#reidaway

a little over a year after elle’s abrupt departure from the BAU, you end up transferring in from the manhattan field office. the truth of how you ended up there is complicated, and you don't offer up softness to people who haven't earned it.

rules never really suited you — neither in wardrobe nor in life. nothing you wear really follows regulation — okay fine, it does, because you’d like to keep your job, but you definitely toe the line. lace and underwire beneath your blazer; combat boots with just enough heel to stomp out a man’s ego.

you flirt sharp, and you fight sharper. you take your coffee black, your liquor straight, with dark red lipstick stamps on every cup like a signature. and just when you think you’ve wrapped enough barbed wire around yourself to become impenetrable, in walks spencer reid.

he’s soft where you’re serrated. sweet where you’re sour. he quotes poetry and statistics while you smirk from across the table, pretending it doesn’t all make your ribs ache. you don’t mean to let him in, but he just keeps showing up — in those stupid cardigans and with that overstuffed brain, asking you questions no one else does — not ones that pry, but ones that land gently, like he actually wants to know you. somehow, he sees all the barbed wire you’ve got wrapped around yourself and still isn’t afraid to reach.

spencer reid is soft, and good, and painfully sincere.

he’s not what you expected. but maybe — just maybe — he’s exactly what you need.

➥ GREENAWAY!READER UNIVERSE MASTERLIST

♥️ favorite things: black coffee, well-worn doc martens, thunderstorms at 2am, sharp eyeliner, sarcasm as a form of intimacy, matching lingerie, record stores, polaroids

✖️ least favorite things: small talk, (most) authority figures, getting called “little elle,” cheap cologne, being told to smile more, unsolicited advice, bad kissers

💄 what’s in your bag? MAC sin lipstick, tangled earbuds, tums, taser, chanel vamp nail polish, vintage lighter, nicotine gum, leather-bound notebook, tom ford black orchid perfume, one loose cigarette (you quit a while ago but… just in case)

🎵 who’s on your playlist? the cranberries, nirvana, alanis morissette, three days grace, garbage, fiona apple, nine inch nails, no doubt, imogen heap

this isn’t a traditional series — it’s a universe. a set of interconnected stories showcasing the slow burn between greenaway!reader and everyone’s favorite boy wonder, dr. spencer reid. the universe will span all genres - angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, and smut (not right away tho — I said slow burn, remember?!).

If she felt generous enough to give him her mouth, her hand—decided to give him anything at all—he would show her everything in turn: teeth, jaw, knuckles, ribs, knees. Her favorite, however, was his spine, the notches that would appear, the way he would look like an animal, primal and nothing more than red blood cells and strings of DNA. She liked when it twisted.

Spencer's good to her. Learned how to touch her quickly. She appreciates this. The first time they had sex, Elle was drunk and black in the lungs, and he was clumsy and sweaty, kind until he learned that she didn't want him to be kind at all, and then he was something in the middle. He whispered her name against her collarbone, ElleElleElleElleElle, and held himself long enough to get her there first. She called him Doctor and used words that kept him with his face buried in her shoulder.

He wasn't sure whether he enjoyed the power dynamic or the fact that she was vulnerable and petty, but he was hard, and she needed him at the time, so he couldn't bring himself to say no.

Now, she calls him when her bottle of vodka runs dry and when the roads get icy. He comes, and he won't smoke with her, but he'll sit with her and trace his finger around his knee. She only does it because he doesn't judge and probably wouldn't say anything about it if he did. He knows he can't tell her what to do unless she wants it.

Spencer feels her staring at him. She does this thing: watches him like he's prey, like she's scoping out the best way to lure him in and get him on the floor.

He's there already, and maybe she knows that.

"What?" Spencer asks, looking up in the way that he does, through his raised eyebrows and eyes of curiosity.

She crosses her legs. She's wearing heels, and he's sure her legs must go on forever. He wonders where she was before this. A bar, a party, a club. Somewhere he'd never be.

"Nothing," Elle says.

There is most definitely something, and he knows she will tell him if he doesn't push. She likes being her own, except for the times she doesn't. He gives her that power when she asks for it.

"Okay, Reid." She puts her cigarette out, and smoke curls around her fingers. "Do you want to know what I'm thinking?"

"Yes." Blood blooms on his palms just from him thinking about what he'd do to know.

"I'm thinking… I'm thinking that these clothes are cutting off my circulation everywhere—everywhere—and if some gorgeous genius doesn't take them off of me in ten seconds, I'll about scream. Do you want that?"

These are the things Elle asks of him—and he's smart, but not very strong-willed. He hasn't had sex with many people.

She leaves him on the couch afterward, newly boneless and probably high. He has something to learn from her. She walks around her house, avoiding the places where the floor creaks, and he's not sure her feet even hit the floor because he can't hear them. All he hears is the furious beat inside of his chest and the dull buzzing of blood returning to him.

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Elle doesn't call him again for a while. When she does, her hair is short, and she's dark under the eyes, and she's really not the same person at all. Spencer can't tell if she's drunk or not, but she may as well be.

She tried to touch herself before she called him. Her fingers weren't long enough, and she wasn't wet enough, and she wasn't Reid enough. She decided that if she didn't release whatever was banging on her insides, she was going to kill someone or herself: one or the other. Live or die. Prison or here. Fuck someone or lie in her bed until it would be less painful to just rip her eyelids off instead of squeezing them shut, hoping for sleep that was never going to give itself to her. Elle will call him, and he'll come, and he'll try to be kind and gentle but end up biting her too hard, and she'll say more, more, more, don't be shy now, big boy, and then she'll make a mess on him, and he'll make a mess on her, and he'll leave and she'll be still.

She wants to feel like she can leave her room without her gun. She wants to talk to someone who will hold it for her just a minute so she can sit with her mind quiet.

Flickering, in and out like the flame of a candle, she blinks, closes her legs, opens them, invites him in.

Her warmth reminds him of a black hole. Sucks him in headfirst and swallows him before he even notices the lower half of his body is gone.

"Get your ass over here, Reid. You've never said no to me before."

Spencer stands there like an idiot. She sits on her perfectly untouched bed, open and asking and red-lipped, here after weeks of not being here, and he just stands and looks like he's in the presence of Jesus Himself returning to Earth. He's already about to poke through his pants.

"It was… It was different before, Elle. That was before… everything, before Garner—"

"Don't you dare say his fucking name, Spencer."

He's missed her. He feels an Elle-shaped hole in four locations across his body. He's sick of nights when he wakes up sticky and exhausted with failure.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry," Spencer says, and sits down beside her. He feels as if an immense weight has been placed on his shoulders. To take it off would be to set the world off-balance, and to keep it on would be to crush him to the ground. "What do you… Are you sure this is what you need? I don't think… Sex usually—" he starts, then stops. "I just… I don't think—"

"Reid." Sometimes, Elle believes he must be the most clueless person on the planet.

She stands and comes really, really close to him, to the point where she can see herself in the reflection of his eyes. Her nail presses against his chest and falls, drags, hooks on the waistband of his jeans. "I usually enjoy the things you have to say, but if I hear another man explain to me what I need, I just might explode. So, take your pants off and fuck me, or leave."

Spencer stays in the same spot for a long time, staring, swallowing. Seeing Elle with her teeth bared makes him dig his own nails into his palms. It's not okay, not the things he wants, but what's permissible lives in vain, and carries over to make his hands reckless.

How is he supposed to say no when she lifts her tongue for him, when she climbs him and sends his buttons flying onto the carpet, when she says thank you for coming, I knew you would. You're perfect. I'm sorry. You make me feel so good, Spencer.

Maybe Elle asks for too much. With him inside of her, fucking her into something with a heart so soft it drips, she can't be alone. She keeps a hand pushing against his chest and a leg around his hips. His spine pushes in on itself.

He clumsily slides his hand in between their moving bodies, searching and locking onto the place that makes her brain go all fuzzy, thinking that if he can just push her into her body instead of her brain for a few seconds, it'll all be worth it. He'll fix it all, and after this, they can be together—or not together, just in proximity—and she'll be able to sleep.

His hand shakes madly on her. Elle's so tight—so, so tight—that black curls around his vision and makes him cry like a wounded animal. He kisses her. He says she's everything.

He takes her between his fingers and squeezes. It's so easy.

"I'm sorry," Spencer slurs, and she bucks her hips against his. "I'm sorry for what happened."

"Don't." She hooks her other leg around him and scrapes her nails down his back. He welcomes it. It feels good that she's angry. It's better than her being sad. "I'm not sorry."

And as Elle pulls him in deeper, closer, she feels bones stabbing into her, reminding her that nothing good ever comes for free, but sometimes it's worth it. He fills himself with her. Breaths feel like cuts down her throat, pleas, stolen treasures—and as oxygen finally reaches her lungs, it hardens and becomes stone.

Elle turns into a piece of flint before either of them can get off of each other.

His hand, long and bony and pulverizing, brushes against her scar and pushes in, breaks through the surface tension she's spent all those sleepless nights rebuilding cell by cell, invades her differently, but invades all the same. Elle shatters with the weight of a feather and flinches like the kick of a gun. Spencer goes soft at the bitter taste of blood in his mouth.

He tries to light again, says he's sorry. Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, Elle. I didn't know. I didn't mean to.

For a while, she's trapped between him and the bed, suffocating on both ends, gasping for air, chained to the weight of someone else, lost of herself. It doesn't make a difference that it's Spencer on her. She doesn't give him a chance.

"Get off of me, Reid. Get off." He scrambles, and she doesn't feel much of a difference. "Get out. Reid, get out. Get out. Getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetout."

She screams, and screams, and screams.

The look on his face might have killed her if she had seen it. Tender, and horrified, and loving, and tormented. The burn travels through his body like a wildfire. It reaches his toes before it reaches his head.

"Elle," he says, hurt and confused and all these things he's never had to face. For the first time in his life, he's a little boy, lost on a playground.

"Out. You heard me. Out."

Spencer has never thought of Elle as someone afraid. Now, he thinks she might be more afraid than he's ever been.

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He sits on her cracked porch steps with a ripped shirt and untied shoelaces. He won't go far, even if she yells at him to fall off the face of the Earth.

Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, and then he's back at her front door with his knuckles raised.

It's a melody Elle knows well. One, one-two-three. One of hesitancy and three of overcompensation. Knock, knock-knock-knock.

Spencer left his gun on her dresser, and she's been turning it over in her hands until the bullets started to seem like nothing more than pebbles placed in a block of steel. She can feel him flow through it, all sweaty and rushing and accidental. She places it on her nightstand. Elle's always been impatient. Reckless. Out for a thrill. When she opens the door, she knows everything.

"Elle," he whispers.

"I thought I told you to leave."

"You—Yeah, you did. You just… Never specified how far."

Her eyes suddenly seem round to Spencer, like globes. They used to remind him of daggers and the harsh line of the horizon when the rising sun would set the world aflame with unabashed light. When she looked at him, he was stripped naked and more honest than he would ever be again. He was desire and gentleness and the beginnings of a curled fist.

Elle is made of light.

Now, with emotion caught in between her teeth, she looks more like the kind of light you find through your blinds before you're fully awake. Streaming, floating, careful not to intrude. Most people think she's cutting, and Spencer's never been one to call people stupid, but he believes it's applicable now.

She holds everything inside of her. She stuns him.

"Have you ever tried taking things at face value, Reid?" She leans against the doorway and keeps her shoulders pulled inwards. He wants to take her, spread her out, make her expanse again.

"Not… Not really. You would miss out on a lot if you never looked further."

"What's the point? Don't you already know everything?"

Spencer blinks at her. It seems she's out for him, and it might be the best thing she can be right now.

"No. You know I don't. I don't know anything that matters."

She thinks the glasses make him look older. They suit him. They're crooked, and if he came a step closer, she might set them straight and then snap them in half.

He's always been beautiful, but she's never thought herself to have the proper sense capable of digesting it all. He must be every little thing.

"I doubt a lot," Spencer says, his lip quirking. There, there, he looks like a kid. "I doubt my doubt, even."

There has been a degree of uncertainty in Elle for weeks now. It makes her feel better that he's never been entirely stable either. She stands and stares at him, summons what she needs to make room for him. It's not much. He never costs much.

Spencer stands tall and long, waiting until he can be. Patience is for him.

"Don't underestimate the things you know, Reid. Ignorance doesn't suit you."

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It's suddenly imperative to Elle that she go somewhere untouched—somewhere empty and stainless, free from the rot that's infected the corners of her apartment. It's visible: blackened and sodden and seeping further down her walls faster than she can scrape it off.

The living room won't work, nor will the kitchen, nor will her bed. Nowhere is safe, not completely. She and Spencer end up leaning against opposite walls of her darkened hallway with the tips of their toes touching and their breath meeting in the middle, intertwining, inventing.

"I haven't taken a shower longer than three minutes in… Fuck, I don't even remember how long. Do you know what that feels like? To be afraid of water touching you? Water?"

He doesn't. He doesn't know pain like she knows pain, and he never wants to. Inside of her, he finds it with its roots embedded as deep as they can go without tearing straight through her body, splitting her in half.

Spencer shakes his head, too much of a coward to tell her no, that he can't possibly get it the way she needs him to. More and more often, he's felt utterly useless to Elle. He can't fuck her the way she wants, he can't talk to her the way he wants, he can't, he can't, he can't.

He'll click for her one day, when things have slowed down.

"I can't imagine," Spencer says, and shifts his foot so it's more concrete against hers. He knows it's PTSD; he's read thousands of articles on it; he knows the way it works.

Elle, unfortunately, admirably, can't be memorized. Spencer can't apply her, but he tries.

"I don't blame you," she murmurs, and flattens her palm against the wall. "I've talked to hundreds of women who have gone through something horrible, and I never understood them fully until now. It's shitty."

She's forgotten how to be a normal person. She laughs at herself and tries.

"You're still young, though. You could get out while you still can, before something steals the… Spencer from right out underneath you."

He looks up at her. She wants to get him naked again.

"I don't… I don't want to leave," he says. "I don't think you should run because of the fear that something bad might happen."

This is the wrong thing for him to say, and suddenly, Elle's reminded that not even he can help her in the long run. He's too good. She needed that reminder.

"Always so goddamn noble, Doctor Reid."

"Is that a bad thing?" he asks, his thumb twitching, wanting to smooth out the quirk in her lip. It's all just a facade.

"No, it's not," she says simply. "Just means you are who I think you are."

Not long after is Spencer pressed against the wall and her warmth, his bottom lip trapped between her teeth, his knee pressed up into her. This time around, he doesn't try to say it's wrong for her to find solace in this or that it should be anything he defines at all; he just tries to be loud about things other than explanations.

It seems to always end this way. He gives and he takes and he takes and he takes.

"Do you want me?" Elle asks, breathy and pink and now the one against the wall, neck bent back, throat hollowing.

Every point on his torso stabs at him. He could explode, soak her furniture with a new blood type. It's romantic, in a way.

"Yes. Always."

It doesn't feel like enough for her. It used to be. It used to fill her and push everything else to the surface of her skin, push it far enough away that she could float for a little while. Now, she hears it knocking inside of her chest, ringing in her ears, wanting more than she has. He's grown into her lungs, and she can't breathe anymore.

Elle pushes her hips into his hands and lets him feel what he can have.

"Say it with your chest, Reid."

"I want you, Elle. I want you."

"If you want me," Elle says, If you want me, if you want me, if you want me, if you want me, "then show me."

She would let him in the most horrific ways; nothing he could ever do would ever be bad to her. Undress the layers of her skin. Write her into all of his needful, hungry poems with permanent ink. Press her back into brick, press her front into brick, bend her over it. Sleep in her bed and stay until the morning. Keep her in this place of pain, keep her in the BAU, keep her. If only he says it; if only he opens her mouth and shows it to her.

Spencer takes this. He's on his knees, the ground pushing against him, gravity pushing him against the ground, smashing him into bits. He's a moving mouth and an open pair of ears. Fumbling with the tie in her sweatpants for the second time, trying to learn again how to protect her best here, now, in this moment. He's not sure where to focus, where to start, whether she needs to be protected from herself or from the outside world more. Everything calls to her, and he can only be in one place at a time.

"Is this where you want me, Elle?"

From the place on his knees, he looks up to her like she's a figment of his imagination coming back to him, a memory from high above falling back down for him to indulge in. He holds her like this.

"Yes," she murmurs, "yes, right there. You gonna make me feel good, now? Gonna take good, good care of me, Reid?"

Elle's not serious, but she is a little bit. She'll play into it for him and for the little girl that's been shining through lately. It doesn't really matter much anymore.

He nods against her stomach frantically, fingers tugging at the lace, pulling it down her knees, aligning the curve of his nose with the soft, beaten flesh in her middle. He'll do well for her this time.

As soon as his mouth is on her, she's frantic, dripping on him, arousal and blood and all these things that have become one and the same. Elle takes him in her hands and bends her spine, aligning her pelvis with the slope of his upper lip. She tugs, and he grunts through his teeth.

Spencer understands religion; he is part of it here. Wine drips down her thighs and gets underneath his fingernails. Elle is a divinity he watches from the meaningless, tiny Earth, calling out, praying for this big, powerful, wonderful thing to choose him as the one let in.

That's what it's always been, really. Spencer: a kid putting his big boy pants on, and an adult with so much to prove that he tugs at the end of a string he's been shown until it's left as a pile of knots. Elle: her father's daughter, and a palette to dirty, steal, wash clean, rub raw with love, malice, care—whatever it is, it doesn't matter—until she's something tougher than she was before.

On Spencer's mouth, on his hips with his knees pinned apart, she can find what she needs. He moves his lips in the shape of her name over and over without letting any noise come out, allows himself to be a person who is demanding and wanton and bad. What am I, Elle? he says. What am I to you when I'm inside of you? he says. Tell me, he says. I'll be this, whatever this is, if it helps you, he says.

It doesn't last long, but it's longer than before.

It makes her feel better to know that she always returns to her original state once it's over.

When his knuckles have set in, when he drips out of her and the flesh on her side starts to paint with the beginnings of a bruise from his elbow, Elle gets off of him and leaves him in her room without pausing to catch her breath. She doesn't mind the marks; she might have if he hadn't apologized and kissed them until she had to pull him away and tell him to stop being so sentimental.

Spencer, with his heart caught on her heels, trips over his pants and discovers her naked against the kitchen counter with a mini shot bottle in her closed fist that she must have fished out of her go-bag. Brown liquor. Not what she usually goes for, but she's not one to complain. Elle doesn't—at least, not to him.

"Why do you do that?" Spencer asks, a strand of his hair stuck to his forehead. Spencer's changed, she's changed him, and Elle has stayed Elle.

"I'm thirsty," she says, watching the world stand still in darkness outside her window. She can feel the burn from the mark he left and she hopes he sees it coming off of her in heat waves. "I'd offer you some, but this is it. Last one."

"That's not what I meant."

At this, Elle turns around and captures him again. Her voice is soft, giving, patient. "I know that's not what you meant."

He nods and picks at his thumb behind his back. How much more asking does he have to do?

"Okay. I just— You… Why do you still keep running like this afterwards? It doesn't have to be something you have to forget about."

She shifts her weight back an inch, like she's making room for herself again. "Trust me," she says, and shoots the liquid down her throat, "I don't want to forget about that. You're a real good fuck, Spencer Reid. Is there some statistic about the nerdy ones always having big cocks?"

His hands fall at his sides. There might be nothing he dislikes more than the after, when she hardens and traps herself back inside where he can't reach until he's back inside of her. "Elle. Please."

She stares long and hard before dropping the empty bottle in the trashcan. Silently, gracefully, she meets him four feet away and holds him in her hands. She suddenly looks uncomfortable in the space she's in, like the air didn't make enough room for her this time.

"I don't run. Or forget," she murmurs, taking a breath before looking up again. "That's not what this is—what that was."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't—" she exhales, shakes her head, rocks back on her foot like she wants to run. "Do you remember when I met you? You had longer hair, and you would smile like you didn't really know what to do with your face. I liked it." Her mouth tilts slightly, and it's the most raw expression Spencer thinks he's ever seen her have. It's all a quick change and, really, his knees could buckle anytime now.

"You were kind to me. I never thought that you were a kid. You were just… Warm." She shrugs. "Morgan's warm too, but it's different. You touch his hand, and your hand flies back." She huffs a quiet laugh and folds her arms across her chest. Spencer grabs his jacket from the floor and hands it to her. She slips it on, folds it closed.

"You're just warm," she says. "Safe."

Spencer hasn't seen this Elle in a while. He's seen her in dreams, in the images he keeps at the forefront of his mind, but not anywhere close. It's almost there when they make love, but it's messy and raw with desire, not truthfulness. He might cry to keep her like this.

"I don't… I don't understand," he says. Sometimes he wishes she weren't so good at her job so he could read her more easily.

“You’re just—” She stops, exhales. “You’re gentle. And you see people. It’s hard not to fall in love with you, Reid.”

She looks away. “Everyone on the team is, in one way or another. It doesn’t matter how you call it.”

A long, long beat plants itself. Spencer might just crack down the middle.

“That scares me,” she says quietly. “I’m scared.”

He frowns, tries to find a way to comprehend it all, fails, tries another way. If he addresses it now, says what he wants to, tells her that he might just love her more than she could ever understand, it would be the wrong decision. She'll turn her back to him before he can look down at her.

"I don't… You're scared because… Because of that? I still don't understand, Elle," he says, and holds her like water in his hands. Keeps her running.

"If I keep doing this," she starts, fast and quiet like the words burn her tongue, "If I keep seeing you like this, I think you might… I think somebody like you could make things okay. For me. Maybe if we'd crossed paths earlier. If you were the one Hotch sent to take me home. You would have stayed. I know you would have."

Her grip tightens on the fabric of his jacket. "I don't know. I know most of the time, Reid, but this time I just… can't. I can't. Maybe if all those things happened differently, you could… I could… It would get to stay like this."

It's all a lot for him, and he can't quiet his brain enough to hear what it wants more: to hug her, or ask her to let out everything bad she's ever felt on him if it could let it stay like this.

He doesn't really get what she's saying, and most of the time he doesn't—but this time, it feels important, heavy.

"Why are you saying this?" he asks, and moves his focus so quickly between her left eye and her right that he can't see straight. She glows.

Elle trusts Spencer more than she loves him.

It makes it all seem to mean a bit more. It sure gives her a hell of a lot more to lose. She thinks he might hurt her because of it. He sticks his arm inside of her and can reach places she's never even gone herself. She would die if he slipped.

But Elle decided the moment she woke up in that hospital that she wouldn't put herself in harm's way again. She wouldn't be a doomed damsel in distress, or tied at the ankle to a sinking anchor, or someone who flinched at the crack of bone. Her life bled out of her, and it's been on the outside of her body ever since, held in her closed fist.

Nowhere, no one, no thing is made without a toll tied to it: the more she trusts, the more weight it has, the harder it could crush her.

She opens her mouth, closes it again. Scrapes her teeth together. What she wants would take too long. Would ask for too much.

"You wanted to know. You asked. I told you," she says.

"Told—Told me what?" His voice is careful now, deliberate. "That you think this can't go anywhere? That you think you're… beyond repair?"

Elle stills. Not flinching. Not angry. Just very quiet.

It doesn't really matter that Spencer chose that part to prod. It doesn't matter that he made a wrong conclusion for the first time in his life. It doesn't matter that she failed to communicate what she really wanted him to know. It doesn't matter that he always seems to see the most worthy part of her, and didn't this time. It doesn't matter.

Elle decided when she told him she loved him. She decided when she opened the door and let him back in. She decided when she called him.

She decided when she admitted to herself that all she's ever been is afraid—that she cannot afford to be full of another's fingers again.

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She didn't know she would kill William Lee the next week, but it made sense to her. The trigger felt like life against her fingertip.

She fucks Spencer before she leaves, and he says things against her collarbone, rocking inside of her, reaching in for the last time. I don't want you to go, Elle, he says, or doesn't. He means it, even if he never tells her. He makes her come like he means it, and kisses where he touches like he means it.

Elle does what she has to do. She wakes up with him still on her, a pink mark from where his bone accidentally cracked against her, and she looks long and hard at it in the mirror.

He gave her an apologetic smile and closed it, going around to the driver's seat. He took one last look at her before starting the car.

Cautious driving was expected from Spencer, when not rushing somewhere on a case, still Elle had never experienced him driving quite so slowly in her life. In a different situation, it might've annoyed her. This time it was consoling, his concern matched hers.

She studied you like a hawk. Every time you stirred in your seat, she held her breath and prepared to console you.

Spencer did his best to stay focused on the road, to not give in to the urge to stare at his family. But at every red light, when he was sure it was safe, he found you and Elle in the rear view mirror and let himself bask in the wholeness you brought. His heart was so full of the two of you he wondered how it had ever beat before. Then he kept on driving.

Even when Elle's eyes started to droop, they stayed trained only on you.

"We're still a few minutes away. Wouldn't hurt to rest your eyes for a little bit," Spencer said.

"I'll sleep when we get home," she mumbled.

Spencer raised his eyebrows. "You sure?"

She nodded slowly, fingers playing with one of the feet that kicked her in the ribs less than a week ago. "Mh-hmm, I'm sure."

—

"And… we're home." Spencer parked the car, his shoulders slumping with relief. He went to open Elle's door for her—she beat him to it but still accepted the hand he held out.

She stood right by him while he removed you from the car. He pulled their house keys from his pocket and unlocked the door, gesturing for Elle to go inside first.

It was a funny thing for her to leave the house extremely pregnant and come back able to see her feet when she looked down.

Walking through the front door was different, in a way she couldn't truly explain but also couldn't ignore.

"I'm aware there are three un-babyproofed corners. I'm going to get to them soon," Spencer interrupted her thoughts.

He put the car seat down. His voice softened when he saw you. "Do you wanna see your room, baby?"

He unclipped the straps of your car seat and picked you up, gentle hands protecting your head. "Your mom and I made it all cozy and pretty, I think you'll like it."

Elle's lips curved up watching him talk to you. No longer through the skin and flesh of her stomach as he had to do for months, actually to you.

"You know, I think your mom really wants to hold you, so I'm gonna hand you to her, okay?"

Spencer did as he'd said. Elle's arms folded around you so naturally you would think she'd held you forever.

They walked to the nursery, where you'd sleep after outgrowing their room. The mural on the wall was painted by Spencer Reid himself. Two rocking chairs stood facing each other, an overflowing bookshelf in the middle.

"Your dad poured a lot of energy into making this room just right. He wouldn't let me help him paint because of the fumes, but I had a little input on the way he painted it."

Elle sat down on one of the rocking chairs with a deep exhale, rocking back and forth and savoring the weight of you in her arms. Spencer shrugged off his jacket and sat across from her.

"She looks like she's going to fall asleep any minute," she said.

"The car ride probably made her sleepy. The sound of a car's engine and the motion of driving reminds infants of the environment in utero. Along with that, the car seat also provides a feeling of warmth and security that soothes them and makes them drowsy."

Nothing Elle didn't already know, she didn't mind hearing things twice when it was said by him.

Spencer lay his head back and wondered why it took having a baby for him to invest in a rocking chair; Elle observed as your eyelids get heavier and heavier until they stayed closed.

Spencer's ears perked up at the sound of your snoring, his attention turning to you. He embedded into his memory the image of you asleep, and Elle smiling down at you with a sincerity he had the privilege of seeing.

"I don't want to put her down," she admitted, "but I'm so tired."

Spencer picked at a thread on his cardigan without looking at it. "It would be good for you to get some rest in your own bed."

Elle bit her lip and debated her options. "How long has it been since I fed her?"

"Two hours and fifty-three seconds."

She held you even closer to her chest, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head, before she stood up with a suppressed groan that made Spencer's head tilt in concern. "I'm fine."

"If you're not, you can tell me." There was a waver in his voice that they both chose to ignore.

"I know, honey."

Elle waddled to their bedroom, with Spencer trailing behind her, going on a tangent about how many hours of sleep you and she should optimally get. He pulled back the covers on their bed and fluffed up Elle's pillow. Once satisfied with its poofiness, he stepped back and took you from her, swaying back and forth.

"Do you want to get changed before you sleep?" Spencer asked, his words no louder than whisper.

Elle groaned in response and lay down face-first on their bed. "When she gets hungry, wake me up immediately, got it?"

"I will." He leaned down to kiss her head and then tip-toed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

He made his way to the living room and stopped in front of the first bookcase.

His voice was kept low as he spoke to you. "These are my books. Your mom reads some of them also, but they're technically mine. When you get older, you can read them too, if you want. I hope you'll like reading. If you don't, that's okay. But I hope you do so we can all read together, I think that would be fun."

"This is my desk, it's where I sit and read sometimes. And send e-mails when I have to, but I always try to avoid them. And over here is your mom's desk—"

Spencer took you everywhere in the house, the kitchen, living areas, even the bathroom. He detailed the composition of the tiles and carpets; he told you stories about how he and Elle picked out each piece of furniture.

—

Elle woke up with worry digging into her chest. There was a slightly irrational anxiety that came with motherhood, she'd come to learn. It was irrational to think Spencer wasn't capable of taking care of you for little over an hour, and the other thoughts clouding her judgement were no more logical. She ignored the cold sting of the floor on her thinly socked feet, she needed to see you. "Spencer?"

"I'm— we're in the kitchen!"

She walked so quickly Spencer would've warned her about ripping her stitches if he saw.

His face lit up at the sight of her—messy hair, clothes twisted from sleep, still equally as beautiful to him as the first day he met her.

"Hi," he whispered. "I was just about to make us some coffee."

Elle walked closer, dragging her feet behind her. "Have you even put her down at all?"

"…No. My arms are starting to cramp."

"Give her to me." She rolled her eyes and reached her arms out.

Spencer carefully transferred you to her and shook out his arms to send life back into them, a grimace on his face.

Elle smiled watching him. "Regret not taking Morgan up on his work out offer yet?"

"Absolutely not," he said through a laugh.

He shut the cupboard with the speed of a snail to avoid it clattering. "I'll get used to carrying her."

"I'm sure you will, honey."

"Did you know that almost 70% of new parents report an increase in coffee consumption after having a baby?" Spencer added sugar to his coffee and none to Elle's. "Although, about 57% of them report still drinking more or less the same amount, as much as five years later."

"If you start drinking even more coffee, you're gonna start bouncing off the walls."

Spencer pursed his lips and started walking to the living room with their coffees in hand. He placed them on the coffee table and waited for Elle to sit next to him, resting an arm around her shoulder when she did.

"I took the liberty of ordering sushi, it should be here in about—" Spencer looked down at his watch "—eight minutes."

Elle rested her head on his shoulder and mumbled out a soft "Thank you."

She waited for her coffee to cool before drinking it, even though it dwindled its flavor. They sat in a comfortable silence, watching you sleep and absorbing the peace while it lasted. Spencer went to get their sushi and came back to the sound of your screaming that felt like it was gnawing at his heart. He watched helplessly while Elle tried to soothe you and get you to nurse. She inhaled a sharp breath when your focus shifted from sobbing to being fed.

Spencer put their food down and removed the plastic from Elle's chopsticks before going to get a fork for himself from the kitchen. He found himself going to turn on the show they started while Elle was on bed-rest, he stopped himself to prevent disturbing you.

Elle ate slowly to limit how much she moved, Spencer ate slowly because he didn't want Elle to feel alone.

He piled their plates onto each other and stood up with a creak in his knees. His feet stayed glued to their spot so he could look at you, yawning and curling into Elle's hands. If he looked closely enough, he could convince himself your frown looked just like your mother's.

"I'm, uh… I'm just gonna put these in the dishwasher and then go take a shower."

He eventually willed himself to look away from you and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Elle to muse at you by herself.

"I should get you to bed. I'd like to keep holding you but I think you need to get used to your crib sooner rather than later. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'll still be right there."

Her footsteps thudded against the floor until she got to the nursery. She changed you into fresh clothing and told you all about the hex codes of paint colors she and Spencer selected for the room.

"Now that you're all clean, you know what you can do?" She picked you up. "You can go back to sleep. I'm gonna lay down too, but I'll stay awake until your dad is done with his shower."

She arrived in their room and was about to put you down. Except, her arms didn't move. She stood in front of your crib, biting her tongue, for several minutes.

wel slung over his shoulder while he searched for a shirt. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Could you maybe get me one of her swaddles?"

"Of course I can." Spencer found the basket they'd stuffed with blankets and onesies and picked out a lilac swaddle.

He laid it out on their bed and folded one corner down before leaving to the bathroom. Elle wrapped you up in the blanket, a level of caution in her hands that she didn't know she possessed until she had you.

"Snug as a bug," she whispered, tucking in the final square. "Let's get you to sleep."

She lowered you into your crib, whispering things like: "I'll still be right here, I'm not going anywhere," more for herself than you.

Time stood still when she watched you drift off to sleep. She hadn't realized how much time passed until Spencer's footsteps met the floor behind her, a warning for her not to flinch when his arms inevitably found themselves around her waist. His nose softly smushed into the side of her head while he kissed her temple.

"She's really lucky to have you as her mom." Her hair dulled the clarity of his words but not their meaning.

"She's just as lucky to have you." She turned around so he could hold her properly and pulled him closer. "Really, we're lucky to have her."

Elle could feel his smile forming against her head. "I couldn't agree more."