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criminalmindzjunkie · 3 years

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The Reward of Suffering (Part Six)

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Summary: Spencer comes face to face with a ghost from the past.

A/N: Hey... how y’all doin? Long time no see, huh? Sorry about that - hopefully this extra long update will make up for my absence. This has definitely been my favorite part thus far, and I had so much fun writing it. I hope you guys enjoy reading it. You guys know the drill by now: SPOILERS for season 12. Also, shoutout to @zhuzhubii for posting the absolute best set of gifs right in time for this update - you’re the coolest.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem! Reader

Warnings: cursing, mentions of death, mentions of rape, mentions of mental illness, kidnapping, choking

Word Count: 10.3k

With every clack of my heels on the concrete floors, the nervous feeling in my gut grows into full blown nausea. It’s been nearly two months since I last walked these halls, but somehow it feels like a lifetime has passed. Considering everything that transpired in the last forty-eight hours, it makes sense that I feel that way.

I hadn’t been on the team when Lindsey Vaughn first came into the picture ten years ago, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t familiar. At the time, I thought nothing of the kind neighbor that I sometimes passed in the stairwell on my way to Spencer’s apartment. I mean, why would I? I had no reason to be suspicious. Our interactions never went beyond the usual pleasantries – polite smiles and the occasional greeting – and I never gave her a second thought.

Maybe if I had, Cassie wouldn’t be dead, and Spencer’s mother wouldn’t be missing.

I shake my head at the thought. Now isn’t the time to ruminate on what ifs. I would have plenty of time to blame myself when all of this is over. Instead of torturing myself, I focus on trying to steady my breathing as I come to a stop just before I reach the interview room of the Milburn Correctional Facility.

I know what lies beyond that door, and I’m equal parts excited and worried. Excited, because I’d finally be able to see Spencer after two long months of daydreaming about when I’d finally hold him in my arms again. Of course, it was very possible that Spencer wouldn’t want to see me. After all, I promised to keep his mother safe, and instead of doing that, I let myself get swept up in moving in to my apartment, and now Diana was God knows where.

I was so sure that he wouldn’t want to see me that I’d initially suggested that Emily be the one to go to the prison and get him. My idea was met with a sad smile and a pat on the shoulder.

“I think that if it was anyone but you standing there when they open that door, it’d break his heart.”

Her reassurances did little to assuage my nerves. I spent the entire ride here running over every possible scenario that I could imagine, scrambling to form some kind of game plan. But now that I was here, any semblance of preparedness left me the second the guard reached for the door handle.

“You ready, ma’am?”

Yes.

No.

I don’t trust my voice, so I settle on nodding my head. The door opens with a groan, rusty hinges creaking in protest, and with shaky legs and a heart that threatens to beat out of my chest, I step into the doorway.

It’s like the world stops turning on its axis when his eyes meet mine. Those familiar pools of caramel stare back at me with such an intensity that I force myself to look away, petrified at the prospect of seeing disappointment in them.

I trail my eyes over his frame, drinking in every inch of him - every bruise and every scrape feeling like a dagger to my heart. My eyes linger on the bandage adorning his left arm, before trailing down to the one on his leg. Emily had warned me about happened, about Spencer injuring himself in order to secure his safety. It was smart of him - that I knew - but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t horrified.

His hair has gotten longer, and his curls hang limply around his face. The usually clean-shaven Spencer I once knew was a thing of the past - replaced now by a more disheveled, scruffier version.

Clean-shaven or not, he still looks just as breathtaking as always.

I hesitantly raise my eyes up to his again. He’s staring at me still, mouth parted in shock. He doesn’t look angry, just confused, and that fills me with a tiny sliver of hope.

“Hi, Spence,” I murmur, voice thick with emotion. It’s not until I speak that I realize I’m crying, and I hastily wipe at my cheeks with my shirtsleeve.

The dazed look in Spencer’s eyes washes away when he hears my voice and he blinks hard.

“What… H-How are you…?” he trails off, eyes moving up and down my body.

It feels so fucking good to hear his voice again, and I find myself unable to hold back a sob.

“M’ here to take you home,” I choke out.

It’s like all the tension in Spencer’s body is expelled at once and his shoulders slump in relief. I open my mouth to elaborate, to explain how Emily had managed to pull this off, but I’m stunned into silence when Spencer’s body collides with mine. I hadn’t even had time to process that he was moving before his arms snake around me, tugging me forward until there’s no space in between our bodies. Spencer’s hands collect fistfuls of my shirt, clinging desperately to the fabric as he nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck.

Once I get over the initial shock, I’m hugging him back, arms locked around his torso in a vicelike grip. He doesn’t smell the same – the usual fragrance of cinnamon and vanilla is long gone, replaced with that of some generic detergent – but the way his broad shoulders feel underneath my palms is something so familiar that I can’t help but smile against his chest.

This is still my Spencer.

Spencer lets out a shaky breath against my skin and I let out an involuntary shudder at the feeling.

“Missed you so fucking much,” Spencer whispers. “I-I can’t believe you’re here. Thought I was imagining it.” Spencer takes a shaky breath in, nuzzling further into my neck. His next words are muffled from the way his lips press against my skin, but I’m still able to make out the quiet ‘I’m sorry’.

“You’re sorry?” I hiccup, eyebrows scrunching up in disbelief. I attempt to pull away so that I can look at him, but Spencer only tightens his grip on me. Something about it makes my chest feel incredibly warm, but I push that feeling aside for now. “I’m the one that’s sorry. I should’ve done more – I should’ve visited more often. I let myself get busy, and if I’d just been more careful, then your m-mom… she wouldn’t be-”

“Stop that,” Spencer interrupts, and this time he’s the one that pulls away. He holds me at arm’s length and those beautiful brown eyes lock with mine. “This is absolutely not your fault.”

Spencer’s hands come up to cup either side of my face and his thumbs wipe away at the tears on my cheeks. “You’ve done so much for me – for her. I’m sorry that I took you off the list. Things were getting so bad here, and if something would have happened to you…” Spencer pauses, closing his eyes and leaning down until his forehead rests against mine. “It was never because I didn’t want to see you, I promise. And… And your letter - I can’t even begin to explain how much that helped. I’m sorry that I couldn’t write back. I didn’t know what to say. Especially not after…”

He doesn’t elaborate, but I’m able to fill in the blanks myself. I bring my hand up and rest it on top of his.

“S’okay, Spence. I know,” I whisper. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I understand.”

Spencer hums and a ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of his lips.

“Time to get you out of here, Doc.” I remove his hand from my face and give it a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go get your mom back.”

Spencer opens his eyes and for the first time in two months I’m on the receiving end of my favorite smile in the whole world.

I lead him from the room, never once removing my hand from his. Now that I have him back, I don’t ever want to let go.

For the second time today, the clacking of my heels against the concrete floor is the only sound that can be heard. Spencer moves silently beside me, his face pulled into a somber expression as we stalk down the long corridor. His hand brushes against mine, and I long to reach out and intertwine our fingers like I had only hours before. I suppress the urge, stealing one last, poorly concealed glance at him before I settle my gaze on the door at the end of the hall.

In the last several hours, the entire case had been flipped upside down. We’d been wrong all along – Scratch wasn’t to blame for the shit show that had transpired over the last three months. It’d been an easy enough mistake to make. After the incident with Tara’s brother, Scratch was the obvious choice. Pair that with the fact that Spencer had been drugged and we had no reason to suspect anyone else.

Cat Adams was the last thing on everyone’s mind when Mexico happened. It’d been over a year since Spencer outsmarted her in that restaurant, and she was very much out of sight and out of mind. She was in a maximum-security prison, for fuck’s sake. That alone should have rendered her unable to carry out a scheme this convoluted.

But apparently that meant nothing, because Cat had somehow managed to be the mastermind behind this whole ordeal, perfectly orchestrating the entire thing from her cell in solitary confinement – using Lindsey Vaugh as her metaphorical puppet on a string. We’d sorely underestimated Cat, and our arrogance had come back to bite us all in the ass.

A guard that stands at the end of the hall opens the door for us, and I feel an intense rush of foreboding as we step into the room. The sound of the guard closing the door behind us brings a sense of finality to the situation; there is no turning back now. Either we walk out of here knowing Diana’s whereabouts, or we miss the mark completely and loose Diana in the process.

I cast a worried look at Spencer, whose eyes are trained on the double-sided glass. The tension has returned to his shoulders, and his fists are clenched tightly at his sides. There’s a sort of fiery determination in his eyes – a sort of menacing resolve that I’d never seen in him before.

Spencer looks intimidating, and nothing like the Spencer that was led from the courtroom three months ago. I pull my eyes away in favor of looking through the glass.

Reid had been able to see through Cat’s mind games the first time, but the Cat that sat on the other side of that door is a far cry from the one he encountered a year ago. If she’d looked cold and calculating before, she looks downright deranged now.

“Are you sure you want to go in there alone?” I ask after a moment. “I could-”

“No,” Spencer cuts me off. His tone is hard and definite, warning me not to argue. “I can’t ask you to do that. Emily shouldn’t have made you come in the first place.”

“Emily told me to come with you because she knew that there was nothing she could do to make me stay.” I pause long enough to shoot him a weak smile. “Hope you enjoyed your three-month break from me, because I’m going to practically glued to your side from now on. You’ll be dying to get rid of me in a month’s time.”

Spencer’s lips twitch, threatening to turn up into a smile.

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“We’ll see,” I breeze. “But I’m serious, Spence. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here the whole time – I’m not letting you go in there alone, and I’m not going to leave you.”

“Promise?” Spencer asks, finally pulling his eyes away from the window in favor of looking at me. There’s a sadness in his eyes that wasn’t there before, and the weight of his gaze is so heavy that I worry I might buckle under it.

I reach for his hand and hook my pinky finger around his, lifting our intertwined hands to eye level.

“I promise.”

Spencer’s pinky finger squeezes mine and he closes his eyes.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve the world, Spence.”

For a moment I think he’s going to say something else, but then Spencer’s lips press into a tight line and he only nods in response. He releases my hand and I let it fall limply at my side. Spencer rolls his shoulders back, and that stony expression returns to his face. He reaches out and pulls open the door, and I follow closely behind him at he steps over the threshold.

It’s as if I’m invisible; Cat doesn’t even spare me a glance when I enter the room. Her eyes, narrowed and sparkling with amusement, hone in on Spencer immediately.

“Spencie,” she greets, smiling deviously up at him.

“Where’s my mother?” Spencer asks, completely devoid of emotion.

“I missed you.”

“What did you and Lindsey do to her? How did you-”

Cat raises a hand, effectively cutting him off. She points a finger at him, and the smile that she previously wore is replaced by a grimace.

“Now, stop. You don’t get to walk in here and hiss at me like I’m the criminal. No – we’re going to do this my way.” Cat kicks the chair that sits on the opposite side of the table and Spencer reaches out to grab it. “Have a seat.”

Spencer complies and Cat’s smile returns.

“How was prison? Did you like it?”

“No.”

Cat hums.

“It’s not fun, is it?”

“Unlike you, I didn’t deserve to be there,” Spencer retorts.

Cat leans forward, crossing her arms before resting them on the metal table.

“How did you stay sane? A brain like yours needs stimulation in such a gray place.”

“I worked in the laundry room and I played chess.”

“That’s three, maybe four hours, tops. What about the other twenty?”

“I read.”

Cat shakes her head. “That’s still not enough. You have to… go someplace.” She taps the side of her head. “Up here. Or else you go crazy. Do you want to see where I go? I’ll show you.” Cat crooks a finger at Spencer, and I tense at the gesture. The idea of that psychotic bitch getting any closer to him makes my skin crawl. I clench my fists together and the feeling of my nails digging into my palms is enough to ground me.

Spencer leans forward, mimicking Cat’s relaxed position. She reaches a hand out towards him, and before I can think better of it, I speak up.

“Hands off,” I warn.

Cat halts her movements and fixes me with an irritated expression, looking me up and down distastefully before turning her attention back to Spencer.

“Close your eyes,” she instructs him. Spencer complies. “Good. Now keep them closed. Sit back and relax. When you open your eyes, I want you to look at me like I’m the first woman you’ve seen after being in prison for three months.”

I clench my jaw at that. Something stirs in my chest – something foreign and possessive that has me bristling. I tense, watching closely as Spencer opens his eyes and smiles that beautiful smile at Cat. My stomach turns painfully at the sight.

“Hello, Cat,” Spencer greets her, and all the contempt his tone previously held is gone – replaced with a neutrality that bordered on happiness.

Cat lets out a pleased laugh.

“You’re here!” she exclaims, throwing her arms out as she gestures about the room. “You’re really here.”

“There is nowhere else I would rather be,” Spencer replies, sounding startlingly genuine.

This is all an act, I remind myself. Spencer’s just playing a part. None of this is real.

Cat crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re good at this. You’re so good at this that I almost believe that you don’t want to kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Spencer says with a shake of his head.

“No?”

“No.”

Cat narrows her eyes at him.

“What if I let your mother die?” she inquires. “Then would you kill me? Or would you just…” Cat trails of as she leans forward. “… Hurt me? Would you pin me down and leave bruises that don’t go away?”

I swallow hard against the bile that threatens to crawl its way up my throat. Spencer might not want to kill her, but I do.

“Is that what you want?”

Cat shrugs her shoulders.

“I guess I just want to know if you would – if you could.”

Spencer gives a small shake of his head.

“No.”

“No?” Cat taunts, cocking her head to the side.

“It’s not the kind of man I am.”

Cat’s face drops and her eyes narrow into slits.

“Do me a favor and tell your little chaperone over there to step aside, because we’re going to play another game. And this time, we’re going to find out exactly what kind of man you are.”

Spencer’s eyes flit to me and he nods towards the door. I open my mouth to argue, but the pleading look in his eyes has me clamping it shut. It’s okay, his eyes seem to tell me. I know you promised, but I’ll be fine.

Cat waves at me as I reluctantly move towards the door. When the door clicks shut behind me, Spencer takes it as his invitation to continue.

“Let’s play,” his voice sounds through the speaker to my left.

“Let’s!” Cat exclaims before resting her head in her hand.

“So, is it the same game as last time?” Spencer inquires. “I answer every question you ask honestly?”

“No,” Cat sighs out. “This time you get to ask the questions.”

Spencer raises an eyebrow at her. “About what?”

“Well, I know a secret about you. And you can ask me as many questions as you like to figure it out. But you only get one guess as to what it is. If you guess correctly, I take your phone, I call our friend Lindsey, and I tell her to release your dear mother unharmed. If you don’t…” Cat trails off, before mimicking bringing a gun up to her mouth and firing.

Crazy fucking bitch.

“Is there a clock?”

“There’s always a clock.” Cat holds out her hand, eyes flicking down to Spencer’s watch. “Give it to me.”

I cringe when Spencer hesitates – I know what he must be thinking. That’s Gideon’s watch. The only thing he has left of him. I’d never seen Spencer without it in the two years I’ve known him.

Spencer reluctantly slips the watch off of his wrist and hands it over.

Cat smirks and slides the watch onto her arm.

“Now, you’ll have four hours.”

“Do you want to give me a hint before we start?”

Cat chuckles. “Do I look like a girl that gives hints?” “Actually, you do.”

Cat takes pause, looking Spencer up and down before speaking.

“Okay, how about this; it’s a secret you’ll never admit to.”

“I know what the secret is.”

Cat quirks an eyebrow up at Spencer.

“You do?”

He nods. “Why else would you put me through all this?”

“Ooh, phrasing it in the form of a question that way it doesn’t count as a guess. Very smart, Doctor.”

“I’m gonna walk you through a scenario, and your face is going to tell me how close I am,” Spencer murmurs, an amused smile on his lips. He leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. “From the moment I arrested you, you watched and waited for the right time to take your revenge. When you learned I was going to Mexico, you took it. You and Lindsey framed me for murder so I’d be put in a prison and treated like a criminal, and then you kidnapped my mother so I would know how it feels to have a parent manipulated, because you want to prove that you and I are the same. Am I right?”

Cat feigns a yawn in response.

“Mm. Sorry, I couldn’t hold that in any longer. What were you saying?”

“Psychopaths tend to get bored easily.”

“You’re right. Let’s speed this up,” Cat sighs with a roll of her eyes. She pushes away from the table, standing up and walking over to Spencer’s side of the table. I fight the urge to barge in when I see her take a seat on his lap. Cat runs a hand down Spencer’s chest before she continues. “Shall we? What do you think about all the pain you’ve suffered in your life? What would I capitalize on, do you think? Is it… the death of your mentor, SSA Jason Gideon?”

I can see the way Spencer’s jaw clenches and it makes my heart lurch painfully in my chest.

“No, because we caught the man who killed him.”

“What about Agent Morgan and your guilt over not visiting his little boy?” Cat whispers in his ear as her hands fiddle with the collar of his suit.

“I was in prison.”

“Yeah, but you had time before that. Why didn’t you go?” she presses as she grazes her nails down the length of his throat. I see red when her hand loosely circles around his neck. Spencer absolutely loathes being touched by anyone other than those closest to him, and I’ve no doubt that he’s horribly uncomfortable.

“Truthfully, I got distracted. I was trying to figure out a way to help my mom. She didn’t have time. Morgan, Savannah, and little Bobby did. So, there’s absolutely no shame in admitting that. Morgan would understand.”

“I agree. That’s why that’s not the secret,” Cat divulges, brushing her nose against the side of his face before pulling away and standing up. I let out the breath that I’d apparently been holding and allow myself a moment to run a shaky hand through my hair. If I was getting this frazzled from being a bystander to this conversation, I can only imagine how Spencer must be feeling.

When I look back up at the mirror, Spencer’s looking over his shoulder at me through the glass. I know he can’t see me, but I can’t help but feel guilty for losing my cool.

“Good job, Spence,” I murmur to myself as I pull out my phone. After a few rings, Rossie answers.

“Go ahead, Y/N. You’re on speaker.”

“Cat has an extremely deep background on Spencer. She knows about everything – Gideon’s death, Derek leaving the team, his mom’s condition,” I inform them, tapping my foot nervously against the concrete.

“She’s throwing him off-balance.”

“Yes, but Spencer also purposefully gave the wrong name of Derek’s son and she didn’t correct him,” I point out.

“She must’ve gotten her hands on Reid’s confidential FBI file,” Emily chimes in. “It would mention pertinent team information but it wouldn’t name Morgan’s son for confidentiality reasons.”

“We were thinking she’s been getting help from someone inside the prison. This goes deeper than that,” Rossi sighs.

“Call us if she says anything else of any importance,” Emily signs off. I mumble a quick goodbye before pocketing my phone and turning my attention back to the window.

“Working deductively, the secret wouldn’t be any of the topics you’ve already volunteered, because you wouldn’t want to make it easy on me,” Spencer reasons. He clasps his hands together and sits back in his seat before raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“Genius, truly,” Cat taunts sarcastically as she twirls the watch around her finger.

“So, what is left that I wouldn’t want to admit?” Spencer muses, eyebrows drawn together in contemplation. Cat shrugs her shoulders at him and another moment of tense silence passes.

“Love,” Spencer utters, and Cat’s incessant twirling of the watch comes to an abrupt halt.

Got her.

“Is that what this is all about – love? For my mother?” Spencer whispers, and when Cat fails to respond, he shakes his head. “No, not for her. For you. You want me to admit that I’m actually in love with you.”

Cat purses her lips together.

“Don’t get me wrong – I love my fairy tales as much as the next girl – but I’m not delusional,” Cat says as she crosses her arms.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Very sure. So sure, in fact, that I had Lindsey leave a clue for you in that little scrapbook in your apartment.”

I scrunch my face up at that. The clue in question had been a message inscribed on the back of an old photograph;xx-xy. We’d originally deduced that the message, the female and male chromosomes, was to confirm that Lindsey was working with Scratch. But now? Now I didn’t have a clue what Cat was talking about.

“I couldn’t have you come all the way down here and make a guess until I was positive. That is…” Cat pauses for dramatic effect, a sly smile on her lips. “… until I tested positive.” Cat punctuates her words by placing both hands on her stomach, and the action makes me raise a hand up to my mouth in shock.

No. There’s no fucking way.

“What, you’re pregnant?” Spencer asks, confused.

“No, we’re pregnant.”

I feel my knees buckle upon hearing the admission and I blindly reach for the chair to my left.

This cannot be happening.

“No,” Spencer says, shaking his head adamantly.

“Oh, yes,” Cat replies. “Mazel tov.”

“Here you are, ma’am.”

I reach for the file, my movements stilted and awkward.

“Thank you,” I mumble to the guard, who gives me a peculiar look before leaving the room. I waste no time in flipping through the file, heart pounding wildly in my chest as my eyes skim over the page until –

Positive.

I slam the file down on the table.

“Fuck!” I yell out in frustration. I’m thankful then for the thick, concrete walls, because neither Spencer nor Cat show any sign of having heard my little outburst. I place both palms down on the cool metal of the table, my breaths coming out in haggard puffs as I try to rationalize it all.

“- not possible,” Spencer’s voice coming through the speaker snaps me out of my thoughts. I cut my eyes to the window to find Spencer pacing the room. “Even if you are pregnant, the baby’s not mine.” Spencer comes to a stop behind his chair and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Except for the part where it is.”

“That’s completely preposterous. You’ve been in prison,” Spencer points out as he once again takes a seat across from her.

“So have you.”

“And we’ve never-”

“I know. We’ve never…” Cat trails off with a suggestive waggle of her brows. “Ask me how I did it. Come on, ask me.”

Spencer rolls his eyes, but he indulges her nonetheless.

“How did you do it?”

“I had Lindsey dose you in Mexico. You lost time. And I gave her very specific instruction on how to get you in the mood,” Cat admits.

“What?” Spencer snorts cynically. “Did she pretend to be you?”

“Why, would that have worked?”

Spencer leans forward and shoots Cat a cruel kind of smile.

“No.”

For a split second Cat’s face falls, but only for a moment and then she goes right back to smiling that wretched grin.

“Yeah, I know, I know. Believe me, I know exactly where I stand on the Spencer Reid hot or not list,” Cat sighs. “So, ask me again.”

“How did you do it?”

“I told her to pretend to be Y/N.”

For a second I think that I misheard her – the blood rushing in my ears almost overpowered her admission – but the way Spencer’s entire body tenses before he looks back at the window tells me that I didn’t.

Why me?

Spencer gulps hard before he turns back around. I find my way to the chair nearest me and collapse into it.

“How do you know about her?”

Cat gives him an unimpressed look.

“It wasn’t hard, seeing as she’s your very best friend in the whole wide world,” Cat teases as her eyes wander from Spencer to the glass behind him. She waves at me, endlessly amused, before turning her attention back to Spencer. “But that isn’t all that she is to you – is it Spencie? At least, Lindsey didn’t think so. At first, she thought the two of you were tangled up in some kind of sexy little tryst. But then I had Lindsey do a little digging, and, well, that’s when we found out about the boyfriend.”

“Stop.”

“Oh, it seems I’ve struck a nerve!” Cat trills gleefully. “Shall we call her in here to join us? I know she’s just on the other side of that glass. I’m sure she’d love to hear all about how pathetic little Spencer Reid pines after her like a school boy with a crush.” She pouts her bottom lip out in mock sadness. “There’s just something about unrequited love that really tugs at my heart strings.”

Oh.

For the second time since arriving here, my hand comes up to cover my mouth as I struggle to process Cat’s words. She can’t be right, can she? Spencer had never done anything that eluded to him seeing me as any more than a best friend. Perhaps she got it wrong. Lindsey saw me come and go and she just assumed it was something that it wasn’t. There was no way that Spencer -

“I said stop.”

The underlying plea in his voice is enough to make tears well in my eyes. If what Cat is saying is true, that means that Lindsey . . .

“All it took was Lindsey saying she was Y/N for you to crumble like a house of cards. You really made it too easy.”

“You’re lying.”

Cat chuckles. “Listen to you, you’re not even trying to deny it.”

“It didn’t happen,” Spencer argues, voice so quiet that I have to strain to hear it.

“Hey, I was thinking, if it’s a boy, we should definitely call him Spencie Jr.”

Spencer pushes back from the table so abruptly that both Cat and I flinch, and he’s almost out the door when Cat delivers one final dig.

“-But if it’s a girl, I think we should call her Y/N. I mean after all; she played such a huge role in in her own conception!”

The sound of the door slamming behind him as he trudges into the room is enough to make me bolt up from my seat. Spencer comes to a stop at the center of the room, eyes wide and full of remorse as he looks over at me.

“I-I… I’m…”

I try my best to muster up a smile but I worry that it comes out more as a grimace.

“Later,” I murmur, and Spencer winces before nodding his head in defeat. I walk over to the table and open up the file. “She’s not lying about being pregnant.”

Spencer joins me at the table, eyes skimming over the document.

“She’s three months, and the timeline matches, but that doesn’t mean-”

Spencer yanks the file off the table and hurls it at the window, shoulders rising and falling rapidly as he runs a hand through his disheveled hair.

I take a step back and Spencer curses under his breath.

“I’m sorry. It’s not you,” he sighs. “I just… need a minute.”

I press my lips together and nod.

“Take all the time you need. M’gonna go call Emily,” I murmur.

Spencer closes his eyes and lets his head hang low.

�� “Yeah, okay,” he whispers dejectedly, and the despair in his voice is enough to stop me in my tracks.

“Spence?” I call out. He looks up at me from underneath his lashes, more than a little bit timid and scared. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m not leaving you.”

I open the door and step out of the room, but it doesn’t close before I hear the quiet ‘thank you’ drift from within.

Spencer waits until the door clicks shut behind her to push away from the table and head back into the interrogation room. He couldn’t bear the thought of her overhearing any more than she already had. As far as Spencer was concerned, Cat had just singlehandedly ruined the one good thing he had going for him, and at this point, he had nothing left to lose.

“Let’s pretend you’re telling the truth,” Spencer starts. “That means I guessed it, right? The secret, the one I don’t want to admit to? It’s my child?”

Cat looks up at him with bored eyes and Spencer feels his unease begin to give way to rage.

“Is that your guess?” Cat asks. “You only get one, remember?”

Spencer takes pause, before shaking his head.

“No. It’s too easy,” he decides.

“Believe me, getting pregnant with your baby was not easy,” Cat mutters, and Spencer’s lips press into a tight line. The implication of it is enough to make his skin crawl. He feels violated and absolutely disgusted, but still he tries to school his impression into one of indifference. Spencer thinks about his mom, scared and confused, and that’s enough incentive to make him focus on the task at hand.

“You misunderstand. It’s too easy emotionally,” Spencer explains in a clipped tone as he sits down. “Because I can take your child from you. The child I had absolutely no role in creating, but a child that I would care for better than you.”

“That’s rude,” Cat seethes as she slowly lifts her head from off of the table.

“It’s true. You can’t be a mother, Cat. I’m not trying to insult you – it’s your psychological makeup. You literally do not have the emotional skills to care for another human being. You’d lose interest in your own baby the way a six-year-old loses interest in a pet hamster. This baby is simply a means to an end, which is to keep me here and playing your game, guessing like a fool and assuming something that I never should have assumed in the first place.”

“And what would that be?”

“My mother’s already dead,” Spencer says, and the words taste positively foul in his mouth. “She was dead before I walked in here”

Cat’s lips pull into a frown.

“She’s not dead-”

“Yes, she is,” Spencer reiterates as he rises from his chair.

“No, because that would be cheating and I don’t cheat. You cheat!” Cat panics, voice growing louder the closer Spencer gets to the door.

“I’m done playing,” Spencer says as he turns away, reaching for the door knob.

“Get back here!”

Spencer pulls the door open. “Goodbye, Cat.”

He has one foot out the door when;

“I’ll let you talk to her!” Cat yells out as she slams her fist down on the table.

Spencer lifts his eyes up from their spot on the floor, and it’s with a jolt of surprise that his eyes meet Y/N’s. It feels to him like it always does when he sees her – like some great relief that floods through his entire body in an instant. He feels guilty for it, now that she knows, but that doesn’t stop him from basking in it. The feeling grows when a triumphant smile graces her lips, one that says you’ve got her, Spence. You’ve got her right where you want her.

Spencer is positively rejuvenated by that smile.

He reluctantly pulls his gaze away from her and focuses back on Cat. He’s come too far now to fuck it all up.

Spencer pulls his phone from the depths of his suit pocket and hands it to Cat. He watches on as she dials the number, and his heart beats so fast that he wonders if she can hear it. The sound of the dial tone ringing fills the room, and Spencer can only hope that the call will be long enough for Penelope to trace.

“You’re early,” a voice that’s unmistakably Lindsey’s calls out. Spencer lets out a shaky breath of relief.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did he guess?”

“No, not yet,” Cat sighs. “We need proof of life.”

“All right, hold on,” Lindsey says, exasperated, and her words are followed by several seconds of muffled rustling and what Spencer deems as some sort of liquid being poured.

“Spencer!”

His heart practically bursts out of his chest as he lunges forward, yanking the phone out of Cat’s hand and bringing it up to his ear.

“Mom - mom, are you okay?”

“I don’t… know-”

Spencer opens his mouth to reply when the gut-wrenching sound of an explosion rips through the tiny phone speakers, distorted and so loud that it makes Spencer’s ears ring.

“Mom!” Spencer desperately yells into the phone, but all he gets in reply is a ‘gotta go’ from Lindsey before the line goes dead. Spencer growls out a string of swears, throwing his phone down on the table before leaning over the table.

“What the hell was that?” he yells, and he’s vaguely aware of the sound of the door opening, but he can’t focus on anything other than his own rising panic.

“I don’t know,” Cat replies, opening her mouth to continue but Spencer cuts her off.

“Lindsey said you were early. Was that a signal?” he bellows.

“Spence, come on,” Y/N tries to interject. Spencer feels her hand on his shoulder but he shrugs it off before bringing his fist down on the table.

“Was that a prearranged signal to kill my mother?!” Spencer snarls, eyes wide and teeth barred. He feels positively feral, images of his mother in all sorts of terrible states of distress flashing through his mind like some grotesque picture show. “Tell me the truth!”

“No! I am!” Cat shouts back.

“Tell me the truth!”

“I am!” Cat spits out, eyes flashing angrily. “You wanna know the truth? Your mother is an Alzheimer’s-ridden moron who’s getting dumber by the day and if she’s dead, it’s your fault!”

Something comes over Spencer then, and in an instant, he’s shoving the table out of the way and pushing Cat against the wall. His hands find purchase on her throat, not dissimilar to how hers had on his hours before, but instead of dragging his fingers against her neck, Spencer’s clamping down on it as hard as he can, taking great pleasure in the way she gasps for air as his hands tighten. Everything around him fades away until all that he can focus on is that way that her pulse feels under his hands – the way it starts off strong, before tapering, slower and slower until he can barely even palpate it anymore.

“I’m going to kill you,” Spencer hears himself whisper as he presses down hard on her windpipe. “M’gonna fucking kill you.”

Cat’s eyes are fluttering closed now, and Spencer shouldn’t enjoy the way the light in her eyes starts to dim. He shouldn’t but he does – in fact, it prompts him to press harder and harder and –

A harsh yank pulls Spencer away from Cat, and as soon as his hands begin to loosen Cat splutters in an attempt to catch her breath.

“Spencer, she is pregnant,” Y/N yells in his ear, and just like that his tunnel vison fades away and Spencer feels the adrenaline leave his body. He only realizes that his hands are still on Cat’s throat when Y/N yanks at his arms again. “Fucking let her go, Spencer!”

His entire body goes limp and he allows himself to be drug away from Cat and out of the room. Spencer’s heart still pounds and his blood is still roaring in his ears, but the satisfaction has given away to shame. He steals a glance at cat as he’s being pulled from the room, and despite her ruffled appearance, she’s grinning at him – smiling as if to say see? I told you that you were just like me.

Spencer stumbles into the other room, steadying himself on the wall to keep from faceplanting onto the cold hard floor. Now that the adrenaline has expelled itself from his body, he’s left shaky and panting and ashamed.

The feeling of Y/N’s eyes on him as he braces himself on the wall only exacerbates his mortification. What will she think of me now? Will she think me to be some kind of monster? Spencer wouldn’t blame her - he’s held that same opinion of himself for months now.

Spencer stands there, face turned downwards as he catches his breath, and when he can take the weight of her gaze no longer, he darts out of the room and down the corridor.

Being alone is preferable to being a disappointment, Spencer thinks as he flees the room.

It doesn’t take long for her to find him sitting in the floor, knees to his chest with his face downturned. Spencer hears her before he sees her, and he prepares himself for the yelling that’s surely to come.

She surprises him when she slides her back down the wall until she’s sitting beside him, legs sprawled out in front of her. He doesn’t look up – fearful of what he might see when he looks into those beautiful eyes of hers. There had been love there, before all of this happened. Not the kind of love that was reflected in his own, but it was love just the same and Spencer thinks that it might kill him to see that love replaced with disgust. So he doesn’t look. Instead, Spencer just sits there, slumped over and pathetic, hoping that she doesn’t pick up on the fact that his hands are shaking.

“Richmond County police just reported a gas station explosion. One victim – male. Whatever Lindsey did, we have to assume that your mom’s still alive,” Y/N murmurs. Spencer lets out a shaky breath and his grip on his knees tightens. It’s good news, and he’s grateful, but it does nothing for the overwhelming guilt that’s eating away at him.

“Hey,” she whispers when he doesn’t reply. “Can you look at me, Spence? Wanna see those pretty brown eyes. Please?”

Spencer chokes down the sob that threatens to come out. He shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened in there. That… That’s not me. At least, I don’t want it to be,” Spencer whispers. “Emily should’ve sent someone else with me. I never wanted you to see me like that.”

Her small, incredibly soft hand comes to rest on his own and Spencer closes his eyes at the feeling. Y/N flips his hand over and intertwines their fingers and Spencer can’t help but think that’s she’s showing him way more kindness than he could ever deserve. But he’s selfish, unable to deny himself of the feeling of her hand in his, so he clings onto her hand for dear life.

“I’m so scared that this is who I am now,” Spencer mumbles, prompting her grip on his hand to tighten.

“No, Spence. Don’t say that,” she chastises him. “You’re the best guy I know. Everyone has a breaking point – Cat just knows how to bring you to yours, is all.”

“You… You don’t know…” Spencer trails off, still unwilling to look her in the eye.

“I do know, Spence. I may not have been able to visit, but I asked about you every day,” she says as she shuffles closer to him. Spencer can smell her perfume now, subtle and sweet and comforting. “I know that two inmates, Frazier and Duerson, killed your friend in front of you. I know that they wanted you to move heroin for them, and I also know that if you didn’t, you would’ve been next. Anyone in your spot would’ve done the same.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“Hell yes, I would have,” Y/N persists, and Spencer can’t help but to look up at her from behind where his unruly curls fall into his face. “I would have, Spence. If someone was threatening my life, you bet your ass I would have done the same thing. It doesn’t make you a bad person – doing whatever it takes to survive does not make you a bad person.”

She must pick up on the hesitancy that lingers in Spencer’s eyes, because she decides to continue.

“You know who does think like that? That – that in you doing what you had to do in order to survive somehow makes you a psychopath?” Y/N pauses long enough to point her thumb towards the direction of the interview room. “She does.”

Spencer watches the realization wash over her face, and for a split second he’s terribly confused. It isn’t until a ghost of a smile pulls at her lips that he catches on, and when he does, he has to stop himself from doing something terribly stupid like kissing her.

“She does,” Y/N reiterates when she sees that Spencer finally caught on. “Because she knows.”

“That’s the secret,” Spencer thinks aloud. He pushes himself to his feet and begins to pace down the corridor. “The one that I don’t want to admit about myself.”

“Hold up, Spence. Let’s talk through this, because she will not lose to you twice. She already said that this wasn’t about the two of you being the same.”

Spencer scratches the back of his next, nodding to himself.

“Then she’s all about the game. She thinks that I cheated the last time because I lied about her dad, so it’s integral that she beats me by following the rules.”

“But, Spence, she’s the one that makes the rules. She can change them to ensure that she wins.”

“-Which means that I’m locked in-”

“Like she is.”

“She needs me locked in, playing by her rules, a game I can’t win, so she-” Spencer pauses then, and an actual, honest to God smile creeps its way across his face – the kind of smile that was only reserved for Y/N. “I got it.”

Spencer doesn’t elaborate, because he doesn’t need to. He can tell with one look that she understands, because somehow, she always does. Spencer offers her a hand and hoists her to her feet.

Spencer almost laughs as the two of them step back into the room. Of course, she would be the one to figure it out. It seems like she’s always saving him, these days.

“Guess that’s one way to get you to put your hands on me.”

Spencer feels a twinge of guilt, but he pushes it to the back of his mind as he holds a hand out to Cat.

“Dance with me.”

Cat lifts an eyebrow at him.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want the people watching to hear what I’m about to say.”

Cat is still suspicious, but she takes his hand and lets him pull her to her feet anyways. Spencer puts his arms around her and the two of them begin to sway back and forth. Spencer suppresses the urge to pull away when her hand lowers and intertwines with his own. It’s rough and calloused and cold – a direct contradiction of Y/N’s – and Spencer positively loathes it.

“You had eyes on me while I was in prison, didn’t you?”

“Spencie, don’t ruin the moment,” Cat groans.

“I don’t want to, but I’m on the clock. Answer my question, am I right?” Cat places her head on Spencer’s chest, her hair smelling of some generic bar of soap, and Spencer wishes more than anything that he was smelling the familiar notes of honeysuckle and vanilla instead.

“Yes, you’re right. I wanted to make sure things were just as uncomfortable for you as they were for me.”

“That’s how you timed everything so perfectly. Like sending my mom and Lindsey to visit me when I thought I was at my lowest.”

This piques Cat’s interest and she lifts her head up until her eyes meet Spencer’s.

“Thought? You’re sure you weren’t?”

“No, I wasn’t. Because I didn’t feel bad – I felt scared at how much I enjoyed poisoning the other prisoners. I had a hundred ways of getting myself out of that situation, and I picked the one that would cause them the most pain.”

“Well, look at that,” Cat hums. “You might end up saving your mother’s life after all.”

A moment of silence passes as Spencer contemplates his next move. Before he can get the words out, Cat breaks the silence.

“They won’t get there in time. They must be on their way, right? Your team is too good to wait around, but you know me. I always have a contingency plan,” Cat murmurs, hands dipping under Reid’s suit jacket. She rubs her palms across his chest in slow circles and Spencer tries hard not to squirm. “They’re walking into a trap, and the only way out is if you give me your phone and you guess – right now.”

Cat removes her hands from Spencer’s chest, crossing her arms and fixing him with a pointed look. Spencer reaches down and pulls the phone from his pocket, passing it to Cat who wastes no time in taking a seat at the table once more.

Spencer’s skin tingles, half from anticipation, half from fear. They’ve come too far for him to misstep. He thinks of his mother – of how the next two minutes will determine her fate, and Spencer clenches his hands into fists at his sides.

Here comes the moment of truth.

“When we first sat down, you said you were going to show me what kind of man I am. And you have.”

“Every time I dial a number, you’re getting warmer.”

“At first, I was furious, because the secret had to be the baby inside you. How could it be anything else? But then I realized that somehow, you knew I liked hurting those men.” Cat dials another number, prompting Spencer to continue. “Now, I know it’s both things.”

“So, which is it, Spencie? Come on, don’t fumble it now. You’re at the one-yard line.”

“You’re not pregnant with my child. You got pregnant with Wilkins to put me in as compromised a position as possible. But it should be mine – I wish it were mine. Because you and I… we deserve each other. That is the real secret.”

By the time Spencer finishes speaking, tears are steady falling down Cat’s cheeks. With a shaky hand she presses the call button, and Spencer watches on with bated breath as the phone rings.

“Kill her.”

When Cat receives no reply, she pushes out of her seat and begins to pace around the room. “Lindsey, I said kill her.”

“You bitch,” Lindsey curses, sounding positively heartbroken in the way only a jilted loved could. “You’re pregnant?”

“Lindsey, sweetheart, it’s complicated, okay?”

“No, it’s not,” Lindsey whispers, and then the sound of the dial tone is all that’s left.

Not a second later, Y/N bursts through the door; the figurative light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

“We’re clear.”

Spencer snatches his phone from Cat’s hand before turning to face Y/N.

“Is my mom okay?”

“Yeah. She’s fine.”

“We do deserve each other, by the way,” Cat calls out, prompting Spencer to pivot and face her. She slides back into the seat and shrugs her shoulders. “You guessed right.”

Spencer falters for a moment, but then a voice in his head is reminding him that he deserves the world. And that voice sounds a lot like Y/N.

“You lied, by the way. You were going to kill my mother regardless.”

“Yeah, I think you really liked hurting those men. Once you cross that line, you can’t ever go back. And you’ll never get her to love you, either. You and I are too fucked up to be loved.”

Spencer takes two steps forward before he bends down, reaching out and clutching Cat’s forearm in a tight grip. Without breaking eye contact, he slides his watch off her wrist and back on to his own.

“Watch me,” Spencer whispers, and without so much as a parting glance at the broken women sitting at the table, Spencer walks towards the light.

The elevator ride up to the bullpen is a quiet one, not unlike the jet ride before it. I had about a million questions that I was dying to ask, but I thought it best to let Spencer stew in silence. The poor guy had been through enough in the last twenty-four hours – he didn’t need me hounding him on top of all of that. Besides, I wasn’t entirely sure where to start in the first place.

So, Spence – how was prison?

I heard you got the shit kicked out of you. How interesting, so did I! Wanna trade war stories?

I hate to put you on the spot like this, but was that little tidbit about you being hopelessly in love with me true? Just curious.

As wonderful as all of those conversation starters were, I didn’t really think that now was the time to breech any of the aforementioned subjects. So, instead, Spencer and I communicated in stolen glances and shy smiles, and that more than sufficed for the time being. We had all the time in the world to talk later - there was no need to rush.

I can practically feel Spencer shaking with anticipation when the elevator ride comes to a close, and the two of us share one last, longing glance before the doors open and Spencer steps out and into the arms of his mother.

There’s not a dry eye in the house when Spencer and his mother reunite, and it takes Emily ushering us all away to keep us all from devolving into sniveling messes right in front of the elevator. We all scatter about the bullpen, and after a quick trip to the bathroom I meander to Emily’s office.

“Derek Morgan – you are a sight for sore eyes,” I whistle as I walk into the room, not stopping until I’m pressed up against two-hundred pounds of rock-hard abs.

“Ah, little bit. I sure have missed you,” Derek laughs as he presses a kiss to the top of my head.

“To what do we owe the pleasure? I’d be hard pressed to believe that you just decided to drop in at three o’clock in the morning.”

Derek lets out a sigh and the smile drops from his face.

“I wish I was just here to say hello, but we may have bigger problems. I got a text from Penelope saying that Reid was out of prison and that he wanted to see me. And that he was staying in an FBI safehouse where he was putting his mother up for the night.”

I cast a glance at Emily, who shakes her head.

“I didn’t approve of that,” she explains, and just like that, a weary feeling settles over everyone in the room.

“I think we all know what this sounds like,” Derek says.

“A trap.”

“I know we’re all tired, but we may have a new lead on Scratch.”

“Somebody did a bang-up job of cloning my cellphone to send Morgan a text luring him to a nonexistent safehouse. And whoever that somebody is has mad skills,” Penelope explains.

“The kind of skills Scratch has,” Stephen mutters, earning a round of murmured agreeances.

“Were you able to trace where the hack came from?” Luke inquires, earning an affronted glare from Penelope. She shakes her head at him before turning to Derek, who’s watching on with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Do you see what I have to put up with?”

Derek chuckles and gives Luke a pointed look.

“Alvez, you’ll always get a location with this one.” Derek reaches forward and rubs Penelope’s shoulder, and it’s impossible to miss the way Luke’s eyes zero in on it.

“Down boy,” I whisper at him. “Green isn’t your color.”

“Shut up.”

I roll my eyes good-naturedly before turning my attention back to Emily.

“Obviously, Morgan can’t come with us. He’s a civilian now.”

“We’ll miss you out there,” JJ chimes in.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it out there in the field with you guys. I think about it every day. But between my old friends and my new friends, you guys are gonna go out there, you’re gonna handle your business, you’re gonna make people feel safe, and then you’re gonna go home. And that’s all that matters.”

“Civilian life has turned you into a sap,” I tease.

“Is it just me, or has this one gotten mouthier since I left?”

Penelope pats him on the arm.

“Someone had to fill the silence.”

After everyone has the opportunity to tell Derek their goodbyes, it’s a mad dash to get everything we need to roll out. I pull my hair into a ponytail and shuck off my blazer, only to replace it with my Kevlar. I’m in the middle of securing the last strap as I hurry down the hall when I come in harsh contact with the front of someone’s chest.

But it’s not just someone – it’s Spencer.

“I thought you left already?”

Spencer lets out a strained chuckle.

“Uh, yeah. I was on the way out when Penelope texted and said Derek was here. Mom’s sitting with Anderson while I go talk to him.”

I nod in understanding.

“Good ole Anderson,” I manage to say, trying hard not to cringe at my awkward choice of words.

“Yeah,” Spencer mutters, shuffling his feet as he looks anywhere other than my face. “There’s a case, I’m assuming?” he says, gesturing to my vest.

“We think we have a lead on Scratch, actually.”

Now, that gets Spencer’s attention. His eyes finally settle on me, and his brows furrow.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me? I need to go with you-” Spencer makes a move to brush past me, put I stop him with a hand on his chest.

“Back it up, Spence. There’s absolutely no way Prentiss will sign off on that, and even if she did, I’m still saying no.”

“And I’m supposed to listen to you?” Spencer tries to keep his face neutral, but his lips twitch as he fights back a smile.

“Mm. What I say goes, and I say that you need to go home and not even think about work for at least a month. You certainly could use the break.”

“A whole month, huh?”

I nod, looking up at him with a faux serious expression.

“I better not see you around here for at least that long, or there will be repercussions.”

Spencer finally does smile at that, and I can practically see the way he’s mulling over his next move in his head.

“Does… Does that prohibition extend only to the work place?”

I tilt my head to the side.

“I’m lost.”

Spencer scrunches his nose up and his eyes dart across the hall before eventually settling back on me.

“It’s just that, well, I don’t really know where this leaves us. Will I still see you outside of work, or is that all messed up now?”

“Why would that be messed up?”

Spencer closes his eyes and he lets out a haggard breath.

“Are you really gonna make me say it?”

Even though he can’t see me, I smile up at him anyways.

“On any other day I absolutely would, but things are a little… hectic right now. How about we put a pin in this conversation until things slow down a bit?”

Spencer slowly opens his eyes and they roam over my face, searching.

“You’re not uncomfortable? Considering everything that, uh, she said about me? Especially the part that pertained to you?” Spencer asks, meek and unsure.

I shake my head.

“I think you’ll find that I am very much the opposite of uncomfortable,” I reply. We stand there for a moment longer, just basking in the fact that after three long, miserable months, we’re finally together again.

Spencer opens his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by Emily calling my name from further down the hall.

“Duty calls,” I chuckle, pulling away from Spencer. “Tell you mom I said hi, and I’ll be by to visit once you have time to get settled in,” I call over my shoulder.

I make it a good ten feet down the hall before Spencer’s tugging at my hand and pulling me flush against his chest. He hesitates for a moment, and a flash of uncertainty clouds his eyes, but then he’s pushing it down and pressing his lips to mine.

Spencer’s lips are slightly chapped, but so, so warm as they move against mine. My response is instantaneous – I don’t hesitate for a second before I’m kissing back. The kiss is slow and tentative, as gentle and tender as it is intoxicating. It’s everything that a kiss should be and it ignites a fire in me that has me grasping at Spencer’s shirt, desperate for more. The hand that isn’t cupping the side of my face presses firmly against the small of my back, urging me forward until absolutely no space is left between us.

Every drag of his lips against mine acts as gasoline to a flame, and I can’t help but think that Ray Bradbury said it best. It is a pleasure to burn.

I’m the first to pull away, but it isn’t because I want to. What I want is to stay just like this – entangled in Spencer Reid – until not an inch of our bodies lay unexplored by the other. But when Emily calls out my name yet again, I force myself to stop.

“I really need to go,” I murmur regretfully, and Spencer nods.

“Yeah, I know.”

But that doesn’t stop him from going in for one last, delicious kiss. This time when we break away, it’s his doing. I don’t have the self restraint to pull away twice.

“Pinky promise you’ll come back to me in one piece?” Spencer says as he lifts his pinky finger up in offering. I link mine with his, and I smile a dopey grin at him.

“Of course, I will,” I reply. “After all, you and I are due for one hell of a conversation.”

I shoot him a wink before I’m running down the hall and slipping into the elevator just before the doors close. My teammates all shoot me curious looks, but I pretend like I don’t see and I lean against the wall, trying and failing to slow the rapid beating of my heart.

It’s Stephen who approaches me when we all file out of the elevator and into the parking garage.

“Spencer Reid wouldn’t have anything to do with that love-sick look on your face, would he?”

I attempt to school my expression, but one pointed look from Stephen has me devolving into a fit of giggles like I’m a goddamn school girl.

“Possibly.”

“Possibly my ass. When we get done with this case, I expect a full explanation,” Stephen chuckles as he climbs in the back of the SUV.

“You gossip like a teenager, Walker,” I tease as I climb in after him.

“What can I say? You kids keep me young.”

I let out a loud laugh at that.

“Best shrink a girl could ask for.”

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.

- Unknown

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a-mended-pact · 3 years

Text

Unsteady Keys: Chapter 6

Authors notes: This chapter is really short. I wasn't overly sure if this was a good stopping point or not for it. I also will not be posting the next couple of chapters for sometime. My messages and asks are always open.

Word count: 2,192

Part 5 Part 7

Warnings: I can't think of any for this exact chapter. If there is any please inform me.

Requests are open

I think her vision finally cleared because with the way her eyes flickered between Ethan and I. I knew one of us was in for a rude awakening and I certainly knew it wasn't me.

She moved before I could stop her and I winced at the impact of her palm to his face. The sound of it echoed off the walls in the seemingly abandoned office. My wife wasn't thinking like a federal agent and how that just crossed too many lines. She was thinking as herself and that probably wasn't a good thing.

'He trusted you! He invited you to our wedding and you were involved in kidnapping him!?! I can't believe this! You bastard! Why are you not in a holding cell?! Better yet, why are you not in an interrogation room!?' She was vibrating in my grasp as her voice got louder and louder. She was no longer filled with the overwhelming emotions she was dealing with earlier; she's now just one big bundle of rage.

I should be trying to stop her. I really should but it was so rare when she let her emotions get the better of her that I didn't wanna stop her. I was sorta enjoying it. That is until she turned to me and glared.

She shook with anger as she looked at me. Like a small puppy trying to hold in a bark. The longer she stared the more she shaked. She was trying to control herself. One of her rules that she made of her own choice was that she'd never yell at me. I told her how preposterous that was. Sometimes I deserve to get yelled at.

The rule was made due to past trauma of hers that definitely doesn't need to be brought up or discussed in front of Ethan. He didn't need anymore ammo to use against us. I'm not sure that he would but I couldn't take any chances. Not anymore then I already have anyway.

I had enough time to catch Ethan's gaze before I watched my wife storm out of Morgan's old office.

-----------------

I paced around the bullpen until Tara told me if I didn't stop I was gonna leave a tread mark in the carpet. I couldn't help but laugh. I sounded exhausted. I felt dead on my feet but I couldn't close my eyes. I knew that if I did all I would see was Spencer being hurt and tortured. Me being right there only to have him look at me like I meant nothing to him. Like I was nothing. Maybe I was but right now wasn't the time to dwell on that thought.

I looked at her and then at the board of all the victims. 'Do you think it's possible that what Reid said is true? That Ethan didn't have a choice? That Ethan isn't fully in on it? They were kidnapping and killing victims that look like me for Christ sake.' I turned away from the board and through my hands up in frustration before I let them fall to my sides. 'Is Lindsey Vaughn even in on this? We have an eye witness identifying Ethan and here he is walking about as a free man. All because he has Genius in there believing he is innocent!' I could feel my aggravation getting the better of me again.

My palm still stung from the slap I gave him earlier. I knew it wasn't protocol but I didn't care. He deserved it. All I wanted to do was scream. It wasn't fair. God I needed to sleep. I glanced at the analog clock on the wall. I've officially been up for 4 days now. Which honestly wasn't anything overly new. If I didn't take my medication regularly even without everything going in sleep would still eluded me. Insomnia is definitely a cunt. My mind never knew how to shut off. Playing records of things I didn't want to see or hear. It had been 4 days since a proper meal. I began to wonder when someone would notice and tell Emily to send me home.

A part of me hoped someone did another part just wanted to close this case and arrest all those involved. I was sick of Cat always having the upper hand on us in this case. I ran my hands over my face and sighed. I think it's time for a wake up call for our sleeping kitten.

____________________

When I came into view of Cat Adam's I saw that Spencer was already in there grilling her about what she'd done to Ethan. Asking if Lindsey was the true unsub all along. He was making assumptions completely based off the fact that he knew Ethan. I understood truly I did but he was being biased he can't seriously excuse that his college friend was a kidnapper. Whether being manipulated and played like a puppet on strings he was still a kidnapper and the victims deserved proper justice.

'So you're telling me that you're not the one behind this really Cathrine? I doubt that. I really do. He has photos of me in Mexico. Drugged laying next to Nadie Ramos dead! Don't tell me you had nothing to do with this and it was all just Lindsey!' His voice was nearly ruptured the speaker when I turned it on. He was so loud. He was so angry that I myself flinched. I don't see how she could just sit there looking at him unfazed as if this was normal for him.

I watched as she leaned forward making herself look like a viper ready to strike.

'Spencie If I knew Ethan being evolved would have you so worked up I would have done it sooner.' She smiled at him. 'I however did not plan on you being taken. You being apart of it like that wasn't part of the plan.' She leaned her head on her hand. That's when I realized he had taken off her restraints. What was he doing?

'My only goal was to make you squirm in discomfort as your precious wife went missing. With the chance of her being another victim on the side of the road. Ya know I don't go for the throat Baby boy. I go for the mind.' She laughed as she swiped his hair out of his face. He let her.

----------

I was furious with everything that had happened. Ethan being evolved I almost through me off the edge. Then her saying that the goal was for it to be Y/n and not me made me see red. I needed to remind myself that I needed to remain calm. If I didn't I wouldn't get anything out of her besides her lust filled obsession of me being angry with her.

To be honest I did think about playing into her desire for me. It would have been an easy choice. A simple one. I could have gotten away with it if it wasn't for the fact that my wife was already upset with me.

I didn't mean to do it but I did end up leaning into Cat's touch when she moved my hair out of my face. I was disgusted with myself. I was a better man than this. Yet here I was mesmerized by her eyes as they watched me with the curiosity of a wolf preying on sheep. Only I was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

How easy it would be to deduce Cat Adams into nothing but statistics and profiling. She wanted to have me squirm in misery but It would be so easy to have her broken and on her knees for me.

I pulled away immediately once I realized what I had done. 'You are threatening a federal agent not to mention you are an accomplice to what happened. Even if I wasn't the target. You still knew who took me and who else was involved and you still chose silence. '

A smirk formed on my face as I moved my chair closer to her. Pulling it around the metal table and on her side of it. I leaned in really close to her ear. To be fair I had no idea if anyone was watching or listening but I wasn't about to take anymore chances.

I gently moved her hair behind her ear as I leaned in closer to whisper. 'If anything would have happened to my wife or Ethan I would certainly be the one in an orange jumpsuit.' My hand slipped up to her throat not squeezing hard but with enough pressure to remind her of the time I had been this close to her last. 'I would watch the life drain from you and sleep well. I know how much you love when people see the resemblance between you and I.' My hand tightened before I slung it off her with such force she wobbled a little in her chair.

Cat watched me with her pupils dilated as she gently caressed the redding skin where my hand had been. 'If I didn't know any better Spencie I think you just like touching me.' The way she panted as she watched me made my skin crawl. I hated myself for thinking she was such an attractive specimen of a human being. Her mind intrigued me more than anyone I have ever met.

I wanted to pick apart her psyche. I wanted to know what made her tick. Besides her abandonment issues and lack of empathy because she was never shown any kindness a day in her life. Even if she was shown some form of kindness I'm sure she didn't know what to do with it. She probably shut herself down from it. Most likely abused by someone in her life. She was just like every other unsub so why did I crave her so much more.

I couldn't figure out my attraction to her after all these years. Sure she held a very natural beauty to her but she was nothing compare to Y/n who could strut around her hair a mess and stains on her clothes and still pull me in as if she were the gravity holding me to this earth.

I realized then one of my biggest mistakes of the last few days as my wife walked in leaning herself against the wall with her arms crossed. I could tell the moment I walked into the bureau that she hadn't been sleeping. I also knew from her mental state that she in fact hadn't been taking her medication.

I sighed more at myself than to her. 'Love you shouldn't be in here. If anything you should be at home resting and taking care of yourself.' I turned to lock eyes with her only she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Cat Adams.

'You know it's been a couple of hours since you and I spoke. I was hoping you'd be willing to share some info but I see you've been busy.' As she spoke her eyes never left Cat.

I was surprised to watch the manipulative woman squirm under anyone's gaze. 'So here's the thing Catherine. I'm done playing nice and pretending like I'm not steps ahead of you already.'

My wife strutted to her, swaying her hips from side to side in a confident manner. I was intrigued by what she meant but chose to keep my lips sealed. 'The truth is. You lost control over Lindsey the moment you didn't want to hurt your precious Spencie and she didn't like that fact. She was in love with you and you betrayed her by trying to keep the federal agent she hated safe. The moment you brought Ethan in and had him take women that looked like me was the moment you fully and completely lost control over her. By then she knew you would never truly hurt or kill Spencer because rather you understand it or not the desire you have was never to kill him. All you want is his precious attention to never leave you. Simply because you’ve never had anyone show you their undivided focus until he showed up.’ My eyes widened. I kept my head down as I listened. Clearly my wife was done playing by the original rules of Cat’s game. It was always mental but right now my wife was aiming for the verbal killing strike. I glanced up and I could see her eyes hold unshed tears as she sneered at Y/n.

‘It’s funny that you don’t even understand the reasoning you are so infatuated with the idea of Reid. You've never had a man show you attention that didn't want to use you. Spencer came into your life showing you with respect and you didn't know how to handle it because you didn't know what that felt like. It's a shame really. '

Y/n kept her face calm but I could see the blood dripping from her palms as her nails dug into them. She was deeply upset right now. I doubt she even noticed she was doing it.

Taglist:

@sassymoon @rainsong01 @onlyhereforthefanfics @itsdars

#criminal minds fanfiction #unsteady keys #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer x reader #spencer x you #spencer x y/n #yuki's babbles

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eveningalones · 3 years

Text

the garden

word count : 1,920

warnings : mentions of homophobia.

If Emily was to compare her life to the bible, she would be able to claim that she was Eve, her faith was Adam, and you, oh you, were the serpent. Sent to the church to taint her, to taint the garden.

You would be called vile and every action you took was one against god. Each and every move you made would cause the downfall of the garden. While Emily believed herself to be Eve, in more than one way, she was the garden; beautiful, peaceful, and so full of love it was sickening to you.

You, even if Emily would protest it, were less like the serpent and more like Adam; young, naive, and willing to do anything to prove yourself to those around you. That mentality put you in the position you were in in the first place. Not wanting to disappoint your mother despite having been away from home since sophomore year of college. She wanted you to find purpose and truly believed you’d find purpose with God, but all you found, and all you’d ever wanted since your arrival was Mother Prentiss. Her charming smile and charisma drew you to her like bees to sunflowers, or more like the Serpent to the garden.

You had only been living in the clergy house for a few weeks, not far off from the main church grounds. If you had believed in the God the priests praise so highly, you’d be able to convince yourself that this really was a punishment like your mother had said. Your mother had convinced herself, as did many other churchgoers, that being gay was a sin. The memory of her cursing you, packing your bags and shipping you off to the church. She knew a few of the clergy members and they set up what your mother called ‘the only way to salvation.’ You begged her to try and understand, to be forgiving and love you for you, but the woman was stubborn and cruel.

‘You’re what?!’ Your mother’s voice raised from the understanding tone that she had before you began spilling your heart out to her.

You took in a shaky breath. You could feel your chest tightening and the tears burning in your eyes. ‘I’m gay mom, a lesbian.’ The words falling from your lips again cause the woman before you to rise from the chair at the table, the feet of the chair scraping your dining room floor. It felt as though your heart was thumping out of your chest. Like every breath you took was made of glass.

That’s when the silent praying began before she sat straight up. ‘Okay, we can fix this–fix you. I’ll call the priest and we can get you set up to figure all of this,’ She waved her hand in your direction. ‘Out. Make it better.’

Hail marys and our fathers or whatever. You were never sure. You never paid much attention when you went to church to know the prayers. Nobody worth paying to, until you’d arrived at the church. At first, you tried so hard to fit in, to abide by the church rules, but then she arrived. Three weeks into your stay you met your first female priest and to say that it was the closest you felt to reaching salvation would be an understatement. Of course, there were women in the church, but none of them could ever compare to Mother Prentiss. Nothing could compare to the feeling you got when you looked at her or when she looked at you. That first time she saw you made you change all your thoughts in the whole religion thing, but it also changed how you went along with being there. You were barely obedient before, not many ‘yes Fathers,’ but eye rolls and scoffs which soon became ‘yes Mother’ or ‘of course, Mother Emily, anything.’ It’s not that you wanted to please her, at least not in the way you were expected to, but you wanted her to notice you. To see you. You just wanted someone in this dull clergy house to really see you.

It was like you had faded into the masses, the same mundane tasks, the same meals every day, and the same fucking faces until Emily arrived. She was so beautiful. The light at the end of this never-ending Catholic tunnel. You knew that she noticed you once or twice in passing always giving you a kind smile or short wave. She was placed three rooms down from you and you made it your mission to get her to see you outside of the clothes the church provided. You knew that Emily would return to the house late after securing the church, so you made sure to wear your shortest shorts and thinnest shirt to grab water in the kitchen, knowing that she’d be returning then. The same night as Sunday mass was when your late nights almost paid off.

You’d been in the cold kitchen for roughly fifteen minutes, having already grabbed a glass of water and now it was just a waiting game. You didn’t want what you were doing to be too obvious, didn’t want her to pull away. The kitchen was dark, dimly lit by the moonlight coming in through the window. Just enough to keep you, or anyone else, from bumping into any of the old wood furniture. You were ready to give up when you heard the door in the main room creaking open. You were grateful for how old the building was, making it so easy to know when people were moving in or out. You moved quickly to the sink, pretending to be filling the cup, back turned to the kitchen entrance.

‘You’re up late.’ You feigned shock and turned around to Emily. Bewildered eyes meeting Emily’s brown ones. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Is everything alright?’ You nodded, trying to ignore how Emily’s eyes raked up and down your body. A slight gasp when she noticed just how thin your tank top was.

‘Um–just couldn’t sleep, needed water.’ Emily moved closer to you, reaching down, pulling out a chair to sit at the dinner table. Never removing her eyes from yours. Something about the way she was staring at you, replaced the cold you felt being in the kitchen, with a warmth. Something all-consuming.

Emily continued searching your face for another emotion, trying to read you for some sadness. ‘Would you like to talk about it?’ You cocked a brow at her, not moving from your spot, leaning on the counter with a cup of water in hand. You’ve yet to drink from it.

You shrugged, placing the cup on the table and taking the seat closest to Emily. It would have been too close if you shifted even in the slightest, but you stayed at a safe distance, putting your elbows on the table and leaning forward, making a conscious effort to make sure if Emily wanted to, she could look directly down your shirt. You could feel that she wanted to but continued to make eye contact glancing down to your lips every so often.

‘I don’t think there’s anything to talk about. This house is just kinda creepy.’ Emily chuckled, leaning back in the chair. An action that should be simple, but your knees touched. Your bare skin touching her clothed knee made every part of your skin feel like it was on fire.

‘It’s old, yes, but hardly creepy,’ You pulled your bottom lip in with your teeth, shifting in your seat, pulling your knee back. A brief moment of disappointment in Emily’s face caused the corner of your mouth to curve up. ‘I always find that when people avoid sleep, something is on their mind. So, what is it?’ You leaned in closer on the table. You wanted her to look, everything in you wanted her to notice what you were trying to do.

‘Do you know why I’m here? Why I was sent here I mean,’ Emily cleared her throat, maintaining her composure. A quick nod, motioning you to continue. ‘My mom called Father Preston to tell him that I needed to be reconnected with God, but it was actually because I’m gay. I spilled it all out to her and she sent me here. No hesitation. Told me that she couldn’t love me if that was the life I choose. So I’m here.’ Emily sighed, eyes still searching for you to break. You knew that’s what she wanted, but you couldn’t give that to her yet. She then placed a hand on your knee, your next breath got stuck in your throat.

‘I am so sorry,’ She spoke your name softly. You never want anyone else to say your name again, this would be enough to satisfy you for life. ‘The church doesn’t hold those views, not here. If she had told Father Preston the exact reason, he never would have allowed it. No one should use the word of God in the way your mother did.’ You scoffed and Emily furrowed his brows in confusion. Her hand moved up your thigh as she shifted forward and you looked up at her giving her a long sigh to hide the noises you were holding in. How was she causing such a reaction from you?

‘I’m not angry about it, being here hasn’t been the worst thing to happen to me. It hasn’t been since you arrived,’ Emily was going to remove her hand, but you went to place yours above hers. ‘You seem different from the other priests. Kinder.’ She smiled at you. You took ahold of her hand on your thigh.

‘Every priest is different. I had a bit of a questionable past compared to the other guys. I think I’ve had more fun than they did.’ Her tone changed from pure concern to more playful. ‘From the looks of it, you like to have fun too. No one in this is house is up past 8:30.’ You laughed, remembering your water and using your other hand to take a sip, intentionally spilling some down your chin. The cold giving you chills as the water trained down your neck and through the valley of your breasts. Emily followed the trail, giving in to the temptation.

‘It depends on the kind of fun you’re talking about, Mother Prentiss.’ Her breathing hitched at the title. You wanted to test the waters by using your hand to slowly move hers up your thigh, over your hip, and lightly brush past the side of your breast. Her breathing became shallow, pupils dilating as she tried to keep her composure, You placed her hand on your cheek, leaning into her touch.

‘I don’t–I don’t think this is appropriate.’ Emily whispered trying to simply convince herself to move away from you. Emily then moved her hand to softly swipe her thumb on your bottom lip, then the top. You slightly opened your mouth as her finger moved, taking her thumb into your mouth and sucking slightly. Then Emily broke, pulling away abruptly, pushing the chair back as she stood. You remained still, looking up at her. Her frantic expression and quick breathing made you smile. ‘I have to go. I can’t–we can’t–have a good night. I’m sorry.’

Emily was quick to get upstairs, you sighed as you watched her go down the hall. You were so close and now you were left wet and on a mission.

#emily prentissxreader #emily prentissxyou #criminal minds fanfiction #cm fanfic #emily prentiss fanfic #priest!emily prentiss #criminal minds au #cm fanfiction #emily prentiss smut #smut

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bunnymcbunnister · 4 years

Text

SPN Season 15 Spoiler Sheet, update 8/31

Waited until that second trailer came out to post. I am LIVING with all this new content! Mind the disclaimer and check it out under the cut.

DISCLAIMER: This is gathered info from various sources. This is not confirmed information. Stuff in this WILL be wrong. Don’t take this too seriously. This is for fun. Also, if you use this info for another publication, please let me know as a courtesy. Don’t be a dick. It's all out there, but it hurts to see my same phrasing on other publications after all the work I’ve done to consolidate it…

General Info (oldest to newest). This is a blend of pre-COVID and post COVID, so some might change.

They are adding a whole extra day to filming to do the final scene. They will film the final scene last. (Implies logistics- lots of returning people?) PRE COVID SPOILER

In an interview, Kripe indicated that the series ending would have “peace” for Sam and Dean

Not much new at the TCA’s, but it was said it is “unlikely” Jeffery Dean Morgan will be back since his last appearance was such a good end note. There were some jokes about a Castiel spin off.

There will be a special tribute ep (Post COVID talk seems to indicate this will stil happen)

Misha will be in 15 out of 20 episodes this season (he’s missed 3 so far and I suspect will miss 14 and 16, unclear about 19).

Cas’ deal with the Empty may come up later in the season.

Jack will be a critical part of the ending of the show

Dean and Amara’s connection will be explored

There will be a bunker themed episode (MarySue article)

In one of his cookbook interviews, Misha used the word “we” several times when talking about the final scene of Supernatural. He said that would be the last scene they shoot. It seemed to imply that he was in the scene, but that could be open to interpretation.

JaxCon/Vegas Con spoilers:

Misha said the ending was “happier than he expected” but also had some sadness. He later used “sad and redemptive”

Misha mentioned that Claire will be mentioned on the show, but as of yet not appear.

Dean says the line “stop killing my people” (to god?)

Jensen said he doesn’t see how the story could continue past this season, but Jared said its more of “a see you later”

Misha confirmed he’s in the final scene, but he also indicated he had one week of filming left (total?) PRE COVID SPOILER

Al Cal posted a pic of a “thrown away” call sheet that seem to indicate Micheal, Lucifer, and a character named “Betty” interacting in the bunker. Unclear as to the validity.

There will be a flashback episode

Charlie (original flavor) will return

Filming will resume on Aug 18th. Per Canadian policy, they must quarantine for two weeks. Those quarantining seems to include:

Fairly Clear: Jared, Jensen, Jake Abel (Micheal), Rob Benedict (Chuck/God) Mark Pelligrino (Lucifer), Al Cal (didn't need to quarantine, but he is definitely on set)

Unclear/Rumored: Misha (he is being deliberately cagey), Osric Chau (Kevin- but likely for another project, he was a week ahead of everyone else) Jim Beaver (Bobby) flew to Vancouver on 8/26, so he could make it for the last couple days of filming with a quarantine

No idea: Shoshannah Stern and Ruth

Reasons Unlikely: Sam Smith (chemo treatment), Kim Rhodes (working at a camp during quarantine)

Jensen said sp 19 is more of a season finale, while 20 is a series finale. Repeated in interviews/livestreams.

Megan Fitz. complimented both Dabb’s and Glynn’s writing on twitter. Not sure if it is in reference to rewrites or the special retrospective that is planned.

Jensen indicated that the ending did change per COVID protocols. Unclear how much.

Misha is being very, very cagey about where he is. Some live streams seem to indicate he is not at home, but he has yet to confirm- his presence in 19/20 is hard to track. In an interview with Metaverse, he was in bed in a hotel looking space and you could see mountains in the background. He was not on set for the first week of filming, so he could be a week behind.

Misha has thrown around the words “final” and “what he <Misha> would have wanted” per Cas’ ending. “Sad/Proud” and “poignant” were also used.

The final episodes will premier October 8th. The finale will air Nov 19th in conjunction with an hour long special.

A trailer was released on 8/27. Scenes included:

A moving speech from Sam to Dean

(Possibly from 18) A teary conversation between Dean and Cas

Injured Dean being helped by Cas in the bunker

Jack breaking some cuffs/bring thrown into a wall/saying he has to kill god

Dean and his grenade launcher and a purple nightgown

Sam in a sweater vest getting a gun from under a pillow

A glimpse of a body with “Lust” written above it/a matronly woman (I think the villain from 14) saying “Boys”

Ghost Dean? Little Sam cutting off a hand

Some intermixed scenes from past episodes

A second trailer was released on 8/31. Scenes included:

A monologue from Billie about god coming to destroy the planet plus her banging on a bunker door (with her hand all gooey) and striking someone with her sythe

Jack continuing his speech about killing god but expanding that he has a ritual to do

Lots of red danger lights in the bunker/ 3 people getting tossed around in the bunker/Chuck in the bunker

Chuck saying he doesn't believe Sam and Dean can kill him

Young Sam and not ghost Young dean

Dean angrily driving the Impala then saying “its time”

Cas drawing his blade in front of an old truck to protect someone in a suit (Jack? I cant tell)

More Dean tears

A surprise appearance from Bobby

Some of the same scenes as before

Episode 15x14

Title: Last Holiday

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME – Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) discover a wood nymph (guest star Meagan Fey) living in the bunker who is determined to protect her family, at any cost. Eduardo Sanchez directed the episode written by Jeremy Adams (#1514). Original airdate 3/30/2020.

Written by: Jeremy Adams

Director: Eduardo Sanchez

Filming Dates:1/15- 1/24

Airdate: unknown- October 8th

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? eh… I don't think so Jack ? yes

Guest stars:

Other Spoilers/info:

Misha mentioned being at an airport the first day of filming, maybe he’ll miss this one

The director shared a BTS shot with AlCal’s chair in the background. He also posted on that looked like the statues in hell. Lots of filming at the bunker. A few impala shots were shared as well.

In an EW article, a mysterious woman gives Sam and Dean every holiday they ever missed. Based on the title, I’m guessing this!

Episode 15x15

Title: Gimme Shelter

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

Written by: ?? Davy Perez???? They seem to be keeping it under wraps for some reason

Director: Matt Cohen

Filming Dates: 1/27-2/5

Airdate: unknown. October 15th?

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ?yes Jack ? Yes

Guest stars:

Other Spoilers/info:

There was some filming done at the crossroads with only Misha.

Alex and Misha filmed together

It seems as if J2 didn’t film at all the first week, Misha filmed six or seven days, this is a Cas centric ep

Episode 15x16

Title: Drag Me Away (From You)

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

Written by: Megan Fitzmartin

Director: Amyn Kaderali

Filming Dates: 2/6-2/17

Airdate: October 22nd?

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? I think so… briefly? Jack ? not sure either.

Guest stars: IMDB credits Lisa Berry (Billie/Death)

Other Spoilers/info:

Alex got a cast of his face around the filming of this- so this ep or the one after

Looks like we get Dean in a robe!

They filmed at Rooster’s Sunrise Hotel for 3 days/nights

This might be the flashback ep

Episode 15x17

Title: Unity

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

Written by: Meredith Gylnn

Director: Catrion McKenzie

Filming Dates: 2/19-2/28

Airdate: Oct 29th?

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? yes Jack ? yes

Guest stars: Rob benedict and Emily Sparrow

Other Spoilers/info:

Chuck and Amara trailers were seen on set when filming in a garden

Jensen was in NOLA Friday, possible Monday

“Uriel” was around for filming (Post COVID update: Misha seemed to indicate that this was because the actor was nearby filming? Not sure if this is to cover up the spoiler or the truth)

Alex and Jensen filmed in the imala

Episode 15x18

Title: The Truth

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

Written by: BOBO

Director: Speight

Filming Dates: 3/2--3/11

Airdate: Nov 5th?

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? yes Jack ? yes

Guest stars:

Other Spoilers/info:

Misha and Alex filmed near the impala. J2 showed up later that night. This was the source of the “last time they all filmed on set” photo)

An really emotional scene was filmed with Misha and Jensen. Jared was definitely not there, but Alex was on the flight they took with Rich, so its possible he was too. This was revealed at a con in which the four of them were on a plane that had an in-flight problem.

Filming watchers saw a bro hug

Tape Ball posted a shot of field that looks like were dean came back from hell

Misha indicated this was his “favorite episode” in a recent interview

Episode 15x19

Title: Inherit the Earth

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

Written by: bucklelimg

Director: John Showalter

Filming Dates:: 3/12-3/23/cancelled for COVID and then 8/18-8/27

Airdate: Nov 12th

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? unknown Jack ? yes

Guest stars: Jake Abel (Micheal), Mark Pelligrino (Lucifer)

Other Spoilers/info:

Production shut down as a precaution for coronavirus on 3/13, two days into filming. It is scheduled to start again on Aug 18th.

Jensen indicated there might be some re-writes for this ep to account for COVID protocols.

When they started filming, they indicated they were on day two. So maybe they could only use some of the scenes they shot? Then they added an extra day all called it day 9. COVID protocols makes things take longer

AlCal was definitely on set.

Jake Abel is definitely on set, and he posted an instagram story with his trailer and Lucifer’s (Mark Pelligrino)

Some filming was done at a gas station called Showalter’s (name of the director) with Jared, Jensen, and Alex

Jake “Spoiler King” Abel filmed a video showing chairs for Jared, Jensen, and Alex as well as Rob Benedict (Chuck/God). They were filming near a lake with a mountain view (that looked similar to where Cas died in season 13)

Rob Benedict posted it was his last day in Vancouver, indicating we won't see Chuck past this episode? Or very very briefly in 20? Jake Abel posted a similar message, also baiting fans about Misha’s whereabouts

Episode 15x20

Title: Carry On

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:

Written by: Dabb

Director: Bob Singer

Filming Dates: 8/28- 911? (9/7 is Labor Day, not sure if that affect filming in Canada, or if the finale still requires an extra day. COVID makes things take longer as well)

Airdate: November 19th

Photos:

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? maaaaybe? Jack ? maaaaybe?

Guest stars:

Other Spoilers/info:

Misha is in the final scene, per pre COVID interviews.

Jake Abel used a “we” when he tweeted about getting back to work as soon as the virus scare ended, indicating Adam/Micheal would be part of the finale. He is quarantining, so this seems likely. Now looking like he was referencing 19.

Jensen indicated filming would take two weeks, longer than usual

#supernatural #spn spoilers #spn season 15 #spoiler sheet

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imagineaworlds · 3 years

Text

I Love You (Part Twenty-Seven) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Talk of murder, rape. sexual assault, forced impregnation, Hybristophilia, loss of child-- literally everything Criminal Minds. Mentions of panic attack(s), anxiety, PTSD, shock, etc. (I think that covers it all. Please, if I missed anything triggering, TELL ME!)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 19029

Timeline: Season 4 Episode 02. Right after part twenty-six.

There were a thousand times throughout the past week when Hotch wasn’t by my side and I felt anxious. He wanted to get back to work as quickly as the doctors cleared him, and since his leg healed pretty fast— or he was at least pretending like it had healed fast—he was back in time for the next case JJ had for us. I was still worried, however. It killed me to go to work every day while he was on bed rest. Getting to come home to him every day, though, to see that he was alive and alright, that was a relief of sorts. Leaving with him on Monday morning after picking him up from the doctor’s office was… less relieving. I mean, they cleared him, of course. He had been going to make sure that his ears were going to be okay, too, since I was worried about that, but he insisted that the doctor said everything was fine. Everything wasn’t fine, though. I could tell. I knew him well enough to know when he was lying or when he was pretending for my sake. He didn’t want me going to his checkups, and at first I understood, but then I slowly started getting suspicious when he was coming home from them without immediately coming to tell me any news— even though it was “all good news”, according to him.

I told Morgan early on that I was worried about Hotch. After New York, Morgan was trying to find ways to be more open and understanding with me. I think he realized that he had been a prick in the car that night when he said he agreed with JJ. I think he realized that he was wrong, and that his choice as my best friend was to either support me entirely or to forget me. And we didn’t want to forget each other. We had been worried sick that night, and his near death experiences in the ambulance seemed to have knocked some sense into him. So when I told him, he insisted that Hotch himself was probably okay, but he was just worried about me in the same way I was worried about him. I wanted to believe Morgan; I really did… But I told Morgan the same thing I had been telling Hotch and all of the doctors: what happened to me that night wasn’t a common occurrence. I didn’t get panic attacks. I didn’t freak out like that. It was a one time thing, and everyone just needed to get over it. If Hotch were really concerned, he should’ve just told me the truth, and then I wouldn’t’ve been concerned about him, and vice versa. Cause and effect kind of thing.

“Are you over Hotch passing out?” Morgan asked as we sat in the boardroom together to get some privacy. I shook my head. “Why?”

“Because he scared the shit out of me.”

“Hotch feels the same way about your panic attack. I saw him. He pulled all of those I.V.s out of his arms and pushed a nurse to the side just to get back to you. If you expect that he has to be honest with you, then shouldn’t you show him the same courtesy?”

Well… I hadn’t thought of it like that. I really didn’t think that what happened to me was a big deal—but that could have just been denial—and I hadn’t stopped to think that maybe Hotch was worried sick about me. I didn’t want him to hide things from me because of me, though. That wasn’t the point. We made a promise to each other that we wouldn’t keep secrets from each other. Him being honest about his health should’ve been the most important thing to us.

Then JJ interrupted to tell us that we had a case. Morgan thanked her while I kept my gaze lowered. We hadn’t talked since New York, and I felt like I had reason to continue staying distant from her for a while. I couldn’t bear that Morgan disapproved of me and Hotch because it sounded like he was more concerned for me than just trying to say: “Are you sure?” a thousand times. Once he knew that I was really sure about marrying Hotch, Morgan gave in because he only wanted what was best for me. JJ, on the other hand… Well, she hadn’t even tried to apologize. According to her behavior, she seemed adamant on maintaining her position. She didn’t think that Hotch and I were a good fit. And that broke my heart into a million pieces, because, of course I wanted her to support us, but I wasn’t going to tolerate that she was disapproving just for the sake of it. Her reasons didn’t hold. She wasn’t sure if I was ready to be a mother to Jack, or willing to spend time with Haley, or ready to actually be a wife. But what she failed to recognize was that I was ready for all of that. I was ready, and I tried to tell her, yet she didn’t seem to believe me. I couldn’t forgive that.

“I’ll call Hotch,” she said quietly.

“He’s at the doctors,” I told her, though I was still looking at the ground.

“I know. I’ll tell him to meet us at the jet.” She stepped into the room and started laying out the case files for everyone.

The rest of the team started filing in moments later. I turned in my seat to face forward, ignoring everyone’s glares, and opened the case file. JJ started running through it, but I ignored her in order to just educate myself. I think it was obvious to her and everyone else what I was doing, though.

Delilah Grennan was found dead in her home two nights ago. She had been raped repeatedly, bludgeoned to death, then presented post-mortem with her palms laid over her chest innocently— which meant that the Unsub felt remorse for what he had done. What conflicted with the hands of purity and innocence, however, were the stab wounds inflicted post-mortem, also a part of the Unsub’s ritual. That part probably came before the hand placement. The oddest part was actually about the rape that occurred during the initial attack. The local PD tried to run the semen found in her through VICAP in order to get a DNA match—which would have made this an open and shut case—the only problem: it matched that of a known serial killer named Cortland Bryce Ryan, also known as the “Angel Maker”. The issue with that was that he had been in prison since his arrest, and the one year anniversary of his execution was two days ago. The day of the murder.

“Were there any other victims?” Emily asked.

“Kinda,” JJ answered, managing to catch my attention. “Victimology and signature match almost perfectly with an old serial killer who was executed a year ago.” I knew that from the file. “He raped and killed six women in ten months.” She pressed a button on the TV remote, which revealed crime scene photos from the original Angel Maker case ten years ago. “It’s all the exact same. The copycat even opened all of the windows in the house, which was what Cortland did; however, that information was never released to the public.”

“So, then, this is definitely someone who knew Cortland personally,” I said.

JJ eyed me cautiously for a second as if she were asking herself if it were safe to address my comment. But she nodded and continued with, “Yes. Probably.”

“There’s one discrepancy, though,” Reid said after awkward silence hung in the air for a moment. “Cortland used his bare hands to beat his victims, but the M.E. concludes that Delilah was beaten with a hammer or some other heavy instrument.”

“So, this guy is weaker,” Morgan concluded.

Emily raised a brow. “Why wouldn’t his victim fight back, then?”

Silence blanketed the room. We all looked over at Rossi, as the lead profiler in the room, to see if he had anything to add. He shrugged at all of us. It was then decided amongst us that we would discuss it more on the plane where Hotch would be waiting. So I collected my file quickly and went to my desk to grab my go-bag. That was when I felt Emily poke my shoulder. I jumped in my own skin before turning and realizing that it was just her.

“Sorry, Ms. Jumpy,” she laughed. “I just wanted to ask if everything is alright.”

“What?”

“With you and JJ.”

I looked up at the boardroom to see Morgan and JJ talking privately—probably about me. I sighed and zipped up my go-bag again. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

“I mean, you’re clearly not.”

“You know I love you, Em, right?” I asked her quietly. She nodded. “Then I need you to really not take offense to this: please drop it. It’s none of your business.”

Emily fell silent and took a retreating step backwards. “Right. Of course. Sorry.”

“No—” I insisted, grabbing her hand. “I’m sorry. I just…” I sighed again. “It’s really complicated right now. I swear, once things are sorted out a bit more, you’ll be the first person I tell. I swear.” I squeezed her hand and glanced around the bullpen quickly. The only person around was Anderson, but he had headphones in as he was eating his breakfast. I looked at her again. “You’re the only one who never doubts me and Hotch. You know that?”

“Why would I doubt you two?” she chuckled. “Like you said, it’s not my business. But the opinion I’ve naturally made is that you’re really good for him, and he’s really good for you. Who am I to come in here and tell you any different?”

I shrugged and looked up at JJ again. “Yeah. I don’t know.”

When we arrived at the jet, I saw Hotch waiting just outside for us. I smiled lightly at him and walked straight towards him while the rest of the team filed onto the jet. When we were alone, I bounced up on my toes and kissed him. He cupped my cheek briefly as he leaned into our kiss. We both pulled away at the same time. I took his hand in mine while looking at the windows of the jet to make sure none of the team was watching. After my conversations with JJ and Morgan, it was probably no secret that Hotch and I were serious about our relationship, and since New York it was getting increasingly harder to hide the fact that I needed physical reassurance of Hotch’s presence and safety nearly all the time. I didn’t like being reliant and distracted like that, but… I almost lost him… I deserved a pass for a bit until I stopped worrying about him. Our rules about not making our relationship a big deal at work were slowly starting to mean nothing to me. I loved Hotch. I loved him more than anything, which was why I worried so much. Touching him, holding him, and kissing him was the only way I could calm down now. The team would understand that, right? Still, though, Hotch didn’t like it. I had to understand that, kind of. So, I let go of him reluctantly.

“What did the doctor say?”

Hotch shrugged. “I’m the poster child of perfect health.”

I furrowed my brows. I didn’t believe him. There was no way that a week after being in a bombing and going through surgery he was suddenly in perfect shape. I mean, he wasn’t really limping now, and he wasn’t fussing about his ears. Maybe it was actually possible. But still. The scrapes and bruises were still on him, and until those would disappear, I’d be wary. Even though I trusted Hotch, and he promised to never lie to me, I had to keep an eye on him. He said the doctor’s said he was fine… If I was suspicious about that, then that was my choice. But until I knew for sure that something was wrong, I was going to bite my tongue.

“Hey, lovebirds!” Morgan yelled at us as he stuck his head out of the jet. “Cincinnati awaits us!”

Hotch walked away from me before I got a chance to inquire further about what happened with the doctor. He was so reluctant to tell me anything about those visits. At first, I was understanding, but now that I could tell he was being weird about something, I was starting to get annoyed. Whatever was going on, I’d found out eventually. He had to know that. I always found out, and if it turned out that he was lying to me, I’d rain hell down on him—just like I did when he went behind my back to ask for a transfer five months ago. How time flew. Geez.

I sat next to Hotch at the big table. JJ and Reid were across from us—though I refused to look up at JJ even once; and Morgan and Rossi were sitting on the couch to my left. While the engines started whirring for takeoff, I felt Hotch’s ankle caress mine lovingly. He knew that even a year in, I still had trouble with the jet taking off. It didn’t help that Reid would always give those statistics about how takeoff and landing were the most dangerous points of a flight. Hotch knew that Reid’s statistics always ran through my mind when the engines started up. He knew that I hated this part. He knew that it made me tense up. He also knew that I was getting better at hiding it because I felt like the others wouldn’t understand my continuous anxiety about something like this. Since Hotch and I weren’t sitting in the back on our own, he couldn’t grab my hand to comfort me. So he used his ankle. And I silently thanked him for it by nudging him back.

As the plane started racing down the runway, the team began discussing some theories about the case. Spencer was going on and on about an “evil and an eviler twin” while everyone stared at him blankly. I chuckled to myself. Spencer glared at me lightly and questioned what I thought about all of it. So I looked down at the case file to give it one more review before presenting my hypothesis.

I thought there was no way there were twins involved in all of this. I mean, the DNA would’ve matched, sure, but… come on, that was out there. This copycat we were dealing with used a hammer to bludgeon his victims before performing the same ritual the Angel Maker did. This was all a very convincing ruse to make people think that the Angel Maker was back, but he had been dead for a year. Someone managed to somehow get a test tube sized amount of Cortland Ryan’s semen, and they were using it to “prove” the hypothesis, but we could see through it. Well, all of us except for Reid, apparently. The question about all of this really should have been “why” instead of “how”. Cortland raped and inseminated his victims, and the police thought that the ritual of stabbing his victims’ stomachs was a figurative way of killing the future child that could have been born from that act. However, in prison, Cortland denied this theory, but he refused to say what the truth was. So why? Why did Cortland do it, and why was this Unsub doing it?

Hotch groaned quietly next to me as the plane climbed towards altitude. I stopped talking halfway through my explanation to look at him. He was holding his head in his hands, his eyes shut, his entire body tense.

“Baby,” I whispered, taking his hand under the table.

“Yeah?” he whispered back. He was much quieter than I was, and he still wasn’t looking at me— or really even focused on me at all. It seemed like he only responded just to get me to lay off compared to actually listening to what I had to say.

I squeezed his hand. “The doctor did clear you to fly, right?”

“Mhm.”

“So, then, what’s wrong?”

Hotch bit his lip and threw his head back against the seat. His eyes were screwed shut and his face was contorting into an unattractive look in response to whatever pain he was feeling. “It’s just a headache,” he insisted. “I’m fine.” He tore his hand away from me and looked at the team. They all seemed just as concerned as I was, but he ignored their worry by redirecting their attention back to the case.

Everyone kept watching Hotch closely as he gave out our assignments. Morgan and I were to head to the prison to take a look at Cortland’s personal effects and to talk with the guards there about who Cortland was close to, and who could have possibly helped him get his semen out of the prison. Reid was going to head to the crime scene with Hotch, Rossi and Emily were going to check out the body at the morgue, and JJ was going to start meeting with the local PD about the case.

Hotch hadn’t yet decided to bench JJ since finding out that she was pregnant, but he was adamant about keeping her out of harm’s way. So, she was left to work at the police stations and the hotels. That was it. Honestly, she seemed fine with it. I knew that if I were in her position, and Hotch were benching me like that, I would have been pissed. It had only been a week since we found out, she wasn’t even showing, and yet Hotch was already making sure that she was safe. I mean, I understood the thought process. I knew that he didn’t want her to get hurt, because he was responsible for making sure she was safe and healthy. But still. I would’ve hated the idea of being cooped up in a police station all day. At least she got that much, though. Once she would start to show, I had no doubts that Hotch would pull her out of the field—that was if she weren’t going to make that decision herself. JJ spent a lot of her time in the office and in the precincts, anyhow. She probably didn’t want to put herself in danger while pregnant, and that was understandable.

As Morgan and I pulled up to the prison, I took in every detail of it. Compared to all of the other prisons I had seen inside and out, this place was much nicer. In fact, it had a Victorian era feel to it. The high, castle-like walls were a light tan color, and the material looked like limestone, if I were to make a guess. There weren’t even electric fences surrounding the outside of the prison because that was how high and rough the walls were. There was no way in hell anyone was climbing those—and even if they tried, a guard would probably shoot them off before they could get very far because on every corner and in the middle of each wall were guard towers. Those weren’t modern either. Honestly, if we weren’t in Cincinnati, I would’ve thought we were touristing at a castle in Europe.

The front gate was as expected. The check points were modern, but they were built into the old walls for support. If someone wanted to drive straight through, I wished them luck, because there was no way in hell that any of this was budging even the slightest bit.

Morgan parked the car in the tiny parking lot in the courtyard where prisoner transport buses were kept. We got out, both of us putting our sunglasses on, then headed inside. They required that we put our weapons away in locked cubbies before even entering the security area where they made us walk through two metal detectors, and they still had to pat us down, anyhow. It was exhausting. All of that just to see if there was something of interest in Cortland’s belongings before he died. Honestly, there could’ve been nothing. It was entirely possible that Cortland had nothing in his belongings that pointed to who could have possibly started killing again on his behalf. My hope, however, was that there would be something in the visitor’s logs. Maybe someone who visited often, or someone with a personal connection. Any lead was a good lead.

When we got through security, there was a man waiting for us just ahead. His legs were spread at shoulder width, his hands on his hip, his moustache tickling his lip to the point that he kept scrunching his face to try to stop it.

“Welcome to Hawksville,” the guard said, reaching out to shake Morgan’s hand before mine. “My name’s Sid.” He stood tall and pointed to his name tag. “Sid Rutledge.”

Morgan and I smiled at him politely. I introduced us, then got straight to the point. “We’d like to see Cortland Ryan’s personal belongings, if you don’t mind.”

Rutledge laughed at my bluntness. “Sure thing, little lady.”

When he turned his back, I looked at Morgan and rolled my eyes. We started following him through the corridors of the prison. We were still in the front section of the place, which was where all of the offices and break rooms were. The inmates were kept further into the prison, out of our way. He led us to a room filled with boxes and boxes of past and current inmates’ things. It seemed odd that these things would just be sitting around, collecting dust. It made me feel uneasy for some reason.

“Ryan didn’t have any next of kin,” Rutledge began, “so after the execution, all of his belongings were boxed and stored.” He set two file boxes on the table in front of me and Morgan.

I raised a brow. “This is all of it? All ten years, this is everything? I thought he was popular here.”

“He was; but a lot of the inmates get creative with getting letters in and out of the prison because the Warden keeps an eye on all official correspondence.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” I whispered to Morgan.

“Not in prison, it isn’t, sweetheart,” Rutledge answered.

Morgan opened up one of the boxes and started sifting through all of the letters Cortland got while he was in prison. Most of them were letters from women around his age—crazy fans who were trying to earn his favor. I couldn’t begin to imagine why. I mean, seriously. Why the hell would anyone think: “Ooh, serial killer in prison! He’s hot!” Like… What? But to each their own, I supposed, right.

“Did Cortland have any male fans?” Morgan inquired.

“I suppose there were some, sure. They were all total freaks. This one kid—maybe eighteen or nineteen—would visit every six months or so. He was a musician or some shit like that because he always liked to brag about that damn song he wrote for Ryan.”

“Did you ever catch Ryan trying to smuggle things out of the prison? Maybe to this kid or something?”

Rutledge chuckled. “Usually, they’re trying to sneak stuff in, not out.”

“May I see Cortland’s visitor logs from the past ten years?” I asked. “We need to check every single person who ever came to visit him.”

He chuckled again. “Over the past ten years? That’ll be a lotta names. It’ll take ya forever.”

I smiled sourly. “I’ll figure something out.”

Rutledge shrugged before gesturing for me to follow him out of the room. We ventured down another few doors before taking a left into another room identical to the one Morgan was in. Rutledge ran his fingers over a few of the file cabinets, mumbling under his breath as he counted or something, and then he came to an abrupt halt. He chuckled in eureka before pulling one of the drawers open. I watched as he started collecting about two to three different files for me. When he had everything he thought I would need, he threw them on the table between us.

“There ya go.”

“Thank you,” I said, grabbing a seat at the table.

“If ya don’ mind, I’ll be headin’ back to the other room to make sure Mr. Shiny Head doesn’ steal anything.”

I held back a chuckle. Mr. Shiny Head. Oh, I was going to be using that, and I wasn’t going to let it go, no matter how much shit Morgan would give me for it.

When Rutledge left, I dug into all of the logs. I started at the very beginning, just skimming for names that stuck out or repeated. I took my time, trying to remember any name that I had spotted in the case file, anyone who wasn’t from the state, anyone who didn’t have any kind of relation with Cortland or the Ryan family, and so on. There was ten years’ worth of visitor information in those files, and I had to go through all of it. My hope, however, was that I would spot something out of the ordinary fairly fast so that I didn’t have to waste all day doing this. Maybe Reid should’ve come to the prison to do this. He would’ve read all of these logs in, like, five minutes—if that. Asshole. He was a good friend and a good profiler, but still… Asshole. I wished that I could read half as fast as he could.

And then something caught my eye. Shara Carlino. I had hardly made it through the first year within the logs, and her name showed up every single day. Every. Single. Day. She waited every day before the prison would open just to be the first one to get in so that she would have the longest amount of guaranteed time with Cortland during visitor hours.

As the door opened, I looked up from the records to see who was entering. Morgan was holding the door behind him to make sure it closed quietly, then he smiled lightly at me. I smiled back before looking back down. For a moment, nothing was said between us as he sat beside me. When the silence became awkward, I finally asked him what he found.

“Reid just called,” he gave a half-assed explanation. I raised a brow. “Someone sent the local newspaper a letter claiming to be the Angel Maker.” I chuckled. “Yeah,” he agreed with a short laugh. “He’s authenticating it right now. Hotch wants us to keep working this angle in the meantime. Have you found anything in here?”

I nodded and turned some of the records to face him. “One woman, Shara Carlino, she came to see Cortland nearly every day.” I pointed to some of the examples within the visitor’s log that mentioned Shara’s name over and over again.

Morgan grabbed his phone and told me that he would call Garcia for some more information on Shara. “Hey, baby girl,” Morgan said into the phone while grinning ear to ear, “I need you to get me a home or work address for Shara Carlino.” He waited for a moment. Garcia was probably talking his ear off as she searched for Shara’s information. Then, Morgan’s smile faded. “You’re kidding.” Silence. “Nah. Thanks, precious. I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up and looked at me. “She works across the street.”

My jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. She downgraded from being a famous realtor in L.A to a shitty sales job—”

“And something tells me that downgrade has to do with the prison and Cortland.” I stood, quickly gathering up all of the records and throwing them back in the box. “Let’s go.” I stepped around him to lead the way out of the prison.

Once we had collected our guns from the front and made it back to the car, Morgan and I headed to visit Shara Carlino at her place of work. It was a short drive, of course. In about two minutes—if that—we were pulling into the parking lot just outside of her “shitty sales job”, as Morgan put it. We walked straight in and met with a secretary at the front desk. We flashed our badges and asked him where Shara Carlino’s office was, and he led us there. He knocked on the door and told Shara that the FBI had come to see her. I heard her as she sighed before telling us to enter.

“Thank you for seeing us, Ms. Carlino.”

“Well…” She shrugged. She offered us seats in front of her. “How may I help you, Agents?”

“According to the records we looked at, it seemed like you were Angel Maker’s number one fan,” Morgan stated flatly.

Shara chuckled. “No. His name was Cortland, and I wasn’t a fan.”

“Really?” I cocked a brow. “Then what were you?”

“We were lovers.”

“Last time I checked, death row doesn’t allow conjugal visits.”

“We weren’t physical lovers, Agent Greenaway. It was a spiritual connection. Everything was understood with just one look or one word. There were no secrets between us. It was absolutely blissful. He made me feel alive in a way that no free man ever could.”

Morgan and I both gave each other a glance that sarcastically said: “Okay… then…” I didn’t really understand the appeal of prisoners, especially misogynist serial killers. But he was gone now, and he never hurt anyone else. So… no harm, no foul, I supposed. To each their own.

“Where were you on the sixteenth of this month?” I asked.

“I was away on a business trip with the company. Why?”

“We’re just covering all of our bases, ma’am.”

“You think I had something to do with this?”

“No, but we do think that someone who was very close with Cortland had something to do with this.”

“Well, you can ask anyone here, they’ll confirm my alibi, anyhow.”

“We’ll do that,” Morgan said.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” she slowly started getting sour, “if I’m not under arrest, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Well, we couldn’t argue with that. We weren’t going to arrest her or take her in because we really had no reason to, but we were at least going to check on her alibi first. Maybe then we’d find a reason to continue questioning her. Until then, we had to leave. So, Morgan and I thanked her for meeting with us before we saw ourselves out so that we could go talk to her colleagues.

After we confirmed Shara’s rock solid alibi, Morgan and I headed back out to the car. As we got settled, Morgan didn’t turn on the car. When I asked him what was wrong, Morgan sighed and thought for a second longer before telling me that something was wrong about Cortland’s personal belongings. There was a list in the box that listed everything that was collected from his cell the day he was executed. Like, every single thing—even the weird stuff. But Morgan noticed that a few things were missing, like some paper cranes Cortland made. Originally he thought that it was just that someone accidentally threw them away or something, but he had been churning all of it around in his head, and now he was wondering if someone was selling Cortland’s stuff online, which was how the Unsub got some of Cortland’s semen. It made sense, I guess. Someone smuggled the stuff out in order to make some money off of the Angel Maker.

So we called Garcia with our theory and asked her to look into it for us. She said that she’d use her technological magic to start looking, and she’d get back to us as soon as she could confirm or deny our theory. Until then, Hotch wanted us back at the office. Great. Calling us back when we could just go look for another lead at the prison was a sign that either the team found something really good or really bad… And considering the last thing we heard from them was about the letter they got from the Unsub, I was going to go out on a limb and say it was bad news.

Our stop at the precinct was brief, though. From the moment we got out of the car to meeting with the team inside to leaving again, it was probably all about five minutes or so. It was already getting late, another day come and gone without any viable leads, and there was only one thing the Sheriff could think to do. Since the local newspaper received that letter from the Unsub claiming to be the Angel Maker himself, the town was spiraling into a panic. People wanted to know if Cortland Ryan was really dead. The Sheriff was under pressure to give proof, and we were all trying to tell him that wasn’t the right play. It didn’t seem to matter, though. The Sheriff made the call to dig up the body, and Hotch ordered that Emily and I would go with him to see, while the rest of the team would head to the hotel for the night.

It was absolutely preposterous that anyone could think that Cortland was still alive. I mean, there were witnesses at his execution, and there were professionals that confirmed that he was gone, people were there to see him be buried. To theorize that he was still alive and back to terrorize the town was just… It was out there. But we were only on this case because the Sheriff invited us in. We could consult that he shouldn’t dig up Cortland, but it was ultimately his decision, and there seemed to be no way to convince him not to do it.

When we arrived at the cemetery, there was already a crew there, digging up the body. There were yellow work lights on stands surrounding Cortland Ryan’s grave, about three workers already moving about, and one small excavator machine just waiting for the go ahead from the Sheriff to pull the casket out. Hotch kept trying to convince him that this was all a bad idea. To be fair, it was a shit idea. By digging up Cortland’s body, we were playing right into the Unsub’s hand, which would just encourage him to kill more on Cortland’s behalf. I mean, there was no way in hell that they body wasn’t there, so, realistically, this would help get the public off our backs— which was the Sheriff’s point in the first place—but if there was any chance there was something wrong with the body in that casket, things were going to get much worse for us.

The Sheriff told off Hotch one last time before gesturing to the man in the excavator. We all fell silent in order to watch. The machine started moving up, pulling at the chain attached to it. As the chain went taught, a loud creaking sound screeched around us. The casket budged in the grave slightly. They gave it another tug with the machine, and it gave another screen, which was finally when it started moving out of the grave. As the casket was lifted, it scraped against the metal walls, and the machine itself was rusty and old, so it also gave off a high pitched, shrill cry that made my ears hurt. As I cringed, I clocked Hotch out of the corner of my eye as he pressed his palms to his ears and stumbled back.

I furrowed my brows and followed him. “Aaron—” He kept walking away from me. “Aaron, stop!” I skipped a few steps to catch up to him. “Aaron.” I cupped my hands on his elbows and crouched slightly so that my face was in his field of view. He was staring at the ground while stretching his jaw to (probably) make the ringing in his ears stop. It was like New York all over again. “Aaron, what is it?”

“It’s just my headache,” he insisted quietly.

I looked over at Emily, Rossi, and the Sheriff. They were all watching us, even though they should’ve been paying attention to the casket that was finally being carefully set down on the grass. I let go of him and stood up straight. The three of them looked away from us long enough for me to sneak my hands up to Hotch’s face. I made him stare right into my eyes. Neither of us said anything as I tried to get a read on him from his dry lips, his racing eyes, his shortness of breath, and his weak limbs. He was lying to me. He wasn’t as healthy and perfect as he had been claiming. And this certainly wasn’t a fucking headache. I needed him to tell me the truth, but before I could pry for answers, I heard Rossi, Emily, and the Sheriff all gasp and curse under their breaths.

I let go of Hotch again before we both hurried over. We leaned forward slightly to look into the casket, and what I saw made my stomach churn. Cortland wasn’t there. There wasn’t a single body—or, hell, even a hint that a body had been in there in the first place. I sighed. What the fuck were we supposed to do now? The locals were going to have a million and one questions, the Sheriff was probably going to crack under all of this pressure, the news was going to have a field day, and the Unsub was going to be so happy we played his game that he was going to start killing more just to keep up the ruse of “Cortland Ryan, the Angel Maker, back from the grave to kill everyone!”, and a lot more women were going to die because of it.

Hotch didn’t sleep that night. I tried staying up as late as I could with him while working the case, but at some point, the caffeine stopped working, and my eyelids got too heavy to keep fighting. My exhaustion reached the extent that Hotch had to grab my pajamas from my go-back and help me into them because if it were up to me, I would’ve just gone to sleep in my work clothes. Hotch wouldn’t let me do that, though. So, he helped me get ready, and he tucked me into bed, kissed me goodnight, then turned off all the lights except for the small lamp on the desk so that he could keep working.

I felt somewhat sorry, to be fair. This case wasn’t just for Hotch to work on his own. He had been proving that something was off, and I should’ve stayed up all night with him, no matter how tired I got. But I just couldn’t. Besides, Hotch would have rathered that I were in tip-top shape for a long day’s work, than stay up all night running into the same walls we had been facing with the case all day. Sleep was good. Sleep was healthy. That was why I wished Hotch would’ve joined me, but since finding out that Cortland’s body wasn’t where it was supposed to be, I understood that he wouldn’t rest until this case was through. Fair enough.

In the morning, he woke me up and gave me a cup of coffee to get my day started. I sat up and kissed him. He pressed into our kiss lightly for a moment before handing me the cup and escaping into the bathroom. As the water started running, I heard him tell me that he wanted me and Morgan to keep up with the potential lead of finding whoever was selling Cortland’s things on the internet for profit. When I argued that we wouldn’t be able to do anything until Garcia reached out to us, he said that we should just focus on the profile until then.

I snickered to myself. “Ha. Easier said than done,” I whispered under my breath as I brought the rim of the paper coffee cup to my lips.

Then, when Hotch got out of the shower, I pushed into the bathroom to get ready. He snuck up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and kissed my neck again and again until it started tickling and I laughed while brushing my teeth. Hotch finally gave up with one last passionate kiss. I watched him walk into the bedroom, pulling off his towel so that he could get dressed.

“Don’t be shy, turn around,” I snickered before spitting the toothpaste into the sink.

Hotch glanced over his shoulder at me. “You wish.”

“Mhm.”

And then my phone started ringing. Hotch let the band of his boxers snap slightly against his hips before reaching over to grab it for me. He brought it to the bathroom. “It’s Garcia.”

“Ask and you shall receive!” I cheered to the universe before kissing his cheek as we exchanged the phone and I pushed past him. “Garcia, give me some good news, please.”

Garcia chuckled over the phone. “Well, sunshine, I’ve got your lead… Is that good news?” I hummed a “yes” while picking up a pen off the desk so that I could scribble down notes. “I tracked down who has been selling Cortland’s stuff on the internet. Drum roll, please! A man by the name of Sid Rutledge.”

I chortled. “You’re kidding.”

“What? You know him or something?”

“Yeah. He’s the guard at Hawksville Prison that was helping me and Morgan.”

“Well, it turns out that he’s not exactly that helpful to the justice system. He didn’t show up for work today.”

“Do you have a home address?”

“Ready when you are.”

I started writing down the address as Garcia gave it to me. Hotch was now dressed and ready for the day by the time I hung up with Garcia and tore the page out of the notebook. Hotch grabbed the page from me so that I could get dressed. I explained everything to him while getting dressed. I told him who Rutledge was, how he always creeped me out, that he seemed more concerned about keeping an eye on Morgan (a black man) over me (a doe eyed white woman). He was the poster child for racist, sexist asshole. I supposed that it made sense that he was helping Cortland this whole time.

When I was ready, I took the paper back from Hotch. We approached the door to the hotel room together, taking a moment to stand close to each other and stare for a moment because our time together was never guaranteed. Since New York, we had been trying to make the best of every second we had. We always knew that our jobs were dangerous, and there was always a chance that we could lose each other in the field, but those near-death experiences made it more real, and it was terrifying. So I craned my neck up at Hotch while taking in every detail of his face. From his black hair that hung in his face as he looked down at me, to the mole on his cheek, his thin pressed lips, his smile lines, his thick brows, his sharp jawline, everything. He was so perfect. He was so handsome, so gorgeous, so sexy, so lovable. And he was all mine. I would never forget that. He was mine and I was his, and I was just waiting for him to finally make it official.

“I’ll get Morgan,” I whispered, afraid to raise my voice, thinking that it would spook him off somehow. “We’ll go check out Rutledge’s place.”

Hotch reached out and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Be safe for me.”

I nuzzled against his touch. “I’ll try.”

He leaned down to kiss me passionately. The second his lips were on mine, I felt myself melt. If it weren’t for his hand cupping my cheek, I thought that I might have actually collapsed right then and there because of how light and loving the kiss was. He wasn’t being rough, dominant, and possessive with me. He was kissing me in a way that said: “Come back to me for more.” And I just knew that I had to get back to him.

Hotch blindly reached for the doorknob while we were still kissing deeply. He was practically towering over me, and I had to grab onto his jacket to maintain my balance. But the second the door was open, we tore away from each other. I fixed his jacket before stepping around him. In the hallway, he went to the right to head towards the elevators, meanwhile I headed to the left to knock on Morgan’s door.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!” I teased while knocking an annoying number of times.

Morgan opened the door to make me stop. “Jesus, what do you want?” He was dressed and ready, but he still seemed cranky.

“Late night?”

“I was working until about four. You?”

“Two.”

“I hate you.” He stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. “What is it?”

“Garcia got our lead on the internet seller. Sid Rutledge—the guard from yesterday— he’s the one who’s been selling everything. Here’s the address,” I said while handing the paper to him. He took it from me. We both started walking towards the elevator as he took note of the address. “You want the honors of arresting him?”

Morgan smirked at me as we stepped into the elevator. “I’d love nothing more.”

Nearly twenty minutes later, as we were pulling up to Sid Rutledge’s house, I grabbed two FBI vests from the back of the car. Morgan put the car in park, and I handed him one. Rutledge seemed like a pussy, if I were being honest, but we were going up to a prison guard, and we were going to attempt to arrest him. He wouldn’t exactly be too happy with us. Wearing vests was just a precaution, and since Morgan scared the shit out of me in New York, he had to wear the damn vest whenever I made him.

During our approach up to the house, I had to be sure to step around all of the dog shit on the sidewalk. Sid must’ve had a huge dog that he didn’t clean up after. Then, I let Morgan take the lead with knocking since I promised that he could be the one to arrest Rutledge. Since meeting him at the prison yesterday, Rutledge’s appearance just kept getting worse. I mean, he started out looking like a shmuck. But then it turned out that he was racist, sexist, and who knew what else; and now we were arresting him for smuggling shit out of prison, selling it on the internet, then having the audacity to lie to Federal Agents during a Federal Investigation. I wondered which judge on planet Earth would be lenient with him.

“Woah—” I stopped Morgan from moving by grabbing onto the back of his shirt once I noticed that the door was open. “Two deadbolts and neither of them are locked.”

For a guy like Rutledge who worked in a prison long enough to see all the different kinds of evil that existed out in the world, there was no way he left his door unlocked. If I worked in a prison, I wouldn’t leave my door open, either. If there were ever any prisoner who didn’t see eye to eye with me then got released… yeah… So, of course Rutledge would lock both of those deadbolts. The fact that they weren’t locked was a fair reason to worry.

Morgan nodded knowingly. We both pulled out our weapons, and then I followed his lead into the house. “Sid? It’s the FBI… From yesterday… Sid, we’re coming in.”

Morgan gestured towards the kitchen, so I started making my way there. Morgan kept moving slowly towards the bedroom. The living room we were in was entirely clear, so I stepped into the kitchen, but it was also empty. Well, not empty. It was the dirtiest kitchen I had ever seen, but, then again, Rutledge didn’t seem like a put together kind of person.

“Y/N,” Morgan called calmly from the bedroom. “We’ve got a problem.”

I sighed and holstered my weapon. I knew what that meant. Rutledge was our only remaining lead thus far, and if he were really dead, as I expected him to be based on Morgan’s tone, then we were utterly fucked. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that—

Shit.

Rutledge was lying dead on his messy twin sized bed. The sheets looked like they hadn’t been washed in… Well… Frankly, forever. Just like the kitchen, it was so messy in the bedroom that we could hardly walk around. Rutledge was a huge hoarder, so there were boxes, food containers, candy wrappers, and used condoms everywhere. I honestly had no fucking clue who would sleep with him, especially in a place like this. But who was I to judge. What was truly eye catching, however, was the overkill stab wounds on Rutledge’s chest and crotch. It certainly was the same M.O. of the copycat—bar the fact that this was not a female victim. The stabbing, the open windows, everything… But his arms weren’t crossed over his chest to symbolize innocence or regret. The overkill of the stabbing, and the fact that his arms weren’t crossed, all indicated to me that this wasn’t about the Angel Maker. I was sure that the copycat did this, but not for the same reason he had been killing the other victims. Rutledge probably sold the semen—and maybe other things—to the Unsub. He probably knew who we were looking for, therefore he had to die in order to keep him quiet.

“This is complete overkill,” Morgan stated the obvious.

“And it’s personal,” I added. “This isn’t about completing the Angel Maker’s vision, it’s about revenge.”

I walked into the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. There was Motrin, TUMS, Advil, medication for his hyperthyroid, but that was about it. Nothing too special. What was on the counter, however, was an entirely different story. My jaw dropped as I picked up the orange pill bottle. That was new and interesting.

“Oh, yeah, definitely personal.” I brought the bottle back to the bedroom and held it out for Morgan. “Viagra.”

If this was personal—which it certainly fucking was—then the Viagra just smacked us across the face to tell us that we got our whole profile wrong thus far. This whole time, we had been focused on looking for a male Unsub who was obsessed with the Angel Maker’s work; but we never stopped to think that this was a female obsessed with the Angel Maker. Our profile was off before… But now we had a better idea of who we were dealing with. The Viagra indicated that the Unsub was obviously sleeping with Rutledge, yet the stab to the groin told us that it wasn’t exactly a… consensual experience. I mean, it could have been, but not in the traditional sense. Obviously, our Unsub wanted Cortland, whom she couldn’t have, and if she was the one getting the semen out of the prison through Rutledge, it was possible that having sex with him was payment for keeping their secret quiet.

“I’ll call Hotch,” Morgan said.

“Tell him to give the profile without us.”

“You sure?”

I nodded and turned back into the bathroom to keep digging. “We still need to find everything he was selling.”

Besides, we knew the profile now, and that was all that mattered. We didn’t need to waste our time by leaving the crime scene to go help present the profile to the local P.D., then head back out into the field to do more work. Our time was better spent where we were. That being said, I still needed to churn the profile over in my mind a few times.

Now that we knew that our Unsub was a woman, a few things changed. Our age profile, for example, narrowed down because the only kind of person who would do all of this for Cortland was someone who was madly in love with him. Someone like Shara Carlino. If she didn’t have the most bulletproof alibi I’d ever seen, she would’ve been my first visit after leaving Rutledge’s house. So, if she were in love with him, she had to be around his age—30 or so. The fact that she was female also explained why the bludgeoning of these victims was so different from Cortland’s original M.O. But she was still strong, which told us she wasn’t any younger than 25, and she definitely wasn’t older than 45. Since Cortland was 36, nearly the perfect median, it made sense that our Unsub would be around the same age, too.

Just as I deduced earlier, she likely killed Rutledge because he knew who she was. But what changed now that we had the Viagra bottle was one simple thing: sex. Rutledge was an asshole, obviously. He was an asshole who probably didn’t do things for free. Smuggling and selling Cortland’s things benefitted him financially, but selling the semen to our female Unsub gave him leverage. The Viagra bottle, the way he was half naked on his bed, and the stabbings to his groin, they all pointed to the fact that Rutledge was forcing her to sleep with him in return for the semen and his silence. But now that we were approaching her endgame, he became useless to her. So, she got her revenge. She loved Cortland, she wanted to give her body over to him entirely, not to Rutledge. Sleeping with him probably felt like a betrayal to Cortland. By killing Rutledge, she was apologizing to Cortland… In some fucked up way. But this was all fucked up, so.

All of her behaviors pointed to her being a groupie. For context, groupies were a thousand times worse than your average fan. She was on a mission. Her whole life was now about completing the Angel Maker’s work because it was the only thing that could bring him back to life in her mind. She was in love with him. That was worse than being a groupie. Love could make anyone do anything. I mean, look at how I practically ran into a bomb zone just to be by Hotch’s side after the explosion in New York. For me, love would make me climb mountains for Hotch. I’d die for Hotch. Our Unsub felt the same way about Cortland; though we differed because she was willing to kill innocent people for Cortland.

“She left something by accident,” Morgan said from the bedroom. I left the bathroom since there was nothing else notable, and I joined him in the bedroom. He was standing up straight after grabbing something off the floor. “A turkey baster.”

“Jesus…” I muttered under my breath.

“What?”

“I’ll bet you anything that’s not leftover gravy in there.”

Morgan shivered and set it down on the bed. Well, at least we knew how she was simulating the sex now. The fact that she accidentally left it here was concerning, though. She probably wouldn’t have wasted Cortland’s semen on Rutledge since she viewed it as the most important part of him and her M.O. But she had brought it with her, and it must’ve fallen out of her rape kit. If she brought it with her, that meant she was on her way to—

And then Morgan’s phone started ringing.

“It’s another victim,” I said as he reached to answer it.

Morgan furrowed his brows at me in confusion, then answered. “Yeah, Hotch?” Silence blanketed the room as he waited while listening. “Y/N and I will meet you there. Send CSU here to Rutledge’s place.” Silence again. “Alright. Thanks, Hotch.” He hung up and put his phone away. “You scare me sometimes, Greenaway,” he teased me as we started heading back out to the car.

“You scare me all the time, Morgan.”

“That’s hot.” He laughed and skipped to his car door before I could slug his shoulder with a rough punch.

“You wish.”

“Hey, a man can dream, right?”

“Disgusting.” I pulled my vest off and got in the car. I finally got to punch Morgan once he was sitting down next to me, busy with turning on the car so that we could meet Hotch at the crime scene. “Idiot.” I didn’t even hit him that hard, yet he was pretending like I just smacked him with an iron shovel.

“I’m telling Hotch when we get there.”

“Tattle tale.”

He laughed to himself, then started driving.

When we arrived at the crime scene, we could see Hotch and Emily standing outside of the house with the Sheriff. The police department was surrounding the property with their cars, trying to keep curious neighbors out. Morgan and I made it in without hassle. When we met up with Hotch and Emily, the Sheriff started reviewing the case with us while walking up towards the house.

“Maxinne Chandler. 28. Lower Cannan native. Single, living alone—”

“How many kids did she have?” Hotch asked after stepping over another kid’s toy in the yard.

“None of her own,” the Sheriff answered. “She ran a daycare out of her. One of her clients, a father, was dropping off his son when they found the body.”

Emily and Hotch continued inside with the Sheriff, but I tugged on Morgan’s sleeve to hold him back. “Morgan, wait… Delilah Grennin and Maxinne Chandler worked from home. They had open door businesses. A jewelry maker and a daycare center. That can’t be coincidence.”

We had been waiting for a second, real victim to connect the dots in victimology, and there it was. Our Unsub was going after easy targets. Delilah and Maxinne both had their doors open for strangers, and Rutledge opened his door for her because he was hoping to get some action. It made sense. Cortland went after women that sexually attracted him—hence the rape—but this Unsub’s purpose was to serve Cortland, not gain sexual gratification. Because she didn’t get anything out of forcefully entering the home and pinning the women down, she had to be smarter about it. She would probably come in during the day when the businesses were open, ask to use the bathroom, leave a window open, then sneak in late at night when it was time to strike.

“Let’s tell Hotch,” Morgan offered.

The body was in the bedroom, still on the bed, left untouched in its posed position. Her arms were over her chest, her eyes were closed, there were stab wounds in her stomach, and Emily was talking to the M.E. about the traces of semen found. Hotch was staring at the stab wounds, his arms crossed over his chest. Morgan and I had clearly entered at a bad time, so we waited back for them to finish discussing the scene.

When the M.E. left, Emily and Hotch started hypothesizing together. We still stayed silent. They were working as a team on this, and Morgan and I were anxious to tell them what we had put together as our own little team. One thing at a time.

“Nine puncture marks this time,” Emily said. “It doesn’t look chaotic or disorganized, though.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Can I see your pen?” she asked him while pulling out a small notebook. Hotch agreed and handed it to her. We all stayed quiet as she scribbled something down that was slowly occurring to her. “She did this on purpose… I knew that they felt familiar, but I wasn’t sure how… But look at this—” She turned her notebook around. She had drawn the dots the same exact way the Unsub did, and suddenly all of the pieces were falling into place.

“The Big Dipper?” I questioned.

“No,” she shook her head, “The Dolphin from the Heavenly Waters family.”

Hotch took his pen back. “Tell Reid to go back and reexamine each of the bodies to see if the same connection can be made.” Emily nodded and stepped out to call him. He turned to me and Morgan, “What did you guys discuss outside?”

“We think we found the connection between the victims,” Morgan began.

“They both ran in-home businesses with an open-door policy,” I finished.

Hotch considered for a moment. “It makes sense, I suppose. The Unsub can get in and out during business hours, then comes back later with a ruse or something. She’s small, as we know, and she looks welcoming enough that she’d be invited into the victims’ homes.” He was saying what we already knew, but he was working through it himself, so I didn’t stop him. “Reid’s been working on deciphering some of the letters the prison sent to us from Cortland’s correspondence. Maybe he can use the information of the ruse to narrow down who we’re looking for.”

“I’ll tell Emily so she can let him know,” I offered, stepping out to meet up with her.

When we got back to the precinct, everyone gathered in the boardroom to start brainstorming. Originally, Rossi would’ve called this our “group think session”, but Hotch had yelled at him a couple of cases ago about calling it that, so it had since ceased. However, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Hotch was all about politics, so he had to maintain face about what our team really did on cases—and the Bureau hated group thinking. Calling it “group thinking” around Hotch was worse than saying that profiling was just guess work. But, realistically, we did group think while we were profiling.

When I first joined the team, Gideon told me that every member of the team offered something new and different. According to him, no one was dead weight. I had always tried to keep that in mind while profiling like this as a group, but it seemed like we had suddenly run into a wall. Without the letters that Reid was working on, there was nothing more we could do, much to his chagrin. I didn’t like taking credit for profiles, because that wasn’t the point, but while skimming the notes of what we had, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how most of this came together because of me and Morgan. Telling Hotch that was also a death wish— even for me. We were a team. No one person was responsible for a profile. But, damn…

“I cracked it!” Reid cheered, running over with a stack of papers. “I deciphered the letters.” He handed them to JJ. “She wasn’t just a fan—They were in love.” I could’ve told him that. “Look—” He gestured to JJ to hand the letters out.

JJ handed Cortland’s letters to Hotch, then she hesitantly handed me the stack from the Unsub. We didn’t look at each other as I took them from her. She walked away from me silently and sat down at the opposite side of the room, putting her hand over her stomach.

I started reading the first one on my stack. “’My dearest Cortland, thank you for writing back to me. The day the verdict was read, we shared a silent moment. I knew then that there was a force willing us together. Every time I see you, I feel warmed as if by the sun; and, yet, I fear that if I come too close, I’ll be consumed by your fire. I long to see you again. Love, your dove.’”

Hotch went next. “’My dove, ever since your visit, I am crazed with thoughts of you. Already you’ve entered my dreams. Each time you appear to me, I’m embraced by a feeling of trust and belief as if I’ve known you all my life. Dreams are not enough, however. I yearn to see your face once more. Come visit me. Yours, Cortland.’”

“’My dearest Cortland, as always, I’m touched by your words, and I do long to see you again, but they won’t let me. We’re not supposed to have any connection since the trial. It breaks my heart to think that I may never get to lay eyes on you ever again… Continue writing me, my love, for it’s the only thing that brings me comfort throughout my days now since discovering that I will bring a part of you back into this world. I love you. Your dove.’”

“My secret wife, all appeals have failed. All hope is lost. The guards are celebrating my defeat by clearing out my cell, destroying what memories I have of you. My execution has been set for tomorrow. By the time you read this, I will be gone, and all of you will have of me is what you will bring back. I will be watching you from the stars. I will love you from above until one day we are reunited. I love you.’”

“What do you think she meant by that last line?” Emily questioned.

“The murders?” Morgan hypothesized. “By pretending to be the Angel Maker, she’s revived his memory and the terror in this city.” I chuckled to myself. “What?” he asked, turning to me.

“Boys,” I whispered under my breath. When I realized that all eyes were on me as the team was waiting for an answer, my smile faded. I tapped the paper and said, “She was pregnant.”

Emily looked impressed. “Well, if she really did have his kid, we might be able to track her through birth records. Maybe—”

“Agent Hotchner,” the Sheriff interrupted, storming into the boardroom. “We just got a report that a woman was attacked in her house by a female assailant. The victim’s alright… I can’t say the same for the attacker.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“The victim was walking home from work when she was attacked,” the Sheriff answered. “She screamed out for help, and the whole neighborhood ran out to help her.”

“This isn’t our Unsub’s M.O.” I spun in my chair to face Hotch. “It isn’t late at night, she was attacked out in the open—the ritual couldn’t be completed there.”

“Maybe she was rushing to get to the last victim because she knows we’re after here,” Emily offered up.

The Sheriff shrugged. “You can ask her yourself when you get to the crime scene, if you’d like.”

“Y/N, Emily, take this one,” Hotch ordered, nodding out towards the front door.

We nodded, too, and headed out.

Emily jumped into the driver’s seat in one of the SUV’s outside, and I got into the passenger’s seat beside her. We started following the Sheriff to the scene. Allowing him to navigate was faster than following a map and getting lost on our way there. This way, we’d get to the scene as fast as possible—hopefully before the paramedics could take the victim to the hospital. From the description the Sheriff gave, it sounded like the victim wasn’t as hurt as the attacker was, but the paramedics probably still felt like it was best to take her back to the hospital to make sure she was alright. I didn’t blame them. Even if she wasn’t physically injured by the attacker, the shock could do more harm than good.

“So, are you ever going to tell me why you and JJ are on bad terms?” Emily finally asked me while still staring at the road. I sighed. “I know, I know, it’s none of my business. But I love you and JJ equally, and I want to make sure that you’re both alright. But if you tell me again to drop it, I will. I’ll respect that choice. I promise, Y/N.”

I knew she would drop it if I told her to. I knew that her promises meant the world to her, and that she understood a thing or two about keeping secrets. I mean, really, what did I know about Emily? Of course, we were close, and she was a dear friend of mine and Hotch, but she kept a lot of secrets from all of us. She kept a thousand things bottled up, and none of us ever pried. There were rules in our team. We didn’t profile each other, and we didn’t pry when it came to secrets. Hotch and I were different because we had a rule that we wouldn’t keep secrets from each other just to save our own, personal relationship. But I wasn’t required to tell Emily anything, the same way she was never required to tell me anything.

The worst part, however, was that I wanted her to know. I wanted her to know the truth the same way I had eagerly anticipated JJ and then Morgan the truth. But I’d been burned one too many times. It didn’t matter that Morgan had since come around, or that he was trying to get me and JJ to apologize to each other… What they initially said to my face hurt me. I confided in the two people I thought would understand most, and they both let me down. I wanted JJ to know that Hotch and I were going to get engaged, and that we decided that we wanted to have kids. I wanted her to be the first person to know because she was the only other person on the team who could have possibly understood. But she took my heart from my chest, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it. She practically told me that Hotch and I weren’t good for each other—that I shouldn’t take things with him too seriously. But what about her and Will, huh? Why did they get to know each other for just a few months, then have a baby, and everyone’s fine with it; but Hotch and I date for a year and have a conversation about marriage and kids, and suddenly I’m the bad guy.

I wanted to tell Emily the truth. In a way, I needed to tell her, just to see if her response would be any different than what Morgan and JJ’s were. Emily told me before we flew to Cincinnati that she supported me and Hotch, and that she felt she had no right to judge us. Plenty of people at the office didn’t support our relationship. There was the issue of the age gap, the fact that he had gone through a messy divorce with a kid in the mix, and, oh, yeah, he was my boss. It didn’t matter that the FBI had no rules against our relationship; people still looked down on it anyhow. I wasn’t going to convince people’s minds, but my family—the people I spent every day with at the office and entrusted with my life in the field—should’ve at least given me the courtesy of feigning excitement on my behalf. Morgan was my best friend. Even if he didn’t think mine and Hotch’s relationship would be perfect, he should’ve supported me and my elation. Hotch didn’t hit me, mistreat me, or not love me. Hotch was good to me, and Morgan knew it. If there was any sign that Hotch and I were toxic, then, yeah, Morgan would’ve earned the right to warn me away from marrying Hotch. But this was real life. This was our reality, and the truth was that Hotch was good to me and loved me more than anything. Therefore, Morgan should’ve been on my side from the get-go.

Emily… She… I didn’t know enough about her personal life to make a call on where she would stand on all of this. Would she react like Morgan and JJ? Would she still be adamant that it wasn’t her place to give an opinion? Or would she be excited for me? I wasn’t sure. I hoped that she would be thrilled for me and Hotch, but how could I know for sure? Well… there was really only one way to know. I had to tell her.

“Before the explosion in New York,” I began, “Hotch and I talked about getting married and having kids.” Emily didn’t say or do anything. “We decided that we’re ready.”

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. A slight upward curl of her lip slowly became more prominent until she was smiling wide with her teeth showing. My heart jumped in my chest. That was so different to how things went with JJ and Morgan. Neither of them smiled when I told them. But Emily did. She was smiling until she was laughing gleefully, and then she removed one of her hands from the steering wheel so that she could hold my hand.

“That’s so great, Y/N!” she cheered.

I squeezed her hand, a smile slowly forming on my face now, too. “You think so?”

“Of course, I think so!” She waved my hand around. “Hello! You two love each other! You two have always been a perfect, happy couple. I was always wondering when the hell he’d get around to finally asking you to marry him. Honestly, when I joined the team and found out that the two of you had only been dating for six months, I was shocked. I thought he would’ve married you the day he met you.”

My smile widened. “Thank you, Emily,” I said in all sincerity, trying to suppress the giddy shake in my leg.

“For what?” she furrowed her brow slightly while smiling at me.

“For believing in us.”

“Is that what this is all about? You and JJ?”

I nodded.

“Oh, Y/N,” she tsked her tongue. “What happened?”

“She and Morgan doubted us. They didn’t think that Hotch and I should get married. They think that we’re rushing things.”

“Screw them.”

I chuckled. “What?”

“Screw them!” she said with more passion. “We love them, they love us—but screw them and what they think about you and Hotch. They don’t know your relationship. No one does but you and Hotch. If the two of you think you’re finally ready, then I say go for it. It’s your choice, not theirs. Once they see how happy you two are while married—even though they should already see it now, the same way I do—then they’ll understand that you made the right choice. You and Hotch are adults. Make your choice to be happy, and prove them wrong.”

We were suddenly approaching the crime scene, so Emily released my hand. She set the car in park. The scene was still busy with the paramedics looking at the victim in the back of their ambulance, and the police were trying to keep all of the neighbors back. Because of what the Sheriff told us about how they practically ganged up on the attacker, I was surprised that they hadn’t broken through the barricade yet. The attacker was sitting in the deputy’s car across the street, but from where we were, I couldn’t see who it was. I truly believed that this wasn’t the work of our Unsub. The Sheriff and the team could be suspicious all they wanted, but I had an inkling. Our Unsub wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t risk finishing Cortland’s legacy like this. The last kill would probably be the most important one to her. She would be careful and take her time with the last victim. This… this was all so messy.

Then I saw who was sitting in the car with their hands cuffed behind their back.

“Em,” I said suddenly, stopping in my tracks. She stopped with me once she caught on. “That’s Shara Carlino.” Emily looked confused. “The woman who thought that she was Cortland’s only ‘lover’.”

Emily’s eyebrows raised in shock. “You’re kidding.”

“She’s Cortland’s number one fan. Her alibi is solid. She’s not our Unsub. We’re just wasting our time here.”

“Maybe…” She trailed off as she started walking towards the car. “Ms. Carlino,” she said after opening the door, “I’m Agent Prentiss with the FBI. I work with Agent Greenaway. You spoke with them yesterday.” Shara looked over Emily’s shoulder to glance at me. “Why… Why did you do this? We know that you’re not the woman we’re looking for, so why?”

“I just wanted us to be together again…” she cried. Her face was all bruised and bleeding from the mob that jumped on her after she tried killing the victim. Yet she didn’t seem to care. She was crying because she failed to do what our Unsub was doing. She couldn’t connect with Cortland in the same way, and she was furious because of it.

Emily slowly closed the door on Shara and turned to me. “Well…” Well, I was right. We had wasted our time—actually, Shara had wasted our time. “That was certainly—”

My phone started ringing, cutting Emily short. My eyes apologized to her for the interruption as I answered. “Morgan…” I growled.

“Sunshine, you’re gonna love me right now,” Morgan cheered on the other end. I rolled my eyes. I was in a bad mood still because of Shara, and not even Morgan’s snippiness could change that, unfortunately. “I’ve got you the name and address of our Unsub.” Okay, the cheered me up a bit. “Chloe Kelcher. She was on the jury during Cortland’s case, and she started visiting him once every six months while in prison so that no one would piece together that they were close.”

“She’s his dove?”

“Yeah. Birth records show that she had a baby about three months ago that died after being born.”

“That’s definitely a trigger.”

“Uh huh. We’re all heading there right now. Looks like we’re closer, but Hotch wants you and Prentiss to meet us there.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

When I hung up, I told Emily everything. She told the Sheriff, and we gave him the address so that we could race there. We turned the lights and sirens on as we left the crime scene. Emily stretched between the front seats we were in so that she could grab two vests for us to wear. Knowing that we were heading to the Unsub’s house, it was best to play it safe. Besides, if I even decided to show up without one, I was sure that Hotch would strap one onto me forcefully anyhow. And while that was normally an appealing idea, I wasn’t in the mood. I hadn’t forgotten about last night. I hadn’t forgotten about the plane ride. I hadn’t forgotten my worry over the fact that I knew that something was wrong, and he was refusing to fess up. That was when I realized that if I showed up and Hotch wasn’t wearing a vest, I was going to strap one onto him. Funny how those things worked.

At Chloe Kelcher’s house, the team was gearing up at the cars they brought. Hotch was putting on a vest… Thankfully. Then, when Emily and I got out of the car, he spotted me while making sure his gun was loaded. We exchanged a brief glance as I moved my hair out of my face so that it wouldn’t distract me inside. He was watching me closely. That morning, in the hotel room, he begged me to be safe for him. Since New York, I understood why he was being a little more protective than usual, but this was different. The look in his eyes was different. He was practically begging me to stay in the car, which was preposterous. I would do nothing of the sort. I was a part of this team; I was on this case—it was my job to go in there and search the house with them. If he wasn’t going to sit in the car, then neither was I.

So, when everyone was ready to head in, we carefully approached. We were going to do a hard entry—which meant that Morgan was going to kick down the door, then we were all going to disperse into different rooms in order to clear the house. The hope was that we were going to catch Chloe off guard so that we could grab her before she would have a chance to run. With a hard entry, however, there was no time for planning. We didn’t have a chance to stop and account for how many rooms there were to clear ahead of time. But we were used to this. The first ones in the door made their way to the back of the house, while the people in the back cleared the front rooms like the kitchen and the living room. I happened to be towards the back with Emily, so we headed straight for the kitchen. We separated around the table in the middle of the room. She ventured to the left, and I went to check the pantry on the right.

“Clear!” Rossi called out.

“Clear!” Morgan responded.

“Clear!” I added.

“Clear!” Hotch finished up.

I sighed and lowered my weapon to my side. Emily and I moved back into the living room where Rossi, Morgan, and Hotch had also gathered.

“Okay, spread out,” Hotch ordered. “We need to find out what her end game is and where she is before it’s too late.”

I immediately turned towards the hallway where the bedrooms were, and made my way to the last one on the right because Hotch was taking the one on the left. When I stepped in, I stumbled slightly. I hadn’t anticipated what I saw. I thought that it would be just another bedroom, or maybe a home office, or even a goddamn shrine praising Cortland… but this… this caught me off guard. I was standing in a nursery. Like, a baby’s nursery. We knew that she had a baby that she lost, but I… It had been months. I… I wasn’t sure why I was so shocked to find that the nursery was still there and put together.

The walls were painted a light baby blue for a boy, and the ceiling was a dark navy blue to imitate the night sky. The one thing that didn’t surprise me was the glow in the dark stars stickers shaped into The Dove constellation. Expected. She wanted her baby to be raised with a constant reminder that his father was watching over him. That part made sense, I supposed. But what sent a shiver down my spine was the empty cradle with a red dinosaur toy eerily similar to the one Jack and I loved to play with, and the pajama onesie that was laid out next to it. It was like she was still expecting her baby to show up again…

“You okay?” Hotch asked from the door.

Frightened by the sudden intrusion, I jumped in my own skin. When I realized that it was just him, I caught my breath and nodded. He started walking in to take a look around with me. “Note the view,” I snipped, pointing to the ceiling. Hotch glanced quickly. “This is probably the cleanest room in the whole place. Her grief sent her into a spiral of deep depression to the point that she couldn’t keep anything together besides the one thing she had left: hope and love.”

“Do you blame her?” Hotch asked me.

I shook my head. “No.” If I ever lost Hotch, Jack, or a bab— Well… Or anyone else… I wouldn’t know what to do with myself either.

“Did you look in here?”

I turned to see that he was pointing at a wooden chest in the corner of the room. It looked identical to the one we had in our office at home. But I hadn’t really noticed it when I entered the nursery. Even if I had, I figured it was probably just filled with baby toys or diapers or something.

Hotch flipped the top of the chest open. Both of us leaned in with our weapons raised, ready to shoot something. I wasn’t sure what we were expecting to shoot in a goddamn wooden chest, but better safe than sorry, especially with this Unsub. But what we found only confused us. Hotch and I lowered and holstered our weapons.

“That…” I sucked in a deep breath. “That explains a lot.”

There was a corpse trapped in there, covered by a loose plastic bag in an poor attempt to preserve it. After finding out that Cortland’s body wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and now finding this corpse in our Unsub’s house— specifically her baby’s nursery, I supposed I shouldn’t have been shocked, honestly. If I were to guess, she somehow got ahold of Cortland’s body just after he was executed. I only assumed that because it didn’t seem like the grave was bothered before we dug him up last night.

“Wonderful,” Rossi said sarcastically as he came into the room. “I assume that’s who I think it is.” Hotch and I both nodded. “Listen, I think I might’ve found something here. It’s a weekly planner,” he explained while handing it to Hotch, “and it has Delilah Grennan and Maxinne Chandler’s names in it on the day of their respective murders.”

“What about today?” I inquired.

He nodded. Faye Landreaux. 162 North Red River Drive. She’s an accountant… Works at home…”

“That’s it,” Hotch agreed, jumping on his toes. The three of us ran out of the nursey. “Let’s move!” he shouted throughout the house. Emily, Reid, and Morgan, and the Sheriff immediately hurried outside to the cars.

Emily and Morgan were with me, Rossi and Reid were with Hotch. Morgan drove, following Hotch and the Sheriff to Faye's house about ten minutes away. It was conveniently nice that it was close… but it was also worrisome because that meant we were at least two steps behind our Unsub, meaning it could’ve been too late already.

When we arrived at Faye’s house, we spotted an extra car in the driveway—and, of course, the license plate was “ANGLMAKR”. How did no one fucking notice that before? How did we not catch that in some kind of records or something? Jesus. Morgan noticed, too, so he ran up to go see if there was anyone or anything inside of it. Meanwhile, the rest of us grouped up to start considering how we should handle this.

“Hotch,” Morgan called in a whisper while jogging over to meet us, “the car’s still warm.”

“And the windows are still closed,” I said, pointing up at the house. “She hasn’t killed her yet.”

If she had, then she would’ve made sure to open the windows to make sure that the soul could leave the house. If anything, she was probably… Well… Worst case scenario was that she was already setting out her rape kit. But we couldn’t know for sure. And if we tried anything, there was a possibility that Chloe would kill her before we could even get into the house.

“Find a way in,” Hotch told Morgan.

“Right,” Morgan agreed before racing off to search the perimeter of the house.

Hotch turned to Emily. “You’re gonna take point talking to Chloe.”

“But the profile says you’re not going to be able to talk her down. She has to complete Cortland’s work,” I argued.

“I know, but it’ll occupy her long enough to give Morgan a chance to get in and rescue Faye from inside the house. We just need to buy some time.” He turned to the Sheriff. “I’m gonna need all of your vehicles to quietly pull up to the front of the house, facing forward. On my mark, they’re all going to turn their lights on at the same time. I’m also going to need a megaphone.”

The Sheriff nodded and hurried off to do everything he was told. The rest of us started getting in position on the driveway. Because it was so dark and the streetlights on the road had been blown out, we didn’t need cover as we waited for the Sheriff’s department to pull up all of their cars. I was standing between Hotch and Emily, Reid and Rossi on her other side. When the P.D. was ready, Hotch held up his hand, waiting to give the signal. On the count of three, he dropped his hand. All of the cars suddenly turned on their high beams, lighting up the entire house, definitely alerting Chloe to our presence. Well. Hopefully we didn’t just get Faye and Morgan killed.

“Chloe, this is the FBI,” Emily said into the megaphone. “We know you’re in there.” She looked at me and Hotch. We both shrugged. She could do this if she just had a little more faith in herself. We knew that this wasn’t going to stop Chloe, but it was just going to buy Morgan time, like Hotch said. If Emily just kept talking for a bit longer, we’d be golden. “I know that you think that finishing what Cortland started will somehow bring you closer to him. We both know that’s not true. You’ve been lied to, Chloe. Cortland wasn’t who you really thought he was. I think it’s time you know the truth.” Spencer started scribbling a script for Emily onto a notepad. She nodded an acknowledgement to him before continuing. “Those letters that you think were so special between you and him? Well, he sent them to dozens of other women, too. ‘Without the flesh, there is only the soul.’ Does that sound familiar, Chloe? ‘You don’t need to touch me to feel the love I have for you.’ He said the same exact things to other girls like you, Chloe. He was a liar. He didn’t really love you. He was a narcissist. He couldn’t love you.”

A scream from inside the house shook the whole neighborhood. Panic ran through me as I didn’t see Morgan yet, but there was also no sound of gunfire or a struggle—which was good. I just had to know that he was safe. Since New York, I didn’t need to keep worrying about him. He scared the shit out of me with that ambulance stunt. This wasn’t easing my conscience at all. Asshole. Where was he? Why wasn’t he out yet?

And then Emily tapped my arm. I glanced at her quickly to realize that she was staring at the yard to the right of the building. I followed her gaze to see that Morgan was helping Faye along as she limped beside him. He was okay. He looked fine. No cuts, no bruises, no scrapes, no bullet wounds, no blood, nothing. He was safe.

Suddenly, the front door of the house opened. We all watched for movement for a minute before Chloe took a slow step out. She was wearing all black—two sweatshirts and snow pants, all for the sake of making her build look bigger, like a man. In her hand, she was carrying a small revolver.

“Chloe,” Hotch began as we all pulled our weapons, “drop the gun.”

She continued moving towards us, so I put my finger on the trigger. Hotch repeated his order. Chloe looked up at all of us, yet she didn’t stop or listen to Hotch’s order. He tried ordering her again. She hadn’t raised her weapon at us yet, she hadn’t made any sudden movements to give us cause to fire, and she was still far enough that she could surrender. So Hotch tried one last time before I whispered to him that I was waiting for the order. He didn’t seem to hear me, though.

Chloe looked up at the sky and whispered, “I’m coming to you, my love.” And then she started raising her weapon.

The Sheriff got the first shot in before the rest of the team could squeeze their triggers. As I fired, I saw out of the corner of my eye how Hotch stumbled back. I stopped firing so that I could look at him. He was wandering around aimlessly as the team continued to shoot at Chloe to make sure she was down. My eyes softened in concern. Hotch was still stumbling, even when the gunfire ended, and he ran into a car while holding his head between his palms. He was trying to guard his ears from the loud sounds. I spotted the similarities in relation to how he looked in New York. The way he was holding his head, the way he was stumbling around like he didn’t know where he was, and the way he could hardly stand up straight unless he was leaning against that car… My heart started pounding in my chest.

I looked at the team, who was also eyeing Hotch with concern. “Go!” I yelled, shooing them towards Chloe. They took the command without argument. While they moved to see if Chloe was really dead, I hurried over to Hotch to make sure that he was alright. Suddenly, he collapsed onto his knees. Thankfully, I managed to catch him by grabbing onto his elbows, and I held him up against the side of the car.

Hotch was blinking like crazy, looking at nothing specific as he glanced around at everything but me. I grabbed his face to let him know I was there, and he tried to squint and focus on me. “Baby,” I said to him breathlessly. “Baby, what is it?” He still didn’t respond. “Hotch!” I yelled, shaking him.

“I can’t hear anything,” he tried to explain calmly, but his tone was in a panic. He groaned as he hid his face in his hands. “Fuck… I can’t hear anything…” I brushed my fingers through his hair to let him know that I was there with him. “Y/N.” He braced his hands on my shoulders as his sight started to come back.

“I’m right here.” I smiled to make him feel better. “I’m right here.”

His hands squeezed my shoulders, and he stood up tall. “Shit…” he cursed under his breath. He stretched his jaw and his face to help clear his ears. “I’m okay,” he reassured me. I shook my head at him. He clearly wasn’t okay. “I promise.” He pushed past me to meet up with the team again.

I stayed where I was. My jaw was hanging, practically on the floor, and my eyes didn’t even blink. How did this happen? Why? He said he was alright, yet for the past two days, he had proven time and again that something wasn’t right. Ever since getting on the airplane at Quantico, I knew that something was wrong. This… The way he seemed just as dazed and confused as he did the night of the bombing in New York… He had been lying to me this whole time.

I didn’t sleep that night. Hotch fell asleep fairly quickly after kissing me goodnight and rolling over to face the wall. But I stayed curled up on my side, watching his back. I was worried about him, and I knew that worry wouldn’t allow me to sleep, and it really didn’t. Even when I tried to close my eyes, I would just be tortured by the memories of New York. I saw flashes of the street camera recordings of the bombings, of getting that first call from Garcia when she told us something bad happened, of holding Kate’s back together with my hands, or seeing Hotch collapse in the middle of the hospital, of seeing him as he broke down when he found out Kate didn’t make it out of surgery. It was all killing me.

Then I would think about how Hotch couldn’t seem to hear anything when they were pulling the coffin out of the ground, and when I fired my weapon at Chloe—That was my fault. How did I not realize that I did that? He didn’t have a problem with it until I fired my gun because I was standing right next to him. That one was my fault. I should’ve realized that there was something still going on with his ears, and I should’ve held out. But then she could’ve shot Hotch. He was right in her eyeline, her posture was squared up to shoot him. If she was going to shoot anyone, it was going to be him. I saw her raising her weapon, and I made a choice. I made the right choice. It was him or her, and I didn’t hesitate.

Finally, when morning came around, Hotch woke up to the sound of his alarm. He groaned and grabbed his phone to turn it off. Meanwhile, I closed my eyes, ignoring the flashes of nightmares, and pretended to be asleep. I was so worried about him; I didn’t need him worrying about me and how I didn’t fall asleep. Eventually, he turned over to face me, and I felt him put a gentle hand on my arm to wake me up. I gave it a few seconds of him massaging my arm awake before I opened my eyes. He was smiling at me while I pretended to be slowly waking up. I forced myself to smile back at him.

“Wanna shower before we head to meet up with the team?” he asked me quietly, brushing a strand of my hair out of my face.

I shook my head and closed my eyes again. I was trying to silently play it off like I was just tired, and I wanted to sleep in for another few minutes while he showered. It seemed to work because he kissed my temple and carefully slid out of bed. When he was gone and the bathroom door closed, I sat up and I started to think while he showered.

About fifteen minutes later, Hotch stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his hips, another one hanging from his neck as he used one corner to clear the water out from his left ear. I shifted on the bed while thinking about what was underneath that towel and how good he looked while his chest was still dripping beads of water. I had to shake off the thought, knowing that wasn’t what I wanted to do or talk about. I needed to focus on having a real conversation with him that had been weighing on my mind since New York.

He smiled at me. “I wish you would have joined me.”

But I didn’t smile back like I should have. “We need to talk about something.”

His smile disappeared and his forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows raised in worry. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and sat up. Hotch walked over and sat down by my feet. He reached out for me, so I turned onto my knees and crawled over to him. He pulled me onto his lap, his arms wrapped around my torso to hold me close. I tilted my head to the side so that I could press my forehead against his. As his wet chest soaked my pajamas, I thought long and hard about what to say next. There wasn’t enough time to prepare for such a conversation, and I wasn’t even sure if there were words to express exactly how I felt, but I needed to try.

I sighed quietly before taking in a deep breath of bravery. Fuck it. Full send. I just had to be honest. “I need you to be honest with me about what the doctors have been telling you. I didn’t want to pry because I knew that you would tell me when the time was right, but it’s been eating me alive, Aaron. I can’t sleep and I can’t eat because I spend my entire days just worrying about you. Something changed in New York. You didn’t used to keep secrets from me, which is how I know that this is really fucking bad. You would tell me if things are actually okay. So, I need to know the truth before it literally kills me.”

Hotch’s arms tightened around me while he pulled his face away from mine so that he could get a good look at me. I wasn’t smiling, I wasn’t smirking, and I wasn’t having any fun while trying to get answers out of him without having to start an argument. What I needed most was for him to just come out and say the truth, no matter how terrible it could be. Even if he were dying, I wanted to know. Even if he were so healthy that he could do a backflip, I wanted to know. There was something missing from what he had been telling me about his health since New York, and I had enough. He was the love of my life, there was no denying it. There was no one else out there who could love me the way he did, and there was no one out there that I could love with the same intensity that I had for him. But for us to work, he needed to just be honest with me. I could take anything, no matter how horrible. If there was even the slightest chance that I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, I needed to know that I could trust him wholeheartedly and that he shared the same sentiment. If we didn’t trust each other, then what was the point? I wanted him to know everything— hell, he did know everything about me, even the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low. He could show me the same courtesy, couldn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” I inquired with worry, pushing his wet hair out of his face.

“I didn’t want to lie, I swear. I thought that I’d be fine, and I just didn’t want to worry you.” He looked at me while he mimicked my actions by brushing my hair out of my face, too. “I’ve been so worried about you since New York. I don’t want you to have another panic attack because of me.”

“Just tell me the truth.”

His gaze fell from my eyes to my shoulder. “I’m technically not supposed to be in the field… The doctor didn’t clear me to fly, and she doesn’t want me to be around loud noises, like gunshots.”

My eyes softened. Why would he lie about something like that? That was nothing to be ashamed of. This was his fucking health— Did he not realize that a fucking doctor told him to not put a strain on his ears and that they likely told him that for a fucking reason? It wasn’t just a suggestion as he was taking it to be. They knew what they were fucking talking about and he had blatantly—

I took in a deep breath and tried to relax.

“Maybe I should have listened,” he admitted.

Yeah. Maybe he should have. Just a thought… God, I wanted to smack some sense into him so bad. He probably didn’t realize how frustrating it was to hear that he was going out of his way to hurt himself.

“My ears, they keep ringing to the point that I can’t hear or see anything… And when it happens, I go right back to that night and I can just see myself holding onto Kate while screaming for help that just won’t come. I feel so lost and panicked every time—” He looked at me. “But then you’re there, and you’re holding me just like you are now, and I find my balance and I remember where I am. I remember that I love you and that we’re both okay, and that’s enough to help me calm down.”

I took in another relaxing breath, this time because I knew that he was right. I wanted to be mad at him, but he had the right idea about being held and grounded by each other. Knowing that he was safe and alive was the greatest sedative for the mind and heart.

I tried to ask my next question as calmly as possible because he had been honest with me and that was what I wanted. I didn’t want to punish his honesty by yelling at him, but there was so much anger penting up in my chest, and I needed to let him know one way or another that he had made a huge mistake that didn’t just affect him. So I proceeded cautiously with, “How long have we known each other, Aaron?”

“What? I—”

“A year. We’ve known each other for about a year. In all that time, have you ever doubted that I can take care of myself? Even when the worst thing imaginable happens and you get all worried about me, do you doubt that I can handle any situation life throws at me?”

“Never.”

“So then don’t doubt me when I tell you that what happened in New York is nothing to worry about. I’m not lying to you. It’s the truth. Do you really want to know why I panicked like that?” He nodded slightly. “You fell to the floor and I thought you died. I saw you laying there, and I thought that I had lost you for good. I can’t bear to lose you, Aaron. That’s why I had a panic attack. That’s why I couldn’t breathe. But you were fine, just needed a little fixing up and you were good to go. Now you’re telling me that you’re not fine and that you’re putting yourself in danger? Did you ever stop to consider how I might feel about it? Your health isn’t just for you to worry about, Aaron. You have a family. We have a family. What if you were to come home one day and you can’t hear Jack’s laugh anymore, huh? You come home from a case and you can’t hear me tell you how much I love you, or Haley’s trying to tell you something important about Jack that we had to miss while we were gone, and you can’t understand her? You can’t do that, Aaron. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to you, to me, to Jack, the team, or even Haley. There are people who need you to be healthy and safe. We’re relying on it. You can’t just make the decision for yourself that you’re going to disobey the doctor’s orders and then have those around you suffer the consequences.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“I know you are, baby.” I pressed my lips against his forehead, keeping myself there for a minute. He leaned in and pecked a kiss against my neck. “I just want you to be safe and healthy. Is that too much to ask?” He shook his head. “I.” I kissed his forehead. “Love.” I did it again. “You.” He giggled slightly. “I love you, Aaron Hotchner.”

“I love you, too.” He looked up at me. “I.” He kissed my lips. “Love.” He did it again. “You.” Again. “Y/N Greenaway.” I smiled against his lips. “And I really am sorry. I promise, I won’t lie again. I swear it.” We hugged each other tight as he fell back onto the bed. I laughed and tried to roll off of him, but he held me tight. “You’re not going anywhere.”

When we were dressed and ready to leave the hotel, Hotch and I headed down to the lobby where the team was waiting for us. We apologized for being late, which earned a snarky remark from Morgan about how Hotch was getting “some action”, and in return, Hotch told him that he’d get to ride back-middle seat in the car as punishment. Morgan’s face fell. I chuckled as I walked past him to claim the front passenger’s seat in the car that Hotch would be driving.

We drove to the precinct first so that Hotch and JJ could wrap up a few things with the Sheriff, since he apparently wanted to discuss something with them in person before the team would get on the jet. Everyone got out of the car to stretch their legs again because they knew that they had a long flight ahead of them, but I did it because I knew that Hotch and I had an even longer trip. After Hotch admitted that he wasn’t clear to fly, I told him that there was no way in hell I was letting him get on that jet home. He told me that he understood, and we discussed how we were going to road trip home. It wasn’t ideal, but it was what we had to do in order to keep him safe.

Hotch and JJ finished talking with the Sheriff and one of Cortland’s original victim’s mother a few minutes later. She handed him a plate of cookies, which he thanked her for. As they all said goodbye to one another, Hotch and JJ slowly started making their way back to us. I pushed myself upright from leaning on the side of the car. Hotch and I exchanged a quick glance. Recognizing the signal, I opened the trunk and grabbed our go-bags while he handed the plate to Emily. When I had our bags, I closed the trunk, and I handed him his black duffle bag.

“You’re not coming?” Emily questioned, following Hotch around with the plate of cookies.

“No,” Hotch shook his head. “We’ve, uh… we’ve decided that we’re gonna drive back.”

“That’s a seven hour drive!”

Hotch looked over at me. I nodded a reassurance. “I… I really shouldn’t be flying.”

Emily looked over at me, too, now. She put two and two together. Knowing that this was something that we had discussed privately, and it was a decision we made together, she decided not to push. She nodded understandingly, then told us to drive safe. Morgan and I exchanged a glance as he got in the car with the rest of the team. I smiled lightly at him. Rossi was the only one who didn’t get in yet. He waited for them to close their doors before approaching me and Hotch.

“You know, I’ve done that drive before,” he said quietly. “There’s a lot of small towns—even more miles of absolute nothing. It gets kind of dizzying to spend all those hours on the road without stopping. Maybe you two should stretch the trip out for a day or two. Take a few days off to be yourselves again.”

Hotch nodded. “It’s something we’ve considered.” He reached out to shake Rossi’s hand. “Thanks.”

“Stay safe out there,” he said to Hotch, shaking his hand. “Don’t let him drive,” he joked, pointing at me. We both chuckled together, but Hotch only glared playfully at me. “We’ll be fine without you two for a few days, don’t worry.” He turned to get into the car.

When the whole team was settled in the car, Reid started the ignition. Honestly, I didn’t envy them after knowing that Reid was going to be driving them to the airport. I did feel bad, however, for not joining them, and for potentially not being at work over the next few days… but being with Hotch to make sure that he was okay… that meant more to me than anything else. That was what was important. I didn’t want to lose him, and that included losing any part of him, like his hearing. This was the safest thing for him, and I was going to be with him every step of the way, holding his hand as we got through this together.

He was going to hate me over the next few days. If he didn’t know it yet, he was going to learn very quickly that I didn’t appreciate being lied to. When Elle tried lying to me about her pain tolerance after getting shot, I stayed at her house for a bit to baby her, to make sure that she was alright and doing everything the doctor’s told her to do. She grew to dislike me over those two weeks because of that. But she was also the reason I didn’t immediately move in with Hotch, so she kind of had it coming. In Hotch’s case, he lied to me the same way she lied… and, boy, oh, boy, was I going to have a field day with making his life hell to make sure he knew to never lie to me again.

So as the team drove off, I held my hand out in front of me, my palm facing up. Hotch tried lacing his fingers with mine, but I playfully pulled away. “Keys,” I explained.

He furrowed his brows. “You’re not serious.”

“I’m dead serious. Keys, Agent Hotchner.”

He moved his go-bag from his right to left hand so that he could dig into his pockets for the car keys. “I’m perfectly capable of driving, Agent Greenaway.”

“No, you’re not.” I took the keys from him. “I love you.” I pressed a quick kiss against his cheek before hurrying off to the driver’s side of the car we were taking. Hotch watched me for a moment. “You can pick your jaw off the floor now,” I said, biting back a laugh, and opening up my car door.

His eyes brightened and a smile crept onto his face. “You’re something else… You know that, right?” I nodded. I could practically see his heart beating in his chest like we were in a damn cartoon or something. “I—” He was at a loss for words, which only made me smile. “I love you.” There it was. “Even though you’re a pain in my ass sometimes,” he mumbled under his breath as he got in the car.

Touché.

I was going to show him just how much of a pain in the ass I could be. Poor Aaron Hotchner had no idea.

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner imagine #hotch

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bisluthq · 3 years

Note

It’s your kaylor historian here who still can’t remember my log in details to my KH account 🤦‍♀️ (so please make sure this anon just in case it isn’t... I fear them 👀)

Karlie’s tea post before masters heist:

Ok so I can’t remember who posted first and don’t feel like looking, but taylor posted a selfie and captioned it “Friday calmness” and we (kaylor fandom) had been speculating taylor was going to come out as bi on the last day of June / 🌈pride month🌈 since she’d been doing so much stuff that could be seen (and was) as queer coded. We celebrated the “Friday calmness” thinking it was like a ‘calm before the storm’ with the storm being her coming out.

I think Karlie posted after taylor, but am not 100% sure. Karlie posted a selfie with a cup with a caption like “what’s the tea” and the fandom, thinking they were still together, collectively lost our shit. It looked to us like Karlie was playing off Taylor’s post. (I’ll admit, I didn’t think kaylor were still together, but that weekend I was thinking ‘I can’t believe I doubted them!’ Lol)

*there were also rumours that the YNTCD video and single were delayed a couple of times and meant to be released sooner and serve as a soft coming out, but that taylor kept changing her mind about it and is also why she kept the tracklist length under wraps, because she wasn’t sure if she’d go through with it. She was way more vague than ever before. There were also rumours she had a rolling stone cover planned that she was going to come out in but it was scrapped —— I can’t even remember where these “she’s actually coming out” rumours originated anymore and I can’t remember if people had legit sources and gossip or if it was fan fiction planning, but it was mentioned outside the kaylordom too, so take that as you wish.

Then came the masters heist.

Now, to understand the thought process of Kaylors at the time, you have to remember that we thought Karlie & Taylor had a secret romance, Joe was a beard, Josh was a beard - but since he comes from a crime family who have done a lot of bad things (to put it lightly) and are stupidly rich, Josh had Karlie trapped in such a tight contract and has so much blackmail material that Karlie was forced to fake marry him against her will - remember, it was only meant to be a photo shoot for a Vogue wedding spread showing what wedding fashion was available, it wasn’t meant to be a wedding! But josh had his team leak the photos and instead of saying it was all for a photo shoot, Karlie had to say she was now married. <- that was the narrative and thought process within the fandom.

So the fandom thought 🛴 and Josh conspired to announce the purchase of big machine/ taylor’s masters which would derail her coming out plans. The fandom thought Karlie had no idea it was happening. Scooter and Josh were worried Taylor was going to come out, which would ultimately out Karlie since there were so many rumours about Kaylor already, and it would then out Josh and ruin Josh’s image, making it look obvious to everyone that Josh and Karlie were just beards, but kaylor was real. To avoid tarnishing Josh’s hetero card, scooter waited until the end of June to announce he bought taylor’s music for maximum impact.

(Never mind that someone spent $300M to keep a client in the closet) that was how we interpreted the situation (kept writing the fan fiction) and that it was a blow to taylor and a huge betrayal from scooter to Karlie because now they had extra leverage / ways to hurt Karlie.

So yeah. It was a very sad time. This also is why some kaylors think hoax lyrics point to their everlasting love “my best laid plans” = tay ready to come out end of June “your sleight of hand” = scooter tricking Karlie when he bought the masters and any information about taylor that Karlie mentioned innocently was used against them, “my barren land” = taken on a new meaning since Karlie announced her pregnancy, but initially it was seen as the land that was meant to be blooming with love was left barren and empty because of the masters incident delaying her coming out.

It sounds absolutely ludicrous, but the only way to understand how it was easy to rationalise is to understand how adamant the fandom was/ is that Josh and joe are just beards, Karlie is locked in a contract, and taylor is trying to free the both of them. If there were any truth to this at all, it is nothing short of ghastly situation for Karlie and paints taylor as a Nobel warrior trying to save her princess from the tower 🦸🏼‍♀️👸🏼 ....

Karlie had what I think was a scheduled post cause it was ad content , but otherwise was unusually silent on social media for a week + after the announcement. We thought they were grieving together.

——-

Now for Emily Poe. Ok so I really didn’t do my research - I thought Emily was only one or two years older than Taylor, so it never even occurred to me that the idea of that relationship would’ve been extremely predatory and badbadbadbad. I regret not doing my due dillihence when I was part of a fandom that consumed this theory. So Emily theories have been around since Taylor first had gay speculation. Part of this was because of some funny photos like that one where taylor is standing next to a truck that says “...gay Texan” and emily and a guy in the band I can’t think of his name were pointing to taylor and smirking. It’s a funny photo. I can see my dumb teenage self making similar jokes long before I knew my sexuality because LOOOOL GAY was a thing back then. There’s the video taylor made for Emily where she held up the “we love you emily” sign and she went to everyone she toured with including brad paisley to hold up the sign and make heart hands and just be extremely cute - platonic or romantic - both seem plausible - and cute as hell! The video was set to the dashboard confessional song ‘stolen’ which is basically just the lyric “you have stolen my heart” over and over again. This video got renewed interest when people went back and looked back at the you belong with me video. The idea of taylor and her make love interest holding these a4 sheets of paper with “I love you” written on them seemed familiar. The story of how YBWM came about was that Taylor heard her guitarist on the phone with his girlfriend and his gf was yelling at him for something seemingly insignificant/ the gf was painted out as high drama and her guitarist seemed miserable every time he spoke to her for a while. So Taylor had the idea of a song about a girl thinking her friends girlfriend is horrible, but turn it into a love story where the two friends get together - classic romantic comedy trope - she took the idea to Liz Rose and it was one of the last songs written for Fearless and specifically made to be upbeat and preppy because taylor thought the album was lacking that vibe. If you take the story Taylor said inspired the song and swap it from her male guitarist (who she also said she had no feelings for), and change it to her female fiddle player, the story behind the song can be the same, just tweaked to be hetwashed. Emily was a cheerleader and had a boyfriend when she toured with taylor, so it’s easy enough to take those things at surface value and think there was some truth to Emily. Also the two biggest gaylor rumours pre swiftgron came from comments on a gossip site/ forum. One was that ‘Emily was fired after she was caught relieving taylor of stress’ and how ‘emily was interested in law, but this incident cemented she had to leave the band but the swift team gave her money so emily wouldn’t sue for being fired on a sexual harassment issue’ (of course, knowing the age difference, we know this would NOT be the case at all) and it is speculated it inspired taylor to write breathe because she was so sorry for how things ended. They were inseparable and then after her birthday, never seen together or mentioned each other on MySpace again.

The other comment was that taylor ‘was a pillow princess in high school’ and that she was happy to receive but not give because she wanted to maintain her virgin status and thought if she reciprocated it would make her gay — the comment was something like that.

Of course it would’ve been incredibly easy for idk, some random on the internet who has never even met taylor to say those things.... but it was taken as gospel by the gaylor truthers.

People who looked further found a girl they believed was Taylor’s high school gf, her name started with L... but I never really believed it so I don’t have the greatest knowledge of that one. It seemed ridiculous to me she had a 3 year gf as a teenager and not a single person from her high school - or anyone who knew her alleged gf - ever spoke about it publicly??? That would be a lot of NDAs and payouts to keep silent, but a lot of other people believed NDAs and hush money was spent, so yeah... 🤷‍♀️

She also had some fruity MySpace posts which seemed to help the case for gaylor, but imo, it also falls under the ‘teenagers on the internet are dumb especially when social media was brand new and thank god myspace doesn’t exist cause I don’t want to see my old one ever again’ category.

Sorry for the essay, I felt I had been summoned and wanted to give background on the fandom. When I log back in I think I need to change my bio, I’m not really here to talk kaylor , but the fandom. Cause it’s really sad what that narrative within the fandom has become and heartbreaking what that narrative has done to fans, especially queer kids trying to figure themselves out. I couldn’t see how toxic it was for a long time, I’m happy I’m out of there now. but I think it helps to understand how the fandom thought and saw things as to how easy it was for things to spiral to the state it’s in now.

As old T used to sign off, - lovelovelove 💜

Brilliant post thanks KH!

#nat talks the konspiracy

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ironwoman18 · 3 years

Text

We Found Love in a Hopeless Place Part 24

The end of this fic has arrived!!! Hope you like this and comments your thoughts.

Read you at the end.

Chapter 24: Family

Spencer had been working in between cases trying to understand what was going on with those emails he received a few weeks ago.

“You’re so quiet… when you read” Max said as she walked to him, holding two cups of coffee.

“My brain is working… this person is sending me weird messages and I can understand quite well what he is meaning…” he said looking at her while holding the cup of coffee “I think this person was in my seminars and got my email from there”

“Not even with your super memory?” she asked sitting next to him.

He laughed softly “the problem is that there were so many people that I can’t focus on a particular person if I don’t know who I am looking in the first place”

She nodded and checked his laptop “and what do you expect to find?”

“I think this person is dealing with someone really dangerous because the way he is talking is like he knows someone might track our communications” she nodded drinking more coffee “now… I don’t know what to do, I’m trapped” he bit his lip thinking and watching the screen.

She looked at him and closed the laptop “come on… let’s go out for a walk. It will relax you” she held his cup and put it on the table then held his hand and made him get in.

“Max… I don’t know if this case is a life or dead situation…” he said looking at his girlfriend.

“Spencer… baby… I know it is important but I learned something in my career, when you can’t have new and creative ideas, you need to do something else, like going out or listen to music” she looked up at him “if you stay here your brain won’t think correctly”

“Well that’s a good theory”

“It’s not a theory, it’s a fact” she smirked softly and he smirked back “now let’s go”

He nodded and after getting jackets the couple left the apartment for a walk. They set just one rule; they cannot mention anything about his current investigation. They ate pretzels and watched the kids playing at the park.

They spent the rest of the afternoon out of the apartment. And when they got back to the apartment she looked at him before open the door “you need to relax and think out of the box. If this person is talking with encrypted messages you need to try to figure out the meaning for them” he nodded and leaned in to kiss her.

“I think that’s a great advice” he hugged her and walked in together.

After a couple of hours later they ordered dinner and decided to watch a movie, he picked Titanic. Almost at the end of the movie and a couple of tears after Jack’s dead; Max looked up at him and, as the credits started, with Celine Dion in the background she started to talk “Spencer, I had been thinking for a while about this but I knew neither of us were ready but now I think we are” she said looking his face and his reactions “I want you to move in with me. Its almost a year since we met and honestly I never had good luck with this kind of decisions but I got a feeling that it will be different with you” she bit her lip looking at him.

Spencer took a long moment to answer, making her nervous “I would love to. I know your story with your ex boyfriends and you know that I’m like an old man in a younger one but as you said… I think we are different and we love each other so I’m sure we will be perfectly fine” she hugged and kissed him.

He decided to ask for a days off to continued his investigations and to move his books and clothes to her apartment. And he was sure that he found everything he needed to know, he led a SWAT Team in a storage unit where they found the former VICAP agent Owen Quinn.

At first he thought the agent was dead but suddenly the man came back to life and they took him to check in the hospital then returned to the BAU.

“Spence… how did you find Quinn?”

“I received some emails with some encrypted information and at the end I figured them out to find him”

“Emails? Since when you… the technophobic… created an email account?”

“JJ I created one for my classes during the few months I was my hours in the field restricted, so you don’t need to worry…” he said walking to the interrogation room.

“Of course I have to… Spence, you hid information about going to New Mexico to buy a medicine for your mother, which led Catherine Adams to attack you” she said stopping him “I’m your best friend and I didn’t even know you have and email. Also I feel like you are hiding more things and I can’t tell what”

“JJ… you know I really appreciate your concern and I’m happy that you are worry but I’m not a kid or your son. I’m a grow man and I can take care of myself. I know you do it because you don’t want me to get hurt but you can’t protect me all the time” he said in a calm voice, he did not say it angry or frustrated. She just nodded and he left to start the interrogation.

It was hard to believe Quinn’s story about the marriage couple and their son keeping him hostage, so the team was trying to keep their minds open but it was hard, especially knowing his paranoia with this serial killer team.

After hours they discovered that the person who sent Spencer the emails was Theo, the son of the crazy couple, which helped them to believe in Quinn’s story. When they finally understood about the cult they led Quinn go.

The team left to Rossi’s house for a drink and maybe even dinner but Spencer and Penelope which stayed a few more time. He wanted to wait with Quinn’s son until his dad was released, and he texted Max about it, and Penelope had a few things to finished before joining the team.

But VICAP agent Mary Meadows went down with Penelope and Quinn and she killed Quinn and kidnapped Penelope.

Then took Spencer hostage with her and took them out of the FBI building.

The team thought it was Quinn’s fault at first but after watching the cameras they realized that Mary was the one who did it. Meanwhile Spencer and Penelope worked together to left breadcrumbs for the team, doing little things to lead them to the cult.

Emily recognized Mary from an old case and the team discovered their plan of killing three hundred people and Spencer was the three hundredth so they decided to leave to save him after saving Penelope.

They did not have troubles finding the Cult, and they made sure to be quiet to infiltrate and save Spencer.

On their way home and after a heartfelt conversation Emily decided to give him a little surprise to she texted Max, explained her briefly what happened and asked her to go to the FBI office. Max did not ask much, she was happy to know he was fine and on his way home so she drove to the FBI.

Emily made some calls to get her in and when they arrived to the airport, the team went to the office to see Garcia, who was crying and hugged her good friend and Comic-Con partner.

Then Emily led him to her office “I brought a surprise for you, I made sure no one see her because I know you don’t want them to know” he shook his head knowing what she did.

“Really? You brought her here?” she nodded and opened the door of her office. There was Max biting her nails waiting. She looked at him, he had some bruises and cuts on his head but he looked as handsome and perfect as usual.

She walked to him and hugged him tightly; he hugged her back and laid his head on her hair. She cried on his chest for a minute and when she calmed down he led her to a couch in the office.

“I-I got worry when you didn’t arrive but I thought you had some other things to do. T-Then Emily texted me to come here because you were kidnapped by a cult…”

“Yeah… I met them after Gidion left the team, their former leader died that day and another man took over the cult. They spent all this time killing around the country and collecting the bone that hold the tongue in place. They had two hundred ninety-nine of them and wanted there three hundred”

“And it would be yours, right?” she rubbed his cheek with tears. He nodded and his eyes were on hers “what happened to the man you found?”

“He died… the woman who kidnapped me and Garcia killed him because he recognized her” she nodded and hugged him again. She was happy to have him back but worry about what could come next “come on… I think you should meet my family” he smiled and stands up “they saved me and now I want them to know someone who saved me in another way” she smiled still with tear.

They walked out the office and there were the rest of the team. JJ looked at him then at her and she smiled, finally realizing why he was different. The rest of the team looked at them and smiled.

“Boy genius had a girlfriend?” asked Penelope watching Max close to him.

“Apparently…” said Matt looking at Luke “you own me 50 bucks” he whispered in his ear.

The Latin man signed “You are better profiler than me man…” he handed it to Matt without the others realizing.

“Guys this is Max. She is my girlfriend and the person who helped me recover after what happened with Cat” she waved at them.

“I heard so many things about you all and I’m glad to finally meet you” said Max smiling.

Each of them introduced themselves and after that Rossi invited them to go to his house for a proper dinner/ breakfast and a toast for finally meeting Spencer’s girlfriend.

Mount Pleasant Women’s Correctional Facility

Cat Adams was in her cell, bored, when one of her puppets walked in “Cat, I have information…”

“About?”

“Spencer Reid…” Cat’s bored face changed “he has a girlfriend”

“How do you know it?”

“There’s someone in the FBI that told a guard here and he told me” Cat smirked and nodded.

“Thank you Claire… I have something fun to do now” her smile grows bigger.

“The memories we make with our family is everything.” – Candace Cameron Bure.

FIN?

OOooOOooOO

I hope you liked this final chapter. Thank you again for reading and sharing your feedback. If you have plots for Maxcer let me know and I will do it.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #maxine brenner #maxcer #fanfiction

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shuahoonie · 4 years

Text

you. [tom holland] - six.

PAIRING: tom holland x female!celebrity!reader

SUMMARY: ah, to be young and in love. it sounds great if only you and tom were actually dating out of pure love and not for the sheer reputation of your careers. it also should be great if you two actually got along, but life isn’t that easy.

WARNINGS: mostly swearing! mentions of alcohol! a bit of fluff, a bit of angst. it’s haters to lovers / fake dating au so take that information as you wish!

WORD COUNT: 2735

SONG INSPO: can’t take my eyes off you - emilie mover

A/N: hiya babes, again, sorry if this chapter is posted very late. i have absolutely no excuses this time, it’s just me really. times are tough and if i’m being honest, i’ve had a rough couple of weeks. my academics really hit me in the worst possible way and i’m really am sorry if i wasn’t able to uphold my promises to post over the break. 🥺 also, beware of my plot timeline! i had a rough plan that i wanted this to take place during pre-ffh days! anyway, enjoy chapter six and happy reading! x

UPDATES EVERY SATURDAY 11 PM CST WHENEVER I CAN [I’M TRYING TO POST EVERY SATURDAY, I REALLY AM]

gif credits: @parkerpunology

Two months. You and Tom were already dating for two months. The last two months were a whirlwind for both of you, more so for you. Once the news broke out that you and Tom were dating, it was expected that people would lose their minds over it.

However, like how news typically withholds its relevance these days, it died down a week after. You both actually didn’t mind it since it put you two at ease. You and Tom see each other for thrice a week, dropping a few nuggets that you two are together.

Some days, Tom would drop by at your filming location.

“Y/N,” Steven, a stunt coordinator, sang your name with a teasing look painted on his face. “Guess who’s here.” He was helping you with your scene, making sure that you were safe as you did your stunts.

“Please tell me it’s Charlotte with my phone,” You moaned as you fixed your shirt as Steven began unbuckling your harness. You were standing on top of a high platform and had just finished doing your stunt for the show, the Alchemist.

“Honey, do you think I’d be this excited if it was your assistant with your phone?” Steven rolled his eyes. “It’s your loverboy,” He teased, pointing to a figure.

Based on the state of altitude you were in, you could practically see everybody. You can see some of the crew were busy with fixing the set for the following scene. You could see the producer busy speaking to whoever’s on the other side of the phone. You could also see your ‘loverboy’ talking to the director.

Tom was standing next to Alissa, the director, as they talked animatedly. He was wearing a grey shirt that hugged his body like a second skin and a pair of black joggers. He looked very casual, but as much as you hated to admit it, he still looked good.

Catching your gaze, Tom gave you a smile and a wave.

You were still getting used to the idea that you were seeing him, so you turned your head as fast as you could. It’s as if your crush caught you staring at him in middle school.

Steven let out a small giggle, “You guys are so cute. You two are like grade-schoolers.”

“Oh, shush.” You said as you felt your face burn, embarrassed that Steven caught what just happened.

“Shush yourself, hon,” Steven laughed “It seems like Tom found it absolutely adorable.”

You turned your head back to look at Tom and there with his arms crossed, he was laughing softly. He had his complete attention on you.

You signalled him to give you a minute as you descend from the platform to greet your ‘boyfriend’.

Seeing that you both were actors, you had to use your skill sometimes.

“Tommy,” You’ve grown to love that nickname for Tom, knowing that he absolutely despised it. “What are you doing here?” You asked, your tone sickeningly sweet, as you greeted him with a hug.

For a moment, his eyes flickered upon hearing the nickname you just called him. “Came here to surprise you, princess.” He said with a smirk as he squeezed you in a hug. He knew you hated that nickname too. It was obvious that you two were playing the same game.

“Oh, but you didn’t have to, Tommy,” You said with a huge smile, the words practically gritting in between your teeth.

“I know,” He replied. What he did next caught you off-guard being that you two never really displayed that amount of PDA out in the open. “However, I do miss my girlfriend and I wanted to surprise her.” He said before he held the side of your face and placed a soft kiss on your cheek.

Boy, you were surprised alright.

Some days, you would drop by at Tom’s filming locations.

Tom had just finished his scene with Jake Gyllenhaal. You decided to visit your ‘boyfriend’ at his set for Far From Home. As soon as the director yelled cut, Tom caught your eye and gave you a wave.

“Are you getting bored, babe?” You turned to the figure who just asked you the question and saw Zendaya wearing her MJ clothes. You’ve grown a huge liking towards Tom’s castmates ever since Tom introduced you to them, especially Zendaya since she’s been nothing but nice to you.

You gave Zendaya a small smile and shook your head no. You’ve sat and watched them shoot for a little over two hours now, and it was only reasonable that he’d ask how you were doing.

“You know, you two are absolutely adorable.” She commented as she gave you a playful nudge, sitting next to you.

“We’re absolutely not,” You chuckled, feeling shy.

“It’s true,” Zendaya laughed “Tom seems like he’s at his happiest whenever he’s with you.”

As if on cue, Tom started jogging his way towards you and Zendaya with a huge smile on his face.

“Hi, princess,” Tom engulfed you with a huge hug. “Are you still good? What are you two laughing at?” He asked in the middle of the hug.

The intimacy you two had to show in public was still something you had to work on-not so much for Tom though. You weren’t used to displaying affection even when you used to date your ex.

“Oh, we’re just laughing at you.” You said nonchalantly, a teasing smile hanging off your lips.

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you’ve got it bad for Y/N,” Zendaya answered cheekily, “You’re happier around your girlfriend, Tom.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Tom acknowledged making you roll your eyes playfully. “I am at my best whenever I’m around Y/N.” He said as cupped the sides of your face and planted a small kiss on the top of your nose.

You begged to differ. Tom had to act like he’s at his happiest whenever he’s around you.

“Liv, I look ridiculous. I don’t even have the boobs for this.” You said as you finished putting on the bridesmaid dress and examined your chest, as the dress sported a deep v-neck. You and Veronica were standing in front of a mirror, wearing a floor-length burgundy chiffon dress.

“Shut up, Y/N,” Veronica said as she fixed the delicately pinned flowers on your hair. “You look great, I think Tom might actually fall in love with you.” Ronnie teased.

“Fuck off, Ronnie.” You mumbled. “I can’t believe you actually let me invite him, Liv.” You told Olivia, who was busy getting into her wedding dress.

“Uh, of course. He’s your boyfriend, ‘ya doof.” Olivia, who was putting on her dress behind the dressing panel, said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Also can you two help me with my dress? I need someone to zip me up.” Liv went out wearing a gorgeous wedding dress. It was an off-shoulder sweetheart cut white dress with touches of lace and glimmer.

“Oh, you look gorgeous, Liv.” Veronica sighed as she stared at Olivia with tears brimming her eyes. “I still can’t believe you’re getting married this soon, girl.”

“I know,” Olivia agreed, fixing her hair, “but I just love him you know? He makes me a better person. I’ve never felt love like this before.” She said while trying to fight off the tears that were forming on her eyes.

You and Veronica rushed in to give Olivia a huge hug, tears were close to shedding and all of you didn’t want to sit in the makeup chair again.

You were so sure that Olivia was rushing to get married, that maybe she wasn’t thinking things through. However, as you saw your best friend be at the happiest she’s ever been, you figured that getting married was probably the most adamant decision Olivia has ever made.

At 24, Olivia found herself in the arms of the person she’s bound to spend her whole life with.

“I gotta walk down that aisle before I ruin my makeup completely,” Olivia said half-jokingly, fanning herself.

And so she did. Olivia managed to walk down the aisle without completely crying her makeup off, Josh, however, lost it. He was fully sobbing as soon as he saw Olivia walk.

You couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the two of them, you saw two people so full of love that the only way to express it was to cry.

As the ceremony proceeded on, your thoughts were somewhere else. You’ve always wondered if ever you’ll find someone who’ll make you feel the same way as them, that tears would start falling because you were so in love.

However, that would have to wait as you were currently tied with the person you were sure you weren’t going to be in love with. Your gaze automatically went to Tom, who was coincidentally staring at you. You turned your attention back to the couple who were getting married in front of you, your cheeks burning.

Your mind was about to come up with different possible reasons as to why Tom was staring at you, but you had to stop yourself. You don’t need that in your life.

“You okay, Y/N?” Ronnie asked as she took a sip of her champagne. You nodded your head and finished your third glass of champagne. “Are you sure? Because I’ve known you long enough to know that you start to drink heavily when something’s bugging you.”

The reception was over and the newly-wed couple has had their first dance as husband and wife. People were now just letting themselves loose on the dancefloor.

“I’m fine, Ronnie,” You assured her as you called the waiter to give you another glass. “Don’t mind me, you know how weddings make me feel.”

“Yes, which is why I’m terrified.” Veronica murmured.

“Don’t be silly, Ronnie. I can handle myself really.” You said as you scanned the crowd. You saw Tom talking to a couple of girls, seeming like he was desperate to get out of the conversation as soon as possible.

Soon enough, he caught you staring and it seemed like he was relieved to see you. Not long after, he was practically running to you.

“Looks like prince charming is coming to get you,” Veronica chuckled as she grabbed her purse and drink from the table. “I’ll see you later, babe. Text me if you’re leaving.”

“Where are you going and why are you leaving me?” You practically whined. Veronica wasn’t surprised, you were whiny after three drinks.

“I have to go and meet Josh’s parents, they wanted to see me after mentioning that I was looking for a place that I could do my internship,” Ronnie explained “Besides, it looks like you’re going to be taken care of. If you aren’t, call me ASAP.”

You huffed and dismissed your friend. As soon as Veronica left, Tom arrived at your table.

“Oh, thank god I saw you Y/N. It was brutal out there, some people just can’t get a hint-”

“Why are you here?” You asked as soon as Tom sat down next to you. Tom was caught off-guard by your hostility.

“I-uh, what?” Tom wasn’t really sure what’s happening, sure enough, what he did wrong to have you act this way. This wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he knew that he pressed your buttons way too many times, however, that wasn’t the case.

“Aren’t you busy talking to those girls over there?” You asked, now grateful for the newly filled glass of champagne that was just handed to you. The waiter was about to give Tom too but he kindly refused.

“Actually, I was desperate to leave the conversation. It was getting annoying and they kept insisting that I’m just dating you for clout.” Tom explained as he massaged his temples.

“They weren’t lying.” You mumbled before taking a sip from your glass. “You looked like you were having fun though-which I didn’t mind, by the way.”

“Y/N-”

“Tom, you know you can just leave all of this, right? Like no one is forcing you to stay this long because you won’t get the short end of the stick. It’s me who's going to get most of the damage.”

“That’s not true, Y/N. I’m just as affected as you will be.” Tom stressed. “Where is this all coming from?” He asked, getting frustrated.

Much like Tom, you were getting frustrated too. Why are you being hostile around him? It’s not like he’s actually dating you, you have no reason to act this way.

“Alcohol makes me see things more clearly,” You muttered. It was all that you could say. After all, nothing was making sense for you.

“That’s what got us in trouble in the first place,” He claimed as he grabbed your glass and placed it far away from you. Tom stood up and offered his hand to you. “Come, let’s dance. It’ll clear your head.”

“I don’t want to,” You moaned as you threw your head back. “I planned on drinking so if you’re not going to join me, then just leave.”

Tom shook his head no. “I got a note from Ronnie that I need to stop you after three drinks and apparently, you’re on your fourth so ‘nough is enough, princess.”

“Even if I’m not going to drink, I’m still not dancing with you.” You said as you crossed your arms.

“Wanna bet?” You just sat there and listened. You were interested as there was no way in hell he can make you dance.

“That wasn’t fair, you practically set me up.” You grumbled as Tom happily led you to the dance floor. The jig was if you stood up, you’re automatically going to dance with Tom.

Being the ‘sneaky little shit’ (Veronica’s choice of words) that Tom was, he secretly texted Ronnie and asked her if she could potentially lure you into assisting her to the washrooms.

You were skeptical at first, but you eventually obliged. It was Ronnie’s choice of words that made you do it. “Y/N, I swear to god, I’m about to pee. If you don’t help me unzip my dress, I will physically hurt you.”

Tom was now short of 50 bucks because of that favour.

“Oh, c’mon, princess. You know that isn’t true.” Tom tried to keep a straight face but obviously failed as he was now grinning at your annoyed face.

“This is ridiculous, you know that I’m a horrible dancer right?” You said as Tom put your arms around his neck and he placed his hands on your waist.

“I think I’ll manage, princess.” He chuckled.

“No, I’m not kidding. You will leave with a huge bruise on your foot-feet. I might step on both of your feet, there’s a huge possibility.”

Tom stared at you for a moment before saying, “I guess it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

They were playing a slower version of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and you groaned softly. “What’s wrong, princess?”

“You’ll never let that pet name go, won’t you?” You asked, rolling your eyes.

“No, I don’t think I will.” He answered cheekily.

You two slow danced to the melody of the song and you couldn’t help it but say, “God, I love this song. Why did they have to play it?”

“I guess it was meant to be- Oh god, it’s them again,” Tom said as he saw the girls who were trying to steal his attention all night.

You took a look at the girls and sure enough, they were watching the two of you and were whispering amongst themselves. You didn’t know who they were so you were assuming they were on Josh’s guests.

You weren’t one to start fights however, you were extremely petty though. It’s a habit you’re trying to get rid of. “Hey, Tom?”

He hummed in response. “Do you want to finally get them off your back?” You asked him. He stared at you for a moment before nodding.

“I’m going to do something but promise me you’ll forget it as soon as it’s done.” You disclosed, not even knowing why you’re actually going to do it.

“Okay...” You knew he was getting curious. “What-”

You grabbed the side of his face and kissed the corner of his lips. To say that both of you were surprised was an understatement.

TAGLIST:

@thomasthetankson @autty0314 @marvelous-tswiftfan @averyfosterthoughts @theolwebshooter @jackiehollanderr @sltwins @herondalescecilys @notjustpenandpaper @ihopethatwemeetinanotherlife @gothicwidowsworld @heartofholland @stxfxniexreads @peruvian-bae @hollands-osterfield @thenoddingbunny-blog @galacticstxrdust @sweartomendes @itsjstz

Can’t tag:

@sectusempried

#tom holland imagine #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic #tom holland blurb #tom holland reader insert #tom holland and reader #tom holland angst #tom holland imagines #tom holland x y/n #tom holland au #tom holland and you #tom holland and y/n #tom holland x you #the girl writes i guess #txmhoellandwrites

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laurawritesandgames · 4 years

Text

A Day Late, Sorry!

Title: Reefer Madness

Fandom: Beetlejuice (Musical)

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Beetlejuice/Adam/Barbara, mention of Charles/Delia

Prompt: Parenting

Content Warning: Set during coronavirus pandemic, underage drug use

Summary: When Lydia is caught smoking pot, the Maitland-Deetz household has to come up with a punishment. But how do you discipline a teen during a pandemic? And will Beetlejuice even let the parents (and ghostly parental figures) punish his BFF?

The door to the Maitland-Deetz home opened. Lydia came in, wearing her mask and gloves, with Beetlejuice hovering beside her.

Barbara stopped mixing cookie dough to say hello. “How did it go?” The Maitland-Deetz adults had agonized about letting Lydia go to a class picnic organized by Claire Brewster’s mother during a pandemic.

Claire’s mother had tried to make the picnic as safe as possible. She and a few other parents were chaperones, everyone was required to test negative for coronavirus before showing up, the picnic was outdoors, everyone was expected to wear a mask and socially distance, and Winter River High’s Grade 10 class was only 20 kids. Charles had gone with Lydia to a few Black Lives Matter protests, and those had had many more people than this picnic.

Lydia had been so bored of quarantine that she’d actually wanted to engage with her classmates, which had been the deciding factor.

“It went well.” Lydia threw her disposable mask and gloves into the trash bin by the door. “It was nice to see everyone.”

Beetlejuice’s smell of rotting flesh was worse than usual. Barbara winced, waving her hand in front of her face. “Can you turn it down, please?”

“Turn what down?” Beetlejuice said too innocently.

“Anyway,” Lydia said, walking up the stairs, “my introvert battery is drained. I need to recharge.”

Beetlejuice followed her. “And I need the hot goss!”

Barbara let the two friends have their time together, though she was a little disappointed she hadn’t gotten more out of Lydia. That’s teenagers, I guess. I’ll try again later.

As Lydia washed her hands, Delia’s voice sounded in the hallway upstairs. Lydia responded back. Barbara returned to the kitchen, and had just picked up the mixing bowl when Delia’s shocked “Lydia Lilith Deetz!” rang through the house.

Barbara teleported up to the second floor of the house to see Delia and Lydia glaring at each other in the hallway with Beetlejuice floating beside Lydia. Adam teleported up a moment later.

“Young lady,” Delia said, “I can’t believe you. Smoking weed? Really? I thought you were smarter than that.”

Weed? Barbara sniffed the air, but couldn’t smell anything beyond Beetlejuice’s stink.

“It’s faint, but it’s there,” Delia insisted. She patted her faintly bulging stomach. “I have smell sensitivity, thanks to the child. And I have certainly smelled enough weed in my day!”

Lydia opened her mouth, closed it, then shrugged. “So what? Weed’s legal in tons of countries except for most of this fascist dictatorship.”

“What?” Barbara blurted out as Adam gasped.

“Where pot is legal, it’s legal for adults over 25,” Delia said. “You’re 16! Your mind is still developing.”

“Because you never, ever did pot when you were my age, Delia.”

“And it’s hardly something I’m proud of! Years from now, do you want to be looking for your underwear after a night with a drummer from a Duran Duran cover band? This is how it starts!”

Lydia snorted while Beetlejuice said, “I mean, if the drummer’s hot, yeah, sign me up.” He paused. “Who am I kidding? The drummer doesn’t even need to be that hot.”

Adam frowned at Beetlejuice. “And you’re covering for Lydia. When did you find out about this?”

Beetlejuice glanced at Lydia, who shrugged and gestured him forward. “Lyds flagged me down when she got near the house.”

“And you helped her cover this up without a second thought.”

“’Course I did! Oh nooooo, a teen did some weed. Who cares?”

“You’re the adult in this situation—”

Beetlejuice floated backward, gasping and clutching his chest. “You take that back, sir! I am not!” He paused. “Well, not an adult like you mean it.” Anxious, he bobbed in front of Lydia. “I’m a cool adult. Right, kid?”

“Totally.” There was a faint sarcastic edge to her voice, but he didn’t appear to catch it.

“You all heard her say it!” Beetlejuice said proudly.

A terrible thought occurred to Barbara. “You didn’t share the joint, did you?”

Lydia looked hurt. “I’m not risking coronavirus to get high!” Reluctantly, she added, “We each had our own joint.”

“And who brought them?” Adam asked.

“A goat-footed man offered them to us for the price of signing our name in his book. He said he would visit us again on the dark of the moon to complete his dark pact.” She smirked. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Lydia….” Delia said.

“Or maybe we found them on the ground and smoked them like the reckless teens that we are. I can’t remember.”

“Where is this attitude coming from?” Barbara asked. “This isn’t like you.”

Lydia glared at her, so angry that Barbara almost took a step back. “’Not like me’? We met four months ago! You don’t even know me. At least this one,” she jabbed a finger at Delia, “was supposed to be my life coach, so Daddy filled her in on the basics. Not that she ever bothered to get to know me, either.”

Beetlejuice laughed. “Aw, man, she burned you guys so good.”

“We’re going to talk with your father,” Delia said, “and come up with your punishment.”

Barbara was touched that she’d included Barbara and Adam.

Lydia laughed coldly. “Good luck getting Daddy to punish his little girl.” She strode confidently over to her room and closed the door.

“I’m gonna grab Lyds some chips,” Beetlejuice said. “She’s probably got the munchies!”

“You know,” Barbara said, “you could stay and—”

“Deuces, nerds!” He teleported away. A few moments later, his voice sounded in Lydia’s room along with the crinkling of a plastic bag.

Disappointing but not surprising. When Beetlejuice returned from the Netherworld, he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in parenting Lydia or any Deetz children that came along.

As they walked downstairs to Charles’s office, Delia said, “My parents never punished me for anything in my life. They let me drink and smoke as long as I was in the basement, where they could keep an eye on me.”

“I went to some parties and stayed out past curfew in Grade 12,” Barbara said. “Mom and Dad grounded me. This one,” she nodded to Adam, “never saw a punishment in his life.”

“That’s not true, honey,” Adam said. “One time, I was doing math homework and I looked up my answers in the back of the textbook. I confessed an hour later and got extra chores for the rest of the week.” He looked thoughtful. “Grounding Lydia seems pretty redundant. Unless someone else holds another picnic, it probably won’t come up. The living are all stuck inside anyway.”

Delia sighed. “I know! And we can’t take away her phone. It’s her lifeline to the outside world! I don’t want to affect her mental health.” She bit her lower lip and stopped walking. “Perhaps we should let this go. She’s still healing from losing Emily. And no way am I going to be the evil stepmother! If Charles punishes her, she’ll probably blame me!” She glanced anxiously between Adam and Barbara.

“We won’t let her do that,” Barbara said. “We’ll be a united front.”

“Using marijuana recreationally is illegal,” Adam said. “I know not all of us agree with that law,” he nodded to Delia, “but it is the law, and she deliberately broke it. She could’ve been arrested! It’s our duty to show her there are consequences for her actions.”

“As soon as we figure out what those consequences are,” Barbara said. “You know, I read a parenting blog that said parents could ask their older teens to suggest their own punishments. Maybe she’ll come up with a good one.”

Delia rubbed her temples. The pregnancy was taking a lot out of her; she was tired and achey most of the time. “Well...let’s go see what Charles thinks.”

She knocked on the door to his office. After a few moments, Charles opened it. Seeing the looks on their faces, he frowned. “What did the demon do this time?”

“Surprisingly,” Barbara said, “he’s not the problem. It’s Lydia.”

Charles took charge immediately. After explaining his plan and getting everyone’s agreement, he asked to see Lydia in the living room.

Lydia came downstairs and Beetlejuice phased through the floor to hover by her side. While Beetlejuice slouched and scowled at everyone, Lydia looked totally confident. She didn’t blush or frown as she faced her entire family.

When Barbara had come home from Miranda’s party, she’d frozen and stammered when she’d seen her father in the living room. I wonder what Dad felt when I stayed out past curfew? Did he expect something like this? Was he grateful I wasn’t coming home drunk? I wish I’d asked him. She’d never know, now. It stung, but she had more important things to focus on.

Like whatever chaos Beetlejuice had in mind. He wasn’t going to take his best friend getting punished without a fight.

“Lydia,” Charles said, “Delia, Adam and Barbara told me what happened at the picnic. You smoked marijuana, breaking both a law and a house rule. I want to see a 5,000-word essay on my desk by the end of the week about the effects of marijuana on a young person’s development. This essay must be the same quality as one you’d do for school. Use the Chicago Manual of Style for reference and citations.”

Lydia chuckled. “You can’t be serious.”

“We’ll just plagiarize it anyway!” Beetlejuice said.

“I can Google an essay just as well as you can,” Charles said, unperturbed. “I’ll be sure to check that your work is your own.”

Her eyes narrowed. “It was just one joint, Daddy. It’s not a big deal. I’m not going to become the school drug dealer or anything—if we’re even going back to school in the fall.”

“Delia, the Maitlands and I disagree. We think it is a big deal. And since you live in our house, you have to follow our rules.”

Beetlejuice turned to Lydia. “Kid, I can get us out of this house anytime you want with a snap of my fingers.”

“And go where, Beej?” Lydia crossed her arms over her stomach. “I know you’re trying, but c’mon. It’s a global pandemic.”

Beetlejuice’s spiky hair deflated a little bit. “Oh, right.”

Charles took a step toward his daughter. More gently, he said, “Lydia, I’m not insensible that you’re facing more stress than anything I ever felt at your age. First, Emily died, then the pandemic happened, and now quarantine…. Not to mention the changes that have happened to our family.” Lydia’s gaze flicked to Delia’s stomach. “If you want to talk about what led you to make this decision, we’d all welcome that.”

Beetlejuice scoffed. “Why she did it? To be a badass!” He held out his fist for a fistbump. Lydia didn’t reciprocate, but watched her father thoughtfully instead. Good. Barbara began to relax. That means she’s listening.

“If you don’t want to talk to us,” Adam said, “we can increase your therapy sessions to two times a week.”

“I’m sick of journaling and breathing exercises!” Lydia snapped. “Nothing works! Even that stupid joint didn’t! I’ve been stuck inside for months because of a pandemic our country’s leaders are too chickenshit to deal with. I’m a privileged beneficiary of a racist, capitalist system that’s destroying the world. And I’ve literally seen what’s on the other side. Nothing gets better. This life is all we get, and it’s shit.”

She stepped closer to her father, her eyes never leaving his face. “And now, I have to do a stupid essay because I did something I thought would make it all bearable for one fucking minute!”

Her family had to do more for her. Lydia had taken antidepressants for months on the advice of her doctor—perhaps she needed her dose readjusted. If this therapist wasn’t helping, they’d find another. Adam and I could make an activity schedule to give her day some more structure, so it’s not just scrolling through social media. And Beetlejuice can probably think of lots of fun things to do—well, fun and slightly terrifying things, but Lydia loves that kind of stuff.

Charles reached out for a hug, but Lydia stepped back, hands out to push him away if he tried.

“Oh, Lydia, sweetheart, I know things are tough right now—” Barbara began.

“Mom wouldn’t do this to me!”

Charles recoiled slightly, his arms dropping.

Even Lydia seemed surprised that she’d said that, but she quickly added, “Mom wouldn’t have punished me for one joint. She would’ve understood me. She would’ve cared. And you know it.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Lydia, you’ve built Emily up in your mind as this creative, anarchic madwoman, and she certainly was. But do you seriously think she would be unconcerned if you started doing drugs? We had countless conversations about how to parent you, particularly in those final months when we knew…we knew she wouldn’t be around. This is the punishment we worked out together.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. This is literally what she would have wanted me to do.”

Lydia stared at her father. Her chin began quivering as tears welled up in her eyes. Barbara almost teleported to her, but stopped. Is it my place? I’m just the ghost parent, not her real one….

At some point, Beetlejuice had floated over to her and Adam. He was watching Lydia and Charles intently, as if looking for something.

Lydia sniffled, swallowed, then said, “Fine, I’ll do your dumbass essay.”

“What? C’mon, kid!” Beetlejuice gestured to Charles. “Don’t give in to The Man!”

Lydia gave him a small smile. “Not everyone has the energy of an undead demon, Beej.” She tossed her hair. “Besides, Dad, all the research that’s out there says pot should be legalized for recreational use, anyway.”

“Not for 16-year-olds.”

“We’ll see.” She turned around and went upstairs.

“Bet you loved that, fascists,” Beetlejuice said to the parents and parental figures. But Beetlejuice usually got over things quickly as long as they didn’t directly involve him, so it wasn’t surprising when he slung his arms over Barbara and Adam’s shoulders and smirked. “Babs, Sexy, if you wanna make out to forget your guilt that you made Lydia hate you, you where know I be.”

Lydia stopped halfway up the stairs. “‘Hate you’? God, BJ, you’re so dramatic. I don’t hate them. They’re completely overreacting, but they’re just being parents. It’s their job.”

That threw him—he blinked at her a few moments, then shrugged. “So it wasn’t my best pickup line. Instead of criticizing my game, go…I dunno, cry about your dead mom some more.”

“Beetlejuice!”

At least Lydia didn’t appear hurt. She rolled her eyes and raised her middle finger at Beetlejuice before going upstairs.

Charles huffed. “I think the next thing we’re going to work on is crude language and gestures. I’ve been quite lax about that and someone—” he eyed Beetlejuice “—has been a bad influence.”

“We should also not joke about people’s traumas, Bug,” Adam said.

Beetlejuice grunted. To Barbara’s surprise, he didn’t say ‘She started it!’ He was legitimately thinking about something.

Delia sat down on the living room couch, sighing in exhaustion. “Well! We got through it. Huzzah, everyone!” She glanced at Beetlejuice. “Except you,” she said coolly.

“Things got pretty tense there,” Adam said. “It’s lucky I don’t have a body, or I might have had a small panic attack.”

“Most of the thanks goes to Charles,” Barbara said.

“I was happy to take the lead on this one. I have the most experience, after all. Unfortunately, this is hardly the first time I’ve had to discipline her. She’s not always the most attentive to her studies.”

“Really?” Adam asked. “But she’s so intelligent.”

“Which means she doesn’t always feel challenged, so she puts off her homework and assumes she can complete it the evening before it’s due.”

“Wow, I had no idea.” Barbara had pictured Lydia as a young woman much like Adam, eager to learn and devoted to school. Lydia is right. We don’t know each other that well.

“Do you think we should talk to her psychiatrist again?” Barbara asked.

Charles nodded. “I was thinking that, as well.”

Beetlejuice poofed away in the puff of smoke as the parenting talk continued. Remembering his unusual thoughtfulness, Barbara resolved to speak to him later.

Beetlejuice appeared as if summoned when, an hour later, Barbara pulled her chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

“Ooo! They’re all goopy!” Beetlejuice snagged one, and didn’t seem to mind that it was hot.

“We got some news on where the weed came from,” Barbara said as he ate. “Claire’s mom called Charles during our meeting. Near the end of the picnic, five of the kids said they wanted to check out the empty school. Lydia was one of them. They disappeared from view for around 10 minutes. The chaperones figured they just wanted to get out of cleaning duty, and nobody thought much of it because the party was wrapping up. Claire’s mom apologized over and over again. I don’t think she’s going to be hosting any more class picnics. Poor woman. We still don’t know who brought the drugs, though.

“Er, I hate to ask, but…it wasn’t you, right?” Beetlejuice was quite casual about drug use, and Lydia could talk him into anything.

Beetlejuice didn’t mind being suspected of providing drugs to children. Maybe to a demon, that was a mark of pride? “I was watching Farscape with Adam during the picnic. I only teleported away when I heard Lyds say my name.” He could always hear the living say it, for some reason.

“The person watching Farscape could’ve been a clone, though.”

“Ooo, now you’re thinking like a demon, babe! But for real—no way would I bring joints for some teens and not for myself. Am I really that generous?”

“You’re right. Sorry, I just had to make sure.”

He winked at her. “I wouldn’t trust me either, baby.” He bit into his third cookie.

“You seemed caught off guard earlier when Lydia said she didn’t hate us. What was that about?”

He shrugged. “Just trying to make myself fart to break the tension.”

“Well, I know that’s a fib. You’re always able to fart.”

He stopped chewing, thought for a moment, swallowed, then said, “Eh…guess I’m just not used to kids and parents not hating each other.”

She touched his free hand. When he didn’t pull away, she wrapped her fingers around it. “That’s awful.”

“That’s life. And the afterlife, I guess, since Ma was there too.” He frowned. The hand she was holding twitched, like he wanted to start fiddling with something like he always did when he was upset or anxious. “Whatever. I killed her with a sandworm, the scene ended on my hilarious joke, and the audience got a happy ending. It all worked out.”

“If you want to talk some more about your mother, Bug—”

“Why, so I can cry about my dead mom, like Lyds? Sing a song about it? Not my brand, babes. I don’t even think about Mom.” He focused very intently on the cookies on the baking tray as he said, “I think about you and Sexy and Lyds, sometimes Chuck and Delia. You’re the people I care about, not that bi—sorry, sorry, that was gonna be a gendered slur, but I caught myself.”

“I’m proud of you.” Barbara leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He grinned. “You know, I don’t think I hear that enough from you guys. I could kill so many people, and I never do. A little more ‘good job, Beetlejuice!’ would be nice.”

“We’ll try.” She kissed his lips. As she pulled back, he leaned closer and kept the kiss going. Then a goopy finger brushed her nose, leaving a trail of warmth down it.

Beetlejuice pulled away, chuckling. “You look like you ate poop.”

She rolled her eyes (was she picking that up from Lydia?) and wiped the melted chocolate off her nose. Beetlejuice hadn’t used the kiss as an excuse to grab all the cookies on the tray, which was surprising.

Not that Beetlejuice was done with the cookies. He grabbed two more then floated out of her reach.

“Do you mind if I tell Adam about this conversation?” she asked. Adam, Barbara and Beetlejuice hadn’t been in a polyamorous relationship long; Barbara wanted boundaries to be extra clear to avoid hurt feelings and miscommunication.

“Girl, you know I love when people talk about me.”

“Even stuff about your mother, which might be a little more complicated than you’re pretending it is?”

“Or maybe it’s not complicated at all? I’m a simple guy, babes.”

“You do like to say that, yes.”

“But, eh, don’t tell Sexy all the crap I said about kids and parents and shit. He’ll just wanna talk. Bleh. Pretend I was always my normal awesome self.”

“Hey, Bug,” she said lightly, “I think opening up to someone you care about is pretty awesome. So, to me, you were always your normal awesome self.”

“Dork.” But he was smiling as he poofed away.

When the cookies cooled, she put two on a plate, poured a glass of milk, and went upstairs.

She checked in on Adam next. She’d left him reading in their bedroom, but now he was staring out the window at the cemetery.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said.

“Hi.” He didn’t turn around.

“Do you want to go visit them?” That cemetery held his parents’ graves. They’d died in a car crash coming home from a Christmas party five years ago.

He nodded. “I know we can’t stay for long because of the sandworms, but just for a few minutes….”

“When Lydia’s done her essay, maybe she could come, too. She’s mentioned wanting to have a solo picnic in the graveyard sometime.”

“That’d be nice. I hope Mom and Dad approved of how we handled Lydia. They probably would’ve liked a good prayer circle, but the Deetzes aren’t that kind of family.” He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “They were good people, in their way. They knew farm life wasn’t for me, and they never made me feel bad about choosing my own path.”

“Your family was so welcoming when we started dating.”

He chuckled, smiling at her over his shoulder. “Most of that was shock, I think. They bent over backwards because they knew you were too good for me.”

They’d told this joke at parties before. Barbara laughed dutifully. “Your mom never gossiped. You’ve lived here your whole life—you know how rare that is. Most people just can’t wait to spill the beans. But I could tell her anything.”

Adam’s smile dropped. “I couldn’t.”

His parents had probably been part of the reason he hadn’t come out as bisexual until after his death. Barbara set the plate and glass down and joined him at the window, resting her hand on his shoulder.

“I have no idea what I’m going to tell them when we find them in the Netherworld,” Adam said. “’Hi, Mom and Dad, here’s my wife and my boyfriend. I have an open marriage now! I’ve slept with a man who’s not actually a man! He’s a demon.’”

“Well, saying it all at once is a bit much,” she said lightly. “You might need to lead up to it.”

A smile twitched the corners of his lips before he sighed and stared out the window again.

She rubbed at his shoulder, tense under her hand. “We have time to figure it out. We’re not going anywhere for a while. And maybe their perspective will have shifted in all those years in the Netherworld?”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t worry about it. And maybe the fact that we sort of have a child now means they’ll overlook a few sins.”

No, we live with a child. She’s not ours in any way. Barbara said, “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

Adam turned away from the window and looked at her, concerned.

Barbara and Adam approached Lydia’s room 20 minutes later. Lydia’s door stood out against the pale gray wall; she’d had her door wallpapered to make it look like a dingy, cobwebbed hallway with a mysterious figure at the end of it. Barbara knocked; Lydia groaned.

Opening the door, Lydia looked unenthused. “Is this the real punishment—everyone coming to check up on me?” The cookies didn’t even elicit a smile, though she took them with a curt, “Thank you.” She waved them in. “Shut the door, take a seat. Let’s get this over with.”

Her room was messier than Barbara would’ve preferred, with socks everywhere and a pile of folded laundry still in its hamper. Lydia set the cookies and milk down next to a new pile of books on her nightstand. There were already bookmarks in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and Yes You Can! Your Guide to Becoming an Activist. Lydia had been ordering books from local bookstores like crazy during the pandemic.

“You missed Delia.” Lydia half-sat, half-fell onto her bed, bouncing a little. “‘Peep these stones, girl! They’ll unblock your chakras because they’re fire. But they’re actually stones.’ I got her out of here by hissing some words in Klingon over her stomach. She thought I was cursing her unborn child—it was great! And, no.” She swung her legs up to stretch out. “That doesn’t mean I hate the fetus. They can’t help being incubated in the world’s worst person. So you can tell Beetlejuice that, if he’ll listen to you. He thinks he knows me so well.” She chuckled. “He only thinks that because he thinks I’m a human version of him. Everything’s a Mommy-or-Daddy issue with that guy.”

She laced her hands behind her head. Her black dress blended in with her black duvet cover and the rooms black walls, making the pale white skin of her face stand out sharply. “And, of course, Daddy dearest came by. Did we cry a bit over my dead mother? I plead the fifth.” She looked at Barbara and Adam, waving a hand. “Speak! Impart to me your undead wisdom. Cure this troubled child of her afflictions.”

Barbara and Adam had worked on what they were going to say, but it took a few moments to absorb everything Lydia had just said. She’d be good in theatre. Maybe we could look into Zoom classes….

Adam sucked in a breath. “Lydia, we’ve been talking about what you said to Barbara earlier today. About how we’ve only known each other for a few months.”

Lydia’s eyebrows twitched up. “Oh…kay?”

Barbara spoke next. “You’re completely right. We don’t actually know you. And once I realized that, I realized it was presumptuous of us to join in with your father and stepmother while they were disciplining you today. It made me think about how we joined this family in the first place. You agreed to let us stay, and we’ll always be grateful. But you also agreed after a very traumatic experience, and none of us really knew what it meant to share our lives together, living and dead.

“We all sort of fell into these roles after Beetlejuice left. We became like your second set of parents. We’ve been calling you our adopted child and everything. But…well, you’re not. And you already have a father and a stepmother.”

Lydia sat up on her bed, facing the ghosts, her jaw tense. “You’re—you’re not leaving, right? For the Netherworld?” She swallowed, gaze darting between the two of them.

Adam shook his head. “Of course not, Lydia,” he said gently. “Our boyfriend hates that place, for one thing. And we want to be here for you and the new baby.” He nodded to Barbara to continue.

“But,” Barbara said, “that doesn’t mean we need to be in your life as parents. We could just be two roommates. We could chat over dinner, watch TV together, maybe bake something once in a while. But if you don’t want us to be, we don’t need to be so involved in how you’re raised. That’s Charles’s and Delia’s job.”

Lydia was clutching her fingers together tightly. “I never even bothered to ask—did you want kids while you were alive?”

“We did…theoretically,” Adam said. “That’s the next step in the life plan once you own a home, right? Some of our friends had four kids already. But in practice, we had a lot of fears holding us back. If we’d been braver….” He looked away, sighing, before he looked back at her. “But we weren’t, and we can’t change that now.”

“Or we might have had a child and hated it,” Barbara added. “Who’s to say?” She patted Adam’s hand. “It’s a bit of a complicated topic for us. You’re a child, Lydia. You shouldn’t have to carry a dead couple’s wishes and regrets.”

Lydia’s gaze dropped to her hands, still gripping each other on her lap. It wasn’t an easy thing they were asking. Barbara gave her silence and space to think.

“You’re not who I want,” Lydia said, looking up at them. “I’ll always want my mother. I apologize for the bluntness, but Mom always made friends with the elephant in the room, and I’m my mother’s daughter.”

“Of course, sweetie—ah, Lydia.” Barbara cleared her throat. “It’s only natural.”

“But you two…. You made me feel normal even when I was so alone.” Her voice was getting quieter and quieter. “You always listened to me talk about her. And you’re…you’re part of the reason I came back from the Netherworld.”

Barbara chuckled softly. “You’re the reason we stayed in the world of the living, originally. We had to defeat Beetlejuice and keep you safe. But that doesn’t mean we need to act as a second set of parents. I’m not sure that’s fair to you.

“Lydia, we don’t have to decide anything right now. We can talk about this tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month.”

Lydia’s dark gaze locked on Barbara. Her eyes shone with tears under a heavy frown. “You probably don’t even want me as a daughter,” she spat. “You probably dreamed of some little girl in pretty pink dresses who played with dolls instead of skulls. I’m too complicated, too messy. But you don’t want to say it. That’s not nice, and you two are nothing but nice. Just stop being cowards! Make it easy on us!”

“Oh, Lydia, honey….” Barbara couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to her. She held Lydia as the girl’s tears started falling. Adam sat down on Lydia’s other side, stroking her back. She rested her head on Barbara’s shoulder.

“I love you guys,” Lydia whispered thickly.

“And here I go,” Barbara said as she started crying, too. “We love you too, sweetie.”

“We would’ve been honoured to have a daughter like you,” Adam said, tearing up. He hovered the Kleenex box over to them, so they could wipe their eyes and noses without breaking the hug.

“I am so fucking sick of crying,” Lydia grumbled as she dabbed her nose.

Barbara wiped her eyes. “Language.”

“Right. Daddy said he wanted to tackle that next.” She smiled. “I’m sorry you got a daughter at this intemperate age, Maitlands. I was a real peach when I was four.”

“You’re perfect,” Barbara assured her. “You make bad decisions sometimes, but you’re perfect.”

Lydia’s eyeroll was somewhat undercut by the fresh batch of tears.

Adam commented, “I guess we’ll need to work on a parenting schedule with Charles and Delia. See what we can figure out.” Adam sounded cheerful at the thought. He always loved making plans.

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “You’re dating Beetlejuice, but you still love rules and order. You’re a mystery, Adam Maitland. In fact,” she sniffled again, “we’re all mysteries to each other. That’s what started this conversation, isn’t it?

“So, hello, Maitlands. My name’s Lydia Deetz.”

“Hi, Lydia. I’m Barbara Maitland.”

It was time for the Maitlands to get to know their daughter.

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