Proof

Note- This is a very short chapter. It just happened to work out this way.

Reid and Emily

Chapter 11

April 2011

"Everything I know about science says that the only way this is possible," Reid told Emily as they lay in bed together, his hand gently stroking over her bare back, "is if I am suffering from a brain tumor."

"But you know you're not. Face it, you don't know everything. I'm sure it's a big blow..." she chuckled, snuggling closer to him. "I could stay like this for eternity."

Over the last few hours the strength of her aura had been weakening, ever so slowly, and only coming back to fuller strength when she would surge with emotion over Reid. Emily knew she was dying.

Not that she hadn't been dying for months now. But tonight it felt different. She was sure that the end of her life was fast approaching now.

Worse even, she knew that Reid realized it too. But he wouldn't face that their time was rapidly coming to an end and she was sick of fighting with him, trying to prepare him for the inevitable.

She was leaving him- tonight, tommorow morning, tommorow afternoon or even three days from now, maybe, but it wouldn't be that much longer.

There was nothing that either of them could do to stop it from happening. Reid kept insisting she just had to fight harder. Didn't he know she was already using every bit of her strength just to stay here with him right now?

During the weeks she had been like this she rarely felt weak or tired but now she did. Now she was plain exhausted.

Yet she had never been happier in all her life- happy because they both had found love and known love and experienced this miracle together- and she'd never been sadder too because Reid would have to live the rest of his life without her.

He whispered against her hair, as he held her nude body close to his, "I will love you for eternity," and, in this moment, it didn't sound hyperbolic at all.

She pressed a gentle kiss to his throat. "Promise me you will never think of this as some delusion you had. That you'll know this was a gift from our creator."

Reid cupped Emily's face. "I believe...How could I not?"

Right before his lips would have touched hers for a kiss his cell phone rang. Emily jerked back and said "You better get that."

Reid had to get out of bed and go find his phone- which was in the other room. His heart jumped to his throat when he saw it was Elizabeth Prentiss' phone number. "Mrs. Prentiss?"

The room spun as he listened to her sobbing into the phone that Emily had taken a turn for the worse. She had an infection and the antibiotics weren't working. The doctors said she might not make it through the night.

Elizabeth said "I know that you care for my daughter and so I thought you might want to," she choked out the words "come and say your good byes."

He whispered "I'll be there soon," just as a sharp pain shot behind his eyes, bringing him to his knees at the door of the bedroom. He looked up to meet Emily's eyes...where she was supposed to be in the bed...but the bed was empty.

"Emily?" he choked out in a tear filled tone. "Emily?" his voice was raw and weak. Spots came before his eyes as he got dizzy. "Emily!"

Dr. Spencer Reid knew he couldn't stay there on his knees. He had to pull himself up, using the dresser for support, get dressed and get himself to the hospital. The cab ride was excruciating as all the lights of the city and the noise only worsened the pain in his head.

By the time he made it to Emily's hospital room he felt so weak that the nurses asked if he was the one who needed a doctor.

"I am a doctor," Reid answered, brushing off the question, as his eyes latched onto the body in the bed.

She didn't look like herself anymore. The Emily he had known and loved wasn't supposed to ever look that lifeless, that pale, hooked up to machines, her mouth gaping open and her breathing ragged.

His Emily was beautiful, funny, smart, sensitive, full of life and love for him. Why hadn't he known that before Doyle ever started to hunt her? Before she made the bad choices that got her here?

Why did it take this nightmare experience to make him see that the woman before him had been the key to open every door in his world?

Stumbling over to the bed, ignoring Emily's mother, Elizabeth, as she rambled on about how bad she felt that she had never had a better relationship with Emily, Reid reached out and took hold of Emily's hand. "You have to fight to stay here. I need you!" Then he added "Please, God, I need her!"

So many people had spoken similar pleas inside the walls of this hospital but this specific one, from a man who used to not be sure he even believed in an afterlife, seemed to open the floodgates of heaven because Emily's heart rate immediately got stronger.