Careful where you step

Chapter 1: Nightmares suck

Authors note: There may be potentially triggering things in the whole story so if you are in a sensitive spot please don't read. Also sorry this first chapter is short. Love y'all <3

You are running dow the cold, wet street. You look down and realized you aren't even wearing shoes. The rocks ingrained in the pavements pressing into your feel like tiny Legos. You can see all the huge houses and buildings start to disappear around you, but you continue to run. You don't know what why are running from, but you know you can't let it catch you. Whatever it is will hurt you and. It suddenly starts to rain. You see a flash of lightning every once in a while but there is no thunder. In fact it is completely silent. Everything around you starts to fall apart and disappear. You realized that you are running toward a dark, black, endless void but for some reason your legs won't stop moving. You try stop but you cant. You try to scream but there's no sound. You start violently shaking as you continue to run. Everything goes black and BAM.

Your eyes fly open and you sit up panting. You are on your plush bed in a dark room and you have no clue what time it is. You look over and see your girlfriend open her eyes. She must have heard you gasping for air. She looks are you and sits up immediately. She is a profiler so she's really good at reading people. You are a profiler too but it's nearly impossible to profile yourself. The only person you know has ever done it is Reid, but he can do anything.

"Babe" she says in a hoarse voice. "Are you okay? What happened? Did you have a bad dream again?"

"Yeah" you say, still trying to catch your breath.

"That's the third one this month. You can't just pretend like nothing happened. You went through a traumatic experience. You need to talk to someone."

"God, Emily. It's a fucking bad dream. I'm fine. It's not a big deal."

"Don't get pissed at me. I'm trying to help and you cant keep having these dreams."

"Your right sorry. I'm just tired." you check your phone and it's 4:30am. You have to go into work at eight meaning you only have another two and a half hours of sleep.

"I'm going back to bed. Let's talk more in the morning." she says.

"Whatever. Goodnight."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

You lay awake for over an hour staring at the ceiling trying to fall back asleep until you finally give up. You quietly crawl out of bed, being sure not to disturb Em. You drift over to your dresser and grab a sports bra, leggings, and a sweatshirt out of your drawer. You slide into your clothes, write a note for Emily in case she wakes up wondering where you are, and head off to the gym.

You get home around 7:15 which doesn't give you much time to get ready. When you get back to your apartment, Emily's in the shower so you make yourself a bagel with cream cheese and a fried egg. And wait for your turn. By the time Emilys out of the shower you really need to rush to get to work on time.

Neither of you talk on the drive to work. You are still angry with her but  you aren't really sure why and she only wants to talk about your nightmares so you agree not to talk at all.

When you guys get to work you split ways. She heads to her desk and you go to talk to Garcia. Around 8:30 Hotch called all of you in to the conference room to discuss a potential case. He presents the team determines you guys are needed. He gives his classic line "Wheels up in thirty" and you go to grab a coffee and your go bag before you head off to Denver Colorado. You are unhappy that was where the case was because your dad lived there and you were expected to visit him.

When you were fifteen your mom committed several counts of embezzlement and she also stole a couple cars during a manic episode. She was tried and put away for ten years. After that she got hooked and a number of drugs and has been in and out of prison since. You aren't sure where she is now or what's happening with her but you hope she's doing well.

As you walked to the coffee cart Emily ran up to you. Nobody knew you were dating and nobody even knew you were gay.

"Hey! (Y/N), can we talk. I really don't want this bullshit to affect work."

"What do you mean? It hasn't."

"Cmon. You wouldn't even look at me when we're we're debriefing the case."

"Fine. You wanna talk Emily? Let's talk. I'm tired of you trying to be like a mother to me. You are my girlfriend and sometimes I just need you to back off." As soon as you said it you felt like a complete asshole.

"Fine. I'll back off.... sorry." she said in a defeated voice.

You felt horrible. You wanted to cry but you had already made enough of a scene in front of the people at the coffee cart you didn't want to bring anymore attention to yourself. Emily walked off and you her someone come up behind you.

"Hey (Y/N). What was that all about?"

Shit. Shit. Shit.