The pain was overbearing. The amount of time I've been spending on this single idea has corrupted my entire being into despair and depravity. And the worst part, Spencer and the team aren't even here to help me through it.
I'd found the book. It's not like he was hiding it or anything, but damn it still hurt. I had seen him reading it that last few days before he left, how he flew through the pages even faster than he normally does. It wasn't until I picked up the book one night after he had passed out on the couch did I finally realize why he was reading it so quickly.
It was from another woman. There was no name other than the author of the handwritten quote on the inside cover, but I knew. His scent wafted off of the pages, but there was something else there. Something floral and feminine that wasn't my own perfume. There was another woman in my boyfriend's life, and she was doing a damn good job of keeping him to herself.
I went to search for it again the morning he left, but found it gone. The idea that he took this single book with him on a case was eating away at my mind. He never takes the books I've gotten for him to work. He doesn't even bring them back to his house. He just leaves them here…He's never even read them over again, let alone as fast as he does hers. What's so special about her? My mind grumbles throughout the remainder of the case Spencer and his team were working on.
I attempted to get some work done, but nothing flowed through me besides anger and pain. How am I supposed to write a love story when all I can think about is some other woman winning the heart of my boyfriend? It's just not possible!
By the time my stomach growls for dinner on Friday night, I've given into the pain and began dialing.
"Talk to me, baby, and make it sweet."
"Penny. It's me…"
"Annie? You're not supposed to call me when I'm at work! I have to keep this line open, so this better be an emergency," the perky technical analyst chirps. I can hear the clacking of her keyboard as she whips through whatever database she's infiltrated for her information.
"Has Spencer been acting weird lately?" Silence fills the phone. Penelope Garcia is never silent. "What?"
"He wasn't calling you?" she whimpered.
"Call me? Penny, he barely talks to me when he's here!"
"He asked me for the closest pay phone…I just assumed…"
"Oh, God!" I whimper. I lean against my couch to keep steady with my free hand climbing up to cover my mouth. I bite back tears and squeeze my eyes shut. This isn't happening. Spencer wouldn't…
"Don't cry, kitten! I'll…I'll talk to him! When they come back, I'll talk some sense into him!" Garcia proclaims, sniffling lightly on the other end. "Oh…oh I hate to leave you like this, but Hotch is calling. I promise, the second he walks in the door I'm going to go mama-bear all over him! Please, please, please be okay!"
"Okay," I breathe and then the phone disconnects.
Spencer's POV
"Hey, mama. Come out of your bat cave to play?" Derek jokes as we walk into the bullpen. Garcia is standing in the middle of the room with her arms crossed over her chest and a fierce look in her eye.
"Came out to get some answers!" she retorts, glaring in my direction. "I got a call today. Guess who is was?" Everyone starts calling out names, none of which Garcia replies to. She just stares hard at me until it clicks in my head just who she's talking about.
"Uh…can we talk? In private?" I ask.
"Oh, we're gonna talk all right!" she shouts, snatching my hand and dragging me into her office with the team calling after us the entire way.
"Do you have any idea how hurt she is right now?" she scolds after slamming her door shut.
I don't answer.
"You called another woman, didn't you? When you asked for a payphone? You weren't calling your girlfriend who's at home, worrying about you and your relationship of three years! No, you were out calling some other woman! Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"
"I called her because I needed help on the case," I attempt to defend.
"Who is she?"
"She's helping me with my headaches…"
"So why can't you call her from your cell? Hmm? Why a payphone? Why didn't you just ask me to call her so you could all talk to this magical headache specialist? Why are you hiding her?"
"I…can't tell you. No one is supposed to know about us."
"So you are seeing another woman!"
"Okay, yes! I'm talking to another woman!"
Garcia taps her foot. "Just talking?" she asks, her eyebrow raising.
"I guess you could say we've been dating, but I've never met her before…" My eyes travel to the ground. I know that cheating is wrong. But everything about Maeve feels right. No matter how many times I look at Annie, I can't help but think about Maeve. Penelope growls. "What am I supposed to do? I love her, but I don't want to hurt Annie…"
"You are so beyond that right now!" Penelope shouts. "You go over to her house right now and you tell her exactly what's been going on," she warns, stepping closer with each word until her red nail is an inch from my nose. "And I'm going to be right outside to make sure you do it."
"Why?"
"Because someone's going to need to clean up your mess," Penelope huffs. She turns on her heel and stalks out of her office.
When I return to the bullpen, Derek and JJ turn to me. "What was that all about?" JJ asks.
I ignore the question. "Morgan, how do you break up with someone without hurting them?"
Derek shakes his head with a scoff. "You don't."
Annie POV
I grab another Kleenex from the side table and dab at the stray tears leaking from my eye. "What are we going to do?" I whisper just as the door creaks open. I turn on the couch to find Spencer closing the front door behind him, his go-bag in one hand and his keys in the other.
"Hey," he sighs when he looks up and sees me.
"Hi," I sniffle back, wiping yet another tear from under my eyes. "So…uh…I'm sorry if Penny was too harsh…"
Spencer shakes his head. "She told me what I needed to hear. And she helped me see how horribly I've been treating you since I met…her."
I let go of a breath I didn't realize I was holding and smile softly at him. I stand from the couch and drop the blanket from my shoulders. "I'm just glad your back and we can talk about this."
Spencer shuffles his feet and strides into my bedroom, keeping his gaze to the floor. "I can't really say much…"
I trail behind him. "Well I'm not asking for the gory details. I just want to be able to work through this. I mean, three years is a long time to be with someone and I don't want to see it all go to waste because of…" I stop midsentence when I see Spencer going into my dresser and removing clothes. His clothes. "What are you…?" I swallow hard, slowly piecing together the sight before me.
"I'm sorry Annie," Spencer mumbles as he zips up his now stuffed go-bag.
My heart quivers once, then shatters completely in my chest. "You…you're choosing her?" I squeak. Spencer stands in front of me, not meeting my gaze. I can feel everything inside being smashed. My brain goes fuzzy and my hands start to shake again. Spencer takes a step forward, either towards me or towards the door I'm blocking. I snatch his sleeve just as he's about to pass. "Please…please, don't do this…I love you…" I choke out. My vision is blurring from the tears streaming down my face. I vaguely hear him whisper some sort of response, but nothing registers besides the feel of his cool fingers lifting mine away from his shirt, away from him.
I'm frozen into place. I can't react to his voice, his touch, the sound of his shoes on my floor. I know the door opens and closes at some point, but I don't hear either of these sounds I've come to know. When I finally stumble from my room, I find a key sitting on my counter along with a small post-it note. With nervous hands and blurry eyes, I pick up the note and run my fingertips over the scribbled writing.
I'll always remember you.
Little blips of water sprinkle the tiny note. This time, I hear the door open and close, but the person behind it isn't the one I want to see.
"Kitten, I'm so sorry…" Penelope murmurs, pulling me into her arms. The feel of arms on my back and the knowledge that they don't belong to the man I love forces me to snap into a million different pieces. All experiencing the pain in a new way. Each a piece of torture that is only subdued after hours of tears, screams, and finally, darkness.
The next week was a blur. The closest I got to leaving the apartment was answering the door to let Penelope in with more tissues and treats. I replay every interaction Spencer and I shared, torturing myself to the point of infinite pain radiating off of me. I didn't dare look at my phone for fear of finding a message from him, asking if I was okay or if I wanted to see him or something that would break me apart even more. I didn't sleep much because his image was etched into my eyelids, burned into my brain. Everywhere I turned, there he was with his handsome face and soft brown eyes. Every moment was spent pining for him to come back, no matter how much I knew it wasn't going to happen.
Until it did. Just not in the way I expected it to.
It was a week and some odd days later when Penelope called me in a panic.
"Slow down, I can't understand you!" I say with the smallest form of a smile curling onto my lips.
"I know this is cruel to you, but Annie I think you're the only one who can do it! Maeve was taken by her stalker and Spencer's been going insane trying to find her and he went to the stalker's apartment and he started talking crazy that he was going to give himself over to save Maeve and you've got to talk some sense into him you just have to! He's going to get himself killed down there if we don't-if you don't do something!" Penelope rambles into the phone, her panic rising with each passing word.
"He won't listen to me Penny…he chose her remember? What am I supposed to do?"
"He spent three years of his life with you. That's not nothing! You know I wouldn't ask you to do this if there was some other way, but I can't think of anything else!"
I bite my lip and squeeze my eyes shut. "I don't know…I…I don't know if I can handle…" I can feel myself slipping back down into the abyss when a male voice comes across the line.
"Annie, I believe you can do it. We need someone who can go down there and distract the stalker long enough so we can figure out what to do. She doesn't know you, so we need you to throw her off."
"Who's that? Where are you?" I demand.
"My name is Aaron Hotchner and we need you, Annie. Please help us."
I remain silent for another moment. "Okay. I'll help…" I murmur.
"Thank you kitten! Morgan will be there any minute to pick you up!" Penelope chirps.
"What?" I cry, turning to the sound of heavy boots thumping up the stairs.
Spencer POV
"The federal government doesn't make deals with people like me."
"Not true. Nazi scientists were recruited for the Manhattan Project. Mafia bosses are regularly put into witness protection. If what you have is valuable enough, the federal government will work with you. And what you have is very valuable."
"And what do I have, doctor?"
"You have a brain that doesn't play by normal societal rules. And I know that all your life the people you care about the most keep leaving. There's a part of you that thinks it's because of that brain. Well, I'm here because I'm not going to leave you. I'm here because…I just hope that I get the chance."
"Chance at what?"
"To be with you."
"Don't believe him for one second, Diane."
I can hear the gun cocking in front of me and someone entering the room. "Who are you? How'd you get in here?" Diane asks.
"You don't know him like I do, Diane. Believe me, he's not worth your time. He's lying straight to your face."
I can hear Diane struggling for words. Soft footsteps pad across the floor behind me, the barrel of a gun pressing into the back of my neck. The blindfold falls from my eyes.
"What do you think Spencer? She prettier than me? Huh? Is she the complete package? She better than me? Better than Diane? I could forgive you if you'd left me for Diane, but for her? What does she have that I don't or Diane doesn't a thousand times over?" Annie asks, her hair brushing my ears as she bends down beside me.
"Who are you?" Diane asks again, frustration building in her voice.
"Why don't you tell them who I am, Spencer? Tell them who I am to you and what you did to me." Diane's eyes shift between me and Annie. She begins to back away towards Maeve. I avert my eyes, guilt building inside me. "Tell. Them," Annie demands through clenched teeth, the barrel of her gun pressing harder against my neck.
"She's my ex-girlfriend. I cheated on her with Maeve…" I murmur, hanging my head down and clenching my eyes closed. Annie's fingers slip into my hair and yank my head back up.
"You don't deserve to close your eyes. You don't deserve to avoid the guilt," she growls in my ear.
Diane shakes her head. "You lied to me…" she cries.
"He lied to me and he lied to you. Because of her, Diane. They've stripped us of our happiness. They've brought us up only to shove us back down into the depths of our own broken souls." Annie's fingers pull on my hair with each word. "They can't possibly know what true pain is like. Not like we know it. They don't know what it's like to have the one thing you love the most walk away from you. They don't know what it's like to wonder what you did wrong. They can't possibly understand how much pain goes into running through every single possible thing that you could have done wrong that drove them away. They don't know, Diane!" Annie shouts. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see tears streaming down her face.
"Annie…I'm sorry…" I choke out.
"But I know what it's like, Diane. I'm willing to stand beside you because I know exactly what needs to be done, and I know you do too."
Diane nods, tears pricking her eyes. She wipes away the drops and stands beside Maeve. "I wish we'd met sooner," she smiles.
"I wish we didn't have to meet under such terrible circumstances."
The gun at my neck pulls away for a moment only to return at my temple. Annie's left arm is around the back of my chair, her hand clenching the metal behind my shoulder. "You don't have to do this…We can work something out!"
"It's too late for that…"
"On three, okay?" Diana asks, pressing her gun to Maeve's temple. Maeve's eyes cloud with tears. She calls my name and the sound is like a stake running straight through my chest knowing I can't do anything to save her. "One…tw-"
BANG!
The flashing blue and red lights fill the dark, empty street. The sheer number of people milling around astonishes me. I can see Reid and Maeve standing off from the entranceway, huddled together with large doe eyes trained on Diane and me.
"She's got a deep gash from the bullet, but she'll be fine. I think she's more shocked than anything else. I'll go tell Agent Hotchner and then we'll be on our way," the paramedic tells me after packing the wounded woman into the ambulance.
I nod and pull the blanket tighter around me. I wander away from the noise and the bustling agents, leaning against a busted lamp pole. I take a deep breath in to calm my tears down, hoping the oxygen will quell the harsh aching in my chest.
"Um…Annie?" I look up to see Maeve standing in front of me. Spencer stands a little further away, watching our interaction. "I just wanted to thank you for what you did. And I wanted to apologize for what I did…we did behind your back."
I nod and glance down at the concrete. "Thanks…"
I watch Maeve shuffle away in the direction of my ex-boyfriend. I stare as he curls his arm around her and the pair walk back towards the circle of black SUVs. I swallow back the tears beginning to seep into my eyes and lean my head back against the pole.
"What you did out there was really brave. You had the opportunity to take out your rage towards him and yet you still shot the woman who you obviously resonated with on a personal level," Morgan states, emerging from the darkness at my side.
"It wouldn't have mattered what I did to him or her. He made his choice. If Maeve was killed, he wouldn't come back to me. If anything, it'd push him further away from me. I figured one of us deserves to be happy," I say, a sad smile creeping onto my face.
Even though I watched him walk away with another woman, even though I saw them kiss for the first time after I shot Diane, even though I saw the pure happiness on his face when Maeve ran to him as I ran to Diane, I still loved Spencer. I knew the feeling wouldn't go away for a while, but I was okay with that. I was content with the idea that he was happy, so I knew I would be able to find happiness somewhere too. And that was the difference between me and Diane. We were both pushed down into extreme despair, screaming for a way to get out. She never let go of the thing she loved after it decided to go. Somehow, I did.
"You'll be okay."
I nod. "I know."