ana

i.

They’re on the phone the first time it happens. There’s a case, like most days, and Elle is stuck with Morgan in the SUV they always end up driving. He’s been blasting music for the last twenty minutes, so when the phone rings Elle is quite happy to hear the signal. She motions for Morgan, who’s not heard the signal, to pause the cd player as she picks up the phone and checks the caller ID.

“Hey Gideon!”

“Are you on your way to the crime scene?”

“Yeah, we’re driving there now. Care to brief us?” She says and out of the corner of her eye she can see Morgan snickering.

“The victim is Peter Andersen, white male, 43 years old. Stabbed multiple times in the abdomen. We think the unsub is still in the area.”

He pauses and Elle takes it for what it is, a warning, and most likely the end of the briefing.

“Ok, anything else?”

She can hear him breathing in and then, with a voice laced with worry, he says

“Be careful.”

And honestly she can’t take the way he sounds so genuine, can’t take the way it makes her stomach twist. So she sighs exasperatedly and rolls her shoulders, satisfied when they make a small cracking noise.

“Yes, dad.”

“Not your dad, Greenaway.”

ii.

She’s sitting beside Reid. Up until five minutes ago they had been together in companionable silence, which had now been disturbed.

The paramedic who had previously forgotten about her is on her like a hawk and insisting he take her to the hospital. She knows it’s stupid but she wishes the paramedic would leave her alone a bit more.

Elle’s really not that hurt except for the gash in her forehead, which isn’t even bleeding that much anymore. And the headache, but she has those all the time. So really, she’s not that hurt.

When she spots Gideon walking over to them, she can feel a small sliver of hope burning in her chest. If it were Hotch she wouldn’t even ask, but with Gideon, she thinks there might be a small chance he’ll help her.

“Gideon, will you please tell him that I don't need to go to the hospital?”

“Regulations are regulations.” He says sternly before looking her up and down. If Elle didn’t know better she’d say he looks concerned: “You're all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, dad.” And, God, didn’t that slip out a little too easily. She can feel Reid tensing beside her even though he’s trying to cover it by faking a small shiver.

Gideon is the one to break the silence:

“Hey Elle?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever call me ‘dad’ again.” He says.

As she watches his retreating back she turns to Reid, who’s stayed right next to her for the whole conversation, albeit a little awkwardly. She smiles a little, shakes her head, and deadpans:

“How do you think he’d feel about ‘mom’?”

That earns her a lopsided smile and a:

“Let me know when you’re going to do that so I can uh- run.”

iii.

The team is in the conference room when it happens. It’s been a rough couple of days and Elle knows they’re starting to take a toll on her.

She knows because when Reid asked if she wanted sugar in her coffee this morning, she’d said yes. Today, she might actually have a shot at beating his standing record of the amount of sugar in one cup of coffee. She and Morgan have been trying to one-up each other on that front for months, but she usually can’t take more than two sugars and Morgan never manages to finish his coffee when he tries.

“Elle, you take Reid and go over the evidence the Philly PD sent us.”

Elle looks up from her coffee, the spoon in her hand still swirling around in the cup. She shakes her head a few times to try and get rid of the fog in her head.

“Yeah, dad- I mean… dad. Uhh- Jason! Sir.” She can hear Morgan snickering behind her, and honestly, isn’t this just great. Spencer (and when did he become Spencer?) gives her a small, shy smile before he too lets out a quiet giggle.

“Just Gideon, Elle,” Gideon affirms and just like that Morgan’s outright chuckling.

As if the mortification of saying the wrong title at 7am wasn’t enough.

Elle slides down a few inches in her chair and stretches her legs, aiming to kick Spencer under the table, while attempting to send a murderous look Morgan’s way. She probably doesn’t look as intimidating as she wants to.

vi.

Spencer is sitting in his desk chair while Elle’s taken the liberty to sit on his desk, her legs dangling off the end and awkwardly brushing against his knees. The coffee cup his hands are wrapped around has ‘pretty high degree’ written on it in bold black letters. According to Elle, it’s the best cup they have in the office- and it’s definitely not just because she has the best humour of the team and had bought it specifically with him in mind.

Her phone rings, disturbing the peace and quiet (or as much of it she can get at the BAU). From across the room, she can hear Morgan whistling.

“Not a boyfriend,” and then, because she’s a tease and she loves to balance the scales “I’m interested in someone else, actually.”

She can see Morgan’s eyebrows raising.

”Get off it, Morgan.” She sighs “I don’t think he likes me anyway.”

“It’s actually highly unlikely that he doesn’t like you. It’s called reciprocal liking, if he thinks you like him, then he’ll start to like you even more. And some peo- “

“Reid,” she interrupts with laughter in her voice, “thank you. But I don’t want someone to like me just because I like them.” She pauses for a moment: “Besides, I’m pretty sure this guy doesn’t fall into the statistics.”

Spencer takes a sip of his probably diabetic inducing coffee and looks up at her.

“Most people do. That’s the point of statistics.”

“I guess so,” she amends, in an attempt

To end the conversation. She has to get out- and fast. ”I’m getting more coffee, want some?”

“Please,” he says and hands her his cup.

Elle grabs her own disregarded cup from beside her on the desk and hops off it, thankful when she doesn’t upend the whole desk. She makes her way into the kitchen seemingly normally but she can feel the ghost of their conversation as a weight. It’s not that she cares what Spencer thinks, not really, but it’s also the fact that she does care.

It’s all too confusing for 2 o'clock in the afternoon so she settles for pouring the coffee from the coffee pot, trying to silence her thoughts. Just as she’s taking out the creamer from the fridge she feels someone’s presence behind her in the kitchen.

She turns around; Spencer’s cup in one hand, creamer in the other and the fridge door wide open.

“How are you?” Gideon asks and he looks genuinely concerned in the way only he can- where it’s phrased like a throwaway question and you can’t really see the tenderness behind it unless you know what to look for.

“I-“ she hadn’t realised she’d been choked up but as she tries to answer him she is made acutely aware of the overwhelming something she feels. “I just don’t think Reid’s right, you know,” she settles for and takes a deep breath.

“Well, it’s only human to be wrong.”

“I know,” she sighs and turns back to the coffee, closing the fridge door as she does so, and seeming the conversation over.

“And, Elle?” Gideon says and she looks over once again at where he’s standing in the arch-way to the kitchen with a knowing gleam in his eyes, “Any boy would be lucky to have you.”

She swallows, shock probably written plain across her face. Sure they’re all profilers and Gideon’s been on the job for longer than any of them but she still can’t quite fathom how he got it right on the nose.

“Yeah, yeah I know,” she elbows him after a moment, before mockingly adding “dad.”

“Elle, I’ve told you not to call me that.”

+ i

Gideon stays behind in the hospital, even though he can feel his eyelids drooping. He wants to blame it on the lack of sleep but, if he’s honest with himself, it’s mostly because he knows Elle’s in there, fighting for her life. She’s out of surgery now but he’d insisted on being there until she’d woken.

People can say whatever they want about Gideon (old, naive, fatherly) and most of it would be right, as proven by how his back is starting to hurt from the plastic hospital chair.

“Dad?”

An unsure voice permeates the deafening silence of the hospital room and Gideon lifts his head from where it’s been resting against his hands and is met with an awakened Elle.

Gideon takes her hand in his larger ones, almost hiding them from sight, and lets out a relieved sigh. She looks so, so fragile, as if she’ll flicker away any second. Her eyes are bloodshot and skin is sickly pale. He can see the bandages peeking through where her shirt has bundled up and he resists the urge to straighten it.

She looks horrible but at least she’s alive- she’s alive and she will recover- and that’s all that matters right now. He takes another steadying breath and squeezes her hands.