: (may you) be always heartbreaking :

Despite everything he's been through, everything he's fought, this is what almost breaks him. And he can only think of one person to get him through it.

A/N: Set just after Criminal Minds 6x18 Lauren, so you should all know what's coming (spoilers abound, oddly enough.) In the same verse as It's a Long Way to Freedom, it takes place somewhere in-between the last scenes of that fic.

-x-

Ring. Ring.

Spencer is defeated in his chair. He doesn't know what to do. His entire world feels like it's collapsing around him and there is nothing he can do about it. One long hand clutches at his trousers, desperately seeking something to do, a distraction.

He still can't take in what happened.

Click.

Finally, a connection.

"How may I help you?"

The voice is sweet, clinical, ordinary and pleasant. But Spencer has had enough of pleasantries (the tone JJ uses is always the same, always, no different for her son's godfather as he cries on her shoulder, no different at all.)

"I need to speak to a patient. Zachary Addy."

This is madness and Spencer knows it, but he honestly can think of no one else right now, no one who he is close enough to who is not dealing with their own sense of inconsolable loss.

"Who is this?"

Polite. Inquiring. She's just doing her job after all.

"Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm in his file."

The rustle of papers as the receptionist checks the file. Spencer drums his fingers impatiently. Part of him wants to throw the phone across the room, be angry, scream – I don't have time for this – but that will achieve nothing, it won't make him feel any better. He should know, he's tried everything already.

"Mr. Addy does not usually receive phone calls Dr. Reid."

Doctor. Doctor Addy. He was a doctor, two PhDs, hard earned and worked for.

"I'm the BAU Agent in charge of reopening of his case. I need to speak to him."

A manipulation of the facts, making it seem like the reason he needed to speak to Zack was related to his case, when of course that wasn't true. Technically, the reason he needed to speak to Zack was case related, after all.

Just not his case.

"I should ask my supervisor."

"The matter is urgent." Well that lie would require some creative thinking to get around if anyone chose to look into it. "I'm not in DC at the moment or I would come in person." A pause. "Now please."

The receptionist squeaks and Spencer is put on hold, presumably while she goes to fetch Zack.

Another click.

"Spencer, what's wrong? They mentioned the case?"

"Zack." Spencer's voice breaks midway through, and he fights back tears.

Zack hears the minute sob. It is unmistakeable, really. "What happened?" It's not his case, Zack knows that, logic dictated that Spencer would not be so upset, this raw, at the failure of his case (much as Zack might want himself to matter that much to Spencer). Something else must be at work.

"It's Emily."

Spencer manages to choke it out. He pauses, swallowing. He's having difficulty finding the words, getting the words out, to convey what on earth has happened.

"She."

He pauses again, raising his hand to wipe his eyes.

"Zack, she,".

Zack is prepared to give him all the time he needs. Something bad has happened. Spencer is never like this.

"She's dead."

Another strangled gulp. Zack can't say he knows Emily well, he's never met her, only knows her from that time when Spencer briefly described the team. But what is abundantly clear to him is that her death has shaken Spencer to the very core.

"How?"

A case; he knows the BAU works dangerous cases, puts themselves in danger, right on the front lines, heard of kidnappings and shootings and all the rest of it. He is aware of it himself. Epps. The gravedigger.

"An old case of hers. Interpol. She was working undercover for a terrorist. He broke out of prison and came after their team. Emily was killed taking him down. She died on the table."

There is more to it than that, Zack knows, but the shake in Spencer's voice indicate he's in no mood to talk about quite what happened. He knows the basics.

Etiquette would dictate asking how Spencer was, but Zack knew that wouldn't do any good. After all, he could pretty much tell. He had obviously received no physical damage, or he would be in a hospital bed under constant supervision (an assumption, obviously, but based on the fact that that was what Booth would do under similar circumstances.) Emotionally, Spencer is quite clearly not alright, and asking wasn't the solution to making it any better.

Sorry wouldn't make it any better either.

"Where are you now?"

"Boston. In the hospital."

A haggard breath.

"Everyone else is still in the waiting room. She was just right there."

"I understand."

And Zack does, he really does. Remembers people who he barely knew being blown up in Iraq. More than that.

"Agent Booth died once."

Spencer pauses on the other end of the phone, scrunches up his face. Agent Booth was most definitely alive. Spencer had only seen him a couple of weeks ago.

Zack senses the need for further explanation.

"He was shot in the course of an investigation. The bureau faked his death in order to draw out a felon who had previously stated he would only appear at Agent Booth's funeral. It caused quite the commotion."

Spencer thinks of Agent Booth's team. He doesn't quite have the brain capacity right now to imagine how it went down.

"What happened?"

"Agent Booth chased the guy down at his own funeral, knocking open the casket, revealing the body to be a fake. Dr Brennan was furious. She was prepared to never talk to him again, but other things took over. She was delivered the mandible when we got back to the lab."

Zack doesn't really want to say anything more than that about it, and Spencer understands why. It's the reason that bought them together after all.

"How did you cope?"

Spencer knows, deep in his heart, that no matter what Zack answered, it will not help him. The thing which worked for Zack will not necessarily work for him. He can't imagine anything helping, anything lessening the pain, but he has to try.

"I didn't. I was distracted."

Zack doesn't actually say why, but he knows that Reid will understand why.

"In addition, Dr. Brennan found it very difficult to cope and would not admit it. We threw ourselves into work in the two weeks between the news of his death and the funeral."

"I don't know how to go back to work."

Zack can understand that, a little bit, though he has never ever experienced it himself.

He also knows that Spencer is coping with a lot at the moment. He isn't saying, and Zack might not be a profiler, but he also isn't an idiot. Spencer confessed about the headaches, sure, fine, but they haven't been mentioned since the first time Zack brought them up. They haven't exactly gone away, either – there are the tell tale sunglasses in his bag, self help books, painkillers.

There is more to it. Spencer speaks little of his team, but Zack knows things have changed recently. A woman – JJ, he thinks – is on the team but strangely absent from anything Spencer shares. He speaks of her fondly though.

And now Emily, gone, dead. Spencer clearly had relied on her more than he was willing to admit.

"You can. You will. The rest of your team will go back with you."

Another pause.

"You're strong Spencer."

"Thank you Zack."

Spencer pulls his entire body together, tensing slightly.

"I should go, we have things that need to be dealt with."

"Of course."

Zack nods slightly, though he knows Spencer can't see him.

Click.

The line goes dead as Spencer hangs up. He drops the phone, slowly, into his lap, sighing. He is no longer so overwraught with emotion, no longer so raw he can barely breathe. Calmness has been restored, ever so slightly.

Choke.

Emily was still gone.

And there was no changing that.

Clatter.

Zack drops the phone back onto the receiver. A guard outside the room moves in quickly to escort him back to his cell. He hopes Spencer can pull himself back together. The loss of a friend was never good.

He thinks on the story he told Spencer. How Agent Booth wasn't really dead.

Zack knew the probability of such a thing happening twice though. It was slim. Not knowing the details of how it happened meant that any attempt to calculate the probability would be ultimately flawed.

But still. Agent. Undercover. Terrorist.

It wasn't inconceivable that she would have been forced into deep cover.

Zack smiles softly to himself as he walks back to his cell.

Maybe there is a chance after all.

-x-

Notes: Title is from Vienna Teng's song "Goodnight New York" which is off her new album AIMS, which is absolutely fantastic and you should all listen to it. This verse now has a name, I've titled it "Smile at Each Other's Welcome" (which itself is a complete bastardisation of a line of Derek Walcott's Love After Love. Sorry.)