Title: The Fine Line Betwixt Good and Evil (Epilogue)
Author: Trista Groulx
Rating: T (same as the show)
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. Pitty. They belong to their creator, network and the writer, actors and actresses who bring them to life each week. I will return most of them unharmed.
Summary: Reid needs a friend and some time away after everything that happened in Nevada. Garcia to the rescue of course
Notes: The fic didn't feel finished before, and now it does. I hope you enjoyed my trip down drama lane. I am going to stick to fluff for a little while. I think I may be predicatable as well as evil, oh well....

Reid took a deep breath as Garcia pulled into a parking space at the cemetery. Although he dealt with death every day, he had always hated cemeteries. He knew he needed to do what he was going to do, and was relieved to not have to go alone. She waited for him to get out of the car, and followed him. It was a shock to see the grave marker with the name Spencer Greenaway. Reid then took a small teddy bear from his messenger bag, and laid it against the stone.

"I'm sorry I never got to know you, Spencer," he whispered. "I'm your dad. I hope that you're with your mother now. She's not a bad person really she was just very sad and made some bad choices. I wanted her to be next to you, but her family decided they wanted her close to them. I'll try to come visit you as much as I can. I wish we could have met you. Everything would have played out differently had you lived."

Tears began to fall down Reid's cheeks. "You don't need to know about all of that. I've been having dreams about getting to meet you. Your mother is even smiling again in them. That lady over there is my friend Penelope she would have loved you very much."

Garcia nodded. "Hi," she said. "I wish we could have met you some other way, but we promise you won't be alone here all the time." She then hugged Reid gently.

Reid was glad for the human contact. He had always found it strange to go to the cemetery and talk to someone who had died. He just needed to go and make his peace with what had happened. Seeing the tombstone had made everything real for him, and he was feeling overwhelmed. He was glad he had a friend with him. Reid hugged Garcia back gently.

"There's so much stuff I want to say, but I've never really believed in heaven and hell, or figured out what happens to you after you die," he sighed.

"No one knows what happens to us, but isn't better to think that he's with his mother right now?" Garcia asked him.

"Yeah, it is. At least then she'd be happy. When she told me about him, she was actually smiling. Not a fake one either, she was so excited. It was what she needed. I just don't understand why stuff like this happens to people."

"I think that every day at work Reid. It's even harder to deal with when it's your friends who are going through something horrible. You and Elle are good people you should have been given a chance to raise your son."

He sighed. "Do you believe she was going to let me be a part of his life?"

"She named him after you. I have to believe she would have, and that I think she really did love at some point."

"Then why didn't she find me when she lost him?"

"You know I can't answer that. That genius mind of yours is looking for answers to questions that you know cannot be answered."

He nodded. "I know. I would have been there for her. Even knowing everything she did to Lee. I did love her, but she never trusted me. It just hurts right now."

"I know Sweetie, it's not fair," Garcia assured him, as he cried. She kissed his forehead. "Maybe she was trying to spare you from this pain."

"She didn't have to suffer alone. I know nothing will change what happened. I just keep thinking about it. I just never thought Elle could be like that."

"No one did. When something horrible happens to you sometimes something snapped. Like you said she just made some bad choices because she was sad. She was probably sick and didn't know how to get help."

"You're probably right." He shivered a little.

"You want to go back to the car?"

He nodded, and followed her back to her car. He took a deep breath, staring at the grave they had just left. He then started to think about that night in Ohio with Elle. He sometimes wished that he didn't have an eidetic memory so that he could forget about parts of his life that he wasn't proud of. He didn't exactly regret what had happened between them, but he wished he could go back and take things more slowly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Garcia asked, breaking the silence.

"I'm not sure you want the details I'm thinking about right now."

"You can save those for Morgan, but what happened between the two of you other then the obvious? It had to be more then just a hook up if you two couldn't even face each other after what happened."

Reid shrugged. "We talked, a lot. She kept telling me how she wasn't sure if she could still trust the team."

"Why didn't you suggest she take more time off?"

"If she took more time off she would have just stewed about it longer. She was so angry, she felt betrayed. I kept trying to reassure her that no one had wanted her to get hurt like that. She was lucky to have survived, but I don't think she saw it that way."

"It's hard to when it's so fresh in your mind."

"I know that now, but I guess I didn't then. I didn't really know what she wanted at first. She just kept filling up my glass. To be honest she may not have drank nearly as much as I thought she did. But she was able to speak to me. Maybe she thought I'd forget it all in the morning. But I can't it's still all in there, clear as the day she confessed everything. Then she started talking about how no man would want her because of what happened to her. She showed me the scars. So I decided to kiss her."

"So you do sometimes think like a man! Doctor Reid I am shocked," Garcia exclaimed trying to break the tension.

"It's very hard not to want to reassure a beautiful woman you have wanted to kiss since you met her. I thought that it would help her feel safe again. I wanted to know that I cared, that I could see past a stupid scar. I never thought that she might misread my intentions."

"What do you mean?"

"Before she – shot herself in Nevada she said I had taken advantage of her that night. She was vulnerable and hurting that night, and I acted like a man when she needed me to act like myself. I just wanted her to know that someone still thought she was beautiful and perfect in my eyes. Maybe that's why she didn't want to tell me when she lost the baby. She was afraid that I would hurt her like I did when she told me about the baby."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I think so. That night I was shocked that she had just told me that she had shot a man in cold blood. I couldn't tell her something like 'oh honey you made a mistake but I'll always love you', I was too shocked."

"So, you do still love her then?" Garcia asked, surprised.

He nodded. "I want to say that I don't, but I never stopped. I know I need to see her as an unsub, as someone who killed thirteen people, like I see all the other monsters we deal with. But I can't. I've tried, but all I can see is that look on her face when she told me about the baby. I had never seen her so happy in all the time I had known her. She wanted to be a mother, and I think she even wanted to be a wife, but I couldn't give her that. I failed her."

She reached out and brushed his face with her hand gently. "Reid you were in shock and she was hiding. I know you would have done the right thing, eventually."

"I don't think she ever knew that, and that's what hurts."

"I truly believe that she does know it now."

He nodded. "I am jealous, not that that is the right word, of your faith. I have always been taught that I need to see, touch, smell, hear or feel something in order for it to be real. As a result I have never been able to see death as anything but a stop to everything. It doesn't change the past, but life just stops and that's all there is to it. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah it does, but it kind of stinks. The way you were talking to Spencer, what was that?"

"Voicing my feelings, I suppose. I don't know that he could hear me, but I needed to say that stuff in order to try and move past it. I want to think that he and Elle could hear me somewhere, but I have no proof. That's why I like magic, because I can teach myself how to make it look like there is something from nothing when there isn't."

"Being a genius sounds complicated. I'm keeping you to your promise to visit him you know?"

"I know, that's why I asked you to come with me. If I don't end up here ever six months or so I know you'll kick my scrawny butt."

"Oh don't you know it!" she assured him. "Maybe if you come here enough you'll believe what I believe, that the people you lose are not gone, they just can't interact with us."

"I mean that's a nice way to think, but I just don't know."

"You'll learn Doctor Spencer Reid if it kills me."

"Thanks Garcia," he said, actually smiling. "I think I need that. I just hope that you don't mean in some creepy scary sci-fi way that people around."

"I don't mean it like that. I mean that they can still see us, maybe our dreams about them are more then just dreams. You know?"

"I think I understand. I'm glad we came today."

"Now talking about sci-fi, are you ready for that convention?"

"Yes, I think I am now. Maybe I can focus on something else."

"Try focusing your friend Sophia, from what I hear she's gorgeous and smart."

Reid gave her a cockeyed look. "Where did you hear that?"

"Morgan. He said he would have tried something with her when they met, but he could tell she was already interested in a certain scrawny genius."

"She's just my friend. Even if I wanted something more, which I'm not sure that I do. I need to get over what happened with Elle. I'm not going to rush into anything and lose her friendship again."

"Just don't leave her hanging for too long. She sounds like she's good for you. She's a teacher, and she likes your mother since she reads to her."

"Well I do pay her to do that," he reminded her.

"Even when you are getting paid you have to like the person to spend that much time with them. You can't tell me you only chose her cause you used to know her."

"I wanted to get to know her again. Even if I wanted something more it wouldn't work right now because we live in different cities. I like the way things are right now."

"I just want you to be happy."

"I am, more or less. I'll be happier when I deal with all of this stuff with Elle. But today was a huge help. I can't believe you actually talked me into dressing up for this thing."

"If we are going to be super geeky my friend we are going to dress up and get into the spirit of the whole thing."

"So who am I again?

She laughed. "You are Fry from Futurama. Do I need to give you the whole schpeel again?"

"No, I remember the back story, I just forgot the name of the guy. And you're Leela, right?"

"Yes, good, you are learning. Now I just need to get you to watch a few episodes and we're set."

"Do I really have to actually act like this character? Isn't enough that I'm gonna dress up?"

"Please just like a couple of episodes in your hotel room while I get ready?"

"I don't know how you talk me into these things Garcia."

"Because no one can say no to this pretty face," she giggled.

They were soon at the hotel they were staying at. Reid took the DVDs Garcia had, and went to his room to watch them while she got ready. He watched a few episodes when he heard a knock at the door. He answered it, now in full costume, as was she. The two of them began to laugh as they made their way back to the car, and toward the convention.

The End

Notes: i just needed an ending that made me smile a little. thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, faved, or alerted this fic. I am glad you enjoyed. Hugz –trista