Emily Prentiss One Shots

The Distance Between Us

Emily is strong, she's smart, but she's not unshakeable. She is, however, able to see when she's wrong. When she's misjudged a situation, even if it takes the evidence being laid out in front of her. 

Angst and comfort 4k words

The coffee was cold by the time you noticed it sitting on the counter. You'd made it for Emily two hours ago, back when she'd mumbled something about needing caffeine before disappearing into the home office. The mug sat there now, abandoned and forgotten, a small thing that somehow felt like a metaphor for everything lately.

You poured it down the sink and started a fresh pot.

It had been three weeks since Emily came home from the last case: some serial killer in Oregon who targeted couples, tearing apart their lives with methodical precision. Three weeks since she'd walked through the door with that particular heaviness in her shoulders that you'd learned to recognize over the years. But this time, something was different. This time, the heaviness hadn't lifted.

Emily had always brought her work home in small ways. It was impossible not to, given what she did. You'd learned early in your relationship that there would be nights when she'd wake up gasping, mornings when she'd stare into her coffee like it held answers to questions she couldn't voice. You'd learned to be patient, to give her space when she needed it and comfort when she'd accept it. You'd learned to read the subtle shifts in her mood, the way her jaw would tighten when a case got under her skin, the way her eyes would go distant when she was processing something dark.

But this was different.

This wasn't Emily processing. This was Emily retreating.

She'd stopped reaching for you in the morning, that sleepy, instinctive gesture where her arm would drape across your waist before she was even fully awake. She'd stopped texting you throughout the day. Those little messages that ranged from case updates to random observations to simple "I love you"s that had always made your phone feel like a direct line to her heart. She'd stopped really looking at you, her gaze sliding past you or through you, like you were becoming translucent.

At first, you'd told yourself it was just the case. A bad one. She needed time. But time kept passing, and the distance kept growing, and now you were standing in your kitchen making a second cup of coffee that she probably wouldn't drink, wondering when exactly you'd become a ghost in your own home.

The worst part was that you didn't know what you'd done wrong.

You'd replayed the last few months in your head a thousand times, searching for the moment when things shifted. Had you said something? Done something? Failed to do something? The uncertainty gnawed at you, a constant low-grade anxiety that had taken up residence in your chest.

So you'd started trying harder.

It began small. You made her favorite meals, the ones that usually made her eyes light up and earned you a kiss on the cheek. Homemade lasagna with extra cheese. That Thai curry she loved from the recipe you'd perfected over years of trial and error. Her grandmother's chocolate cake that you'd learned to make from the worn recipe card she kept in a box of precious things.