✓ | sick of losing soulmates [SPENCER REID]

12.3

Morgan and JJ stay standing, JJ coming to stay by Hotch, while all the others pull out chairs around the black wooden table. For the first time in a while, Spencer and Iris are back next to each other, in the places they always used to sit. Both of them have reddened cheeks, but Iris can't stop smiling, biting at the inside of her mouth in order to contain herself.

"Why? Is everything alright?" Morgan asks, voice hesitant and sceptical.

"Seven months ago, I made a decision that effected this team," Hotch begins. Seven months ago — the day Emily died. "As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle, but the doctors were able to stabilise her, and she was airlifted from Boston under cover."

Iris' heart stops dead in her chest. Her hand flings out, across, grabbing onto Spencer's.

"Her identity was strictly not to be known," Hotch continues, looking between them all as he speaks, voice calm and even. "She stayed in hospital until she was well enough to travel, and then she was taken to Paris, where she was given several different identities — none of which we had access to for her security."

"She's alive?" Garcia chokes out, barely a split second after the final syllable has left Hotch's mouth, desperate to know.

Iris flicks her wide eyes away from Hotch, staring straight ahead in thought — or, rather, more accurately, as she tries to think. Spencer cries out just what she's thinking: "B-but we buried her!"

Yes. They had. And Iris had put flowers by her marble grave regularly, and had mourned her, and had watched all her friends mourn her, too. Losing Emily had been like losing a limb -- no, it had been worse. It had felt, and continues to feel, like she'd lost both her legs in the bombing so long ago. Losing Emily had crippled her; the loss had forced her to her knees with the gut-wrenching pain of it all. The past seven months have been long and difficult — and all of it was for nothing?

"As I said, I take full responsibilty for the decision," Hotch continues, but Iris hears only her blood rushing in her ears, not his voice. "If anyone has any issues they should be directed toward me."

"Any issues?" Morgan croaks, voice incredulous. "Yeah, I got issues!"

Iris turns, eyes watering, mouth open, ready to tell Morgan to calm down, but any words die on her lips when she's the first in the room to see who's standing in the doorway.

Emily.

☆ ★ ☆

spencer

Spencer's the last to go in, meaning he sits alone on a brown wooden bench while Iris is in her meeting with the Chairmen, admiring the grand stone architecture and the carvings in the marble.

Deep in thought, he picks at his nails anxiously — a bad habit he's picked up from Iris.

His heart picks up speed at the thought of her. Swamped by work, they hadn't talked much about what happened the previous week, sharing only stolen glances and knowing, giddy, child-like smiles. But he knows what he wants, and he knows Iris wants it too, and the mere idea of that makes his heart soar straight out of his chest.

He hardly notices Strauss come to sit on the bench beside him with a quiet sigh, until she's held out a blue tin of mints over his lap, offering him one.