8a/n: This is based on dialogue from 7x06 "Epilogue" when the team is discussing the unsub's proclivity for killing then resuscitating his victims. Reid and Emily then briefly mention their brushes with death…and I was inspired. Rated T for mild adult themes and mild language.
Happy reading!
"…he wants to know if that experience can change. I can relate to that," Emily explains. "Reid felt a warmth and saw a light. When I coded in the ambulance, all I felt was cold and darkness." She swallows against the lump growing in her throat. "And I would like to think that there's a different future waiting for me."
No one utters a word for a moment before Reid, eyes narrowing in concern, questions, "You actually died?"
Thank god Morgan has the foresight to keep the momentum of the conversation moving and successfully manages to shift the focus away from Emily. "Alright, but resuscitation is hit or miss…"
It's not until the team has a five-minute lull in their operation while waiting to hear from Garcia that Emily excuses herself from the conference room. Reid follows.
He catches her by the forearm and she doesn't fight his grip.
"You actually died?" he repeats his earlier question.
"Reid…" Emily sighs.
"Please." He is quiet, desperate and pleading, his fingers still latching onto her arm. "I have to know."
"Why?" she demands. "Why do you have to know?"
He looks too much like a wounded animal and her gaze softens. "I'm sorry." She doesn't mean to snap.
"I don't want to say I deserve to know, but I do. I think I deserve to know," Reid responds softly, testing her. "Morgan never told us the details."
She doesn't want to go back to this place, but Emily figures she can grant Reid this small consolation after all she has put him through.
"Yeah, I, uh, actually died."
At her admission, Reid's grip on her forearm tightens and he inadvertently steps closer to her. At her admission, she is drawn back to the night that she died.
There is a buzzing. And there are gray shadows in her line of vision. And there is a warm, familiar voice tickling her ear.
Oh god, I'm actually dying.
The indescribable pain in her abdomen had since been replaced with an oddly disconcerting numbing sensation. When she glances down, she nearly chuckles at the sight of that goddamned wooden chair leg sticking out of her belly.
It's ironic that her belly is numb, but when the ambulance bumps over a groove in the road, her legs and back scream in searing pain.
There's JJ's voice in her ear and her hand gripping Emily's but Emily wants her to shut up shut up shut up and let her go.
And it's so damn cold and the gray shadows are shifting to black and if it weren't so horrifying, Emily would have asked where Morgan had gone. She would have asked why no one had bothered to wipe the sticky, drying blood coating her hands before she realizes it is her own.
She wants them all to let her go, but it's when the black shadows are the only thing she can see that she decides she wants to stay.
It's too late.
"And the next thing I remember is a tube down my throat and JJ telling me I lost so much blood my heart stopped for 90 seconds." Emily's voice is shaky, and she wrenches her arm free from Reid's grip.
"You flatlined," he says matter of factly.
"Yes, Reid." She wills herself not to lose patience, but she has zero forbearance for encyclopedia Spencer at the moment.
She's surprised when he suddenly pulls her into an unusually tight embrace, his hands clutching her head to his shoulder. Reid grips Emily unyieldingly; so much so that he can smell her almond shampoo and he's so achingly grateful they were able to resuscitate her.
There's an odd sense of closure for him now.
She relaxes into his hug.
Thanks for readings, folks. Please feel free to share with me your thoughts!