mia

there have been countless faces over the years.

there were classmates in chicago whose names have long since disappeared from your memory, and neighbors in montana who spent entire summers chatting with you over fences before you quietly vanished from their lives forever.

there were teachers, coworkers, cashiers, waitresses, mechanics, doctors, and strangers whose lives briefly brushed against yours before continuing down separate roads. some of them died before you ever left town. others are probably buried beneath headstones you have unknowingly driven past.

yet somehow, you always remembered him. you remember it before the golden eyes or the impossible speed, way before the strength or the cold skin. you remember it before he became part of the cullen family, before he learned how to live amongst vampires, and before he learned how to survive as one. more importantly, you remember it before he ever belonged to you.

you had always been picky about people. esme called it caution because esme liked giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, while rosalie called it stubbornness because rosalie preferred honesty over politeness whenever possible. despite the opinions of everyone around you, you simply liked your peace and guarded it carefully.

texas stretched endlessly beneath blue skies and blistering heat during the years you and the cullens lived there. jasper occasionally pointed out towns he’d known during his human life, though those stories usually stayed brief. alice seemed to have a talent for knowing exactly which memories were worth revisiting and which ones deserved to actually stay buried.

meanwhile, carlisle worked at a hospital on the edge of town, while esme spent her time transforming temporary houses into homes. you actually liked it there.

there were churches on corners, family-owned stores, old pickup trucks that somehow refused to die. no matter how many decades passed, you never quite lost your habit of watching the humans, and that was how you first noticed him.

there was a construction crew working near the hospital where carlisle spent most of his days, and you occasionally passed them whenever errands dragged you into town. they blended together at first, just another group of workers, then you began noticing one particular face appearing more often than the others. you could tell he didn’t demand attention though.

you saw him helping older workers lift equipment that should have required just two people. you saw him one time giving away half his lunch without a second thought and then pretending he hadn’t done it when somebody thanked him. he always ducked under the radar after every time like he didn’t want to draw attention.

once, you watched him spend nearly an hour helping a stranded family change a tire despite clearly being exhausted himself. none of those moments mattered at the time.

the day everything changed began with something embarrassingly ordinary. carlisle needed supplies from another city several hours away, and you volunteered before anybody else could. alice immediately perked up at the idea of a road trip before remembering she and jasper had already promised esme they’d finish helping with one of her renovation projects that weekend.

edward was busy at the hospital, and rosalie had transformed the garage into a literal crime scene with car parts. you didn’t even know where emmett was at that point, but by the time carlisle finished explaining what he needed, the responsibility somehow belonged entirely to you, which suited you just fine.

carlisle hesitated before asking you to go because he disliked separating the coven in single travels whenever possible. eventually he relented because you’re perfectly capable of handling yourself.

the drive itself was uneventful. you spent most of it watching miles of highway while old songs played through the speakers. humans passed by in both directions, unaware of what you were, and the simplicity of that fact had always brought a weird sense of comfort.

the scent reached you before you knew it. everything changed so quickly. the smell crashed into your senses from miles away, overwhelming and unmistakably human. it made the inside of your throat burn instantly. the truck swerved slightly before you regained control. in years of existence, you had never tasted human blood.

you abandoned the truck less than a minute later, just out of pure curiosity. someone had clearly been bleeding out.

the forest blurred around you as you ran, moving faster than any human eye could follow while the scent grew stronger with every passing second. sirens screamed somewhere in the distance, accompanied by shouting voices and twisted metal.

by the time you reached the construction site, you could see the machinery charred near one side of the clearing, fumes from put-out fires hanging in the air. some ambulances were parked near the entrance while others were already pulling away toward the highway.

your boots crunched against loose gravel as you walked toward the perimeter of the site, hands tucked into your jacket pockets while you observed the aftermath from a distance.

your entire body went still when you smelled it again. for over a century, human blood had existed as little more than background noise. you noticed it, certainly, but years of discipline had reduced it to something manageable. carlisle often joked that you and rosalie were two of the easiest vegetarians he’d ever trained because you two genuinely hated the idea of some person’s blood in your body. most days, that was enough.

this scent was different - it was strong. your eyes slowly lifted toward the far side of the construction site. the blood should’ve been concentrated near the emergency crews. instead, the scent seemed to be pulling you in the opposite direction entirely. before you realized it, you were walking, and the scent strengthened with every step.

soon the sounds of workers and medics began fading behind you. if not for your enhanced hearing, you might have believed you were completely alone. then you heard it - a heartbeat. the blood was someone bleeding out near you.

for a moment you simply listened, until another beat followed, and then another. each one was weaker than the last. your stomach dropped.

“no,” you whispered.

the sound came from beneath a collapsed section of the site. you reached it moments later. concrete slabs had fallen atop one another at awkward angles, surrounded by metal and shattered supports. from a human perspective, the debris field probably looked impossible to search thoroughly without heavy equipment. but it would be easy for you.

the heartbeat sounded again, so you moved immediately. pieces of concrete were lifted and discarded one after another. steel beams scraped across dirt as you dragged them aside. eventually even you found yourself muttering under your breath in annoyance as larger sections resisted being moved.

then you saw him. at first all you noticed was blood. there was so much of it. his body was half buried beneath debris, covered in dust and dirt and injuries severe enough that you immediately understood why his heartbeat sounded the way it did. his chest rose unevenly while one arm was trapped beneath concrete. blood stained nearly everything around him.

your hands froze. you knew that face. you had to look twice just to make sure. it’s someone from town.

the realization struck you harder than expected. you didn’t technically know him personally, and you’d never spoken more than a handful of words to him, yet you knew who he was, maybe not his name, but you knew he lived in town and worked construction.

he helped support his family, maybe two younger siblings you remembered seeing a few times. but you’d seen him enough times over the years to recognize him immediately.

slowly, you looked back toward the rest of the site. those injured here were part of the crew that left town a couple days ago, you remembered seeing it. carlisle was acquaintances with their foreman so you ended up waving them off alongside esme when it was their time to go.

but now, nobody was coming ‘cause the ambulances were leaving. they didn’t know he was here, probably couldn’t find him. or worse - they thought they’d already searched this section thoroughly enough.

your gaze returned to him. his heartbeat stumbled. you immediately reached for the small radio in your back pocket. carlisle answered as soon as he heard you.

for several minutes you explained everything while continuing to monitor the heartbeat. carlisle listened carefully. he asked questions, calculated distances, and remained calm throughout the entire conversation. the answer never changed. he couldn’t reach you in time. neither could edward, as even edward’s speed just not being enough.

by the time anyone arrived, he would already be dead. when the conversation ended, you sat in silence beside him for a few moments.

death happened every day; of course you knew that. every member of the coven knew that. your eyes remained fixed on the young man beside you.

he was nineteen, and he had family waiting for him. he had plans, probably an entire future. and somehow, against all logic, you knew he wasn’t ready to leave it behind. not this way.

his heartbeat weakened again. your decision was made before you consciously acknowledged it. perhaps it wasn’t your choice, and it never should have been, yet there was nobody else here but you.

slowly, carefully, you leaned forward. “i’m gonna save you,” you whispered. then you gave him the only chance you had left to offer.

three days later, after retrieving the supplies carlisle had originally sent you for, sleeping nowhere because neither of you required it, and listening to him scream his way through every burning second of the transformation, you finally drove back toward the cullen house with a newborn vampire sitting beside you.

the drive home was quiet. you mostly had expected screaming and questions, definitely accusations. maybe even panic. you had prepared yourself for the possibility that he would wake up furious. but instead, he listened, and sat in silence for most of the journey, staring through the passenger-side window with crimson red eyes that seemed incapable of settling on any one thing for very long.

you spent most of the journey wondering how exactly you were going to explain yourself to the others. the answer, unfortunately, never arrived.

every now and then his jaw tightened. you would catch him staring at his reflection in the glass before immediately looking away again. he hadn’t spoken a single word since waking up.

carlisle met you in the driveway. esme stood beside him while rosalie lingered near the porch railings with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. alice had already seen enough fragments of the future to know you were returning with someone, though even she seemed unsure of what exactly that future looked like now.

the newborn stepped out of the truck slowly, the movement alone drawing everyone’s attention. newborn vampires were dangerous, everyone knew that.

their strength was unpredictable. their instincts were overwhelming and their thirst was unlike anything older vampires could remember clearly after enough decades had passed. yet despite all of that, the young man standing before them seemed less interested in attacking someone and more interested in figuring out what exactly to do with himself now.

his eyes swept across the gathered coven and he said nothing.

carlisle approached first, “hello, son.”

you winced, understanding carlisle’s means to welcome him into the family, but even you could tell it was too soon and not the greeting this guy probably wanted to hear.

his expression immediately hardened. “i’m not your son.” his voice was rough from disuse. it was also the first thing he’d said all day.

carlisle smiled anyway, “fair enough. come on in, we’ll show you inside.”

the following weeks were difficult, and the following months were worse.

it nearly convinced rosalie that she should be allowed to throw him into a river and leave him there until he developed a better attitude. emmett disagreed, though mostly because he found the newborn’s stubbornness entertaining. the two of them ended up wrestling often enough that furniture occasionally needed replacing afterward. nobody was entirely sure whether those fights were hostile or recreational.

the newborn never explained much. he answered questions when he felt like answering them, then ignored them when he didn’t. for almost three months, nobody even knew his name.

every attempt at conversation ended exactly the same way: either he walked away halfway through it or stared at whoever was speaking until they became uncomfortable enough to leave first. eventually emmett started inventing names simply to annoy him. none of them worked.

then one afternoon, while rosalie was threatening bodily harm over something involving a stolen wrench and emmett was insisting he had done nothing wrong, somebody referred to him as “the blue collar kid” for perhaps the hundredth time.

he looked up.

“rafe.”

the room went quiet.

esme blinked, “what?”

“my name.” there was another pause. “it’s rafe. rafe cameron.” then he stood up and left. for reasons nobody could adequately explain, that counted as progress.

the move came sooner than expected. newborns attracted attention, but rafe attracted even more.

there was only so long an entire coven could remain hidden when one of its members occasionally forgot he could launch himself through walls if he wanted to. eventually the family packed their belongings, gathered their vehicles, and relocated once more. it wasn’t unusual. every member of the coven had left pieces of themselves scattered across dozens of towns already.

rafe hated it, and you understood why. everyone else had experienced that loss decades earlier. for him, it was fresh. his family was still alive, his siblings were still growing older.

his parents were still sitting at the same dinner table each night grieving their son never came home. the news confirmed rafe’s body to be gone from the accident, everyone but him was found, and human.

you caught him driving back more than once, but not all the way. he never got close enough to be recognized, just close enough to see, and he always came back afterward. carlisle never stopped him. neither did you.

“he’ll get himself killed.” rosalie said it often, usually while watching him disappear into the woods again. “or someone else.”

carlisle never seemed particularly concerned. “we trust him. he’ll come back.”

and he always did.

years passed very slowly. the anger never disappeared entirely, though it changed shape over time. the distrust became less obvious. eventually conversations lasted longer than five minutes, and he even started helping around the house without being asked.

you noticed those changes long before he realized they were happening. carlisle noticed too.

one evening, after rafe had vanished into the garage to work on one of the cars for the third consecutive night, carlisle glanced toward the open doorway and smiled faintly.

“he trusts you.”

you looked up from your sketchbook. “that’s a generous interpretation.”

“i don’t think so.” his attention remained fixed on the garage. “i think you’re the reason he’s still here.”

you didn’t answer immediately. across the property, metal clinked softly against metal. rafe was working - again. he seemed happiest when his hands were busy.

carlisle’s smile widened slightly. “you know, some vampires form bonds that are stronger than most.”

your eyes narrowed immediately. “don’t.”

“i didn’t say anything.”

“you were about to. i’m not gonna force him to see me as his mate.”

from somewhere outside, a wrench hit the concrete floor. it alerted you both to turn toward the garage.

rafe had heard every word. a moment later the garage door opened. he emerged carrying a toolbox beneath one arm, his expression completely unreadable.

“i’m going for a drive,” then he got into his truck and left.

you and carlisle watched him disappear down the road. after several moments passed, carlisle finally sighed. “perhaps i should have chosen a different topic.”

“yeah, perhaps.”

there’s another pause before carlisle speaks again, “he’ll come back.”

you stared toward the empty road.

despite everything, with the distance he tried maintaining between himself and everyone else, and with every argument and every slammed door, you already knew carlisle was right. he always came back, so nobody chased after him.

by then, everyone had grown familiar with his habits, even if nobody claimed to understand them completely. whenever something frustrated him, confused him, or simply became too much, he left. you didn’t know what he would do every time he left, was what worried you when he was a younger vampire, but years of watching him eventually taught you the same lesson carlisle had learned long ago.

still, you found yourself glancing toward the driveway more often than usual during those three days he was gone after he overheard you two. every vehicle that passed in the distance caught your attention for a moment before disappearing again. alice noticed, though she was polite enough not to mention it.

by the time rafe finally returned, pulling into the driveway as though he’d only been gone for an afternoon, you were irritated enough to immediately decide you weren’t going to tell him that you’d missed him. he didn’t mention carlisle’s comment, and you didn’t either.

a few years later you had to move again. carlisle always had the seven of you in college every time you moved, though as the years passed he started talking to you guys with ideas of starting out in high school instead from now on, so you could stay in a place longer. you weren’t opposed - you just didn’t think any of you actually looked like high schoolers. it was just an idea for now.

anyway, alaska forests swallowed entire landscapes, snow blanketed everything for months at a time, and the sunlight itself was different. esme fell in love with the scenery almost immediately, while emmett spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to convince everyone that wrestling a grizzly bear in alaska somehow differed from wrestling one anywhere else.

the denali coven quickly became part of your lives after that. carlisle and esme already knew them well, of course. edward had spent enough time with them over the decades that their home felt familiar to him, but for the rest of you, those first introductions carried the awkwardness of meeting relatives you technically weren’t related to.

tanya welcomed everyone warmly, irina watched you guys with cautious curiosity, and eleazar immediately became fascinated by rafe. that last part didn’t go particularly well.

eleazar had always possessed an interest in gifts and abilities, especially unusual ones, and rafe’s power caught his attention almost immediately. unfortunately, rafe already disliked being the center of attention, and being examined by an ancient vampire who could identify supernatural talents within minutes did absolutely nothing to improve his mood.

you remembered standing nearby while eleazar politely asked questions about his experiences and his instincts during combat, only to watch rafe respond with increasingly shorter answers until he finally excused himself and disappeared altogether.

“did i say something wrong?” eleazar had asked afterward.

“probably not,” you replied.

despite his tendency to disappear whenever too much attention landed on him, rafe gradually settled into life with the coven. he remained quieter than emmett, less openly affectionate than jasper, and nowhere near as social as alice, though that wasn’t a particularly difficult achievement considering alice could become friends with a complete stranger in under ten minutes.

he participated in conversations when he felt like it, offered opinions when he thought they mattered, and otherwise preferred observing the room before deciding whether anything needed his attention.

somehow, without either of you planning for it, he spent most of that time around you. at first it happened for practical reasons, ‘cause you were the person he knew best.

every other member of the family had entered his life after his transformation began. they met him as a newborn, and the only reasoning that made sense to him was that you had known him briefly before any of that, even if your interactions had been limited. you had at least seen the human version of him first, and perhaps that mattered more than either of you realized.

the habit started small. sometimes you would find him sitting nearby while you sketched. he never asked what you were drawing, though every now and then you’d notice him glancing over your shoulder.

sometimes you would wander into the garage and discover him rebuilding something that had worked perfectly fine before he’d decided to take it apart. those evenings usually ended with you sitting nearby while he worked, occasionally handing him tools and listening to him explain things you barely understood.

neither of you spoke constantly, and that was part of what made it easy. silence never felt uncomfortable around him.

you never felt responsible for filling every quiet moment, and he never seemed to expect you to. entire afternoons passed with little conversation beyond a few casual remarks here and there. if another person had walked into the room, they might have assumed neither of you particularly enjoyed the other’s company. the reality was that both of you kept choosing the same rooms over and over again.

years passed. somewhere along the way, rafe stopped disappearing for days without warning, and you would stop wondering whether he would return every time he left. his presence became such a normal part of your routine that you didn’t notice how much space he occupied in your life until he wasn’t there.

the possibility of becoming mates never crossed your mind during those years, and it wasn’t because you disliked him. it was quite the opposite.

you simply couldn’t imagine your life revolving around another person in the way you had watched it happen with rosalie and emmett or alice and jasper. more than a century of independence had taught you how to exist on your own.

you’d built hobbies, friendships, routines, and entire identities without needing a mate to complete them. whenever the topic came up, you genuinely believed you would spend eternity perfectly content without one.

rafe seemed even less interested. for a long time, you were pretty sure he was still grieving his human life, which was valid.

he spoke about his family occasionally, usually late at night, and those conversations reminded you that some losses didn’t disappear simply because enough time had passed.

eventually, however, the grief became something softer. it stopped controlling every decision he made, and as the years continued, the two of you developed countless little habits that neither of you consciously acknowledged.

he started looking for you first whenever he entered a room. you automatically set aside books you thought he’d enjoy reading. he learned which songs would make you stop everything to listen, and you learned that he focused better whenever his hands were occupied with some kind of project.

none of those moments felt significant at the time, that was the funny part.

people always imagined love as something dramatic. they imagined grand confessions, impossible coincidences, or life-changing realizations. if someone had asked either of you when things began changing, neither of you would have known how to answer. there was no single moment where everything suddenly became different.

instead, it happened the way mountains formed, just slowly enough that nobody noticed until one day the landscape looked completely different than it had before, and by the time either of you realized what was happening, the foundation had already been there for years.

the trail had gone cold three separate times over the last week, which was becoming irritating. carlisle wanted answers from the rogue vampire before somebody else found him first, which meant killing him was out of the question and losing him was somehow even worse.

every time you thought you were getting close, the scent would vanish again, leaving you and rafe staring at each other from opposite sides of the truck with matching expressions of annoyance. if nothing else, the trip was proving that frustration apparently survived death.

rafe had wandered deeper into a clearing after deciding he was tired of sitting in the truck, and you followed. he was standing near a fallen tree now, rolling his shoulders as though he were preparing for a fight already. the sight earned a smile despite yourself.

his blond hair was a mess from the wind, and there was still dried dirt on the sleeve of his jacket from earlier when he’d climbed beneath the truck to fix something.

he picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it absentmindedly between his hands while you watched the forest around you, listening to sounds.

“come here for a second,” you eventually said.

the suspicion appeared immediately. “why?”

“because i’m asking. just walk over here, please.”

rafe hesitated for a moment before pushing himself away from the fallen tree. the instant he started moving toward you, you bent to grab a rock from the forest floor. rafe immediately narrowed his eyes, which was usually a sign that he was about to regret whatever came next.

“what’re you doing?”

“science.”

“that is not science—”

you launched the rock without warning. the stone crossed the clearing faster than any human eye could follow, cutting through the air with enough force to split a tree trunk if you had wanted it to.

rafe moved before it even reached him. the reaction happened instantly, his body shifting sideways at the exact moment necessary for the rock to miss. there was no hesitation and no visible thought process behind it. the rock disappeared into the woods behind him.

you tilted your head thoughtfully. “see, that’s interesting. you moved before you even saw it.”

“no, i did see it.”

“you absolutely did not.”

rafe opened his mouth to argue before stopping. “okay,” he admitted reluctantly. “maybe i didn’t.”

the conversation shifted after that, becoming less about your gift and more about his. that part was always harder because his ability remained frustratingly vague even after years of experimentation.

your power had announced itself immediately after your transformation. his had hidden beneath layers of instinct and reaction.

you spent the next hour throwing things at him, just using branches, stones, chunks of bark, and eventually an entire fallen log became unwilling participants in the training exercise. every impact met resistance somewhere in front of him.

even with vampire eyesight, you couldn’t fully see it. there were moments when the air distorted faintly, bending light for a fraction of a second before returning to normal.

“how’s it looking?” you asked eventually, folding your arms across your chest.

rafe’s eyes shifted toward you briefly before returning to whatever shape he’d managed to create. “exactly the same as yesterday, and the day before,” he replied. there was a pause before he added, “which is probably disappointing for you, considering you’ve spent the last month acting like i’m secretly capable of something crazy.”

a smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “i don't think you’re secretly capable of anything. i think you’re obviously capable of it and too stubborn to admit it.” you stepped closer, circling him once. “every time i ask you to expand your shield, you stop the second it becomes uncomfortable. if rosalie did that with cars, half the garage would still be sitting in boxes.”

“okay, but that’s because rosalie enjoys making herself miserable,” he said immediately.

“and you don’t?”

that earned a look. you laughed before bending to pick up another rock from the forest floor. you turned the stone over thoughtfully between your fingers, seeing the look on his face. “you know, for someone whose entire gift revolves around sensing danger, you’re really dramatic whenever i help you practice.”

“help isn’t the word i’d use.”

“stop being ungrateful, rafe.”

before he could respond, you flicked the rock toward him. his shield appeared instantly. even after years of watching him use it, the speed still surprised you. there was enough invisible resistance between him and the stone to shatter it completely. fragments scattered across the clearing before either of them could hit the ground.

you pointed toward the broken pieces with a look of satisfaction. “see? perfect.”

rafe stared at the debris for a moment before looking back at you. “you threw a rock at my head.”

“i threw a rock at your shield.”

“those are not the same thing.”

“your power seems to disagree.”

later, after several more attempts at expanding the shield and an increasingly ridiculous debate about whether he could eventually create multiple barriers at once, both of you ended up sitting beneath one of the larger trees near the edge of the clearing.

“did yours happen right away?”

the question arrived so casually that it took you a second to realize what he meant. you glanced toward him and found him looking back now.

“my gift?”

when he nodded once, you considered it for a moment before letting out a small breath. “sort of.”

one of his eyebrows lifted slightly. “sort of?”

“i didn’t know it was a gift at first.”

the answer seemed to surprise him.

“for months after i was turned, people kept second-guessing themselves around me. they’d stop in the middle of conversations, change their minds halfway through decisions, or just stare at me like i’d interrupted a thought.” you brushed a loose pine needle from your sleeve before shaking your head. “i genuinely thought i was just awkward to be around.”

that earned an actual laugh from him. “you?”

“believe it or not, yeah. but then eventually i realized it kept happening too often to be coincidence. i started paying attention and figured out people hesitated whenever i focused on them.” your gaze drifted toward the trees again. “at first i thought i was making people nervous, then i thought maybe i was scaring them or something. i didn’t really understand what was happening.”

you paused, remembering how confusing those first months had been. “the truth ended up being much less dramatic . . ‘cause all i do is create a pause.”

he tilted his head slightly.

“sometimes it’s enough to stop a fight before it starts. sometimes it’s enough to make somebody reconsider something stupid. if i’m lucky, they redirect completely ‘n choose a different course of action.” you shrugged lightly. “if they’re determined enough though, they keep going anyway. i can’t control people. i can only give them a second to think.”

“honestly,” you continued, “i think we’re two of the luckier ones.”

that drew a look from him. “lucky how?”

“compared to other gifts.” you leaned back against the tree. the memory of old conversations surfaced almost immediately.

“alice told me once that her visions terrified her when she first woke up. she didn’t understand why she kept seeing things that hadn’t happened yet. she thought she was losing her mind for a while.” your expression softened slightly. “edward wasn’t much better. carlisle told me his gift overwhelmed him from the second he opened his eyes.”

rafe’s attention remained fixed on you, “he could hear everybody.”

“exactly,” you nodded. “every thought. i doubt he knew how to block any of it out. i can’t imagine what that would’ve felt like.” after a moment, you glanced toward him. “but anyway, that’s why i think getting control of a gift matters. when you’re a newborn, i don’t know . . jasper knows more about this than me, but you can kinda assume we don’t wake up immediately understanding how to fully control them until later.”

“carlisle said something about how one out of every fifty vampires develops something, or maybe less,” you recalled. “when it happens, the gift usually grows from whatever trait defined them most as a human. that’s probably why you can sense danger before it happens.”

his expression shifted. “because i was protective?”

“in a sense, but i think it was because you were always paying attention to what could go wrong.”

for a while, he looked away again, and you assumed the conversation was finished until he spoke. “what about you?”

you frowned slightly. “what about me?”

“like what was your most dominant human trait?”

the question caught you off guard more than it should have. for a second, you genuinely didn’t know how to word it.

your eyes wandered toward the treeline while you thought about it - about california, your family, just your human life in general. eventually, you laughed quietly to yourself.

“i think i was just curious.”

rafe glanced over. “curious?”

“about people.” you smiled faintly. “i don’t know. i paid attention to them, probably more than i should’ve. ‘cause most people move through life on instinct. they react before they think, or they decide things quickly, or they act on emotion.” your fingers traced absent patterns against the bark beside you. “i always found that interesting, i guess. i didn’t think it was a huge part of me but maybe it was bigger than i thought.”

you paused. “carlisle explained it better than i ever could. he told me i spent my whole human life noticing things other people missed. i thought my gift made people afraid of me, and he told me that wasn’t what was happening at all, but that my gift makes people consider. he said i’ve always given myself a moment to think before acting, and now i accidentally force everyone else to do the same. ‘n that, i guess, my gift gives people the same pause i’d always given myself.”

for a moment he stayed silent, which prompted you to also, but then rafe huffed a quiet laugh and shook his head. “that is the most carlisle explanation i’ve ever heard.”

IF YOU WANT TO BE ADDED TO THE TAGLIST, leave me comments so i can add you for the next time! this taglist is temporary to the first chapter only, starting now i will officially add anyone who voices wanting to be added thru comments, reblogs (with msg attached), or anons (with ur profiles attached), and of course thru my taglist. NOT thru likes.

alex_albon ✓ the helmet in the fridge should concern more people

yourinstagram ✓ keeping lewis fresh for quali

user19 she posts once every 3 business months and casually drops the hardest pics ever

user87 i just know tumblr would've had a field day with her in 2014

lewishamilton ✓ Energy in these pics are immaculate

yourinstagram ✓ learned from the best 😊

user37 STOPPPP

user24 she's either abt to win her first race or disappear into the australian wilderness for six months no in between

oscarpiastri ✓ Welcome to australia mate

yourinstagram ✓ finally someone normal here

f1 ✓ Australia just got significantly cooler ❤️ by author

danielricciardo ✓ australia got prettier the second she landed

yourinstagram ✓ u say that everyone. boo 👎

danielricciardo ✓ not true i'm usually worse

user57 LEWIS MAKING IT INTO HER PHOTO DUMPSSS my lewyn heart

The press pen smelled like stale coffee and desperation. Flashbulbs popped like a string of firecrackers as you stepped onto the platform, Ryland (your PR manager) murmuring last-minute warnings in your ear.

"YN." A reporter in the front row leaned forward, his microphone bearing the logo of a sports outlet that had called you a "glorified test driver" twelve hours ago.

"Your sim times are faster than three current race winners. Care to comment on rumors Mercedes rigged the data?"

You inhaled slowly through your nose. Lewis, seated beside you, tapped wice on the table—some sort of secret signal for play dumb, answer smart.

You smiled. It wasn't a nice one. "Funny. I didn't realize simulators needed rigging when you could just drive faster."

The silence that followed your words was thick enough to carve. The reporter blinked, his microphone dipping slightly as if the weight of your response had physically stunned him.

Then the room erupted—not in outrage, but in laughter. You kept your gaze steady, fingertips drumming once on the table in silent echo of Lewis's earlier tap.

A woman in the second row stood, her press badge swinging. "You've had one real session in the car. The data shows you're over a second off Lewis's pace in Sector 2. How do you expect to—"

"How do I expect to what?" you interrupted, tilting your head. "Finish the race? Overtake someone? Or are you asking if I'll cry when I spin?"

You leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Here's a better question. Why does everyone keep acting like I've never raced before?"

The press pen's laughter died as quickly as it had erupted. The woman who'd questioned you blinked then sat down abruptly, her pen hovering over a notepad suddenly devoid of witty comebacks.

Lewis cleared his throat beside you. "Next question."

A hand shot up near the back. "YN, Lewis mentioned you've been training together at Silverstone. What's the biggest adjustment coming from bikes to cars?"

"The biggest adjustment?" You drummed your fingers on the table, remembering the first time you stepped into the cockpit, how the steering wheel had felt like a betrayal in your hands.

"On a bike, you're part of it. Like, your hips are the suspension. Your shoulders are the aerodynamics. But in the car? I had to learn how to not fight it, you know? Lewis calls it 'letting the car breathe.' I call it not being a control freak."

The press chuckled, some of the tension bleeding out the room. Lewis smirked into his water bottle.

The woman wasn't done. "But physically—"

"I've spent half my life holding onto a bike with my thighs while it tries to buck me into a gravel trap. Trust me, my neck's fine."

A journalist near the front leaned forward. "Lewis, how does it feel knowing your teammate could outqualify you in her debut race?"

"Feels like I picked the right sparring partner."

The paddock was quieter when you left. Lewis peeled off toward the garage with a salute, leaving you to navigate the hospitaly suites alone. You'd taken three steps when a shadow detached itself from behind a catering truck.

"Nice performance." The voice was rough, the accent thick. Marc Márquez, your old MotoGP rival, leaned against the barrier, his arms crossed over his shirt.

The sight of him—here, in the belly of the F1 beast—was so surreal you actually blinked.

"Are you lost? I don't think two-wheelers are supposed to be here."

Marc smirked, pushing off the barrier with the same lazy confidence that made him your fiercest competitor—and occasionally, your only ally in the MotoGP paddock.

"Lost? No. But I'm definitely curious." He nodded toward the Mercedes garage, where mechanics were already swarming over your car for free practice prep. "Had to see it for myself."

You crossed your arms, the team polo slicking to your back in the humidity. "And?"

"And," Marc drawled, "I think you've forgetten how to stand." He tapped your shoe with the toe of his boot. "You're standing like a damn statue."

You'd spent the past months unlearning every instinct that had kept you alive on two wheels, but your body still defaulted to the stance of a bike rider.

Marc's boot tapped your shoe again, more insistent this time. "You looked like someone strapped a bomb on you," he said, his grin all teeth.

The familiarity of it—the way he'd always seen through you, even when you were elbow-deep in tire walls—was like a punch to the ribs.

You rolled your shoulders, forcing your stance wider. "Better?"

Marc snorted. "Okay, now you just look like you're about to take a shit." He mimed riding a bike. "Remember Japan? That last lap in the rain? You didn't win because you were smooth. You won because you basically danced with it.

"This?" He flickerd your Mercedes team polo. "Just think of it as a different track."

Marc's words clung to you as you strode toward free practice. The garage was a symphony of whirring tools and shouted commands. None of which mattered when you slid into the cockpit and gripped the wheel.

You wish you could just erase FP1 from the face of the earth. The first lap was a disaster, treating Turn 1 into a braking zone, stamping on the pedal like you were trying to crush a scorpion.

The fifth lap was worse. You overcorrected on the exit of Turn 9, the rear snapping out like a whip. You didn't participate in the rest of the session.

In FP2, your first lap was cautious—smoother than FP1, but still stiff. You took Turn 3 with a flick of the wrists, letting the car float wide before hauling it back.

Turn 9 loomed—the same corner that had humiliated you in FP1. The same corner Lewis had taken flat-out in the sim.

The car didn't understeer. It didn't snap. It rotated, the rear digging in like it knew exactly where you wanted to go. The g-force crushed you into the seat as you exited, the steering wheel alive in your hands.

The next lap, you took Turn 11 with the same reckless trust, the car responding like it was reading your mind.

P3 in FP2.

Soon enough, FP3 loomed. The steering wheel was still slightly warm when you slid back into the cockpit.

Luca's voice crackled in your ear. "Rain's coming. Radar shows it hittin in twenty."

It hit mid-way. Garage radios were erupting in panicked chatter as drivers slithered off one by one, their times bleeding red. You stayed out.

You took Turn 11 with your eyes half-shut, trusting the vibrations in the wheel to tell you where the grip lived. You lap times blinked purple on the dash.

The radio screamed with static and Luca's half-strangled curses as you crossed the line. The delta blinked. P1 by 1.3 seconds.

By the time you rolled into the Parc Fermé, Lewis was already there. He grabbed your helmet for you as you lifted it off, his mouth moving before you could even catch your breath.

"You took Turn 9 how?"

f1 ✓

liked by gabrielbortoleto_, arvid.lindblad, and 4,293,308 others

f1 ✓ YN LN is P1 in FP3!

🚨FP3 CLASSIFICATION🚨

LN

Hamilton

Verstappen

Gap to P2: +1.3 in mixed conditions.

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user83 ONE POINT THREE SECONDS ???

lando ✓ excuse me ???

yourinstagram ✓ no

lewishamilton ✓ 👏👏👏

user38 triple emojis we won

user3 he's SO proud

user9 half the grid looked like they were driving rental cars compared to her

user65 the rain unlocks something in her and it scares me

user29 btw this woman used to save 200mph slides w her knee on the ground. why r we still surprised

The rain hadn't stopped by the time qualifying rolled around, but the paddock's mood had shifted. Where there had been skepticism, now there was a prickling tension—like the sky before a lightning strike.

You suited up in silence, the fabric clinging to your skin with the humidity of a thousand held breaths. Lewis caught your eye across the garage, his nod subtle but loaded.

Q1 was a formality. You sliced through the standing water like it was a memory, your times edging dangerously close to Lewis's. By Q2, the rain had eased to a drizzle, but the track was a minefield of damp patches and puddles.

Then came Q3. The sky opened again just as the lights went green. You waited—let the others scramble for early laps, let them burn their tires on the surface. Within three minutes left, you rolled out.

Turn 1 was a flick of the wrists, the car settling into the curve like it was reading your mind. Turn 6, you had the throttle pinned, trusting the downforce to hold you through. And in Turn 9, you took it flat.

The final sector was blur of instinct and noise. Your hands moved before your brain could process and the next thing you knew, the checkered flag waved as you crossed the line.

P3.

Luca's voice in your ear was pure static. "You absolute madwoman."

You rolled into the garage. Lewis was already out of his car, helmet off, staring at the timing screen with his mouth slightly open.

As you climbed out, your knees buckled—not from exhaustion, but from the sheer fucking relief of it. Lewis caught your elbow, grip firm.

"You realized you just outqualified almost everyone on the grid, right?" His grin was wild. "Welcome to the club."

mercedesamgf1 ✓

liked by yourinstagram, lewishamilton, and 2,392,013 otehrs

mercedesamgf1 ✓ P3 in qualifying. 🌧️⚡

A composed, intelligent, and fearless lap from YN LN in changing wet conditions delivers a second-row start for tomorrow.

Let's go racing. 🏁

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user7 I AM NOT CALM. THIS IS NOT NORMAL

user43 p3 aside what shoot is this i need it released now

user92 'composed' is doing a LOT of work in that caption because that was pure bravery from her

user30 merc showed everyones what up they really said 'our rookie js outqualified half the grid btw'

user19 'lets go racing' yeah i think the grid is about to suffer actually

user2 WRITE THIS DOWN WRITE THIS DOWN

lewishamilton ✓

liked by centralcee, arthur_leclerc, and 6,230,578 others

lewishamilton ✓ P2 on the grid today. Big weekend for the team, big moment for YN as well.

She earned that position yesterday. Now it's about staying calm, staying sharp, and enjoying it when the lights go out.

See you at Melbourne.

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user23 "she earned that position" OH THATS RESPECT RESPECT

user8 thats the kind of post rookies remember forever btw

user64 lewis saying she earned it + her actually doing it is the best combo of this weekend

user2 imagine being lewis and seeing your rookie teammate do THAT in the wet in her FIRST EVER RACE WEEKEND mind you

lucaromano

liked by yourusername, georgerussell63, and 34,286 others

lucaromano pre-race jitters. yn's mom hasn't paid me yet.

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yourinstagram ✓ DELETE THIS???

lucaromano the public pressure stays until i get the bank notification

user54 if yn and luca ever split up as a driver/engineer duo i'm quitting formula 1

user7 luca is my icon

user93 they're literally grumpy race engineer x chaotic driver coded

The rain had stopped completely by race day, but the tension hadn't. The grid was a minefield of sidelong glances—from Ferrari engineers clutching clipboards like shield to McLaren mechanics pretending not to stare at you adjusted your balaclava.

Lewis leaned into your cockpit just before it all started, his visor tipped up just enough to reveal his grin.

"Remember they're the ones who should be nervous."

And then the lights went out.

The roar of multiple cars was a physical force, punching through your ribcage as you launched of the line. The pack funneled into Turn 1 like a shoal of piranhas. You held your ground, slotting into P3 behind Lewis and the pole-sitting Redbull.

"Verstappen's degrading rear left. Be patient."

Lap 19. The track had baked dry, rubbered-in lines glowing under the afternoon sun. You could feel the tires starting to go—the rear stepping out ever so slightly on corner exit.

"Box this lap. Box."

The pit lane was a blur of noise. You stabbed the pit limit, the car jerking as the speed bled off. Mechanics swarmed before you'd even stopped, their gloved hands a blur of wrenches and tires.

The tires were fresh, the fuel load light. You carved through the track, DRS flaring as you dispatched a Haas and then a McLaren with precision. And soon enough, you could see the Red Bull ahead was struggling even with Lewis infront of you.

Verstappen's usual razor-sharp lines beginning to blur.

Then the radio crackled. "Safety car out. That's Lap 37."

The pack compressed like a coiled spring. You rolled behind Lewis, enough to see the heat haze ripple off his rear wing.

"Just confirmed that we are going through with a double-stack if it's a full SC. We'll cover Red Bull."

The SC lights blinked like a predator's eyes in your mirrors. The packed slithered into formation, tires cooling, gaps collapsing.

You could feel the race resetting—the tension in the steering wheel, the way Lewis's car twitched ever so slightly ahead of you, restless.

"Verstappen is pitting. We're stacking. Repeat, stacking. Lewis first."

The pit lane opened. Lewis dove in. You counted heartbeats then followed, braking so late the anti-stall kicked in. You launched back into the fray, tires screeching, just as Verstappen's fresh Red Bull slotted in ahead.

The SC peeled off with a flick of its lights, and the track erupted back into chaos. Verstappen lunged ahead, its fresh tires gripping like claws. Lewis defended with the precision of a fencer.

Luca's voice was a scalpel in your ear. "Lewis is vulnerable. Take him."

You didn't hesitate. Lap 42, Turn 11. Lewis's line tightened ever so slightly, his rear tires painting black streaks. You stabbed the throttle on the straight, DRS flaring.

Lewis didn't defend.

Your car shot past Lewis's with a violence that shuddered through your bones. No block. No swerve. Just the faintest tilt of his helmet in your mirrors as you cleared him.

Luca's voice shattered the silence in your ear. "He let you past."

You didn't know why. But it wasn't surrender, it was strategy.

It was the final lap. Your engine screamed in protest as you hit the rev limiter, the final straight stretching before you like a runway to the edge of the world. Verstappen was a shrinking dot in your mirrors, Lewis a silver shadow holding him at bay.

The crowd’s roar was a living thing, vibrating through the carbon fiber and into your teeth.

The final corner bled into the straight. The checkered flag hung limp in the humid air for a fraction before your front wheels tore it into existence.

For three breaths, there was silence. Then the world erupted.

The car rolled into Parc Fermé on fumes and adrenaline. Lewis was there first, his gloves still on, hugging you immediately with a force that sent your tumbling.

Behind him, Toto was dialing someone on his phone, his other hand gripping your shoulder so tight it hurt.

The podium was a fever dream. The anthem, the spray of champagne in your eyes, the weight of the trophy pulling your arms—all of it blurred into a single, overexposed moment.

Verstappen, uncharacteristically quiet, tipped his champagne bottle with a nod that bordered on respect. Lewis just grinned.

You let out a sigh of relief. A really big one.

mercedesamgf1 ✓

liked by kimi.antonelli, carlossainz55, and 4,642,499 others

mercedesamgf1 ✓ YN LN IS THE NUMBER 1 IN MELBOURNE!

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user32 THIS IS THE MOST STRESSFUL WIN I'VE EVER WATCHED

user29 this is her FIRST race and her FIRST win ?!?!?!

user43 i was already so happy for her p2 and then THIS happened

susie_wolff ✓ The data looked beautiful, even if the engine sounded a bit angry at the end. I'm so proud of you, YN! Team 1-2!

user8 respect to yn ln. as a verstappen fan it sucks to lose but that was good game from merc, cant even be mad !!!

user80 might be too soon but this is world champion energy right there

user93 double merc on podium and her first ever win ??? mercedes fans are eating good tonight

user47 this is mercedes reminding everyone why they're still a top team lewishamilton ✓

liked by harrystyles, nicorosberg, and 5,234,746 others

lewishamilton ✓ So proud. That's all I've got right now.

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user64 the way he hugged her FIRST thing before anything else says everything about their relationship dynamic

user82 lewis looking more emotional about her win that his own podium is so :(

user77 i love how he didn't even wait for interviews, he literally went straight to her

oscarpiastri ✓ Proper respect. Congrats YN!

user74 i'm never recovering from this race anytime soon yourinstagram ✓

liked by tomholland2013, judebellingham, and 4,249,821 others

yourinstagram ✓ no words

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user8 THE HELMET PHOTO 😭 you can literally see the adrenaline still in her eyes

user92 now why is lando holding the trophy

yourinstagram ✓ its the only picture i have of my trophy so i have no choice sigh

lando ✓ excuse you

marcmarquez93 ✓ Show them how we do it! Forever proud.

danielricciardo ✓ now this calls for a proper celebration

yourinstagram ✓ don't even start

user61 the lying on floor photo is the realest thing after a race like that

user54 not a single posed photo n yet this is the most coolest photo dump on ig right now

user33 yn archive this post right now because i WILL cry if you dont

The media pen afterward became complete chaos. Journalists packed shoulder-to-shoulder around Mercedes hospitality waiting for you. Questions came too fast to process.

"How does this compare to MotoGP?" "Did you expect this?" "How many times do you think you can win this season?"

Your brain felt fried by the end of it. Every answer started blending together. By the time Ryland finally pulled you away from the cameras, night had already settled over Melbourne.

You thought the day was finally over. Then Lewis appeared beside you in the doorway.

"You busy tonight?" he asked casually.

You blinked at him blankly. "I think I forgot how to think actually."

That made him grin. "Perfect. You're coming with us."

Half an hour later, you found yourself shoved into the back of a crowded SUV somewhere in downtown Melbourne with several Mercedes mechanics screaming lyrics to music you could barely hear over them.

Someone had already opened champagne again. Luca looked exhausted. Toto was laughing in the front seat while trying and failing to stop one mechanic from hanging halfway out the window waving a cap at strangers.

And somehow, this still felt less overwhelming than the media pen.

Lewis had apparently invited half the paddock. Which you only discovered when entering the pricate rooftop restaurant Toto rented for the night.

The second the elevator doors opened, the entire room erupted.

Drivers. Engineers. Team staff.

"Oh no," you muttered.

Too late. Someone was already chanting your name.

You barely made it three steps inside before Lando appeared out of nowhere holding two drinks.

"You are the most annoying rookie I've ever met," he announced dramatically.

"I've known you for like... four days."

"Exactly," he said. "And now I have to explain to the internet why a MotoGP rider is already faster than half of us."

That made you laugh for the first time all day without forcing it. "Half?"

Lando placed a hand against his chest. "You wound me, YN."

The atmosphere inside the restaurant felt completely different from the paddock. No cameras, no media training, no polished interviews. Just exhausted drivers acting their age.

Music vibrated through the rooftop floor while Melbourne's skyline glowed. You spotted drivers from multiple teams scattered around booths arguing over race moments already. Someone was replaying your highlights.

Meanwhile Lando somehow attached himself to your side for most of the night. Which turned out to be a dangerous choice, because he talked constantly.

"No, but seriously," Lando said while leaning on the railing, "what is actually wrong with you?"

You nearly choked on your drink laughing. "What?"

"You just arrived and immediately decided to stress all of us out."

"It's just my first win."

"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "That is literally not normal rookie behavior. You're supposed to spin dramatically at least once."

From across the table, Charles pointed toward you. "She kinda did during free practice."

"Traitor," you replied instantly.

Lando looked delighted. "You know your life's over now, right?"

You leaned against the railing beside him. "That sounds threatening."

"It is," he replied immediately. "You won in your first race. The internet's going to lose its mind."

You groaned. "Please don't remind me."

"No, listen," he said, suddenly more genuine. "It's cool. Like genuinely cool."

The joking tone disappeared briefly before he spoke again, "You know how hard this sport is."

You looked over at him. The city lights reflected against the glass behind him while music pulsed faintly.

And suddenly the whole thing felt real again. Not the headlines, not the controversy, but the achievement.

lando ✓

liked by dualipa, yourinstagram, and 6,128,298 others

lando ✓ LET'S PARTYYY

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oscarpiastri ✓ My home race and somehow you made it your nightclub

user86 landoyn is the duo i never thought i needed

alex_albon ✓ oh delete i look emotionally exhausted in the background

user51 oh yn is DANGEROUS when she's drunk

user71 the way the entire grid adopted yn after one race weekend 😭

user92 someone said this current grid feels like a university friend group and honestly they're right

charles_leclerc ✓ I remember approximately 12% of this evening.

user38 not the younger ones out partying half the grid 😭😭😭

user66 YN GOING FROM PODIUM INTERVIEWS TO DOING SHOTS IN LANDO'S STORY

yourinstagram ✓ whoever posted the video of me dancing is dead to me

lando ✓ already got 4 million views btw

yourinstagram ✓ delete it

oscarpiastri ✓ No

user63 yn looks so happy stop

danielricciardo ✓ proud of u kids. slightly concerned, but i'm so proud.

lando ✓ thanks dad

yourinstagram ✓ WHY DIDNT U COME

user45 one race weekend in and she already has embarrassing party footage everywhere

user69 if she's this bad in her first race win what'll happen when she wins the world championship 😭

user73 you dont want to know. motogp has seen it ALL

“You’re in here for your safety,” Spencer says. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“That you’ve somehow managed to catch my stalker already and my life gets to go back to normal.” You tilt your head to look over at him from where you’re laid out on the couch. “Don’t you miss the outdoors?” 

“I could happily stay inside for months with nothing but books to keep me company,” Spencer says. “It’s just an added bonus that you’re here.” 

“How sweet of you,” you hum. A beat passes before you admit, “I guess it’s a bonus that you’re here too. I would be going crazy on my own.”

Spencer smiles, his eyes flicking up from the page for a second to meet yours. “I’m glad I can help.”

It turns out that things go rather smoothly when you’re not trying to argue with Spencer. A day and a half has passed since you took refuge in Spencer’s apartment together, and it’s sunshine and rainbows compared to the way you treated him the first time around. 

You can’t help it. Fighting with him used to feel good, righteous—it was only fair seeing as he replaced you in your father’s life. But then he just had to go and treat you with unconditional kindness and vow to keep you safe no matter what, and your cold heart had to go and melt. 

It’s a dilemma you’ve been ignoring for the past week, but the noise is getting too loud for you to keep paying no mind.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to keep trying. You’re most definitely going to keep trying. It’s kinda what you do. 

You sigh as you look back at the ceiling fan. It makes you dizzy every time, the blades blurring as they spin round and round and round, but it’s better than being bored. It’s the only thing keeping you from death by heat stroke, seeing as Spencer has the worst AC in the world and you can’t even open the windows. 

“Say all of this goes perfectly,” you say. “Mike is the one behind it all, Elle and JJ book him, he goes to jail forever and I never have to worry about it again. What’s the next step?” 

“Well, that’s already a very long process,” Spencer says. “Once the unsub is arrested, they have to go through the entire legal system before they’re sentenced.”

“I know about due process,” you say wryly. “I’m talking about the next step for me.” 

“Oh,” Spencer says. You hear him shut his book. “We’ll take you back to the BAU, you’d have to talk to a few people and sign some papers, but after that, you’re off the hook. Of course, since Gideon’s your dad, you’ll probably have to deal with a bit more pomp and circumstance. And if the press gets a hold of this—”

“Ugh,” you interrupt, grimacing at the thought. “Don’t say the news is gonna be reaching out to me.” 

“It is an interesting story,” Spencer says. You tilt your head to glare at him and he clears his throat. “Objectively, I mean.” 

“I don’t want to talk to any of them,” you say. You’ve given quotes before to some of the local education beat reporters, but going on air to millions of people about your intensely personal experience dealing with a stalker is a lot different than being the ‘media friendly teacher’ for your tiny hometown paper. 

“And you don’t have to.” Spencer frowns then closes his book. “Actually, it’s better if you don’t. A disproportionate amount of female journalists, especially news anchors and reporters, are victims of stalking. It wouldn’t be a good idea to broadcast your image to millions of people right after we arrest your stalker.”

“Great.” Your voice only barely shakes. “Would you happen to know how I can get all my information permanently scrubbed off the Internet?” 

“It’s a pretty difficult process,” he says. “Your information is everywhere. Websites, emails, messenger pages, data brokers—”

“I get it,” you interrupt, maybe a bit too sharp. It just feels like every time you manage to forget the true danger of your circumstances for even a moment, reality comes crashing back in. “I was just joking.” 

“Okay,” Spencer says. “But there’s a reason people say that things live on the Internet forever.”

You let out a ragged sigh as you turn back to face the ceiling. You get dizzy almost immediately. 

It’s not that you think you might get stalked again. It’s just… you’ve always been distantly aware of the truly sick crimes your father solved every day. He’s an FBI agent, a specialized profiler that you pull out for the nightmare cases no one else can solve.

Logically, that means that there are victims. Innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They go to court, they tell their story to the news, they become activists for a better world. 

It didn’t feel real to you for a long time, though. It was where your father disappeared off to, and you never saw your father.

Now, you’re hyperaware of the world your father has devoted his life to fixing. Now you know exactly how much danger your father put himself in every day—knowing he had a daughter and a wife at home. 

Maybe he kept you at arms length for this very reason; to ensure you stayed out of the public eye. Maybe he truly thought this was the only way to protect you. 

It just makes things more complicated, though. Now, the sympathy and the guilt and the fear is all mixed up with the hatred in one big, confusing ball of emotions. Everyone else in the whole world would consider your father a hero—what kind of person are you that you only care about yourself? 

You let out another heavy sigh. You’re so tired of the complications any close proximity to your father seems to bring. 

“Are you okay?” Spencer asks. 

“Just peachy.” 

“If you’re worried about the press, I’m almost certain JJ would help you deal with them. She’s our communications liaison, and she’s really good at her job.”

“I’m not,” you say. You’re only partially lying. 

“Okay,” he says. He only partially believes you. “I was only asking because that’s the fourth time you’ve sighed like that.” 

“When there’s nothing else to do but sigh, I sigh.”

“There’s plenty of things to do here.” 

“I don’t want to play more board games, and I don’t want to watch more movies.” 

“How do you feel about painting?” 

You stare at him. “You paint?”

“Amateurly,” he says. 

“You are not allowed to call yourself an amateur at anything,” you respond pointedly. 

“If you saw anything I’ve ever painted, you would disagree,” Spencer says sheepishly. “It’s honestly kind of embarrassing.” 

“Then why would you bring it up willingly?” 

He shrugs. “Because I thought you might enjoy doing it. That’s all that really matters.” 

Embarrassingly, you feel your cheeks heat. You want to hope he can’t tell, but you know it’s fruitless. Spencer notices absolutely everything, for better or for worse. 

“Fine,” you say as you stand up, because you’re still going to try to hide it. “Where are your art supplies?” 

Everywhere, it turns out. You help Spencer gather materials, scattered everywhere from his desk drawers to his closet. The only reason he manages to find anything is because of his eidetic memory. 

There aren’t very many clear surfaces in his living room on account of the messy genius thing. You say you’re fine with using the breakfast bar, but Spencer insists on dragging a dormant card table out of the depths of his closet for you. You almost feel bad making him do it given his stick arms, but you end up fighting a smile the entire time. 

You used to hate when he did things for you—but it turns out the constant reminders of how he actually liked helping you out were finally starting to sink in. 

There’s more clutter than anything with all the materials laid out on this tiny card table. He has all acrylic paints, which you would be happy or sad about if you knew more about painting. You divide things up evenly while Spencer digs around in the drawers. Eventually, he takes out a stack of DVDs, all different editions of Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting. Your eyebrows rise. 

“You’re serious about this.”

“Not really,” he admits. “JJ bought me them for my birthday last year. I was doing some spring cleaning when I found them again and decided to give it a shot.” 

“I’m guessing you liked it?” 

Spencer smiles, toothy with the corners of his eyes crinkling up, and you feel the corners of your lips quirking at the sight. It’s almost instantaneous these days, your happiness mirroring his own. 

“Surprisingly, yeah.” He puts the DVD into the player and takes his spot on the couch beside you. The card table is just small enough that your shoulders nearly touch, and you make it very clear that it doesn’t affect you in any way. Spencer has to hit a few buttons on the remote before he gets the right one, but he eventually gets through the loading screen and into the actual video. 

“A lot of people are surprised any time I’m interested in anything that’s not just straight science,” he continues. Both of you work together to put all the colors on your paper plate makeshift palette as he talks. “But I have degrees in psychology and sociology. I’m working on a philosophy degree. The sciences and the humanities aren’t opposites, or rivals—they need each other. I’m a better scientist because I understand the thought processes behind any one decision being made. A good profiler knows the science and the psychology behind an unsub, not one or the other.”

“That’s impressive,” you say. “Men who aren’t half as smart as you have a difficult time admitting they don’t know everything. You do it on a daily basis.” 

Spencer shrugs. “When I’m solving cases with the BAU, every action could be life or death. It doesn’t help anyone to hold up the process because of a misplaced ego.” 

“I don’t think your ego is misplaced,” you admit. “You basically do know everything.” 

He smiles, a small thing at the corner of his mouth. “You said it, not me.”

You laugh and his smile grows. You continue for the next few minutes in silence as you lay the foundation of your paintings, looking up every so often to see what the expert is doing. Neither of them look like much of anything, but Spencer’s is still better.

“What drew you to painting?” you ask. “It doesn’t seem like your usual hobby.”

“It’s not,” he agrees. Spencer mixes a bit of white into steel blue to make a more appealing sky as he thinks. “It’s not hyperbole to say my brain is always running. Pretty slowly, actually, because our brains only process information at ten bits per second, but still relevant. I’m constantly thinking, night and day, 24 hours, seven days a week. About the number of active serial killers in Virginia and population in South Korea, and what percentage of the country is stalked every year, and the population of Korea again because four babies are born every second, so it’s definitely gone up in that time, and—” 

He meets your eyes and he stops talking. A beat passes, then muted panic sets in—you start forward, eyes wide with a hand raised in an apology you’re convinced is too late. 

“You don’t need to stop,” you say. “I— if you’re stopping on my account, you don’t need to.”

Spencer’s eyes widen an equal amount. “You’re sure?” 

“Of course,” you say. “We’re in your apartment. I don’t have any right to dictate what you do.” 

“Of course you do,” Spencer says. “You’re not a guest. For the time being, you’re living here. That means you can treat it like your own home, and you can treat me like a roommate. Including asking me to stop if I’m doing something that annoys you.”

Your face heats yet again, and you shift in your seat as you try to think of the right thing to say. It’s a bit hard to focus with him sitting so close to you, close enough that you feel the heat radiating from his skin. He’s an appropriate distance away despite the proximity, but his knee brushes yours every once in a while, when he adjusts his spot on the couch. 

You’re hyperaware of every touching atom between the two of you. You doubt it’s even crossed Spencer’s mind. 

“Well, I like it,” you finally say, emphasized with an overcorrected brush stroke “I mean, I— I don’t mind it. It’s cool. Learning new things is cool.” 

You cringe inwardly. That’s the best you can come up with?

Spencer apparently thinks the exact same thing, but in the wrong direction—that you’re struggling for the right lie to placate him.

“You don’t have to feel bad about it.” 

“I don’t!” you exclaim, huffing a frustrated sigh at your inability to properly express your thoughts. “I don’t feel bad because I’m not annoyed. I genuinely like listening to you talk. It’s interesting. A- and you have a nice voice.” 

You go silent after, your mind telling you it’s well past the time to stop rambling. You hold your breath as you continue painting. There’s a line you’ve been trying very hard not to cross, and it feels like you just went sprinting across it. 

“Are you okay?” Spencer asks. “Did you hit your head?” 

“When would I have had time to hit my head?” you ask. “We’ve spent every second together for, like, a month.” 

“It’s actually only been three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty-four minutes,” he corrects. “And in that time, you’ve slept in a different room and used the bathroom at different times. And we spent a decent amount of time apart when we went back to the office.” 

“Do you have exact numbers for all those?” 

“Of course I do.” Spencer’s brows scrunch ever so slightly, like he’s solving a particularly difficult equation in his head. “I held back because I didn’t think you would care.” 

“From now on, you don’t have to hold back,” you say. “If we’re talking, and you know a fun fact that I might be interested in, or— or even if I’m not interested in it, you can say it. I don’t want you to hold back on my account.” 

Spencer tilts his head to look at you, and he smiles. There’s a genuine spark of happiness in his eyes that causes fireworks to explode inside you. You try to be as casual about it as possible—logically, a certain amount of tenderness is expected between two people that have spent this much time in close proximity. It’s not a sign of deeper feelings. Even more logically, you’re taking the path of least resistance by reducing arguments. That’s how Spencer would see it, anyways.

“Thank you,” Spencer finally says. It’s mostly normal, but there’s a new lightness to the words. Shame bites at you, making your own smile waver—your comments made him hide parts of himself. “What I was saying earlier was that my brain gets a little quieter when I’m painting. It’s nice.” 

“I’m glad you found some sort of escape,” you say. “And I’m sorry it took me so long.” 

Bob Ross explains how to paint the snow onto your trees. A beat passes as you both follow along—your shaky brush strokes are messier than Spencer’s adept hand. A credit to your point that he will never truly be an amateur at anything. 

“And I’m— I’m sorry for how I treated you in the past.” You bite your lip as you try to clean up the edges of your pine tree. The paint is still wet, so it smears more than anything—you go from decent lines to blurred lines. “I had no right to take my anger at my dad out on you. You were nothing but kind to me. I should’ve been an adult about it.” 

Spencer doesn’t say anything for a while. You glance over at him to see his brows furrowed yet again, this time as if deep in thought. His trees are perfectly dusted with snow. 

“You said something a while ago.” You blink when he suddenly speaks, and look back over at him. “You gave up on attending an Ivy League school so you could live closer to your father, and get the chance to see him more.” 

You don’t know why you’re surprised he remembers. Spencer remembers everything. 

“Yeah.” 

“Where did you get into?”

You sigh. You can’t remember the last time you talked about this. It’s just another one of your poor decisions made in a moment of teenage rebellion. 

“Columbia.”

Spencer’s eyebrows rise. “And you went to George Mason instead?”

“Yeah,” you say. “It’s not all about my dad. I couldn’t afford Columbia, and George Mason gave me a full ride.” 

He looks at you for a good, long moment. You doubted you would get away with the lie for long, but you did think it would last a little longer than five seconds. 

“You graduated four years ago,” he says. “You graduated a year early, so three years before that, you were applying to universities. Seven years ago, entry level FBI agents were making around $40,000. Triple that for how much Gideon was making then. Your mother is a psychologist, putting her around $90,000. That’s more than enough to pay around $35,000 a year for tuition and still live very comfortably.”

You hum, because you’re not going to fact check him. You don’t really feel like having this conversation, though—you were having a perfectly fine time breaching the surface level of kindness. Leave it to Spencer to bring it up, though. 

“They didn’t want to pay for my college,” you say, “and I didn’t want to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. I’d never pay that off teaching.”  

“That’s not it.” A beat passes. “Why did you refuse their help?” 

Some miniscule part of you starts panicking. He’s a prodder, a very accurate prodder aided by professional level profiling and his five degrees (with a sixth in progress, you can hear him add.) 

“Because I was a stupid teenager.” 

“Yeah,” he says. “So stupid that you got into Columbia.” 

You scoff, then pick up the remote to pause the DVD. You’re done trying to make your painting look good. You twist the remote in your hand for a moment, feeling the weight of the plastic. You feel his eyes on you all the while. 

“They were so proud of me for getting into an Ivy,” you recall. “I’d been driving myself crazy applying to colleges, but that acceptance letter made it all feel worth it. They basically paraded me around every social event they got invited to to brag. “You shake your head with a wry chuckle. “For once, when my dad said he would take off work to spend some time with me, he actually did. He got a week off when another senior agent could cover him, and we just spent it together and talked. Lunch dates, dinner parties, movie nights—it was one of the best weeks of my life.” 

“Of course, my mother insisted on throwing a graduation party to celebrate,” you say with a slight smile. “I didn’t complain, but I was already starting to have doubts. Every single person they introduced me to in the Ivy League academia circle was just… the exact opposite of the kind of person I wanted to be.” 

You sigh again, attempting to roll out some of the tension in your shoulders. It doesn’t work. “The party was nice enough. My mom threw it for the sake of establishing me as a name to look out for, a name to remember, but it was a fine time. Dad pulled me aside halfway through the party. He told me he was proud of me. He was so sorry for everything he missed, but he was so proud of the woman I was becoming. He swore I would love Columbia, cross his heart and hope to die.” 

Spencer’s been watching you this whole time, a steady presence at your side. You swallow the lump in your throat. Sharing a bed felt less vulnerable than this. 

“That was when I told him I wasn’t going to Columbia. I was staying local and going to George Mason.” You wring your hands together. It hits you that the last time you talked about this was… 

Of course. (God, what are the odds?) You shake those thoughts away and continue. 

“I didn’t want to go to an Ivy League and become another pretentious academic snob. I wanted to be a public school teacher and help kids like me, and it felt like the best way to do that was to go to a large public college. Of course,” you tilt your head, “I wanted to be closer to my dad too. The week of unfettered attention he gave me was everything I’d been deprived of for years, and I wanted more.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.” Spencer’s voice is the only level thing about any of this. He feels like a third party you’re pleading your case to—that you weren’t just a spoiled kid who threw away the life-changing chances she stumbled upon. “Opening up to your father like that. I bet he felt more like a stranger.”

You nod, a bit numb. “A stranger I was determined to please, but only kept messing up with.”

“What did he say?” Spencer asks. 

“He was… upset. He tried to hide it, but for a profiler, he wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions around me.” You sit back against the couch and take a deep breath, then let it out. “I noticed, obviously. We were interrupted before we could have a true argument, but things just… weren’t the same after that. I told my dad I wanted to be in his life more, and he was upset. That’s the heart of it.”

“I’m sure that’s not what he meant,” Spencer says quietly. 

“I’m sure it is,” you retort. “I know it’s difficult balancing this job. I’m proof enough of that. But if he wasn’t going to be able to love his child more than his job, then my parents never should have had me.” 

He says your name, a bit stronger than before. You know Spencer thinks you’re a flight risk, and this isn’t really helping your case. It’s the truth. 

“You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that.” 

“I think that’s the least of our problems, Spence. Don’t you?” 

“You say that about all your problems.”

You shrug. “Maybe that’s telling you something, then.” 

“You don’t seem upset about where you ended up,” Spencer says, an attempt at bringing the conversation back into safer territory.

“I’m not,” you say, and you’re not lying. You genuinely believe teaching is what you were put on this planet to do, and you much prefer helping everyday kids find their potential than be another resource to a rich kid who will never worry about anything in their life. 

“There’s clearly something still weighing on you, though.” 

“More of your profiling?” 

“I’ve only really been around you when something is weighing on you,” Spencer says. “It’s easy for me to tell.” 

Naturally. He notices and remembers every single thing you do and say. He probably already knows you better than you know yourself—or at least he’ll try to convince you of it. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about that night since it happened,” you say. “I think a part of him thought if he could be a good dad for a week, then he wouldn’t have to be a dad at all for a majority of the year. I would go off to Columbia, and he’d see me on holidays and a few days every break and he’d get all the bragging rights of a successful daughter without the burden of raising one. He could pull off the balancing act of being an incredible agent and a loving father. Well,” you tilt your head, “he wouldn’t have to admit that he didn’t want to do the balancing act.” You pause. “That he regretted having me.” 

Spencer, to your surprise, doesn’t say anything. He’s still looking at you, brows furrowed in concern and dark doe eyes breaking your resolve, but he doesn’t say anything. When he does, it’s a lot simpler than you were expecting. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

You trail your brush through a few different colors, lazily mixing them to give yourself something to do. 

“You don’t have to be,” you say casually. “I’m past blaming you for all my issues.” 

“I’m not apologizing,” he says. “I’m commiserating.” 

You let out a dry laugh, but he continues. 

“I know what it’s like to feel as if you’re never enough. Half the reason I have all these degrees is because I was convinced if I read enough, if I studied enough, I could figure out how to cure my mom.” He shakes his head. “I had to put her in a psychiatric hospital when I was eighteen because I couldn’t keep taking care of her. I felt so, so guilty about it that I put everything I had into my studies. I wrote letters to her every day. Even now, there’s always a part of me that wonders if I just worked a little harder, if I could have figured it all out.” 

You feel his gaze on you, and you force yourself to meet it. It’s the least you can do. 

“I know what it’s like to feel as if you’re never enough,” he repeats. “But you are. And so am I. But if you keep going on like this, wondering about what could have been or digging up the past or telling yourself that it might be better if you were never even born, then you will never allow yourself to be happy. Suffering isn’t noble. You deserve so much more than being miserable for all eternity because you think it’s all you’re worth.”

“Any idea how to stop being so miserable?” you ask lightly. 

“I’m not a licensed therapist,” he says. 

“That hasn’t stopped you before.” 

Spencer sighs. He allows silence to pass for another few seconds before he answers. 

“When all of this is over, I think you should have a conversation with your dad.” 

You groan, and Spencer holds up his hand. 

“I mean it,” he says. “You need to tell him everything you’ve told me. It might seem obvious to you, but maybe Gideon hasn’t thought about it from your perspective.” 

“He’s a profiler,” you say wryly. “Shouldn’t that be the one thing he’s good at?” 

“He spends more time in the minds of criminals than his own,” Spencer says softly. “I think he just needs a nudge in the right direction.” 

“So your advice is to talk to my dad,” you say. 

“And all the other nice things I said,” Spencer responds. You huff a laugh and shake your head. 

“You’re getting better at making jokes.” 

“I’ve always been hilarious,” he says. “I have multiple joke books memorized.” 

“Just because you know how the chicken crossed the road doesn’t mean you’re funny.” 

“That’s not fair!” Spencer complains. “The team laughs at my jokes all the time. Well— sometimes they’re laughing at me, but that doesn’t matter.” 

“Don’t worry,” you muse. “When we’re out of this, I’ll make sure they all know not to mess with you.” 

“And how are you going to pull that off?” 

You shrug. “You were scared of me when you first met me. I’m sure I can leverage that into some mutual respect.”

“I was not scared of you.”

“Really?” you ask wryly. “I remember the stairwell like it was yesterday.”

“And I remember the second time we were in the stairwell,” he says. 

“When I was seconds away from a breakdown?” 

“When I helped you,” he says. “And when I very clearly wasn’t scared of you.” 

You smile despite yourself. “Do you want my help or not?” 

“I’m just saying I don’t think I’ll need it,” he says. “And I was not scared of you.” 

“You were.” You clear your throat and imitate his stammered cadence from the second time you met. “‘I don’t really want to annoy you while we’re stuck together in an undisclosed location. I don’t know what you’re capable of.’”

Spencer frowns. “Are you trying to imitate me?” 

“Not trying,” you remark, “succeeding.” 

“That’s ridiculous! That does not sound like me at all!” 

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” 

“Now you sound like Morgan.” 

You smile as you pick the remote back up and turn Bob Ross on again. Spencer accepts the change of subject with another shake of his head, and he cleans off his paint brush as you move to the foreground. You have to add in a tiny little house, and you’ve already messed up the perspective. 

Spencer’s words have time to settle over you as you paint, though. He’s always so kind to you—so honest in a way that tends to make you feel much, much better than before. You don’t know how he does it; how he’s lived such an unforgiving life, and yet he’s able to forgive you for everything. 

“Thank you,” you say in the silence. “...For the talk. It helps. It always helps.” 

You sense his smile in his words. He lightly knocks his knee into yours, an acknowledgement of your words before he speaks. 

“I’ll always be there for you,” he says. “For— for as long as you’ll have me.” 

It warms you from the inside out, from head to toe. You wonder if his coworkers know he’s so casually romantic. You wonder if Spencer knows

You continue painting side by side, shoulders brushing or knees touching or eyes meeting every so often with the soothing voice of Bob Ross guiding you through it all. 

You’re going to get through this, and you’re going to have Spencer by your side. 

The thought makes you smile uncontrollably. 

-

Later, Spencer is going through some of his records to figure out a good soundtrack for the night while you rifle through his kitchen. Your paintings are drying on the coffee table, and it’s very obvious which one is Spencer’s and which one is yours. You’re craving something sweet, but unfortunately you’re locked inside, leaving you no choice but to bake. 

“Where is your stand mixer?” you call, deep in the depths of his kitchen cabinets. 

“I don’t have one.”

“You don’t have one?” you repeat incredulously. “Do you have a hand mixer, at least?” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t bake. It would be an inefficient use of my limited kitchen space to have tools I don’t use.” 

“Great,” you sigh. “If I get tired of mixing, I’m making you do it.” 

“Why would I be better than you if I don’t bake?” 

“It’s not about being better,” you say, “it’s about making it up to me.” 

“Well, what are you making?” 

“Chocolate chip cookies,” you say. “I don’t have my cookbook with me, and you don’t have any—” 

“I know five different chocolate chip cookie recipes,” Spencer interrupts. “I could write them down for you if you want.” 

You bite back a small smile. That’s such a Spencer thing to say—he doesn’t bake, but he has multiple recipes memorized, probably from reading them once years ago. A memory like that had to be a burden—but what you wouldn’t give to remember your lesson plans after writing them the first time. 

You stand up from your squatted position on the floor, digging through his corner cabinet, to look at him in the living room. “I was just going to use the one on the back of the chocolate chip bag.” 

“Make that four that I know,” he says sheepishly. This time, your smile escapes. 

“Write down your favorite one, and I’ll make it.” 

Spencer’s eyes light up. “Really?” 

“‘Course,” you say. “Assuming you’ve got all the ingredients around here.” 

“I have all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, butter, sugar, brown sugar, and three eggs,” he counts off. “And one fourth of a bag of chocolate chips, which should be around 3 ounces.”

“That’ll get you pretty much anywhere,” you say. “What do I have to pre-heat the oven to?” 

“375.” 

You do just that, then you pause and look back at Spencer with a smile. 

“How would you like to help me make them instead?” 

His eyes widen a bit. “Me?” 

“Who else is there?” 

“I just said I don’t bake.” 

You shrug. “Chocolate chip cookies are easy. You’ve already got the recipe down, which is half the battle. Besides, baking is a science. It can’t be that hard for someone like you.” 

“...Fine,” Spencer says. “But only because you’re asking me.” 

You smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

You put him to work grabbing the rest of the ingredients as you find a big enough bowl to mix everything in. There’s barely enough space for the two of you in his tiny kitchen, but you make it work. 

“Make sure you take the butter out now,” you say. “It has to be soft to cream it together with the sugar. 

Spencer nods, and you feel him glance at you. “Do you bake a lot?” 

You shrug. “On occasion. I lived in a house with four other girls my last year of college, and I ended up baking whenever I was stressed.” You smile at the memory. “We had a lot of pastries during finals season.” 

“Baking is good for stress relief,” Spencer agrees. “It reduces cortisol, which is the stress hormone. It falls under the realm of ‘mindful meditation.’” He tilts his head. “It also positively impacts your sleep schedule. Maybe I should have been asking you to make cookies every night.” 

You huff a laugh. “Just hand me the baking soda, pretty boy.” 

He smiles as he holds it out, and your fingers brush when you take it from him. “That’s Morgan’s thing, you know. Calling me pretty boy.” 

“Seeing as I also have eyes, he doesn’t get to claim it.” 

You see his smile grow out of your peripherals. “You really think I’m pretty?” 

“Like I said,” you bite back your own growing smile, “I have eyes.” 

“I think you’re pretty too,” Spencer says, and your heart skips a beat. You end up spilling a bit of flour on the counter, and you know it’s fruitless to hope he doesn’t notice. “I have since I met you.” 

“That’s a little concerning,” you say. “Seeing as I was yelling at both you and my dad nonstop the first two times we met.” 

Spencer frowns. “I’ve been told I have a thing for women who are mean to me.” 

“Really?” you laugh. “Who else?” 

“...Elle,” he admits. “And JJ, for a while. My feelings only stuck around for a few months with each of them, but…” Spencer sighs. “It was pretty obvious to the whole BAU.”

You think back to Elle’s words, that they were making bets on you and Spencer based off of what happened with Lila Archer. How she didn’t finish her sentence at the end of your conversation, but you were pretty sure she was going to say Reid’s pretty easy to like.

It’s true. You came in expecting to hate Spencer Reid for the rest of your life, and here you are three weeks later baking cookies together in his kitchen. No wonder he’s such a good agent. 

“I can’t imagine what it’s like being surrounded by profilers,” you say. “It’s probably impossible to hide any kind of secret.” 

“You’re better off not even trying,” he agrees. “But because I’m the baby of the team, they tease me about everything—especially Morgan.” Spencer chuckles and shakes his head. “He bugged me about asking Elle out every single day for two months straight last year.”

“Did you break?” 

“No,” he says. “But only because I realized I didn’t actually have romantic feelings for her; I was idolizing her more than anything. We had a really good talk after a rough case and figured everything out. Things have been normal since then.”

“And JJ?” 

“We went to a Redskins game together, she brought Garcia with her, and absolutely nothing else happened.” He tilts his head. “Gideon was the one who gave me the tickets, actually. He encouraged me to ask her to go with me.” 

“Wow,” you say. “My dad has been more involved with your dating life than mine.” 

Spencer is silent for a second, but he still hands you the softened butter when he notices you looking at it. Eventually, he speaks. 

“Do you know that they talk about us, too?” 

You nearly drop the butter right onto the counter. You clear your throat as you recover and start creaming them together with a spatula. It’s been a while since you’ve done this by hand, but you’ll make do. 

“Elle mentioned something about it,” you say casually. “I mostly took it as a joke.” 

“It probably was,” he says after a moment. “Like I said, they enjoy teasing me. Unfortunately, you’re included by extension.” 

“It’s fine,” you say. At least you have something to focus on for the next five minutes. “It doesn’t bother me.” 

“Good,” Spencer says. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“You don’t,” you say immediately. “Far from it, Spencer. You’re the reason I’ve gotten through all this.” 

“...Good,” he repeats. “Anything I can do to help.” 

You smile inwardly. He knows everything, and yet you don’t think he knows half of how much he’s helped you. 

You mostly continue on in silence, save for the occasional ask for ingredients that Spencer is closer to. He only has one tray in his entire kitchen, so you’ve resigned yourself to a slower process. 

As you roll the dough into little balls, you glance over at Spencer. 

“Do you want to start on a second batch?” 

His eyebrows rise. “You trust me with it?” 

“You just watched me do everything, and you have an eidetic memory,” you say. “I think you’ll manage.” 

He chuckles a bit, then nods and retrieves a clean bowl. 

“You can’t make fun of me if they’re bad, though,” he adds. 

“I would never,” you drawl. You take a second to push the baking soda, baking powder and salt over to him. “I purposefully halved the recipe so you could make one. Didn’t you notice I was putting in half of all the ingredients?”

“I was a little distracted recounting my dating history to you,” Spencer says wryly, and you laugh. 

“Which you did of your own free will,” you say. “Besides, isn’t this whole case about digging up my dating history?” 

He goes silent at that, and you sigh. Leave it to you to ruin the rapport you’d finally been able to build. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t have to be,” he says quickly. “I just don’t like thinking about that guy. How he used you and your trust.” 

“Spence,” you sigh.

“I know,” he says. “But it’s not fair that he just got to wake up one day and decide to make your life a living hell.”

You stare at your rows of unevenly shaped dough. Spencer also doesn’t have a cookie scoop.

“No,” you say. “It’s not. But that’s why selfless people like you are here.” 

Spencer smiles, close-lipped but genuinely happy. He reaches over and squeezes your hand. 

“I’m not as selfless as you think.” 

You shake your head. “You are. Every single thing you’ve done since I’ve met you has only been to help me, even though I was making your life hell. You got someone who was intent on hating you to like you in three weeks because you’ve been so nice to me.” You huff a laugh. “It’s like a fairytale where the prince beats the evil queen by being her friend.” 

“In that simile, you would be an evil princess,” he points out. “We’re the same age.” 

“I’m glad you didn’t dispute the evil part,” you say. 

Spencer actually blushes. It’s ridiculously endearing. “You know I didn’t mean that.” 

“Yeah,” you smile. “Besides, you just got cookie dough all over your hands so you could make me feel better. That’s pretty selfless.” 

He looks down at his hands, brows furrowing when he realizes you’re telling the truth. 

“Oh, great,” he sighs. He immediately starts trying to pick the bigger pieces off, grimacing the whole time. You laugh and push the flour over to him, but you use just a bit too much force, and it tips over. 

Sending flour everywhere. 

Including Spencer. 

You don’t even know what to say, at first. Your eyes widen, your jaw drops, and a laugh escapes—you slam a hand over your mouth to cover it. 

The carnage isn’t pretty: the front of Spencer’s plaid button-up is covered in flour. It looks like it snowed on the floorboards. You even managed to hit yourself, because you feel powdery freckles on your cheeks. There’s a pile on the counter streaming out of the flour bag as well. 

Spencer’s eyes are wide as he looks around his mess of a kitchen, mind likely working overtime as he calculates how long it’s going to take to clean up, and what kind of supplies work best for flour, and how to get stains out of your clothing—and then he smiles.

It’s slow, like he’s out of the haze of disbelief on the right side of the bed, but he smiles at you. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, but for some reason, you can’t stop laughing. It’s so stupid. You’ve been trying your best to be as nice to Spencer as he is to you, but then you spill some flour and you expect him to— what, snap at you?

Spencer is a problem solver. He doesn’t get caught up in the small things like you do, doesn’t assume the worst of everyone like you do. He’s seen some of humanity’s worst, but he’s also seen some deeply broken people—people that could have turned out different if they had gotten just a little bit more affection. 

He smiles, and laughs to himself. 

“You have little flour freckles.” 

You laugh breathlessly, and Spencer’s eyes gleam. You take a step closer without fully realizing it. 

“Spence,” you say.

He says your name just as softly, and it spreads warmth all through your body. It’s unconscious as you edge ever closer—his eyes flicker down to your lips for a split second. All you have to do is move forward, close your eyes, press your lips to his—

And then Spencer’s phone rings, and it’s like you come back into yourself—you both do. You suck in a sharp breath as you step back, and Spencer looks so unsure, so off-balance it’s almost laughable as he takes his phone out. 

“Hey, Gideon,” he rasps. You feel like you’re vibrating out of your skin. 

You almost kissed him. If the phone didn’t ring, you would have kissed him. Your palms are impossibly clammy. 

It keeps repeating in your mind over and over: if the phone didn’t ring, you would have kissed him. The realization hits like a bucket of freezing cold water. 

“You have good news?” 

Those are about the only words that could have taken over your attention, and you think Spencer knows it by how he emphasizes those words. You turn back around to face him and nod for him to keep going. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, and you faintly hear your father’s voice over the phone. “Yes. She’s standing next to me.” 

Spencer glances over at you, and you pull yourself together with what you hope is a convincing smile. I didn’t just almost kiss you. Unless you wanted to kiss me too, in which case I certainly did, and I would like to do it again. 

Your dad’s tinny voice again—and then Spencer’s eyebrows shoot up. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, fighting a smile. A few more seconds and he’s full on grinning. “That’s great news. I’ll tell her right away.” One more beat. “See you soon.”

Spencer shuts his phone and looks at you. You raise your eyebrows and tilt your head forward. 

“Well?” It comes out breathier than you intend. “What’s got you smiling like that?”

“You’re free,” he says. You’ve never seen him smile this wide. “Elle and JJ found Michael Stevens at a rental under a fake name in the middle of Manassas. They questioned him, and he confessed to stalking you. They found a camera in his room with the same pictures Gideon received, and he had a hard drive full of information about you.” 

Your eyes widen. You dare to smile. “You’re serious?” 

Spencer nods as he says your name. “You’re free. It’s over.” 

“It’s really over?” 

He nods again. It takes another few seconds for it to sink in. It’s over. You don’t have to live your life in fear anymore.

You grin ear to ear and hug Spencer, letting out a cheer as he embraces you. 

“It’s over!” you yell, loud enough for the neighbors to hear. You don’t care. You’re free to take up space again, to stop making yourself as small as possible in the name of your own safety. You cheer again, and Spencer laughs as he pulls you closer. 

You separate enough to look at each other, and he looks at you with such care in his eyes it almost hurts. Spencer has been by your side through this whole nightmare—he’s taken everything you’ve thrown at him with the appropriate level of complaint and thrown back boundless amounts of kindness in return. 

You wouldn’t have survived this on your own, or with a man less kind. Spencer Reid is a very special person. 

For a moment, the world stops as you can do nothing but look at each other—revel in his presence. You know exactly what you want, but—

“You should probably pack,” Spencer says softly. It shatters whatever illusion you’d dreamed up in an instance. “They’ll want to come by tonight.” 

“Right,” you say. It comes out much fainter than you want, but you step away from him. You look down at the mess of flour you made  and open your mouth, but Spencer beats you to it. 

“I’ll clean it,” he says. “I mean it.” 

You nod shakily and take a few more steps back. The more distance you put between the two of you, the more you can think. Eventually, you muster up the strength to turn and leave. 

When you close the door behind you, you want to bash your head against it. 

What is wrong with you? 

You were going to kiss him. If he wanted to kiss you, he would have kissed you. But he didn’t. 

You funnel all your frustration into packing. You’ve kept your clothes confined to one corner in the name of respect—it’s Spencer’s room after all—but you’re being especially rough as you fold them. You’ll have plenty of time to iron back at home. 

You stop just as you shove a folded pile in your duffle bag. Your fingers curl into the fabric as you try to make sense of the thousands of thoughts racing through your mind. 

That’s not what matters. What matters is that the case is over. You’re safe—free. Soon, you’ll be back home, back at work, back to normal. 

Back to being alone. 

That thought stands out from all the others, blaring like a siren. You don’t want to be alone again. 

A knock on the door jolts you out of it. You blink a few dozen times then go and open it. 

Spencer’s standing there, looking uncertain. He starts the same way you did when he sees you, and he clears his throat. 

“I— uh, I need a new shirt,” he says. “This one has flour all over it.” 

“Right,” you say wryly. “What idiot did that to you?”

“It wasn’t an idiot, actually,” Spencer says. “She was a very lovely woman. She made cookies for me.”

You feel your skin heat and glance away. “I made dough.” 

“The oven’s still preheated,” he says. “If you want to finish them, you can. It’s going to take a few hours for Gideon and the team to come by, anyways.” 

“Oh,” you say. “Okay.” 

“You don’t have to pack,” he explains. “Unless you want to be extra prepared, but I— I don’t think you have to be. I doubt your dad will rush you.” 

“Okay,” you repeat. “I’ll… get to unpacking then.” 

You smile, but you feel off-balance. Right now, you’re at the precipice—a romantic prisoner’s dilemma. You can follow through with it, or you can ignore it. If Spencer likes you, you can figure out what the next step is. If Spencer doesn’t like you, then the only way forward is to take this to your grave. You wouldn’t be able to take the humiliation of a rejection. 

Spencer smiles back—it feels just as unsure. “Okay. I’ll start cleaning up.” 

You nod, and he closes the door. You exhale deeply and put the back of your hand against your forehead. You’re burning up, of course. 

God, what is wrong with you? You knew the only answer would be staying quiet. There’s absolutely no logical reason for Spencer Reid to have romantic feelings for you. He’s nice to you because of his job—he cares about you because he’s incredibly good at his job. 

He’s been working his hardest to keep you safe and calm in the face of a nightmare, and he never wavered even when you treated him like shit. The absolute last thing Spencer probably wants right now is an unexpected, unwarranted confession. 

Except it probably wouldn’t be unexpected. He’s probably known this whole time, and he’s just been placating you—the way an adult acts with a child when they talk about their imaginary friend. 

Spencer is a profiler, for Christ’s sake. He just told you that he can’t hide anything from his coworkers—how could you possibly think you could hide something from him?

You have to take this to your grave. 

Then it hits you. You nearly did take it to your grave. This whole time, your life has been in danger no matter where you are. You think back to the pictures your dad showed you that day—how someone had been watching you for months and knew your whole routine, your whole life. 

What are you supposed to do after this? Just go back to life like normal? Be a teacher again and go to the same coffee shop every morning and balance your checkbook and go back to being alone? 

It strikes like lightning once more. You don’t want to be alone again.

You’ve spent your whole life roiling in resentment, believing in the virtue of misery and that you were getting back at your dad by hating yourself more than he ever could. 

Suffering isn’t noble, you recall. The words settle on your tongue uneasily as you mouth them. 

(You have to at least try.)

You ignore the doubt rising in your throat, ignore your heart hammering in your chest as you march to the door. The metal doorknob is cold beneath your heated skin as you twist it, ready to confront Spencer—

But when you open the door, Spencer’s standing there once again, poised to knock. He looks just as shocked as you. 

The argument you prepared dissipates from your mind. You open your mouth and nothing comes out. But this time, you don’t hesitate. You take his head in your hands and kiss him. 

For one terrifying moment, Spencer pulls away. His eyes are wide as saucers, pupils dilated in the dim light of his apartment. Through the impulsive, romance-addled haze of your brain, you worry the cynical voice was right—he was just placating you. 

You barely hear yourself stammering out a mortified apology before he cuts you off with an even more desperate kiss than the first. 

It takes a second for your brain to process: Spencer kisses you back. 

He kisses with surprising force, hands falling to your waist as he guides you back into your room. His room, actually. It’s only been two days, but the line is already blurring in your mind. You shift so he’s against the side of the bed, and push a little closer so he’s forced to sit down. Spencer drags you down with him for the length of one kiss, but he pulls away, breathlessly saying your name. 

“We can’t do this. I— I’m a federal agent.” 

“FBI agents are allowed to date people,” you say wryly. Your arms remain looped around his shoulders, your hands lingering on his back. You can feel his quick heartbeat. 

“I’m supposed to be protecting you,” he says. 

“You did,” you say. “The case is over.” 

Spencer opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. You edge close so you can press your forehead to his. 

“Do you like me?” you ask softly. 

“Yes,” he murmurs. “A lot.” 

“Do you like kissing me?” 

“A lot,” he repeats. 

You close your eyes and kiss him again. Spencer reciprocates, his hands tightening just so around your waist. You pull away after a heated moment and look right at him. 

“Then just keep kissing me, and we’ll figure the rest out later.” 

Spencer doesn’t get to respond. He captures your lips right as you finish, your argument apparently convincing enough in the moment. He practically pulls you onto his lap, and you can feel him hardening against you. You smile into his kisses—it’s nice to know you have that effect on him. 

You guide his hands to the zipper of your jeans, and his hands pause right above. 

“You’re sure—” 

“Yes,” you breathe. You barely get the words out before he’s kissing you again. Maybe it’s stupid and naive and you’ll regret it the second it’s over, but in this moment, you’ve never been more sure of anything. In this moment, you think you’re in love with Spencer Reid, and you think you’re finally free to figure out what that means. 

He unzips your jeans and helps you out of them. The cool air of his bedroom is welcome relief to the aching heat between your thighs. You unbutton Spencer’s flourless shirt then he helps you out of your blouse. You trail a finger across his jawline, then past his throat and down his chest.  He helps you out of your blouse, fumbling with every button as he tries to undo them without breaking the kiss. His slender fingers feather over your skin as he pulls down your bra straps, and he peppers up your shoulder and along your collarbone as you get the rest of it off.  

“You’re sure?” you get the urge to ask. 

Spencer presses his lips to the hollow of your neck, hands lingering on your waist. 

“Yes,” he murmurs. 

“You’re really sure,” you repeat. You cringe inwardly, but you can’t help it. Flat-out rejection would be bad, but you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if he regrets this. 

Spencer pulls away and looks you right in the eye. His messy brown hair is more curly than straight after almost three weeks of not straightening it. His dark eyes are magnetic. His lips are slightly swollen from kissing you so hard. 

“You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met,” Spencer says. “You’ve gone through so much of your life on your own, and I want nothing more than to put an end to that. If you’ll have me.” 

Your whole face softens. Every part of you has felt so jagged and sharp and flawed for so much of your life, unlovable by anyone who knows what’s good for them. Spencer sees you for who you are. 

You don’t know if anyone ever has. 

“I want that more than anything,” you whisper. 

Morgan is leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight enough that his knuckles have gone pale. He looks like he’s aged ten years since this morning. 

“He woke up once,” he says quietly. “Couple seconds. Doctor said that’s good.”

You nod without looking away from Spencer. “Good.”

“He’s gonna be okay.”

You try to hum some sort of acknowledgement, some half-hearted agreement you don’t entirely mean because at this point you can’t really know if that’s true, but no sound comes out. Instead, you reach for Spencer’s hand.

His fingers are warm. The plastic hospital bracelet brushes your wrist when you thread your fingers through his, and you feel almost burned by it. Spencer is supposed to have ink smudged on his hands and paper cuts from case files and maybe chalk dust from a man impromptu lecture no one asked him to give. He is not supposed to look fragile under a hospital blanket.

Morgan studies your face for a second, then stands.

“I’m gonna grab some coffee,” he says.

You don’t point out the fact that he already has a half-full coffee cup in his hand. You just nod.

At the door, he pauses. “He was asking about you earlier. Before they brought him here.”

Your grip tightens around Spencer’s hand.

“Just thought you should know,” he says.

Then he leaves, and the room gets even quieter.

You sit there with Spencer’s hand in yours and stare at his face until the anger sharpens again, because anger is a much easier emotion for you to deal with than fear. 

“You absolute idiot,” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer.

—

You had been with Rossi and Emily when you found out.

The day had already felt a bit off-kilter since it started. Anthrax in a park in Annapolis. Dead civilians, sick children, hypermasculine military personnel taking over the BAU and breathing down everyone’s necks. Dr. Kimura from the CDC explained the intensity of this strain in a voice so calm it made the information hard to process. The team had swallowed Cipro in a lame attempt at some sense of control, then scattered across the Washington metropolitan area trying to build a profile before the unsub executed another attack.

You went with Reid and Dr. Kimura to the hospital earlier. You noticed the way his inflection turned clinical as he talked about infection rates and symptom onset, the way his eyes stayed focused on the numbers in the patients’ charts because if he let himself see them as people for too long, he’d feel all of it. You saw the way his focus faltered around Abby, a young woman who just wanted to go on a bike ride around the park and was now experiencing aphasia and severe respiratory distress as she tried to stay alive long enough for a cure to be found. You desperately wanted to touch the back of Spencer’s wrist as you walked beside him in the hallway, but you chose not to, because you were surrounded on all sides by sick people and your relationship did not belong in the middle of it.

You regretted that choice later.

Of all the stupid things to regret, that was the one your brain kept returning to. The touch you hadn’t taken. The two seconds of warmth you’d decided could wait.

By early afternoon, you and Emily were with Rossi following a lead away from the rest of the team, chasing down information on Dr. Lawrence Nichols, a disgraced military scientist who’d been downgraded to working on the flu. Emily was having a tough time with the casual deception a case like this required, so you were talking with her beside the parked SUV when Rossi got a call from Hotch. You watched him out of the corner of your eye as his expression changed and his gaze flicked quickly toward you before it shifted away again.

It was small. Practically nothing. A slight narrowing of his eyes. An almost imperceptible shift.

But still, your stomach went cold.

“What?” you asked.

Rossi lifted one finger, still listening to Hotch on the other end.

Your voice came out sharper. “Rossi.”

He lowered the phone. “Morgan and Reid went to check out Nichols’ house.”

You waited.

Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Nichols is dead. The house is contaminated with anthrax.”

For a second, your hearing went thin, and the whole street seemed to drop underwater. Emily shifted beside you. A car passed behind the SUV, tires hissing against pavement, and all of it reached you half a second late. Emily said something, but you didn’t catch it. Your eyes were fixed on Rossi because you knew there was more coming. You’ve been around the block enough times to know that people always pause before saying the worst part out loud, as if a few seconds of silence can soften the impact of devastation.

“Reid discovered the body and the exposure site inside,” Rossi said. “He sealed himself in before Morgan could enter.”

All at once, heat rushed up the back of your neck. Your hand went tight around the car door handle you hadn’t realized you were holding. Somewhere at the edge of your vision, Emily went still.

“Is he in decontamination protocol now? Or is he already at the hospital?” 

Rossi didn’t answer fast enough, which was an answer in itself.

You turned away from both of them and walked three steps before bending forward, hands braced on your knees as you searched for breath.

Emily approached cautiously.

“I’m fine,” you snapped automatically.

“That’s not what I asked. I said Hotch wants to talk to you.”

You straightened slowly, smoothed your hands down your blazer, and took the phone from her.

“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” you said too fast as soon as you got the phone up to your ear.

Hotch did. He gave you all the facts he had: Nichols had been dead for days. There was anthrax spilled in the lab and the AC was blasting it through the house. Definitely a homicide, and whoever killed Nichols was likely responsible for the recent attacks. Reid had gone inside and accidentally stumbled upon the scene, shutting Morgan out before he could follow him inside. Kimura and the CDC team were on their way with protective equipment and a decon shower, but Reid was refusing to leave, instead insisting on working the profile from inside since he was already exposed. 

Already exposed.

Those words had a sharp, horrible finality to them. 

“What do you mean, he’s refusing to leave? You’re his boss, Hotch. Make him leave.”

Hotch’s voice stayed even, but there was strain under it. “He believes there may be an antidote or identifying information on the partner inside the house. He’s continuing to work the scene until one or both of those things are located.”

You pinched the skin between your brows. “Get him on this call for me.”

Emily turned fully toward you then. Rossi was watching with the careful stillness of someone standing near a live wire. Hotch said nothing.

You swallowed hard. “Hotch, transfer me to Reid’s phone, now. I think we all know he won’t answer if I call him myself, and I need to talk some sense into him.”

“He’s working.”

“Hotch. Please.”

The silence that followed was very, very loaded.

Then Hotch said, “Give me a minute.”

You lowered the phone a little and stared at nothing for a second. Your chest felt too tight, your blood too loud, every part of your body braced for impact. Emily came to stand beside you, but she didn’t try to touch you, and you appreciated that more than you could say.

“He’s going to do everything he can to find the cure and track down the unsub and get out of there,” she said.

“I know.”

“He’s Reid. If there’s something in that house to find, he’ll find it.”

“I know.”

And you did know. That was the problem. You knew him so well there was no room to be surprised. Spencer would knowingly stay in a room full of anthrax because people were dying and he had a chance to stop it. He would put his lungs and brain and life on the line to prevent the person responsible for the prior attacks and Nichols’ death from taking any more lives. You’d expect nothing less from Spencer Reid, and right now, you hated him for it.

A muffled voice came through the phone before you could fully catch your breath.

When you lifted it back to your ear, you heard movement first. Then Spencer.

“Hi.”

He sounded too normal.

You gripped the phone so hard your fingers hurt. “Do not hi me right now, Spencer Reid.”

A tiny pause. Then, softer, “Okay.”

“Are you symptomatic?”

“Not really.”

“Spencer,” you said.

“I’m okay right now,” he said, before you could ask again. “Kimura’s team is coming in soon. We’re currently in a limited window where I’m still useful and the scene is still viable.”

“Oh, goodie. Well, as long as you’re useful, everything’s just fine then,” you bit out.

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “you know what I mean.”

Emily looked away. Rossi did too, like they were granting you privacy by pretending not to hear the sharpness in your voice.

Spencer was quiet for a second. You pictured him inside Nichols’ house, phone held close, hair falling in his face. You pictured powder on the floor, sealed doors. You pictured him alone in there.

“I found a second workspace,” he said. “There’s a bunch of notebooks filled with different handwriting, so it definitely doesn’t belong to Nichols. Whoever this desk belongs to is probably our unsub.”

You wanted to scream.

Instead, you leaned your forehead against the SUV door and forced yourself to breathe through your nose. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“I will.”

“Now, Spence.”

He paused. “I’ll go as soon as I can.”

Your throat tightened. 

“You do realize you’re a person too, right?” you asked. “Not just a brain with a badge and a duty to uphold.”

Despite everything, you heard the faintest breath of a laugh. “I’m aware.”

“Great. Then act like it.”

“I am acting like it,” he said, and there it was, his signature stubbornness. “Leaving now wouldn’t make me safer in any meaningful way if we still can’t identify the unsub and still don’t have an antidote for the strain. If I can figure it out from in here, there’s a chance we can save the patients at the hospital, and me.”

You pressed your free hand over your eyes.

“Don’t do that,” you said.

“Do what?”

“Make sense.”

His quiet inhale caught slightly. Maybe from the anthrax, or maybe from you. It was hard to tell.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“But you’re still staying.”

“For now,” he said.

You sighed softly and rubbed your temple with your free hand. “You’re so frustrating.”

“I know.”

“And arrogant.”

“I can be, on occasion.”

“And so ungodly, unbelievably stupid.”

“Well, technically, I’m quantifiably a genius, although I don’t believe—”

“Spencer.”

“I know you’re angry with me,” he said quietly.

“You have no idea how much.”

“Well, I think I have some idea. I know you.”

“No, you really don’t.” You looked down at your boots. “Because if you did, you’d be walking out of that house right now.”

His voice went softer. “If I thought walking out was the thing most likely to get me back to you, I would. I promise you, I would.”

That took every bit of air out of you.

Spencer didn’t rush to fill the silence. He just let the words sit there, awful and sincere and completely unfair.

Then he said, “I’m not trying to scare you.”

“Well, you’re doing a damn good job for someone who isn’t trying,” you replied. You blinked hard, furious at your body for even considering tears when rage was so much more useful.

“Listen to me,” you said. “Find what you need to find, and then you get the hell out. No extra detours or noble self-sacrificing bullshit. Got it?”

“I’ll be careful,” he said.

There was more noise on his end now. Another voice. Hotch, maybe, through the sealed door closing him inside. 

“I have to go,” Spencer said, pausing before he added: “I love you.”

You dug your fingernails into your palm.

“Don’t say it like that,” you whispered.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re only saying it in case it’s the last thing I hear from you.”

He took a shaky breath. “I’m saying it because it’s true,” he said firmly. “And because I want to say it. That’s all, okay? I love you.”

You swallowed, and when you spoke again, your voice was steadier than you felt. “I love you too. Stop being a hero and get back to me.”

“I will.”

The line clicked dead a second later.

You kept the phone against your ear long after there was nothing left to hear.

—

The next time Spencer let himself think about you, really think about you, he was sitting on the floor with poison in the air and sweat cooling at the back of his neck.

By then, his body had started showing signs of distress. The cough had come first, small enough that he tried to classify it as irritation from the environment, from dust, from the pollen in the garden outside. Then came the ache behind his eyes, the heat under his skin, the faint tremor in his hand that he could ignore if he kept it busy, if he kept turning pages, pulling drawers open, reading notes, forcing pieces of Dr. Nichols’ life into order.

He was aware of each symptom with miserable precision. He knew exactly what they meant. He also knew the unsub was still out there with a larger attack planned, so his personal awareness changed nothing. His body could be evidence later. Right now, he had work to do.

Still, there came a point when he had to step back and admit how serious things had gotten.

Garcia’s voice shook through the phone when he asked her to record a message for his mother. She tried to be brave about it. He could hear the effort it took, could picture her sitting at her desk with all that color and joy around her while despair leaked through anyway. 

He recorded his message to Diana as steadily as he could.

He said all the things a son should say when he’s trying very hard to say goodbye without sounding like he’s saying goodbye. He kept his voice gentle. He tried not to cough in the middle of it. He nearly failed once, clearing his throat to get the urge to pass. When he finished, Garcia was silent for a few seconds.

“Okay,” she said finally, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “Okay, I got it.”

Spencer swallowed. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. His throat hurt. Everything hurt, actually, in a diffuse, widespread way he disliked for its lack of specificity. “Garcia?”

“Yeah, boy wonder?”

He closed his eyes.

He had been trying not to ask. He had been trying to tell himself that the message to his mother was already indulgent enough, that he did not have the right to take more time away from the case for something that served no immediate operational purpose. But the thought of you never getting to hear his voice again if this went badly kept pressing against the inside of his ribs until it became impossible to ignore.

“Can you, uh, record one more message for me?”

Garcia inhaled sharply.

“Oh,” she whispered, understanding immediately. “Of course. Yeah, of course I can.”

Spencer opened his eyes and looked around the room. Papers were spread across the floor in front of him, Dr. Nichols’ handwriting scrawled across margins and folders and binders. Somewhere outside, people were moving around in protective suits, building a perimeter, preparing to come in as soon as they could. Out in the field somewhere, you were trying to work despite your fury and fear. He knew that with the same certainty he knew his own name, the same certainty with which he could recite the periodic table in order by atomic number. You were angry because you were scared. You were scared because you loved him. That thought — that you loved him — probably should have brought some comfort; instead, it made his chest ache worse than the cough did.

“Ready whenever you are,” Garcia said, softly enough that it almost didn’t sound like her.

Spencer tried to take a breath deep enough to steady himself. It caught halfway down. He turned aside, coughed hard into his elbow, and waited for the room to stop tilting.

Then he looked down at his hands, at the pale dust along his cuffs, at the pulse ticking too fast beneath his skin, and began.

“Hi,” he said simply, because every other possible opening sounded wrong — either too formal, or too casual, or too final. He let out a breath that was almost a laugh and tried again. “You’re going to hate this. I know that. You’re probably already furious with me, and you’ve got every right to be, so if this message makes you even more furious, I’m sorry.

“I just need you to know that I wasn’t trying to be a martyr. I know you’ll think that’s what it was, some ‘noble self-sacrificing bullshit’ like you called it earlier, but that’s not what this is for me.” He paused, eyes stinging. “I keep thinking if I find the right thing fast enough, if I can connect the dots, then maybe we can stop the next attack and everyone at the hospital would have a chance. Maybe I would, too.

“And I keep thinking about you. I don’t know if that helps or makes it worse, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I thought about you being mad at me, and about the way you must’ve been rolling your eyes when we were on the phone earlier, and about your apartment, and the coffee you pretend to like when I make it too sweet, and the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”

A cough broke through him. He bent forward, eyes squeezed shut, one hand braced against the floor. It took too long to stop. When he lifted the phone again, his voice had gone hoarse around the edges.

“I wanted more time with you,” he said. “I wanted more ordinary days. That’s— that’s what I keep coming back to, which is strange, because technically, ordinary days are the least remarkable kind, but I think those are the ones I’ll miss the most. You at my desk stealing pens, and you pretending not to smile when I say something you think is ridiculous, and you falling asleep before the end of a movie and denying it in the morning. 

“And if you’re hearing this, I know you’re going to want to do the thing where you decide this proves some terrible theory you’ve always had about what happens when you let people matter too much, but…”

His eyes burned. Because of the fever, maybe. Heartbreak, definitely.

“Don’t do that. Please, please don’t do that. Don’t let this be the reason you shut everyone out. I know it took a lot for you to let me in, and I know asking this is unfair, and I hate that I can’t say it to you in person, but I need you to keep letting people love you. You have to let them stay.”

He coughed again, violent enough this time to make his whole chest seize. 

“The team loves you,” he said. “You know that. Garcia will smother you with affection and care packages. Morgan will check on you constantly and won’t even pretend to act cool about it. JJ will know when you’re lying about being fine before you can finish a sentence, so don’t try. Emily will sit beside you casually and pretend she isn’t worried, because she knows you hate being handled.” A faint, broken smile pulled at his mouth. “Rossi will feed you, so get ready to eat a lot of pasta. Hotch will give you space and somehow still make sure you’re never truly alone.”

He swallowed hard.

“And Elle… Call her. Please. She was there once when you needed her. Let her be there for you again.”

The words felt intrusive, maybe, as if he was reaching into parts of your life he had no right to touch. But if this was all he got, if this recording became the last shape his love ever took, he needed it to be honest.

“I don’t want you to be alone,” he said, voice breaking. “I don’t want you to decide that losing me means you were right to keep the door locked. I can’t bear it, so please, do this for me.”

He pressed his thumb into the crease of his palm until the tremor in it settled.

“I love you. I know you know that. I know I say it all the time now, probably too much, and if I get out of here you can complain about that for the rest of our lives and I won’t argue with you. But if I don’t,” he said, forcing himself through it, “then I need you to know that loving you was never something I regretted. Not for one second. And being loved by you was… it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

A sound came suddenly from outside the room. Movement. Voices. The heavy plastic rustle of protective equipment. He looked up and saw shapes gathering beyond the doorway, bright orange suits and face shields and Dr. Kimura’s focused eyes as her team entered the house.

He looked back down at the phone. There was so much more he wanted to say. There would always be so much more. That was the terrible thing about loving you — no matter what he said, it could never be enough to cover it.

“I have to go,” he said. “I’m going to try very hard to make sure you never have to hear this.”

Then, quieter:

“I love you. I really, really love you. Keep letting people in, okay?”

Garcia made a tiny broken sound through the phone, then cut the recording and the call before he could hear her cry.

—

The day stitched together in pieces after that.

Rossi and Emily kept you updated as information moved through the team, and Morgan called whenever there was a concrete update on what was going on in the house. Garcia called once too, telling you they had a name now — Chad Brown — and that Reid had been right about Nichols not working alone. There was a protégé. A student. A man with knowledge and access and ideology and rage.

You remember standing with your arms folded so tightly across your chest that your shoulders started to ache. You remember Emily offering you water and you pretending not to hear her. You remember Rossi telling you to sit down, not as an order, but in that low, paternal way of his that made you want to be even more difficult on principle. You remember staring at your phone until your eyes burned, as if your fear could force Spencer’s name to appear on the screen.

Mostly, you remember waiting.

When Hotch finally called, his voice was steady. They had Brown. The attack on the Metro had been stopped. Reid and Kimura’s team found what they needed. Reid was out of the house and had been decontaminated. Paramedics had transported him to the hospital where the treatment was being prepared, and Kimura was hopeful, and they would know more soon. 

“Is he conscious?” you asked.

“Last we heard, yes,” Hotch said, and the words scraped through you. “Morgan is on the way to Walter Reed now to see what’s going on.”

You wanted to ask if Spencer had asked for you, but you didn’t. It felt too naked, somehow. Too pathetic. So you just said, “I’m on my way,” and Hotch didn’t waste anyone’s time pretending he could stop you.

Garcia found you before you made it out of the building.

She looked wrecked. Her mascara had smudged at the corners, and she had one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee she clearly hadn’t touched. She stopped in front of you like she wanted to hug you, then thought better of it, although it looked like that decision pained her immensely.

“He really, really loves you,” she said quietly.

The words were so abrupt, so earnest, that for a second you could only stare at her.

“I know,” you said.

Garcia nodded too fast. “I know you know. I just—” Her mouth trembled, and she pressed it together. “I just needed to make sure. I wanted you to hear it.”

Something about her face made your chest tighten. There was more to it — something she wasn’t saying, something she was holding back. You could see it in the way she looked at you, nervous and guilty and gentle all at once.

But Penelope Garcia, for all her usual glitter and gossip and inability to mind her own business, could keep a secret when it really mattered.

So you let her.

You just reached for her hand, squeezed once, and pushed through the doors to the parking lot.

—

Now, as you sit in an ungodly stiff chair next to his hospital bed, Spencer’s fingers move against yours.

It’s small. Barely anything. An involuntary twitch, maybe. But it’s enough of a movement to assume it could mean something bigger if you’re desperate enough, and apparently you are, because you go still so suddenly Morgan looks up from the cup of red Jell-O he’s been eating with a plastic spoon.

“Reid?” Morgan says.

Spencer’s brow furrows.

For a second, nothing happens. Then his eyes open slowly, heavy and unfocused at first. He blinks up at the ceiling like he’s trying very hard to decipher what type of room the ceiling belongs to.

Morgan moves, relief breaking over his face. “Hey, kid.”

Spencer’s gaze shifts toward him. It takes effort. Everything about his movements right now looks like it takes effort.

His voice comes out rough. “Are you eating Jell-O?”

Morgan cracks a wide grin. “Man, you almost die from a bioweapon and this is what you wake up concerned about?”

Spencer blinks slowly. “Is there any more Jell-O?”

Your laugh escapes before you can stop it. It’s small and wet and humiliating, and Spencer’s eyes move immediately toward the sound.

The drowsy confusion in his face shifts, turning into something so relieved and so sorry that all the air you just got back leaves you again.

“Hi,” he says.

You swallow. “Hi.”

Morgan looks between the two of you for half a second, then pushes himself out of his chair. “I’m gonna go tell Dr. Kimura that Sleeping Beauty here is awake,” he says. “And apparently find more Jell-O.”

Spencer’s mouth twitches faintly. “Green, if they have it.”

“You’re lucky I’m pretty much obligated to be nice to you right now,” Morgan tells him sarcastically, but his hand lands on Spencer’s shoulder for a second before he leaves, firm and warm and full of things he’ll probably never say out loud.

Then the door closes behind him and the room is quiet again, but it isn’t the same quiet as before, because Spencer’s awake now. His eyes are open. His fingers are caught between yours, weak but there, his thumb making the smallest attempt to move against your skin.

There’s too many feelings to parse through. Relief, first. Relief so enormous it can barely fit inside your body, but somehow it does, pressing against the anger and terror and frustration you also feel, against all the miserable little aftershocks of the day. 

For a moment, you just look at him.

He looks terrible. Pale, sweaty, hair mussed, lips dry, throat probably raw from coughing and whatever else his body has been through. He also looks alive.

You want to kiss him.

You want to hit him.

You settle for tightening your hold on his hand and saying, very evenly, “I’m so mad at you.”

Spencer closes his eyes for a second.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” you say. “You really, truly do not. I possess levels of anger right now that are previously unrecorded in modern psychiatry.”

His mouth curves faintly, but it fades almost immediately. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

Spencer looks at you for a long second, too tired to dress the truth up into anything gentle. “I’m sorry for what it did to you,” he says. His voice is rough and low, dragged out of a throat that still isn’t ready to cooperate. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, and I’m sorry that when I did, I couldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.” He pauses, breathing carefully. “But if I had left before we found what we needed, people could have died.”

You stare at the bed rail.

You know the exact reason behind the choice he made, because you’ve made choices with the same bones. Spencer’s been on the other side of this with you before. Not with anthrax in your lungs, obviously, but in basements and alleys and warehouses and too many places where you put the job before your own safety without a second thought. 

You hate that. You hate him a little for making it impossible to be purely angry.

“I know,” you say, voice quieter now. “I know you’re right. Or close enough to right that I can’t even enjoy being mad at you properly.”

Spencer gives you a weak, exhausted almost-smile. “I’m sorry for that too.”

You look back at him, and the sight of him ruins you all over again.

“You could have died, Spencer,” you manage to say in a hoarse whisper.

His expression changes. The humor disappears, what little there was of it. His fingers tighten around yours with visible effort.

Your voice shakes, and that irritates you enough to make your eyes burn. “I know you. I know you weren’t actually trying to be some self-sacrificing hero, even though you have a very irritating talent for landing there by accident. I know I probably would’ve done the same thing, which is frustrating because it makes my moral high ground very unstable.” You inhale, careful and shaky. “But I was so scared, Spencer. I was so scared I couldn’t pretend to be normal about it.”

He looks at you like that sentence hurts him worse than anything else.

“I thought about that too much,” he says.

You frown. “About what?”

“You. Being scared.” His eyes drift down to your joined hands. “I thought about you being angry, and about you pretending you weren’t afraid because Rossi and Emily were there. I kept thinking…” His brow creases faintly, concentration pulling through the haze. “I kept thinking if I could just find the answer, then maybe I’d get back to you before anyone else could see your fear. I knew you’d hate it if they could.”

You let out a breath that breaks in the middle. Your free hand lifts before you really decide to move, fingers hovering near his face. He watches you do it, quiet and trusting, and that almost makes it worse.

You brush his hair back from his forehead, and his eyes close.

The simple trust of it dismantles you a little. You had spent the whole day imagining him behind sealed doors, breathing poisoned air, making logical arguments while his body betrayed him by degrees. Now he’s here, under your hand, alive and exhausted and still somehow trying to be gentle with you when he’s the one in the hospital bed.

“I love you,” you say. “And I genuinely hate you right now.”

Spencer’s eyes open again, slow and soft. “That seems pretty fair.”

Your laugh comes out wet. You look away, but he squeezes your hand before you can get far.

“I love you too,” he says. “And I know it doesn’t make it better, but I was trying to make sure I could get back to you. That was the point. I know it looked like I was choosing the work over everything else, but I wasn’t. The work was my way out.”

You turn back toward him.

He looks exhausted by the length of his own words, breaths a little uneven, but his eyes stay on yours. 

“I know,” you whisper, because you do. “I know, Spence.”

You lean forward carefully, giving him time to shift away if he needs to, but he doesn’t. He tilts his face up the smallest amount, and you press your mouth to his.

The kiss is soft by necessity. There’s no heat in it, not really — not the kind the two of you are used to. His lips are chapped and warm and careful beneath yours, and for one long, holy second, all you can focus on is that you get to do this again. You get to kiss him in a hospital bed and hate the reason for it, but you still have him here to kiss. You get the fragile press of his mouth, the weak squeeze of his fingers around yours, the proof that his body is still a living thing and not a memory you’ll spend the rest of your life surviving. It isn’t enough to undo the day, but it gives your fear and love somewhere to go. It’s a promise made with whatever energy he has left.

When you pull back, your forehead rests near his temple.

“You scared the hell out of me,” you murmur.

“I know.

“If you ever do that again, I will murder you myself.”

“I know.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I know.”

You pull back enough to glare at him. “Normally you’d argue with at least one of those.”

His tired smile is tiny and perfect. “I’m conserving my energy.”

The door opens after a soft knock, and Dr. Kimura steps in with Morgan hovering behind her, a green Jell-O cup in one hand and a fresh coffee in the other.

“Look who I found,” Morgan says.

Spencer nods at Dr. Kimura before his gaze flicks to the Jell-O. “Is that for me?”

Morgan chuckles. “Yeah, kid, it’s for you.”

You wipe quickly under one eye with your thumb and try to regain whatever dignity you can scrape off the floor.

Kimura checks Spencer over. Vitals, pupils, lungs, cognitive questions he answers with enough impressive precision to make Kimura’s eyebrows lift. Morgan stays near the doorway, and you don’t let go of Spencer’s hand the entire time.

Eventually, the room settles again.

Morgan leaves the Jell-O on the tray and tells Spencer not to be a pain in the ass to you or any of the nurses. Dr. Kimura tells him he’s on the mend but needs a lot of rest, and Spencer nods, probably because he knows you wouldn’t give him a choice anyway.

Once it’s just the two of you alone in the room again, your anger has gone a bit quieter. It’s still there, and knowing you, it’ll probably stay there for a while, tucked stubbornly behind your ribs, ever-present but currently overshadowed by disgusting amounts of relief and love.

Spencer’s eyes are already slipping closed.

“Sleep,” you say.

“Will you stay?”

You sit back and wrap both hands around his. “Yeah, genius, I’ll stay. Obviously.”

The corner of his mouth turns up into a crooked, sleepy smile. “Good.”

It takes less than a minute for him to fall asleep again.

This time, watching him sleep doesn’t feel like waiting for the floor to disappear beneath you. His breathing is still rougher than you’d like, and his face is still too pale, but the monitor keeps a steady rhythm. Alive. Alive. Alive. His fingers are warm under yours, and there’s a green Jell-O cup sitting unopened on the tray because, apparently, even near-death experiences cannot kill Spencer Reid’s bizarre snack preferences. You know he’ll ask for a spoon as soon as he’s awake again and his appetite comes back.

You do not know about the recording.

You do not know that somewhere, locked carefully behind Garcia’s cyberdefenses, there is a version of his voice trying to love you through the worst possible outcome. You do not know that he spent the better part of what might’ve been his last hour on earth trying to make sure you would be okay. 

But maybe it’s better you don’t know.

You don’t need the version of him that said goodbye. You need this one: alive, stubborn, fever-warm, breathing steadily with Jell-O waiting untouched beside him.

His fingers twitch against yours again in sleep.

You keep holding on. You hold on, and you stay. ᝰ.ᐟ

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️

It doesn’t happen often, hardly ever, really. Aaron’s not the kind of man who forgets things, especially not lunch. Maybe twice every four months, if that. And even then, he never asks for you to bring it. He usually brushes off your offers with a quick ‘I’ll grab something from the cafeteria’ which, of course, actually means ‘I won’t eat until dinner.’ 

And that just won’t suffice. Especially not when he’s been filling out his shirt so nicely, lately.

So there you were, pretty shoes dragging against the dull bureau floor, lunch in one hand, cookies and your purse dangling from the other, wrist definitely starting to ache. You weren’t exactly sneaking into the bullpen, but you weren’t strutting either. Just stuck in that awkward middle space reserved for people who technically shouldn’t be there, but have the authority to show up anyway, because boss man said so.

“There she is! Hotchner’s better half,” Emily called out, spinning her chair around with a grin.

You offered a sheepish wave, trying not to drop anything. “I come bearing gifts…and mild wrist pain.”

“Oh! Are those the butterscotch ones?” Penelope squealed, jumping up from where she’d been perched on Spencer’s desk.

“Yes, new recipe,” you said, carefully setting your things down on JJ’s desk as she kindly unhooked your overloaded purse. “I swapped out the dark brown sugar for light, added a little sea salt on top, and I may have used browned butter this time. I was feeling ambitious.”

“You browned the butter?” Penelope gasped. “You absolute kitchen goddess!”

Spencer leaned in for a closer look as you popped the lid off the container. “That actually changes the flavor quite a bit. The Maillard reaction from browning—”

“Yes, yes, science, great,” Emily cut in. “Can we eat them now, or is there a presentation we have to sit through first?”

You laughed, nudging the tin closer to everyone. “No presentations. Just cookies. Though if anyone gives them a rating out of ten that’s higher than a nine, I won’t complain.”

Morgan was the first to grab one, swiftly using it as a pointer to gesture towards Aaron, who was pushing back his chair. “Oh look, here he comes.”

You glanced up just in time to catch it—that little motion he always did, fingers brushing his tie flat against his chest as he stood. A completely innocent gesture. Totally routine. And somehow still enough to make your mouth water.

“You know,” Morgan added, mid-chew, “that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen him leave his office. Last time he moved like that, we had an active shooter in the building.”

“Alright, don’t scare her,” Rossi scolded, swatting Morgan’s bicep with a file. “She already doesn't like coming here as it is.”

“Now, that’s not true, Dave,” you corrected, grabbing Aaron’s lunch. “I love seeing you all. I just prefer doing it without all the security nuisance, badges, metal detectors and guns.”

Morgan nudged your elbow, eyes still on Aaron as he made his way over. “For a guy who claims he’s not clingy, he’s practically tripping over himself right now.”

“Oh, he’s definitely clingy,” you grinned, just as Aaron reached you, wasting zero time before leaning in and placing a swift kiss to your lips, murmuring a dreamy ‘Hi you’ before pulling away.

“Come on.” Morgan shook his head, reaching for his second cookie. “This is the same guy who made us sit through a mandatory refresher on workplace boundaries, and now look at him, breaking every single one.”

“Let them be in love,” JJ said sweetly, sipping her coffee like this was all perfectly normal.

You looked up at Aaron, eyebrows raised, trying to coax some kind of reaction to all the teasing. But he didn’t even glance at the others, just kept his eyes on you as he took the lunch bag from your hands, his fingers brushing along your wrist with just enough pressure to say thank you, I missed you, without saying anything at all.

“You didn’t have to come all this way, honey.”

“I know, but I overbaked and figured I was due for my monthly dose of shocking the system.” You glanced around the bullpen, cringing a little at the endless clacking of keyboards and constant ringing of phones. It was all starting to give you at least four different headaches. “Feels like there’s less oxygen in here somehow.”

“That’s because no one is allowed to breathe until all the paperwork is done,” Emily interjected dryly. 

“Is that true, Aaron?” you asked, reaching up to fuss with his tie. “Are you working your team too hard?”

“They live to complain.”

A chorus of groans and mock-offended noises rose up around you, just as Aaron’s hand slipped to the small of your back, steering you gently towards his office.

“Blinds stay open, you two,” Morgan called after you, pointing two fingers from his eyes to yours. “We’re watching!”

“Just keep walking,” Aaron murmured into your hair, voice quiet and beguiled, giving your hip a subtle squeeze as he guided you up the stairs.

You bit back a grin, feeling far too smug—and frankly, far too giddy—for someone standing in a federal building. Inside his office, he quietly closed the door behind you and you made yourself at home by sliding into one of the chairs across from his desk. 

“Think Morgan might have a point, you are getting a little reckless with the PDA. You’re going soft.”

He moved to his chair, smoothing his tie against his chest as he sat. “I’ve always been soft with you.”

That answer knocked the wind out of you in the quietest way. You blinked once, then shook your head. “Wow. Okay. That’s not even fair.”

He just looked amused, unpacking the lunch bag while sneaking glances at you like he couldn’t help himself. “You know they’ll be talking about this all afternoon.”

You waved him off and kicked his foot gently under the desk, because footsies, like true love, didn’t have an expiration date. “Let them. Let them talk about how you have a gorgeous, brilliant, amazing wife who is kind enough to hand-deliver your lunch.”

“They already know.”

“Good answer.” You nodded, satisfied, and handed him a few tissues just as he took the first bite of his sandwich. “Now, how's your day been? And don’t say ‘fine’, or I’ll start pulling out my therapist's voice and asking about your coping mechanisms.”

He chewed, giving you a dour look over the top of the sandwich like he was already reconsidering speaking at all.

“Busy. Two consults, one profile draft, and I’ve had to remind Morgan three times to finish his report.”

“So… business as usual.”

“Basically.”

He took another bite, and you used the pause to admire him. How pretty he looked. He was getting subtly more rugged with time, never quite managing the clean-shaven look, not for lack of trying, but that had always been fine by you. You loved him exactly as he was.

Your eyes wandered over his desk, taking in the meticulously organised scene in front of you. Everything was in its place, except for a single pen and one loose file slightly out of line, a tiny disruption in an otherwise perfect system. It made you smile.

He wiped his mouth, and in that moment, his wedding band caught the thin stream of light this moody building begrudgingly allowed in. As if the universe was saying, yes, look—he’s yours.

And you thanked her silently for it. Because he was.

“Want to ditch the rest of the day, fake a headache, and run away with me to somewhere that doesn’t require badge access?” you proposed, straightening the photo of you on his desk. 

He tilted his head. “Tempting.”

“You’d never actually do it, though.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I’ll think about it the whole time I’m here.”

Your smile pulled a little wider. “That’s enough for me. That—and as long as I’ll have you home in time for dinner,” you said, though it came out as more of a question. Maybe even a tiny, minuscule threat. 

“Don’t worry, I will,” he assured you kindly. “I know your parents are coming over tonight. I wouldn’t dream of making you face that alone. I’m guessing that’s what’s been bothering you, hence the industrial-sized cookie batch?”

You sighed, slumping back into the chair. “Am I that obvious?”

“Only to me.”

“You know they’re hard work. And I can only fake-smile and nod my way through so many stories about people I don’t remember and opinions I didn’t ask for.”

Aaron set his sandwich aside, abandoning it on the tissue you had passed him earlier. He used another to wipe his hands, then stood, taking two steps to get to you. 

Before you could say anything, his hands were on either side of your chair, gently turning it to face him. He crouched down, and you instinctively parted your legs so he could slot in between them. 

“Hey,” he urged softly. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through it together, and if it gets to be too much, I’m excellent at coming up with polite excuses to get them out of the house.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, sweetheart.”

And just in case his words were not confirmation enough, his hands came to cradle your face, thumbs circling your skin before he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

“Go to that bookstore you like,” he said next, already reaching into his pocket. “Grab your favorite coffee, roam around for a while, and try not to stress until they text you that they’re on their way, okay?”

He pulled out his wallet and fished out his card. “You’re too pretty to be stressing in this skirt.”

You raised a brow, lifting one leg and watching the flowy fabric settle back down over your knee. “It’s cute right?”

“Very.” He nodded, dead serious. “Go buy yourself another one.” He extended the card towards you like it was non-negotiable.

You laughed, giving his hand a light swat. “I’m not taking your card like some 1950s housewife.”

“You’re not. You’re my very independent, endlessly capable wife who I happen to love spoiling any chance I get. Now, please, take it. Call it payment for lunch…and for making you come all the way here, knowing full well how much you’d rather avoid this place.”

You pouted, eyes dancing between the card and his face. “Fine,” you relented, plucking the card from his hand. “But I’m only getting one book. Two max. The bookshelf is about to collapse.”

“Buy as many as you want.” He reached down, helping you to your feet with a gentle tug. “I’ll build you a new bookshelf.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.” 

“You’ll build me a new bookshelf?”

He leaned in close, lips brushing your ear as he murmured, “With actual tools.”

“Okay, now I have to see that.”

He pulled back, straightening your cardigan, fussing without ever making it feel like fussing. “Then you better pick up a lot of books.” 

You rolled your eyes, tucking the card away into your pocket. “This is enabling.”

“This is love,” he corrected, stealing a quick kiss before walking you to the door. “Text me when you get there. And if you see a ridiculous romance novel with a cheesy title, get it. I want to hear the plot.”

You grinned, poking his chest. “You just want to make fun of me.” 

“No, I just like knowing what’s taking up space in that beautiful head of yours.” 

“It’s mostly just you.”

He looked like he was trying not to smile too hard at that, so you saved him the trouble by leaning up and giving him one last kiss, ignoring all the hollering behind you from Morgan. 

“I love you,” he promised, smoothing a hand down your arm. “Now, go before I change my mind and fake a headache just to come with you.”

tags - @fandomscombine @pastelpinkflowerlife @hazzyking @bernelflo @risenqueen1521 @jazzimac1967 @camihotchner @abschaffer2 @ill-be-okay-soon-enough @pacmillo-blog-blog @stilestotherescue @kiwriteswords @anvdala @supersanelyromantic @yourallaround-simp @percysley @wowitsafemale @cinnamoncunt @mggslover @khxna @keiminds