Doctor Spencer Reid locked the apartment door deadbolt and dropped his coat in the hall. It was late in the evening and he had spent the last hour and a half talking to JJ. His limbs were heavy, his eyelids were drooping, and the one thing he wanted was to collapse on his couch, and sleep for six to eight hours straight.

The twenty-nine year old could have dropped onto the couch and fallen asleep very easily if there hadn't been a slight catch in his plan; there was already someone on the couch. He discovered this when said person let out a surprised yell after being sat on.

"WHAT?" Sara yelled, swinging her arm around wildly in the dark.

Spencer, who hadn't quite recovered from the shock of sitting on a person instead of the couch, stumbled backwards and landed painfully on the floor. "It's me!" He shouted back. There was a sharp pain radiating up his back, which wasn't doing much for his mood.

"Shut up!" A muffled voice shouted from the apartment beneath them.

The two Reids were silent for a moment. Spencer sighed and heaved himself off the floor, rubbing his back. "Nice to see you too," He said sarcastically, sitting down on the couch again, this time not on his half-sister.

"Sorry," She said sheepishly. Then, maybe when she remembered why she'd shouted in the first place added, "You scared me!"

Spencer shook his head. "Why aren't you in bed?" He asked, looking over the mess on the coffee table.

"Because I don't have to get up early tomorrow," She answered, picking up her glasses from the table and slipping them over her ears.

"That's right, how was the last day?" Spencer asked.

It was mid-May, and the fifteen year old high school senior had finished final exams a week earlier. The seniors were given exams early to ensure that their college of choice received their grades in time to enroll in the fall. The seniors' last weeks of classes were mostly sitting around and being nostalgic about the last four years, two in Sara's case.

"It was alright," She answered shortly. "I got a letter from Georgetown today. They're 'very excited to have me joining the Georgetown family this fall, and look forward to seeing me!" She said, mimicking the overly-perky voice of an infomercial saleswoman. "You know the Georgetown University mascot is a bulldog?"

"What?" Spencer asked, the soreness in his back giving way to fatigue again.

"Why a bulldog though? It's so lame, Butler University's mascot is a bulldog too. We could have had something cool, like an orange, or a kangaroo."

"Not excited about going to Georgetown?" Spencer asked, trying to keep from falling asleep after a long day at work and visit with JJ.

Sara sighed and stood up from the couch. She stepped over to one of the many bookshelves in the apartment and went to the one place void of any books. She picked up the silver frame and looked at it in the light of the streetlamps streaming in through the curtains. Spencer heard her clear her throat a few times.

"No, I'm just in a bad mood I guess. It's two months today," She said quietly.

The frame in her hands contained a photo of four people. The farthest left was the young doctor; his hair had been longer then and gave him an even more youthful appearance which matched the smile he wore perfectly. He had his arm draped around his sister's shoulders. Sara was laughing about something the photographer, Garcia, had said. Her hair was being ruffled by Emily- the late Emily Prentiss. She too was laughing, brown eyes shining brightly, one arm thrown carelessly around Derek Morgan's shoulders.

Spencer nodded thoughtfully, feeling the familiar ache it always had when someone mentioned Emily. It was the same reason he visited JJ every evening after work; he missed his friend so much it hurt, and it hurt constantly.

"Yeah, I know," He said.

The two fell silent again, both minds racing with memories of their lost friend. Beside the ache in his chest that he felt whenever he thought of Emily, there was another feeling that was growing steadily worse- craving. In spite of his best efforts, the craving for Dilaudid was still there.

Beginning to feel fidgety from sitting so long, Spencer stood up from the couch and pulled on Sara's shirt sleeve, effectively breaking her out of her thoughts. "You should get to bed," He told her, heading in the direction of his own room.

She looked at the photo for another moment and replaced it on the shelf. "Yeah, ok," She said resignedly, leaning back to stretch. She stifled a yawn and followed her brother down the hall. "See you in the morning," She said quietly.

"Yep, goodnight," Spencer said, stopping by his bedroom door to let her pass down the hall.

"'Night," She said back, slipping into her own room and shutting the door.

-x-X-x-

As soon as the sounds of Spencer getting ready for bed had died away, I got up from the floor and crept over to my bedroom door. Silently, I pushed my door open and slowly began to make my way down the hall, careful not to step on any of the spots that squeaked.

I paused outside Spencer's shut door, straining to hear any movement in the room. Hearing nothing, I hurried down the remainder of the hall and into the living room, quickly locating my shoes, keys, bag, and flashlight while making as little noise as possible.

By the time I was out the apartment door and down the first flight of stairs I had relaxed again, now confident that Spencer wouldn't realize I had left the house in the middle of the night. He hadn't caught me before and I didn't plan on that happening now.

Late night trips on the Metro no longer scared me. I attributed that to the Glock 17 that was tucked safely into my bag whenever I went on these sort of outings. That was another thing that Spencer didn't know.

When I returned to the surface I was on the other side of the city, two blocks from my destination. The short stretch of city that I had to pass through always made me panic a little, but the bright yellow street lights reassured me that no one was lurking in the shadows. Statistically speaking, there was someone lurking in some shadows somewhere, but I was taking my chances.

The low cemetery wall had become only a small challenge to scale whenever it struck my fancy to visit Emily during the night. The short jog from the wall to her headstone only struck a small amount of terror into my heart, and I had decided awhile ago that the few minutes that the stress was taking off my life expectancy was worth it.

"It was my last day today. Well, last official day anyway. I could have sworn our last official day was the last day before exams started, but I guess our principal just likes to recant everything he says," I said, sitting down beside the headstone and leaning against the side. "It's really cold out here. I know it doesn't bother you much, but I thought I'd tell you anyway." The hard stone edge of the headstone dug into the space between my shoulder blades as I looked up at the sky. This was one of the few places where you could still see some of the stars through the lights on the city, something I'd grown to appreciate lately.

"It's been two months, in case you're not keeping track. I'm not either really, but since we humans are morbid creatures we like to keep track of how long it's been since our loved ones met their end. I don't know Emily. I really don't."

I rambled on to the headstone for another fifteen minutes or so before the cold became too much for me and I decided it was time to go home. At some point in the last two months I had become very good at speaking at length with inanimate objects, actually just one object. I never talked about anything particular, because I could never be sure if Emily was listening or not.

I took the Red-Line back to Van Ness and returned to the apartment. The glimpse of myself that I caught in the mirror told me that my nose and cheeks was very red, which meant that my face was so cold it didn't realize it was cold at all, though there was a marked numb-tingly feeling in my skin. It was decidedly cold for May, which bothered me immensely.

When the Glock 17 had been replaced in the drawer in the living room, my shoes and bag left in their places my the door, and the apartment locked, I returned to my room to check the time. At nearly two in the morning, it had now been two months and one day since Emily died. With that in mind, I wrapped myself in my quilt, buried myself in pillows, and fell asleep.

It hurts because it mattered.