Author's note: Hello. Criminal Minds is still not mine. Thank you to everybody who's reading :) This is my first fanfic & it's really cool to have people reading & reviewing. I'm excited to keep writing, so thanks :)

Half way through the third movie of the night, JJ waited for a loud scene, turned to Emily and said, "Hey, thanks for doing this."

"No problem," Emily replied. "It's good to have everybody here." Which was true. She'd started to get a bit apprehensive about it before they got here. She liked her privacy and kept her home pretty much to herself, but all those months living an empty life, with not even the option of having friends over had turned her around on the subject, at least for now. She looked around the room and couldn't help but smile. They looked like a family right now – Morgan and Garcia on one sofa, the popcorn bowl balanced between their legs, bickering playfully about the artistic value of the car chase, and herself, JJ and Reid on the other, all with shoes kicked off and starting to slouch. Reid watched the chase with a look of intense concentration, and she wondered vaguely what he was trying to figure out, but knew better than to ask. She smiled at JJ, who was looking at her a little nervously. "You okay?" she whispered.

JJ nodded with a slight smile and turned back to the film.

Reid started, broken out of his attempts to figure out whether what had just happened was possible within the laws of physics, when he felt JJ's head rest on his shoulder. She must have felt his jolt. "Is this okay?" she asked. "I'm getting sleepy."

"Of course," he said. She was still being careful around him, still asking for permission and approval for things she'd normally take for granted. He couldn't decide whether or not it was necessary, which he took to mean that it probably still was. Although they were patching things up, their relationship was nothing like it had been before, and he still wasn't sure he'd ever trust her like that again. But her body leaning into his as they watched a movie felt okay. Even kind of nice. He tilted his head sideways, resting it on top of hers. He thought he felt her smile.

Once they had all fallen asleep on each other and woken up to the sound of the menu screen looping obnoxiously, everyone started to say their goodbyes and exchange hugs and leave. Emily hugged them all hard, feeling profoundly grateful to have them in her life. After everyone else had left, Reid hung back, and Emily knew it was intentional. She watched him linger, putting things into his bag and taking them back out, rearranging again and again, and she wasn't sure what to do. Eventually, she said, "Reid." He froze and turned around guiltily and she smiled. "I'm glad you came," she said.

"Me too," he replied, smiling back a little nervously.

She nodded, then waited. He was obviously waiting to say something, and as much as she wanted to apologise to him, she knew he wouldn't have hung back for that. She had to let him speak first.

He stared back for a few moments then smiled self-consciously and sat back down. She followed his lead, sitting beside him. "Emily…" He glanced at her then looked away again immediately. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course," Emily said, angling her body toward him, so that he could see she was paying attention even if he couldn't look at her. She touched his arm lightly then dropped her hands into her lap. "Anything."

"After your um..." He heard his voice shake and stopped, took a deep breath and started again, staring at his corduroy-covered knees. "After your funeral, I went home on my own, and... I don't know, I just wanted to forget. It hurt so bad and I couldn't imagine it ever stopping, you know? You were the only one I'd told about my... My headaches and... And then one just hit me, and it hurt so bad, and missing you hurt, and... I felt so alone, and the pain was totally overwhelming, and I couldn't stop seeing... It doesn't matter what, but the point is there were these images in my head I couldn't get rid of and that terrifies me…" He glanced up at her through his eyelashes, saw that her eyes were shining and she was biting her lip, and looked straight back down. "I'm sorry," he said. She squeezed his arm and he leaned into her touch a little. "I was so close to taking dilaudid, Emily. This close. I knew it would make me forget and I didn't want to forget you, but I wanted to forget how much it hurt, and… That's why... Well, that's one of the reasons I was so... Um... Why I took it so badly when you came back. I felt so scared and alone when you left that I nearly went back there, I could have lost everything, and then you were just..."

"Reid?"

"Yeah?"

"Just..." Emily pulled him toward her, wrapped her arms tightly around him and held him as close and as hard as she could. He submitted gratefully to the hug, holding her just as tight. "I'm really, really sorry," she said. He nodded as he hugged her back. "I'm sorry I did that to you. I'm sorry I left you." She wanted to say you weren't alone. She wanted to tell him the team had been right there for him, but considering the things she had done because she felt alone and hopeless... She settled for present tense. "You're not alone, okay? I'm right here now. And I'm not going anywhere."

"Is that true?" Reid whispered, his body starting to tighten with the effort to keep his voice steady.

"I promise," she whispered back, rubbing his back to let him know he could relax if he wanted to.

He nodded. "It still feels different."

"I know," she said. "It feels different for me too. I think we're all different…" She rested her head on his shoulder as his hands wrapped all the way around her.

"What if it's never the same?" he said quietly. "What if it never gets easier…"

She didn't have an answer for that. She squeezed her eyes shut then sat back and looked at him steadily. She hoped he'd learn to trust her again. But she had to earn it, and just being an ear for his worries wasn't good enough. When Reid had told her about his headaches, he'd asked her what was going on with her because he'd noticed she was picking her fingernails. She hadn't told him, even though he had just told her his biggest secret. Morgan had promised her that no matter how bad she thought it was, she wasn't alone and they could help her, and she had brushed him off. She'd kept it to herself because she thought if she handled it herself then her team didn't have to be in danger, but she had been wrong. They'd never leave her alone with something like that. She had learnt her lesson. She had to learn to trust people. She had to share. Reid deserved that. "Can I tell you… What I'm afraid of?" she said, after a long pause.

"Of course," Reid said. "Always."

"What if…" She exhaled hard, trying to convince herself it made sense to say this out loud. She hoped it didn't sound crazy. "What if Emily Prentiss really did die?" she said, almost aggressively. "I spent seven months as somebody else, somebody with… No friends and no life… I was just hiding and surviving. And then I came home, to you guys, but what if it's too late? I mean, I died. You grieved for me and… I was gone. What if I can't come back? What if I can't be me again? What if I have to stay the way I was in Paris?"

She didn't realise until she dragged her eyes back to his that she had been looking wildly around the room. He didn't bother hiding the shock he felt at seeing the pleading look on her face. "Emily…" he said.

Her eyes teared up but she refused to cry. Not this time. She just stared at him, waiting for his answer, dreading it.

"I don't know what to tell you," he said quietly. "I don't know how to show you that it's… It's hard to adjust and we all had to try so hard to let you go so we could still function, and now we have to try to let go of that… We still have… I still have all the feelings I had about your death and now all these other things I feel about JJ keeping it from me, and everything in between… But you're still you, Emily. We've all changed but you're still our Emily. Does that make any sense?" He hesitated then added, "He can't take that from you, Emily. He didn't take that."

Emily felt her eyes widen a little as the words hit her. "Thanks," she said. "I hope you're right."

"Of course I'm right," Reid replied, smiling widely.

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