if it's not too late | 1
you’re back at the BAU after five years away. spencer reid was your best friend, and the first man you ever considered falling in love with. now he’s the father of someone else’s child, and more or less a stranger. but you owe him a favor, and he has a young daughter in need of babysitting.
warnings: fem!reader. mentions of death of a pregnant woman (baby survives). reader is an ex smoker. crude discussions of sex, arguing. 18+.
a/n: this series has been like 2 years in the making can’t believe i am actually posting it… also i have NO idea what the posting schedule will be, bear with me!!! Love u so much!!
Six years ago
Something is off with Spencer as soon as he comes into the bullpen. He’s got this nervous energy. Sort of shell-shocked. He’s crackling with it. You’re leaning against the kitchenette counter, blowing on your coffee and trying to gauge if you’ll be able to figure it out just by observing him, or if you’ll have to ask. The two of you are good friends, but you don’t know if you want to tap on his shoulder lest you be electrocuted.
He doesn’t speak to anyone for several minutes—only sits at his desk, back straight as a rod (and considering his usually atrocious posture, this is concerning) not even bothering to take off his messenger bag or power on his computer. After a while of this you frown, and set down your mug (the heat-sensitive one where civil liberties from the Bill of Rights slowly disappear from the ceramic as you drink your coffee. Hotch doesn’t like it, but he’s never said you can’t use it.) You’re prepared to go over there ask him if everything is okay after all—but then Derek appears out of the blue, bent over, and it’s his hand on Spencer’s shoulder, his eyes concerned and voice low like he knows more than you. If only you could read lips.
They converse for another moment, and Derek nods toward Hotch’s office door, jaw and brows set so serious you’re beginning to worry. Spencer nods robotically and finally stands. You accidentally catch Derek’s piercing eyes and quickly look away, pretending to be overly concerned with studying your mug. It’s probably not an Oscar-worthy performance. When you hear Hotch’s door open and promptly close again, you look back up. Spencer is obscured from view, but you can see Hotch at his desk through the window, strong profile as steely and hawkish as ever. His lips move. He frowns—it’s his concerned frown. He seems to ask a question, and your stomach lurches as you watch his expression change more robustly than is typical for him. Eyes narrowed, lips slowly parted—what is that? Disbelief, maybe? Anger? And then it softens completely.
Your boss stands and before you have time to look away he’s closing the blinds.
You’ve only been here a couple of years, but—how often does that happen?
“Derek,” you half-whisper, scurrying toward his desk. All you get in return is a reluctant glance—a barely there acknowledgement of your existence.
“Do not drag me into this.”
You lean over his desk, setting your cup down and surely leaving a ring though you don’t particularly care as you frown, glancing back up to Hotch’s office. Still no sign of life.
“Drag you into what? What’s going on with Spencer?”
Maybe one day you’ll take those profiling classes. They’d sure come in handy today as you’re continuously perplexed by the indecipherable facial expressions of your co-workers. Derek tenses, and then relaxes, and then tenses again. Starts a sentence. Stops it. Knits his brow.
“You two haven’t talked yet?”
Faces, you struggle with. Inflections, you understand. That’s… pity.
Your own face slackens as you realize the gravity of the situation might be greater than you grasped with your poor perceptive skills.
“No… did someone die? What is it?”
Derek only leans back in his seat, giving you a sad once-over and shaking his head like this is the last time he’ll ever see you in one piece.
“This is a conversation for the two of you to have. I’m not getting involved.”
“Just tell me if someone died, Derek!”
He sighs, giving you another hefty dose of I-feel-sorry-for-you. “Nobody’s dying.”
Maybe you’re not the master of intonation like you thought you were, because there’s a secret, or a truth, sewn into the pocket of his words, and you can’t make heads or tails of it. Just as you’re about to further your inquisition, and you’re considering drastic measures, Hotch’s door is opening, and your head is snapping up fast enough your chiropractor will feel it at your next appointment. He eyes you for only a second before turning his attention to Morgan and the rest of the team members, who have actually been working at their desks.
“We’ve got a case. Round table room.”
Efficient and starkly business as usual. Nothing about his demeanor reveals any secret, though Spencer emerges from behind him stiffly, rubbing his eyes and staring straight ahead. His hair is messy. His tie is perfectly straight, which you actually find disconcerting. You jog up the stairs, favorite mug abandoned on Morgan’s desk, to intercept Spencer as he somnambulates down the catwalk.
“Spencer,” you whisper, setting your hand on his arm as you catch up. He looks down at the contact like he’s forgotten he’s a physical being. His hair is stringy. His eyes are bleary. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
He blinks. Swallows. Glances over at Derek. “Morgan didn’t tell you?”
“No! He said it was a conversation for you to have with me. Are you alright?”
“I’m…” he nods, slowly. His nose twitches.“I’m fine. We should, uh… Hotch is waiting for us.”
It’s true—the team is gathering. You two are the last stragglers.
“Spencer.” You’re not taking no for an answer this time—your hand wraps around Spencer’s forearm and you give him an in imploring look. “You’re making me nervous.”
Good friends shouldn’t keep secrets. Then again—you and Spencer aren’t in the best place right now. But you’re supposed to be on the mend. Some secrets are best maintained and locked away to preserve the integrity of the friendship. This isn’t one of those secrets. If Morgan knows, and Hotch knows, you should know.
“Now, please,” Hotch orders. “Conversations can wait.”
Either you’re imagining it, or he’s being firmer than usual. Not that you blame him. He’s been through a lot in the time you’ve known him.
Spencer looks between the two of you helplessly. You watch as his arm slips from your grip. “Later.”
The briefing is tedious because all you can think about is what you don’t know, and when Hotch says wheels up in 30 (which, as per usual, doesn’t include you) you stand by the door, waiting for everyone except Spencer to filter out. He stays seated, now having left his fugue state and slumped, picking at his nails with an intense focus. Both Morgan and Hotch give you strange looks as they pass. You try to ignore the sinking feeling and shut the door behind them before pulling out a chair and taking a seat knee-to-knee with Spencer.
“Spencer.”
He doesn’t look up at you as he speaks. “You’re not going to believe me.”
You frown.
“What?”
“I mean, I still don’t really believe it… but she has nothing to gain from lying to me. It’s not like I’m rich.”
She?
Gently you pull his hands apart and hold them in your own. He’s got very pretty hands—only now the cuticles are rimmed with half moons of dry blood. You squeeze his fingers, hoping it will satisfy some sensory input he’s clearly seeking without being so injurious.
“Please just tell me. I know… I’m sorry if things have been weird between us, but I really don’t want to let that ruin—”
“I, uh, got someone pregnant,” he laughs.
You blink, apology smothered in the wake of this reveal as all the oxygen is sucked out of the room.
For a moment, you enter a perfect and serene state of thoughtlessness. Your brain is blissfully empty. Like a sparkling porcelain basin. Utterly drained. Bone dry.
Then the ringing starts. An irritating, high pitched whine. That basin becomes a sound bowl.
“What?”
Spencer only nods, glancing up at you and quickly back down. He pulls his hands away. You let him.
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s not a joke.”
The ringing gets worse.
“I… I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You’ve never even had a real girlfriend.”
It sounds terrible to you, too. It’s not really what you meant to say, and it implies something you didn’t mean to imply, and you’re hoping he’ll miss that as he sometimes does—but you aren’t so lucky. The hurt is palpable in his eyes when he frowns at you.
“I’m not a leper. I met someone a few months ago.”
Your eyes squeeze shut, but your own thoughts are a racing, dizzying carousel and not a particularly soft landing as you try to give yourself a reprieve from the way he’s looking at you. A few months ago, you’d been under the impression he was pining after you.
“So you… went out and found some random person to hookup with? And got her pregnant?”
“She’s not random. She’s my girlfriend.”
“What? You don’t have a girlfriend!”
He sits up straighter. Anger clears the fog from his eyes, sharpening him for the first time today, and you don’t know if it’s better or worse. “Why are you so hung up on that? Is it that unbelievable to you?”
“No, it’s just—you told me not even three months ago that you only kissed two other people before me!”
Spencer’s throat bobs. He’s speaking faster now. “And then I moved on, was I not supposed to?”
“Of course you can move on, but it’s—I mean, Jesus, Spencer! It’s surprising! This is crazy!”
He swallows and his jaw clenches.
“Sorry that the idea that someone could actually be interested in me is so shocking to you.”
You scoff.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“So explain how you meant it.”
You flounder at the sharp lash of his words.
How did you mean it?
Are you surprised he didn’t tell you about this alleged girl?
Well—yes. When has he kept something like this from you before? Never, you suppose. He’s never had anything like this to keep from you. There haven’t been any girls.
Not any girls, the whole time you’ve known him—except for you.
You sort of thought… even after you both decided to remain platonic… that it would stay that way. That he’d always be there. Waiting.
He seems to take this silence as an admission of guilt.
“Great. Thanks a lot, for being so supportive.”
It’s startling when he stands, grabbing his satchel off the table with enough force you jump, and you’re forced to look up at him. The conversation can’t end like this—not when he’s about to leave for a week. You hate being on bad terms with him, or at least you suspect you would—it’s never really happened before. Not like this, anyway.
Desperate to stop him from leaving, but too afraid to just admit it, you open your mouth without a plan.
“Why would I support this? It was idiotic. I mean—you’re twenty seven, Spencer. You’re a fucking FBI agent with three doctorates, and you managed to get yourself baby trapped—because—because what? I rejected you? And in the midst of your rebound you couldn’t figure out how to make a condom work? I knew you were naive, but I truly don’t understand how you could be so stupid.”
There’s nothing to comfort you in Spencer’s face. No smiling landmark, no buoy of awkward levity to cling to, bobbing just above surface and breaking the tension up. Just a clenched jaw, which could mean anything. If it’s rage, or hurt, he’s masking it well. This is almost more terrifying than if he’d just yell at you, because at least then you’d know.
Your heart pounds as you try not to gag on the words you’d just spoken. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, you want to say, but it’s like you don’t know how. The only language you speak comes out in venom and bile and curses. Every argument is as good as an execution.
He stays, though.
You’ve always had this way of getting what you want by the worst means possible. Always. It’s like the universe is punishing you for daring to be unsatisfied. If you’re stupid enough to want, to even think too hard about the things you secretly desire—you’ll get them. They will be twisted and perverted and thrown back in your face. Cruel and literal. The more you want a thing, the worse it is when it finally echoes back to you.
That’s how it goes with Spencer. You wanted him to stay, so he stays.
His lips part and it’s like tectonic plates shifting. The plastic edge of your chair bites deep into your palms.
There’s no yelling. Just a slight waver.
“I can’t imagine being as arrogant and deluded and self-obsessed as you are. Don’t talk to me about stupid when you are incapable of understanding that my entire life does not revolve around you. I started a correspondence with her six months ago. By the time you kissed me, I hadn’t thought about you for months. Maybe that’s just too difficult for you to comprehend.”
Words have never felt so visceral.
You want to take it all back. Your words. His. All of it.
I’m sorry. Please don’t leave.
“Fuck you. Get out.”
One more moment, he spares—one moment for you to watch the disdain turning to stone in his eyes. Cold in a way he’s never looked at you before.
And then he’s gone. The door doesn’t slam because it can’t but you almost wish it would—you hate that slow-close mechanism because you need some sort of absolute finality here. You need the windows to shake or you need to scream or something other than his retreating back down the catwalk. Your vision pulses with rage and your eyes water but you’re so shocked that tears don’t dare fall.
This can’t be real. No way he really got a woman pregnant. Obviously he must’ve slept with a psychologically disturbed erotomanic individual who’s desperate to entrap him and has been plotting this out for—well—for at least six months. But Spencer’s not the type to believe anything blindly. He must have proof.
Who is this girl?
A month ago you kissed and apparently he turned right around and knocked someone up.
Is that even possible? Conceiving and finding out you’re pregnant in such a short window of time?
What the fuck.
It crosses your mind that the blinds are open, and you look up to see that nearly the whole BAU had witnessed your altercation from Emily’s desk. When you catch them they all look away. Spencer is nowhere to be seen—and maybe that’s for the best.
You sniff and stand, straightening your jacket and turning to covertly dab at your cheek. It takes you a long time to tuck all the chairs back into the table. Spencer’s ended up several feet from yours, probably propelled backward by the violent speed with which he’d stood. You stare at the two empty chairs for what is certainly too great a length of time, and then you’re tucking them away just like the rest. By the time you turn back around, the BAU is gone.
Or at least, you thought they were, which is why you left—and then you’re almost running into Morgan on the stairs.
“Hey, woah,” he says, grabbing you carefully by the arms in a bid to stabilize you and halt your barreling forward motion. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” you snap. “Why would I not be fine?”
It’s a question you regret asking as soon as it leaves your lips.
“Because—” Morgan glances around. “Because I know this can’t feel good for you.”
Your face gets hot.
“For me? I don’t see you jumping for joy either. Spencer is a fucking idiot. He can’t raise a child. He can barely take care of himself, you know that.”
“Alright, first of all—keep your voice down. We don’t know that he’s going to be raising a child. We don’t know what the girl wants yet. Second, he is your friend. I think he was hoping for a little support from you of all people.”
“I don’t know why you keep insinuating that me and Spencer have some special connection. You’re clearly closer with him than I am. How long have you known, anyway?”
“Since last night,” he defends.
“Who else knows?”
Morgan hesitates. “Hotch.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“Okay, Garcia too. That was my fault. By the time we get back, it’ll probably be everybody.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose, trying to subdue a building pressure there.
“He is so fucking stupid,” you mutter.
“He’s lonely, and he’s hurting. People make bad choices under those circumstances all the time.”
“Yeah. He made a human, though. So.”
“Why are you so mad about this?” Morgan asks.
“I’m—”
Words catch in your throat. You glance over his shoulder as JJ approaches, her own pale brows drawn in concern.
“You’re being flagged. I’ll see you later.”
Derek doesn’t say a thing as you shoulder past him, through the bullpen and the glass doors and past the rest of the team (sans Spencer) by the elevators. You don’t really know what course you’re charting until you end up in front of the door to Garcia’s lair. There’s a sign on the door you’ve never noticed.
The Doctor Is In
Beneath that, a heart-shaped sticky note:
Psychiatric help: 5 cents. Results not guaranteed!
You open the door and close it behind you and stand there. Penelope turns around in her spinny chair, brows raised jubilantly like she’s expecting a social call.
You’re breathing a hair too quickly for someone who was only walking. Your fists clench and unclench. Rhythmic. Like a pulsing heart.
Garcia says your name like a question.
Your lips twist, and you feel the first hot tear roll down your cheek the way you would feel the earth shifting beneath you. It’s setting a bone that doesn’t heal quite right. It’s a 0 where there should be a 1 in a sea of binary code. Everything, everything, is almost exactly the same, and suddenly so wrong.
“Me and Spencer got in a fight,” you whisper.
It’s part of, but not the full truth of the matter. It’s not quite why you feel so off-kilter.
Another tear falls, and it unsticks Garcia. She’s standing, coming to you, arms open.
“Oh, honey,” she whispers, wrapping you in a hug. You feel stupid, standing there, soaking the knit of her purple cardigan—truly crying now—but you can’t stop.
This close, this raw, and with someone who has only ever been kind to you, the truth of your upset bubbles up. It’s impossibly quiet and brittle. Too delicate for this world. It makes you feel sick.
“He’s having a baby.”
Present day - October 2nd
You’re doing overtime in the kitchenette. That is to say, your window of opportunity is coming to a close, and JJ is still talking—holding you hostage with a silver spoon that clinks as it bumps into the sides of her mug. A plastic clock tick-tick-ticks on the wall. 1:25 PM. Spencer will be coming in for his first afternoon coffee any second now, and it won’t be the end of the world—but you’ve been carefully memorizing his routines so as to move swiftly around him whenever possible. Why create an awkward moment, standing alone in the kitchen, when it’s not necessary? The two of you have enough awkward moments as it is: stilted hellos murmured on the elevator in the mornings. Strange, bubbling heat which fills the stretch of air between you when he’s the first one to show up in the round-table room for a briefing. Each sorry he murmurs when he ghosts your shoulder, passing like phantom ships in the night in and out of Emily’s office, when you can feel the weight of those nice suits he wears now, and something in your chest freezes like solid ice. When you can smell tea tree and amber and woodsmoke, and something lighter—something innocent, and sweet, and simple. Strawberry toothpaste. Orange and vanilla shampoo.
Charlotte. His daughter, who you’ve yet to meet. Who haunts every desk with crayon drawings made for each member of the BAU. You know her handwriting. You know the way she draws her father, a stick-figure head and shoulders above everyone else and with a wide, flat smile, underscoring two placid dots for eyes, and a scribbled mess atop his head. You surmise she must have long brown hair, from the way she draws herself, and you know Spencer buys her orange and vanilla scented shampoo, and you’ve never met her. She’s a ghost to you. Maybe a shared hallucination everyone else can see. An unacknowledged and inherent truth—like air, or the sun. Yes, it is there. We all know. We’re all perfectly familiar, and we have accepted her as part of our reality.
Whenever she’s mentioned, you clam up. Charlotte is not someone you have the right to talk about. She is the president of a secret club that everyone else is part of except for you, and that’s the price you pay for leaving five years ago without a word, and you’ll just have to accept that.
1:26. Spencer breezes in, and you know, just from the tide of air against your back, that he’s still a little unsettled by your presence. You don’t know how you know. But it must always be obvious, after half a decade of your absence, and only a month since your return. If you’re not used to being back, surely he isn’t used to it, either.
“’Scuse me,” he murmurs to JJ, and she steps aside to let him at the cabinet before resuming her story.
“So—anyway, Will’s gonna hand off the baton to me as soon as I get home, catch a flight to New Orleans, and then he’s gonna try and get the whole situation with his mom handled as quickly as possible—but obviously, I’ve resigned myself to not coming in tomorrow.”
“Ugh, I’m sorry. That sounds so stressful,” you lament—only peripherally processing the click of ceramic as Spencer retrieves his own mug, the sift of sugar piling at the bottom of his cup over the pouring sound of your own coffee. The sound of fabric brushing fabric as he reaches for things, a sniff as he retrieves a stirring stick. He still does that nose scrunch thing.
JJ sips sweetened peppermint tea. “You’d think after having done this job for so long a little bit of vomit wouldn’t bother me so much. But, you know—I’ve had worse Wednesday nights.”
You’re about to agree, but Spencer beats you there. The shock of his voice is like a cold wave to the back of the head.
“You said you’d watch Charlotte tonight. I reminded you last night.”
This is not your confrontation, but you feel yourself tensing up regardless. Stir, stir, stir. Sugar crystals melt like stars into your coffee galaxy during the subsequent pause.
“Oh, shit, Spence. I’m sorry.”
“So you can’t?”
“My kids are throwing up. Will’s mom’s house just flooded, so he can’t watch them.”
Another tense gap in conversation, like a fissure opening up and threatening to swallow everyone in the kitchenette.
“I’m sorry,” JJ repeats. “I… you could drop her off? I could… I could quarantine her in the office?”
Not likely.
“No, that’s—it’s fine. It’s not your fault. I’ll figure something out.”
“Maybe Penelope?”
“She’s leading that federal cyber security seminar tonight.”
“Shit,” JJ says again. “Can you reschedule, with… you know?”
“We’ve rescheduled three times. She’s not going to give me another chance if I cancel last minute again.”
This bit seems particularly distressing to JJ, who huffs and sighs and flounders. A dash of half-and-half turns your coffee galaxy into a creamer Milky Way.
“I don’t know, Spence. Maybe Kate could watch her?”
“I don’t know Kate well enough. It’s fine—thanks—thank you for trying to help. I’ll figure something out.”
He doesn’t quite storm away. Blusters, perhaps. Rolls swiftly out like a high wind in search of some structure to level.
A layer of awkward quiet covers everything as you take your first sip of coffee. You fix your eyes on the percolator as it drips concentric circles into a puddle of black.
“He’s going on a date, or something?”
JJ’s brows flash up as she sets her eyes on you.
“Uh—there’s just… someone he needs to see. They’ve been trying to get together for, what—two months, I think? God, I feel awful.”
Interesting.
“It’s not your fault. I’m sure he’ll find someone.”
JJ doesn’t look convinced. Her gaze trails after him, as concerned for his well-being as she’s always been, like she’s worried he might walk right off the edge of a cliff.
“Yeah… I hope so.”
-
The scene sticks with you, long after you’ve sequestered yourself back in your office and finished your coffee. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’ve been so neurotic about avoiding. Overly intimate. Forces you to confront truths you’d rather ignore: Charlotte, for example. Spencer’s living, breathing daughter. The consequence of the action. The tribulations of single-parenthood. All those years in New York, you told yourself he had the whole team to support him. He wouldn’t need you. He’d hardly even notice your absence. Perhaps that was how you’d kept your guilt manageable.
It’s that very guilt that gnaws at you all afternoon, while you’re lining up your mug with the matching rings of coffee burned into the varnish on your desk. Same mug you’d always used—the one printed with the vanishing Bill of Rights. Chipped, now. Same desk. Stained. Peeling at the corners. Covered in framed photos from your time in the city—pictures of you and people you haven’t spoken with in the month since you came home.
In a way, it’s like no time has passed at all. But some things are showing their age, and their wear. Quantico didn’t freeze the second you left. People went on without you, because they had to. Because the world does not revolve around you.
For the rest of the day, you remain in your office. Some small animal inside of you feels like hiding. It’s the same animal who runs away when it’s scared and bites when it’s cornered. But you are not that animal anymore. You are a grown, adult woman. Discipline must be implemented. The dog must be kept at heel.
Or at least—the burning, gnawing ember of guilt deep in the pit of your stomach seems to think so. Fire beats instinct. At 5:26, you close the office door behind you with a soft click, bag shouldered, shoulders squared. No buckling. I don’t do that under pressure anymore.
Spencer is the last straggler in the bullpen. When you make your way down the stairs, he’s tucking files into his satchel, brows furrowed as his lips form silent, quick words. Like he’s arguing with someone in his head.
You clear your throat and stop a few healthy feet away. “Hey.”
Spencer looks up, eyes clear with surprise as you shatter whatever spell he’d been under. It’s not like there’s a precedent for casual conversation between the two of you. You haven’t initiated any unnecessary interaction since your return, and you sense he’s been taking queues from you. This isn’t a curveball so much as a Louisville Slugger to the walls you put up and staunchly maintain. He straightens. Lips part.
“Hey.” Characteristically tentative and devastatingly careful.
“Did you, uh—find a sitter, for tonight?”
A blink.
“No. No, I didn’t. There’s—everyone is busy. It’s alright. We’ll… we’ll figure something out.”
The way he eyes drop back to his desk, the way his words melt into half-sigh—he is defeated like he’s used to it. Your stomach twists. When you go to speak, you stumble over a false start. Swallow involuntarily.
“I c—I could watch her. I mean—if you really need someone. I’d… be happy to do it.”
There is so much barbed wire between the two of you now, so many layers of defense, it’s difficult to interpret his expression. Guarded. Doubtful, as this sinks in over the course of a silent moment. The dread you feel, despite having volunteered yourself, is so potent you think it must be mutual.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I just wanted to offer. It seems like you were really counting on JJ, and—not that I was eavesdropping, I just, I was right there. I didn’t mean to listen in. It’s none of my business, whatever it is, but if you need someone to watch Charlotte, I can do it. I watched JJ’s kids sometimes, when they were younger.”
“I remember,” he says, quickly, before he has time to censor the past in the way you’ve been doing. Smearing it in whiteout ink and working around it without acknowledgment. It’s jarring for both of you, but Spencer clears his throat and tries to roll with it. “You were good with them.”
In answer you press your lips together. A conciliatory smile. The corners of his own mouth pull—not in a smile, but in that way which means he’s troubled. Doesn’t particularly like his options.
“Could… could you be in Alexandria by 6:30? I’d be home before ten.”
Alexandria? Does he have a benefactor? Or a sugar daddy?
“Yeah. That’s not too far from me.”
Spencer takes a deep breath and glances back down at his files, slid halfway into the bag.
“Okay. I’ll text you the address, then. And thank you. I wasn’t expecting… I thought I’d have to cancel again.”
“It’s nothing. I should get going though, if I want to get changed and stuff beforehand.”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll see you later.”
You offer another tentative smile and a little wave as you walk away, and you’re pretty sure you leave your stomach on the floor by his desk.
You don’t have to do that, he’d said.
But you do. There is so much you owe him. So much you will never be able to make up for.
Maybe this, at the very least, will help you sleep a little sounder at night.
-
The street is quiet and narrow, lined with gorgeous brownstones and neat trees with leaves like crests of amber fire floating down onto meticulously maintained sidewalks. The cars parked to either side of yours are sturdy, square things in dark neutrals—unassuming, but new and clearly expensive to the trained eye. Pumpkins and welcome mats dot stoops. Strings of orange lights and autumnal holiday garlands twist around the wrought-iron handrails.
You triple check the address he’d texted you.
He told you he moved, and it makes sense. Raising a child in a one bedroom apartment would be far from ideal. Still, a townhouse in old town Alexandria is so beyond your means you can hardly comprehend it. Because of Charlotte, he’s got that adjunct position at Georgetown—teaches an accelerated month-long course for every hundred days he spends at the BAU. Maybe it pays really well. Like—hundreds of thousand of dollars well. Or, more plausibly, he’s laundering money.
What makes total sense to you is Spencer’s stoop being the most thoroughly decked-out for Halloween on the whole street. You’re squeezed between a handmade scarecrow wearing an old sweater vest that you actually recognize and a skeleton smoking a fake cigarette. It seems Spencer does not believe in such a thing as too many pumpkins, but if the limit did exist, he’d be rapidly approaching it.
The door is opening before you get the chance to lift the antique knocker, spilling warm light out onto the chilly sidewalk, and there’s Spencer in a peacoat. Breathless like he’d just run down the stairs. Hair falling in his face like he’d been pushing it back.
For a brief, aching second, he is someone you know well. Your heart catches on a rib.
“Hello,” he breathes, taking a moment to stand awkwardly before he remembers to invite you in, like he can’t believe a girl from his past has been superimposed at this current front door. Like you’re a total anachronism. You can’t blame him. “Sorry. Come in.”
Spencer pulls the door open wide for you and steps back so you can enter. It smells like cedar and old books and feu de bois and amber. The entryway is deep and warm, a dark staircase going straight upstairs to your left and a wide arch leading into the living area on your right. You peer in.
The home is like his old apartment on steroids. The walls are the color of old parchment, but you’d hardly noticed, covered as they are in an eclectic gallery of surrealist paintings, and the hundreds (now possibly numbering on thousands) of books in his collection, housed in dark walnut built-ins with ornate detailed corners. The couch is a deep-set, wine colored sectional, and strewn with knit blankets and throw pillows, stationed in front of a grand brick fire place over a rich tapestry rug. Several stained glass Tiffany-style lamps cast various pools of warm glow through the room, reflecting off the plethora of trinkets and photos on the mantle. You look away, to the console table aside the stairs, topped with an antique looking mirror and several houseplants that must be fake, because he’d never been able to keep one alive back then. At the end of the hallway is a closed door, probably leading to a bathroom.
“Wow. Nice digs.”
“Thanks, yeah.” He closes the door behind you and clears his throat. “Still getting used to it. We just moved in last spring.”
We.
“I—”
The sound of rapid pattering interrupts you. Little footsteps coming from upstairs. You turn your head just in time to see a tiny thing, though much bigger than you remembered, racing down the creaky steps—a streak of blue followed by two dark braids.
“Woah! What did we say about running in the house?” Spencer scolds as Charlotte barrels into his leg—but his fondness for her is evident in the way he sets his hand atop her hair, pushing deep brown wisps out of her big eyes.
“I got afraid. It was dark,” she justifies breathlessly. He frowns. For the moment, you’re forgotten, and it’s just as well, because you’d be shocked into silence by the sight anyway. She’s not the baby you’d last seen her as, and logically you knew she wouldn’t be, but it never quite sunk in. She’s, like… a real human person. Just miniature.
For a month you’ve been around Spencer, for years you’ve been thinking about the two of them, and you’ve heard her mentioned since you got back, sure—but seeing it—seeing her and him together—is entirely different. Maybe you didn’t really believe she would be so grown up now. You’d only seen her a handful of times before you left, and that screaming infant could’ve been anyone’s.
“Dark where?”
“Your office. I made a fort under your desk.” She beams up at him, hanging onto his leg and standing on his foot, swinging from him like he’s a jungle gym. The smile on her face says she’s not supposed to do that.
“Okay,” he says dryly—clearly he’s learned to choose his battles—and looks back up at you. For a moment, after he introduces you to Charlotte, you’re not sure how to respond. You’re still in something of a state of shock. Awe, maybe.
This child is unmistakably, undeniably, his.
But even more than that, she looks like her mother—a face that had begun to blur in your dreams over the years since you’d seen her last. You only met her a handful of times during her pregnancy, and now it’s like she’s staring right at you through her daughter’s eyes.
“Wow, hi, Charlotte!” you manage, hoarsely. “It’s nice to meet you. I like your pajamas.”
“They’re space,” she says simply, slowly curling behind her dad’s leg to hide, even as she’s gracing you with a smile.
“That’s so cool. Do you like space?”
She looks at you, and then back up at her dad for approval, still clinging to him, with eyes that may as well have been copy-pasted from his face onto hers. They’re wide, warm brown, framed by long, dark lashes. Spencer scratches her scalp affectionately, and nothing could prepare you for the unfiltered adoration he’s regarding her with.
He’s not just a clueless, bereaved 28 year old holding a wailing baby anymore. He’s actually a father.
“She likes her butterfly pajamas more, but space is good too. Charlie, you should show her the present Derek brought you later.” Then, to you, “She knows all the planets in the solar system.”
And he’s so proud of her when he says it, his eyes are so sparkly and smiley and so clouded with love your breath catches.
“Okay,” she agrees hesitantly.
You smile absently. A silence you don’t have the strength to lift falls and Spencer is quick to fill it.
“Okay. So, uh, no peanuts, but her epi-pen is on the kitchen counter just in case. I left my card, too, the PIN is 3449. Get whatever you want for dinner. And don’t worry about putting her to bed. I’ll be home before ten. She’s kind of a night-owl anyway… despite my greatest efforts.”
“Like her dad,” you marvel, still smiling at her. She’s still hiding, eyeing you with a cautious sort of interest. Spencer exhales a nervous laugh.
“Yes. Like her dad.”
A moment passes, and you sense the reluctance in him of a parent hesitant to leave their child. It’s strange and at the same time not at all out of place on him. But then he’s crouching down to be at Charlotte’s level.
“Okay. I’m gonna head out now, but I’ll be home to tuck you in, alright?”
“Okay.”
He smooths her braids and you realize he must’ve done them himself. How old was she when he learned how to do that?
“Are you gonna be good?”
“Yes.”
“Are you gonna run up the stairs?”
“No!”
“Okay, okay! I just had to check. Give me a hug.”
Charlotte gives him two dramatic kisses on each cheek and hugs him tightly.
“I love you,” he says, smushed against her head, and you can tell it’s not an after thought. He means it with every fiber of his being. Have you ever heard him tell anyone that he loves them in so many words? Has he ever been so unafraid in expressing it?
“I love you too. I have to go take Rosie for a ride before it starts raining, ’cause she’s afraid of thunder,” Charlotte says matter-of-factly as she pulls away.
“I think that’s a great idea.”
So she bounds into the living room and beyond toward what you presume is the kitchen—which is apparently where they keep the stables.
Spencer stands. Clears his throat like he’s suddenly insecure. “Rosie’s not a real horse.”
You’re terribly charmed by the entire exchange. Breathlessly so.
He’s so happy with her.
“Ah. Thanks for clearing that up.”
Spencer takes a deep breath and pats his pockets like he’s making sure he’s got everything. It’s a familiar gesture—the eidetic memory never stopped him from being forgetful.
“Alright… all good?”
“Yes,” you nod once. Decisively.
“Okay then. I’ll be back around nine or ten.”
“Got it.”
“Don’t be afraid to call.”
“Understood.”
He remains rooted to the spot.
The internal struggle is palpable—the push-pull between whatever it is he’s so desperate to attend to and the fear of leaving his daughter with someone untested.
More than that, you realize that he’s fighting with something on the tip of his tongue. Like it’s hurting him to consider saying.
In the end, it wins. He looks genuinely pained as he sighs and then speaks.
“If she—if she starts… it’s been a while, but she has tantrums sometimes—and they’re, they’re pretty bad. So if that happens, just… call me right away.”
You blink.
“Okay.”
“She probably won’t. I’m sure she won’t.”
Some odd undercurrent laps at the foot of the conversation. Some tone you don’t understand. Some mine under the floorboards you hadn’t noticed a moment ago.
He’s staring into you like you might know what’s going unsaid.
But there’s little time to ponder and no room for further discussion before he’s taking another deep breath.
“Okay. I will… see you later. Lock up behind me?”
Your smile is a delayed flicker and it probably doesn’t reach your eyes.
“Yeah. See you later.”
You follow him to the door and stand with one hand on the knob as he makes his way down to the sidewalk. He pauses. Turns to face you once more. A sweet, dark autumn breeze ruffles his hair.
“Thank you for doing this. Really. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
“Of course. I’m happy to,” you say softly. You wonder if he thinks you’re lying. You wonder if you are lying. Most of all, you wish he’d stop thanking you.
Either way, he doesn’t push. Just bids you a quiet goodbye with a final awkward smile, and you wave. Then you’re closing the door, locking up just as requested.
The wood digs into your back as you lean against it, deeper when you fill your lungs completely.
One breath.
And then you’re launching deeper into labyrinth, chasing after a little ghost with dark braids.
-
There are no explosive temper tantrums. Not even a hint of a bad mood. On the contrary; Charlotte is exuberant.
You shouldn’t be surprised, but Spencer Reid has raised a delightfully entertaining and precociously conversational child. At first she’s shy, but once you present her with butter chicken, she thinks you’re God’s gift to earth.
She shows you the present Derek got her: a little box which projects a spinning solar system in a sea of pretty jewel-toned lights onto the wall when you turn off the myriad lamps, and she names each and every planet, just like Spencer said she would. You get to meet Rosie, who is a plushie horse head on a long stick, and indulge her love for invisible sugar cubes. She shows you her dance from The Nutcracker, and you agree to play ballet class with her—which ends up being her favorite game of the night. Every time you intentionally flub a step, she breaks out into hysterical laughter. Her energy is contagious, and you fall into the swing of babysitting quite easily. Even if she weren’t so charming, you’d be captivated. You see her father in the set of her eyes and the warmth of her hair and the slope of her nose. She’s real. She’s him. Genetically. It’s hard to look away—to stop searching for proof in every familiar feature.
After several hours, she finally tires herself out. You’ve long since been directing her games from the decadent comfort of the couch.
“Can we watch TV?”
“Do you even have a TV?”
Charlotte nods, her long brown braids now hopelessly tangled. They weren’t like that before you showed her how to do somersaults on the sofa—something Spencer may or may not appreciate.
“It’s in daddy’s room,” she says, rocking back and forth on her little feet, gripping the edge of the couch for support. “Sometimes when I’m sad we watch movies and TV in there and he lets me sleep in his bed. Even though it’s bad sleep hygiene. Because of blue light.”
“I see,” you nod, pulling your knees to your chest against the slight chill and eyeing the fireplace desirously. “Are you sad right now?”
You almost can’t imagine it. Despite being born of borderline Shakespearean tragedy—despite Spencer’s ominous warning about temper tantrums—she seems like a perfectly happy, outgoing little girl.
She shakes her head emphatically, and climbs onto the couch, shuffling toward you on her knees. “No. I just wanted to show you Scooby Doo.”
“Hm. Well, I don’t think I should go into your dad’s room. Maybe you guys can watch it later. I think he’s getting back soon.”
Charlotte tugs down her pajama shirt so the little shooting stars and planets on it stretch into oblong blobs and kneels next to you. Her little milk teeth are perfect pearly white as she smiles shyly, and she definitely has her dad’s eyes—huge, rich brown, you-can’t-say-no-to-me eyes.
“Why are you hugging yourself?”
She still has her chirpy little sing-song baby voice. It’s absurdly cute.
“Because I’m cold.”
“Don’t move,” she orders, and just like that she’s back up, running across cushions to the other side of the couch (you probably shouldn’t let her do that) and kneeling again, fussily choosing from the stacked pile of blankets at the corner of the sectional. “Fluffy or yarn?”
“Definitely fluffy.”
“Definitely,” she agrees happily in her sweet musical way, like she loves the sound of the word. “Definitely, definitely.”
A moment later she’s successfully unfolded all the blankets in order to grab the on at the very bottom of the pile—a big cream-colored one—and drags it back over to you, making a show of tossing and pulling and patting and smoothing till you’re completely tucked in up to your shoulders.
“There. You can sleep here tonight.”
“Oh, you know—I don’t think we’re having a sleepover, Charlotte.”
She looks crestfallen, but hides it well, squishing a babyish cheek against the couch cushion next to you and picking at its seam.
“Well… why not?”
“Because your dad is coming home soon, remember? Isn’t that exciting?”
She makes a face.
“No. I see him all the time. I want to keep playing with you.”
Your heart swells. She’s got the same earnest sweetness as her father, and is well on her way to having just as much attitude. Carefully you untuck your hand from the blanket and brush her braid over her shoulder.
“That’s sweet, Charlotte. I’m having fun too. Maybe we can hang out again sometime.”
She takes the little act of affection as an invitation to plop down next to you and lean into your shoulder. For a split second you freeze—but you snap out of it and offer her a corner of the blanket. She takes it until you’re both warm and cozy and tucked in.
“Why do you know my dad?” She asks, words lilted with that same childish prosody.
“We work together.”
“I know everyone he works with. ‘Nelope, JJ, Kate, Dave, Derek, and Emily. Plus, he used to work with Hotch and Alex. He never told me about you.”
Makes sense. There’d be no reason to talk about you.
“Well, that’s because I went away for a while. You won’t remember this, but we actually met when you were just a tiny baby.”
Her wide eyes go wider as she looks up at you in awe.
“Really?”
“Yep. I remember the day your dad brought you into the office for the first time. You were so small he could hold you with one arm, isn’t that crazy?”
You don’t mention that the office had never been more somber than it was that day—not even when Haley died. That when you look back on the memories, they’re devoid of color or sound, aside from Charlotte’s screaming. It was too soon to bring her in, but where else could he go? Where else could he possibly take her?
“Did you know my mom?”
Your blood flash-freezes for a moment as you’re pulled out of the memory with a bucket of ice water to the face. You’re not quite sure how to answer without opening Pandora’s box.
You’re not quite sure there’s an answer to that question that you could give to anyone.
Thankfully, and possibly due to divine intervention, you hear keys jingling in the door, and for all Charlotte claims to find her dad boring, you swear her ears perk up. She’s craning her head over the back of the couch and her little face erupts in the biggest smile when the door opens.
“Daddy!”
You turn slightly, sitting up a little straighter and dropping the blanket, suddenly hyper-conscious of how you might look too comfortable on his couch, or too familiar with his daughter.
The smile that blossoms on your own face is completely unconscious as you watch them—the way she scrambles off the couch and runs as fast as her tiny feet will carry her around it, immediately glomming onto his leg just like she’d done before he left.
“Oh, my girl,” he half-grunts, half laughs at the impact, sliding a still-dripping umbrella into the holder by the door before dropping to her level and pulling his daughter into a hug. Immediately you note the exhaustion whittling cracks in his voice and carving itself under his eyes. Like whatever he’d been out doing hadn’t gone so well. “Missed you. Were you good while I was gone?”
“Definitely,” she says. His brows dart up.
“Definitely? You sound pretty confident.”
Spencer’s eyes slide to you, full of wry humor despite his lack of energy like he’s waiting for your corroboration. Charlotte doesn’t give you the chance to speak, and his eyes immediately flash back to her. It’s for the best—he hasn’t looked at you with that much ease in years. You wouldn’t have known what to say.
She leans farther into her father’s hold and looks over to you. “Guess what? She said we could have a sleepover tonight.”
“Wh—okay, that’s—that’s not quite what I said,” you hurry, suddenly regaining your voice, floundering in a plush blanket and face warming as you try to find the balance between correcting her mistake before Spencer can misconstrue it and not getting too defensive over a comment from a five year old.
He straightens her shirt fondly.
“Sometimes Charlie Mae remembers things how she wants to remember them and not necessarily how they actually happened, huh?”
“I told her the TV is in your room and we could sleep in there! You would let us, right?”
Spencer, more used to redirecting the overactive juvenile mind than you are, artfully changes the subject, all the while fussing with her braids.
“You must be tired, lovebug. Did you brush your teeth?”
“Yes. She counted to two minutes for me. I’m not tired. And I’m not a bug.”
“Okay, Homo sapien-sapien bipedal girl. Why don’t you go get cozy in bed and pick out a book for us?”
Charlotte’s eyes light up. “Bruce Springsteen?” She asks, boisterous and over-excited. Spencer laughs dryly, watching as she jets for the stairs like she jets everywhere she goes.
“Shel Silverstein. Careful on the stairs, Char.”
“I’m bipedal!”
Both of you watch her through the fluted railing until she disappears, and you feel only a little slighted that she didn’t say goodbye.
“Bruce Springsteen,” Spencer mutters incredulously, still crouching.
You smile.
“David Rossi’s influence?”
Spencer rises again, unslinging his bag and hanging it up by the door. “Oh, undoubtedly. How was she really?”
“She was great,” you admit, reluctantly relinquishing the warmth of the heavy blanket and standing up yourself, stretching your arms above your head and resisting the urge to yawn.
He faces you.
“Good.”
After a beat you realize he has nothing more to say. That he’s standing, hands pocketed, studying you from the other side of the couch. With Charlotte gone, the room feels darker. The air feels thicker. Thrumming.
It’s almost like he’s waiting to see what else you do.
Unabashedly, he’s watching.
Quickly you realize that you are a specimen under glass, to be examined intently.
Your face warms.
You clear your throat.
“How was your, uh, thing?” you ask awkwardly, sliding your hands into your back pockets. An innocent, if not a little invasive, question. Born of necessity—something toward which you can direct the charge in the air.
For a moment, you’re afraid it’s not going to work, as his expression remains unchanged.
Then he’s back to being shy-adjacent. Like an unpaused movie. That eerie air of examination, and something sticky, dissipates.
“Uh—it was... Yeah, it was good.”
It doesn’t sound true, but that’s none of your business. You hum, wrapping your arms around yourself. Spencer’s eyes dart down to note the action. You wonder if he’s only just now noticing the casual attire—a thin sweater too light for the season. Too casual for work. You tug it down over your waistband.
“Well, I had a good time, too. Charlotte is awesome.”
Spencer finally moves again, shrugging off his coat and hanging it up as he speaks. “She’s pretty great, huh?”
“I can’t believe she’s so grown up. She’s five, right? And her IQ is probably what, like—200?”
“No idea.”
You laugh in disbelief.
“You haven’t had her tested?”
Spencer leans against the arch and crosses his arms. The way his eyes flit to something just above your head, and he squints—it’s familiar. He’s deciding how much of a private truth he wants to reveal.
“I’ve… been avoiding it. She homeschools anyway, so we adjust the curriculum based on what she’s ready for.”
“Wow. Homeschool. How do you have time for that?”
“I do not,” he chuckles. “Her grandparents do it.”
“Her—oh. That’s—that’s good. Probably comes in handy to have family nearby with all the traveling you do.”
“It does. They adore her.”
“Yeah. Not hard to understand why.”
You act like you don’t suddenly have a million questions about the nature of his relationship with Charlotte’s grandparents.
Now that you’re thinking of it—hadn’t you heard murmurings of them in the weeks following Charlotte’s birth? Of course, you can’t remember for sure. You were already pretty checked out by that point.
Rain lashes the window hard and draws you both from some mutual dreamland. Spencer is regarding you with the beginnings of that same contemplative look on his face.
“Okay, well… I should get going,” you decide, reaching down to grab your keys from the table.
Spencer gives a dramatic berth as you pass him into the entryway to put your jacket on, watching as you pull on your boots. The smell of dark rain and something smokier follows as he reaches around you. Beneath it is the same detergent and shampoo he’d always smelled like. It’s distracting as you mindlessly accept whatever he’s now holding out to you. Smooth. Tortoise shell. The handle of his umbrella.
“You should take this.”
This hallway is much narrower than it’d seemed earlier. You clear your throat.
“Oh, thanks! I’ll—I can bring it to work tomorrow. To give back.”
He gives you that smile—perfect teeth barely flashing as he nods once. Somehow self-effacing as though it were his dumb addendum and not your own. “Appreciated.”
Right.
“Okay. Cool.”
Why can’t you move? Why are you glued to the spot, watching him watch you?
“You were a lifesaver tonight, truly. You absolutely didn’t have to do this, but I really appreciate that you did.”
You balk and attempt to shake it off. Lifesaver.
Not very likely.
“No worries. Really. I had fun.”
The air in the room is warm and dark. It smells, tastes, feels of some previously forgotten contentment.
For a fraction of a second, so quick it’s disorienting—you feel more home than you have in years. Like the two timelines you’ve been straddling have briefly synced up. His eyes are exactly the same as they’ve always been, and there is a flash of intimacy that does not belong to you.
Then, years in the future, a little voice from upstairs is hollering, “Daddy!”
The air goes from amber back to oxygen. You go from fossil and memory to living, breathing people. Both of you loose awkward little laughs.
“You’re being summoned, I think.”
“Oh, yes. Charlotte has a thing about timeliness.”
“She is quite the character.”
“That she is. I’m glad you got to meet her, again.”
You swallow a thorn and try not to think about how his voice softens.
About what you did to them.
“Me too.”
Spencer opens the door for you, inviting in a shocking snap of wind. The rain is so heavy it splashes against the sidewalks and makes brilliant glowing sprays as cars zoom through puddles in the dark.
“You gonna be okay out there?” Spencer asks.
You brandish your umbrella. “I’ll be great.”
“Are you sure? You can wait in here for a little while. It’s a rainband, it won’t last.”
“No, no, it’s okay. You have someone waiting to be read to.”
He nods again, taking another distrusting look at the conditions of the road behind you. “Drive safe, okay?”
“I will. Have a good night.”
Is that a weird thing to say? Do people say that? Is that appropriate? Too casual? Too formal?
But that little smile stays pasted on his face.
“Yeah. You too.”
Then you’re on the porch, popping open the umbrella and scurrying off into the downpour, hastily looking both ways before running across the street to where you’ve parked.
For a moment you fumble with your keys, but after a few embarrassing seconds (you know Spencer is waiting to close the door until you’re safely in your car) you manage to climb in, closing the umbrella and shaking it out before tossing it in the passenger’s seat and shutting your door against the deluge.
The wheel goes slick under your clammy, white-knuckle grip as your eyes close and you take several deep breaths, trying to fight the roiling of your stomach.
When you open your eyes again, Spencer is gone. The front door is closed, but the windows are still the warmest on the block.
You put the car in reverse.
-
By the time you get back to your apartment, any semblance of joy or redemption from your time with Charlotte has shed like an old skin—curdling in the stale air as you lean hard against the door to close it behind you. It squeaks against the floor and you wrestle with the lock in the dark. That sickly malaise of having woken up in your early twenties is worse than usual tonight, as you turn to face the big empty living room. Maybe that’s what you get for choosing to live in the same building you’d moved out of five years prior.
When you were twenty-two you chose it for its charm. You had a comfortable income. The excitement of being an adult hadn’t worn off yet. Making coffee in the morning still felt like playing house. When you’d toured the unit, you thought the parquet flooring and the lofted ceilings were so elegant, and the big paneled windows with their sliding sashes were romantic. Only after you moved in did you realize they were painted shut—so you took a razor and some acetone and fought for several hours to get them open. It was the first thing you did when you moved back in.
Now, your kick off your boots and don’t bother turning the light on before making your way to sit in front of one of them, cracking it a few inches open to let the cold breeze keep you company.
This was also routine, all those years ago. Sometimes when you sit on the floor like this, next to your big potted palm, shamelessly watching the people in their own little yellow squares of light across the way dancing or fighting or watching TV, you feel like you’re with your younger self.
If she was really here, she’d be out on the fire escape with a cigarette. But it’s too cold now, and you don’t like the way the metal grate leaves a grid on your skin. Now, you’d be an idiot to climb out onto a rusty death trap hanging from the side of your building by a couple of screws. Smoking’s not as glamorous as it used to be, either. There comes a point where you either need to grow out of it or admit that you’re addicted.
Besides, last time you moved out your landlord withheld the damage deposit because apparently the apartment smelled like tobacco. You didn’t believe her, but you’re not going to risk it again.
And maybe it feels good to have control over something. An old habit you can stop yourself from slipping back into.
For a moment, you think maybe you want a cigarette. You haven’t wanted one since you got back.
Indulge one craving to keep the others at bay, some slithery, sibilant voice whispers in your head. You like making deals, don’t you?
You can keep promises—can’t you?
Your stomach turns. A familiar breeze hits your cheek. It smells like the city—gas and rain and asphalt and fried food and a hint of green, of life, that you’d realized long ago wasn’t ever really out there.
If only you’d realized how poisonous your guilt would be, how much it would grow into this throbbing, undulating thing, taking up space in the pit of your stomach, before you agreed to come back.
If only you’d realized an ex-smoker can’t have just one cigarette. An addict can never be casual about their vices. Can never stop wanting.
If only you’d realized keeping promises made to a dead woman is a lot harder than keeping promises made to a living one.
Because Maeve Donovan isn’t ever letting you out of your end of the deal.
I’m admittedly a shy fan but I love this series.
I can tell you’re crafting this series with so much love and attention to detail so I think it deserves a commentary while I reread! As a creative writing student I’m having a lot of fun finding parallels and foreshadowing 🦋💕
Something is off with Spencer as soon as he comes into the bullpen. He’s got this nervous energy. Sort of shell-shocked. He’s crackling with it.
Every time I read this beginning I instantly feel anxiety. I know what’s coming but I’m still worried. I love how you decide to start the series with the day that literally changes Spencer and reader’s lives forever.
his eyes concerned and voice low like he knows more than you.
This foreshadowing hits even harder after rereading
Spencer is obscured from view, but you can see Hotch at his desk through the window, strong profile as steely and hawkish as ever. His lips move. He frowns—it’s his concerned frown. He seems to ask a question, and your stomach lurches as you watch his expression change more robustly than is typical for him. Eyes narrowed, lips slowly parted—what is that? Disbelief, maybe? Anger? And then it softens completely.
I love the way you write the changes in facial expressions tbh your descriptions are always amazing
And you know it’s a big deal when Hotch’s expression changes I love this
Derek only leans back in his seat, giving you a sad once-over and shaking his head like this is the last time he’ll ever see you in one piece.
I love how this builds up the anxiety more. And oh this foreshadowing
I want to protect reader from the news every single time but it’s always inevitable like the birth of Spencer’s child.
Good friends shouldn’t keep secrets. Then again—you and Spencer aren’t in the best place right now. But you’re supposed to be on the mend. Some secrets are best maintained and locked away to preserve the integrity of the friendship.
I wonder if she thought keeping it a secret that she wanted Spencer to wait for her was a good idea because she wanted to preserve the friendship 😭
Either you’re imagining it, or he’s being firmer than usual. Not that you blame him. He’s been through a lot in the time you’ve known him.
My sweet girl has no idea that the team is sorta trying to protect her from the news 😭 Hotch doesn’t want them arguing before the briefing
It’s like they know she won’t be happy
Everyone knows she loves Spencer except for Spencer ahhhhh
Both Morgan and Hotch give you strange looks as they pass.
The increasing anxiety of what’s to come. You know it’s bad when both Morgan and Hotch are concerned
Gently you pull his hands apart and hold them in your own. He’s got very pretty hands—only now the cuticles are rimmed with half moons of dry blood. You squeeze his fingers, hoping it will satisfy some sensory input he’s clearly seeking without being so injurious.
His hands are pretty hehe. After rereading it’s tragic to see how reader is trying to comfort him and she has no idea that they’re about to hurt each other so much 🥲
He’s a germaphobe but he lets her touch his hands aww
He doesn’t look up at you as he speaks. “You’re not going to believe me.”
The irony that he says this and then he gets surprised/frustrated that she reacts with outrage and disbelief
Oh Spencer
“I, uh, got someone pregnant,” he laughs.
First time I read this I was like
Despite the fact I read the summary 🤣
It’s so interesting to me while rereading that Spencer doesn’t say he got his girlfriend pregnant in this line. Instead, he says “someone” like a part of him is too afraid for a second to admit to reader that he’s with someone who is not her.
Your eyes squeeze shut, but your own thoughts are a racing, dizzying carousel and not a particularly soft landing as you try to give yourself a reprieve from the way he’s looking at you. A few months ago, you’d been under the impression he was pining after you.
I love this imagery. The carousel. The dizziness. The confusion. The shock.
“So you… went out and found some random person to hookup with? And got her pregnant?”
Her response is so valid tho when he says he got “someone” pregnant he does sound like he’s talking about a random person lol
“What? You don’t have a girlfriend!”
He sits up straighter. Anger clears the fog from his eyes, sharpening him for the first time today, and you don’t know if it’s better or worse. “Why are you so hung up on that? Is it that unbelievable to you?”
In this argument I can kind of see the underlying words Spencer and reader are too afraid to say to each other. You always write arguments in an entertaining manner btw I love how both sides make mistakes and it’s relatable
Spencer’s anger is clouded by insecurity and hurt. The underlying meaning might be “Is me having a girlfriend that unbelievable to you because you couldn’t imagine me being capable of having a girlfriend just because you don’t want me?”
And reader’s words are trying to secretly say “how could you get a girlfriend? I thought there’s no other girls. I thought you liked me. I thought you would wait for me. I do want you.”
Or at least that’s how I interpret this 👀
Spencer’s throat bobs. He’s speaking faster now. “And then I moved on, was I not supposed to?”
Perhaps I’m overthinking this question because I’m trying to find evidence that Spencer is down bad for reader still. Even though he just admitted he has a pregnant girlfriend.
The last part “was I not supposed to?” shows his attitude but also he’s still unsure of himself. maybe subconsciously wants reader to argue back with “yeah, you weren’t supposed to!” even though that will never happen.
“Sorry that the idea that someone could actually be interested in me is so shocking to you.”
He thinks reader was never interested in him 😭 He thinks she’s shocked that anyone could be interested in him
“So explain how you meant it.”
This line is brilliant. I’ll probably notice more after rereading the other parts but I think this line defines Spencer’s relationship with reader so far. He wants her to explain when she’s not sharing the full truth with him and then he gets frustrated when she doesn’t.
Which makes sense sadly. He can’t read her mind.
Well—yes. When has he kept something like this from you before? Never, you suppose. He’s never had anything like this to keep from you. There haven’t been any girls.
Reader is so valid for being confused.
You sort of thought… even after you both decided to remain platonic… that it would stay that way. That he’d always be there. Waiting.
These lines hit so hard.
He seems to take this silence as an admission of guilt.
“Great. Thanks a lot, for being so supportive.”
I love the way you capture Spencer’s attitude. This misunderstanding is so painful
Desperate to stop him from leaving, but too afraid to just admit it, you open your mouth without a plan.
The foreshadowing. Reader in this series tends to be afraid of admitting the full truth to him. Which is so understandable. And like girl, same.
“Why would I support this? It was idiotic. I mean—you’re twenty seven, Spencer. You’re a fucking FBI agent with three doctorates, and you managed to get yourself baby trapped—because—because what? I rejected you? And in the midst of your rebound you couldn’t figure out how to make a condom work? I knew you were naive, but I truly don’t understand how you could be so stupid.”
I love the way you write how harsh anger can be especially when it’s hard to control words
The tragedy of this argument is that Spencer is a profiler who can’t profile the underlying meaning in her words and why she’s reacting this strongly
Your heart pounds as you try not to gag on the words you’d just spoken. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, you want to say, but it’s like you don’t know how.
The way you write guilt is so visceral. I love this reader. She’s so relatable for feeling guilty after saying harsh things and being terrified of apologizing. I love how she’s not perfect
You’ve always had this way of getting what you want by the worst means possible. Always. It’s like the universe is punishing you for daring to be unsatisfied. If you’re stupid enough to want, to even think too hard about the things you secretly desire—you’ll get them. They will be twisted and perverted and thrown back in your face. Cruel and literal. The more you want a thing, the worse it is when it finally echoes back to you.
Oh this foreshadowing is beautiful. This paragraph is beautiful. This whole series is beautiful. She wants Spencer back, she wants him to be single with no Maeve and she gets that wish but in the worst way possible. In the future he’s a single dad with a motherless child because of a tragedy. This sets up the immense amount of guilt she feels for daring to still love and want Spencer.
“I can’t imagine being as arrogant and deluded and self-obsessed as you are. Don’t talk to me about stupid when you are incapable of understanding that my entire life does not revolve around you. I started a correspondence with her six months ago. By the time you kissed me, I hadn’t thought about you for months. Maybe that’s just too difficult for you to comprehend.”
I hope he deeply regrets this emotional damage
I love how you’re not afraid of showing Spencer’s jerk side tho. In this instance I understand why both of them are lashing out. No one wants to be called naive and stupid but reader feels betrayed and I get her. I get him too. He’s very overwhelmed. He thinks she’s overreacting and being mean and he can’t see she’s heartbroken 🥲
The hopeless romantic side of me tries to find underlying meaning even in Spencer’s insults.
The more he keeps denying that he thought about her. The more I’m thinking he’s lying to himself and her.
And the irony that he calls her self-obsessed when in reality he has no idea that she’s obsessed with him. She cares for his well-being. She kept looking at him the minute he came into the bullpen.
Something is off with Spencer as soon as he comes into the bullpen.
He doesn’t speak to anyone for several minutes—only sits at his desk, back straight as a rod (and considering his usually atrocious posture, this is concerning) not even bothering to take off his messenger bag or power on his computer.
She watched and counted the minutes he was sitting straight. She knew something was wrong because he usually slouches 😭 she was so worried
Spencer emerges from behind him stiffly, rubbing his eyes and staring straight ahead. His hair is messy. His tie is perfectly straight, which you actually find disconcerting. You jog up the stairs, favorite mug abandoned on Morgan’s desk, to intercept Spencer
She noticed his tie was straight and not crooked. She abandoned her favorite mug and went to him! She loves him. She loves him
I started a correspondence with her six months ago.
I knew the baby’s mother was Maeve just from this line. The foreshadowing was excellent. I remember feeling dread the first time I read this like oh no it’s Maeve? Maeve?!
I’m sorry. Please don’t leave.
Oh sweetheart. I love how you show the difference between her thoughts and what she says sometimes.
A month ago you kissed and apparently he turned right around and knocked someone up.
This line 👀 I’m being a bit delulu but this does make me suspicious. Did kissing reader actually rattle Spencer to the point he had to avoid those feelings through sex with his gf?
this makes me wonder why didn’t he tell reader about Maeve when the kiss happened? He had a lot of time to mention her. why did he let reader think he’s still single?
I love the mystery
It crosses your mind that the blinds are open, and you look up to see that nearly the whole BAU had witnessed your altercation from Emily’s desk.
I forgot that so many people witnessed that. Spencer and reader must have been the hottest topic of gossip for weeks.
Maybe some ppl at the BAU were shipping reader x Spencer and they’re genuinely shocked that Spencer knocked up some other girl. They’re probably like “what? 🫢 I did not see that coming.”
Spencer’s ended up several feet from yours, probably propelled backward by the violent speed with which he’d stood. You stare at the two empty chairs for what is certainly too great a length of time, and then you’re tucking them away just like the rest.
This is such a beautiful scene tbh the subtle metaphor for their relationship.
At first they were close literally and emotionally before Spencer told her his news
You try to ignore the sinking feeling and shut the door behind them before pulling out a chair and taking a seat knee-to-knee with Spencer.
currently their relationship feels like it’s over and empty. she keeps looking at those chairs because it’s the last time they were this close before having a sort of friendship ending argument and now they’re distant like those chairs 😭
I wonder if Spencer ever looked at reader’s empty chair after she left the BAU.
“I’m fine,” you snap. “Why would I not be fine?”
This parallel to Spencer
“I’m…” he nods, slowly. His nose twitches.“I’m fine. We should, uh… Hotch is waiting for us.”
They both lie and say they’re fine when they’re not. They’re made for each other
I adore the way you write dialogue it feels so true to the characters
“Because—” Morgan glances around. “Because I know this can’t feel good for you.”
This man must know she’s in love with Spencer 😭
The irony that Morgan knows this doesn’t feel good for her and Spencer is oblivious.
“He’s lonely, and he’s hurting. People make bad choices under those circumstances all the time.”
Derek’s line makes me pause cause it makes me so curious. I wouldn’t rlly call Spencer lonely since he has a gf now who’s facing the same problem. I know Derek could obviously be referring to Spencer dealing with his situation at work alone.
Maybe this is also subtly implying that the relationship between Maeve and Spencer isn’t that perfect then. I mean, if they did have a happy relationship that’s plausible too. I’m just rambling theories
Maybe he’s hurting not just because it’s shocking (and probably blaming himself since accidentally getting a girl pregnant is stressful), the future is unknown but also because it’s with the wrong person? Things are going way too fast? This might have been the consequences of a bad choice? He might feel some guilt about that? 🫢
Based on the timeline it seems like Maeve and Spencer only been dating in person for a few months
“I’m not a leper. I met someone a few months ago.”
“I mean, I still don’t really believe it… but she has nothing to gain from lying to me. It’s not like I’m rich.”
The fact that it’s implied it crossed his mind that Maeve could have been lying to him before he decided that she isn’t is kind of a sign to me that this relationship isn’t that solid. He doesn’t know Maeve that well yet. If he did, he would have never suspected her of lying.
They’ve been dating in person for such a short amount of time and now they’re expecting a baby. It is jarring. He probably didn’t even see Maeve that often then because of his job. This looks more and more like a rebound attempt gone wrong 👀 maybe reader is right about that but he doesn’t want to admit it
“Sorry that the idea that someone could actually be interested in me is so shocking to you.”
This line makes me pause again too I’m realizing after rereading that maybe Spencer partly had this relationship with Maeve because he just wanted to feel wanted and to him, she was supposedly the only woman who wanted him at the time.
A few months ago, you’d been under the impression he was pining after you.
I don’t think reader is wrong about this. I think he was still pining after her. It’s possible I might be wrong while I’m trying to find evidence for my ship to sail to be fair lol
“Yeah. He made a human, though. So.”
Is she wrong tho? Nope
I love her.
You’re breathing a hair too quickly for someone who was only walking. Your fists clench and unclench. Rhythmic. Like a pulsing heart.
Gosh this is so deep I can feel her sadness
Everything, everything, is almost exactly the same, and suddenly so wrong.
You’re so good at making me feel her heartbreak 😭
This close, this raw, and with someone who has only ever been kind to you, the truth of your upset bubbles up. It’s impossibly quiet and brittle. Too delicate for this world. It makes you feel sick.
“He’s having a baby.”
I want to cry whenever I read these lines. It’s so heartbreaking. I know I’m gonna love Charlotte but I can’t help feeling so sorry for reader. Things between her and Spencer will never be the same again. And the way Penelope comforts her is so kind.
It’s rlly clever to end the flashback like this. Spencer and reader’s argument feels unresolved. They didn’t get the chance to apologize to each other in this memory
Like it’s referenced in this earlier lovely heartbreaking paragraph there’s no finality
And then he’s gone. The door doesn’t slam because it can’t but you almost wish it would—you hate that slow-close mechanism because you need some sort of absolute finality here. You need the windows to shake or you need to scream or something other than his retreating back down the catwalk. Your vision pulses with rage and your eyes water but you’re so shocked that tears don’t dare fall.
Oh sweet girl 😔 plus when the present is shown I see that Spencer and reader’s relationship is unresolved too. These parallels amaze me. The argument didn’t end, the distance didn’t end.
Present: You’re doing overtime in the kitchenette. That is to say, your window of opportunity is coming to a close, and JJ is still talking—holding you hostage with a silver spoon that clinks as it bumps into the sides of her mug. A plastic clock tick-tick-ticks on the wall. 1:25 PM. Spencer will be coming in for his first afternoon coffee any second now, and it won’t be the end of the world—but you’ve been carefully memorizing his routines so as to move swiftly around him whenever possible.
I love this parallel to the beginning of this lovely story.
The past: You’re leaning against the kitchenette counter, blowing on your coffee and trying to gauge if you’ll be able to figure it out just by observing him, or if you’ll have to ask.
She observes in the past and present but in the present she’s anxious and wants to avoid him while in the past she’s anxious and eager to comfort him, she didn’t want to avoid him
This is so bittersweet and complicated
The two of you have enough awkward moments as it is: stilted hellos murmured on the elevator in the mornings. Strange, bubbling heat which fills the stretch of air between you when he’s the first one to show up in the round-table room for a briefing.
The more I reread the more I’m seeing it that Spencer is subtly trying to get reader’s attention while trying to give her space too. Strange, bubbling heat? Love this line it’s tasty. Sexual tension or unresolved feelings? Or both? 👀
Each sorry he murmurs when he ghosts your shoulder, passing like phantom ships in the night in and out of Emily’s office, when you can feel the weight of those nice suits he wears now, and something in your chest freezes like solid ice.
Passing like phantom ships in the night? Oh the pain! Gorgeous lines. Solid ice and weight of those nice suits is so raw
anyway, this scene is so angsty but the chemistry is wow. they need to be locked in a room together.
It’s that awkward moment you’re trying to avoid your ex best friend who’s a hot single dad but his suits are too nice and you can still feel him.
When you can smell tea tree and amber and woodsmoke, and something lighter—something innocent, and sweet, and simple. Strawberry toothpaste. Orange and vanilla shampoo.
I love the yearning oh my gosh. I dearly hope Spencer memorizes our scent too
I love how even the smells show how things are the same and different. The subtle references to him being a father
Strawberry toothpaste because he probably uses that when he’s helping Charlotte brush her teeth
Orange and vanilla shampoo because he washes Charlotte’s hair.
Charlotte. His daughter, who you’ve yet to meet. Who haunts every desk with crayon drawings made for each member of the BAU. You know her handwriting. You know the way she draws her father, a stick-figure head and shoulders above everyone else and with a wide, flat smile, underscoring two placid dots for eyes, and a scribbled mess atop his head.
Oh no, she’s a sweetheart (I already knew this lol) but still she is! And she made drawings for everyone else. I love the specific usage of the word “haunts” btw since her mother haunts the narrative.
It’s so cute how reader is so observant. She’s trying so hard not to care but she does
I hope Charlotte makes a drawing of reader one day
You surmise she must have long brown hair, from the way she draws herself, and you know Spencer buys her orange and vanilla scented shampoo, and you’ve never met her. She’s a ghost to you. Maybe a shared hallucination everyone else can see. An unacknowledged and inherent truth—like air, or the sun. Yes, it is there. We all know. We’re all perfectly familiar, and we have accepted her as part of our reality.
I may be saying it a lot but I love how complicated reader is.
I imagine reader waiting until everyone is gone in the bullpen before picking up one of Charlotte’s drawings and staring at it for a long time maybe tracing Spencer’s face
It’s like she does want to know her but she’s also terrified understandably. She sees her as a ghost, a reminder of her guilt and there’s still that 22 year old in her that wants this to not be real.
She must feel a bit of envy that the rest of the BAU can easily accept Charlotte as part of their reality while she’s still struggling
Whenever she’s mentioned, you clam up. Charlotte is not someone you have the right to talk about. She is the president of a secret club that everyone else is part of except for you, and that’s the price you pay for leaving five years ago without a word, and you’ll just have to accept that.
Everyone knows that Spencer hates not having closure! But saying goodbye is hard so I sympathize with reader. I feel bad for Spencer too.
I love how you can just tell that reader feels sad that she’s not a part of this “secret club” and how she tries to force herself to accept that.
1:26. Spencer breezes in, and you know, just from the tide of air against your back, that he’s still a little unsettled by your presence. You don’t know how you know. But it must always be obvious, after half a decade of your absence, and only a month since your return. If you’re not used to being back, surely he isn’t used to it, either.
Unsettled, yes. Perhaps also in love with us? *twirls hair dramatically*
only peripherally processing the click of ceramic as Spencer retrieves his own mug, the sift of sugar piling at the bottom of his cup over the pouring sound of your own coffee. The sound of fabric brushing fabric as he reaches for things, a sniff as he retrieves a stirring stick. He still does that nose scrunch thing.
I love these sensory details they’re so mmm
love the way she keeps observing him she’s so down bad for him
JJ doesn’t look convinced. Her gaze trails after him, as concerned for his well-being as she’s always been, like she’s worried he might walk right off the edge of a cliff.
I love the protective older sis vibes. I imagine JJ and Spencer probably bonded a lot as parents in this universe.
The scene sticks with you, long after you’ve sequestered yourself back in your office and finished your coffee. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’ve been so neurotic about avoiding. Overly intimate. Forces you to confront truths you’d rather ignore: Charlotte, for example. Spencer’s living, breathing daughter. The consequence of the action. The tribulations of single-parenthood.
It’s like she wants to stay in the past but she can’t. The present keeps reminding her that so much has changed
The conflict. She wants to avoid the truth but there’s also a part of her that wants to see it
There’s still that 22 year old version of her who wants to comfort Spencer
All those years in New York, you told yourself he had the whole team to support him. He wouldn’t need you. He’d hardly even notice your absence.
It all goes back to the argument in the past, doesn’t it? I appreciate your writing even more because the argument is significant in the present too
“By the time you kissed me, I hadn’t thought about you for months. Maybe that’s just too difficult for you to comprehend.”
She thinks because he said he hasn’t thought about her for months that it means he wouldn’t need her and think about her for 5 years too and that’s why he would barely notice her absence
Spencer, if you weren’t such a kind hot single dad with a very traumatic backstory I would be way madder
Same mug you’d always used—the one printed with the vanishing Bill of Rights. Chipped, now. Same desk. Stained. Peeling at the corners.
Awesome dramatic symbolism to show how she’s less optimistic now. Less hopeful and she’s trying to stay in the past somewhat by using items from the past
Because the world does not revolve around you.
The parallel! Spencer’s words 😭😢
“Don’t talk to me about stupid when you are incapable of understanding that my entire life does not revolve around you.”
The way those words haunt her
Kind of ironic that Spencer says this in the past and then he gets obsessed with wanting to talk to her again in the future
Spencer looks up, eyes clear with surprise as you shatter whatever spell he’d been under. It’s not like there’s a precedent for casual conversation between the two of you. You haven’t initiated any unnecessary interaction since your return, and you sense he’s been taking queues from you.
I think he’s been waiting for her to initiate an interaction with him outside of work stuff. maybe a part of him was afraid that might not happen 😭 he can’t hide his surprise
You clear your throat and stop a few healthy feet away. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Characteristically tentative and devastatingly careful.
even this makes me cry the way they’re walking on eggshells around each other
The way he eyes drop back to his desk, the way his words melt into half-sigh—he is defeated like he’s used to it. Your stomach twists. When you go to speak, you stumble over a false start. Swallow involuntarily.
This series is literally taking me on a fun rollercoaster of diff emotions
You’re so good at making me feel sorry for Spencer and mad in the past and then feeling bad for him again in the present
“You don’t have to do that.”
Even a short line like this is heartbreaking. You do such a masterful job of showing how they keep pretending like they’re strangers who don’t owe each other anything 😭
“I know. I just wanted to offer. It seems like you were really counting on JJ, and—not that I was eavesdropping, I just, I was right there. I didn’t mean to listen in. It’s none of my business, whatever it is, but if you need someone to watch Charlotte, I can do it. I watched JJ’s kids sometimes, when they were younger.”
It’s so cute that she forgets for a sec that he would remember her babysitting JJ’s kids. She’s so nervous and sweet
Also rlly sad how they went from being close best friends to her being terrified that she’s invading his privacy 😭
“I remember,” he says, quickly, before he has time to censor the past in the way you’ve been doing. Smearing it in whiteout ink and working around it without acknowledgment. It’s jarring for both of you, but Spencer clears his throat and tries to roll with it. “You were good with them.”
The fact that he acknowledges she was good with kids makes me wonder if he felt even more distressed when she left because a part of him hoped she would help out with his kid.
What makes total sense to you is Spencer’s stoop being the most thoroughly decked-out for Halloween on the whole street.
It does make sense! His love for Halloween. I love that you kept that part of his character.
The door is opening before you get the chance to lift the antique knocker, spilling warm light out onto the chilly sidewalk, and there’s Spencer in a peacoat. Breathless like he’d just run down the stairs. Hair falling in his face like he’d been pushing it back.
Why oh why does he have to be so hot/cute? And I just noticed that he was basically eagerly waiting for her lol that’s sorta romantic… then again, he’s supposedly going on a date with someone else the audacity
For a brief, aching second, he is someone you know well.
This is so heartbreaking and poetic. Gosh this series makes me ache.
“Hello,” he breathes, taking a moment to stand awkwardly before he remembers to invite you in, like he can’t believe a girl from his past has been superimposed at this current front door. Like you’re a total anachronism. You can’t blame him. “Sorry. Come in.”
Now this may be that hopeless romantic side of me seeing more than there actually is 🤣 but maybe he’s looking at reader not just because she’s a girl from his past but because deep down he still has feelings for her
And maybe cause he’s hopeful they can go back to being close again.
The walls are the color of old parchment, but you’d hardly noticed, covered as they are in an eclectic gallery of surrealist paintings, and the hundreds (now possibly numbering on thousands) of books in his collection, housed in dark walnut built-ins with ornate detailed corners. The couch is a deep-set, wine colored sectional, and strewn with knit blankets and throw pillows, stationed in front of a grand brick fire place over a rich tapestry rug. Several stained glass Tiffany-style lamps cast various pools of warm glow through the room, reflecting off the plethora of trinkets and photos on the mantle. You look away, to the console table aside the stairs, topped with an antique looking mirror and several houseplants that must be fake, because he’d never been able to keep one alive back then. At the end of the hallway is a closed door, probably leading to a bathroom.
Of course his house is hot. Love these vivid descriptions but now I wanna move in
The sound of rapid pattering interrupts you. Little footsteps coming from upstairs. You turn your head just in time to see a tiny thing, though much bigger than you remembered, racing down the creaky steps—a streak of blue followed by two dark braids.
Charlotte’s entrance! Iconic and adorable.
Although with a reread I can see how angsty this entrance is too. This adorable interruption is like a parallel to the past when the news of her existence interrupted reader and Spencer’s normal life.
“Woah! What did we say about running in the house?” Spencer scolds as Charlotte barrels into his leg—but his fondness for her is evident in the way he sets his hand atop her hair, pushing deep brown wisps out of her big eyes.
Spencer being such a doting father is sweet and painful to witness.
“I got afraid. It was dark,” she justifies breathlessly. He frowns.
She’s afraid of the dark like Spencer 🥺
“Dark where?”
Aww the way he gets worried
“Your office. I made a fort under your desk.” She beams up at him, hanging onto his leg and standing on his foot, swinging from him like he’s a jungle gym. The smile on her face says she’s not supposed to do that.
Aww she’s so mischievous
For a month you’ve been around Spencer, for years you’ve been thinking about the two of them, and you’ve heard her mentioned since you got back, sure—but seeing it—seeing her and him together—is entirely different. Maybe you didn’t really believe she would be so grown up now. You’d only seen her a handful of times before you left, and that screaming infant could’ve been anyone’s.
reader is so strong tbh
At least when she was away she could maybe pretend sometimes that Spencer’s life didn’t change. Because if she wasn’t there to see it then she could pretend that Spencer never lost Maeve and wasn’t raising his child by himself.
Babysitting for her ex best friend despite all of her complicated angsty real feelings about this messy situation means she’s more selfless than she realizes even though she’ll keep telling herself she just feels guilty
This child is unmistakably, undeniably, his.
This line is so sweet until I read the next lines. It’s like aww Spencer has a cute daughter—
But even more than that, she looks like her mother—a face that had begun to blur in your dreams over the years since you’d seen her last. You only met her a handful of times during her pregnancy, and now it’s like she’s staring right at you through her daughter’s eyes.
Excellent way of showing that reader is so traumatized
“Wow, hi, Charlotte!” you manage, hoarsely. “It’s nice to meet you. I like your pajamas.”
I love this reader. The way she’s shocked and trying to stay calm while finally talking to Spencer’s daughter for the first time. The daughter she’s been terrified of meeting. The ghost’s baby. But she still manages to be so nice to Charlotte 😭
She looks at you, and then back up at her dad for approval, still clinging to him, with eyes that may as well have been copy-pasted from his face onto hers. They’re wide, warm brown, framed by long, dark lashes. Spencer scratches her scalp affectionately, and nothing could prepare you for the unfiltered adoration he’s regarding her with.
She has our boyfriend’s eyes 😭 and he’s so affectionate
“She likes her butterfly pajamas more, but space is good too. Charlie, you should show her the present Derek brought you later.” Then, to you, “She knows all the planets in the solar system.”
And he’s so proud of her when he says it, his eyes are so sparkly and smiley and so clouded with love your breath catches.
Spencer being a proud father is so endearing.
You’re so good at writing him as a parent 🦋
He smooths her braids and you realize he must’ve done them himself. How old was she when he learned how to do that?
The image of Spencer making his daughter’s braids is adorable and again, so painful. He’s a single father and he’s a good one. Even though the circumstances weren’t ideal.
“Okay. So, uh, no peanuts, but her epi-pen is on the kitchen counter just in case. I left my card, too, the PIN is 3449. Get whatever you want for dinner. And don’t worry about putting her to bed. I’ll be home before ten. She’s kind of a night-owl anyway… despite my greatest efforts.”
He’s so hot. He’s too hot, help.
Seeing him being a caring and attentive father is making me blush
And to prove I’m one of the biggest fans of this series I’m gonna highlight the fact that I did read ur like mini thoughts about the series in ur blog
The fact that 3449 is Charlotte’s initials!? 3449= CMDR I’m in awe, I love your dedication I love ur world building
“Like her dad,” you marvel, still smiling at her. She’s still hiding, eyeing you with a cautious sort of interest. Spencer exhales a nervous laugh.
“Yes. Like her dad.”
Gosh, this is heartbreaking. I know this moment is cute but I’m also over here like you three could have been such a cute family!
And the way this breathes familiarity. Reader knows him. She knows he’s a night-owl. She remembers so many things about him 🥺
A moment passes, and you sense the reluctance in him of a parent hesitant to leave their child. It’s strange and at the same time not at all out of place on him. But then he’s crouching down to be at Charlotte’s level.
I’m saying this for the hundredth time he’s such a good father. Awwwww
“I love you,” he says, smushed against her head, and you can tell it’s not an after thought. He means it with every fiber of his being. Have you ever heard him tell anyone that he loves them in so many words? Has he ever been so unafraid in expressing it?
This paragraph makes me want to cry. The fact that he learned how to not be afraid of saying “I love you” when it’s directed to his daughter (which is adorable and sweet) but this also implies that maybe he was too afraid to say it to reader when he was younger 😭
So she bounds into the living room and beyond toward what you presume is the kitchen—which is apparently where they keep the stables.
Spencer stands. Clears his throat like he’s suddenly insecure. “Rosie’s not a real horse.”
I love how in the midst of angst you manage to weave in some humor that never feels random. It feels so true to life. Also hehe Spencer is so cute
He’s so happy with her.
even in a short sweet line like this I can feel reader’s love for Spencer. She’s relieved that he’s not a depressed father, he’s a happy father
The internal struggle is palpable—the push-pull between whatever it is he’s so desperate to attend to and the fear of leaving his daughter with someone untested.
I sympathize although I love how reader doesn’t wanna acknowledge that our boyfriend who doesn’t know he’s our boyfriend is going on a date with someone else
She might as well go on a revenge date with Anderson
“Thank you for doing this. Really. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
He’s so sweet
*picks up the phone and dials* ya hello, Anderson? Are you free this Friday?
The wood digs into your back as you lean against it, deeper when you fill your lungs completely.
This fic feels like a movie I can’t stop rewatching. Gosh the way you write emotions is incredible
And then you’re launching deeper into labyrinth, chasing after a little ghost with dark braids.
I love how after seeing the lighthearted bonding moments you remind us again that reader feels like she can never escape Maeve’s ghost.
You shouldn’t be surprised, but Spencer Reid has raised a delightfully entertaining and precociously conversational child.
I love him. I admire the fact he raised Charlotte despite the tragedy and reader leaving
At first she’s shy, but once you present her with butter chicken, she thinks you’re God’s gift to earth.
I realized after rereading even this cute scene has great significance too
I googled it (lol sorry I’ve never had butter chicken before) but supposedly butter chicken can be made from chicken tandoori
And who loves chicken tandoori? Spencer.
Reader is a sweetheart confirmed. She had a feeling that Charlotte would love it because she’s her father’s daughter and reader loves Spencer so much she notices the little things
She shows you the present Derek got her: a little box which projects a spinning solar system in a sea of pretty jewel-toned lights onto the wall when you turn off the myriad lamps, and she names each and every planet, just like Spencer said she would. You get to meet Rosie, who is a plushie horse head on a long stick, and indulge her love for invisible sugar cubes. She shows you her dance from The Nutcracker, and you agree to play ballet class with her—which ends up being her favorite game of the night. Every time you intentionally flub a step, she breaks out into hysterical laughter. Her energy is contagious, and you fall into the swing of babysitting quite easily. Even if she weren’t so charming, you’d be captivated.
I know I’m commenting on so many paragraphs but I can’t help it! I love this fic
Charlotte is very adorable. I love these lighthearted moments between them. They’re bonding. My fav people are bonding. She showed us the planets. She loves us 🥺
Spencer is right. Reader is good with kids. Gosh, she’s so good. You’re so good at writing Charlotte and reader being a babysitter.
You see her father in the set of her eyes and the warmth of her hair and the slope of her nose. She’s real. She’s him. Genetically. It’s hard to look away—to stop searching for proof in every familiar feature.
The way reader is in awe. This description is captivating. I think she does love Charlotte already. It’s hard not to since she loves Spencer and this is his kid. But the guilt over everything is making her scared of admitting that to herself.
Gosh the way she keeps trying to find proof of the boy she loves in his daughter is beautiful and heartbreaking
“Do you even have a TV?”
Reader is so funny 😂 and good question
“It’s in daddy’s room,” she says, rocking back and forth on her little feet, gripping the edge of the couch for support. “Sometimes when I’m sad we watch movies and TV in there and he lets me sleep in his bed. Even though it’s bad sleep hygiene. Because of blue light.”
Spencer the technophobe got a TV for his daughter 😭 and he lets her watch movies and TV when she’s sad even tho it’s “bad sleep hygiene” awww Charlotte is so smart
I love the way you show how being a father kind of changed Spencer in certain ways.
It must be so jarring for reader. She constantly has to remind herself that this isn’t the 28 year old version of him anymore. Brings me back to this line
He’s not just a clueless, bereaved 28 year old holding a wailing baby anymore. He’s actually a father.
it’s unfair now he’s a pretty 33 year old father
“I see,” you nod, pulling your knees to your chest against the slight chill and eyeing the fireplace desirously. “Are you sad right now?”
I sense foreshadowing. I sense that Spencer might kiss us in front of the fireplace sometime hehe
I won’t be disappointed if that never happens I just like to dream 🤣
Despite being born of borderline Shakespearean tragedy—despite Spencer’s ominous warning about temper tantrums—she seems like a perfectly happy, outgoing little girl.
Spencer and Charlotte both experienced tragedies but at least they have each other. You made Charlotte so endearing.
She shakes her head emphatically, and climbs onto the couch, shuffling toward you on her knees. “No. I just wanted to show you Scooby Doo.”
Aww 😂
Charlotte tugs down her pajama shirt so the little shooting stars and planets on it stretch into oblong blobs and kneels next to you. Her little milk teeth are perfect pearly white as she smiles shyly, and she definitely has her dad’s eyes—huge, rich brown, you-can’t-say-no-to-me eyes.
The way I can feel the love pouring from reader’s thoughts when she describes Charlotte and her similarities with Spencer 🩷 the way she can’t stop marveling at seeing his eyes in his daughter
“Why are you hugging yourself?”
She still has her chirpy little sing-song baby voice. It’s absurdly cute.
I love this description. You have this way of completely immersing the reader in your fics. It’s like I can hear Charlotte’s cute voice.
“Don’t move,” she orders, and just like that she’s back up, running across cushions to the other side of the couch (you probably shouldn’t let her do that) and kneeling again, fussily choosing from the stacked pile of blankets at the corner of the sectional. “Fluffy or yarn?”
You are so freaking good at writing kids.
“Definitely fluffy.”
“Definitely,” she agrees happily in her sweet musical way, like she loves the sound of the word. “Definitely, definitely.”
How is it possible that I love Charlotte even more after rereading? 😭 She’s so cute!
That’s it. Reader needs to marry Spencer and become Charlotte’s stepmother as soon as possible! I know this is a slow burn but a girl can dream 😂
A moment later she’s successfully unfolded all the blankets in order to grab the on at the very bottom of the pile—a big cream-colored one—and drags it back over to you, making a show of tossing and pulling and patting and smoothing till you’re completely tucked in up to your shoulders.
This is so freaking adorable. I feel like she learned how to tuck in someone from Spencer 🥺
“There. You can sleep here tonight.”
“Oh, you know—I don’t think we’re having a sleepover, Charlotte.”
She looks crestfallen, but hides it well, squishing a babyish cheek against the couch cushion next to you and picking at its seam.
“Well… why not?”
Oh… Charlotte! 🥹🥺 I’m moving in tonight.
I rlly hope there will be a sleepover in the future.
“No. I see him all the time. I want to keep playing with you.”
I love how you can see Spencer’s behavior showing up in his daughter. It’s so sweet
Your heart swells. She’s got the same earnest sweetness as her father, and is well on her way to having just as much attitude.
The way reader’s heart swells? Same. The way she does such a motherly gesture. The parallel with Spencer’s fatherly gesture earlier?
Carefully you untuck your hand from the blanket and brush her braid over her shoulder.
He smooths her braids and you realize he must’ve done them himself.
These two are Charlotte’s parents 😭
“That’s sweet, Charlotte. I’m having fun too. Maybe we can hang out again sometime.”
I hope Charlotte holds her to that lol
She takes the little act of affection as an invitation to plop down next to you and lean into your shoulder. For a split second you freeze—but you snap out of it and offer her a corner of the blanket. She takes it until you’re both warm and cozy and tucked in.
She thinks this is a little act of affection but to Charlotte it must mean so much. This baby needs a mother 🥹
I’m adopting her
Btw this image of them huddling together is so warm and sweet.
I love the way you show reader’s guilt even in subtle ways like her freezing for a split second because she feels like she shouldn’t be here
Makes sense. There’d be no reason to talk about you.
Ouch. I love how you write reader’s POV tbh I see she’s more negative in the present after all that trauma
She thinks Spencer wouldn’t want to talk about her. Rereading is making me realize tho that maybe he did want to talk about her. The reason he didn’t bring her up is cause he knew that Charlotte would want to meet her.
He didn’t want to make reader uncomfortable. He was waiting for reader to make the first move.
He does care about our feelings. He does think about us 🥲
You don’t mention that the office had never been more somber than it was that day—not even when Haley died. That when you look back on the memories, they’re devoid of color or sound, aside from Charlotte’s screaming. It was too soon to bring her in, but where else could he go? Where else could he possibly take her?
This scene is absolutely haunting and tragic. I wonder if witnessing this partly pushed reader to eventually leave so suddenly without saying goodbye.
The way Haley’s dark death is referenced and the foreshadowing for Maeve’s.
“Did you know my mom?”
Oh Charlotte. it’s so natural for her to be curious about Maeve.
Your blood flash-freezes for a moment as you’re pulled out of the memory with a bucket of ice water to the face. You’re not quite sure how to answer without opening Pandora’s box.
I love this part. It’s chilling. The mere mention of Maeve is traumatic. Another reminder that Maeve is and always will be Charlotte’s mother.
You turn slightly, sitting up a little straighter and dropping the blanket, suddenly hyper-conscious of how you might look too comfortable on his couch, or too familiar with his daughter.
Oh gosh the way she feels so much guilt is heartbreaking she’s so afraid of overstepping and seeming too familiar
The smile that blossoms on your own face is completely unconscious as you watch them—the way she scrambles off the couch and runs as fast as her tiny feet will carry her around it, immediately glomming onto his leg just like she’d done before he left.
This is so sweet. Reader genuinely smiling is beautiful. Charlotte’s excitement is cute. It’s like getting a glimpse of an alternate universe if everything was different. If reader was Charlotte’s mom or stepmother already and they get to be excited when Spencer comes home
“Oh, my girl,” he half-grunts, half laughs at the impact, sliding a still-dripping umbrella into the holder by the door before dropping to her level and pulling his daughter into a hug. Immediately you note the exhaustion whittling cracks in his voice and carving itself under his eyes. Like whatever he’d been out doing hadn’t gone so well. “Missed you. Were you good while I was gone?”
I’m gonna be a bit delulu again and pretend the date didn’t go so well because he couldn’t stop talking about reader or Charlotte or both
The way he’s exhausted but always has time to show love for his daughter is heartwarming
“Definitely,” she says. His brows dart up.
I love that she keeps repeating a word that reader used.
Spencer’s eyes slide to you, full of wry humor despite his lack of energy like he’s waiting for your corroboration. Charlotte doesn’t give you the chance to speak, and his eyes immediately flash back to her. It’s for the best—he hasn’t looked at you with that much ease in years. You wouldn’t have known what to say.
I love how this lighthearted scene turned tragic in 2 seconds. He hasn’t looked at her with ease in years 😭
makes me go back to this line One more moment, he spares—one moment for you to watch the disdain turning to stone in his eyes. Cold in a way he’s never looked at you before.
That argument made him look at her differently that’s so sad
She leans farther into her father’s hold and looks over to you. “Guess what? She said we could have a sleepover tonight.”
Yes, we are! 🤣 I love how mischievous she is
“Sometimes Charlie Mae remembers things how she wants to remember them and not necessarily how they actually happened, huh?”
Spencer being a smart father is so sweet and hot. Have I been calling him hot too many times?
Gotta love the foreshadowing with Charlotte’s name too. The fact that Mae can be a shortened version of Maeve. Charlotte is like such a cute name that totally fits a child of Spencer Reid. The nickname Charlie too. And Mae? Yeah the Maeve references are traumatic but Mae does sound sweet and innocent. The name just flows so sweetly.
“Okay, Homo sapien-sapien bipedal girl.”
Okay this and lovebug is so freaking cute.
Both of you watch her through the fluted railing until she disappears, and you feel only a little slighted that she didn’t say goodbye.
I love this foreshadowing since I believe in the next part Spencer does tell reader she felt bad about not saying goodbye. Aww
“Bruce Springsteen,” Spencer mutters incredulously, still crouching.
Charlotte’s mix up was so adorable.
After a beat you realize he has nothing more to say. That he’s standing, hands pocketed, studying you from the other side of the couch. With Charlotte gone, the room feels darker. The air feels thicker. Thrumming.
It’s almost like he’s waiting to see what else you do.
Unabashedly, he’s watching.
The image of Spencer watching us without shame is so hot
You hum, wrapping your arms around yourself. Spencer’s eyes dart down to note the action. You wonder if he’s only just now noticing the casual attire—a thin sweater too light for the season. Too casual for work. You tug it down over your waistband.
I continue to be slightly delulu and pretend he’s checking us out. That sweater better haunt his dreams as much as guilt haunts reader.
“I’ve… been avoiding it. She homeschools anyway, so we adjust the curriculum based on what she’s ready for.”
Oh. Oh. Oh. This is another great example of Spencer being such a good father. He doesn’t want the IQ obsession to define Charlotte’s childhood like it did for him. He wants her to be happy and carefree still.
“It does. They adore her.”
“Yeah. Not hard to understand why.”
Reader probably thinking it’s easy to adore Charlotte because of an earlier line like this She’s got the same earnest sweetness as her father
She thinks Spencer has an earnest sweetness but she’s too afraid to say it out loud oh my girl I feel her underlying feelings in this line
You act like you don’t suddenly have a million questions about the nature of his relationship with Charlotte’s grandparents.
I’m curious too. Sorta seems like there’s something ominous about his relationship with Charlotte’s grandparents.
Makes me go back to these lines It was too soon to bring her in, but where else could he go? Where else could he possibly take her?
It looks like the grandparents maybe weren’t willing to help in the very beginning after Charlotte was born? And that’s why reader is so surprised that they’re so helpful now 🤔
Rain lashes the window hard and draws you both from some mutual dreamland. Spencer is regarding you with the beginnings of that same contemplative look on his face.
I wonder what’s he thinking about. Hopefully he thinks we look like his future wife or something lolol
realistically he’s probably thinking about the past or maybe he’s wondering what reader is thinking about.
Spencer gives a dramatic berth as you pass him into the entryway to put your jacket on, watching as you pull on your boots. The smell of dark rain and something smokier follows as he reaches around you. Beneath it is the same detergent and shampoo he’d always smelled like. It’s distracting as you mindlessly accept whatever he’s now holding out to you. Smooth. Tortoise shell. The handle of his umbrella.
After rereading I’m noticing he’s actually taking his sweet time with reader. Charlotte is waiting for him upstairs and yet he’s more focused on watching reader’s every move and making sure she gets his umbrella.
I choose to see this as him being totally in love with us 😌
The way she notices he smells the same. The way she’s distracted cause she keeps finding hints of her Spencer still existing.
“Oh, thanks! I’ll—I can bring it to work tomorrow. To give back.”
I forgot but I don’t think she gives it back tomorrow 👀 interesting very interesting hehe
Why can’t you move? Why are you glued to the spot, watching him watch you?
I love how they can’t stop watching each other the chemistryyy
You balk and attempt to shake it off. Lifesaver.
I have a theory that she might have witnessed Maeve’s death. Why else would she dream about her? Why else would she get so distraught when Spencer calls her a “lifesaver” 🫢
For a fraction of a second, so quick it’s disorienting—you feel more home than you have in years. Like the two timelines you’ve been straddling have briefly synced up. His eyes are exactly the same as they’ve always been, and there is a flash of intimacy that does not belong to you.
A flash of intimacy that does not belong to—
Oh the angst. The angst. The angst. this situation is as messy as a soap opera I can’t look away from.
Despite the guilt she feels, reader briefly feels at home with Spencer.
For a second she can pretend he’s still her best friend she thought was waiting for her 😭
Then, years in the future, a little voice from upstairs is hollering, “Daddy!”
Charlotte as usual still cute but gosh I love how this innocent scene is angsty too. A reminder for reader that Spencer is still a father raising his daughter from another woman. Reader can’t pretend that they’re still in the past before Charlotte, before Maeve because the future is interrupting.
“That she is. I’m glad you got to meet her, again.”
You swallow a thorn and try not to think about how his voice softens.
Spencer with his sweet earnest nature and still oblivious that innocent words like this make reader feel so guilty. Swallow a thorn? So poetic teach me your ways.
About what you did to them.
This line scares me because I have to prepare myself for the flashback that will probably show up someday.
“Are you sure? You can wait in here for a little while. It’s a rainband, it won’t last.”
Initially I was like oh he’s offering for her to stay because he’s a caring person but I think this also works as an excuse for him wanting the chance to spend just a bit more time with her.
Reader believes she doesn’t deserve his time but Spencer wants to give her his time.
He nods again, taking another distrusting look at the conditions of the road behind you. “Drive safe, okay?”
The way he keeps showing he does care about reader. He does think about her.
For a moment you fumble with your keys, but after a few embarrassing seconds (you know Spencer is waiting to close the door until you’re safely in your car) you manage to climb in, closing the umbrella and shaking it out before tossing it in the passenger’s seat and shutting your door against the deluge.
I love the realism tbh like fumbling with the keys and feeling embarrassed
The wheel goes slick under your clammy, white-knuckle grip as your eyes close and you take several deep breaths, trying to fight the roiling of your stomach.
The way you describe anxiety/guilt is so real
When you open your eyes again, Spencer is gone. The front door is closed, but the windows are still the warmest on the block.
The warmest ohhhh sweetheart deserves his warmth
You put the car in reverse.
I know it’s a line to end a beautiful scene but gosh the word “reverse” makes me think about how reader probably wishes she could reverse time 😭
By the time you get back to your apartment, any semblance of joy or redemption from your time with Charlotte has shed like an old skin—curdling in the stale air as you lean hard against the door to close it behind you. It squeaks against the floor and you wrestle with the lock in the dark. That sickly malaise of having woken up in your early twenties is worse than usual tonight, as you turn to face the big empty living room. Maybe that’s what you get for choosing to live in the same building you’d moved out of five years prior.
Now, your kick off your boots and don’t bother turning the light on before making your way to sit in front of one of them, cracking it a few inches open to let the cold breeze keep you company.
I feel how tired and sad and lonely she is just from reading these poetic paragraphs. Well done. The way this part implies how she must feel even more overwhelmed with the distance and differences between her and Spencer.
Spencer moved out of his place and lives in a better place. She’s living in the same place she lived before.
Spencer lives with his child and is surrounded by warmth and light. She lives alone with the cold breeze as her only company.
She thinks she deserves to be alone in the dark and cold 😭 she thinks she doesn’t deserve redemption and joy she experienced
Oh honey you do deserve it!
When you were twenty-two you chose it for its charm. You had a comfortable income. The excitement of being an adult hadn’t worn off yet. Making coffee in the morning still felt like playing house. When you’d toured the unit, you thought the parquet flooring and the lofted ceilings were so elegant, and the big paneled windows with their sliding sashes were romantic. Only after you moved in did you realize they were painted shut—so you took a razor and some acetone and fought for several hours to get them open. It was the first thing you did when you moved back in.
I feel sorry for reader’s loss of young adult optimism. The way you show how her younger self acted in the past in a memory like this is beautiful.
But there’s still hope! She did kind of find that young adult joy again even if it was only temporarily when she was at Spencer’s house which is fitting actually because he’s her home.
Your stomach turns. A familiar breeze hits your cheek. It smells like the city—gas and rain and asphalt and fried food and a hint of green, of life, that you’d realized long ago wasn’t ever really out there.
Oh this is beautiful and sad. She can’t catch a break
If only you’d realized an ex-smoker can’t have just one cigarette. An addict can never be casual about their vices. Can never stop wanting.
My hopeless romantic side is back. Reader and Spencer are both ex addicts 👀 a line like “can never stop wanting” can be foreshadowing hehe
Reader and Spencer can never stop wanting each other
If only you’d realized keeping promises made to a dead woman is a lot harder than keeping promises made to a living one.
Because Maeve Donovan isn’t ever letting you out of your end of the deal.
These ending lines? Iconic. I got chills the first time I read them and I still do.
I’m wondering what the promise was. I forgot if that has been already been revealed in any of the published parts so far *claps* thank you for such a captivating beginning
the parallel that reader left Spencer when he was 28 and now she’s back when she’s 28. this series is poetry
This series is like a fun puzzle I’m trying to complete 🦋🦋🦋
“The fact that 3449 is Charlotte’s initials!? 3449= CMDR I’m in awe, I love your dedication I love ur world building” YASSSSS I forgot abt that detail honestly kinda forgot about this series but holy shit I always appreciate an annotation and this one is so detailed😭😭 thank you so much for taking time out of your day to do this I am sending u so much love and so so many kisses!!!
Aww you’re welcome!!! Ty for the love hehe I’m glad you appreciate it! It was rlly fun :) I’d love to annotate the other parts too when I have free time
Sending you so much love back! 💕💕💕