We All Fall Down - A Criminal Minds AU

Eighteen

The next day was very much like the first, Emily bringing you a coffee in bed in the morning before making you breakfast and parking you in her kitchen whilst she created delicious food.

After dinner the night before you had felt like you were imposing on hers and Tara's time together even though nothing they had said or done had made you feel that way. After Tara checked on your stitches you asked her how to go about bathing. She simply instructed you to keeping your arm over the side of the tub or she could wrap a plastic bag around its for you. With that problem solved you took yourself off upstairs for a bath, awkwardly washing your hair with one hand before falling asleep still wrapped in the towel. When you'd awoken a few hours later you swapped the towel for the hoody Luke had lent you, falling back into a dreamless sleep until the next day.

The second evening you were there Tara took a phone call from Will, you hearing it from the living room where you and Emily were sat drinking wine. Just a glass you had told yourself.

"She's doing okay. He showed up here last night though.... Yeah.... Hmmm... No... Really? That's interesting. Lemme know what he has to say for himself. Okay yeah, I'll tell her."

When she returned to the room and flopped down next to her partner, she spoke. "Apparently Spencer has called Will and asked for a meeting with him tomorrow. Says he'll stop by tomorrow evening to see you're doing and to fill you in. So far, he's not said anything about you being 'missing'."

You rolled your eyes, pulling Emily's sweatshirt down over your hands. "I doubt very much that he'll tell anyone he kicked me out over a box of only God knows what."

Emily nodded. "Diana would rip him a new one if she knew."

They were both quiet for a moment, looking at you and you sighed. It was now or never.

"You wanna know what Will meant don't you?"

"Only if you want to tell us," Emily assured you.

"Let's start with this then. I've been married to Spencer Reid for four years. But do you know how I old I am?"

It was an odd question which caught them both off guard. They studied your face for a second before Tara answered. "Not basing this on your looks but on how long you've been married and Spencer's own age, I would have said late twenties. Looking at you though, free of all make up as you are now, you barely look old enough to drink."

"I wasn't old enough to drink when I met Spencer. I wasn't old enough to drink at our wedding. I'm 23, Spencer Reid was my professor."

"Okay so now I understand Will's comment," Emily spoke, motioning for you to continue. So you did.

You told them everything. Emily already knew about your parents but you filled Tara in on that. You told them about Derek Morgan, about Jordan Todd, about getting so wasted that you'd been vomiting up your contraceptive pill without realising it. You told them how Professor Reid had always sung your praises in class, how he used to ask you to stay behind, how he wanted to help with your stories. You told them initially you enjoyed the attention from him, thinking it could do your grades and writing career no harm to have him on your side. You told them how he took you home that one night after Derek had ripped your soul to shreds, how you found yourself on his doorstep asking for help with a termination only to have him beg for you to become his. And because you'd felt like you had no other option at that point, and didn't particularly care what happened to you, you did.

Ignoring the shocked look on Emily's face and the carefully placed, none judgemental doctor look on Tara's, you carried on. You told them about the car accident, how your baby didn't even have a coffin because there was nothing to bury, just a plague bearing the name "Lara Reid" in a memorial hospital garden in NYC. You told them how almost a year later Spencer had returned from a routine check up in pieces. They'd found lumps where there shouldn't be any, how further tests revealed that the best course of treatment was a bi-lateral orchidectomy plus drug therapy, thus making your husband infertile. You told them how he'd frozen samples to ensure that you could have children together in the future. And then you told them how just over a year ago Derek Morgan had turned up on the scene again, sucking you in and spitting you out once more. How you turned up on his doorstep after sleeping with him in hotel rooms for four months, to tell him you were pregnant. How his new girlfriend Savannah had answered the door, how he'd come running after you in the street. You told them how you expected him to leave her and that you would leave Spencer, so you could start a family together, the way it was meant to be. You started crying as you told how it felt like a punch to the gut when he told you that that wasn't going to happen. How he'd made a mistake, he loved Savannah. He'd support the baby but he didn't want you.