oOWhole AgainOo
Chapter Ten
Lauren
I strode across the yard with deliberate pace. The grass was a rich green and there was not a single cloud to keep the sun from shining down warmly. I couldn't understand any of it.
Emily Prentiss was dead. Despite our best efforts. We'd even saved her and then she didn't make it off the surgery table.
If I'd just been faster. There was something fishy about Doyle killing the little boy right away. I'd known that; felt that. But I was too sidetracked by trying to understand that the woman I'd gotten to know and like wasn't at all what she appeared to be. That she would start a relationship with a criminal. That she wouldn't tell her team, the ones she knew for five years and trusted, that she was – and they were – in danger.
But I understood her motivations, I couldn't deny that most of the things she did, I would have done. She was trying to get ahead of Doyle, she'd been his type. It was an assignment. And she probably wanted to keep us all out of harms way. I got that, too.
I shook my head with absolute resign. I could understand the things she did but I didn't understand why she had to die. I wanted to talk to her, wanted to tell her that I looked up to her, thank her for being so nice to me, for being a role-model. I wanted to scream because it was so unfair. She was a good person, a great agent. And now she was just gone.
The grave stones stood up straight, gray and silent witnesses to millions of people like me who were trying to make sense of senseless things.
Suddenly rough hands closed around mine and I blinked past the sunlight into Rossi's kind eyes.
"I should've known about the kid", I said, "We'd have found her before it was too late"
"You did all you could", Rossi said and held my gaze steadily, "This is not your fault"
I nodded but I didn't feel a lot better. From the corner of my eye I could see Reid and JJ, deep in conversation.
Something in my chest flared up painfully and I clenched my jaw for reasons I didn't fully understand.
We hadn't talked since JJ came to the waiting room in the hospital to tell us that Emily didn't make it. I could see that he was shook, as far as I'd known they were much like brother and sister and the loss of her must've weighed on him maybe even harder than on Penelope.
I wanted to help him and I wanted to be able to go to him to share this pain. But he'd went on to deal with all of it alone. And as much as I wanted, I knew I couldn't just walk up to him and demand that he and I talked about it and that, as friends, I felt like we ought to deal with it together.
But obviously he didn't function like that. He turned to JJ.
Which was fine. He knew her longer, they were great friends, she was helpful, she'd known Emily as long as him. She was able to give him some sort of relief.
Something spiteful inside of me just wondered who I was going to turn to. Rossi was of course the one who talked me through it mostly but there were certain things I didn't want to talk to him about, a certain portion of emotions no one but Reid would understand.
Probably the grief and sleep-deprivation of the last couple of days had me pretty brittle but maybe, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on evaluating that possibility, I was just downright jealous.
We drove two miles to a restaurant surrounded by a lot of green and it was so warm that we could have sat outside. It was surreal. The world wasn't supposed to turn as usual. The sky should be gray, it should be freezing and raining. But the weather didn't care about its grieving-obligations. The sun shone like nothing mattered.
The food was exquisite but I couldn't eat, I had no appetite whatsoever. We were sitting at a round table, saying nothing, I guess no one could think of anything to say that wouldn't sound cold and flat. I finally stood up and excused myself to get some air.
Out in the yard was an oak tree with a tire-swing and I made my way toward it, sitting down and swaying absent-mindedly.
I had closed my eyes for a while when someone stepped into my sunlight and I blinked to find Reid towering over me.
We looked at each other, lips pursed and I let out a sharp breath and shrugged.
"This can't be real", I said and looked up to him.
"Is this seat free?", he asked me, ignoring that I had even said something and pointed to the other side of the tire.
He sat down, his back against mine after I'd nodded.
"I don't even know how to feel", he finally said and I could feel his back widen as he took a deep breath against me.
"Me neither", I said quietly, "It's not fair"
Tentatively, I let my arm fall into the whole of the tire and soon touched his elbow. He reacted faster than I would have anticipated, letting his arm fall next to mine and taking my hand in one swift movement.
This way, we just sat and I realized that all the things I wanted to say to him didn't necessarily need speaking out loud. He knew what I felt and I knew how lost he really was. It was hard to say it all, maybe even impossible to put it into words, so we didn't.
We just sat on a tire swing in an oak tree, holding hands. There was nothing else we could have done or said to make us feel any better.
Thanks all the wonderful (and awesomely amazing) people who reviewed, you guys rock!
Also, I've decided to go on with my plan of ultimately getting these two together (I know I want it, do you want it?) and I will stick to my drift of going with the episodes but if at points the show doesn't go the way that works with this story, I will ignore the show.
Many of you have encouraged me to take this step and I'm happy for this, I'm glad that you will stick around even if this gets AU along the way.
So, thanks massive for that!
Let me know what you think!
I hope I gave Seaver the right amount of grief, myself, I'm kind of in shreds over Paget leaving because she is so uber awesome, it almost hurts but Ashley didn't know her so well but still liked her and so on and so forth...
PS: I know it's another short-ish chapter and they'll get bigger again, just...you know. Now it's short and simple and I got everything in there I wanted to be in there. Does this make sense?
Well, well, enough with the rambling. You know the drill.
Review if you're superawesomelygreatandamazing.