Chapter Eight: Depersonalization Disorder

Thanks to my beta, Greeneyedconstellations!

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Depersonalization disorder (DPD), also known as depersonalization-derealization syndrome, is a mental disorder in which people have persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalization and/or derealization. Depersonalization is described as feeling disconnected or estranged from one's body, thoughts, or emotions.

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The grave near hers was old, faded, and covered in a spray of wild lilac.

The smell was inescapable.

He was one of six who bore her coffin, but it weighed solely on his shoulders.

He felt nothing.

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Reid felt nothing, so it fell to him to support those who weren't as broken as he was. Emily would have wanted that. She would have wanted him to be there for her friends, her family, for those she couldn't anymore.

He did a lot of thinking about what she would have wanted now.

She was three days in the ground, and he wasn't yet sure how to miss her.

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They'd let him say goodbye.

He'd followed the doctor down endless corridors, the only real sound the click of his cane and the tap of their shoes. The world had blurred into cream corridors and faceless nurses and elevators that didn't presume to inflict cheerful music onto those on the precipice of losing everything.

He'd followed the doctor into the morgue. He'd examined the body carefully, just to be sure. Just like he would have four years ago, before this, before her.

Body is a Caucasian female, early forties, he'd imagined saying, turning confidently to Morgan or maybe Rossi. Athletic. Physically healthy. She kept in shape.

If it had been JJ there: she was a rune mage. I'd estimate second or first circle, judging by the skill level shown by her pattern complexes. She's loved – see the rune on her arm? There's a name in it. She loved someone enough to tie them to her.

Hotch?

The victim was beaten severely. The fatal blow was caused by a penetrating injury to the abdomen. The aggressor showed signs of having tortured her before killing her. Obsessive. Aggressive. Sadistic. Overkill. Extreme overkill usually implies a personal relationship.

The rune on her hip was gone. His was too, which was unfair, because he'd never needed to be labelled 'only a half' more than in that moment. She'd banished their runes along with him.

In that moment, he'd been alone, so instead of saying any of this or anything else, he kissed her one final time and walked away.

Her lips had been cold.

"Spence?" JJ asked now, touching his hand. People moved around them, dressed in black. Mourning. Again. Reid hummed, and wondered if Rossi minded that his house was being used to say goodbye to her. "Are you okay?"

He looked at her. Blinked. Her eyes were red, her skin stark against the black of her dress. Henry clung to her knees, eyes wide and locked on Reid's face. Reid smiled at him.

"Her lips were cold," he said bizarrely—it seemed important she know—and then he walked away.

It was a failure, that moment. Emily would have wanted him to be there for her friends.

Never mind. He'd try again.

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"Is there enough food?" Reid asked Rossi when he found him standing on his back porch, chewing on the end of an unlit cigar and looking shattered. Rossi stared.

"What," he said flatly, and narrowed his eyes. Reid smiled. Carefully.

He couldn't help them if he worried them.

"Food," Reid replied. "I know this was all last minute, having the repast here. Is there anything else you need? It'll only take me a minute to pick something up if you're running low."

Eris billowed upward until she was at head height and reached a tentative tendril of herself to brush his cheek. "No fever," she said, and tilted her shapeless head. "Are you drunk?"

"No?" He wasn't drunk. He was helping.

A hand on his arm, and Rossi waved the shadow-ghast away. "Spencer," he said slowly. "Come sit down. Come on."

Didn't he understand that Reid was being useful?

Try again, idiot, he could imagine Emily saying, so he smiled again, wrapped the air around him to hide him from view, and slipped away.

He didn't look back because Rossi looked old and tired, standing alone, and if he could remember how to be sad, that would have been the final thing that broke him.

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He fetched drinks. He smiled a lot. He made sure people were seated, were chatting, were at ease in the unfamiliar house that was ornamented with Rossi's tasteful decor and JJ's delicate decorations to celebrate the lives that had been lived.

People smiled back and said how sorry they were, how terrible it was, and when he walked away they whispered he's taking it well. He looks just fine. How long were they together?

They were right. He was fine.

Morgan was sitting in the living room with his face closed off and expression frightening. People gave him a wide berth. Reid didn't.

"It's not your fault," he said simply, and perched on the armchair, avoiding eye-contact.

Morgan grunted.

"You're depressed about Prentiss. I get it, Morgan. We all are."

Morgan jolted then. A reaction. Good. If he didn't react, Reid couldn't help him. "I'm not depressed," he snapped, glancing up. "I'm fucking angry, Reid, this sonofabitch is still… what?"

What?

"It's okay to be angry," Reid tried, because he wasn't sure where Morgan was taking this conversation now. He snuck a look at him, and found that his friend was staring at him and the anger was gone. Only concern remained.

Another failure.

"Spencer," Morgan said, and touched his knee. Reid flinched. His knee still ached from slamming into the ground the week before, a bone-deep kind of throbbing that would fade only with time. "You just called her Prentiss. Talk to me man. Don't do this."

"I'm not doing anything. I'm just—"

"Disassociating." Morgan stood now. It was disconcerting to have the man looming over him, so Reid stood too, and considered retreating. "You're disassociating. Don't do that again. Not again. She wouldn't have wanted that."

"I'm fine," Reid said, and vanished again.

Maybe helping wasn't the right approach.

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Alone was almost a relief now.

He leaned his back against the knobbly old oak in Rossi's front garden, hidden by the growing shadows, and watched as people slowly began to leave. People he knew, people he didn't. All gathered to remember someone who couldn't be forgotten.

He closed his eyes then because they stung. If he thought too much about it, the nothing became something hard and sunk deep in his chest. He knew if he poked at it, it would prove to be fatal.

"Emily used to hide," said a voice, and Reid froze. Tried to slink back, fold the air around him, become unimportant, but the voice laughed sadly and the grass whispered as the owner of that voice settled next to him. Dew coated the lawn around them, glinting in the solar lights scattered throughout the garden, but the newcomer didn't seem to care that her expensive shoes were now muddy or that her dress showed patches of damp as she made herself comfortable. "Don't do that, Dr. Reid. I may not be a fan of magic, but I am familiar with it. And that particular little trick only works if I let it."

Reid was silent.

Elizabeth Prentiss picked at a blade of grass, thoughtful. She smelt of rich perfume, the faintest hint of scotch, of grief. Her nose was red, her lips chapped under their rough coat of lipstick. She mourned.

"Emily was a difficult child," she said finally. Reid didn't understand why she was telling him this. "She was headstrong, determined. Absolutely sure she was going to get her own way in the end, and if you tried to stop her… well. She had the most aggravating face. It was angry and cocky and pouting all at once, and she perfected it. Used to drive her father mad, before he died. He could never say no. And I could say nothing but."

"I don't…" Reid began, but she flapped a hand at him, a quietening motion.

"She used to pick the most dreadful fights with me. Deliberately. I think she lived to make me cross. And then as soon as she could, she was out the door, off to college, and I thought 'oh good – now she'll learn that life isn't about having fun or getting what you want.' And you know what?"

"What?" His voice croaked. The heavy lump shifted, moved to his heart and his throat and he almost coughed around it. Elizabeth shifted, crossing her legs, almost ungainly. Emily could be ungainly, sometimes, if she didn't think anyone who would judge her was looking.

Emily would have looked like Elizabeth, had she been given the chance.

He gasped at that.

"I was wrong. She didn't learn a thing at college that I thought she would. Except perhaps how to 'shotgun' a beer. She'd learned it all already. How to be independent. How to get what she wanted. How to live. She came home, so pleased that she'd outwitted me, so alive. And I had to scold, to fuss, because it was what she expected. I regret that. I played the overbearing mother because I could tell I was her driving force. And I never told her how much I envied her. How proud I was of her. How I bragged of my clever, clever daughter to anyone who would listen."

Reid looked down. Closed his eyes. Bit his lip.

He needed her to stop.

But he couldn't ask her to.

"And now she's gone. I never told her, and now I never will. So, I'm telling you."

"Why?" He choked it out. The lump was tearing something inside him open. He almost unbuttoned his suit jacket, undid his tie, pulled his shirt down to see if he was bleeding. He must have been. Nothing that wasn't fatal could hurt this much.

"Because she loved you. She chose you, and she loved you more than she's ever loved anything, except perhaps Sergio. And I worry sometimes, that under it all, she's more like me than either of us would ever have admitted. I worry that maybe she never told you that."

He tried to breathe and it shuddered. Tried to speak and choked on it. A hand touched his arm, his shoulder, rubbed his back gently.

"She wouldn't have wanted—" he started, and Elizabeth shook her head.

"Bother what she wanted, she's dead," she said, harshly, and now he felt something. "She's not here. You are. And I bet you can't think for hurting right now. You have to grieve, or else this won't ever let you go. You'll just waste away with regrets." Like me, her eyes said, and there was nothing he could say to help that. "Oh, hello. Who are you?"

It took a beat for him to realize she wasn't talking to him still, that they weren't alone anymore.

"Unk 'Spence?" Henry whispered, his voice young and sad and scared. "Did you fall?"

It was the hardest thing in the world, but he looked his godson in the eye and smiled. Tried to smile. The smile slipped.

Henry wouldn't remember her.

He began to cry and couldn't stop. Not even when little arms slipped around his neck as his godson crawled into his lap; not even when he pulled Henry close against him and clung to him like his heart was breaking, pressing his face into the sweet-soft scent of the blonde curls; not even when tears failed him and all he could do was gulp for air around the pain that still fought to tear him apart.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Henry sobbed too, hugging him back. "Please don't cry."

But he couldn't stop, because nothing had ever hurt like missing her.

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Her apartment was noisy.

His team were family, and family, he was finding, was synonymous with frustrating, aggravating, stubborn, resistant to pleading, and decidedly determined to never let him be alone.

Especially not with this.

"You don't need to be here," Hotch said firmly, dropping another armful of empty cardboard boxes onto the tiled floor of her kitchen. It was a lie. Reid did need to be here. This was some kind of closure.

"We're here if you need us," Garcia whispered, and kissed him with lips that left a sticky trace of chap-stick on his chin. "Oh, baby, you're all scratchy. You have to look after yourself!" But she smiled through her tears and traced her fingers over his stubbly jawline anyway.

Rossi packed Sergio's room. JJ her clothes. Reid wouldn't know what to do with either of them. Hotch took the kitchen. Reid ended up in her office, surrounded by her paperwork and books and life and parts of his own as well. They'd encroached on each other, in the years they'd been together, their lives slowly forming one life until he wasn't entirely sure how to be alone anymore.

He'd been alone and then Foyet had taken that from him. In the rebuilding of himself, he'd forgotten how lonely it could be.

There was a picture of the team tucked into the join of her desk. All of them, before Foyet, as Morgan grinned over a cake Garcia had presented him for his birthday. Reid studied Emily, studied himself. He was flushed, looking down, and their shoulders were pressed together. They weren't together in that picture, not yet. Not far off though. He knew that a week later, he'd visit her home with take-away and DVDs and spend hours on her fire escape. He knew that picture was a week away from their beginning.

He was looking at their beginning while standing at the end of them.

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Life kept insisting on moving forward, even without her.

He got home from clearing her apartment, dusty and heartsore and still with only half of it done—it had taken longer than they'd expected, to pack away their lives—and his laptop stood accusingly on the table, the light on his answering machine blinked as steadily as it had since she'd died, and there was a growing pile of unanswered mail jumbled on the cupboard near the door.

He sighed, and did exactly as everyone kept expecting him to. Moved forward.

Hi Dr. Reid, it's Katie. Just calling to see if you wanted to reschedule your appointment. This is the fourth in a row you've missed and I'm concerned. Call me back at your earliest convenience. Thank you. Say hi to Emily for me!...

... My name is Beau Carrick. Could you please contact my office at...

our sincerest sympathies for your loss, and we want to let you know to take all the time you need. The semester finishes up soon so we'll schedule you tentatively in for next semester pending…

Margo Harold from Mattress Emporium just letting you know that your delivery will arrive on Monday and just to double check the address…

His emails were just as insistent. Oddly, he still had emails from students blinking in his inbox, despite them all having been alerted to the events behind his leave-taking.

He clicked on them curiously.

Re: consolations – dear dr. reid. We all heard about your loss and wanted to express …

Re: sorry – Dr. Reid, Sorry to hear about your girlfriend. Your lectures are some of th…

Re: Opportunity – Dr. Reid. My name is Beau Carrick. I wish to discuss a job offer wh…

Re: aww look it you – saw this and thought of you ;) love, Oracle of al…

The laptop clicked as he shut it and slumped into the lid, burying his face in his arms.

He had to keep moving forward because he knew the cost of going backwards, but moving towards what?

Doyle. Doyle was still out there. They still had to stop him. He still had to stop him.

She deserved that much.

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His apartment was silent.

Shadows played on the walls. He paced through it and considered all he'd lost.

Memories were scattered through the rooms like broken glass. Just when he thought he'd gotten clear of the last shards, he'd step into the office and her novelty pen would be lying on his desk. Another slice. In the kitchen, a packet of blueberry muffins, half-empty in the freezer. He hated blueberries. She'd loved them. Another shard.

The moss. Something she'd hated.

He lasted three days after her funeral before he threw out the moss. It felt… cleansing. The whole time, as he lugged the terrariums downstairs to the dumpsters outside, the smell of them was thick in his nostrils, cloying. He felt no fear. No horror.

What more could be done to him now?

It felt cleansing, so he kept going. Books she'd brought him. He boxed them up tightly and revelled in the tearing sound the tape made as he closed those memories away where they couldn't cut him anymore. Photos, not that there were many, joined the books. He cleared his cupboard, his fridge. Anything she liked he packed away in bags, ready to give to the neighbour when he saw her next. His shelves looked empty, horribly empty, so he went shopping for cans and cans of non-perishables and restocked them, all things he enjoyed. It was probably the most adult he'd ever been, and he was only doing it to stop from bleeding.

Rustling distracted him from sorting through his paperwork, finding bills and letters with notes in her cheerful handwriting proclaiming Spence, don't forget this one again, I'm sick of you getting the gas switched off.

Sergio's tree. The glossy leaves shifted gently in the crisp breeze through the open window, the barest hint of buds on the tips of the thin branches. It would flower soon.

Emily had wanted to plant it before it flowered. She hadn't chosen where though. Hadn't had time.

Reid put the paperwork aside and, once again, found himself considering what she would have wanted.

Then he stopped. Because Elizabeth was right. She was gone. She didn't want anything anymore. She couldn't.

But he could.

He picked up the tree and left.

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His magic was dark and the weave on the tree was light, so he couldn't do this alone. Which was maybe best. Maybe he was on the brink of breaking, but the others missed her just as keenly as he did.

Morgan got there first. It was almost as though the man had been hovering over his phone, waiting for a message. Reid had been ignoring his phone, the envelope symbol on the top bar with a demanding 9+ next to it. The world was easier to shut out when she wasn't there to remind him he shouldn't.

JJ was next. She saw what he was holding and her face softened, her bottom lip crinkling as she sucked on it, searching for words. He didn't speak, and she didn't either, eventually. This wasn't a time for words.

Hotch arrived next and he wasn't silent. He walked straight over to where Reid kneeled, spade in hand, and crouched alongside him. "She would have liked this," he said, and laid his hand on Reid's arm. His palm was warm and steady through Reid's sleeve, and it was comforting. Supporting. Reid took a breath and it became easier, just a little.

Garcia came with Rossi, late, because Hotch had called them and let them know what was happening. Garcia had an armful of wildflowers, because "They were pretty and she was pretty and you know, a little wild, and I just saw them and thought of her and I thought you might like it and… oh, I miss her, Spencer, I miss her so much."

He did too.

Rossi brought a wooden plaque. It was rough, untreated pine with the inscription in black ink in Rossi's flamboyant handwriting. When he handed it to Reid with a careless shrug, the surface dragged scratchily against Reid's fingertips.

"It's a placeholder," Rossi explained, and grunted as he lowered himself to his knees on the damp earth and studied the weave still visible in the hole Reid had carefully seated the sapling in. "I ordered a brass one. Gonna take a bit to get engraved. Figured we could use this for now."

JJ pressed her hand against the spellwork on the tree, and Reid watched as it slowly began to unwind. The tree hummed, branches shifting, and the ground roiled slightly as roots began to twist, to move, to find their way into the soil below as it claimed its home. Rossi stood, and stepped back, leaving space for the trunk to widen exponentially as the spell that had restricted the tree's growth turned instead into a spell to give it the energy it needed.

When it was done, the tree stood to Reid's shoulders in height, half as wide as him, and crowned with a thick top of dark green leaves and lighter buds that hinted to pink.

He gripped the wooden placard with hands that shook, and Hotch bumped their shoulders together once in the silence that followed. "This was a good choice," he murmured, and the others nodded along. "She would have treasured this."

Reid nodded, the lump returning to settle uncomfortably in his chest once more, and bent to prop Rossi's gift against the truck of the tree. JJ moved slightly, her fingers twisting, and ice clear as glass coated the wood, sinking into the ground, holding it in place. Protecting it. "It will stay until you replace it with the new one," she told them, and looked away, blinking rapidly.

Reid said nothing, just examined it and the tree and considered that, so soon after losing her oldest friend, they were together again.

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Here rests two friends:

SERGIO (May 3, 1986 – Feb 27, 2011)

The best and most illustrious of cats

and

EMILY PRENTISS (Oct 12, 1970 – March 7, 2011)

The mage who loved him, and was in turn beloved by others

'Nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur'

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It took almost a month after her death before he had to give in.

JJ was a constant presence in his life, as though she was trying to make up for some perceived hurt that she'd caused him. When she could spare the time, she cooked him meals that he guiltily accepted, despite not wanting to put her out. When she was in the field, she still took the time to occasionally message him and ask how he was. He replied to every one because there was something here he was missing, and it was easier to ignore his pain when he was focused on someone else's.

She kept up a constant litany of his health, which was odd, but perhaps somehow… comforting to herself? Until her thankful You're looking less tired (he was sleeping better, which both relieved and sickened him. Doyle hadn't returned to his nightmares, despite him having so much more to taunt him with now) turned to a suspicious You've lost a little weight turned to Maybe you should see a doctor?

It only took three and a half weeks to hit that last point, and Reid hummed and ahhed and avoided the subject. He was fine. Hotch was distant, but JJ was a constant source of love, and that was plenty. He was fine.

Ish. The rune on his hip was gone, the first time in his life he'd been without it, and somehow he couldn't celebrate that. At night he dwelt on the empty space in his mind, and every morning when he woke he automatically reached for her and found her gone. Sometimes, he imagined a whisper of her, a laugh, the smell of her perfume, but it always fled before he woke completely. The headaches were a memory, Doyle had fled the country, the pills in his bathroom cabinet were unnecessary.

Tempting. But unnecessary.

He wasn't okay, not by a long shot, but he could see how he could be. Eventually. One day.

But he was hungry and that wouldn't fade.

It was constant. He wanted. He couldn't.

But he had to.

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The club was loud, the beat discordant, and within seconds of stepping onto the sticky-slick floor next to the bar, he regretted his choice. He was twenty-nine and felt every bit his age as people seven years his younger glanced oddly at him and his cane and abnormal clothes, and moved away.

He ordered a drink and downed it quickly. Ordered another. One more after that. He rarely drank to excess, but tonight he needed it. Liquid courage, Morgan had joked once, before Emily, back when he'd tried to set Reid up with every pretty girl who looked even remotely single. His phone sat silent in his pocket, and Reid considered texting his friend. Maybe he was off this weekend. Maybe this disaster could be turned into some kind of male bonding ritual.

Someone sat next to him and leaned over, dark hair curtaining forward. Reid's fingers slipped on the glass as shock thundered through him, sending it clattering to the bar, single-malt spilling over the bar-top, down the side, pooling wetly in his lap. Over the whiskey and the scent of sweat, he could detect her perfume, and the world spun. He surged up, knocking his cane over, patting at his pants to try to flick the liquid off of them, and looking anywhere but at her.

"You alright?" she said, turning and looking at him with blue eyes. Blue. Not brown. He laughed helplessly, a bark of a sound, and shrugged.

"This was a mistake," he said, dropping an extra fifty on the bar to cover the mess and the fuss, and stooping to collect his cane before bolting for the door. "I'm sorry."

The exit to the bar spilled drunks into the street, and he weaved through them shakily and limp/staggered his way down the alley beside the club, cutting through to the bus stop he knew was there. Or he could call Rossi. Or Morgan. Or take a cab. Or just… stop.

He stopped. Stopped in that dirty alleyway, his head spinning and body protesting his retreat from so many possible sources of something that he needed, but all he could focus on was the moment the woman had sat next to him and his heart had leapt with a giddy kind of wonder because, just for that second, he'd believed it was Emily.

He thought it was her and it never would be.

"Hey."

Fuck.

He turned, reluctantly, and the woman from the bar studied him. He flexed his wings cautiously. Another option: flight. Drunken flight wasn't recommended but… what was the worst that could happen?

His brain supplied the answer to that in seconds and he tightened them quickly. Maybe not.

"I'm fine," he said, and enunciated each word carefully. "Sorry. Not my kind of place. Thank you for your concern."

"You don't look fine," the woman said, and folded her arms. "I know you."

His heart galloped once and then faltered. Mouth dry, he couldn't answer.

"Dr. Reid. You teach graduate students at UDC."

Tha-thunk. A bus whizzed by the other end of the alley, rattling the windows on either side of them. Someone whooped down the other end, the club end, trailing off into helpless laughter.

"I'd ask why you're here at this kinda place but…" She trailed off, and stepped closer. Closer again. Close enough that he could scent the alcohol on her breath. Close enough to note the glitter on her eyelashes, the curve of her collarbone. Despite her blue eyes, her smile was a shade of cocky he'd only ever seen on one other woman. "I also know what you are. And who you've lost."

"I'm drunk," Reid murmured, but didn't step away. "And leaving. I'm—"

"An incubus."

He stared at her and the world around them swayed. Another step forward and her hand brushed his arm, fingers on his skin, nails.

Heat. Hunger. He felt his eyes shutter, once, leaning almost unconsciously into that touch.

Wait.

"You know about…" He took a breath as she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. Too close. "You're a student."

This close to him, especially when he wanted her closer still, she was gone. The blue of her irises was almost obscured by her blown pupils as she reacted to what he was, the unconscious attraction of his kind to hers. She might have approached him first, but he needed to be the one to stop this. She couldn't. Wouldn't.

Arms around his waist, his back, drawing him forward. Heat from his hips to his chest as she pressed against him, rising on her toes to reach his—

Lips on his, tasting, a flicker of pressure against his mouth. As soon as their lips touched, he could taste her emotions, his powers granting him that: arousal, some small guilt, pleasure at being alive and young and healthy. Hands around her, the dark need in his belly sending a rush of disorientating warmth flooding his body. He groaned, slightly, felt her tongue skim against his teeth.

"No," he whispered into that mouth, and turned his head away, groggy and sad and shaken.

"It's okay," she replied, and cupped his cheek in her hand. A painfully affectionate gesture. His heart twisted. "You need something. My car is nearby."

He should have said no.

He didn't.

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There were many things Reid was ashamed of. Things he regretted.

This night was one of them.

He slunk home the next morning, sated and sunk in his disgrace. Turned the shower hot enough to scald and threw his clothes in the hamper, scrubbing every trace of her from his body. He could barely bite back the revulsion at himself, at his moment of supreme weakness.

He'd taken something natural, the intellectual attraction of a student for their teacher, and he'd perverted it. It was a betrayal of everything he professed to be. If it was discovered, his career would survive. Disgustingly. He was male, older, successful in his field. Hers would not. He'd have to resign. There was no other option. What he'd done… it was unforgivable.

Worse.

It was wonderful.

For three, fantastic, lingering hours, he hadn't felt sad. He hadn't felt like he was missing some integral part of himself. He hadn't felt hungry.

There had just been him and her and nothing else. No emotion except what she felt, no connection except a primal want, just sex. Easy. Empty.

He hated himself for that.

Someone knocked on his door as he was dressing, damp hair still leaving dark splatters on his purple shirt as he buttoned it hastily and scrambled for the spellwork, wings partially flared so they could dry. He almost tripped twice over boxes of Emily's belongings still sealed and shoved against the walls of his living room before reaching the door and yanking it open. "Yes, yes, hello?"

"Dr. Reid," the man on the other side said, and Reid didn't need to be a profiler to instantly mistrust him. The badge that flickered up two seconds later, the slight gleam of the credentials on the man's palm obscured by the leather, answered that. "Special Agent Beau Carrick. We've been trying, unsuccessfully, to reach you for quite some time."

Reid gripped the door with one hand, and rested the other on the wall next to him, almost casual. Almost calm. Almost like his hand wasn't one tapping pattern away from activating the explosively defensive spellwork Emily had installed. "Why is the CIA trying to contact me?" he asked, quietly. Not letting any of the stark fear he was fighting show on his face.

The man smiled, a shark smile, and flipped his badge shut. Receding hairline, Reid thought cruelly, and didn't smile back.

"We have an offer for you," the man said, and glanced around the hall. "May I come in?"

"No."

"Oh?" Carrick's eyebrow lifted, an expression so much like Hotch that Reid almost relented. Almost.

"I'm sorry," Reid said, politely, and stepped back to close the door on him. "I have no interest in employment with the CIA—"

"You haven't even asked what we're offering—"

Reid shook his head, adamant. There was no way in hell he was going near this offer with a ten-foot pole. If the CIA was knocking on his door, they wanted him. If they wanted him, it was because he had something they needed. And the only thing he had that no one else did… well, geniuses with eidetic memories were still far easier to find than incubi with the kind of power he wielded. "There's nothing the CIA can propose that I have the slightest bit of interest in. Thank you for your time. Good day." He closed the door, but not quick enough to shut out Carrick's last soft words.

"Not even Emily Prentiss?"

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AN: 'Nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur' = No one lives except by friendship