#blue queue

He felt good helping out, and they invited him over after, but he declined and instead made his way to his empty apartment. He knew you had a house outside the city, and he looked forward to spending time with you and the girls in the open air of Virginia. 

Spencer decided to make the walk from the soup kitchen. The brisk air chilled straight through his coat, which admittedly wasn't warm enough for a white Christmas. Spencer stuffed his hands in his pockets and drove on as you'd say. The frigid air was just another thing to deal with until he got on the flight back to you. 

Cars slid through the slush on the streets, spraying his ankles with black and gray slurry. The lamplight gleamed every ten feet, flickering under the weight of the cold. Spencer angled his head down to avoid the freezing breeze, but his ears and eyes were hypersensitive to his surroundings in a way he hadn't felt before. 

This place was so different from Balad. It was almost like he'd never lived here before and had only seen it in pictures. Everything was so familiar but foreign at once. He was so out of place. 

Turning the corner, Spencer stopped short as he spotted a small group huddled outside his building. The spotlight in front of the badge access door hit the tops of their heads, casting them in shadow. He was about to walk past and take a turn around the block when one of them called out. 

"Doc!" Spencer recognized a familiar voice, and she sounded scared. 

"Peanut?"

Spencer made his way closer and sure enough, Garrett, Morello, Barretti, and Peanut were waiting for him. They didn't have their families with them, and the stiff way they held themselves sent a shiver of fear down his spine. 

"What's wrong?" Spencer asked solemnly. 

Garrett stepped forward, "Have you heard from the boss?"

Spencer shook his head, "No. She was supposed to call the night we got back."

An exchange of glances only solidified his worry, which up until now he'd chalked it up to you being busy. 

"We should talk someplace private," Morello decided, glancing around the tall windows that surrounded them. "We're too exposed."

Spencer agreed and ushered them up into his apartment. Even in their worry they were still curious about his living situation it seemed. Garrett went straight for his bookshelf, clutching his hands behind his back and eyeballing the spines in the lamplight. Morello stood in the doorway, watching them all protectively while Barretti plopped down on the couch like he owned the place. 

Peanut waved toward his hardly used kitchen even before he went halfway across the world, "Should I make some coffee?"

Spencer nodded and followed her in. It was pretty small and cramped, and admittedly coffee was one of the only food items he even had in the apartment. Spencer pulled out the container of grounds and handed it to her, and she went about filling up the carafe and filter. 

Leaning against the counter, Spencer listened anxiously as it percolated. His arms crossed tightly over his chest, which had become a habit after months in the desert when before he felt best shoving his hands in his pockets. He used to show anxiety as a shield, but now he chose to project strength like this. It was a strange turnaround for him, one JJ pointed out the night before, but it felt natural now. 

"Something's happening," Spencer asked, but it came out more like a statement. Peanut just watched the machine drip black gold into the pot, refusing to meet his gaze. She had her tight kinky curls down, when in Iraq they usually were pulled into a tight bun. They puffed out over her shoulders, impeded by the thick bulk of her coat, but her dark curls were beautiful in the dim lighting. 

"I'm hearing chatter I don't like," she replied quietly. "Something isn't right, but I can't figure out what."

Fear rotted in his gut like an acidic apple. The lining was slowly tearing away from itself, and his legs wobbled beneath him. Surely, the floor would soon open up to swallow him whole. 

Spencer opted to pull out some mugs instead of falling into his terror. He didn't like not knowing what was going on, but he trusted you to lead… the only problem was that you weren't here to do so. 

Peanut took two of them in her small hands, and he grabbed the rest by the handles and followed her out into the living room. When he got there, he nearly dropped them at the sight before him. 

Barretti was standing on his couch, pulling open the light fixture on the ceiling. Morello was elbow deep in his old school record player, digging down in the horn. Garrett was sifting through the bookshelf, pulling out books and setting them gently on the ground, then searching the empty spaces. 

"What the he-," he began, but Peanut waved a coffee up in front of him to stop him. The liquid sloshed over the rim, barely missing his chest before splattering on the hardwood. 

The guys didn't even look, and Spencer stood in shock as Peanut held that cup in front of him until they were done. Spencer watched with his jaw dropped as they put everything back in its place, and only then Morello turned on the old record player. 

"Let's play some music, yeah?" he said confidently, but his jaw was clenched tight. "I haven't had a chill night in a long time."

The player had a bluetooth option, as it only looked old. Emily got it for him, though he had suspected it was only so she had a chance to play music other than classical when they all came over now and then. A familiar song from his first trip outside the wire came on as Morello took out his phone. 

He set it on the desk the turntable was on,  and one by one they all set theirs next to his. Without much thought, Spencer handed Garrett a coffee mug and put his phone down too, then gave Morello the other. Peanut gave her second one to Barretti, and they moved silently to the center of the room and sat on the rug. 

"If there's a fire in your kitchen. And when your roof just won't stop leaking," it played, not quite loud enough to bother the neighbors, but higher than he would have normally put it with company. "I got your back without you even asking. If I gotta whoop somebody's ass, I'ma do it with passion."

Huddled in the circle, speaking just under the volume of the music, Garrett leaned in close, "Boss hasn't called all week, and she's not answering any form of communication. She's gone radio silent."

"That's why we were looking for bugs," Morello said, nodding. He looked straight at Spencer. "She always calls on liberty and checks in. She wouldn't stop otherwise unless she was dead or incapacitated."

Spencer's heart dropped down in his stomach. If something happened to you, who was protecting Alijah? If something happened to the both of you, how was he expected to go on?

"I got wind from Agent Garber that there's been some chatter about Sayeed, that he's been spotted where we found Alijah six months ago," Peanut continued as Spencer clutched his coffee cup tightly. The heat grounded him, but he was sure to disappear into nothing soon enough. 

He rarely saw his CHUmate, but remembering that he worked in the satellite tents it made sense that he'd hear word of one of the biggest heroin distributors in the Middle East. 

“An emergency, or when you just can't sleep, and I'll slide through for ya with that urgency,” Teddy Swims came through around them. As sweet as the song was, a solid blanket of dread covered the room.

“Then we get on the next flight and go back early,” Spencer offered, but Garrett shook his head. 

“No communication means someone is listening in and watching. If we go back early it might tip them off that something’s going on. Boss is sending a message.”

“Yeah, to be careful,” Barretti grumbled. He frowned down at his big hands. “We just have to follow her lead. She spent years in MARSOC, doing all sorts of clandestine shit. She knows something we don’t.”

“We can’t just sit here,” Spencer insisted, waving a hand. “Not if she needs our help.”

“Morning after next we’ll go to Anacostia and head back to Iraq, doc,” Garrett told him firmly. “We can’t go before our leave ends unless we receive orders.”

“I’m an agent! I can go back whene-,” he began, but was overruled with a flat palm facing him. 

“Boss will tell us what to do when we get there. She’s got more answers than we do right now. You could set something worse in motion by making a move.”

“Aren’t you worried at all? She’s not a military robot. She can’t do it all by herself.”

Garrett sighed and flashed Morello a look, who shrugged. He turned back to Spencer, “Of course I’m worried, doc. I worked with Teddy before he died, and he got real paranoid towards the end. I didn’t know much about what he was working on but when Y/N asked for my team’s help I agreed because even though Teddy started to lose it, I knew he had a good reason.”

He sighed again and scrubbed his face with his hand, dragging it down his chin. “This mission is bigger than just the girl and the heroin. The person we’re looking for has hooks in places we probably don’t know about. We don’t make a move without her say-so.

“You gotta remember, doc,” he finished, giving him a knowing look. “The boss always knows more than we do. You have to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

Spencer nodded in defeat. He was right. You always knew more than you let on, and he suddenly got a sneaking suspicion that even before this there were things you hadn’t told him. Was it because you didn’t trust him? Or had you existed like this for so long that you didn’t know any other way to be?

He just hoped Garrett was right. 

He hoped you had a plan. 

Spencer sat in JJ’s bathroom the day after Christmas. She’d nearly force-fed him leftovers and dessert for dinner, then dragged him in here by the wrist. Spencer put up a good front for Will and Henry and Michael, chatting and pretending to be interested in the things his godsons were talking about, but his mind never left you.

JJ draped the little cape she’d bought just for him years ago when he first asked her to cut his hair over his shoulders. She tightened it and went about wetting his hair and combing through it.

“I can’t believe how long you’ve let this get,” she exclaimed as she raked a brush through it. Thank god she never had daughters, because this was torture. Spencer tried not to wince each time she caught his roots, since she did give him good cuts… besides the time Hotch asked if he joined a boy band. That was the last time he ever gave her free reign over styles.

“Hmm,” he hummed noncommittally. Instead, he fiddled with some army man toy Michael had left on the sink. It pointed a nondescript gun out, legs akimbo in a wide stance as he prepared for danger.

“Michael’s been taking those everywhere with him,” JJ went on as he turned the green piece of plastic in his fingers. “He tells everyone how his uncle Spencer is a hero.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Spencer mumbled, frowning to himself. “It’s like saying what we did at the BAU was heroic… it wasn’t. It was just bloody and sad.”

JJ stilled, her hands freezing mid-air. Her blue eyes blazed as she watched him in the mirror, “Then why the hell are you going back?”

“Because… There’s a future there that isn’t a black hole of loneliness and murder,” he decided, and her jaw clenched tightly.

“You’re going back to Iraq for a girl?” she pressed, getting angrier. “Spencer, I know you’ve always been a romantic but that’s fucking insane.”

“It’s not just that,” he replied calmly. 

“Then what?”

Spencer sighed, his eyes meeting hers. He was so tired all of a sudden, weighed down with the enormity of the possibility of loss that could come tomorrow. “I have hope. Honestly, I haven’t had that in such a long time, JJ. I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep searching for that final happiness. Y/N is a lot of things…”

“She’s mean and crazy. She charges headfirst into every door without caring that something on the other side would hurt her. She’s only focused on protecting those behind her. She’s not known for telling you everything, and I’m trying to be okay with that because for once, someone knows a lot more than I do. She leads, she protects, she cares. Most of all, she’s kind. Even when she’s mean, she’s kind. She only pushes as much as you can take.”

“She sounds like Hotch,” JJ muttered, and when Spencer stared at her wide-eyed, she burst into a laughter he couldn’t help but join in on. 

“That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me!” he guffawed with her. They laughed until their bellies hurt and JJ had to sit down on the tub edge to hold herself upright. 

After it died down, she looked at him with a spark of joy, “I really hope it all works out. I just worry about you. You’ve changed so much in the twenty years I’ve known you, and you always came out the other side somehow. I just want you to come back, even if you’re different, I just want you to love the life you live.”

Spencer reached out a hand and she took it, squeezing him tightly. “I’m learning a lot about myself. Sometimes… you just gotta suck it up and drive on. The only way through it is to get through it.”

“You seem so different again,” JJ whispered, her eyes filling with tears he wasn’t sure were happy or sad. “But… not like you’re broken. You seem more confident, not like after prison when you were so angry. You seem like you know what you’re capable of.”

She made a face, “Does that make sense?”

Pride filled his heart and he nodded, “I think I finally know why I went through everything that I did. I can’t talk much about it, but I really think that I’m about to get everything I ever wanted.”

JJ smiled. Spencer smiled back. 

“Hope looks good on you, Spence.”

You hadn't really slept in days. It was Christmas, five days after Spencer and the unit left for America. The stress of what you were about to do was eating you alive, and each time you managed a nap you woke up in a panic. 

You were being listened to. After Mercer's confession that he'd found bugs in your office, you tore the whole thing apart in near silence until you found three more than he had. You went through your CHU, found two more. One under your bed and one in your bookshelf. You searched Spencer's next, but surprisingly found nothing. The rest of the unit's bunks were clear too. 

You were starting to feel as paranoid as Teddy sounded before he died. He sent you his coded words but they were filled with veiled messages, as if someone besides you and him were reading. You had nobody to talk to besides Mercer, and even then you kept him at arm's length. You didn't trust him, but still he was the only one who knew of your plan. Even the unit wouldn't know until after, and you still might never tell them what you were going to do. 

Spencer and the unit were all the way in America. They wouldn't be coming home for two more days, so you were sending Mercer to meet them. Alijah had thankfully been hidden enough through false paperwork that there were no bugs in her room. It seemed you had become the mole's target. 

Without Spencer, you couldn't enact your plan. You had to explain to Alijah many times why, and eventually she agreed and understood. You needed him here to stay behind and keep her safe while you went after Sivan and Sayeed. 

You didn't destroy the bugs in your office. You told Mercer to go on doing so, to keep acting like he was struggling with himself. It would make those watching think everything was going according to their plan. So, you kept the bugs, and here you and Mercer sat in your office, going over the FRAGO for the day out loud and writing notes to one another. 

You lounged on one of the old metal chairs, your heavy boots set on the table. You tried to sound dreadfully bored and irritated, "There's been a few scuffles in the nearby villages, but we can't go out without the rest of the team since your dumb ass let your guys go home for Christmas."

You quietly slid a paper his way. You didn't put your pen down, and you wrote slowly to drown out the sounds the best you could. 

Is everything ready?

Mercer nodded, but he leaned back and let out an angry harrump for the ears listening in. "I thought you'd have your lackies around. I only gave my guys what was coming to them. Your stupid fucking team hasn't done shit all year."

All you needed was for your team to come back, then you were going outside the wire to kill Sayeed al Hafiz. Mercer was going to make sure that happened.

"Fuck you," you spat. 

"Fuck yourself," Mercer snapped back in reply. He got angrily to his feet and stomped out of the trailer, slamming the door behind him for good measure. 

Let them think you still hated him. You didn't trust him, but you were coming around on him after Hitchens died. That didn't mean you hadn't fought in the last two months. He was still an asshole. 

Everything was going according to plan… so far. You had to remind yourself that this could all fall apart. You could die on the twenty eighth of December of this year. Sivan might not make it if you didn't succeed. 

But you had a backup plan. 

You always did. 

Spencer was the first to arrive at Anacostia on December 27th. He’d said his goodbyes to the team and their families the day after Christmas, teary eyed and filled with dread. They clung to him like he wouldn’t come back alive, and even if he didn’t Spencer knew he had to get back to Iraq. 

You needed him. 

You were all alone out there protecting Alijah. Sayeed was hiding in the desert, waiting to strike. You had no one to back you up and he knew he needed to be by your side. Even if it all ended in flames, Spencer would be with you and the girls and the unit until the very end. He wouldn’t want it any other way. 

Spencer had no idea what he was walking into once he stepped foot back on base. His mind conjured images of firefights and explosions, a dramatic entrance to the scariest day of his life. The ground would thunder and the sky would alight with red washes of fear and smoke. But he would find you. He always would. 

He walked through the dark hangar at 0500, much like he had four months earlier, clutching his pack and fighting the urge to sit down and melt into the concrete. Shadows lurked as he approached. Spencer took a deep breath, adjusted the pack on his shoulder and made his way toward the plane. 

It was such a strange familiarity. The Antonov An-178 transport plane loomed ominously above him, blanketing him in darkness as its shadow cast over him from the lamplight. He left America for the first time in August. Now it was almost January, and the cool shadow under the plane was ice cold. 

He stopped in his tracks when he spotted Captain Mercer leaning against the frame of the walkway into the belly of the plane. His arms crossed over his big barrel chest, a confident smirk washing over his weathered face as he saw Spencer with his mouth agape. 

“No cryin’ on my plane, boy,” he drawled like he had what felt like years ago. 

“What are you doing here?” Spencer seethed as a sudden rage overtook him. He didn’t exactly trust Mercer, but if he was in America who was with you and Alijah? 

Spencer was about to stomp his way up the ramp but Mercer sauntered down. He seemed far too jolly until he reached the bottom, where he pulled Spencer by the arm a bit away from the plane. 

“I know you don’t like me, and you’ve got every reason not to,” Mercer whispered as he and Spencer huddled close. “But I’m in this until the end. I know you know about Ted.”

Spencer managed a silent slight nod, so he continued. “He was a good guy, and I’ve never really managed to be anywhere as good a man as he was. I’m trying. The boss sent me here to make sure you all made it on the plane.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Spencer asked softly. Mercer’s eyes told him what he meant before he even opened his mouth. The fact that he called you ‘boss’ when a few months ago he used another choice word somehow made him more worried than ever.

“Accidents happen,” he grumbled ominously. “Brakes go out, carbon monoxide detectors stop working… sometimes transport planes blow up midair due to mechanical failure.”

He knew something then that you never told him. Teddy’s death wasn’t an accident, or at least you didn’t believe it was. The plane crash was an assassination, and you weren’t going to let it happen to the unit if you had any power to stop it. You didn’t trust Mercer enough to stay behind with Alijah, but your faith was enough to send him to keep them safe over the ocean.

It made his heart weary. Were you just growing paranoid as Teddy had? Were you justified in your worries? What the hell was about to happen?

What the hell were you planning?

Notes: Y'all ain't ready for the end of Part 1 of this story... Shit is about to go DOWN

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