What Happens Next

XXI. Teenager!

"And then you poked my face! Right in front of Rossi! I was mortified!" Reid yelled, his face bright, and his smile spread wide across his face. 

"Hotch still talks about it," Emily responded, her demeanor matching that of her long-haired friend.

"No!" he whined, burying his head in his hands, enhancing the drama of the situation.

Alpha shot up from his spot beside Emily's feet, unable to distinguish between Reid's false sadness, and what would have been real. He wedged his gray and black splotched head between Reid's crossed arms, and his kaki pants. 

"Oh, look, you made Alph worry about you!" 

"Me? It's all your fault!" Reid raked his bony fingers through the dog's fur, earning points in the eyes of the dog for every scratch, "look. He loves me."

"You know who else loves you?"

Reid froze, after fighting through initial shock of her comment, he turned his body away from his friend, pretending to silently admire the red-toned painting on her wall. 

"It's too complicated, Emily," he repeated the phrase he had told himself over and over again in the weeks he spent in JJ's house.

"Life is complicated. And messy. How does that change anything? I finally found the love of my life," she paused, "and then he died. You and JJ have been circling around each other for years, just waiting for the opportunity and now you have it and what? You're just gonna let it go?"

Reid didn't respond. He stared down at the dog, admiring the brown streaks that ran through his mostly gray fur. He stared at the ring he still wore on his finger despite the imminent end to the marriage he thought would last forever. 

He thought about JJ's confession, and how they both knew that she could have said anything, but she chose to tell him the truth. He thought about how he dismissed his own feelings, insisting that it was all okay, as if she hadn't ripped his heart out of his chest and stomped on it by confessing her love to him and then going home to Will. He remembered her blood-splattered face as she lied on the parking garage floor waiting for him to come, and how he spoke to a god he didn't believe existed begging him to take away her pain and put it onto him. He begged for her life to be saved, and then she still ended up with a man that he couldn't hold a grudge against. The shiny silver band around his finger reminded him more of the pained look in her dark blue eyes as she told him to go meet the woman who's finger once adorned the band that matched his, than it did the excitement that bubbled up inside him as he sprinted down the steps and ran to meet Max-- the woman he thought would love him like he loved her.

"You want to let her go?" Emily asked entirely aghast, observing his fixation on his wedding band. 

"I-" He began, unable to describe the conflict inside him, "It's so complicated."

"Do you remember what you said to me after the wedding?"

He hesitated, "yeah."

"She's the only person in the entire world who I have ever felt entirely safe with," Emily quoted. 

"But then I met Max."

Emily sighed, staring at the pale face of the man before her. She watched his light brown eyes search her intentionally-ugly red and black floral rug for a resolution to the conflict inside him.

"I," she inhaled deeply, "loved Ian Doyle."

Reid's head shot up, his eyes locking into hers. He said nothing. 

"I wasn't in love with him. I can't explain it really. I had to pretend to love him. . . and then I did," she choked, disgusted at her own confession. 

She grabbed the index finger of her left hand, tracing the nail with her right thumb.

"I know it's not the same thing as you and JJ but I get it, Reid. I get it. I've been there, trapped in a messy, painful disaster, and I know how hard it is. I also know that for me, it was clean cut. He was a bad guy and I had a job to do. I had something to remind me what was right, but for you, there is no right answer. If you choose to stay with Max, then you fight for your kids to live with both of their parents, and if you choose JJ, you fulfill the path that Gideon sent you down 30 years ago."

"I didn't know that you-"

"I haven't told anyone," Prentiss interjected, shutting him down. 

Reid nodded, "I get it."

"Listen, I don't want to push it, Reid, but I want you to be happy, and I want JJ to be happy too, and I think the two of you would be amazing together but I know that you and Max would be amazing and happy too," she trailed off, deciding whether or not she should add what she wanted to say next. 

"But I think that you want to call her. And I think the two of you have been through so much and it has all brought you here. To this point where you can be together; but I don't think you should give up your chance because I don't think you're going to get another one."

"She doesn't even live in the same state," he argued, weakly. 

"You don't think you two could work that out?" 

Reid scoffed, allowing a smile to sneak onto his face. His fingers found his ring, and he spun it on his finger, causing the smile to fade as quickly as it had come. 

"I know I just said you're not going to get another chance, but I think you can take a day or two to figure it out," Emily added, hoping to ease any burden she may have placed on his shoulders. 

He nodded, and returned his hand to the dog's head. He rubbed it gently. 

"She fell asleep on my shoulder," he reminisced after a moment of silence, discarding the conversation about when and if he should move toward or away a relationship with her. 

Emily smiled, leaning back into the black wicker chair she was seated in. The sun, glowing behind Reid's head as it shone through the giant windows in her deck-like sunroom, brightened his already shining features. She noticed a change that could not possibly be attributed to the setting sun behind him. 

"You're glowing, you know that?"

"Shut up," he murmured, his pale cheeks turning red. 

"What did she say about it?"

"I don't know. I let her sleep there all night but she woke up first. I don't know what she thought about it, I just felt her stand up when I woke up."

"Hmm."

"What?"

"Nothing," Emily teased. 

"What?" Reid asked, leaning forward toward the woman in front of him. 

"You two sound like teenagers," she laughed, "just talk to each other!"

"Shut up!" 

"It's true!"

Reid reached behind his back, pulling the large cushion backing his chair out from behind him, and tossing it at his friend. 

"Teenager!" Emily shouted, retaliating by throwing the red cushion back at him.

Reid yelped, and threw himself to one side of the chair in attempt to dodge the projectile. Unsuccessful, he grunted upon impact. Emily laughed loudly, pulling the matching cushion from her own chair, and adding it to the growing pile on Reid's unsuspecting body. 

"I'm gonna kill you!" he yelled from behind the pile. 

"I'd like to see you try."