He had a photo of her on his desk, one of the many he'd snapped on a rare lazy afternoon in the park a few years ago. The sun was setting behind her, illuminating her in a halo of golden light, flaxen hair bright and a wide smile gracing her lips, green eyes crinkled with laughter at some long forgotten joke.
It was how he'd vowed to remember her.
Hayley had always been his fair twin; she was sweetness and light, the brilliant flame to which he'd been almost preternaturally drawn the first time he'd ever seen her.
He was… darkness, cynicism lurking beneath the surface, all hard angles and sharp, masculine planes in an interesting dichotomy to her softness. She made him smile, not the ironic half-grimace characterizing much of his amusement since before he could remember, but the honest, slightly astonished grin of a happy man.
She made him smile, he made her think.
They were polar opposites, and so were they magnetically drawn, as it had always been for them both.
Yes, this was how he'd remember her-
Because his darkness, his natural instinct to protect anyone and everyone he could brought to the surface her rarely seen bitterness, and her light, her willingness to trust, would invariably make him bristle inside at her naiveté, even as he fought tooth and nail to preserve it.
She needed his physical presence, and he needed her support. He needed her to reassure him that there was at least one person that these monsters hadn't touched. That she understood he was fighting for her and Jack with every unsub his team identified.
He needed to remain the protector, she needed companionship. A confidant. Someone who was there.
She was the purity and brilliance which grounded him after swimming in the sea of blood that was a sadistic murder's mind, she saved him from the granite stoicism he had to employ in the face of the most horrendous degradation.
Unfortunately, neither of them could have ever foreseen that the light would begin to flicker, smothered in consuming darkness as it cradled her in safety.
She couldn't do it anymore, and, now, he wondered if the feeling wasn't mutual.
He put the photograph in his desk drawer and slid it shut. The metallic clang had resounding, tearing finality. He picked up his pen.