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Monday came quick and Mara was struggling to make a decision.
One thing she liked about being undercover was that she always had friends. Regardless if they were targets or an asset she needed information from, she always had someone to talk to.
Her favorite thing to talk about was Reid. Boy troubles was an easy way to gain another girl's trust because all girls can relate. Though through talking about Reid, she came to terms about her feelings and eventually got over them.
"But I don't want him to be just a memory," Mara, or rather, Stephanie, said to her friend. "I don't want to just forget him. I need to though. And I know I should because right now, that's what I need to do for myself, but how am I supposed to let go of him, of what's destroying me. When he was the only thing that kept me together?"
But now, she had nobody. The team convinced her that she always had someone to talk to but this was something that they couldn't help her with. They'd all convince her to come back.
She moved off the couch in her apartment and grabbed her phone.
Except Reid. He would give her his true opinion, no matter if it hurt her feelings or not.
She dialed his phone number and waited for an answer. "Dr. Reid."
"Oh, Reid, it's Mara," she said, clearing her throat. "Sorry, I thought Hotch gave everyone my new cell."
"I didn't take it," he said. "What can I help you with, Tate?"
Tate.
"Oh, well I guess it's nothing-"
"Come on."
Mara sighed. "Can we meet?"
Mara heard him sigh on the other end before mumbling, "yeah."
"Muggs?" She asked him.
He hummed in agreement before hanging up. Mara quickly dressed herself and headed down to the coffee shop her and Reid spent a lot of time together before. She was the first to arrive, getting both her and Reid's usual order and heading back to their seats.
Like it was before.
She picked up her cup and set it back down in the ring that formed around the coffee cup. Reid arrived twenty minutes late, something she knew wasn't like him.
He moved through the doors, the bell ringing to signal his arrival. He came and sat in front of her, setting his bag on the chair beside her and took a drink of his coffee before focusing his eyes on Mara.
"Drinking coffee now?"
"I never stopped," she said to him. "I just don't spend every minute hopped up on caffeine."
Reid shook his head and settled his eyes on his drink. "Why'd you want to meet?"
"I need someone to talk to about something and I know that if I talk to the rest of the team, then they'd give me a bias answer."
Reid nodded. "Go on."
"Do you think that I should come back to the team?"
Reid didn't look shocked by her sentence. "That's a decision that you need to make yourself."
Mara sighed, putting her elbow on the table and settling her hand in it. "Come on, Spencer."
"You called me here because you want someone to tell you that coming back to the team isn't a good idea and that you should go back undercover somewhere deep," Reid scoffed lightly. "I'm not going to tell you that. I'm not going to sit here and beg you to stay because the last time I did that, you left anyway."
"Spencer, I-"
"You don't have to explain yourself, I know it was a choice you didn't have control over," he shook his head. "But you kept on those seven months, giving me hope you were alive but you never tried to contact me."
"I couldn't."
His eyes flashed up and met hers. "You couldn't or you wouldn't?"
"No, I couldn't."
Reid scoffed and shook his head, taking a sip of his drink. Mara only rolled her eyes. "You think it was easy for me? I had to leave behind the only family I had left and go somewhere foreign and new and was told I could never speak to you guys again."
"Oh, cry me a river, Tate."
"Oh, really?" she scoffed, meeting his eyes. "You'll never understand how hard it was for me."
Reid stood up and grabbed his coffee, about to turn on his heel and leave. "Missing you is the hardest thing I've got to deal with everyday. So no, Mara, I don't know how hard it was for you but you don't know how hard it is for me."
He moved to the door, the bell ringing as he left. She rolled her eyes and got up, following him outside the coffee shop. She grabbed his free hand and turned him around. "I missed you every single day I was out there. Do you know how many times I wanted to pick up the phone and just hear your voice?"
"Do you know how many times I sat on your grave and prayed to a God I don't even believe in that you weren't really gone?"
Mara huffed and met his eyes. "Come on, Reid."
"You know, there's a myth that your skin-"
"I don't want to hear it right now."
"No, you want to understand what it was like for me?" he snapped. "Listen."
Mara crossed her arms over her chest and let him continue. "There's a myth that your skin is only ever renewed once every seven years, but really, it will only take about two weeks to a month for the bottom layer of your epidermis to become the top one, possibly even less in areas of high traffic."
Mara rolled her eyes, trying to figure out how to connect these dots, where he was taking this. "Each time you touch something, you leave a bit of yourself behind. After you died, I put my hands on everything I could and picturing myself losing just a few more cells that felt you. I left you on an office chair, my books, and shot glasses. I left you behind and in two to three weeks, I was using new fingertips which have never skimmed the valley between your ribs."
Mara only relaxed slightly and listen to Reid's words that were so beautiful but cut deeper with each word. "I had lips that never tasted yours, never told you my secrets, begged you to stay with me. I had legs I never tangled between yours. I was someone new altogether and I told myself 'you will not love her.' Even if I want to, my new cells with know better."
Mara only wanted to reach out and touch him. But his new cells wouldn't allow that.
