chapter 1: convergence.

melody jones joined the bau to escape her past. turns out, one of the (only) good parts of it got there first. how is she meant to upkeep the new emotionless, capable, strong agent persona when he keeps unravelling her by merely being himself?

chapter 2: accretion.

melody gives in and allows herself a conversation with spencer, which turns out to reveal unexpected things about both parties. mainly, how they ended up here, of all places. she meets the rest of the team, gets tackled by a very colourful garcia, teased by morgan, and starts her first case.

chapter 3: in plain sight.

as the case unfolds, melody strives to prove herself capable. staring at 17th century ballads, forgetting dinner, and drowning in crime scene photos, yet still remaining plagued by an inconsistency in the profile that nobody else seems to notice.

chapter 4: reticence.

the case has closed, everyone's made it out in one piece. although, a sliver of confusion bothers the team, ie, the fact that their newest agent is still quiet, keeps to herself, and compartmentalizes a little too well. clearly, she couldn't care less about any of them.

chapter 5: twenty fourth orbits.

Spencer’s stack of files is no match for Derek’s—or anyone’s. The elastic hits his forehead, the sting yanking him out of his sixth case summary. Wrinkling his nose, he turns towards the obvious culprit.

“Can you let me work?” Spencer mutters—exasperation bleeding into fatigue.

“Come on, Reid. You’re the only one around here actually working. Live a little.”

“I’m doing my job,” he deadpans, pen tapping against paper.

“And you’ve done plenty.” Derek decides, chair rolling back as he stands up, coaxing Spencer to follow with a clap on his shoulder. “C’mon. You n’ me. Break time. Let’s go find Garcia.” Spencer casts one last look at his half-finished report before he’s pulled along like he had been yanked into a different gravitational field, towards a door labelled Tech Analyst. Penelope Garcia.

The office is less of an office and more of a personalized batcave—if Batman preferred ceramic cats, glittery pens, and rainbow patterned unicorns. The trinkets on her desk form a riot of colour, yet somehow none of it clashes. The woman behind it all—Penelope Garcia herself—has her face inches away from one of her many monitors. She doesn’t even notice her guests until Derek calls out, “Babygirl! What’re you up to?” Spencer shuffles awkwardly behind them—still anxious about not working like he’s supposed to be—but even he can’t deny the curiosity and wonder what Penelope is so focused on.

Penelope looks over her shoulder in genuine shock, which quickly fizzles into excitement. She’s giddy—the kind she gets when she’s bursting to share a secret she should definitely be keeping to herself. “Ooh! Perfect timing, you two. Look what I just found,” she announces dramatically, gesturing to the screen.

The monitor displays a database with more text than Derek cares for after drowning in paperwork all morning. He blows out a breath. “Alright. What am I lookin’ at?”

Spencer cuts in at the same time, “‘Potential candidates’?” he mutters under his breath, work momentarily forgotten as he leans closer, reading through the agent descriptions over Penelope’s shoulder.

“They’re hiring somebody new. It’s a list of ‘exceptional academy graduates’,” he explains, a mix of curiosity and surprise colouring his tone.

“Who?” Derek asks, scanning the words eagerly.

“There’s not much information. Just last names, ages, and grades. Lennox, Calloway, Jones, and Beck. I don’t think we’re supposed to be looking at these...”

Derek groans, ignoring Spencer completely—a common occurrence by now. “So we’re getting a new profiler?”

Penelope clicks her tongue, scrolling through another database on a separate screen, “We don’t know if this is for the BAU.”

“Can’t you find out? I’m dying to know now. A fresh face would definitely bring in some fun.”

“This is all I could find! I can try accessing their personal details…”

Spencer cuts in, stammering from rule-breaking-anxiety. “You probably shouldn’t do that. In fact, I don’t think we’re supposed to be looking at this either– How did you even access this?” Penelope glances away, twisting her lips to one side in an unconvincing show of innocence.

“Penelope.” Derek urges. After the painfully dull day he’d endured, he wasn’t letting this go.

“I heard from a little birdie, that heard from another little birdie, that overheard a certain birdie-loving-birdie talking about new hires! And, y’know, you should always confirm your sources, so I wanted to find out if it was true. That’s all!” she explains, twirling a pen between two manicured fingers.

Spencer blinked at her, “You eavesdropped on Gideon?”

That earned him a thwack on the arm via a pink and fuzzy weapon. “No! I didn’t. Anderson did.”

“If Gideon’s hiring them, it must be for the BAU. And they must be pretty damn great to earn his approval. Recruited our pretty boy here as well, right?” Derek asks, nudging Spencer’s shoulder.

“He did...” Spencer mutters absently, eyes fixating on the screen again.

Spencer—despite being quite the technophobe—would describe his brain as a web browser with an unlimited capacity for tabs. They do their own thing in the background, and he switches between them when needed. Simple. As a surprise to no one, it can get overwhelming. And despite there being no limit, the more tabs you open, the laggier it gets.

Said browser has opened a brand new tab, completely against his will, focusing on a name too generic to mean anything yet too special to brush off—Jones. He hasn’t switched to the tab, but it’s there, running in the background, lingering just beside the back door of his mind, too stubborn to leave.

Derek rolls his eyes, “I really hope he’s not getting us another Reid.”

“I just hope it’s a woman.” Penelope chimes in, “I’m sick of all the testosterone here. It’s, like—” she pantomimes an overdramatic choking gesture “—suffocating.”

Derek laughs, clapping her shoulder, “You know you love me.”

The two of them launch into their usual banter while Spencer stares at the screen, brows furrowed, the slightest frown to his lips—thinking face. Despite running multiple background processes and being an expert at ignoring Derek, the comment still cuts through the noise. Worse, it lingers. He’s not quite sure how he’d feel about another genius on the team, even if Derek was probably joking, the probability—which he tends to trust more than gut—remains.

There’s a childish part of him that twitches like a struck nerve—old insecurities bubbling back up to the surface, reminding him of every classroom he’d ever outgrown. He’s supposed to be the genius. The smart one. Even if that characteristic isolates him. Paints a bright red target on his back for every harmless joke. It’s still the only thing that proves his necessity. And for Spencer Reid, who calculates his self-worth based on his intellect and the good he can do for others, this feels like a shift in the equation, a variable he can’t control.

There’s a smaller yet still distinct part of him that’s relieved—at least he won’t be the new kid anymore. At least someone else will be the one fumbling through first days and unfamiliar hallways.

And of course, threaded through all of it—steady as a pulse—is curiosity. The one emotion he trusts most. Who is this mystery agent that managed to tilt his entire emotional balance in just over 31.5 seconds?

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

“Jason, are you sure about this?”

“Trust me. I think she’d be a perfect addition to the team.”

Hotch sighs, running a hand over his face as he studies the man before him. He trusts Gideon—more than that, he trusts Gideon’s judgement. Gideon wouldn’t have suggested Reid if he hadn’t been absolutely certain in every aspect of his decision. And the kid has made Gideon proud. Hotch isn’t sure what the team would do without him.

Still, it’s not the agent he’s wary about. It’s the bureau. It’s been four months since Reid came aboard. Hotch doubts Strauss will sign off on another hire now—their budget’s already bleeding, and Greenaway’s transfer is all but guaranteed. The timing is wrong, and the bureau never hesitates to remind him of that.

“I’ll talk to them. They’ll listen to me. I really think she should be at the BAU, Aaron. It’s the perfect fit. I don’t like the idea of wasting her potential in a different department.”

Hotch considers it, rubbing a hand over his chin as he stares at the man in front of him. He could already hear Strauss’ voice in the back of his head—no funds, no room, no exceptions. But Gideon wasn’t talking about budgets. He was talking about capability. About the kind of agent who mattered when it counted.

Still, another agent meant another life he’d be responsible for—another person stepping into the dark with them. That was not a choice he made lightly. If Gideon was wrong, she wasn’t the only one who would pay the price—they all would.

Gideon’s faith meant something—but Hotch didn’t hire based on faith alone.

He doesn’t trust easily. But he trusts Gideon. And he trusts what he can evaluate.

“Fine,” he says at last, straightening, “I’ll interview her.”

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Planets don’t stay in orbit forever, though they can remain stable for billions of years. A planet’s orbit can be altered by gravitational influences from other celestial bodies, potentially leading to collisions, falling into the star, or even ejection from the solar system itself. However, these changes typically occur gradually, and over the course of millions of years.

Melody didn’t leave her orbit slowly though. It was sudden, spontaneous, unplanned, insert every synonym for impulsive here. She could probably name all of them too—because of course she could.

That’s really not the point. The point is, Melody doesn’t know how she ended up here. Or; she does. Maybe it’s the why she doesn’t know. Maybe she’s just filled with regret. Maybe regret is easier to sit with than honesty. Maybe this is what happens when you stray away from your stable orbit and end up free-floating through space until a completely different celestial body sucks you into its orbit, forcing you to circle around and around, whether you’d wanted to or not. In this case, the BAU.

Melody smooths down the same strand of straightened hair for the millionth time, tucking it behind her ear. Untuck. Tuck. Untuck. Repeat. There’s half-eaten breakfast on the kitchen counter. A pile of clothes on her bed. Multiple reminder notes scattered across the apartment like constellations. They range from documents to bring, interview questions to look over, and emails to answer.

She blends out the same patch of tan foundation for the third time. Dabs at her lip gloss for the fourth time. Rehearses conversation starters—as well as possible answers—for the fifth time.

The reflection doesn’t quite feel like herself. Which is exactly what she’d been aiming for. Her curls have been ironed into submission. Her skin itches beneath the unfamiliarly formal outfit—white button-up, black pinstripe blazer, matching slacks. Her sleeves aren’t rolled up. Her hair is an inch closer to her face than she’d prefer. The fidget ring she’s never seen without glares mockingly at her from the dresser. Shirt buttoned suffocatingly to the collar. Tie only adding to the suffocation—she lets herself loosen it an inch. The makeup’s minimal. Bag packed precisely. Keychains removed—abandoned in a sad pile on her desk.

She tells herself this is what is required. What fitting in looks like. The fact that she feels nothing like herself is a good thing.

The ball of anxiety sizzling inside her sternum makes her pull out her phone, unnecessarily confirming that she had in fact been hired. That this wasn’t some huge mistake, elaborate prank, or simply a fantasy she’d dreamed up. She re-reads every word of every email from Agent Hotchner, scrolls down far enough to re-read the ones from Agent Gideon as well.

There’s no doubt about it. She was hired three days ago as a profiler with the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit and she is to start on Monday, the 12th of September. A quick glance up to the top of her phone screen confirms the date too. It is September 12th. She has been hired. She is supposed to be there in thirty minutes.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Boots scuffing against the floor, Melody shoulders open the glass doors of the BAU. Posture pin-straight, hand clutching the strap of her bag on her shoulder like a shield. Her gaze sweeps over the room, taking it in, filing away each and every detail for future reference and comparing it to the layout she’d looked up. Her eyes flick from desk to desk, searching for the empty one assigned to hers. It lingers on a particular workspace, seemingly cluttered on first glance—organised in piles and systems on further inspection. Books line the partition. A mug teeters too close to the edge. A fountain pen sits on an open case file.

The desk beside it is empty. The one across it is too, except for a singular box right in the middle. Forcing her fingers to stop fiddling with the brand new glossy badge hanging from her belt loop, she crosses the threshold, finally making her way deeper into the bull pen.

Melody concocts a mental list of tasks she’s meant to do today. They’re supposed to meet for a case briefing in an hour—just a consult, though. Look over the files sent by the P.D, create and send over a profile to aid in their investigation. Simple enough as opposed to the usual chaos she’s heard of. She needs to finish her tasks in those sixty minutes before the briefing.

Melody checked off most of them before even entering the bull pen. She’s been issued her badge, firearm, bureau-issued phone & laptop for cases, database access codes—VICAP, NCIS, CODIS, the works. All that’s really left is settling in—setting up her desk to ensure everything is set for maximum efficiency.

She drops her bag on the desk, ready to start organising, simultaneously planning how she’ll introduce herself once the rest of the team filters in. Getting here early was supposed to make this easier. Give her time to breathe, settle, and not embarrass herself immediately.

Seconds from sitting down, she snaps upright at the sound of a voice.

“It’s true! When the camera was connected to the Internet a couple years later, the coffee pot gained international renown as a feature of the World Wide Web, before being retired in 2001. Not to mention—”

Everything stills. The fluorescent hum of overhead lights, the agents conversing across the room, her own breathing. Her attention narrows to the two men walking past. The one she can see looks exasperated, finding his coffee a lot more interesting. The other had his back to her, but there was no mistaking that cadence—that rapid fire ramble as it droned on and on about the history of the first webcam, the too-long hair tucked behind his ears, little tufts at the ends.

She squinted, tilting her head to get a view of his face, needing to confirm the impossible theory her mind was concocting. Probability said no. Her heart said otherwise.

If he would just face her direction a little more—

“Hey, new girl!”

Melody freezes, eyes flickering between the two men who were now most definitely facing her. The voice’s source eyes her curiously, but her gaze freezes on the brunette. Eyes wide, professionalism forgotten, theory confirmed.

Somehow, he looked both completely different and the exact same. The same furrow between his brows, the same brown eyes—too wide, too earnest, the ones she’d never quite forgotten even after all these years—staring right back at her, travelling over every inch of her face just to confirm for himself.

Spencer—genius, certified rambler, the boy she used to share library tables and late-night walks with—couldn’t speak. His brain was on overdrive, eidetic memory comparing snapshots from past memories to the woman in front of him. Her hair was longer now—straighter too—spilling a few inches past the shoulder-length he remembers. Her posture straighter. Her eyes so familiar they knock the wind out of him.

Despite the bustling bull pen, time seems to take a backseat just for the two of them. The moment lingers, suspended in time, every second morphing into minutes, every thought bringing back memories, until one singular word finally escapes, filling the silence between them. A word unexpected to the average person, confusing to the man they’d forgotten was still observing, yet carrying a meaning only the two of them really understood.

“Star?”

If her theory hadn’t been confirmed earlier, it certainly has been now. No other person had ever called her that. No other person had ever looked so utterly transfixed by her. No other person had ever been special enough to shatter her carefully crafted facade of perfect professionalism.

“Spence.”

Quantum entanglement.

A phenomenon where two or more particles become linked in such a way that they share the same fate, no matter how far apart they may be. Once connected, they remain connected—despite separation, despite any amount of distance between them in space and time.

“Hold up, you guys know each other?” Morgan cuts in and Melody finally tears her gaze away, blinking, recalibrating, trying to remember how to function. She straightens, attempting to summon back her practised introductions and limited social skills. Spencer seems to be doing the same.

“Uh, yeah.”

“From college.”

The simultaneous reply prompts another moment of staring between the pair, a hint of fondness pulling at Melody’s lips. Spencer urges his heart to slow at the sight.

Rounding the group of desks, Melody holds out a hand, words tumbling out—not quite the confident way she’d practised. “Sorry. Hi, I’m Special Agent Melody Jones. Just started today.” The title still felt foreign. Forced. Like she didn’t deserve it. Still needed to earn it somehow. She hoped she was the only one who thought that.

Morgan smiles, charming as ever, gripping her hand in a firm handshake. “Special Agent Derek Morgan. Nice to meet you.”

She nods, summoning a polite smile, head tilting to the side, gaze assessing the man in front of her in a matter of seconds. He seemed confident, relaxed. Dressed casually even in the sea of suits and ties. He belonged here, had nothing to prove, and he knew it. He was eyeing Spencer with an almost teasing look. The two seemed close. Spencer didn’t seem to notice—too busy staring at the girl who’d waltzed her way from past to present, back into his life, tilting his emotional balance with a singular look and one nickname.

She didn’t offer him a handshake. Part of him was touched that she remembered. The other part wanted one anyway. The nervous chuckle is somehow better.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here. I mean, what are the odds?” she murmurs, surprise hiding behind amusement as she tilts her head towards him.

“Probably quite low. I’m not sure there’s recorded statistics on that.” he offers, hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets, lips pulled into that familiarly crooked smile.

“Probably not.”

Morgan smirks, a curious look between the two of them. He recalls the day he, Spencer, and Garcia had discovered the possibility of a new agent. Even just that would’ve been enough entertainment for him. But new girl knows boy genius? Went to college with him? Even better. “Did Gideon reach out to you?” he asks, needing to confirm their earlier theory.

The slightest crease appears between Melody’s brows, not quite expecting the question. Catching his subtle smirk, she felt like she was missing something. Like there was a hidden joke she wasn't a part of—not the best feeling. “Uh, not really. I heard about the opening while I was still in college. Although, Gideon did vouch for me to join the BAU, which I’m quite grateful for.” she explains.

“Interesting. Welcome to the team, Agent Jones. I hope you find it somewhat tolerable.”

She chuckles, shoulders dropping a hint of tension. Morgan’s nice. Easier to talk to than all the stoic men in suits she’s encountered so far. “Thank you, Morgan.” She smiles—polite and barely noticeable, but there—watching as he goes back to his desk across the aisle, leaving the two of them alone.

“Is that your desk?” Spencer nods towards the burgundy bag plopped onto the top left desk in the four grouped ones behind her.

“Yeah. The empty one with the bag.”

Spencer smiles, equal parts nervous and excited. “You’re right next to mine.”

A man has noticed them. Short, dark-haired, thick mustache, grey suit, carries his firearm on his right hip, approaching Hotch and JJ.

“Afternoon. Captain Griffith, task force commander,” he introduces, gripping Hotch’s hand. The introductions are short, rushed—they’ve got more important things to do, places to be. The captain looks the team over, gaze lingering over Melody who’s already managed to be the different one by merely existing, by being a foreigner in a country that’s raised her for the past thirteen years. Her handshake is brief, unintentionally cold, before she bolts to the boards. Gideon’s a step ahead, muttering under his breath, eyes scanning. Analysing in the kind of way you only get to do with 30+ years under your belt. There’s a semi-circle of three boards, every inch filled with photos, lists, notes, and a large map. Academy crime scene photos have taught her just enough about compartmentalizing. She has further taught herself to view things from an intellectual lens—never emotional. How she’ll react at an actual crime scene is what’s actually worrying. Creating a new section in her busy mind, she starts concocting a plan for that—running it as a background process alongside the case.

The whir of the printer draws her to Spencer. He’s standing in front of it, hands shoved in his pockets, weight shifting from one foot to another, apologising when someone bumps into him, back to fidgeting. She doesn’t realise she’s doing it again as she tilts her head, watching him tap his fingers along the plastic edge of the scanner lid. He seems taller now, probably isn’t actually, males stop growing between the ages of 16-18. 20 in some rare cases, which Spencer has always managed to end up in. Still, she concludes he only holds himself taller. The average person might not find him confident at all, but there’s a considerable difference between this Spencer’s confidence and the one from college. It makes her wonder what else could’ve changed, and she feels that pull again. That gravity she can’t seem to put a label to. That urge to know him, inside and out, every intricacy of his brilliant mind, like she used to.

The whirring stops. Spencer collects the papers and turns. Melody would like to think she looked away at the right time, studying the very interesting details of the cork board, but he notices nonetheless. Wordlessly, he walks over, pinning the papers to an empty board.

This is why observing a person, rather than an object, complicates things.

There's a verse per paper, in order of crime scene. Spencer hands her the last sheet from the stack, “That’s a transcript of the actual ballad.”

Melody hums, re-reading it to refresh her memory. It’s been a while since fourth grade. “It’s quite long. Ten verses.”

“More room for future crime scenes,” he mutters under his breath, chin propped on his fist, elbow braced on his forearm, eyes scanning the board.

“So why’d he only start leaving them after the fourth victim? What about the first three?”

Spencer looks over, and forgets to stop. The nostalgia rushes in unauthorized. Despite priding himself on being the smart one, the focused one who checks all the boxes and gets the job done, he ends up studying her achingly familiar expression again. Furrowed brows, tilted head, slight frown, all the makings of focus. The same as back then, the same as the girl with stars in her eyes, ink stains on her fingertips, hair much wilder. Her questioning eye contact brings him to his senses. “Maybe there was something special about her…?”

She makes a skeptical noise, “They look similar. White. Dark hair. Upper-middle-class neighbourhoods. In the middle of the day too. High risk victims in a high risk area. He’s confident.”

“Right… Maybe there's a, uh, clue in the messages themselves,” he mutters, rushing to look away.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Technically, Melody’s working two cases at once, which isn’t all that unusual considering the amount of simultaneous processes her brain computes at any given moment. The ballad, being her literal job, takes top priority. Still, there’s a secondary analysis she’s been conducting ever since she met her coworkers—who’re also the subject of said analysis. It’s not just Spencer, even if he (unintentionally) takes higher priority for observation—which is most likely due to their past friendship and a natural curiosity for his current life as compared to the one she knew of, she tells herself.

But it’s the rest of the team too. Melody knows what the job entails, knows that she’ll likely be spending the larger part of it with these people, and that is exactly the problem.

Before moving out of her dorm at UPenn, where she’d just finished up her masters in criminal psychology, she had made sure to account for everything. And she does not take that word lightly. She picked her apartment based on not just the distance to Quantico, but meticulous calculations of multiple routes, public transport options if necessary, and traffic patterns, worked hard at the academy, researched every intricacy of how the bau works, and basically constructed a whole new identity. She has absolutely no intent to associate with the old Melody Jones. The Melody Jones who had run from California after a regretful gap year, and ended up in Pennsylvania with a completely new purpose. The Melody Jones who set aside her dreams for something much darker than space, for studying the human mind, ones much like those who’d hurt her, for understanding the why of their actions, and the how of prevention.

So, no, she’s not the old Melody Jones anymore. But one thing the two still share in common is the need for preparation and a fear of the unpredictable.

So, yes, perhaps that’s why she’s been psychoanalysing every single one of her co-workers. Can you blame her? They’re the only thing she couldn’t predict, couldn’t prepare for. She’s already been reunited with her best friend from five years ago. The boy she’d drag to the roof to stargaze with, to the convenience store to concoct too-sugary dinners with, to the library to study with, is now standing beside her. A former STEM student, unimaginable prospects, a million expectations placed on him by those he was surrounded by, turned somehow into an FBI agent. Just like her. Who knows what other surprises are in store?

“Jones. Reid. What’ve you got so far?”

Hotch has just arrived from the Gordons’. There had been another attack. A failed one, thankfully, with Mrs. Gordon alive, only traumatised and carrying valuable information to help with their case. Melody wonders if Mrs. Gordon wishes he’d have just killed her. She certainly remembers hoping the same.

What she’s got so far is that Elle either does or did specialise in sex crimes—Hotch had asked her to work on the sexual aspect of the crime, specifically ‘what kind of rapist is he independent of the homicides?’—and that she seems to like the job, works in a way that says she fought to earn her place here, and she’ll be damned if that’s taken from her. Gideon does most of his thinking in quiet, and keeps a close enough eye on her that it’s terrifying. Morgan and Garcia have an… interesting relationship. Hotch’s a tough one. All she’s gotten is cold, serious, workaholic boss. But she’s sure she’ll figure him out too with time. Along with JJ, who she hasn’t seen much, her being glued to the telephone across the station half the time.

Right, he’s asking about the actual case, not the secondary one her brain’s been chipping at.

“The theme of the poem is class. At one point in the poem, the woman attempts to bribe Death, but he doesn’t accept it. He says this is the one moment where riches can’t help you. When death comes, the poor and the rich are exactly alike,” Spencer explains, hands moving in gestures he must deem necessary with how much he does it.

“So, he’s likely poor and is envious of those that have more than him, of the higher class, hence the victimology. I’ve narrowed it to middle-class, since a lower-class person would probably stick out in such a heavily patrolled neighbourhood.” Melody adds, her hands hidden in her pockets.

“Also,” Spencer starts, holding up the transcript of the original poem, “It looks like he’s written most of the first three verses of the ballad.”

Hotch raises a brow, “Most of?”

“Yeah, it’s only one side of the conversation. There’s no betwixt.” Spencer chuckles, the sound fizzling into awkwardness.

“He only writes Death’s lines. Not the lady’s. I suppose he sees himself as Death, then? Likes being in control…?” Melody mutters, suddenly unsure under Hotch’s intense gaze, shoulders drawing inwards.

“It could stem from feeling inadequate in his personal life. Anything else?” Hotch asks, handing the sheet back.

“Yeah, a question. Why didn’t he leave them at the first three crime scenes?” Spencer asks, “There’s plenty of verses to go around.”

“It’s not a signature then. It isn’t something he has to do for an emotional release.”

Melody follows the voice to Gideon, sitting beside Morgan at the table near the evidence boards.

“Then why start now?” she mutters.

There’s a beat before Gideon stands up, looking at JJ across the room. “JJ. Find out when the press ran the first story on this unsub.”

She looks up from her computer, brows furrowed, “When?”

“After which victim.”

“Alright, you got it.”

Morgan shuts the file in his hand to glance at Gideon, “What’re you thinking?”

“He wasn’t getting enough attention.”

“Police departments sometimes don’t even realise they’re looking at a pattern, until it’s pointed out,” Spencer rattles off, leaning against the board next to an observing Melody.

“The story ran the morning after the fourth victim was found,” JJ says from across the room, telephone balanced between her ear and shoulder.

“Increased patrols didn’t begin until after the fourth victim either,” Morgan adds.

A door swings open, Elle leaving the interview room to join the group, “The offender in this new attempt is a black male.”

Morgan looks up, “Cross-racial? That doesn’t happen.”

“How about Herbert Mullin? He killed fourteen different people of completely varying ages, races, and creeds,” Spencer says.

“Yeah, but there was no sexual component to his crimes,” Elle insists, “Also, this attacker wore a ski mask.”

It’s silent for a moment as everyone processes. A million different thought processes taking place in a singular room, until Gideon decides, “Tell ‘em we’re ready.”

“For a profile?” Morgan furrows his brows.

“And to make Tommy contact us.”

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

The ladies room is small, painted an obnoxious blue that seems to be pressing in from all sides. And thankfully empty. Melody triple-checks the lock, turns the knob as a fourth, and sighs as she collapses against the plastic wall.

This isn’t unexpected. In fact, it’s exactly what she’d signed up for—a room full of officers, all eyes on her, words that matter, innocent women that depend on her conclusions. Yet, her pulse acts as if she’d committed a crime.

Here, she doesn’t tuck her habits away. Here, she picks at her nails, tucks her hair behind her ears, lets her expression stray from cold neutrality, taps a private pattern with her foot. Here, she presses at every cracking bit of her composure, ensuring the pieces remain together, careful not to show the haphazardly glued seams.

Three minutes remaining, by her estimate, until Hotch gathers the officers. An annoying but necessary timer ensures her of that, dropping to two minutes and fifty nine seconds on her phone. Then fifty eight. Then fifty seven. Then fifty six.

She flushes the unused toilet—an alibi in case anybody had been listening—and unlocks the stall in one decisive motion, berating herself internally, fixing herself externally. She untucks the hair from behind her ears, smooths it down, hides the curl she’d missed while straightening. Dabs a thumb at the spot of ruined lipstick she’d worried between her teeth. Wrings the fidgeting out of her hands. Washes them. Then, breathes. Five seconds in. Five seconds hold. Five seconds out. Repeat twice. Once she’s pleased enough with the reflection, she leaves.

All that breathwork is proved useless when a certain coffee-carrying man startles her, changing her practised expression to something much more wide-eyed.

“Shit. What’re you—”

“Sorry—”

They pause for a moment, until Spencer abruptly thrusts his left hand towards her, the one carrying a Pepsi can. “This is for you,” he says, too quickly, eye contact clearly against his nerves.

She blinks.

“I… I made myself a coffee and was gonna ask if you wanted one, but then I realised you already arrived with one this morning, and you try to avoid too much caffeine—especially when you’re anxious—but I thought you might want a drink, so, um, I got you an option with significantly lower caffeine levels from the vending machine. It, uh… didn’t have Coca-Cola. So. Pepsi.”

The metal can lingers between them, suspended awkwardly, waiting for her to recall how to speak.

He remembered.

She supposes she can’t give herself too much credit, considering his eidetic memory, but the fact remains—she crossed his mind. Melody ended up slithering her way between the innumerable things his brain processes at any given moment.

He’s just too caring for his own good, she thinks, would do the same for anybody else on the team. There’s no need to feel so… special.

“Oh. Thank you, Spence,” she mutters, quieter than intended, eyes deciding to soften without consulting her mind. The nickname hadn’t requested consultation either, but she’s momentarily distracted from overthinking it upon noticing how he brightens.

“You’re welcome. We’re, uh, almost ready for the profile,” he adds, clearing his throat and straightening up.

“Right. Yeah, let’s go.”

Stepping aside, he lets her through the narrow hallway first, into the busier part of the station where all the officers have gathered. Hotch nods at their arrival, beginning to explain the profile as Melody and Spencer file into position. She holds the now opened can close to her chest like a shield, mentally rehearsing her part, free hand hidden in her pocket.

Hotch and Gideon explain the killer’s organised nature, transitioning to Spencer explaining the message behind the poem, and then to Melody who’s supposed to be explaining his envy, and the reasoning behind their conclusion of the Tommy killer being middle-class.

Which would be a whole lot easier if a million eyes weren’t boring into her soul like that, lasers burning through her chest to dig out the answers she’s expected to provide.

Her fingers tap against the can, torn-up nails collecting condensation. She swallows. Un-hunches her shoulders. Clears her throat.

“The, uh— What this tells us is that he’s probably middle-class. A decidedly lower-class person might stick out in such a heavily patrolled upper-class neighbourhood, but he blends in. Furthermore, the unsub identifies as Death, which is why he only leaves those specific verses at each crime scene. Being Death makes him feel powerful. He’s obsessed with control, so his everyday life will likely be the converse. A menial job. Perhaps a dominating wife,” she rattles off, in a race against anxiety, “Also, the fact that he only started leaving the messages at the fourth crime scene, coinciding with when the press ran the story, shows a need for attention. He wants you to connect his crimes together. This, coupled with the need for control, stems from a feeling of inadequacy or disappointment with his current life and/or self. Committing the crimes are the only times he feels powerful, so he’s… uh, gonna keep chasing that.” The words come out too quick, too obviously rehearsed, and her chest tightens with embarrassment, fingers twitching to pick at her nails again. It doesn’t matter that an officer has asked why the killer glues their eyes open. It doesn’t matter that all the attention is now on Elle who’s explaining—far more confidently—exploitative rapists and how the victim’s eye contact is much more important to the unsub than the act itself. It does not matter at all because she’s sure the forefront thing on every single person’s mind is how incapable she is. How she clearly doesn’t belong here. How, if she can’t even speak properly, is she meant to be good at her job. How the FBI overestimated her based on IQ alone, and when they realise how truly useless she is, they’ll be extremely disappointed.

“And a final point, he is white,” Gideon states, pulling her momentarily out of her head.

The officers don’t seem convinced. Heads scramble to others, brows knit together, the captain speaks up, “We have witnesses that identify him as a black male.”

Gideon nods, “The attacker was black. He is not the Tommy killer.”

“Mrs. Gordon’s husband came home at the same time he always does. The Tommy killer would’ve known that,” Hotch explains.

“And he wore a ski mask. The unsub knows that when he enters a house, he is going to kill his victims. Why wear a ski mask if you’re not leaving witnesses?” Elle adds.

“Your attempted rapist is a garden-variety, disorganised young man.”

“As the victim’s age goes up, generally, the attacker's age goes down. Mrs. Gordon is about sixty which puts her rapist at about twenty.”

Gideon speaks up, now sitting at the edge of a desk, “And it takes years to develop the level of calm and sophistication the unsub has. The rapist is too young for that.”

“Mrs. Gordon told me there’s a young man who delivers groceries to her home. He fits a lot of what we’re describing here,” Elle says.

Captain Griffith sighs, “Great. So we’re back to square one on the Tommy killer.”

“Not at all. May I see you in your office for a moment?” Hotch asks, leaving little room for argument as he begins walking there anyway.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

The air is tense. Everyone’s huddled into groups, scattered across desks, eyes trained on their respective telephones. On Melody’s left, Spencer’s fiddling with a rubix cube. On her right, Elle has been sliding a wireless computer mouse from left to right to left. They’re the only reason Melody had allowed herself to pluck a rubber band from the ball in front of her, twisting and turning it in her hand under the desk until it formed a star.

Hotch is pacing somewhere behind her. Morgan has just set down his telephone with a sigh and a mumbled curse. JJ’s updating Garcia, who had set up a trap and trace.

It’s a simple plan, theoretically at least, and has gone smoothly so far. Morgan and Elle had arrested Mrs. Gordon’s grocery deliverer earlier, got a confession out of the anxious kid before they even made it to the police car, and had made sure his face was plastered all over the 11 o’clock news for the unsub to see. He’s supposed to be making an angry call any minute now, demanding attention back to him, furious that the public would connect an amateur to his crimes.

“I hate waiting like this,” Elle groans, clearly restless as she fiddles with the scroll wheel.

“It’s only been—” Melody glances at her watch, “thirteen minutes since the news broke. Depending on how frequently he watches tv, I calculated about three minutes for him to check the news, ten minutes for watching that specific segment, two or so minutes of him likely processing and beginning to get angry about it, and then calling within the next five, which brings us to an approximate total of twenty minutes, of which we’ve still got seven minutes remaining,” she offers automatically, like it was obvious, more focused on forming a rubber band shape than her math-ramble.

“That can not be accurate,” Morgan teases, amused, over his shoulder from the desk in front of them.

Melody blinks, finally glancing up and realising the three pairs of eyes on her, “No, that’s why it’s an estimation. You can’t possibly predict the exact timestamps of a specific person’s behaviour like that, not without multiple samples, at least. Even then, you’d only get an average.”

“So you’re admitting you’re wrong?”

Instead of recognising it as innocent teasing, her shoulders tense defensively. “No, I’m saying the minimum amount of time it’d take for him to call us hasn’t passed yet, so we can’t possibly expect the phone to ring. Not until the next—” she glances at her wrist again, “five minutes at least.”

Morgan, much to Melody’s confusion, shakes his head and turns back to his desk without another word. Spencer’s been watching her intently the whole time, unbeknownst to her, something almost fond in his eyes.

“You really are Reid 2.0,” Elle mutters, though she lacks the teasing Morgan had.

Melody blinks, unsure how to feel about that in any way but positive, “Thanks?”

The telephone, apparently hell-bent on proving Morgan wrong, rings just a minute past Melody’s timer. Nobody thinks much of it until Detective Martin stands up, gesturing at everyone, whispering, “Hey. Hey! Pick it up. Pick up!”

“Line six, Penelope. Line six.” JJ conveys.

The unsub’s voice rings throughout the room as soon as Elle presses the speaker button, loud, aggressive, angry, something Melody leans away from instinctively, as opposed to Elle and Spencer leaning closer.

“You stupid, incompetent sons. of. bitches! I don’t make mistakes, you hear me? I am Death. I am Death,” he yells, voice fizzling into something more sinister as he continues, “You will see tomorrow. Mark my words. You. Will. See. And while I’m taking her, I’m going to be thinking of you!”

There’s a thump before the line cuts. Everything moves rapidly after that.

“Anything?” JJ asks Garcia.

“Are you kidding me? I… Look. I don’t know how this is possible. There was definitely enough time for me to get a location, but I got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Let me work on this.”

“She said she got nothing.”

“Nothing?” Morgan asks, bewildered.

Hotch furrows his brows, hands resting on his hips, “We missed him?”

The air isn’t just tense now, it’s disappointing. Worried. Stifling. And unbearably silent for a long, long moment.

“He said tomorrow. He’s angry, and acting impulsively for the first time. Hasn’t done the kind of surveillance he usually does. He’ll probably make a mistake. We could try and… catch him in the act,” Hotch theorises.

The captain’s skeptical, like he still doesn't quite trust the concept of profiling, “As in, wait for him in surveillance cars? How could we possibly know what victim he’ll target next?”

“We divide into groups, scatter ourselves across the neighbourhood. We calculated a five square mile radius earlier, where the previous victims coincide.”

“We don’t even know what time. All he said was tomorrow.”

“Well, then we start in the morning.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before the captain gives in. He really doesn’t have much of a choice. It’s a good plan. A little haphazard, but solid considering the circumstances.

“Alright. Pack up. Get some rest. We’ll meet back at the station at seven.”

Melody hesitates, too invested and restless to find the idea of a hotel bed appealing. Nonetheless, she acquiesces, stuffing her phone, notebook, and pen into her purse, lingering awkwardly as she waits for the team to finish up. Her gaze lingers on Spencer’s messenger bag, laying open on a desk, two books peeking out. It’s the exact same one he had in college, she realises, just newer, definitely a repurchase. Classic Spencer Reid and his discomfort with change.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

The drive is quiet. A forty minute long silence broken occasionally by the two men in the front seat, bickering over music tastes, ending in Spencer’s rambling and Morgan’s tired sighs. It confuses her—the team’s reactions to his talking. There’s a lot of things Melody understands, but not wanting to listen to him is a concept she can’t quite grasp. She notes that her own rambling will likely not be appreciated either.

The hotel lobby is quieter. Sparsely decorated, chipping at the edges, the room washed in a pale yellow that looks too unnatural to feel comforting. Hotch passes out room keys with the same precision he handles case files with, muttering something about getting rest that Melody’s ears willfully left unheard. Soon enough, she’s trapped in a painfully awkward elevator with Spencer, room keys in hand, bags swinging back and forth like they’d signed a mutual contract to fidget.

“Did you know most hotel rooms don’t wash their bedding?”

She turns, squinting at him in the flickering light, eyes scanning over his face. He looks somehow softer now, even if in a steel box and harsh blinking lights. Exhaustion, maybe, having dulled his usual precision from the inside out, leaving slumped shoulders, a stray curl he moves out his eyes, and slightly dishevelled clothes. Her eyes borrow some of the softness, throwing in a personal hint of unauthorized fondness.

“No. Eugh, that’s gross.”

He nods, a little too enthusiastically considering the subject, “It’s true! They wash and change the bedsheets, pillowcases, and towels. But, the comforter is only washed once a month in most budget hotel chains, unless there’s a visible stain.”

Melody’s face scrunches, possibly the most emotion her face has conveyed the whole day, just as the doors squeak open.

“How wonderful,” she mutters, stepping into the hallway, “You must hate that.”

Spencer’s reply is halted by surprise, parted lips turning into a crooked smile, and Melody feels that yet-to-be-explained pull again. Brief, easy to ignore, but as real as any gravity.

“Yeah… Yeah, I do. I uh, bring my own sheets.”

Her expression eases further into amusement, “I’m honestly not surprised.”

“We shed up to fifteen million skin cells every night, which feed into bacteria and dust mites. Imagine the amount of germs from a month old comforter used by an innumerable amount of guests,” he rattles off until they reach a reluctant end—his door, labelled 401.

“Definitely don’t want to use that comforter anymore.” She chuckles, fiddling with the room key—402. The conversation dissolves into a silence that lingers, neither of them wanting to break it for it meant ending their brief moment together. Melody’s gaze flickers between spots indecisively while Spencer’s remains constant on her.

“Well… Uh. I’m gonna try to get some sleep anyway,” Melody mutters, offering a tiny hint of a smile.

“Right. Yeah. I- Me too.” He shakes his head once, stepping closer to his door, and then manages to blurt out, “Good night, star.”

And she brightens exactly like one.

“Good night, Spence."

Melody, does not sleep. She couldn’t possibly lie down, shut her eyes, and stop thinking long enough to ‘get some rest’ as Hotch had insisted. No, instead, she only gets ready for bed, but excludes the sleeping part. She takes a shower, and finally, finally gets to be free of the enforced suffocation that is a tie, collar, and slacks. Leaving the suit in a haphazard pile on her dresser, she finally gets to breathe properly in a tank top and sweatpants. She takes her contacts out, puts on her glasses, adjusts the thermostat to be lower, combs her now curly and wet hair, puts her noise-cancelling headphones on, and then drops a pile of files onto the bed.

By two in the morning, she’s turned the bed into her own evidence board. It may look like an utter mess to an outsider, but every report, every photo, every file is arranged meticulously in clusters, a purple sticky note accompanying most of them with barely legible scribbles. She’s standing on the mattress now, hands on her hips, eyes scanning across the board, up, then down, then again. There has to be something they’ve missed. Sitting around and waiting for the unsub to strike just isn’t good enough for her. There’s got to be some clue, some tiny detail she’d overlooked, that would tie into their profile just perfectly enough to provide further insight into this unsub, maybe even enough to start a suspect list.

Her eyes linger on the crime scene photos, specifically the one of Brenda Samm’s close-up. She slides back into a sitting position with a thump, plucking the photo from its spot. The camera’s focused on Brenda’s eyes, glued open, unnatural. Wrong. But she can’t let that get to her right now. What she’s looking at are the creases on her neck that suggest her head was facing sideways, and her cheek pressed against the mattress. Elle’s voice comes back in pieces, the part she’d only half-registered during her own spiraling.

The unsub is an exploitative rapist. Most rape victims close their eyes during the attack, turn their heads. For some rapists, this ruins the fantasy. For this type of rapist, the goal is more related to the victim watching them than the act itself.

Why, then, is Brenda Samms facing sideways? The unsub was on top of her. Shouldn’t she be lying on her back, facing upwards? Why would he stage her that way?

What is she looking at?

By three a.m, Melody has looked at every single crime scene photo in an attempt to envision it herself. She’s even sketched out the room’s layout based on the photographs—laying on her stomach, brows furrowed, scribbling in her notebook, mapping out the scene. A photo taken from the foot of the bed shows a sliver of sunlight across Brenda’s back. A window. She looks closer. The rectangle of sunlight starts in the middle of her spine and ends on the mattress to her left. Light source on the left. Window on the left. Brenda is facing the left.

Why is she positioned to face the window, which, again, is not the unsub?

By four a.m, Melody realises her question remains just that. A question. A nagging curiosity that will vie for her attention all day. A mystery she couldn’t possibly unravel without having a look at the crime scene herself, especially at whatever’s outside that window—suddenly wishing she’d accompanied Morgan and Gideon yesterday instead of staying on the ballad. The ballad that clearly hadn’t been enough. She could’ve done both. She should’ve done both.

She falls asleep right there, sleep overcoming curiosity for once, files in a crooked stack on the foot of her bed as her body gives out right beside them.

What Melody wants to do is talk to Spencer. Go through the increasing list of questions she has for him. How’d he end up here? What did he do after college? Did he impulsively decide on the BAU too, despite being in the STEM field? Or was it his plan all along? Or did he change his plan after their time in college together?

They’d been young then. Only eighteen. Melody had been working on her masters in astrophysics, Spencer on his second PhD—Chemistry. Plans change. People change. That’s another question. Has he changed? What’s he like now?

That familiar spark of curiosity burns inside her—slow at first, before growing slowly but surely into an all-consuming fire. The constant need to know. To learn. To acquire answers. Force them out of the unknown, lock her hands around their throat, drag them into the light, and keep them safe in her head for a rainy day. The current subject of her curiosity being Spencer. The current object between taming her curiosity being her own anxiety.

How do you even start a conversation with someone you knew five years ago? A lot can happen in that time—too much, in her case. She isn’t the same person anymore. Surely, she can’t expect him to be either. Does she tackle this as a new relationship entirely? As if he’s a stranger? A co-worker she’s just met rather than the only person who ever managed to make her feel safe?

But that feels wrong. The two (and a half!) years of history, of shared books, of whispered secrets, of their first true friendship, it glares at her—begging to be preserved. Acknowledged. Remembered. Perhaps it would’ve been easier anywhere but at the job she fought so hard to get.

A stack of case files slides slightly to the right on his desk, reminding her absurdly of the stacks of textbooks he used to carry everywhere. That small parallel cracks open another door in her mind, curiosity rushing through it—what is he studying now? Thinking about? Chasing?

He looks busy. She can tell from the way she’d been watching him. Not staring. No direct eye contact—god forbid she looks up from her pretend work. Just out the corner of her eye. He’s staring down too, hands moving. Probably working on something she can’t see with the barrier in the way. Probably way too busy. Certainly not thinking about her. They’re at work, for god’s sake. This isn’t the Caltech courtyard anymore.

What she doesn’t see—too afraid to look up long enough to catch—is that Spencer keeps glancing over the barrier too. He’s not sure why. Habit, maybe. Or something closer to hope.

He’s been fidgeting for approximately eleven minutes and forty three seconds now. Spent most of them trying to squeeze out some semblance of a conversation starter. Accomplished only two sentences of his report.

He takes in a deep, shaky, and finalising breath—steeling himself for the terrifying task that is socialisation—before finally turning towards her.

The words he’d practised died in his throat, shoved back inside him, taking his breath along for the ride. Just the sight of her—even like this, especially like this, familiarly anxious, unfamiliarly better at hiding it. Her familiar eyes—a muted grey-green in this lighting—flickering over something hidden behind the barrier, half of her side profile obstructed by the foreign bangs that kiss her cheekbone, lips moving almost imperceptibly, only the air around her privy to the words. It fills his heart with a fondness he doesn’t allow himself anymore.

He forces himself to speak up before the stare teeters into creep territory. Unfortunately, the practised greeting was long gone, replaced by something he was much more comfortable with—observations.

“You still count things when you’re anxious.”

Melody’s head springs upwards, towards the gravitational pull of his voice, eyes shifting from startled, to something softer, before settling on amused.

“Not that I— It’s bad. Or anything. Just… uh, remembered,” he adds hastily

“You still tap your pen to the fibonacci sequence.”

He laughs like he hadn’t been planning to, and suddenly her shoulders feel lighter already, a poorly concealed smile teasing at her lips.

“I do. I remember the stares.”

“God forbid we use the library for actual studying.”

“Most of the students there were a disgrace to the bookshelves.”

“Eugh. Remember that couple who constantly made us move tables because apparently that was their spot? And then the whole time, half their ‘studying’ was pure giggling?”

He laughed, subconsciously tilting his chair towards her, drawn into her orbit, “Robert and Kayla,” he recalls easily, “Yet they teased us for scoring higher.”

“Oh, yeah. People are the worst. I don’t even wanna think about that part.”

“Me neither.”

It’s easier—talking to him. It always had been, even back then, and apparently now too. Her heart doesn’t train for a marathon. The words come without rehearsal. No internal edit. No careful pause to decide what version of herself to showcase.

It’s merely the previously established friendship, she tells herself.

“So…” Melody starts, then hesitates just long enough to give herself time to breathe. “What happened after college?” Her head tilts to the side, that usual curiosity filling her eyes, the one he’s seen too many times to not recognise.

Spencer pauses just long enough to tap his pen. Once. Once again. Twice.

“Oh, I, uh, got another PhD. Engineering. Probably would’ve gone into either research or academia. Then Gideon recruited me. Now… I’m here.” He yanks his gaze back to the conversation just in time to ask, “What about you?”

Out of all the conversation possibilities she’d prepared, she didn’t have any answers in store for this situation. Spencer Reid hadn’t exactly been on her ‘to-do (bau)’ list.

Her gaze averts, teeth sinking into the already reddened corner of her lip, “Uh… I took a gap year. But also, not really. It was just eight months. And then I decided to study criminology at UPenn. Got a bachelors and masters.”

Spencer blinks, trying to make sense of the complete landslide his (ex?) best friend’s future plans had taken. The Melody he remembered had had her next ten years planned out in a constellation-patterned, leather bound bullet journal. Bachelors. Masters. PhD. NASA JPL. Research astrophysicist. Binary and multiple-star systems. Planet formation and orbital dynamics. Dark matter/energy. He recalls every single word, every dream whispered on secret rooftops and park benches.

“Oh. What changed?”

“Um. Y’know. Just—” Another conversational possibility unaccounted for. Melody has a particular fear of the unpredictable. “Stuff. Life. Change of plans.” she finishes lamely, gaze averting again.

Spencer seems to pick up on it with the way his expression softens, unbeknownst to her. “Well, I’m glad you did. It was certainly a… pleasant surprise.”

He’s rewarded with a light chuckle, eye contact, and a soft “Yeah. It was.”

The pair end up sharing tidbits of the parts of their pasts they didn’t experience together. The FBI academy—how Melody did in fact not fail her physical qualifications, unlike the other genius, because of the increase in her athletic hobbies after that gap year she keeps glossing over. Spencer’s third PhD—resulting in a long-winded and actually-listened-to ramble about his dissertation topic.

There’s a lull in the conversation that’s just awkward enough for Melody to excuse herself to the bathroom—one Spencer blames his social ineptitude for. Really, she just needed to look over her appearance for the umpteenth time, especially since the briefing would be soon. Ensure she looked capable. She’s almost aiming for intimidating. Friendly can be dangerous. There’s been enough of that slipping out with the little college-best-friend-reunion.

She spots Agent Hotchner on the way back, who had been making his way to the bullpen to greet their new agent properly.

“Agent Jones.” Hotch extended a hand, expression just as serious as it had been during her interviews, save for the briefest flicker of warmth behind his scrutiny. “I hope you’re settling in well.”

Melody straightened up immediately, reciprocating the handshake and trying a polite smile. “I am. Got everything set up already.”

“Good. We gather for the briefing in ten with the rest of the team. They’ll be excited to meet you.”

“Excited. No pressure,” she mutters under her breath. Hotch’s expression drifts towards something gentler.

“You’ll be fine. I understand it can be nerve-wracking joining an established team, but I assure you they don’t bite.”

The chuckle comes a little later than it should’ve, delayed by her surprise at how quickly he’d read her. Perhaps the agent conducting her psych eval snuck social anxiety into her file. Either way, her smile is far more genuine now. “Right. Thank you. Besides, I know Spence—er already so, y’know, that’s a bonus.”

Hotch’s brows raise fractionally, gaze flickering towards the bullpen, “Really? Small world.”

She bites back the probabilities, facts, and numbers, forcing herself to just nod. “Very. I’ll, uh, see you at the briefing, then, Agent Hotchner.”

“Just Hotch is fine. S’what everyone calls me.”

“Right. Hotch.”

“Welcome to the team, Jones.” Somehow, he’s a little less intimidating as he leaves.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Melody stands in front of the wooden door, staring at it as if she might develop X-ray vision, see through it, and better predict what awaits her on the other side. Unfortunately, all she can do at the moment is breathe. Five seconds in. Five seconds out. Schooling her expression to neutrality, checking herself for any fidgeting, she finally turns the knob.

Her gaze sweeps across the room once, and it’s enough to catalogue everything. A blonde standing near the screen, juggling an armful of files. A brighter blonde typing away at a sticker-covered laptop. Hotch, Gideon, Morgan, an unfamiliar brunette, and Spencer sitting around the table, an empty seat right next to him. The atmosphere isn't tense. Just serious. Professional. No room for anything otherwise. Everyone flows in their own rhythm as mugs clink and keys tap. She just hopes she'll be able to fit into that rhythm. She hears the clearing of a throat, probably—hopefully—about to be introduced, but he never quite gets the chance.

“Oh. My. God.”

A blur of pinks, greens, and blonde rushes over to her, every word more squeal than sentence as she grabs at Melody’s arms, squeezing. Her shoulders tense immediately, eyes widening, brows raising, body leaning an inch backwards.

“My prayers have been answered! I told you guys we’d get a woman. Hi, it is so lovely to meet you. I’m Penelope Garcia. The tech analyst. The one who does all the computer-y, sneaky, non-killer-fighting things. A.K.A, the fun one.”

Despite this meeting being an amalgamation of everything that causes Melody to tense—loud, physical contact, and just completely unexpected in general—she can’t find it in herself to be annoyed. Taken aback, anxious, needing to get away, and surprised, maybe. But not upset. Penelope looks too sweet to be upset at. Lovely in a way that’s almost smothering. She’d feel too bad glaring at her, she thinks, as she erases it quickly.

“Nice to meet you. Melody. Jones. Melody Jones,” she exhales, “That’s— that’s my name.” she manages, amusement bleeding into that assessing expression every new person receives from her, a friendly hand extending between them.

“Ah! So you’re Jones. I just know tha—” She takes a step back, expression sheepish now—because of Hotch’s look, Melody realises—and she can finally breathe again, shoulders dropping once the contact ends. “Right. Sorry, sir.”

Elle stood next, confident in a way that seemed to be born more out of need than nature. Her dark eyes were just as assessing as Melody’s—that unnerved her—but the droplet of kindness beneath the surface helped. “Elle Greenaway. Welcome to the team.”

Melody accepted the firmer-than-expected handshake, smile practised, “Melody Jones. And, thank you.”

“You’re the second genius Gideon’s dragged in here, from what I’ve heard.” Elle said, tone dry enough to count as humour.

“I hope that’s a good thing.”

“It is. What’s the tally—three PhDs too?”

She’d been aiming for lightness. A joke to ease the tension, help her feel more welcomed, maybe give her a chance to brag. She doesn't realise she'd hit the wrong spot.

Melody’s eyes flicker away for a fraction of a second, easy to miss, as that familiar pit settles into her chest. A black hole, doing what black holes do, sucking away light, leaving behind a vacuum—taut, tense, bitter. She fixes a trained smile, “Uh, no, actually. Not yet.”

One of Elle’s brows raises—surprise, not judgement—before she nods.

“Five degrees and an IQ of 179, though.” she adds quickly, straightening up to show the confidence she’s never quite felt.

Elle’s reply is short, but honesty colours every bit, “Huh. Impressive.”

A less-intense blonde walks up, offering a polite handshake and a politer smile, “Jennifer Jareau—though, it’s usually just JJ. Welcome to the team.”

“Thank you. Nice to meet you.” Melody murmurs, the words almost robotic in their practised nature.

“Alright,” Hotch’s tone cuts through, “Shall we begin?”

Nodding, Melody quickly takes the closest empty seat—between Spencer and Penelope—carefully opening the file JJ places in front of her, “We’re heading to San Diego. Six victims in three weeks.”

Most likely an average of two a week, Melody calculates unnecessarily.

“Six in three weeks? Short fuse,” Elle points out.

“And it’s getting shorter. First two were eight days apart. The next four in two weeks.” Hotch adds.

“Rapid escalation. You think he’s regressing to a psychopathic frenzy?” Spencer asks.

“No, he seems too controlled for that.”

“Why’s he called the tommy killer?” Derek asks, flipping through crime scene photos.

Melody pulls out a photo of the latest victim—a close up of her face—and stares hard. Wide green eyes, popped blood vessels, head slumped against a mattress. “It’s like the rock opera—Tommy, by The Who. ‘See me. Feel me. Touch me.’” Melody mutters, almost under her breath. She steadies her voice, raising it slightly once she’s noticed the eyes on her. “It’s because he glues his victims eyes wide open.”

“He wants them to see him.” Spencer adds.

“And feel him.” Melody finishes.

“We can discuss further on the plane. Wheels up in ten.” Hotch stands, collecting his file and bag before leaving the room. The others file out behind him, spreading across the bullpen to prepare.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Melody gets on the plane second-to-last, shoving her burgundy duffle bag in an overhead compartment as agents file around her, taking their seats. She’s saved the anxiety of choosing where to sit when Spencer shoots her a hopeful look. He hadn’t even meant to. He looks visibly surprised when she actually takes the seat beside him. Perhaps Melody imagined it. Perhaps she should get up and choose a different seat. Perhaps he—

“Brenda Samms was found by her children yesterday when they got home from school. She was strangled by a thin ligature, possibly a wire.” Hotch says, handing a photo to Elle before sitting on the couch, across the aisle from the two geniuses.

“No weapon left at the scene.”

“Residue on the wrists and mouth indicate duct tape was used, and then removed.” Spencer points out.

“Also not found at the scene.” Hotch adds.

“Brought the weapon and tape with him. Took it with him. He’s prepared. Organised.” Melody points out, simultaneously reading through a crime scene report.

“He also started leaving messages at the fourth scene. This was on the mirror,” Hotch starts, holding up a photo, “Fair lady, throw those costly robes aside. No longer may you glory in your pride,”

Spencer’s brows furrow. Melody tilts her head to the side, gaze lifting upwards momentarily.

“Take leave of all your carnal vain delight,”

“I’ve come to summon you away this night.” Spencer finishes, and then in classic Reid fashion, glances around as if expecting everyone to understand. “It’s, uh, a ballad. From the late 1600s.”

Morgan looks at him in disbelief.

“A dialogue betwixt death and a lady.” Melody can’t help but add. Spencer’s eyes turn to her. Morgan’s brows raise in equal parts disbelief and amusement. Gideon looks almost proud.

“A seventeenth century ballad?” Elle asks, the only one without a visible reaction.

“Yeah. Essentially, a woman begging Death to live.”

“Who would know this ballad? Maybe we’re looking for a literature professor?”

“Actually, anyone with an internet connection. You should see what pops up when you type the word Death into a search engine.” Spencer chuckles.

“Reid, no wonder you can’t get a date.” Morgan teases.

Melody looks up from her files at that, allowing the faintest wrinkle between her brows. Spencer doesn’t say much, only averts his gaze—like this is common, Melody thinks.

“Reid. Jones. You stay on the messages. See if there’s a deeper meaning to them.” Gideon cuts through her thoughts causing her to nod, already re-reading the messages.

“He ransacked the crime scene pretty well. Lots of damage. Nothin’ much taken.” Morgan points out, holding up a photo to the group.

“Well, the eyes are his whole thing. The signature.” Gideon starts, Spencer and Melody listening intently as if it were the most important lecture. “The behaviour that isn’t necessary for the murder but necessary for the emotional release. That’s what he’s there for.”

“There used to be a widely held belief that the eyes record a snapshot of the last thing a person sees before they die.” Spencer offers automatically.

“Yeah, that’s right. People used to write poems about talking to death.” Morgan mutters.

“Ballads.”

Melody holds back a smile. Morgan huffs. “Whatever.”

Hotch passes out roles, “Morgan and Gideon, head to the latest crime scene. Elle, you and JJ stay with me at the station to review the evidence they’ve got so far. We’ll go from there. We land in five hours.”

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Melody has memorised every word of every report, stared at the crime scene photos long enough to describe them from memory, and filled two pages with scribbled notes in her notebook—a small, navy blue leather-bound journal, engraved with gold constellations—when Morgan slides into the empty seat right across her, next to Elle.

“Either you’ve got a photographic memory, or that notebook’s about to put the rest of us to shame. You look like you’re already three cases ahead of us.” he teases, observant but not unkind.

Melody looks up for what is probably the first time since Hotch’s had assigned roles.

“...I like to be prepared.” she tries.

“Hey, no pressure. But if you’ve got thoughts, we’re listening.”

Spencer and Elle look up too, seemingly intrigued. Melody tries not to shrink away from the attention.

“I know. Thanks.” She mutters, trying to look busy, flipping aimlessly through her notebook. Morgan realises he’s only put her more on edge. “So, how’d you meet Reid?”

She blinks. “I told you. College.”

Elle is a lot more than just intrigued now, leaning forward in interest. “Wait, you know Reid?”

“I know it’s college. But, c’mon. I wanna know more.” Morgan coaxes.

Melody hesitates for only a second before straightening. “It was Caltech. I had just started my masters in astrophysics. Spencer” — she makes sure not to say spence this time — “was in the middle of his second PhD. Chemistry.”

“And, you, what? Had similar classes?” Elle asks, confused.

“Uh, no. We met at the library, I believe. Became friends. Studied together. It was nice.”

Morgan raises a brow, giving Spencer a look Melody can’t quite decipher, much to her annoyance. “Wow. Reid, I didn’t know you had a social life.”

Spencer gives him an unimpressed look, lips pressed into a thin line, “We were the same age, which is probably why we became friends. Eighteen. Younger than the usual, considering our degrees,” he adds.

“Huh. Match made in heaven.” Elle comments, amusement bleeding into her smile.

“That makes it sound weird.” Melody mumbles under her breath, almost defensively.

Morgan raises a brow. It had in fact not sounded all that weird until Melody said it. “Was it?”

She blinks. Eyes widening. That was meant to stay an inside thought. Spencer feels heat build beneath his collar.

“No! No, not… like that.” she mutters, gaze fixed unnecessarily onto her notebook again, as if the crime scene notes may save her.

Morgan, very pleased with how this conversation is going, leans back in his seat, “Yeah? What's with ‘star’, then?”

Spencer responds before Melody can look up. “It's just a nickname I had for her, back then. ‘Cause she loves astronomy.” He sounds almost shy as he explains—unnecessarily so.

“Huh.”

“Yeah…”

Spencer’s gaze lingers on her side profile for a second longer than is professionally acceptable. He clears his throat, opting to focus very hard on fidgeting with a pen. He doesn't know why he's so nervous. Why her presence has tilted his entire emotional balance. Why it's messing with his already dwindling professionalism. It's certainly not ideal for his focus. Most likely, it's merely his social skills—or lack thereof. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Morgan and Elle, on the other hand, share an amused look, watching the two geniuses as they focus too hard on their tasks, like it's their favourite show.

Even this is terrifying. The fact that she’s formed a connection deep enough, cares about somebody enough to be driving through this miserable weather for a birthday present. It’s been less than a month since she joined, yet Spencer Reid has managed to weave his way back into her life through some kind of force she either must be too weak to fight, or too stupid to. 

The others stay at arm’s length at least. Most of the time. Morgan had caught the geniuses in the break room, in the midst of a passionate discussion on string theory, and had been pleasantly surprised to discover that the new agent does in fact speak—and a lot. 

Since then, he and Garcia had launched a secret operation. Garcia smiles at her just wide enough for guilt to start brewing. Morgan teases her when she starts scribbling equations to ‘relax’. JJ gave her her extra bag of cheetos on the jet once, and she’d eyed it like it was a bomb to be defused. 

Elle, on the other hand, insists they should let her be. It’s not a coincidence that she’s also the only one—other than Spencer—who’s coaxed the tiniest upturn out of her persistent frown, along with actual conversations.

Point is, she’d planned to avoid any form of relationships like the plague, and has been for the past four years. Except, the paper bag crinkles in the passenger seat, making itself known as the one clear anomaly, as she parks outside the mall. Unsurprisingly, she’s late enough that a lot of the stores are closing. Tired employees glare at her as she rushes in anyway, scanning the hangers with that field-agent-precision, and manages to wrangle a cardigan, before rushing to Hot Topic for the keychain she’d been eyeing on their website. 

Surely, three things aren’t too much, right? He would’ve whizzed through the book in an hour. Throwing a tiny keychain inside the gift bag felt silly. Would’ve made the bag look too empty. So, there has to be a bigger item too, hence, the cardigan, to even it out. For balance.

It’s a formality, really. She’s only following pre-established social constructs. You get gifts for birthday parties, ‘cause you’re just supposed to. There doesn’t have to be any emotional connotations attached. The fact that she spent half her night in the hotel yesterday, ignoring case files for gift brainstorming, doesn’t have to come off as anything other than polite.

October 12th, 2005.

“Did you know there was a meteor shower today?”

He did. But Spencer’s learned to grab at any bit of conversation he can grapple out of her.

“No, which one?”

Melody rounds the table, leaning against the counter beside him as he pours exactly five spoonfuls of sugar in his mug. The door clicks shut behind them.

“The Southern Taurid meteor shower. It peaked at two a.m. today, ‘cause that’s when Cetus—the shower’s radiant point—was at its highest in the sky, and also the point when the Earth’s rotation was at an angle that you could see it best from Virginia,” she explains, all softness and no practiced scowl, upper cabinet handle digging into her temple.

Spencer takes a careful sip, mug between both hands, peering up at her over the lip.

The break room offers an optimal amount of privacy, away from the agents who’d rather use the bull pen kitchenette than make the trek downstairs to get here. Still, Melody lingers in the calculated area in which she wouldn’t be visible, lest somebody enter. Hidden seems to be the only state she’ll talk freely in.

It’s alright though, because Spencer used to have Melody Jones in his area of expertise on his resume, and he’s determined to tweak those skills to adjust to this slightly changed version too.

“Cetus is the one that contains a number of galaxies, right?”

“Mhm, because it’s so far from the Milky Way. Such as the Messier object, M77. Though, you’d only be able to see it in December, most likely, and even that with at least a small telescope.”

Spencer puts his mug down, reaching up for a new one, “Did you get to see the meteor shower, then? Southern Taurid’s usually visible without a telescope. Coffee?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah, I did. Woke up at two thirty, well, I was up late anyway so it wasn’t that hard, and got to the beach just after three to see. I got pictures too! They’re on my camera. I’ll show you tomorrow, if you’d like.”

“I’d love to,” he smiles, squeezing caramel syrup into the coffee he’d started preparing long before even asking. Throwing in the offer after a distracting question is the only way he can get her to accept things. He holds out the mug, more caramel and milk than caffeine, ice clinking as she takes it, “Here.”

He tries to ignore the heat the brush of their fingers produces. And the grateful smile she gives him. 

“So…” she starts, fishing her cellphone out and frowning at whatever upsetting contents it showed. “Did you… finish that book?”

His brows furrow. “Which one?”

“The Collector, was it? John Fowles?”

“I finished it two days ago. I told you.”

Fuck. “You did? Huh. I must’ve forgotten. What was your… favourite part?” she manages awkwardly, hiding the wince with another sip of coffee. 

If only Garcia would text her already.

He frowns, confused. They’d had an in depth conversation about this already. Melody can be forgetful, but never has been about him. Until now, it seems.

“I can’t pinpoint one, but I did enjoy studying how Miranda’s story was the basis of the butterfly metaphor. She’s only twenty, barely an adult, and despite her idealistic pretension, she is trying to evolve and grow as a person. It’s where the metaphor becomes more apt—” He straightens, leans closer, and Melody smiles. Not just out of that usual fondness his rambling brings, but in victory, too. She’d been aiming for a long-winded ramble.

“It’s not just that she’s a butterfly herself. It’s that Frederick has ‘collected’ her just before a vital stage—metamorphoses. He has trapped her right before she could break out of her cocoon, halting the process of her being able to unveil her true beauty and spread her wings. For example—”

Something dings, obnoxiously loud, in Melody’s pocket. It’s weird. She usually has her phone on vibrate. She digs it out, raises her brows at the contents, and places her coffee down.

“Hey. Garcia needs us. C’mon,” she says, walking past him to the door.

Spencer blinks, bewildered, “Wha– Uh, okay. Hey, your coff—”

“Come on! Quick!”

“I- Coming!” He rushes behind her, not the first time he’s been in this situation.

Melody’s practically bolting through hallways, mumbling sorrys to agents, in some unusual attempt to get to their destination before he does. It’s not difficult to achieve. She’s quite fast. 

Spencer pushes the glass doors open a few moments after she does, gaze so fixated on her that he misses the blur of colours on his desk. 

At least, not until the group of people huddled around step aside, yelling in overlapping voices, “Surprise!”

Spencer freezes—confused, awkward, and entirely perplexed. His meticulously organised books and pen holders have been pushed to the side to make way for a rectangular cake, and an array of colourful gift bags. 

Despite the entire team smiling at him, ushering him closer, what he focuses on is the way Melody beams at him. A smile so wide, so unusual for her, it feels jarring with how out of place it seems here, in the bullpen, in the middle of all the people that terrify her. Even worse is the fact that she doesn’t seem to care.

“Come on! Before the frosting melts!” She calls out, and his legs move with no prior consultation, settling into his desk chair.

“This— Guys. Wow. Thank you,” he manages, flustered under all the attention.

“Isn’t it so cute? I’ve been planning this for a week!” Penelope squeals, “Ooh, hold on, one last thing,” she mutters, producing a bright blue hat, birthday cake shaped, obnoxiously sized, attempting to secure it on Spencer’s shaking head.

“Garcia—”

“Uh-uh! The birthday boy has to wear the birthday hat. It’s the rules.”

He looks to Melody for help, receives only a shrug and a whispered “I tried talking her out of it.” 

Time passes in a blur, just barely teetering on the edge of overwhelming due to the highly unfamiliar nature of Spencer Reid getting a birthday celebration. The team starts singing embarrassingly loud, pulling him away from his precious staring, Derek urges him to blow out the candles that, try as he might, just won’t extinguish. He keeps blowing, flusters at the string of giggles erupting behind him, until Melody’s voice cuts through, “They’re trick candles, Spence. They’re gonna keep coming back on.” She hands him the knife, picking the candles off, another round of cheers erupting as he cuts the cake.

It feels even better than he’d thought it would—being celebrated. He doesn’t think he’s ever had this many people smiling at him.

Spencer wipes a smudge of blue frosting off the edge of his desk. Melody rearranges his books in the exact order he likes.

“I tried telling them not to do the trick candles. Felt a little mean. It was Morgan’s idea.”

Spencer shakes his head, “It’s fine. Did you know the tradition of blowing out candles and making a wish dates back to the ancient Greeks? They believed the smoke would carry their prayers up to God, and thus their wishes would come true.”

“So, no smoke, no wish?”

“Nope.”

“Well, we better get you your wish then.”

Spencer furrows his brows, “What?” watching as she stands up, and disappears into the hallway for a good three minutes and twenty two seconds.

When she comes back, a vanilla scent accompanies her, palms cradling a floral patterned candle.

“Stole this from Garcia. A real candle. So you can… y’know. Make a wish,” she mumbles, suddenly a little shy about the whole ordeal by the end of it. Spencer, on the other hand, beams. Fondness noticeable in his eyes just before he shuts them for his wish. He feels half childish, half giddy, as the flame extinguishes, carrying his wishes to the Gods or whatever. He couldn’t care less. Not when Melody’s eyeing him curiously.

“I don’t get to know the wish, do I?”

He chuckles, “No. It won’t come true then. I do have a question for you, though.”

He’s been putting the pieces together. She tilts her head.

“You didn’t really forget about our conversation on The Collector, did you?”

Melody’s brows raise fractionally, lips twitching as a rare laugh threatens to crack through, “No, I didn’t. I was on distraction duty.”

“I knew it!” He laughs, almost relieved.

“I had to get you talking! Garcia was taking an awfully long time in setting everything up,” she gestures to the desk, still a bit of a mess. The gift bags sit in a corner, unopened. The BAU isn’t exactly known for having a lot of time—especially not for a gift opening ceremony. Most of them had to head back to their desks, snacking on cake as they begrudgingly resumed paperwork.

Most, except Melody it seems, who watches as he eyes the gifts curiously. 

“D’you wanna open them?”

“Aren’t you supposed to open them in front of people?”

“You can open mine,” she blurts out. Straightens. “Well. If you want—”

He’s already reaching out, “Which one is it?”

“Uh. Purple.”

It certainly stands out. A plain lilac bag, average sized but much larger in comparison to the others, adorned with a white ribbon tied into a crooked bow around the handles. Spencer pulls it by the end, peeking inside the bag with the same curious expression he annotates literature with. 

“Star…” he gasps, digging out the contents. A dark green knitted cardigan, a TARDIS keychain, and a book—One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan Al-Shaykh.

Spencer has-always-spent-his-birthdays-alone Reid has no idea what he’s meant to say. He doesn’t know what to do except stare at the gifts in front of him, overwhelmed with emotions he’s never quite had the need to identify before. The smile he witnesses as he looks up is so distracting, he misses the anxiety in her eyes. It isn’t even a proper grin, yet he counts it as a fourth present.

“Thank you. I… I don’t know what to say,” he manages.

“You don’t have to. I’m just glad you like them.”

“I love them,” he glances back at the gifts, worried they’d disappeared, “The book, I-”

“You mentioned it, yeah. I remember. I was hoping you hadn’t bought it yourself, but then I thought, if he did, he probably would’ve told me about it. And we’ve been on a case. So he probably hasn’t, so I can get it. Y’know?” she rambles, fingers drumming against her thigh.

“It’s perfect. Thank you,” he murmurs, and her fidgeting ceases.

“You’re welcome. You better tell me what the others got you, tomorrow. I’m curious.”

“We can take a peek together when they leave?”

“Deal.”

November 1st, 2005.

Melody’s morning goes the same way it does on any other day. Freshen up. Breakfast. Makeup. Clothes. Bag. Keys. Leave. The only difference might be the hollowness that encompasses every molecule that’s a part of her body. The one that reminds her of every birthday that had come before. 

Every hasty apology from her mum. Every lecture about dwindling budgets. Every lonely day in school. Every time another kid got to bring in a cake and was handed gift boxes and handmade cards, while she found the crumbling grocery store cupcake her brother got her once just as special. 

It’s exactly why she’s glad nobody knows it’s her birthday. She doesn’t exactly hold conversations long enough to mention it anyway. And she much prefers it this way. Better people be completely oblivious than disappoint her, right?

Spencer’s the anomaly, though. Seems to always have been, in every aspect of her life. She foolishly hopes his eidetic memory malfunctions today. It’d hurt, him forgetting, of all people. But it’s better than having to hear wishes that would tamper with her plan to pretend that the first of November was just a day like any other.

Perhaps she should’ve made her wish over a candle, so the smoke would carry up to God or whatever, because it does not come true. The second she places her bag down, Spencer looks up.

“Happy birthday, star,” he murmurs, quiet enough to be kept private, with that boyish grin that threatens to unravel all of her anti-relationship strategies.

“Oh. Thanks,” she mutters, plucking a file from the stack.

“I got you something.”

Her head whips to the side. “What?”

“Yeah. I’ll uh, give it to you during lunch. Alone. In the break room.”

She’d been hoping he’d forget. This is the complete opposite of her wishes. Yet, it’s somehow better. He’s thoughtful enough to celebrate her quietly. In a way that keeps the terrifying ordeal that is a large group of people’s attention away.

“I- You didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to.”

She can’t possibly keep eye contact anymore. “Right. Thank you.”

She meets him in the break room, like she always does, every single work day. She spent her breaks there during the first week, alone, avoiding her co-workers’ eager attempts at friendship as much as possible. At some point, Spencer started showing up—book in hand, a variety of topics to discuss. And then he’d never stopped.

Spencer always arrives at twelve p.m, on the dot. Melody varies between five to ten minutes later. Sometimes they spend the whole break talking and eating together. Sometimes they can only spare ten minutes and a coffee. Sometimes they only go to get their lunches out the fridge because Garcia had insisted on wanting to spend time with the whole team. Still, every day, like clockwork, Spencer and Melody meet in the break room, even if for just a second.

Today doesn’t fall in any of the aforementioned categories. Today, Melody walks in on Spencer fiddling with something on the table, muttering incoherently under his breath.

“Hi…?” Melody shuts the door, eyeing him curiously, amusement tugging at her lips.

He spins around, alarmed, and shuffles in front of whatever he’d been setting on the table. “Hey. Hi. Um. I…” he trails off, needing to take a breath. “...have a surprise. For you.”

“Uh-huh. I can tell.”

He swallows, smiles as wide as the nerves will let him, and finally steps aside.

“Surprise!” 

Melody doesn’t notice the way his voice cracks, or how his hands twitch restlessly by his sides, not when she’s focused on the adorable little arrangement. A cake sits in the middle—small, covered in navy blue buttercream, white constellations, and happy birthday, star! in cursive writing in the middle. There’s a wrapped present to its right, a small gift bag to its left, along with paper plates, forks, a knife, lighter, and candles in the corner.

“Spence…” she murmurs, unsure whether this was real or not.

“I didn’t want to do too much, but also not too little, obviously. I was gonna light the candles, but I’d accounted for an extra five minutes because you’re usually a little late, so I didn’t expect—”

“It’s perfect,” she whispers.

He pauses, scanning her expression, grinning at what he finds—pure awe. Her eyes have softened, face losing all its usual sharpness, the beginnings of a smile working its way on her lips.

“You said you ‘got me something’. I thought that meant one gift, not two, plus a cake,” she murmurs, averting that soft gaze to him now. He tries not to fluster. “You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” he says, for the second time today, surer than he’s ever been of anything in his life. “Sit. I’ll light the candles.”

Melody stares, in a mix of awe and disbelief, as he carefully places candles on the cake—a silver number two, and a matching four right beside it. She doesn’t quite know what to do with herself as he lights them, considers pinching herself as he hands her the knife and stands beside her, laughing through half the happy birthday song, before finally settling in the seat across from her.

“I don’t even know what to— Thank you, Spence. Seriously.”

“You’re welcome. And don’t worry. I didn’t tell anyone.”

She knew he wouldn’t. She smiles nonetheless, gaze drifting to the gifts. There’s a wrapped box, complete with a bow and everything, and a mini gift bag. Both a dark shade of red.

“Can I…?”

Spencer nods a little too enthusiastically, sliding the cake out of the way.

Melody doesn’t know why she’s nervous—maybe it’s the feeling of being watched, of somebody waiting for your reaction and the pressure of it being the right one. She tends to plan her emotions, but this, even if as simple and harmless as opening a present, is supposed to be a moment of spontaneity—something she finds quite anxiety-inducing.

Yet, an unplanned smile tugs at her lips as she gently tears apart the wrapping in a neat line, and when a familiar name catches her eyes, she gasps, looking up at Spencer.

“You did not—”

The rest of the paper falls away much quicker, revealing a special edition box set of the entire Sherlock Holmes collection. It’s the most beautiful set of books she’s ever seen—velvet covered, intricate gold leaf detailing. Immediately, the memory flashes in her mind, connecting the dots.

“Right? It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

“I saw it in the bookstore quite recently. Are you gonna get it?”

“No, I wish. But it feels unnecessary. I’ve already read the books and own the whole series. What’s the point of getting something just… for fun and ‘cause it’s pretty, y’know?”

“Spence…” is all she manages. Melody stores away many plans for social situations in her brain. Never had it occurred to her that she might need to know what to say when receiving a birthday present. It was too far-fetched of an idea. She settles on, “Thank you. Genuinely. I- it’s beautiful.”

“You’re welcome. I knew you wouldn’t buy it for yourself,” he teases.

She rolls her eyes, grabbing the gift bag next. A moment of digging beneath coloured tissue paper reveals two skinny rectangular boxes. The first reveals a navy blue bookmark, gold constellations catching the overhead lighting. The second contains a delicate silver necklace, a Saturn—her favourite planet—charm hanging from its chain, bedazzled in tiny stones.

“I saw it in a thrift store and had to get it. It was just so… you.”

The thought of Spencer thinking of her, during the most mundane of moments, the thought of her occupying his brainspace enough for a necklace to catch his eye, it was terrifying at best, heart-warming at worst.

“It’s so pretty,” she whispers, still transfixed on the gifts, in awe. Their eyes finally meet a moment later, “It’s perfect. Everything is. Thank you. I- Honestly, I was planning on pretending it wasn’t even my birthday,” she chuckles dryly.

“I figured you would. I didn’t quite like the idea of you being… uncelebrated.”

“It’s just a birthday.”

“Yeah, and they’re supposed to be special, as far as I’m concerned.”

He’s so firm about it, like he believes what he’s saying with as much absolution as when he rattles off facts in the middle of a police precinct. It’s lovely. It’s terrifying.

They hide the rest of the cake in the fridge behind bottles of coffee creamer, dispose of the trash, and stare at the gifts in contemplation.

“How the fuck am I meant to take these home without people being confused? A Sherlock Holmes book set doesn’t exactly count as office supplies.”

“Well, what if there was an unsub obsessed with Sherlock Holmes?”

She gives him a look.

“Right. I’ll get you your bag…?”

“That works. Go on, then.”

Surprisingly, the day continues without much fanfare. The gifts stay hidden in Melody’s tote. If anybody notices a half eaten cake in the fridge—which they probably don’t since practically nobody uses that tiny old break room—they don’t mention it. Melody thanks Spencer for the umpteenth time at the end of the day, smuggles the cake box into her car as if it were highly illegal contraband, and goes home with an unexpected smile on her face, and a completely unplanned for warmth in her chest, brainstorming reasons she might actually deserve what had happened.

She lands on two. 

Propriety. It’s her birthday. Spencer knows. He knows that she knows he’d know. According to conventional social constructs, he has to get her a gift. She ignores the part where the intensity of his celebration far surpasses the category of ‘basic social etiquette’. It’s totally irrelevant data.

And, reciprocation. She’d gotten him gifts. Out of courtesy, he has to get her something too.

That’s all it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Melody’s bag is louder than usual—courtesy of the gifts stashed inside—as she places it on the coffee table, the vibrations sending a pile of mail fluttering to the floor like feathers. She sighs, crouching as she gathers up the mess produced of her own executive dysfunction. It’d been two days since mail day, mind you.

She files the envelopes into a neat pile, trying not to let the sight of bills sour an otherwise lovely day, reaching across the floor for one that had strayed particularly far. She’d been moving on autopilot, assigning only the tiniest part of her brain to skim over the backs of each envelope, when the writing on one suddenly demands complete attention—the lack thereof, really.

It’s a simple white envelope, sealed shut, and completely blank on the back. No return address, no stamp, nothing except her full name scribbled in blue pen.

Curious, she digs out the contents.

A sheet of paper—folded perfectly into fourths, rough, messy handwriting in that same blue ink.

You’re a difficult person to find, I’ll give you that. I feel almost bad. You severed every single connection, in some desperate attempt to hide, to pretend you could rebuild your life after every unsavoury incident.

But you failed. Everyone’s attached to something. I’ve found several, in fact—several of your red strings to play with.

You can’t hide forever, love.

She doesn’t need an IQ of 179, five degrees, or any more than common sense to figure out who’s sent this. Her suspicions are only confirmed when something falls out of the envelope, catching her eye, small and thin.

A red rose petal.

Something drops inside her chest. Her breathing, logically. Her heart, metaphorically. It sinks into a dark place just deep enough that she can’t reach, fast enough that the emotional whiplash freezes her into place, survival instincts and all, even if only for a few seconds, before a better part of her brain summons them back.

The stack of envelopes drop to the floor soundlessly, the apartment quiet, save for the quick drag of her gun being unholstered, and her calculated footsteps. 

Skin against wood, each step skipping over known anomalies. A creaky floorboard. A forgotten sock. A pen that might roll noisily towards the wall unless she stepped around it just right. 

The squeaky hinges of her bedroom door can’t be avoided, so she makes sure to get it over with, kicking the door wide open, both gun and eyes sweeping the dim room once, then twice when she hits the lights with her shoulder.

Nothing. Every corner, every crevice, every window has been accounted for. She’s safe. Unsurprisingly. The letter had to have been delivered two days ago for her to find it in the pile and not the mailbox. He’s obviously long gone. Still, she wouldn’t have been able to rest until she made sure.

She sighs, turning back to the living room, gun re-holstered, and picks up the letter again. Re-reading the words twice, thrice, ten more times doesn’t change them. They don’t disappear off the page, morph into something less horrifying, or reveal any new clues. The ink is as permanent as it had been five minutes ago. The rose petal is dry under her thumb, a shade of red that makes her stomach churn with unease, then guilt as she stares at it, an innocent flower that doesn’t deserve the connotation her brain has attached to it.

On the bright side, her long-standing theory remains correct, despite Spencer’s meddling.

Melody’s birthday never goes well.

a/n: ohhhhh its happening. everybody stay calm!!!! hah. im putting them through the Horrors the second mel's finally somewhat comfortable with letting him be her friend again. anyway. I have the next chapter fully written already, so I'll probably post it soon. but knowing me, soon is extremely subjective around these parts.

She could share her question with the team, let them help figure out the inconsistency, or ask Hotch if she could go visit the crime scene. Instead, she opts for reticence as he assigns agents together for surveillance, marking points for each group on a map, a parallel to Captain Griffith doing the same with his officers.

Elle and Gideon. Hotch and Morgan. Jones and Reid.

She keeps the question buried in her chest as everyone piles into SUVs, dreading long hours of surveillance, cradling their coffee cups with more appreciation than ever.

The neighbourhood really is… upper-class. Cookie cutter houses in rows of five, white picket fences, terracotta roofs, two cars in each garage, early morning joggers, patrol cars driving by every fifteen or so minutes. The kevlar's straps dig into Melody's shoulders, firearm holster into her thigh.

Spencer sighs from the passenger seat, “I wish we had a time frame, at least. I know there's no other choice but this feels so…”

“Inefficient?” she offers.

“Yeah. We need more information. Perhaps if we had…”

Melody zones out, wandering to that window. She needn’t be so persistent. It’s silly. If it were relevant, somebody else would've noticed too. She can't always be the smartest person in the room. She needs to stop giving herself this much credit.

Yet, it lingers—The many downsides of an overactive mind. She can try all she likes to focus on just surveillance, but unfortunately, her brain carries the talent to focus on that stubborn inconsistency simultaneously.

“Mel?” Spencer's voice cuts through.

She blinks, “Pardon?”

The roles reverse—he studies her now, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed as they dig out the clues hiding beneath her skin. It's terrifying, being on the other end of this for once.

“Nothing. Just… You zoned out.”

Spencer would help. He wouldn't call her question irrelevant, wouldn't abase her curiosity. Would likely be just as interested, really.

Swallowing, she looks out the window again, for what, she isn’t sure yet. “I, uh… Something's been bothering me about this.”

Spencer straightens, already attentive, and it's more encouragement than he realises. “What is it?”

She almost hesitates, but her hands act on their own, leaning to grab her bag from the backseat, “It's… It's the way Brenda's body was found. Remember how Elle said that the victim watching the unsub is more important to him than the act itself?”

Spencer nods, eyes following the pictures Melody sifts through.

“Then why was she lying like that? On her stomach and facing sideways? Most definitely not looking at him. There's only a window in that direction.” She holds the photo between a thumb and forefinger, like it's delicate, glancing at Spencer as he leans over the console. They don't quite realise the nanometer of distance between their shoulders as they study the photograph.

“You're right… She should be facing up. He's an exploitative rapist, he wants the victim to watch him. So, why stage the body that way?”

Melody hums, staring deep into Brenda's glued open irises.

“Is the crime scene still taped off?” she asks suddenly, facing Spencer now.

“Yeah, the husband won't move back in.”

“D'you wanna go check it out?”

Her eyes are bright, fuelled by curiosity, the need to shake answers out of the world by any means necessary. The same eyes that convinced him to sneak out, to break rules when they're ‘for the right purposes’, to bend authority to his own will as long as he believes it's the right thing to do.

“We're supposed to be on surveillance…” he tries.

Melody huffs, almost annoyed, gesturing out the car windows, “There's like, nothing going on. I'm sure a patrol car is scheduled to pass by too.”

“In ten minutes, yeah,” he offers automatically.

“Of course you've memorised the schedule,” she mutters under her breath, equal parts fond and unsurprised, “See? It'll be fine. Let's go.”

Melody has stuffed the file in her bag, thrown it over her shoulder, and unlocked the car before he can protest, and suddenly, he's running behind her, struggling to catch up as she mumbles the address under her breath, eyes scanning each house.

“We're in the right area… It should be— There! C'mon, Spence!”

“Slow down!”

“Can’t! We need to hurry back to the car as soon as possible!”

He sighs, catching his breath at the front door, crime scene tape peeling off under his fingers, before following her upstairs.

The room looks too normal. Unnaturally so, considering the heinous act that had taken place. As if cleaning up, taking in the evidence, stripping the sheets off the mattress could take away the pain. The message remains though, both metaphorically, and physically—thick, fading red letters on the mirror. Melody stands at the foot of the bed, looking to the left. A window. Exactly like she'd theorised.

She gestures with her hands, picturing the scene, “Okay. I'm Brenda. The unsub's dragged me onto the bed, on my stomach, to ra— Okay. Not… the loveliest sentence to say in first person,” she mumbles, fingers twitching by her sides. Spencer observes from the doorway.

“If I'm laying down here,” she pokes at the estimated spot on the mattress, “I'm looking out the window at—”

A voice crackles in their pockets, staticky and disrupting, “Update. Garcia says the phone call couldn't be tracked since it was routed through twenty-five different substations.”

She files it away, not bothering with a reply, hands on her hips as she stares out the window.

“Mel, we should really be on surveillance—”

Everything is meticulous. He wants attention. Wants to be seen. Because he isn't, in his everyday life. Nothing is an accident. Managed to route the phone call through twenty-five different—

“Phone technician,” she says suddenly, looking over her shoulder at Spencer.

“What?”

Her eyes are wide, almost excited, alight with a kind of flame he hadn’t realised he’d missed.

“She's looking at the phone lines. He can route calls, tap into phone lines—”

“Blends into the neighbourhood. Wants them to see him, his work, after the attack, not before,” he finishes, eyes wide.

“That's why he faces them out the window, looking at the phone lines. And his supplies. Wire. Tape. Repairman. Of course he has them. He's a phone technician.”

Spencer nods, digging his cellphone out.

“Office of unfettered omniscience. Penelope Garcia is in. Speak, fortunate one.”

“Garcia, can you get into phone repair records in San Diego?”

“Reid, I can hack into the NSA while simultaneously competing in tetris tournaments. What d'you need?”

“Cross-reference repairman who may have worked in the area, four or five days prior to each murder.”

“Total cake. Stay on the line.”

Melody has wandered off downstairs by then, peering out the glass back door, muttering under her breath, “He doesn't even stand out in a backyard… He's a repairman. Just looking for a pole.”

“Garcia's on it. We need to let Hotch know,” Spencer says, jogging downstairs, gesturing to the front door. This time, Melody follows, taking out her cellphone, sharing the theory with Hotch.

Garcia finds his name before they even get out the front door, “Franklin Graney!” Spencer calls out.

The pair wait in the car, restless, glancing from phone, to window, to phone, to window. Melody stares hard at the unsub’s picture, practically burning every feature into her retinas, just to be sure her memory wouldn’t fail her.

It’s slow again. Stagnant. Nothing to do but wait. Her nerves feel jittery. Spine taut like a wire stretched too thin. Fingers tapping a never-ending pattern.

Spencer’s similar, except, his nerves show much louder. Leg consistently bouncing, nail scratching at the peeling end of a sticky note on the file in his lap. He isn’t even meant to move anytime soon. He isn’t a field agent at all. He doesn’t have a gun. Maybe he never will.

He would’ve been able to convince himself his brain was plenty. Feed into the comfort that not everybody can wield both smarts and strength. But the antithesis to that theory sits right beside him, eyes trained out the window, proof that his intellect is in fact, not enough.

He isn’t enough. He wonders if that’s what made her leave in the first place.

He’s pathetic, is what he is. He didn’t hold a candle to her dreams back then. His plans, his desperate attempts to escape abandonment, to get Melody to pursue her PhD here, in Caltech, with him, to hang onto the fraying tendrils of their friendship that he should’ve known wouldn’t have lasted—because truly, in his experience, what has?—They’d been fruitless. Embarrassing, when he recalls them. He’s not daft, he knows she cared about him somewhat, to some extent of empathy that humans typically possess. But that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because he’s sure he cared so much more. It’s what he does. Carries his love out to the highest possible extremities, to heights that no sane person could ever feel for him in return, and then acts surprised when he gets nothing but packed suitcases in return. He supposes he's stupid too, then. Stupid for thinking he could ever be good enough to earn even a mole of affection from her. Lovely, perfect, smart her.

A click interrupts his mini-spiral. The car door slamming shut as Melody runs into the distance. Hotch’s last few words register faintly in his brain, a moment too late, “—around here somewhere. Keep a look out in and around backyards.”

When did he reduce himself to this state? Getting distracted on the job. Losing himself in his thoughts like an amateur. He’s always alert. Even in the field, where he does nothing but stand by for further orders. He can’t possibly let that change. And for what? Moping around about the amalgamation of conflicting feelings a single person’s coming back brings him? He really does need to stop caring so much. She clearly has.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Everything is loud. Each blade of grass crunching under her boots. The wind sifting through her ponytail. Her own heartbeat.

Melody’s eyes scan the immediate area. Checking sneaky corners and the shades beneath trees, before moving onto the next house. All Graney’s boss had provided was that he was most definitely out doing repairs in the area. She’d run to meet the others when Hotch conveyed the information, each of them fanning out, told to search backyards and telephone poles.

Locked gate. No entry point. She moves onto the next house.

A mother and kid passing by the kitchen window, looking too happy to be victims. Empty backyard. Next house.

This is what it actually feels like, she thinks. It’s nothing like the academy, which, she’s not stupid—she hadn’t expected it to be anyway. This is probably the least of it, she thinks, concurrently begging herself not to, to abandon simultaneity for once. Yet, her mind goes on, taking notes on the experience itself just as much as her surroundings.

One row covered, onto the next.

She can feel her heart somewhere in her throat rather than her chest.

The house number is 675.

The gun feels too heavy all of a sudden, weighing her down as if it can sense it’s getting closer.

Backyard empty. Front ga—

Radio static. “875 Orange. Back door.”

Thankfully, her brain gives up the dual thought processes in exchange for instincts, and she bolts, eyes scanning every house number that zips past her vision.

She finds both Elle and Hotch already inside, slows both her steps and her breathing.

Three doors. Back exit. Crying from the kitchen—a little kid. Hotch & Elle had gotten here first, had definitely cleared this floor, yet she stores the information anyway.

Muffled voices drift downstairs, quieter than the pulse in her ears.

“I’ll shoot her.”

“No, you won’t, Franklin.”

Fingers tightening around the gun, she nears the staircase, just behind Elle.

“Yes, I will.”

“You hurt her, I’ll kill you. We’ll say we caught a low life burglar. You didn’t turn out to be Tommy after all.”

Her brain does the simultaneous thing again, with Gideon’s method this time, for future study—though at least it’s quieter now. More focused on not making a single sound. See? She can prioritise.

The floorboard creaks as they weave through the hallway. The voices get louder.

“After a while, people will forget you. You’ll be nothing.”

She notices Gideon’s shoulder disappearing from her view of the doorway—he’s closing in on him.

“Come on. Put the gun down, walk out of here with me. I’ll make sure your face is splashed all over the media.”

The unsub finally comes into (partial) view.

He’s smiling. His eyes are far too wide, chaos swirling amidst, something deeply unsettling in the way his lips slowly twitch, stretching at the opportunity of fame. Even from here, Melody notices how the gun twitches, teetering towards persuasion, driven by the clearly exciting conviction he held on how his work would be perceived.

The victim comes into view too, and Melody has to take a breath longer than usual. She’s a trembling thing. Blonde bangs obscuring half her face, duct tape taking over the rest. On her stomach, wrists and ankles tied. And a window with a clear view of the phone lines.

She’d been right, something she usually feels quite pleased about.

“You promise?” Graney asks, so hopeful it might be pitiful if she squinted just enough to obscure her view of the woman.

“I do. Got a media specialist outside. You can be famous, or you can remain invisible. It is your choice.” He’s eerily calm about it, in a way Melody’s not sure she would’ve been able to be.

The three stay out of view until Graney makes his decision. There’s a soft thump.

“Back away from the gun.”

Hotch, Elle, and Melody file in, guns trained on Graney. Hotch arrests him. Gideon steps back. Melody, in a desperate attempt to do something, kneels in front of the woman, gently peeling the tape off as Elle works on her binds.

Her cries are immediate, loud enough that Melody visibly flinches, suddenly unsure of what to do. “My baby! My baby!”

“He- He’s fine,” she tries, helping her up as the cut wire falls to the ground, “I saw him downstairs. Your son’s alright.”

The woman barely stays upright for more than a second before breaking down, folding into two like cardboard, her cries punctuated with thank yous that Melody’s not sure how to respond to except for placing a hesitant hand on her arm, cycling through articles on physical touch and oxytocin production in her head. Luckily, Elle seems to. “You’re okay. You’re safe now. We’ll get your son to you.”

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

Spencer proves himself wrong once again, proves that the composition of his body doesn’t include a single atom of indifference, when he scrambles for Melody the second Hotch walks Franklin Graney out of the house up ahead. She flickers into his vision as he runs up to the team, hanging behind the others. Somehow, he’s panting more than she is when he reaches her, hand reaching out, and then jolting away before she can notice. “Hey. You okay?” he mutters, breathless.

Melody looks almost confused, like it was the last thing she’d been expecting to hear at that moment. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” she mutters, pulling at the velcro kevlar straps on her sides. Spencer falls into step beside her, uncomfortable between the territories of confusion and concern at her reply.

Because you just arrested a murderer. Because you’re not supposed to be so impassive after your first case. Because you’re allowed to show the myriad of emotions he catches just as she looks away.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, really. Of course she’d be ‘fine’, refusing to talk. He finds himself looking her over anyway, performing an analysis of his own. All he finds is slightly heavier breathing, a fond eye-roll, and that he does in fact, care too much, and couldn’t do anything about it if he tried. Even if he should.

It’s who he is. Spencer Reid will always care too much, will always give more than is healthy, never bothering to check the other end of the deal. It doesn’t matter that he will only ever get lesser in return. He’s pathetic, he’d established that much. Just pathetic enough to offer soda cans and goodnights, when really, he should be acting bitter. Just pathetic enough to cling to whatever he can get, for as long as he can. Just pathetic enough to find the eventual abandonment worth it.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

The afternoon sun filters through the uneven blinds, casting an inconvenient glare on the clear evidence board. The air feels lighter now. Not to be confused with slower, police officers and agents alike still weave through desks, half focused on post case reports, the other on packing up for the jet, just calmer now that the immediate danger had been captured. Hopeful, even, as they glance at a now known to be Madison Sallow in the interrogation room. A saved victim does that, despite the fact she might not be feeling the same.

Melody rubs a hand against her temple, and hooks the other in the handle of an evidence box, now filled with photos she’d emptied the boards of. She passes it to the deputy she’d wordlessly started helping, in an attempt to run from immobility.

She’d been quiet the entire drive back. Well, it’s not like there had been much thrilling conversation from the others, either. Still, she’s too busy trying to figure out the cause behind her absolutely raging headache, nausea, and general fatigue. Surely, it isn’t due to the physical load from today. She’s handled worse than some running.

Perhaps it’s the usual. Anxiety acting up. Her annoying yet consistent need for solitude. She concocts a plan to make a beeline for the backseat of the jet.

She only pinpoints the cause an hour into the flight. With four hours still to go, she realises it’s as simple as hunger. A skipped dinner from yesterday, a breakfast of coffee and packaged cookies, and then a lunch interrupted by unsub-hunting does that to you. And, of course, coupled with the grand total of two hours of sleep. The equation simplifies enough for an answer more common than you’d think; she’d merely forgotten about her basic needs again.

There’s nothing to be done about it now. There’s no way she could fall asleep in front of all these people. Just thinking about it is terrifying. Neither is there a five course meal stashed somewhere in the overhead cabins. So, she adjusts her noise-cancelling headphones, and goes back to reading, maximizing the don’t-talk-to-me factor as much as possible, to the point where even Spencer reluctantly chooses to nap instead.

She can’t avoid people much longer, she realises, as Elle comes over to her desk. The one right across from hers, inconveniently so. “So,” she starts, forcing Melody to look up, “First case. Got any reviews?”

Melody reciprocates the effort, even if reluctantly. She can’t run from conversations forever. “It was… alright? I don’t quite know the right word for this situation, really,” she mumbles, stuffing files into her bag.

“Fair enough. What about you?”

She blinks, “Me?”

“Yeah. How do you feel?”

“I…” she glances away, thumbnail tearing at the middle nail, “I’m fine.”

Elle’s silent for a moment, eerily so, studying her. Again, not fun to be on the other side of this, she keeps realising. “You sure?”

“Mhm.”

She seems skeptical enough to keep her brows raised, but nice enough to drop it, saving the mystery of Melody’s too-easy-compartmentalization for another day. “Alright. Get some rest, Jones.”

She offers a polite smile, “Yeah. Uh, you too!”

Crisis averted, she thinks, rushing to the elevator before anybody else can, eager to get home as soon as possible or she might genuinely pass out right there in the hallway. The metal doors are just a few inches from sealing her into much needed solitude, when a brown messenger bag interrupts, sliding in between.

“Sorry. Hi,” Spencer mutters, disheveled in that way she realises he always ends up being at the end of the workday, no matter how composed he tries to be. He’ll always have those endearing imperfections hiding beneath—crooked tie, rolled up sleeves, wrinkled collar, the works—revealing themselves more and more as the day goes by.

“Hey.”

It’s a familiar sight, she thinks, remembering the brief moment at the hotel.

“You alright?”

She almost wants to scoff. “Why does everybody keep asking me that?”

“Sorry,” he winces, “Just– It’s normal, y’know, to be affected by your first case. It’s a lot different from the academy. Although, well, that’s obvious. Everybody knows that. But still, it’s quite common for any new law enforcement officer to feel—”

“I’m fine, Spence,” she cuts in, sharper than intended. “I barely did much anyway. Gideon did most of the talking.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.”

It’s silent, until the elevator dings and the two of them, much to their awkward dismay, walk in the same direction to the parking lot. Spencer’s still nervous, buzzing with too much energy than should be acceptable at seven pm. If yesterday, he’d been exhausted, tonight he’s restless. Still wired long after the case had been closed.

“Are you okay?” she blurts out, just before the intersection where they would’ve turned to their respective cars.

His head shoots up, fingers twitching against the strap of his bag. He clears his throat, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I just—” he splutters, mouth opening and closing indecisively. Like there’s something he’s not sure he should let escape. A decision that he decides needs more time to sit.

“N-nothing. I’m alright.”

Melody stares at him, not even bothering to hide how unconvinced she is. “...Okay. Uh. I’m gonna… y’know. Head to my car. And. Go home. Because… it’s late.”

He nods, too quick and then too slow, “Yeah! Yeah, me too. Um. Bye.”

Spencer considers his unasked question from all angles as he makes the trek to his car, and then some more on the drive home. It’s too soon, he realises, despite not having any frame of reference for these kinds of things due to both inexperience, and a lack of research he’ll be making up on the second he enters his apartment.

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

The door creaks as Melody forces it open despite its will, practically wailing to be put down. The floorboards reciprocate as her bag hits them, sending a stray sock flying towards the cluttered coffee table. She hangs up her keys, kicks her shoes in the general direction of the rack, before sighing at the sight.

There’s no easier way to describe her apartment than as if a literal cyclone had passed through—a common sight in her life by now. Too drained to sort laundry and wash dishes, too overstimulated to head straight to bed, she settles on organising the mess into… more organised mess.

All the clothes go in two piles, clean ones born from outfit indecision go on her desk chair, dirty ones in the hamper. The stray dishes from breakfast pile in the sink. The pile of books, however, are slotted perfectly into the massive bookshelves that overtake the entire back wall of the living room, leaving only space for windows, underneath which, lower bookshelves sit. There’s a picture of her and her sister Amara atop one of them, coupled with other strays. An unfinished crossword puzzle, a soda can she thankfully trashes, and more piles of books that hadn’t quite fit.

The reflection isn’t as appealing as she’d hoped. The bathroom light does little to help the dark circles that had won a fight against concealer, and the stray hairs that had escaped her ponytail. She re-ties her hair, scraping every annoying strand back, clips her bangs out of her eyes, and sighs in what can only be described as pure relief as she wipes her makeup off. The feeling is further magnified when the itchy slacks are replaced with sweatpants.

Once her brain stops over-intensifying every bit of stimuli, she manages to get to the kitchen. A frustrated search results in her hesitantly reaching for her phone.

Melody does not like spending money. Her groceries are bare minimum, every piece of furniture in her apartment has a defined use, every decoration or item of leisure was born only as a self-awarded reward. A lego set if she doesn’t get takeout for a month. Hobbies she only let herself indulge in once she’d forced the idea to simmer for a bit, in order to prevent impulsiveness. Old, peeling posters she’d collected over the years on her bedroom walls—Marvel, Apollo 13, Star Wars, Doctor Who, her favourite constellations, etc. The thought of ordering food, a necessity born out of her own carelessness, made something crawl deep inside her chest. A pit of guilt that burned, even more nauseating than the hunger, to the point where she considered sleeping it off.

Logic said it wouldn’t matter. She’d be even more tired tomorrow, can’t possibly risk not being at her 100% for work, and she’d ration the leftovers for breakfast.

Still, each bite of the pizza feels like chewing on guilt itself, as she makes plans to fit this new phase of her life. She should’ve known the job was unstable, should’ve prepared meals, stocked groceries, and she does know it now. She scribbles a grocery list with her free hand, the documentary ignored for now, only heading to bed once there was a fully fledged plan. And an empty glass of wine.