DISCLAIMER: Criminal Minds and its characters are the property of CBS. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
FEEDBACK: To khager12[at]gmail.com
SPOILERS: Season 3 overall.

Nobody Does It Better (Sometimes I Wish Someone Could)
By gilligankane

She thinks that there has to be someone out there – there are 6 billion people in the world after all – that can be it for her. She thinks that "everybody's got their something" and that Emily just wasn't it; she couldn't have been it. She thinks that there's someone else who she'll just happen upon and that suddenly the missing pieces in her life will lock together in perfect harmony. She thinks it can't help if she starts with the people she does know, because they're familiar and they know what to expect from her. She thinks that maybe she'll even try someone she doesn't know, just to be a little reckless.

She thinks that she still has a chance to find someone, because she's young and vibrant and only sometimes angry at the world.

She thinks that she hasn't already met and lost the one, because it's just not fair, and because it didn't last forever, the way it was supposed to.

She thinks that sucks.

Hotch

He's very serious about the entire thing, which she expects, and he frowns when she kisses him, and this isn't something she doesn't expect either. What he does, that she doesn't expect, is grab her by the shoulders gently and tuck her into his big empty bed, leaving her to fall asleep in the dark while he calls and tells his son goodnight, leaving her to sleep off her hangover and wake up in the morning without too much shame; without thinking too much about how she propositioned her boss and he was chivalrous enough to step back and say "no."

She can't help but think that the way he frowns in the moonlight looks exactly like the way Emily used to look at her before they would fight.

Reid

It's…well, it's weird, because Reid is all sharp angles and no muscle and he's Reid – the gawky, lanky, little brother who can read faster than she can run, or ever could run, and who couldn't keep from stuttering when he asked her on that one date. She kisses him once and then closes her eyes and kisses him again, trying to forget that he's young – because really, she is too – and that kissing him is like kissing little Jimmy Thomas, who was her best friend's little brother, when Katie Thomas was her best friend. But then she opens her eyes and he's Reid, so she stops kissing him and he smiles sheepishly.

Sometimes, when Emily knew she did something annoying – like forgetting to put the toothpaste cap on or leaving her half-done crossword puzzles lying about – she would smile exactly like that: sheepishly, one hand scratching the empty space behind one ear.

Garcia

All she wants to do is get the other woman to stop giggling like a schoolgirl, like everything is some big joke that never gets old, because while she loves her best friend, she can't stand the sound of high pitched giggles. It reminds her of home and the friends she used to have and the life she only just left behind. So she leans over real slow and Garcia's giggle starts to taper off, but she's committed to this stupid thing she's doing – because she's already knocked back a few and won a few rounds of darts and she feels like she's floating in the nothingness. But Garcia stops her before she does something really stupid, caresses her cheek and gives her a look that says "oh, honey" in such a pitying way that she can't even look into the blue eyes that match her own.

Emily used to scoop her up in her arms when she would come barreling through the door, mumbling on and on about Tom, Dick, or Harry that she schooled in darts and smelling like a tavern, and her dark-haired knight would look at her with heavy eyes, like she was throwing her life away with each drink, but she'd get Emily to kiss her anyway. And it didn't matter after that.

Rossi

Her first thought is that she never wants to do that ever again – she never wants to kiss him, because his face is all wrong and his mouth is too…gross; her second is that she can't remember where her left shoe is – because when she barged into his house after banging down his door, she kicked them off – but she doesn't want to get up from where she ended up and look for it because if there's one thing about Dave Rossi that she appreciates, it's that his sheets feel like heaven and she just wants to lose herself in them. He stands in the doorway of his bedroom – fully dressed, of course, because they didn't even do anything before she decided she never wanted to do anything - and she can feel his eyes on her as she falls asleep in his bed, wrapping the down comforter around her body even tighter, trying to feel less cold.

In an apartment in the city, there used to be a bed with sheets that weren't just like heaven; they were heaven, and she can't help but think about how those sheets are probably in a box somewhere and that it's almost ironic, because Emily is in a box too.

Morgan

It's good, but there was never a doubt in her mind. He's big and strong but he's gentle and warm hands and he knows what he's doing. You don't get to be Derek Morgan by not knowing what you're doing, he whispers into her ear while his hands move with purpose. She's on the brink of exhaustion, ready to do everything but what she's doing now – everything being sleep for years to come and never expect life to be kind and fair. Karma's a bitch, her father told her after her mother died in that car accident, after her mother cheated on her father with that traveling salesman named Kent. She feels her body going slack and before she knows it, Derek isn't kissing her anymore and she's grateful (because he is good, but she doesn't even want this) and he's walking her to her car with a steadying hand on her lower back.

That first date, when she couldn't stop herself from wondering how Emily's lips would feel against her own, she got out of the car when they pulled up to her quiet house in Quantico and Emily got out and walked her to the front door and she swore she'd kiss the brunette before the night was over.

Will

She's being stupid – drunk on alcohol but mostly on the notion that she saved a life today – and when he kisses her the first time, she turns into it instead of away from it. He kisses her again and again and by the time she catches up, she's wearing his ring and hanging his last name on hers. It's like she blinked and it all just tumbled in front of her; it all just passed her by and she couldn't do a thing to stop it or change it or fix it. But his kisses are scratchy and cool against her mouth and under her eyes and her throat and it's all wrong. He buys her a house in the country and she tries her best not to gag as she becomes her mother, all resentful and silently burning and pining away. He kisses her as he promises the world and it sounds nothing like she thought it would. It sounds like hell – like the universe is playing a cosmic joke on her by sending her right back to the place she started from, without passing Go, without collecting $200.

She played Monopoly a few times, and when she lost (again and again and again and again) Emily laughed at her like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen – and she pouted and sulked until the Monopoly game was packed up and thrown unmercifully into the trashcan and her frown was kissed and laughed away. (She never told Emily that she took the game out of the trash and put it in the linen closet, and by the time she thought about it again, it was just her and the game and Emily was gone.)

She thinks that she should have known that something like this would happen: she would finally leave her childhood behind and grow up and do her part to help the world, and the world would take her small offering and laugh at it and throw it back in her face, taking everything she's worked so hard to maintain away from her at the same time.

She thinks that it's not right that Hotch gets to go home to his son; that Reid gets to go home to his mother's letters and the promise of hope; that Garcia gets to go home to Kevin and his normalcy; that Rossi gets to go home to his Italian Opera Collection; that Morgan gets to go home and call his loving family.

She thinks that it's not okay for the 6 billion human beings to go home to the things and the people they love, and she has to go home to a lonely farmhouse and a husband she doesn't love and the idea that maybe she should meet her own traveling salesman named Kent and see what the big fuss is about. She thinks that she doesn't deserve this kind of misery, no matter what she did and who she didn't save and who she let free and what she didn't accomplish.

She thinks that Emily ruined her for everyone else and that it was selfish of the brunette to do, because now she's just drowning in herself and she doesn't know how to get back to who she used to be and she can't even remember who she used to be; that Emily was selfish to up and leave her right after the promise of forever; that Emily was selfish to grab her heart and hold onto it forever.

She thinks that Emily was selfish to get herself killed; to not come back after leaving and to charge into the house without really knowing what she was doing; to not kiss her goodbye one last time; to say "well, maybe next time, you shouldn't be so uptight about the stupid toothpaste cap" when she should have said "I love you" and smiled; to not come out of the house triumphantly.

She thinks that she should have done something differently and maybe this would be okay. But Emily ruined her for anyone else (and Will must know when she stops smiling into his kisses) and kissing Hotch or Rossi or Morgan or Reid or even Garcia isn't going to change the fact that she just wants Emily back, safe in her arms, and she wants to play Monopoly and come home drunk and get into fights and she swears, she'll stop complaining about the toothpaste.

She thinks that Emily ruined her and no one else – not her husband or her best friend or the baby on the way – can give her back what she lost. She thinks that she's used goods now and that no one else deserves her or wants her or can have her.

She thinks that Emily ruined her and she almostkindasorta hates her for it, because now, she compares ever kiss and every glance and every hug and ever feeling to Emily; to the woman she'll never have again.

Emily ruined her and she thinks that she'll never get over it.

The End

Return to Criminal Minds Fiction

Return to Main Page