I don't listen in on the surveillance bugs but I do eavesdrop on the conversations the others share. A mass poisoning that the leader faked, and then the beating Prentiss takes. I don't listen in. I don't think I could bare it, not while seeing the look on Morgan's face while he hears it. Soon enough, they decide that we are running out of time. We are going in at 3:00 AM.

It will be the morning of the nineteenth, one day before my flight out with Estelle. If everything goes smoothly, I can make it.

Rossi and Morgan go in. I put on a bulletproof vest, but I stand outside the building with Hotch.

He explains the plan, and I listen as best as I can.

"Prentiss is going to gather all of the women and children. The men will be escorting them out. Both you and JJ can act as friendly faces, help put the women at ease surrounded by all of these uniformed officers."

I nod my head. It's dark out, and everyone is sneaking through the building. Hotch and I are at the front. JJ is further back at the tents behind us, since a bullet proof vest isn't ideal for a pregnant woman.

"Last time you were in the field with me, you disregarded an order," Hotch looks over. "Should I be worried that you're going to run in there tonight?"

I shake my head, "why would you need to be worried?"

"Because you didn't say no just now. Instead you redirected."

Hotch's voice is always so calm. For a long time, I thought of it as a weakness of his. His inability to emote was always a bit off-putting. Maybe it's because I'm not a profiler. Somewhere, there must be worry in his eyes. At least I'm glad I can't see it. Instead I stand in the quiet air of the night, waiting for something to happen.

The bombs go off. I flinch backwards, covering my eyes as dust kicks into the air. It tastes like salt on my lips. I bump into Hotch, who remains sturdy, bracing me against the wave of heat that flashes against us.

As I pull my hand back, I hear shouting and crying. A stream of women come rushing out the side of the building, some arm in arm, all escorted by officers. I step back from Hotch. This is my time to go, to help the women. The air is smoky, almost chalk from all the powder and debris kicked up into it.

"Reid!" Prentiss calls out. She rounds to the front of the building, stepping in from of Hotch and I. "Morgan?"

Her black hair is a mess, sweaty and sticky, and there is blood on the front of her shirt. Even through the haze, I can see the bruises on her face.

I should go. Hotch told me not disobey him again. I'm supposed to help the women, but Reid isn't with her.

He's in the building still. The building where all the windows were shattered from the force of a bomb, where fire dances across the steps and trees in front of it.

"Morgan?" Prentiss repeats his name, only a shadow of a sound against the roaring light of the fire.

I cough, my hand finding my throat. I don't move in closer. I don't dare.

Two shadows lift from the rubble in front of the building. I'd recognize the outline of Reid anywhere. He's here. Suddenly, again, he is here. Coughing, but Morgan calls out to us, letting us know they are okay. I can't tear my eyes away.

He's here. He's here standing in front of me, his shadow hunched over but him all the same. Prentiss approaches them. I stop myself and look back at Hotch.

"I'll go help the women," I tell him.

My feet pivot before I change my mind.

"You can stay for a minute," Hotch says behind me. "He'll be happy to see you."

I ignore him and continue back to the tents. My eyes are wet. They sting, and hopefully I can convince someone it is from the blast, from little particles and smoke, and not because Reid is fine.

I make it back to the tent to help coordinate the women with the ambulances that have arrived. It helps to keep my mind off things and it gives JJ the opportunity to step out and call Garcia. Everyone now knows that Reid and Prentiss are alive and well. Prentiss comes in to my tent and is examined by a medical professional. I hover closer to her.

He doesn't give her a full examination. The doctor offers, of course, but Prentiss shakes her head.

"I know I'm fine," she tells him. "I just want to be cleared to fly."

Within the hour, before the sun has actually touched the horizon and just when the dawn is beginning to glow, we are loaded back onto the jet. Reid is at the front of the line, his shoulders more upright.

There are two little cornered off sections to the jet. Everyone loads into the further one, where the pilot lets us close the windows once we've taken off. Everyone begins to sleep. Reid slips out the back into the other section. After staying up all night, I am so deeply exhausted. I should go. I don't want us to talk now, not with the possibility of the entire team listening in. I should go.

I check my watch. Ten minutes tick by. I can't sleep.

Prentiss gets up and slips into the next room. I don't go in there. I don't even listen for them to whisper. I can hear Rossi snoring quietly. My back is stiff. I don't fly well, even with all my experience on planes. We are hours away from our destination. We will get back mid-afternoon and Hotch won't make us work. There will be so much paperwork, but my vacation begins tomorrow, on the Friday. I won't be able to fill any of it out until I'm back.

Then, the door creeps open. Prentiss and Reid step into the room, finding spots in the dark amongst us. I smell him as he brushes past me in the aisle. Now, he's here. He doesn't feel any closer to me than he did when I saw him standing in the rubble of a burning building. Even by scent I don't recognize him. The lemon of his cologne is gone after days, I'm sure, but I smell the burning on his clothing. The smoke in his hair.

I'm going to be sick.

I hurry to the back of the jet, to the bathroom, and I stand inside it, looking at myself in the mirror. Never before have I thrown up in the air and I'm not going to start now. I crouch over the toilet, just in case. I haven't felt this sick since I saw the body in New Orleans.

He was there. He was in that building. People died in there. I saw the hazmat crew go in after the fire department dealt with the flames. A girl died. And I didn't even care at the time. It could have been Reid though. It could have been him.

I don't puke. At the very least there is that. My mouth feels dirty. I sneak back into the dark room and grab my bag, heading back over here. I brush my teeth. I don't know how long I do that, standing in the bathroom, but my gums begin to hurt and when I spit out the toothpaste into the sink I'm surprised there isn't blood. The metallic taste of blood is nothing like smoke, and the mint doesn't seem to mask either flavour on my palette.

I shove the toothbrush into my toiletry bag and slip out of the bathroom.

Reid is sitting, facing the door. He looks up from his book when I enter the room. The door swings shut behind me. It feels so incredibly loud.

He doesn't say anything. I don't either. From here, he looks clean. At some point, I imagine, he washed the smudge of soot off his face. Brushed his teeth too. His hair still looks greasy. There are deep, dark circles under his eyes. He's here though. He is here in front of me.

"You..." the word trails out of my mouth, finds its way to him. It isn't hard, given how close we are. I haven't taken a step closer, but already it feels like he is pressed up against me.

"I..." he looks at me. Reid shuts his book, putting it down on the seat next to him. "I didn't make it back in time. For Denny's I mean."

"I know," I tell him. "So, I came."

"Why?" he furrows his brow looking at me.

My feet feel cemented into the ground. At least, as much as there is a ground in an airplane. His jaw is tight, and he's probably still angry from the other night. I guess there is no avoiding this with him. Never, not even now, can we play nice with each other.

"I was worried about you," I tell him. "You were being held hostage, Reid. What – do you expect me not to care?"

He blinks, "that's not what I meant. I just... you don't go out into the field. I didn't expect you to come. Especially since we haven't spoken in weeks."

"I called you," I shake my head. "I... just because we are... well I don't want you to die."

He shifts in his chair. My body feels a bit looser, but my legs are numb. The pressure in my ears is giving me a headache and I just want to sit down. I take a step closer to him, but then I stop.

Are we fighting? I cannot tell. Overall, we are, but at this specific moment, I just want to be next to him. To rest my hand on his back and hopefully feel his beating heart radiating through his chest. Reid is alive. Then again, nothing has changed. Putting my hand on his back would only lead to him asking me questions, to asking about the morning after the wedding, and I can't have that conversation with him right now.

Now is not the time to tell him anything, let alone everything.

He looks at me wide-eyed, waiting.

"When Prentiss came out, I thought..." I bite back the beginning of the thought. "I don't know why you didn't evacuate with Emily. You weren't wearing a bulletproof vest. What were you thinking?"

Reid blinks. He shakes his head slightly, twisting it to look at me, "I couldn't have done anything differently."

"You could have died, Reid," I force my jaw shut. He's picking an argument, an unusual behaviour on his behalf. None of this is usual. We shouldn't be on a plane, heading back from a hostage situation. "You know you could have died. You're the one who said even the smartest people can get into trouble on their own. So I came. So you wouldn't be alone. And you stayed in there with a man with a gun and bombs rigged through the building."

He gets up from his chair, standing up and coming closer. I wonder if someone stirred behind him. Reid doesn't actually close the gap between us. If the plane jolted, I wouldn't be able to reach out and catch myself on him. We'd be in freefall, together, but apart.

"Emily is the one who got hurt," he says. "I'm fine, Cole. You should check in on her."

I stare up at him, shaking my head. I take one shaky step forward and then another. We are going too fast, moving at top speed and yet each step feels arduous. His eyes are glued to me, his body paying attention to mine. Just like that, he's here. Not just mentally, in the way his gaze holds me, but in the way the air of the plane makes space for his body and mine. Space between us but none at all.

I just shake my head.

"Morgan thinks your using again," I whisper.

Reid twists his head away. He sighs. The light of the rising sun catches his face. The glow shows the cracks of dust on his hairline where the soap didn't scrub it away. Some of it is still caked behind his ear.

"He put you up to this, then? Morgan, I mean."

I grab his hand, pull his attention back to me. His face is still aglow. My heart speeds up, running as hard as the engine of the jet. I squeeze his hand tightly. He's here. More importantly, I am.

"You're supposed to be a good profiler."

His gaze softens. I step closer and he steps back. His hand doesn't slip from my grip. He blinks, shaking his head. With his free hand, he runs a hand through his hair, pulling it out of his face. Dust rains off.

"I'm not using," he tells me. "So you can stop this, Cole. You don't need to worry about me. I'm uninjured, and I'm out, and I'm fine."

He's not listening. He's here and hearing but he's not listening.

"Look at me."

Reid shakes his head. He takes another step back, but I hold him in place by the hand. I want to tighten my grip, to pin him with me, but I know what it feels like when you need to flee. I could never ask him not to go. I could never beg, no matter how much my body is demanding it of me. My knees want to buckle, my hands to fold in front of me in prayer. Maybe I can get away with praying he will stay. After all, asking him to remain is different than asking him not to leave.

"Look at me," I repeat. He still doesn't. My body feels so cold. "Profile me."

He takes his hand from mine, pulling away. I step closer, until my chest is pressed against his. There isn't much space left for him to retreat, but any closer to the curtain and surely we will wake all of the other profilers, asleep on the other side.

"Spencer-"

"There's no point," he shakes his head, looking down at me. "There's no point in profiling you, or even talking to you about it, because we are both clever enough to know what is going on. You, with your Rhodes scholar dissertation can't claim that you don't know. I want to be with you, Colette. I want you. I want to argue with you and dance with you... and I want to spend holidays with your siblings. I want to be allowed to have fun with you.

"You don't need to be a profiler to see what I feel, and I've already told you, and clearly, very clearly, you don't feel the same way I feel." Spencer swallows. The hallway of the plane seems to close in on us as he breathes, as if he is sucking away the air so much that the plane is compressing. "We work with each other and so we are trapped. I'm not going to bother you about it, but I'm not going to pretend like nothing happened at the wedding. At least, I won't pretend like nothing happened when I'm with you. I don't need the team to know, but you seem so ready to pretend that night didn't happen.

"And I guess that's fine," Spencer sighs. "There's no use belabouring the point. So, can we just go back to being coworkers who stay out of each other's way? Because as things are right now, I can't look at you or the coffee you drop off at my desk without risking falling in love with you."

His shoulders rise and fall. I don't know why, but I expect him to keep talking. He doesn't. My hand rises, moving up. Spencer stares down at me, and finally I rest my hand on his shoulder. I can feel it shaking. Him and me, both our bodies humming.

"You're supposed to be a good profiler," I whisper.

I lean up, stepping on the tips of my toes to rise up to him. I kiss him. His hands curl around my cheeks, holding me up to him and kissing me back. He goes in to deepen the kiss but I pull away. We are still at work.

He looks at me, worry on his face. I shake my head quickly.

"I..." I take in a deep breath. The jet compresses around me too. "I'm leaving. For a week. But I'm coming back. I promise. We can talk then but I... I want to be with you too. Okay?"

Spencer nods. Slowly but surely.

With no words left between us, I head back into the section with the sleepers, hopefully with a mind quiet enough that I'll be able to rest.

~~~~~

I wrote this in October. It is now February. One chapter left! As always, let me know what you think in the comments!