Nobody ever prepares you for what it feels like to bury a friend.

It’s a given fact that anytime, anywhere, bad things happen to good people and the world keeps spinning. But, you’d never think that it could happen to you. Emily Prentiss was a good person. Now she’s six feet in the ground.

Well, supposed to be, anyway.

You know the truth, that if you bought a plane ticket right now, you could go find her. You couldn’t do that logically, obviously, that would jeopardize her safety, but knowing that she was out there was enough for you. Hotch swore you to secrecy, and you intended to uphold that. For the better, you told yourself.

What you weren’t ready for is what it would do to your friends.

Garcia would stare at her picture on the wall, as if she would simply jump out of it and say it was all some grand joke. Morgan would stare at her empty desk, like he was replaying memories in his head and trying to hold onto a fleeting image of her, only to end up inevitably disappointed. But Spencer’s grief hurt you the most.

Because you could see it right in front of you.

On late nights, you would hear his familiar knocking pattern on your apartment door and know it was him. He would come to you, tears in his eyes, and you would accept. You would hold him while he cried, as if providing a shield. To protect a grown man from the horrors of a world he’d long experienced. To hope, maybe, in those quiet hours of the night, he could find some semblance of peace.

Tonight was one of those nights.

You held him, his full body length splayed out on your couch as you gently stroked his hair and ignored the way a flow of tears wet the spot where his head lay on your lap. He takes a sniffling breath, and speaks, the previous silence of the room fracturing and shattering like it’s just as fragile as you are right now.

“I just miss her. And I— I never really got to say goodbye.” He breathes tearfully, and suddenly, it feels like you’re sending Emily off to Paris all over again.