Lose Her If You Love Her (Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds/AU)

They say time heals all wounds. They say that the longer you stay away from someone the less you love them. They're wrong. You want to know why?

Because two years later, I still love him.

Two years ago

*Beep Beep* I reached over and practically ripped the cord out of the bloody clock. 6:00am it read.Shit. I slowly pulled the thick duvet off of my thin body and sat up slowly, clutching my head. Maybe celebrating my new position at the BAU last night at the bar with my friends wasn't such a good idea.

It took a long time for me to actually get up and begin to get into a pair of long black trousers and a plain white fitted shirt. I found a brush and tugged it through my thick, shoulder-length, wavy blonde hair. As  I glanced in the mirror, I groaned when I caught sight of my bloodshot eyes. Great. I closed them but of course, when I opened them, the red was still staining my eyes. 

I went into panic mode, what would they think when I turned up hungover? My first day as a profiler and I'm practically drunk! Practically, dumping the entire contents of my make up box onto my bed, I quickly found concealer and foundation to get rid of the black bags underneath my eyes. When I was finished, I finally smiled. Instead of the half-dead girl that had stared back at me yesterday, now she looked confident. The foundation was my perfect skin tone, pale but not so pale I looked like a walking corpse. Using mascara, I had darkened my eyelashes, so the red blood vessels wasn't really noticeable. My pale lip gloss kept me looking young, not my age of 23.

7:30am. Bloody brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I spent an hour and a half getting ready, haven't even had my breakfast yet and I am going to be half an hour late. It takes me an hour to the Quantico Behavioural Analysis Unit and I have to be there for eight; I hadn't yet been able to get a house close enough to Quantico - I also didn't want to risk selling this beauty if I got fired...again. This is not my day.

Bugger bugger bugger!! Slipping on my black heeled ankle boots and ran out of the room. As I ran through my small house I grabbed my bag and hurried out the door to my large green 4x4 landrover. Maybe if I drive fast I could get there in time.

*Forty Minutes Later*

Made it! I was only ten minutes late, I couldn't get fired for that right? As I walked in, I noticed a group of people hurrying towards the elevator, I wasn't going to say anything, but I recognised one of them as my new boss - Special Agent Aaron Hotchner. He was an old friend of my brothers and he had offered me a job when he realised I was in dire need of one.

"Hotch!" I yelled, grinning wildly. Just because he was my brother's friend, didn't mean he wasn't my best friend. Hotch turned and smiled at me when he caught sight of me.

"Pops!" He smiled and held out his arms, I ran across the room and into his arms, ignoring the curious stares from around the room.

"I knew you'd miss me." I chuckled into his ear, his arms still wrapped around me. He set me back on the ground - he's several inches taller than me, even in heels. "It's been what, 4 days since I last saw you? And yet you are so happy to see me Hotchy."

He laughed and smiled nervously at me. Then he frowned and eyed me. I shuffled my feet nervously and looked away. "Are you hungover Pops?" I froze as he groaned in realisation. "Poppy, I thought you said you weren't going to drink last night."

I smiled uneasily. "Could we talk about this...elsewhere? Your colleagues are watching and it's kinda embarassing for them to hear that I'm hungover." Hotch nodded and pointed to the elevator.

"You know, you are lucky I've offered you this job. You're not just my best friends little sister, you're an amazing profiler. But it's not a good thing to come into your first day of work hungover Poppy, no wonder you've been fired so many times." Uh oh, he's pissed off at me, he called me Poppy.