A/N: Guess what? This is my post number 100 to this site! (gasps) I know, unbelievable – I seriously can't believe I've shot out that much stuff! This calls for some serious celebrating. (smirks cheekily)

Heh, this one took me ridiculously long to finish! But now, it's finally here. Yay?

A very dear reader asked me to write a (at least somewhat) happy ReidxPrentiss –fic. This is what I cooked up. (grins sheepishly)

WARNINGS: Mild romance between canon characters, a bit of language and gore. Heh, for one of my fics that's remarkably little.

DISCLAIMER: GAH! If I'd own ANYTHING of 'CM' 1, the full truth behind Reid's headaches would've been revealed ages ago, and 2, Prentiss would've NEVER left. (pouts)

Awkay… (takes a deep breath) I guess it's go time, eh? I REALLY hope this'll be a good ride!

SONG RECOMMENDATION: The lyrics of 'October' from Evanescence fit this piece scarily well.

/ I can't run anymore,
I fall before you,
Here I am,
I have nothing left,
Though I've tried to forget,
You're all that I am,
Take me home,
I'm through fighting it,
Broken,
Lifeless,
I give up,
You're my only strength,
Without you,
I can't go on,
Anymore,
Ever again. /

(Evanescence, 'October')

'Truth makes many appeals, not the least of which is its power to shock.'

(Jules Renard)

October

Although he'd barely slept in weeks adrenaline was keeping Spencer Reid wide awake while the team sped towards a location in a lonely, isolated town in Texas.

It was the newest suspected location of Ian Doyle.

They finally had the chance to make the man pay for killing Emily Prentiss.

The house was small and clearly old, and just by looking at it he could tell it was a miracle the entire building hadn't just collapsed already. There was no visible light, but the team could feel a presence in the rapidly cooling night.

As he climbed out of the vehicle with Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan and Ashley Seaver the unit chief pointed towards the ground. Although it was already getting dark he could see what the man had spotted. There were footprints in the sand.

Someone had entered the house recently.

Following the count of Aaron's fingers they waited for a while until Derek kicked down the door and they barged into the shadows, their guns held high and adrenaline making their eyes sharp. They went through a couple of practically deserted rooms until they reached what looked like a living room. And they all froze, shock numbing them.

None of them paid much attention to Ian's battered corpse, which lay on the floor, his face barely recognisable and his gun having been kicked to the other side of the room. All they could see was the woman sitting beside his corpse. She was all Spencer could see, at least.

Because there, covered in Ian's blood and perhaps some of her own, was the woman he'd buried not too long ago. The woman he'd missed so much that he'd feared it'd drive him insane. The woman he'd…

Her hair color had changed and she appeared slightly banged up, but there were no life threatening injuries on her badly shaking body. She was alive, right before his eyes.

Emily Prentiss looked straigth at his eyes, clearly pleading, praying.

When he first heard the news of her death, something inside Spencer died as well. On that day he thought that if there was even one chance for him to ever see her again he'd hold on to her and never let go. He'd tell her just how important she was and never leave her out of his sight again. He'd finally tell her all those things he was supposed to voice a long, long time ago.

But now… Now he realized that he just couldn't.

There was so much anger in his veins that he feared he might suffocate, and in a few moments he realized that he was gasping. His chest felt like it'd been about to explode with all the pressure building up there. Only the fact that he couldn't catch a single proper breath kept him from emitting a scream.

So, instead of listening to the pleas of her eyes and his body, he turned sharply and walked away, ignoring the voices shouting after him.

It wasn't until almost an hour later, when his feet finally gave way and he slumped to a large rock in the middle of the desert, he realized that he was crying.

In the end Derek managed to find Spencer and bring the genius to the police station where the rest of them were waiting. Although she wouldn't have wanted to Emily noticed that Spencer's eyes were red and puffy and held a look she'd never seen in them before as they swept sharply towards her.

Shock, anger, hurt, betrayal and fear were all right there, flashing in those eyes that'd never hidden a damn thing. And it was at that very moment Emily realized just how deep the wound Ian Doyle had forced her to cause went.

But he didn't blow off on her or Aaron, didn't shoot out all the venom that must've been coursing through his veins. He even sat down to listen what Emily and Aaron had to say. Later they asked him if he was okay with this and he nodded, eventually managed to create a tiny, feeble smile.

But Emily watched, and knew that he was quite far from 'fine'.

Spencer had been let down too many times in his life. This secret – betrayal, as he most likely viewed it – from people he'd considered his family wouldn't be easy to take.

In Spencer's world trust wasn't earned easily. They'd just shattered it. And Emily couldn't help wondering if the genius would ever look at the three of them the same way again. If he'd ever let her close enough to let her tell him just how much she'd wanted to come back to him.

As it turned out Emily was right. The injury went a lot deeper than she would've ever known to expect.

When she joined the team once more three months after her 'return from the death' she'd known that she'd be under Erin Strauss' microscope. What she hadn't expected, though, was the entire team keeping an eye on her and tiptoeing around her like she'd been made of glass. At first it was kind of adorable, but as months – six of them – had flown by she was getting sick of the 'special treatment'. At times it was like she'd been a newbie, a total stranger to them.

It felt like she'd stepped backwards in time, to the days when she'd first joined the team.

It was, however, Spencer who brought Emily actual hurt.

He wasn't openly hostile towards her, she didn't think he could've ever been. But he was keeping her at bay, so subtly that it could've easily been overlooked. Emily noticed, though; saw how he never sat beside her in the jet, how he cast looks she couldn't understand towards her when he thought she didn't notice, how he never let her touch him, how he became so quiet that it scared her. Even as he slowly, slowly seemed to find a way to try to trust Aaron and JJ again he kept that shield between himself and Emily. And she had no idea what to do about it.

Finally, seven months after Emily's return, an event that could've easily ended in tragedy offered a surprising opening.

They were on the final stages of a case in Tulsa when Aaron sent her and Spencer to interview a man who'd been seen with the victims, named Philip Dawles. Spencer agreed although reluctance could be seen on his face, and after a suffocatingly silent drive to Dawles' they found the man's old, neglected house seemingly empty. They advanced downstairs with extreme caution, finally reaching what they assumed was a bedroom. There, in almost full darkness, Dawles was waiting for them. One of his arms was wrapped around a hysterically crying woman of Emily's age while the other hand pressed what was most likely a gun against the back of the hostage's neck.

Dawles stared at them with a bleak expression for a couple of seconds before making his move. Before Emily could react the man fired, the bullet piercing the victim's throat and continuing its path towards her. Spencer was faster. Before she even realized what was happening he pushed her to the side. She cried out a little when the bullet scraped the skin of her arm, then stiffened completely upon hearing a sickening thud.

For about a second shock – such she'd never experienced before – paralyzed Emily, stilled her bloodstream and heart. And then she worked on instinct. Before Dawles got the chance to make another shot she delivered one of her own, easily taking the man down. She then fired twice more, just to make sure the monster would stay down, until all her attention became fixed on Spencer. The sight greeting her made her stop breathing for a unhealthily long time.

Spencer was down on the floor. Blood was pouring out from the wound on his head.

The couple of hours that followed were the longest in Emily's life. It seemed to take forever before a doctor finally showed up to tell them that Spencer was going to be fine. The bullet merely passed by his head, causing a nasty wound but nothing more. He'd be awake and alert soon, though with a massive headache. If all would go well he'd get to walk out of the hospital the next day.

At those news only the fact that there were others present kept Emily from breaking into the tears building up behind her eyes.

As soon as Emily's scrape had been stitched she made her way to Spencer's room, deciding that there was no way she could 'go home and get some rest' before she'd see with her own two eyes that he was alright.

When she walked in soundlessly Emily had no idea what to expect, how she anticipated or wanted the meeting to end. But whatever she was expecting wasn't what she found when her eyes fell on his sleeping form. The world felt slightly colder than before.

As long as she'd known him Spencer had been pale. But as he lay in the hospital bed, with practically no color on his face, he looked so incredibly fragile that she barely dared to approach him. The only proof of his injury was the carefully covered wound on the side of his head, but in a couple of seconds it was all Emily could see.

It didn't matter that the doctor had said he'd be discharged the next day. For right there and then Emily realized just how close they'd come to losing him. And she felt more scared than ever in her life. Suddenly she understood Spencer so well that it hurt.

She almost lost the little courage she'd had to begin with and was about to sneak out of the room. But just then Spencer unleashed a tiny moan and shifted. Before she could move a muscle he stirred. At first he frowned upon noticing her, as though wondering if she was a trick of his imagination, until his thoughts seemed to untangle. A heartbreaking amount of relief filled his eyes before he offered her a extremely feeble, tiny smile and forced his body into a sitting position although it clearly brought him a great deal of pain. "Hi." The frown on his face was a mixture of discomfort and worry while his eyes scanned her through from head to toe. "Are you okay?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

The smile on his face wasn't as emancipated as it should've been. It was around then she noticed that he was quite openly staring at something. Glancing towards the same direction she wanted to kick herself as she realized that he'd noticed her stitched up wound she'd forgotten to cover with her jacket.

Emily gave a brief, somewhat tight laugh. A warning tingled in her veins, announcing that things were heading towards a very dangerous direction. "Reid, it's just a scrape. It's not like I'm dying or anything." As soon as those words left her mouth she realized that she'd made a huge mistake. That thought was only confirmed by what appeared to the man's face – she'd just delivered a punch below the belt. She swallowed thickly, and hoped from the bottom of her heart that he would've given her any sort of a sign that she could touch him. That there was something – anything – she could do to fix the damage. "I'm sorry, I…" She trailed off at the look in Spencer's eyes.

There were tears in them as they stared directly at her. And suddenly it felt like her heart had been smashed to a million pieces.

"We had to bury you." His voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the intensity. At that very moment he looked angrier than she'd ever seen him. His breathing was fast and erratic, and she could see that for once he was in no control over himself. He wasn't lying to her or to himself anymore. "Do you have any idea how much I missed you? How angry I was? There… There were days when I wanted to follow you, you know that? There were days when I thought I wouldn't be able to take the ache any longer. Some days I hated you so much that…" There were tears in his eyes but he wouldn't let them spill. For a while he focused on breathing until he looked away and whispered barely audibly. "You… You weren't supposed to leave, Emily."

Emily honestly couldn't remember the last time she'd cried. But at that moment there was unmistakable moisture in her eyes. She realized that she'd have to do something to erase that haunted look in his eyes.

So, ignoring his frown and stiff body language, she inched closer to him, in the end sitting to his bedside. And then she wrapped him into a tight, nearly desperate hug.

She couldn't promise him that she'd never leave him again – that wasn't in her own hands. But right now she was there, with him, alive and well. She needed him to understand that. She needed him to not give up on her.

It took what felt like ages, but in the end she felt Spencer hugging back, his face turned so that she couldn't see his eyes. His acceptance made her bolder, helped her let go of all restraints. And before either one of them saw it coming she leaned closer and pressed a soft, tender kiss to his cheek.

Surprise and confusion flashing loudly in his eyes, Spencer finally looked at her. The question, plea, was clear, and she didn't have the heart to deny him.

There was a strange, pleasant taste on Spencer's lips when she brought her own to meet them, sealing them into a kiss that spoke absolutely all necessary.

'I'm sorry, for everything', she wanted to whisper when the kiss ended and she rested her forehead against his shoulder, but the words would've felt out of place. She squeezed his hand instead.

She refused to let go of him. And Spencer's unsteady hold on her hand didn't break, either. So they sat there, leaning against each other and inhaling one another's scent, desperately trying to figure out just where all this was going. Where they were going.

But that wasn't a matter that should've been dealt with overnight. They had all the time in the world.

A rare smile of utter contentment appeared to Emily's face.

Outside a new morning was dawning.

/ My only hope,
(All the times I've tried)
My only peace,
(To walk away from you)
My only joy,
My only strength,
(I fall into your abounding grace)
My only power,
My only life,
(And love is where I am)
My only love.

I can't run anymore,
I give myself to you,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry,
In all my bitterness,
I ignored,
All that's real and true,
All I need is you,
When night falls on me,
I'll not close my eyes,
I'm too alive,
And you're too strong,
I can't lie anymore,
I fall down before you,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. /

(Evanescence, 'October')

'Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.'

(Lewis B. Smedes)

End.

A/N: Well how about that? The pretty much first happy couple-ending for those two! Hooray? (smirks like crazy)

So… (gulps) Was it any good, at all? Or should it be gunned down immediately and thrown into the deepest pits on our planet? PLEASE, leave a review to let me know! It'd seriously make my day. (gives puppy's eyes)

Awkay, I've been sitting in front of my computer for so long that my back's in knots. (winces) So, I'm afraid I'll have to tune out for now.

Thank you so much for reading! Who knows, maybe I'll be seeing ya later.

Take care!