A/N: This has nothing to do with my Phoenix 'verse and in fact doesn't even have more than a hint of my beloved Reid/Prentiss. Just wanted to play a little with resentful and hurt Reid. I'm a little behind on episodes, but I hear things are weirdly hunky-dory now. I wanted to explore how they might have gotten that way. Sadly, I don't own him or anybody. Oh the things I would do to that skinny geek.

The Gift

Reid came in at his usual time, with his usual coffee cup and his usual bag. Also as usual, he gave J.J. a curt nod and looked away.

She rubbed her chest, fighting the urge to go down into the bullpen and kick him in the shins. He knew why she'd done it. He knew why Hotch had done it. Most of all he knew why Emily had done it. And still there was this icy professional shell around all his interactions with them.

Hotch just said give it time, but it was so hard. Emily swore he was starting to soften up, but the look in her eyes when he'd left on Friday, curtly turning down the offer of a drink, said differently.

He took his usual path to his desk, but stopped briefly at Emily's, taking something out of his bag and laying it on her chair. J.J.'s brows drew together.

He set down his bag, turned on his computer, tossed the to-go cup, picked up his coffee mug, and headed for the kitchen. J.J. hesitated for just an instant, then caught up two or three consult files that she wanted to run past Emily and headed down into the bullpen.

With her back to the kitchen, she could set the files on Emily's desk and scribble a note while taking a sidelong glance at whatever mysterious article Reid had left on Emily's chair.

It was a dark-brown t-shirt, with a picture and some words on the front. As J.J. took them in, the pen twisted in her fingers. Horror and then fury swam in her head.

And Emily had thought he was softening up?

She risked a glance over her shoulder. Morgan had caught Reid and they were talking, innocuous morning chat. Morgan seemed to be giving him grief for some nerdy event he'd gone to over the weekend. Reid's back was to her.

She grabbed the t-shirt, wrapped it into a tight ball, and took it back to her office.

She had to think hard about who to take it to. Morgan was still wrestling with his own feelings. Hotch . . . well, to tell Hotch would be to tell the Unit Chief, not just her friend. Garcia possibly, except that she was out sick today. It had sounded like the flu with just a touch of the Black Plague, so J.J. mentally vetoed that notion in favor of letting her friend recover.

She finally took it to Rossi.

"Jesus," he said when he got a good look at the shirt. "'Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal'?"

"I know," she said. "He's saying that not only did she betray him, he should have known she would. God." She rubbed her hands over her face.

"Honestly, I've been thinking he was softening up."

"Emily said the same thing. I guess we were all wrong." J.J. gestured at the shirt. "This isn't just hurt. It's mean. Petty. I never thought he could be petty."

"Did she see it?"

"God, no. I hid it before she came in."

"What are you going to do?"

She slumped a little in her chair. "I don't know."

Rossi frowned at the shirt. "What's with the dinosaurs, I'd like to know?"

Although they didn't get an out-of-town case, it was still a busier morning than usual, too busy to allow J.J. a spare moment to talk to Reid about the shirt. As she headed to the ten o'clock briefing, she thought that maybe she wasn't trying so hard to get the time.

Throughout the discussion of the different consults and cases, J.J. watched Reid watching Emily out of the corner of his eye. Waiting for a reaction, she thought, and reflected again how odd this was for him.

After the briefing, he finally asked, in a too-casual tone, "Did you get what I left on your chair?"

Emily's face brightened very slightly at his not-icy tone. "That was you?" She rolled her eyes. "Thanks, that's just what I wanted today."

His face went blank. "Well, good," he said coldly, and exited the briefing room, leaving his coffee behind.

Emily stared after him. "God," she said to J.J. "That's the way I always used to answer when he dumped a consult on me. I was hoping he - " She bit her lip. "Whatever. Not my problem."

J.J. opened her mouth, then closed it. Just leave it, she told herself. Leave it. She still had to run Reid to ground and maybe slap him repeatedly.

Around lunchtime, Emily stopped in with the consults J.J. had dropped off. They went over them, Emily confirming all J.J.'s conclusions. "You're good at this, Jayje," Emily said. "You know you are."

"I'm still feeling my way."

"It's clearer than you think."

J.J. stacked the files next to her computer to be uploaded again into Garcia's magical all-digital database. Call her a Luddite, but she liked the feeling of paper and being able to spread everything out. "So how was your weekend?" she asked.

Emily shrugged. "More shopping." After her "death," most of her possessions had been donated to charity by her mother. Since her resurrection, she'd had been replacing her things bit by bit, taking a shopping trip every free weekend, and had finally reached the point where she was flat-out sick of spending money, even with Garcia's help. "You know, you don't realize how much stuff you have until you try to replace it all."

"What was the target this time?"

"Nightwear."

"Get anything slinky?"

"Ha," Emily said. "I'm nowhere near the market for slinky. Actually, I was going for comfort."

"Flannel and cotton?"

"Hell yeah." She sighed, propping her chin on her hand. "I used to have this great t-shirt collection. Stuff like 'My name is Inigo Montoya' or 'Sunnydale High School.'" She saw J.J.'s confused face and explained, "'The Princess Bride.' And 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'"

"Okay," J.J. said in a bemused tone.

"I know, I know. Completely geeky. But I'd had some of them since college and they were worn to that absolute perfect softness. I used them for sleeping in, or running, or being a total house slob, or a quick trip to the grocery store when I didn't care who saw me. I loved them."

"You'll get more," J.J. said.

"I know. It just won't be the same." Emily made a face and got to her feet, wandering around and poking at the various stacks of folders. "Maybe I should get online tonight and order a bunch. It's a change from hitting the malls anyway."

"You know, you don't have to rush it," J.J. said. "Things will get back to normal in their own time."

"And people?"

Skinny, geeky genius people? Who needed a firm smack to the head? "People, too," J.J. said, hoping it was true.

She glanced at her computer as it dinged with an email. The tiny preview in the corner of her screen showed it was from Rossi, with a couple of links.

"I know," the other woman sighed. "I've just got to be patient." Her voice brightened with interest. "Wow, J.J., where did you get this?"

J.J. looked up and felt her stomach drop when she saw the bundle of dark-brown cloth in her friend's hand. "It's just . . . I . . . found it," she said weakly.

Emily shot her a sharp glance, all the idle curiosity suddenly transformed by J.J.'s weak answer. "Where?"

"It - I - "

The profiler's eyes narrowed. "J.J.?"

She got up and closed the door. "I didn't want to tell you this," she said.

"What?"

"Reid left it on your chair this morning."

Emily's eyes widened, then dropped to the front of the shirt, taking in the dinosaurs and the message. "Reid?" she asked in a thin breath of sound.

"Emily, you know this wasn't going to be - " J.J. was talking to empty space. Emily had ripped open her door and charged out of her office. She swore and ran after her.

Reid was on his way to the elevator, but he turned when Emily called his name, so he managed to catch her when she rammed into him. J.J. started forward, ready to pull them apart if need be, but then she got close enough to hear what Emily was saying.

"Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you." She pulled away, looking up at him with damp eyes. "I just got the shirt."

Puzzlement flickered over his face, and then shy happiness. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," she said fervently. "It's perfect. Where did you get it?"

"Can't Stop the Serenity was this weekend," he said. "They were selling them in the lobby. I knew your mom donated everything so . . . I thought . . . you'd like it."

She put a hand over her mouth. "You're kidding. I missed it again? Why didn't you say anything?"

"You seemed busy."

"Nobody is ever too busy to dress up as Kaylee."

"I always think of you as Zoe."

"Maybe, but the leather gets hot." She looked down at the shirt, and hugged it again. "This is amazing. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said. "I did consider a shirt that said, 'I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.' But I thought it might be too soon for that."

Emily winced and put a hand on her stomach. "Twenty years from now might be too soon for that."

He bit his lip. "I really missed you, Emily."

Her face softened. "Me too."

They smiled at each other.

"So how was it? What did they show? God, I can't believe I missed it." They started walking off toward the cafeteria.

"So," Rossi said from behind J.J. "She found the shirt."

"And she's acting like it's a box of chocolates and a balloon bouquet," J.J. said. "I'm confused."

"The dinosaurs piqued my interest," Rossi said.

She shot him a sidelong look. "Boys never do grow out of that, do they?"

He ignored her. "So I did a little Googling. It's a reference to a line from a short-lived science-fiction TV show, which was later turned into a movie, which a theater in Arlington happened to screen for charity over the weekend. Hence . . ."

"The shirt," she said.

It hadn't been a jab. It had been a peace offering.

"You know, doing this job, it's awfully easy to start feeling omniscient," Rossi said. "Tempting. Maybe the hardest part is not letting our own preoccupations color our perceptions."

"Guess I failed that one today," J.J. murmured.

She saw Emily come back from lunch, still grinning, with the shirt folded under her arm. She swallowed her pride and asked where she'd left Reid.

Emily's eyes settled on her, sharp and knowing. She smiled a little at what she saw. "He's sitting out under one of the trees in front," she said. "Reading."

"Sure, what else?" J.J. said.

"You should go now," Emily said.

"Now?"

"I asked him a direct question at lunch and he changed the subject."

"About what?"

"Besides abandonment, what's the other elephant in Reid's personal room?"

She remembered his insistence, a few weeks back, that there was a lot going on. "You think - but he hasn't - " But he wouldn't say anything, would he? Not to her, not now. She swallowed. "Come with me?"

"Nope," Emily said. "This is between you and him. Even with this - " she held up the shirt. "We're still a little wobbly. I'm not getting myself in the middle of you two."

J.J. took the stairs, because it gave her time to think. The time didn't help much. She found herself on the first floor, walking out onto the grounds, still lost and fumbling.

But this was Spence. He was being a jerk at the moment, but he was still sweet-natured Spence, the closest thing she'd ever had to a little brother.

He'd settled himself on a bench, sunglasses on, long legs pretzeled up while he burned through a thick book on thermonuclear physics or Maori grammar or Star Trek trivia, for all she knew. He was fully capable of ignoring the world when he was like this. Sometimes it took actual physical intervention for him to look up from a book, when he was really concentrating.

Was he really concentrating?

"Hey," she said.

He looked up, but otherwise didn't move. Not exactly inviting, but then, she hadn't had to wave her hand in front of his face, so . . . that was something? Maybe?

She opened her mouth, still lost, but the words that came out were, "The reason Emily just got the shirt was because I saw you drop it off and I hid it."

He straightened up, mouth falling open. "What? Why would you do that?"

She put her hands on her hips. "Because I didn't know what it meant. Because it talked about betrayal and I thought you were being a jerk."

He turned that over in his head and said softly, "Again, some more?"

"Yeah," she said, letting out her breath in a whoosh.

He chewed his lip, then set his book down and scooted over slightly to make room on the bench.

She sat. "I'm not going to go over all the reasons again," she said. "You know what they are, and you know it was never about you. But I am sorry to have put you through that."

He worried the corner of his book. "You know, out of all the people who've left me, Emily's the first one who actually came back. You'd think I'd be happy."

"People don't come back from the dead," she said. "And people don't come back to you. You're on the defensive. You're wondering when it'll happen again."

He looked away. "My mom's getting worse," he said. "I called three weeks ago and she didn't know my voice."

She caught her breath. "Spence. Why didn't you - ?" But she knew why he hadn't told her. He'd come to her the last time grief had almost torn him apart, and look how that turned out.

Instead of a silly t-shirt, this was his peace offering to her.

"Can they do anything? Change her meds?"

He looked away. "All drugs lose effectiveness eventually."

He looked older these days, she thought. She'd noticed it. She'd told herself it was his haircut. "Spence. I wish I could fix this."

"It's not your job to fix this," he said. "And contrary to what I've been acting like, and implying, and, uh, outright saying recently . . . it wasn't your job to fix it when Emily had to leave. It was your job to make sure she was safe, and you did."

She looked down. "All those times you came to my house were bad for me too."

"But you were there. All summer. Every time I asked."

"Spence, I still am." She touched the back of his hand.

It turned over and clasped hers. "I know."

FINIS