Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own Criminal Minds or anything else copyrighted herein. Homage, no $$$ made.
She lets him call her from home now. Given everything that happened and how scared she's been for the past year, he can't quite believe she trusts him that much.
We're showing up on each other's cell phones after you called to, er, cancel the meeting, anyway, she explained (once she could get a word in after he spent about fifteen minutes apologizing profusely for scaring her).
I could use disposable ones if you're still worried -
NO. Her voice was so surprisingly vehement that he stopped fidgeting entirely. How long is...this...gonna ruin things for me? For us? It was supposed to be a great night for us, Spencer, and -
She cried a little, then, and he was glad he was at home and not in the grimy phone booth because here he could pace up and down the living room and curl and flap his free hand and try to stutter out something, anything, that might make her feel better.
Eventually, they're both able to laugh, shakily, over giving each other the same book.
(He doesn't tell her how he got up from that table, intending to confront the guy he was so sure was the stalker, how he would have used every dirty fighting trick he ever learned from Morgan or Hotch or the bullies back in high school. How he'd wished for his gun. She knows he's killed two people, how it still bothers him even though it was self-defense, but for her to know that he would have done it again for her sake is probably Too Much for her right now. Maybe Too Much, ever.)
(He doesn't tell her, either, about booking thrice-weekly practice sessions at the shooting range, or about the small, sleek, more easily concealable new gun he bought the week after the false alarm. Just in case.)
Now they talk Wednesday and Friday nights, as well as Sunday. He likes to already be in bed, rolled tightly in the heavy old comforter and the lights dim, when she calls. He won't tell her, because he's afraid it might sound a little creepy, but he likes to imagine she's there, curled up around him from behind and talking in his ear in person.
She's reading Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World this week, nonfiction for a change of pace. He listens to her discuss some fine points of the invention of scuba diving even though it makes him feel claustrophobic. When she gets to a story about an especially horrible accident with one of the old diving helmet suits with the hoses, and he realizes right before she says it exactly what happened to the poor guy in it, he has to cut her off.
Sorry, she says sheepishly.
It's okay, he tells her. It's just...freaky. Triggering.
Sometimes I forget - you've seen things just as bad as that in person, with your work. Her voice has gone soft. He knows it's her thoughtful tone.
It's not that. I - I mean, I have - ergh, why did his voice have to start getting high and swoopy-toned? It's that I really don't like the ocean. I mean, the things IN it are fascinating, I just don't like being in it in person. Or near it.
Any specific reason why?
Well, sand itches, and it's loud and wet and full of bacteria and there's lots of things in it that can eat you. Other than that...
Well, you grew up in the desert.
He rolls over, so he's staring at the lumpy expanse of popcorn ceiling above. Yeah. Las Vegas isn't all casinos and showgirls. It's different once you get out of the city. Just the plant diversity alone, all these species that live with practically no water, and cacti that only flower at night just to attract certain types of bats, and the stargazing is amazing - I'm infodumping, sorry.
Never apologize for that. She sounds wistful now. I've never seen a desert.
I could take you, he blurts out, and then tries to amend: If you want...once things are, you know, resolved...we could go camping or something...
He's pretty sure her pause before replying is one of surprise and not doubt. Yes. I'd like that.
He's slowly smiling, that big loopy grin only she gets out of him, when she adds: We have to actually manage meeting in person before then, though.
You're right. He takes a deep breath, then asks, waveringly: Why don't you just come over here?
Are you sure that's safe?
It's not exposed like being in public. Besides, I've got my gun here. We could work out a night sometime soon, a few hours. If you feel okay about it.
She's suddenly quiet, for too long, and he's about to apologize when: Let's. I can take the subway over. Let me know when's a good night, I know your work schedule gets wonky.
His vocabulary seldom fails him, but it does now. He can only get one word out. Sure.
She signs off not long after, since it's after 11 and tomorrow's a workday, but he can't sleep, or concentrate on the Doyle book either.
(Maeve, here in his apartment. In his apartment. Them, comfortable on the couch, talking about books, ordering in pizza, watching DVDs - she'd mentioned being interested in seeing Red Dwarf. Maeve here in bed with him, maybe. Not right away, of course, that would be too weird and too forward, but down the line - he'd have to think about how to manage that, if the time came. Squeaking, pulling away, and curling up pillbug-fashion if she accidentally touched him the wrong way probably wouldn't be high on her list of Sexy Things. Oh God, that was actually a possibility in the future, wasn't it? One thing at a time.)
Finally he gets up, goes into the living room, where he can pace and flap to the degree he's never let anyone see since childhood.
He's thinking of the desert, all the things out there he wants to show her.
Thinking, too: Next time I write my mom, I'm telling her about you.