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A/n hey all... Here's the next chapter. Thanks to all of you for your kind reviews and support. This is for you.

Shot to the Heart

Emily turned over to stare at Reid's travel alarm as it beeped. "Damn…" She muttered softly.

"Swearing won't make it stop." Reid said into her shoulder.

"I can try!"

He pushed himself up and reached over her head to shut off the clock. "See… all better!" He said as he turned on the light next to the bed.

"That's not funny Spencer. I have to go." She responded as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck.

"I don't want you to go."

His chocolate eyes pleaded with her to stay while her brain said she needed to get back to her room. She decided to ignore the voice and melted into his embrace for a few short minutes.

"I really have to go," she said a bit breathlessly when he let her have the oxygen they both needed after a blood boiling kiss.

"Stay!" He held her close as though she'd just disappear if he let her go.

"Please don't make this harder than it has to be. I need to get back to my room before the rest of the team wakes up. We can't risk getting caught."

"JJ and Garcia know…" He reminded her. "Maybe we should just tell everyone."

"I don't want to tell everyone." She stood up and began searching for her slippers.

"Why?"

His tone stopped her in her tracks. "Spencer!"

"We might as well spill the beans, they're halfway spilled anyway." He quipped.

"Not funny! You know secrecy is the only way for us to keep our jobs. How do you think Strauss would react to us after everything that's happened this year?"

"I know she won't be happy, but at some point we have to stop thinking about our jobs and concentrate on us." He pushed off his covers and went to his closet for his robe. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were ashamed of me."

"I'm not ashamed of you."

"Sure you are…" He continued as they faced off across the bed. "Why wouldn't you be? I'm eleven years younger than you are. I'm a geek with three PhDs, and two BA degrees. My mother's in a mental institution. I have very little experience with women, and I go to Comic-Con every year."

"I love you for all those reasons!"

"Do you really? I'm not so sure of that anymore."

"Why are you suddenly so insecure?"

"Because I think we should just tell everyone and you're balking at the idea. I'm just wondering why that is if you're not ashamed of me."

"I just want more time for just the two of us. I thought that's what you wanted too."

"I do… I just don't want to have to hide. I love you Emily. I'm proud of you. I want everyone to know you chose me. I'm sick of sneaking around as though we're in the middle of some salacious affair." His eyes begged her to understand.

"Don't do that! I don't want to see that look in your eyes." She shouted at him.

"Don't yell at me!"

"We're adults Reid!" She snapped as he flinched. "Adults fight and they shout."

"I know!" He said quietly. "My mom and dad yelled at each other all the time for a year before he left us."

"Stop it!" She shouted. "You don't get to use that against me."

She grabbed her room key and stormed out leaving him standing there staring at the door.

---

Emily slammed into the room she shared with JJ and hurried to her bed. She heard the shower going in the bathroom and looked at the JJ's travel clock. Had only five minutes passed since she'd woken in Spencer's arms? She pulled off her shirt as she forced back the tears that wanted wet her cheeks. She'd taken off her sleep pants and pulled on her robe when she heard the door to the bathroom open.

"Oh… You're back. How was your night? I'll bet you left Reid looking like a fat satisfied cat after a bowl of cream."

Emily just stood looking at JJ as though she'd lost the ability to speak or understand English.

"What's wrong?" JJ's teasing smiled faded.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Emily!"

"No! I need to take a shower. It's after six and we have to meet the rest of the team in less than an hour." She grabbed her go bag and brushed by JJ into the bathroom.

She turned on the shower very hot and stepped in, hissing at the feel of the heat on her skin. The tears she'd been holding back with all her strength broke free and she cried, her tears as hot as the water pounding on her head.

---

"What did you find out for us Garcia?" Hotch asked, ignoring Emily's red eyes as she rushed in with a cup of coffee and took a reluctant seat next to Reid.

"I have an address for you on the outside of town. Saul's father inherited the family business when he turned twenty-one. It went bankrupt last year after his brother embezzled every penny he could get his greedy little hands on."

"That's our stressor." Rossi said.

"Why go on a murderous rampage just because he lost the business?" JJ asked.

"He's had a history of unstable behavior." Reid said. "It doesn't take very much to push someone ever the edge sometimes." He said keeping his eyes on his hands."

"Yeah… It doesn't take very much to set off some people." Emily agreed keeping her face on the file in front of her.

"Sometimes if you push someone hard enough, they snap. It's just human nature."

"I hate it when people make excuses for their behavior because it's human nature." Emily responded in a very reasonable tone.

"Okay… Why don't we get back to the facts of the case?" Hotch said.

"Sir… I have the address. I'll send it to your handhelds." Garcia said.

"Let's go." Hotch ordered.

Emily brushed past Reid as they left the small conference room to collect the locals and SWAT. Morgan watched Reid staring after her.

"What did you do this time?" He asked.

"I didn't do anything." Reid snapped and left the room.

"Do you ever feel like you've come in on the middle of a movie or a really interesting conversation?" Morgan asked JJ.

She clapped him upside the head. "Not now…" She said as she left the room and him standing there staring at her.

"Will someone please tell me what's been going on?" He said to the empty room.

---

The old farmhouse at the end of the rutted dirt road looked deserted as Hotch pulled into the driveway followed by other local police and SWAT agents. They left off their lights and sirens as they approached the house, as it was the only house on the lane.

The team exited the SUV waiting for them to split up into groups with local police and SWAT.

"Morgan, you, Rossi and JJ take the front; Emily, you and Reid come around to the back with me. Garcia said there's an old root cellar that's accessible from the back. Detective Strong, why don't you take that?"

The lead detective who resembled a retired linebacker nodded curtly and signaled to two of his team. Every team had one SWAT agent with them. The last three took positions outside the faded white painted house.

They took down the front and the back doors at the same time with the SWAT agents in front. Morgan and Rossi went left. Reid, Emily and Hotch with their SWAT agent took the creaking stairs to the second floor.

They could hear the others clearing the house but despite the noise, they didn't see or hear their target.

Hotch and his group communicated silently. Hotch and Reid split up as Emily and the SWAT agent took one side of the room and they took the other side. They kicked in doors and cleared rooms. Emily and her partner took down a door to a very dusty and junky space that looked like a storage room with one curtained window. The SWAT agent with her opened the door to what looked like a small closet as she covered him from the left. The closet was empty so she turned back to the hallway and the next room.

A sudden burst of gunfire had the SWAT agent pushing past her. It had sounded like it came from the room at the end of the hallway. She'd seen Reid and Hotch go into that room. Her heart sank all the way down to her toes as her heart began to race from a burst of adrenaline to her blood.

She ran in front of the SWAT agent, not hearing his voice in her earpiece. Her progress down the hallway to the door at its end reminded her of a dream she'd once had of running and not getting anywhere. It was as if she ran through glue, her feet sticking to the dirty carpeted floor. Then, she found herself at the door and running inside with her gun out heedless of the danger.

Hotch stood over the bleeding body of a man so average looking, she'd never look at him twice on the street. She couldn't tell if he was alive and it didn't matter because lying near the door was Spencer. He didn't move, nor did he bleed. She couldn't tell if he were breathing, if he were alive or dead.

"Oh God…" Her feet stumbled on the rug next to his head and she fell to her knees next to his unmoving body. She reached out and ran her hand through is hair, not caring if Hotch saw and knew all. "I'm sorry baby for what I said. Please don't die on me!"

"Emily!" Hotch snapped at Emily.

"Hotch -" She broke off at the look on his face and the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hallway.

Morgan, Rossi and JJ rushed into the room. "We heard the shots…" JJ began then she hurried over to Reid. "Oh God… Spence!"

His body suddenly jerked, he coughed, turned over and looked up at JJ. "Jeez that hurts…" He put his hand on his chest just over the section of his vest that had stopped the bullet fired from their killer's gun. "I tried to talk to him, but he didn't want to hear it." He coughed again.

JJ embraced him gently. "I'm glad you're alive so I can kill you for scaring the hell out of us again."

Reid laughed and then coughed. "I feel like a car ran over my chest."

"You're going to the hospital." Hotch said.

"I don't need to go to the hospital. Is he dead?" Reid indicated the man on the floor with a nod of his head.

"Yes…"

Reid glanced up at Emily, but she was looking at the dead man with a hatred he'd never seen on her face. Then it was gone and she pushed her way out of the room.

"Hey kid…" Morgan crouched down beside him. "You gotta learn how to duck."

"I can't outwit a speeding bullet Morgan." He snapped.

"I never said you were Superman."

"Morgan… I'm not in the mood."

"You better watch out. I think you pissed off Prentiss."

"Why should she be mad at me?" Reid said through gritted teeth.

The paramedics entered the room with a stretcher and a C-collar. "I don't need all that." Reid protested going very red in the face while grateful for the cover of being embarrassed about the C-collar.

"Standard procedure," the paramedics said as they lifted him onto the stretcher.

Morgan followed him down the stairs and out to the ambulance. Emily stood away from the door on the porch as they brought Reid by. He noticed that she avoided looking at Reid as they took him away.

"Hey Prentiss… What's got your skirt in a twist?"

"I'm not wearing a skirt!"

"I know that… He put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey… I know the kid gets into a lot of trouble, but he's okay. He had his vest on."

"I know all that Morgan. Leave me alone."

She stalked away down the stairs to their SUV.

"What's with her?" Morgan said to Rossi who'd joined him on the porch of the house.

"You're going to have to figure it out all on your own." He patted the younger man on the back and headed out to the truck.

"Does everyone know something I don't know?" He said to no one in particular.

He watched Emily standing next to the SUV watching the ambulance trundle slowly down the pitted dirt road to the main highway. She turned back toward the house for just long enough for him to see tears on her cheek, which she wiped away hastily as he looked at her.

He grinned back at her and gave her the thumbs up. She actually blushed and hurried to get in the car. Someone walked up behind him with familiar footsteps "Why am I always the last to know the good stuff." He said sounding like Christmas had come early.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Hotch said as he left Morgan to his thoughts and plans of who he'd tease first, Emily or Reid.