Ashes and Dust

"You should really quit, you know," Ian's voice floated out from the bedroom to where she stood on the balcony facing the glow of the cityscape in the distance.

Emily let out a long exhale of smoke into the night and watched the tendrils disappear on the breeze. "I know," she said softly, putting out the cigarette. She sighed, suddenly feeling tired to her very bones. "I know. I will."

"You've been saying that for years, Love," he pointed out. He was right and they both knew it.

She shrugged limply. "I will..." she repeated, not sure whether either of them believed it, but he didn't comment further and neither did she. She climbed back into bed with him, snuggling into his side to warm the nighttime chill that had settled into her skin.

What she didn't say was that she wasn't sure she'd live long enough for the smoking to do her in. Not when there was a spot on her lower back that was growing like the pit of nerves in her stomach.

What she didn't say was that tomorrow she'd see her doctor and she'd bet the farm that he'll say it's cancer. She didn't want to worry him – she was afraid that it would break him. So, she did the only thing she could do: she prayed to a god she wasn't sure she believed in as she lay curled into his side, his arms wrapped around her like he was making sure she couldn't be taken from him...

If only it were that easy.

He pressed a kiss to her temple and murmured goodnight into her ear, his voice soft and gravelly with sleep and she tried to memorize every detail of it, because she doesn't know how many she had left.

As Emily stared down at Charlotte Cutler's burned body, death more visceral than it had ever been, she felt herself choke back tears, felt Hotch's eyes on her. And when he told her to call Gideon, she had never felt more thankful or less like herself.

She used to be better at compartmentalizing. Used to be better at packing everything away into little boxes to keep them from spilling over into her everyday life. She wasn't sure when she'd stopped being able to do that.

But, then, she supposed the threat of cancer hanging over your head did that to a person.

Cancer.

The word filled her head until it was too big, too swollen to fit inside and had to come spilling out her mouth and she imagined having to tell people, the word spilling out over and over and over until it was all that existed in the whole world and she hated it. The weight of it on her chest until she couldn't breathe. The breadth of it filling the space that existed between her and everyone she cared about.

The doctor had spoken to her of stages and survival rates and treatment options and all she wanted was to scream, scream, scream until she could hear nothing at all.

She remembered standing outside the doctor's office afterwards, staring up at the sky as if searching for answers, early spring warmth kissing her skin, but feeling only cold. She wanted to feel angry, at something, anything, but feeling hollow emptiness inside where her heart used to be. She didn't need it anymore.

When they worked out that Evan Abby was dying, it was a whole other kettle of fish and Emily felt like the universe had already thrown six feet of dirt on top of her and she was suffocating from the pressure and she'd scream if she weren't so sure that once she started, she'd never be able to stop.

She wasn't fifteen anymore, death some fetishistic fantasy she kept hidden like the lovers she hid from her mother in the morning. Death was real and solid and so very close she could feel its breath on the back of her neck like a lover fucking her from behind.

Death was more real than she could ever be.

It took and took and took until there was nothing left to take and all that was left in the world was her and death.

Death would win in the end. It always did.

The thing that really cut her was that three years ago, she didn't care whether she lived or died – that was why she took the Doyle assignment in the first place, certain that Ian would kill her, just like every operative before her.

Now... Now she had so much to live for.

She was sitting in the SUV with Morgan, stuck in traffic on their way to the airport and she could feel him staring at her like he was trying to solve a particularly complex math problem and she was afraid that if he kept staring at her like that, she'll fall apart like so much broken glass.

Before she knew she was going to say it, the words come bursting out of her like like the effort to keep them inside had been suffocating her. "I might have cancer..."

The words seemed to echo in the confined space of the vehicle and for a few moments, all he could do was blink at her in surprise. "Cancer?" he repeated dumbly.

"Skin cancer," she confirmed, almost without emotion.

"When will you know for sure?" he asked.

"A week or so," she said with a shrug. She almost felt like she were talking about something happening to someone else, she'd distanced herself so far from the reality of it.

"Are... Are you okay?" he asked, even though she clearly wasn't and they both knew it.

"I didn't want it to be real," she said, answering a different question instead, unsure why she was saying these things she hadn't admitted to anyone. "I keep hoping a bullet will kill me first..." Rather than face my own mortality, is the silent implication behind the words.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you're bulletproof," he said, voice taking on a teasing tone as he flashed her one of his winning smiles. "Besides, I'm pretty sure you're too stubborn to die."

She scoffed and jutted her chin out defiantly. "You're one to talk about being stubborn."

"Takes one to know one," he replied childishly, sticking out his tongue at her.

For the first time in a week, she actually laughed out loud, wondering why she'd ever tried to keep herself from getting close to the people that were quickly becoming her best friends.

In the end, she didn't have cancer. But the experience itself was enough to rattle her.

When she finally told Ian, after it was all over, she expected just about any reaction – anger, sadness, over-protectiveness – any reaction besides the one she got.

"You're not dying," he said firmly, as if that's all there were to the matter.

"Ian..." she started, readying herself to force him to think realistically.

"I won't let you," he interrupted.

"I don't think you have much choice in the matter," she replied, attempting a laugh that didn't reach her eyes.

"I'm a very stubborn man, Emily," he said cryptically, resting a calloused palm against her cheek and she gave up on having a real conversation about wills and plans and gave in to his waiting arms. Without saying anything, he leaned in to kiss her; she kissed him back like she was trying to tell him she loved him without using the words.

And when he pulled away, she couldn't breathe for the lack of him.