily gulped, hesitant to speak the words out loud. "Could it be a manifestation of complicated grief?"

"It's possible. If she was in denial about the death, starting over in a place where she could dissociate herself from the loss does make sense. Both her boyfriend and medical school might have served as painful reminders that she failed to live out her father's expectations for her while he was still alive." He stopped, brushing his hand through his hair in a familiar nervous tic. "And by moving to Paris, she knew there wouldn't be anyone around to tell her that 'this isn't what he would have wanted.'"

Emily lifted her head and whispered into his neck, "Did anyone tell you that when I was ... when I was gone?"

Spencer nodded. "Morgan. I had been trying to find some Dilaudid for several weeks but I couldn't - I didn't know how to go about getting it. So I bought heroin on the street instead."

"You didn't!" she gasped, her muscles tightening in shock.

"I did," he confessed. "And when we were on the jet ... Morgan just knew. I guess working in narcotics gave him kind of a - a sixth sense about it. I kept waiting and waiting for him to fall asleep like the others, but he wouldn't. He didn't stop watching me for a second. It got to the point where I didn't care anymore. So he watched as I went into the bathroom. And he waited. Waited until I'd cooked it and filtered it and drawn it into the syringe. Waited until I was just about to take my belt off and ... and inject it ... before he knocked on the door. He said ..." Spencer smiled at the memory. "He said, 'You can quietly open that door right now or I swear to God, this is about to get real ugly, real fast.' So I opened the door and Morgan came into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him so it was just us. And he took the needle out of my hand and told me ... he told me, 'Reid, this isn't what Emily would have wanted for you. Imagine her looking down at you right now. You're hurting her, Reid. You're hurting her and she can't do anything about it. Is that what you want?' And I started crying and he stood next to me while I flushed it, all of it, and he made me promise you that I'd never touch another drug again."

"Little did I know," he added, a tinge of anger entering his voice, "that you weren't looking down on me at all but having your own drug-fueled extravaganza at that very moment. Little did I know that it wouldn't have hurt you in the least if I'd started using again."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Emily sat up, holding the comforter over her bare chest and widening her eyes incredulously. "Of course it would have hurt me! God, Spencer ... I didn't go to Paris on some vacation. I went to hide out from the person who was trying to kill me! Did you know that he had my grave dug up while I was gone and realized that I'd done it again, that I'd faked my death just like I'd faked my death as 'Lauren Reynolds'? Did you know he'd already started searching for me again by the time you found him? Hotch didn't tell you that, did he? And ... do you really think you would have been able to kill Ian Doyle if you were all strung out on heroin? Even if you had, don't you remember what you were like - what we were like - when you were using Dilaudid?"

"But what are we like now, Emily? And, for that matter, what are you like? Who are you, really? Leigh, Lauren Reynolds, Emily Prentiss ... You're so good at pretending to be different people that it makes me wonder ..." His voice trailed off. "It makes me wonder how I can ever trust that it's you here with me and not some persona you've invented. You fooled Ian Doyle, a hardened international terrorist, into thinking you were really in love with him ..."

"That's what this is about?" Emily interrupted, amazed that she hadn't figured it out earlier. "That's what all of this is about? This ... this 'trust' issue? It's not because I faked my death at all, is it? It's because I faked my life."

When Spencer remained silent, Emily instantly knew she was right. "Then let me tell you about how I was able to become Lauren Reynolds. During my time at Interpol, I'd already worked a lot of difficult cases. But when I was assigned to seduce Ian Doyle, I was horrified. So horrified I almost resigned over it. But they convinced me that it was the only way to infiltrate the world of a dangerous, high-profile arms dealer and stop him from killing even more innocent people. So for two months, every single day, I was indoctrinated - brainwashed, really - into becoming Lauren: a demure, submissive, naïve woman who would find Ian Doyle attractive. I'm not at liberty to talk about the techniques they used, but by the time I went undercover, Emily Prentiss was gone and Lauren Reynolds had taken her place ... had taken my place, I mean."

"To the point where you were able to fall in love with him? To enjoy ..." Spencer took in a deep breath and then spat out, disgusted, "to enjoy having sex with him?"

"No. No! Absolutely not," she insisted vehemently. "I fell in love with his son. With Declan. It was the first time in my life I could actually imagine being a mother. So I just reminded myself over and over again that this was the father of the child I'd grown to love. And that made it easier to pretend I was in love with Ian."

Emily lowered her head, her black hair shielding her face. "And as for the sex? He didn't care whether or not I liked it. I didn't even have to fake it. It didn't matter to him. I just had to keep being the innocent doe-eyed ingenue he wanted me to be. Except ..." she swallowed hard, closing her eyes. "Except for this one time, when I disobeyed his wishes and tried to make Declan understand that killing innocent people is wrong, and he decided to ... to punish me. To punish me with sex. He took Viagra and fucked me from behind against the table in his dining room. For hours. With his servants passing in and out of the room, even setting the table for dinner, the very table I was bent over ... like I wasn't even there. And - and after about four hours - I couldn't help it. Four hours of him just hitting that ... spot ... over and over and over again and I reached a point where I couldn't fight against it anymore. My body betrayed me and ... and then he just stopped cold. Pulled out and ... and ... and ..."

Emily began trembling, trying to clench her jaw to silence the sound of her teeth chattering as she relived the humiliation and trauma of that memory.

"Stop, stop. I remember what you told me before. You can stop." Reid was shaken, hearing her description of the sexual sadism she'd endured. He didn't want to hear more. He couldn't.

"So can't you see now ... can't you see how much I trust you?" she questioned, raising her head so he could see the pleading desperation reflected in her long-lashed brown eyes. "And how hard it is to know that you don't trust me in the same way?"

Unsure of how to respond, Spencer kissed her. But when he opened his mouth against hers and cradled the back of her head in his palm, she pushed him away. Forcefully.

"Ow," he whined, rubbing his shoulder.

"... and that's another thing, Spencer," Emily continued. "On Friday night, you literally ran out of my apartment because I kissed you. This morning, you accused me of using you. This afternoon, you kissed me in the airplane bathroom like nothing had happened and then you went down on me. And when I woke up, you were holding me. Holding me! But you still won't let me touch you. Was this really a 'reward' for flushing those drugs down the toilet? I mean, did you let Morgan give you a blowjob and hold you all the way back to Quantico when he made you flush that heroin?"

"Funny," Spencer intoned, in a voice that indicated he found her tirade to be anything but. "Emily, you view sex ... differently than I do. You've used people for sex - and not only Doyle but all those people in Paris, too. It doesn't matter as much to you. It matters to me."

"So spending an hour exploring my body and then eating me out ... That meant nothing to you," she stated flatly. "Because most women find that to be more intimate than actual sex."

"I - I don't know what to say, Emily. We're landing soon and I don't know how to explain it to you."

"Would you have done the same thing with Lila Archer, if she'd let you?" Emily challenged.

Spencer thought about it, trying to picture his younger self in the pool that night and imagining what might have happened if he hadn't stopped when he did. "Yeah, I probably would have."

Emily let out a harsh, cruel laugh. "Well, I guess that's another difference between me and Lila. Because she never would have let you go down on her, not in a million years. And yet I'm the actress. I'm the slut."

The pilot's voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing their final descent into Paris, where it was about 7:00 pm, instructing the crew and passengers to prepare for landing. Emily stood up on shaky legs and got dressed, ignoring Spencer's reverent stare as she put on her black underwear and bra, tossing her red panties at him. "Keep these," she said sarcastically. "Morgan's going to want proof."

"I -" Spencer squeaked.

Emily finished dressing and curled her body against the side of the bed, keeping her body as far away from Spencer's as physically possible. "And just so you know? I had sex with those guys and girls in Paris to remind me of you. Of how I imagined it would be different with you, how you would be gentle and caring with me, how you wouldn't ever make me feel like I'd been used after it was over."

She held her legs tightly against her chest and, teardrops falling onto the pillow beneath her, muttered, "I guess I was wrong about that, though, wasn't I?"

Instinctively, he reached over to stroke the black sweater covering her arms, pleading, "Emily, I -"

"Reid, I want you to take your hand off me immediately," she growled. "And I want you to shut up. Just shut the fuck up."

So, with the uneasy realization that he had absolutely no idea how to fix this, he did.