Guys this one hurt me, so please read the CWs before proceeding.
Pairing: Emily Prentiss x F!Reader
Summary: You didn't leave because you stopped loving her. You left when she stopped letting you in. When a quiet pickup turns into a long-overdue confrontation, months of resentment, fear, and love collide, forcing you both to decide if it's worth picking up the broken pieces.
Rating: M
WC: ~3.9K
CW: Angst, Miscommunication, Adult Language, Separation/Divorce, Relationship Conflict, Smut, Crying, Emotional Neglect, Reconciliation, Parenting Themes
You sit in your car for twenty minutes before you finally decide to knock.
You’re early, forty-five minutes early, but traffic was practically non-existent and any excuse to see her again, even if it’s just to pick up your daughter, is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.
You knock despite the key hanging next to the one from your house. She gave it to you for emergencies, or for when she inevitably forgot something at drop-off. You don’t think you’ll ever feel comfortable enough to use it, not when the house isn’t the one you built together.
You hear her curse from the other side of the door, and a small smile spreads across your lips without your permission. You know her well enough to know that she was either absorbed in a case file or some book she’s been carrying around for months.
You shake your head, because you’re not supposed to think of her like that… not now. You don’t have any right to.
The door opening pulls you out of your own thoughts, and you freeze, wholly unprepared.
She’s not ready for you, hair still damp and curling around her shoulders, skin flushed from the shower. She’s in a worn red tank top, and those damned gray sweatpants you tried to steal when she moved out.
But more than that, she looks tired. You can see the exhaustion in her face, her eyes filled with the weariness she only ever lets herself feel when she’s alone.
She blinks when she sees you, and your heart skips a beat like the traitorous bastard it is, because for a split second, you wished you weren’t just a visitor here.
“Hi. I know I’m early, but traffic was surprisingly good for a Friday night.”
She steps back to let you in, her expression twisting as you slip past her. Her apartment hasn’t changed since the last time you were here, Delilah’s toys still crowding the living room, the baby monitor humming softly from her living room table, while the faint scent of pizza wafts from her kitchen. The walls are still bare, the furniture sparse, and the quiet ache in your chest makes itself known. Your heart cracks as you realize you were the one who built softness into the life you shared, the one who made her house into a home.
“It’s okay,” she mutters, shutting the door behind you. “She’s still asleep though.”
“I figured, she go down okay?”
“Eventually. Although you could’ve warned me about the raccoon obsession.”
A bark of laughter slips from your chest, and you don’t even try to hide the grin.
“I would’ve but I thought I had it under control.”
“You were wrong.” She looks at you now, face a little lighter, a small smile forming despite the raised eyebrow.
“Look, let’s blame Spence, he’s the one who bought her that stuffed raccoon for her birthday.”
“I think we can blame the manifesto on Penelope though.”
“Oh yeah,” you say, dropping your keys onto the counter. “Apparently raccoons use buttons for money, and survive on ice cream and cookies.”
“That explains why she tried to get me to feed her ice cream for dinner.”
“Honey, she’s three, she’d do that anyway.”
“I expected the ice cream,” Emily huffs out a laugh, running a hand through her hair. “What I didn’t expect was hearing her try to say ‘nutritionally important’.”
“Jesus, I think she’s been spending too much time with Reid.”
“I mean, at least she’s not calling one of us baby girl?”
You laugh then, a gentle snort escaping you despite yourself. “Lord help us if she does– I’ll fight Derek.”
“Oh he’s her favorite, she’d root for him” She shrugs, reaching for a glass.
You can feel the smile fade as she turns, the ache blooming in your chest when you realize this is the Emily you fell in love with. The easy banter flows between you with a practiced ease, and not for the first time, you let yourself imagine what life would look like if she hadn’t disappeared. If things were still the way they were when she was yours.
You don’t realize you’ve gone quiet until she turns toward you, glass in hand.
“Please. I don’t think I’ve looked at anything that wasn’t caffeinated today.”
“A kid tried to bite me in triage within the first hour.”
“Jesus,” Emily mutters. “Remind me again why you chose the ER and not peds?”
“I thrive on chaos.” You smirk, taking a drink from the glass she handed you.
“I know.” Her voice is quiet now, and she has that look in her eye– the one that means she’s thinking too hard again.
“You just… look off. Work okay?”
“Like you care,” she says, and immediately looks like she regrets it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The job’s why you left, isn’t it?” She presses. “The long hours, the time apart– fuck, I can’t blame you for wanting out.”
“For fucks sake, Emily. It wasn’t your job.”
“Emily…” you swallow and it feels like you’re swallowing glass. “We literally met because you were being evaluated for a GSW.”
You watch as she goes still.
“I knew exactly who you were,” you continue, voice rising despite yourself. “I knew what your life looked like. I could live with the late nights, with you being haunted by the cases, the danger that came with all that. I married you despite that. Fuck, Emily, I had a kid with you, knowing all of that.”
Her mouth opens like she’s going to interrupt but you don’t give her the chance.
“I was all in, Em. I saw it all and jumped in headfirst for you.” Your eyes are burning now, the tears threatening to spill down your face.
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because you stopped letting me in.”
“Yes, you did,” you snap, the words spilling out of you. “And you know what’s fucked up? I wish you would’ve cheated. If you’d fallen for someone else, it would’ve been easier. It would’ve made more sense if you’d fucked someone else. I’d at least have an explanation. I’d know it wasn’t my fault.”
Emily recoils like you hit her, stepping back, but you can’t stop, not when these words have been sitting in your chest for months.
“Instead, you just shut me out and I don’t even know why,” you continue, voice breaking despite yourself. “It’s like I woke up one day and we were just roommates who shared a bed. You became a stranger, Emily. I couldn’t recognize you anymore. You stopped laughing. You stopped touching me… I can’t even remember the last time you really looked at me.”
She’s breathing unevenly now, chest rising and falling in sharp, rapid movements like she’s fighting for air.
“And what makes it worse,” you add, vision blurring despite yourself, “you never stopped trying for her. You’d come home exhausted, barely standing, wrecked by a case, but you still showed up for her. Every time, Emily, you made sure she knew she was loved. You made sure she never doubted you.”
You look away then, the tears finally breaking free, spilling down your cheeks in hot, angry streams.
“I’m so grateful you’re here for Lila. She needs you. I just wish you would’ve told me.”
“Told you what?” she asks.
“That you didn’t want me anymore,” your voice cracks. “I could’ve handled it, Em. It would’ve been easier than this.”
And like that, all of the fight drains out of you.
Emily flinches back, like the words landed with a physical blow.
You watch as her mouth opens, then closes again, jaw working like there’s something she won’t let herself say, trapped behind her teeth.
You sit there, the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife, waiting for her to say something… anything.
The words are rough, tinged with an anger you’ve never heard from her before.
She meets your gaze then, and her eyes are full of rage, shame, and something you can’t quite name.
“You’re fucking insane if you think I didn’t want you.”
“Then why the fuck did you pull away?” You match her anger, voice like razor-wire.
But there’s nothing. She just stares at you, tight-lipped and silent, full of the anger that only comes when someone’s terrified, once again, swallowing the words she wants to say.
“Of course,” you scoff, turning away to grab your jacket. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to shut down again.”
The words are so soft you think you imagined them, and you freeze.
“I was scared,” she says, louder now. “I was fucking terrified.”
You turn slowly, but she’s not looking at you, she’s staring at her own hands like she doesn't even recognize herself anymore.
“What were you so afraid of, Emily?”
She flinches like your words strike bone. Her jaw is clenched, and for a second you think she might try to avoid the question again.
“I was afraid I wasn’t strong enough for you.”
“You loved me so much… I know you did, and I love you too. But there were days I came home and couldn’t even stand myself. Days I’d look in the mirror and see someone else looking back. And I thought…”
She lets out a bitter, humorless laugh.
“I thought if I let you see that version of me you’d finally realize I wasn’t enough. So I pulled back without realizing. I guess I thought if I gave you the version of me you deserve, I could keep you.”
Her eyes find yours now, and it nearly undoes you.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to keep you and all it did was push you away.”
You don’t answer right away. You just sit there, staring at her, before your feet make the decision for you and you move closer to her. Step by step, until there’s hardly any space left between you. Her breath catches, but she doesn’t move.
You reach for her hand, and she stiffens, pulling back like she’s not sure she deserves to be touched.
“Hey,” you say, and your words are quiet but firm. “Look at me.”
It takes a second, but finally she meets your gaze again. This time when you reach for her hand, she lets you. You hold it gently, guiding it to your chest, flattening her palm over your heart.
“I’m right here,” you whisper. “I didn’t expect you to be perfect. I didn’t need you to be the version you thought I deserved. I just needed you… Emily, I just needed you to see me.”
Her fingers twitch against your chest, and it’s like she’s grounding herself within your heartbeat.
You don’t say anything else. You don’t need to, not when it's her.
You don’t notice the space closing until your mouths meet. One second you were staring into each other's eyes like some cliche, and the next the remaining space between you had disappeared. Your mouths meet in a kiss that's desperate and terrified all of once. You kiss like you’re walking out onto a frozen lake, terrified the ice will crack beneath you.
Her mouth is warm and familiar against yours, despite the trembling, and you breathe her in like she’s the first inhale after being underwater.
She pulls back, just enough to speak, your foreheads pressed together, breaths mingling in the space between.
She whispers it like a promise, and your heart cracks a bit as you kiss her again, because you believe her.
Your mouths crash into each other, and they’re not soft this time. It’s messy, breathless, and the realest thing you’ve felt in six months. You don’t pull away, you couldn't even if you tried. It’s more than a kiss. It’s the months of silence, nights spent in separate beds, the ache of sleeping next to someone who felt miles away.
You kiss like you’re saying “I love you”, and for a moment you let yourself feel that hope again because you missed this. You missed her.
You don’t even realize you’d moved your hands until you’re pushing her tank top up, desperate to feel her under your fingers.
She whispers it into your mouth, and you pull back to tug the shirt over her head.
Your fingers skim the skin of her ribs, and your breath catches, because even now she takes your breath away. You let your hands trail over her, memorizing the shape of her again.
Her hands hover over your hips, as if she’s afraid to touch you, and you see the fear filling her eyes.
You lift a hand, fingers lifting her chin to make her look at you before you catch her lips again. Her lips part against yours, but she stays there, still holding herself just out of reach, as if the second she lets herself feel you, you’ll float away.
You press yourself into her, and then you’re chest to chest, hip to hip, and you’re hoping she can feel everything you can’t say yet. You kiss her like you’re trying to breathe life back into her, and finally, she melts into you.
Her hands settle at your waist, and you take a deep breath that’s not about the kiss. She’s soft, her touch slow and reverent, sliding across the fabric of your t-shirt as if it’s a barrier she can't stand. You nod against her mouth and feel her hands slip under it, and finally you’re touching again.
You pull away, gasping against her.
“Take it off.” Your breath comes out in uneven pants, heart racing, but you’ve never been more sure of anything.
Your voice is shaky, cracking in your throat, but there’s no hesitation.
Emily looks up to meet your eyes again, her gaze searching your face, trying to find one hint of doubt, regret, or anything else that might tell her you don’t want this.
You don’t look away, you just let your hands trail down her back, playing with the waistband of those infuriating sweatpants, and you can see the moment she decides.
Her hands slide back down to curl around the hem of your shirt, and she lifts it slowly, pulling it and your bra over your head in one long motion.
She drops it to the floor and suddenly the only thing between you is air.
She exhales like she’s been punched in the chest before her hands wrap around you, pulling you back in, and it’s like she’s trying to relearn the shape of you.
The words land in your chest like a stone dropped in water, and you can feel them sink somewhere deep inside you, a place you forgot existed. And now it’s your turn to look at her.
Her eyes aren’t hungry, or full of lust. They’re just…open. Wide and vulnerable, and so full of love it makes your throat close. She looks like she did when you first met, and it’s like you’re seeing each other for the first time again.
You can feel it there. The memories… the ghost of her hands the first time she touched you. The way she laughed when you told her you didn’t believe in soulmates, and the way she kissed you like she didn’t care.
You feel everything in one impossible moment, and it’s too much, so you kiss her again.
You kiss her like she’s the only thing keeping you standing, and your hands shove at her sweatpants, because she’s not close enough. You’re standing there, chest to chest, hearts thudding between you, but there's still too much between you. Too much space. Too much fabric. Too much time.
Her breath stutters as you press closer, the kiss tipping past control and falling deeper, into a tangled web of mouths and memory, threaded with urgency. You tug her sweatpants down her hips, pushing them to the floor in one smooth motion. She lets you, hands on your shoulders, grounding herself as she steps out of them, bare save for her underwear.
The sound she makes is small, almost broken against your lips and your heart skips a beat, because you’ve missed it, and you weren’t sure you’d ever get to hear it again.
Then her hands are at your waistband, and it’s her turn to push at your scrubs, and you breathe her name.
You feel her still, hands stopping just below your hips.
You start to nod, but you’re overwhelmed by everything, and she begins to pull away, and it’s like something inside you shatters all over again.
“Please,” you whisper, the words leaving your throat in a cracked, desperate sound. “Please.”
That’s all it takes before she sinks to her knees, taking your pants with her. You look down at her, eyes shining as she presses one gentle kiss to your hip before she stands back up, wrapping her arms around you and breathing in the scent of you.
Your cheek brushes her collarbone, and for a moment you just sit there, skin to skin, learning how to hold each other again.
“I missed you,” she whispers into your hair.
The words settle deep inside you, and you can feel a crack begin to repair as you kiss her again. It’s messy and aching, and the kiss tastes like the silence, like all the nights you spent apart, praying she’d follow you.
She threads her fingers through your hair and you gasp into her mouth. Your hands slide without thinking, pulling her closer, even as she moves toward the couch.
You fall onto it together, and the kiss breaks with a breathless laugh. She pulls you into her lap, but there’s no fight left in you as you settle onto her lap, thighs bracketing hers, arms looped around her neck.
You cry out softly when her hand slips between your thighs, and your whole body arches as her name slips from your lips like confession.
Your face finds her shoulder as her hand moves. She’s slow at first, as if she’s remembering how to love you with her fingers, but it’s like she never forgot at all.
You gasp, hips rocking helplessly against her, desperate to have her closer still.
Your eyes are locked on hers, and you couldn’t look away if you wanted to.
You don’t look away as your hand slips between your bodies, sliding past hers to slip between her own thighs. She’s warm and shaking already beneath your touch, and you feel her movements falter as she presses her forehead against yours.
Your name falls from her lips like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered here.
Then you're moving; together this time. Breath hitched, skin flushed, hands shaking. Her mouth finds any skin she can find, pressing gentle kisses to your cheek, your jaw, your lips, and she presses you tighter, like if she lets go, you'll vanish.
Your fingers curl deeper, and it’s her turn to gasp, the sound breaking between you. You’re tangled in each other, so close you don’t know where one ends.
She gasps again, and then all of the tension flows out of her as she breaks open in your arms, clutching you to her even as she jerks against you.
Your name on her lips sends you over the edge. Your hand fumbles in hers when it hits you, and you bury your face in her neck, biting back a sound that sneaks past you anyway. She holds you the whole time despite her own breath shaking.
You finally collapse into each other, chests heaving, arms wrapping around each other, both trembling as you breathe like you’d forgotten how.
And for a moment, you sit there in silence as she traces along her spine, and then softly, so quietly you could’ve missed it.
You lift your head just enough to look at her.
“I need to know if you still want me,” she says, voice shaking. “Because I still want you, and if this was just… closure. I need to know now before I let myself break all the way.”
You can’t answer right away, not when she looks like this. Not when her mouth is trembling, even though she’s trying to be brave, not when the flush is still spread across her cheeks. Not when she’s finally letting the fear show.
Your hand trails up from her neck to her chin, and you cradle her face.
You watch as she blinks, bracing herself for a goodbye.
“Emily, you hurt me,” your words are a whisper.
“I know–” she starts to pull back, but you don’t let her, moving your other hand to cradle the other side of her face.
“Let me finish,” you murmur, thumb trailing across her bottom lip.
“It’s not gonna be easy. I can’t go through this again, Em. I can’t sleep next to someone who’s not really there.”
“Jesus, Emily, I said let me finish.”
“Huh?” Her eyes snap up to yours.
You say each word deliberately, and it’s like you’re trying to anchor yourself to her with them.
“Good,” you let yourself smile now. “Because fixing this? It’s gonna take work. Real work and it’s gonna be messy. Me, you, therapy. Counseling. It’s gonna take all of it.”
“I’m saying I still want you. I never stopped wanting you. But Emily? If we’re doing this, you can’t shut me out again.”
“I know,” she says, steadier than you’ve seen her all night. “I swear, I know.”
“I mean it, Emily. You don’t have to always talk to me, but I need you to try. You can’t keep swallowing everything down until there’s nothing left for either of us to hold.”
She nods, turning her face to kiss your palm softly.
The crackle of the baby monitor answers before you can, and both of your heads whip toward it.
“Mommy?” The voice is soft, slurred with sleep and dreams. “Da ‘coons are makin’ soup again.”
You both freeze for a second, and then you’re laughing, breathless and warm.
You look back at her, and the words spill out, honest and real.
“No,” you say softly. “I’m scared out of my mind. But… if anyone’s worth it? It’s you”.
You lean in, pressing a gentle kiss to her mouth like it’s a promise. When you pull back, you take her hand, threading your fingers together.
“And besides,” you smile, brushing your thumb over her knuckles. “I think we owe it to our little raccoon to try.”
Her face cracks into a grin, and it nearly knocks the air from your lungs, because you’re sure it's the first real smile you’ve seen from her in over a year.
“She’s never gonna let the raccoon thing go, is she?”
And then it's her turn to lean in to kiss you, and when your lips meet, it feels like the beginning of something new.
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