A/N: Hey all. This one-shot was written for the Valentine's Day Challenge over at Chit Chat on Author's Corner forum. My pairing was Emily and Reid. And the prompts I chose were: a dozen red roses, candy hearts, edible underwear and chocolate syrup. This is one of the few times I've written Reid, so I hope you'll go easy on me if he's a bit off. Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and I hope you'll let me know what you think. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.

Meant To Be:

Emily Prentiss was exhausted. She practically shuffled her feet as she entered her apartment building's lobby. She gave a small wave to Lou, the night time security guard, and was briefly surprised by the grin he gave back to her. But she was too tired to give Lou much more thought as she made her way over to the elevators.

Emily no longer worked for the BAU; she'd left her small, tight nit family by choice. It was just getting to be too much, all the death, all the time. Instead, she'd thought she'd traded up her stressful profiler job for a more relaxed position with the UN. Oh, how wrong she'd been.

But she wouldn't go back on her decision, even for all the stress-free days in the world. Leaving the BAU had given her something so much more precious: Spencer Reid.

It hadn't been long after her leaving that they'd realized that they were meant to be so much more than friends. Their get-togethers and catch up time became more frequent until after one memorable bout of laughter—Reid never failed to make her smile or laugh—she blurted out, "God, I love you." And in a moment that could have been so awkward, considering it had been Reid she'd just ambushed with her feelings, he leaned into her, kissed her soundly, and then replied, "I love you, too."

They'd officially been together ever since and had recently moved in with each other. Emily was deliriously happy with their new change in status. Reid was the sweetest, most gentle man she'd ever had the pleasure of knowing and loving. He was it for her.

Pushing the elevator button for her floor, she got inside and waited for the lift to take her up to her silent apartment. Reid was on a case at the moment, had been for a week now. She missed him so much. But she, more than anyone, understood what it was to work for the BAU, to be taken away at a moment's notice for God knew how long. She definitely didn't begrudge him that. Still, she was a little sad that he was away, today of all days, February 14.

Though, not normally a romantic, and definitely not one to celebrate the red-stained holiday, she felt a little down at the fact that for the first time ever she had someone she truly loved and would actually want to do something with for the day, but couldn't. It would be their first Valentine's Day as a couple, too.

She let out a sigh, stepping out of the elevator and onto her floor. Oh well, she'd resigned herself to missing a lot more holidays with Reid the second they'd told each other that they loved one another. It came with BAU territory. She was ok with that. As long as they loved each other, that was enough for her.

Emily searched through her purse for the keys to the apartment. As she did so, she told herself to remember to call Reid's phone and leave him a message that night. She took out her keys and was about to put them into the lock when the door suddenly opened of its own accord.

Startled, it took her a moment to pull her gaze from her hands, keys still poised in her fingers, up to the reason why the door had opened. The face of her boyfriend stared back at her, a smile on his handsome face.

"Reid!" she exclaimed in surprise.

He shrugged in response, "Hey," as if him being there wasn't the most awesome thing in the world.

He wordlessly extended a hand towards her, she took it and he tugged her inside, closing the door behind them. She stood there, positively dumbstruck by his presence. "What are you doing here?"

Before answering, Reid put his arms around her waist, pulling her close. "We caught the un-sub, the others are flying back tomorrow. I couldn't wait… Happy Valentine's Day. Did you know the origins—"

Emily kissed him then, as much to shut him up as just out of the sheer desire to feel his lips over hers. It took her back to the moment when he'd first kissed her; she'd been surprised then that their genius doctor knew what he was doing in that department.

She pulled back after a few moments, needing to catch her breath. "You're really here?" her voice came out awestruck.

He gave her another brilliant smile. "Yeah," he said simply. He began to pull her towards the living room. There she found a surprising sight. A dozen red roses, already in a vase, sat on an end table; an open bag of candy hearts was sprawled out on the coffee table.

"I thought we'd relax, watch a movie together tonight," he told her, releasing her hand, going to the DVD player. He paused, giving her a considering look. "I would have done more, but I didn't think that would be your kind of thing…"

He knew her so well, but she loved the fact that he wanted to make sure. "This is perfect, Reid," she assured warmly.

Reid held up the DVD of choice for the night. "The Lion King?" She loved that movie.

He nodded. "JJ suggested it; she said it's a classic."

"JJ's right," she agreed. She pulled him over and then down onto the couch with her. She snuggled up close to him. "So, you asked the team for some tips?"

She turned her head to see that he was blushing. "I've… uh… never done this before, Emily. I… just wanted um… tonight to be perfect…" He took a deep breath, steadying himself. "I love you, you know?"

She placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "I know, I love you, too," she stated affectionately. "For the record, anything you do is fine, I'm just happy you're here with me at all."

He laughed. "I don't know if you'd say that if I took up Rossi and Morgan's suggestions…"

She pulled back so she could look at him curiously. "Oh?" Emily was even more eager to know what they'd said when her boyfriend's face turned tomato red. "Reid come on, what did they say?"

He let out breath, knowing she'd get it out of him one way or another. "Well… Rossi said something about… edible… panties," Reid informed, practically choking on the last two words. "And umm… Morgan suggested doing something with um… chocolate syrup…"

Emily didn't want to laugh, but that was so like the two agents to mess with Reid like that. She'd have to get them back for that. She restrained herself to a little chuckle. "Well, edible underwear and chocolate syrup are some couples Valentine staples…"

She smiled happily at the bashfulness of her young boyfriend. "But… I'm content with just you, me and Simba…" she reassured.

"Simba?" Reid said confusedly.

She let out another chuckle. "Oh Reid, there's so much you need to learn, so much I need to teach you… We'll start with The Lion King…" She let her voice go low and husky, "… then we'll move on to what exactly we do with chocolate syrup and things that are edible…"

At his panicked look, Emily pulled him back to her side, settling herself into the crook of his arm. "Relax Reid, I'll take care of you tonight…"

… And for always…

Well I hope you enjoyed my little shot at a Reid/Emily pairing. I hope you'll all let me know what you thought of it.

Thanks for reading!