As their day went on, the paperwork seemed to cause a quiet hush to fall over to the bullpen, other than the small sniffles he would hear to his left. He would look over and see Y/N taking a tissue, wiping her nose. Any other day, he would have thought it was from the high pollen count, knowing how prone she was to allergies. He noticed it.

When they got home for the day, he saw her go straight to the bathroom, turning on the tub faucet and seemingly taking a bath. He would normally brush it off as Y/N wanting to relax-- the day had made her tense. He knew she wasn’t feeling one hundred percent.

Going to bed that night, he saw the way her back faced him. Normally, they’d fall asleep talking about their days-- getting anything and everything off their chests so that they could fall asleep peacefully. But at that moment, he noticed something crucial. They hadn’t talked like that in a couple of days. They didn’t have those heart-to-hearts. She didn’t go to bed with an empty head and clean slate.

He wanted to say something, but he didn’t want to disturb her.

But that didn’t last long. He fell asleep but soon woke up from the soft shaking of her body and quiet sobs that had elicited. He pulled her to his chest, running his hand down her hair as he whispered soft coos into her ear.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m here. You can talk to me.”

It took her quite a while to calm down, letting her tears wear her out.

“I’m just so tired of it all.”

Kissing the top of her head, he let out a soft hum. “Tired of what?”

“Death. The job. Being too late.”

He knew what she was referring to. They’ve been too late to some of the scenes lately, giving the unsubs another kill. She was tired of constantly being a part of this losing game.

“I know, I know.”

“I don’t want to go in tomorrow. I don’t want to have to see another case file, another dead body, another criminal profile, I just want to live.”

As another burst of sobs wracked her body, Spencer swayed them back and forth. “Then we’ll take the day off.”

She inhaled a quick breath and looked up at Spencer in question. “We?”

“Yeah. We.”

She buried her head into his chest, spouting out continuous ‘thank yous’. “Thank you. Thank you for being here. For knowing what to say and do. Thank you.”

And despite the feeling of satisfaction that should have been coursing through his body at the thought of some weight being lifted from her, Spencer couldn’t help but be upset with himself. He thought he should’ve noticed more was wrong. He should’ve said something sooner.

“I’m sorry for not helping sooner.” The apology was so quiet he thought she wouldn’t hear it, but when her head shot up again, her eyebrows were furrowed and she shook her head.

“No, don’t apologize. I would’ve told you that I was fine. Thank you for being here now.”

He nodded his head in silence, burying his own head into her neck. They stayed there for hours-- up until sunrise, but they didn’t care. They had each other in that moment and that was all they needed.

It all seemed too simple. Y/N noticed the pit in her stomach from the second the mission was stated, and yet she hadn’t said anything. Despite this sinking feeling in her gut, she was to do her duty.

Looking around, it was hard to see anything other than crying and screaming citizens, all battered and bruised from the recent disaster. She was a criminal profiler for God’s sake, she should be able to handle this. She should be able to witness this, but she couldn’t. This was more than a helpless deceased victim. These were real, alive people screaming for their mother’s or children. So she took a breath, only giving one last glance before she would find isolated areas where their unsub could be hiding, but she didn’t get a full look because barely a second after she saw a small child hugging her knees, obviously crying for some sort of guardian.

Taking a tentative step forward, Y/N let out a whisper, trying not to scare the girl. “Hey, sweetie. Are you looking for mommy or daddy?”

The young girl whipped her head up, eyes puffy as a result from crying, and she didn’t say anything, just giving Y/N the smallest of nods.

“Okay, okay…” Y/N straightened her back, now desperately looking for any distressed parent in the area, but nothing. Everyone had been tended to, no one seemed to be frantically searching for someone. Giving a sigh, Y/N held out her hand, giving the small girl a pleading look. “Can you come with me? I promise, we will find whoever you’re looking for and I won’t give up until we do.”

It took a moment before the small hand grasped onto Y/N’s, and once it did, Y/N carefully lifted her to her feet, making sure to check for any obvious injuries before moving along.

The two hadn’t gotten too far when Y/N spotted Spencer. He was looking around different walls, checking for any signs of the man they were trying to get, and when she walked up to him, he almost immediately noticed her, and gave a relieved look.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked, noticing the tension in his shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah, we just don’t normally split up like this and the last time that happened I-” he cut himself off before finishing the sentence, obviously noticing the girl to Y/N’s left. “Oh, uh, who- who is this?”

“She’s looking for her mom or dad. I’m going to help her and if no one says anything over the comms I’ll go back to looking for Gardner.”

There was a slight look of fear in Spencer’s eyes and he pursed his lips before speaking in a hushed tone only you would hear, “just please be careful. You know how much I hate it when you go off script.”

Y/N wanted to laugh. She did know how much he hated it, but that’s what their jobs were half of the time-- improve. “I will be. I’m going to go down closer to the water to see if anyone is down there and could help her.”

She heard his faint “okay” before she started walking with the girl.

Y/N had been looking everywhere-- down by some rocks, over and under scrappage from the wreck, around the corner every now and then. She found nothing. She found nothing until she saw a man hunched over closer by the edge of the dock.

“You can stay back here and I’m going to see if he knows you, okay?” Y/N looked down at the girl, giving her hand a soft squeeze before leaving her side. “Sir, are you okay? Do I need to get you some assistance?”

When the man turned around, Y/N’s breath caught in her throat. That was the unsub. She was face to face with the usub, and a child no older than eight was ten feet away.

Clearing her throat, Y/N walked closer to the man, slowly bringing her hand to where her gun sat under the scrubs she adorned. “Lewis Gardner?” she asked, and she knew it was the wrong move when his face contorted into panic. “We can do this calmly and without a scene. There’s no need to make this a big thing in front of a child.”

Lewis shook his head, moving closer to the water, giving Y/N no choice but to follow. “You’re right. A child shouldn’t see something terrible happen.” The unsub paused, taking the opportunity to go to the very edge of the dock. “But if I had to see bad things, maybe she should see something too.”

Y/N had no time to ask questions, all she felt was Lewis’ strong arms spin her around, and pushing her into the freezing waters of the harbor.

She was in shock. Y/N had no idea what had happened, and because of this shock, she felt paralzed as she sunk deeper into the water.

She tried to move-- she wanted to move, but she couldn’t. The burning sensation throughout her muscles was too much. And despite this fiery burn that went from her arms to legs, The iciness of the Boston Harbor was still apparent. While her insides were similar to what she might assume the fiery pits of Hell would be, on the outside, she might as well have been in the Arctic ocean.

She hated it-- hated this, she couldn’t move, talk, see, or hear. God, it was like someone put pressure on both sides of her head, continuing to press hard and harder. Everything was muffled. She couldn’t hear the screaming or crying of injured patrons. She couldn’t hear the sirens of the ambulances and police cars that were oh-so apparent not even five minutes ago. She couldn’t hear her team. Her team. She couldn’t hear anything through her earpiece, as it was most likely ruined. She couldn’t hear Hotch tell them that Emily had made the arrest, how when they gathered back together, they all looked around for her, or the shouts Spencer graced everyone when he went running around looking for her.

She didn’t hear him rush over to where the little girl stayed, and didn’t hear the calm yet slightly demanding questions about her whereabouts, and she certainly didn’t hear the gasp Spencer elicited when the child pointed out towards the water when the question “where did the woman who was with you go?” She didn’t hear the splash that came from his body when he jumped in. She didn’t hear anything-- at least, not until the pressure that flooded her ears had dissipated.

She felt the pop of water release from her ear canals, and felt her body go into shock when finally hearing the sobs that came from Spencer.

“Hotch! Morgan! Get over here!”

She could hear him. She could hear everything, and she wanted to yell out that she was fine, but she couldn’t. She still felt the heat and cold battling each other. She could feel her lungs being greedy, wanting more, and they got just that.

She felt air expanding into her lungs and the pressure of someone else’s lips onto hers. Despite her concept of time being completely shifted in the moment, she knew it took some time. It took some time before she could see again. It took some time before her breath became even. It took some time before Spencer’s arms wrapped around her, hugging her into his chest.

“You’re going to be okay. Y/N you’re going to be fine.”

She was finally back to them, to him. She was going to be okay.