behind closed doors

one

       It had been a couple of months since her arrival. Everyone was shocked, understandably. Especially Reid and Morgan, Reid had spent so much time mourning over her death when in reality she was out living her life in Paris. Or whatever life she had left in her. And Morgan felt responsible for the loss of his friend, the guilt eating him alive, telling himself 'had I gotten there earlier.....'' or 'I should've noticed her behaviour' so on, and so forth. 

She eventually gained back the team's trust, apologizing profusely for hurting them so bad. Aaron and JJ partially took the blame for it, it was his decision after all to fake her death and he only roped JJ into it because he trusted her.

They had spoken a few times, but it was brief and strictly about the specific case they were working on. She expected this from him. But it still hurt her deeply. They needed to talk. To talk about why she had run away, why she never shared that part of her life with him, and what she- they, had lost that night. But every time she would strike up a conversation with him he would immediately shut it down, responding with a "yes", "no", or "ok" in a monotone voice, or he would simply pass it on to another member of the team "submit the paperwork I asked you to finish to Garcia, and she will hand it to me."
He was avoiding her, he could barely look her in the eyes. She felt belittled and betrayed. It was like the past 2 years they had together never existed. It drove her insane.

But it was time this madness ended, she decided. She was no longer going to put up with his behaviour. They needed to talk.

The team was on their way back to DC after solving a case. A killer on the prowl to seek revenge for the attention he never received after surviving a school shooting. It was a sad case, really. Emily was sitting beside Morgan when she noticed him sitting alone, reading over case files with determination. She couldn't see his face, but she knew there was something wrong.

It was time that she made her way over to the chair opposite of him. He looks up at her, offering her a small smile then looking down again at the files. She knew that the only way to get through to him or break his walls slightly was to bring up his son. "How's Jack?" She asks. He doesn't like it, but he looks up again to meet her gaze "I just had a feeling." She continues as he closes the file he was just reading. 'Oh. she's good.' He thinks because he loves to talk about his son, no matter how angry he is with her- he will never turn down the opportunity to talk about Jack. He goes on to explain that a little boy was being mean to him, and Jack's solution was to invite him over and be his friend. It makes her laugh, and it warms her heart the way he talks about his son. She knows he doubts himself when it comes to being Jack's father, he confessed to her once that he wished it was him instead of Haley that The Reaper killed because at least Jack would have at least one stable parent in his life. But to her, to Emily, he was a wonderful father. And it made her heart ache because she knew she couldn't have that with him. Ever.

Then he switches the topic when he feels they're getting too close and emotional, "How did you get by in Paris?" he asks as she hums and repositions herself on the chair "I um- I played a lot of online scrabble. With some girl named Cheeto breath." She looks over to the side as he turns his head and watches JJ looking inside a Cheeto bag, frustrated that there wasn't any left.

So they sit there in silence, for a while, just watching each other. "We need to talk" she leans in closer, lowering her voice "We just talked." He replies, blunt and insensitive to her feelings, knowing she's been wanting to discuss what happened. "Aaron" she grabs a hold of his hand, "Emily, you don't need to explain yourself. You made the decision to keep that whole ordeal from me for a reason, I'm not going to push you to talk." He retrieves his hand back from her hold. Emily hated this. She would do anything to go back in time, back to when they were in love, to when he trusted her. "But I want to talk. I want to talk about what happened." Desperation obvious in her voice "Talking is not going to fix it, Emily." He says, venom in his tone that might have just killed her. She feels tears clouding her vision, and by this time she's grateful, the team is knocked out cold.

Unable to recover from his response, she stays quiet the rest of the flight. And he ignores her, even though all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms, wipe away her tears, and tell her that he loves her so much that he barely got through those 7 months she was away. But he couldn't do that, he needed to protect his son, and he needed to protect himself.