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.
