2015
.
January
They've invaded Emily's flat for a rare holiday, children and all, when the news comes. Maeve isn't as rocked by it as Emily and Spencer are—in fact, she's very much an outsider looking in on their grief, sitting with the children in the living room as Emily and Spencer are there for each other in the kitchen. The few times she looks in, she doesn't know what to do. Her husband is at the kitchen table with his shoulders bowed in grief, head in his hands. She can see his body shaking as he tries to cry silently. Emily sits beside him, her gaze empty and locked on the wall opposite and a glass of some amber-coloured drink in front of her, untouched.
"Mommy, why's Daddy sad?" Sebby asks in a voice that carries, standing by the couch with his new toy Big Ben in his hands and his wide eyes worried. Alanna doesn't seem to even notice anything is wrong, happy alternating between colouring in the picture book Emily gave her and attempting to eat her crayons. Five and three, respectively, Maeve doesn't know how to explain to them that someone Daddy loves is gone.
"Come help me pack your bags," she tells Sebby instead, moving across to pick up Alanna and hold her close. "We're going to have to go home early."
"Wit' Emmy?" Alanna asks.
"Very likely."
And that's how it pans out. Maeve continues being the outsider for that week, Emily flying home with them as the death of a BAU member brings them all back into the fold. She can't help but resent it a little; it's a stark reminder that no matter how far they run from this life, it's always going to catch up to them. If anyone has illustrated that, it's Gideon.
His funeral is quiet and smaller than she'd have expected. Gideon had seemed like the kind of person a lot of people knew, although she guesses that's not the same as being the kind of person a lot of people like. But the team grieves openly, and Rossi is just as distraught as Spencer is.
She wonders what happened to the man who killed Gideon, but knows better than to ask.
And what comes after really isn't that much of a surprise. They're at the reception on a table filled with faces from the past when Spencer quietly ends the wonderful last three years of her life. "I'm thinking of coming back," he says to Hotch without mentioning it to her first. She's not surprised, but she is resigned. They always knew this day would come; she only wishes their children were a little older to lose their dad. "Alanna will be in pre-school this year, it's a good time for it."
And she's wary of how driven to act by grief he is, so she doesn't say anything to him then. Just goes to Emily after and asks her, "Would you go back? To the BAU, after everything you've been through there."
Emily says no, but there's a look in her eyes that Maeve recognises: she thinks that maybe Emily doesn't even know she's lying.
.
February
It's a strange feeling, being back at work when he knows that Gideon will never again walk these halls. Although no part of him had ever really thought that Gideon would return, it turns out that it's still crushing to have the possibility revoked. Everything reminds him of the man: Rossi's office he has to look at twice, the first time seeing walls of birds and a shelf of survivors' photos; his desk is the same one he's always had, the one that Gideon showed him to on the very first day he'd arrived here, so long ago; the conference room filled with the memory of him. He misses him more than ever because he no longer has the comfort of knowing that he's out there somewhere, with his milkshakes and birds and hard-sought-after peace of mind.
During his weapon recertification with Morgan, he asks him: "Am I back too early?" because he's wondering it himself. The way he's haunted by Gideon's ghost, maybe this is a knee-jerk reaction of not wanting his family of choice to slip away while he's busy raising his family at home. It's a greedy impulse by a man who refuses to lose anything that he's worked to gain, even though he'd planned to stay home until Alanna was at school, at least.
"Dunno, man, only you know that," is Morgan's response, lounging on the wall behind him. He's barely even correcting Spencer's stance or aim, and that's gratifying, to realise that three years off the job haven't really dulled his edge—not after a solid month of Hotch retutoring him up to standard. "Do you think you're back too early?
Spencer thinks about that for a moment, right before ceasing to think about it as he focuses on passing this round. Then, he thinks about it some more, while he reloads his gun and sets up a new target.
"No," he says finally, feeling settled in a way he hasn't in a long time. "I'm happy to be back."
Morgan's smile is as wide as it can be, not even widening when Spencer passes his recertification with flying colours. "Damn right you are," he says. "And we're happy to have you. It hasn't been the same without you, doc."
.
March
In March, she gets a startling email from her agent: her book has been accepted for publication. She's very stunned and surprised as hell, and not sure who she wants to share the news with first. It's been a long eight months since she submitted the manuscript and, with everything they've had to organise with Spencer going back to work, it had completely slipped her mind. But there it is, in type 12 Garamond, declaring that soon enough Dr. Maeve Donovan will be a published author and congratulating her on her achievement.
She doesn't tell anyone at work, because what she wants is to see Spencer's face first when she shows him. It's been a dream of hers for as long as she can remember, to have received this email, and he's supported her for over ten years now. Endless nights of editing and re-editing, him over her shoulder giving advice or simply ensuring the kids are fed and quiet so she can focus—no, she's decided: he must be the first she tells.
But when she gets home that night, and the nights following, the kids are all asleep and Spencer's on a case. The nanny she doesn't know well enough to want to tell and she finds herself wandering around the small apartment they've been living their lives in ever since Diane had forced them out of their old one, looking at every book on the shelves and fancying her own up there beside them. She resents, just a little, the empty bed she goes to that night, the email printed out and folded up in her bag waiting to be shown to him when he returns.
He's not back that night, or the next, and their phone calls are harried and tense. The nanny tells Maeve that he calls home every night, before she gets there, and reads his children to sleep. That's comforting and it soothes the resentment, but when he finally returns and she gets home to find him already asleep, she misses who they could have been together if they both weren't so deeply driven by their work.
In the end, though, she can tell he's happier now that he's back with his team, and she can never resent his happiness. The email stays in her bag and, in time, is forgotten.
.
April
He's actually home for most of Easter Sunday, organising with JJ and Hotch to take all the kids out to a park in the centre of their respective homes and have an Easter egg hunt. He's not ashamed to admit that out of all four of their kids plus adults, him and Will appear to be the most excited about the actual chocolate, Maeve having to promise him a bag of his own of the tiny Cadbury eggs so that he stops sneaking away to nab them from the hiding spots before the kids can get them.
It's there that JJ and Will share the news that Spencer already knows—that there's a brother or sister on the way for Henry, another godchild for Spencer and Penelope, and Spencer's never been more excited to add another to their laughing brood of children. Jack is taking his position as oldest seriously, marching Alanna around and making sure she has at least as many eggs in her basket as the boys. Henry and Sebby have teamed up against the other two, with Henry acting as look-out and egg counter while Sebby tries to guess the most likely places their parents would have hidden them. Spencer wonders where a new life will fit between their established groups, but he's not worried. They'll fit in easy, just like the others have, and he knows he's going to love them no matter what.
Besides, one more kid equals far more chances for chocolate robbery.
.
May
In May, she takes the kids to her parents' home. It's a place that's changed slowly over the years, becoming muted, quiet, still. Never a loud place, now the silence is forced and all bound up in the exhaustion visible in her mother's eyes. They're fighters, the Donovans, even if they're not loud about it—Maeve is living proof of this, because she's never let anything difficult in her or her husband's lives push her down—but even the strongest rock can be worn down eventually if the water is relentless enough.
And this cancer is relentless. Maeve knows that Gideon's death will only be the first of many griefs they suffer over the coming years.
But that's not yet. Right now, she's sitting with her mother still alive by her side and Alanna on her lap staring wistfully out the window. They're watching Sebby show off his piano skills with his poppy, although all Alanna wants is to take her ball outside and kick it around.
"Can I go play outside, please?" Alanna is asking over and over, while all Maeve is wondering is who taught Sebby to play the piano so well without her noticing.
"I'll take you, my love, come on," Maeve's dad declares, swooping her off Maeve's knee to general giggling and wiggling. "Seb, play for your nana, there's a sweet lad."
Maeve fiddles with her cell, watching Sebby pluck at the keys thoughtfully, before finally asking the question she's been wondering.
To Spencer: Did you teach Sebby piano?
He's at work, so she's not expecting a fast answer, but an answer she gets: Yeah, he's very good. We were going to surprise you. Are you surprised?
Surprised she is, most definitely, hiding her smile by looking down at her phone.
"Look at that," her mom says suddenly, watching Alanna racing in circles around her poppy. "Looks like you've made a daughter that's the one thing you can't handle."
"What's that?" Maeve asks, startled.
But her mom is smiling, even the tired lines of her face failing to dull the pride there: "She's sporty, love. You've got a little athlete."
Once again, Maeve looks out at her daughter, feeling a thread of trepidation. They can do sports. Right? Spencer's a genius—surely, he's equipped to handle this?
Despite her surety, she decides to break it to him gently.
.
June
He gets back to DC one afternoon from a case and, instead of going straight home like Hotch had told them to, he drives to the graveyard where Gideon is buried. He's not sure why, except that it's been almost six months since he'd died and so much has changed. Spencer's traded lunches and storybooks and online conferencing for jet flights away from his family and late nights barely having time to think about them, and he's happier than he'd been but still not sure he's doing the right thing. Some large part of him, the profiling part, is quick to remind him that's likely because he hasn't faced Gideon's death yet, not really, despite having faced his body.
So he goes to the grave. The problem is, there's someone else already there.
Spencer recognises the man from the funeral. He's never spoken to Gideon's son before, and never even really heard Gideon talk about him, but there's something familiar about him that reminds Spencer that Gideon did once go home to his family at night. It's a jarring thought.
"I know you," says Stephen after a single glance at him. "You're the protegee."
That's uncomfortable. Spencer nods without speaking, self-consciously reaching up to rub at an itch on his neck in the absence of anything else to say. Stephen watches him as he does so, his eyes Gideon-cold with none of the rare warmth. Spencer can tell that this man doesn't like him and, after a beat, he wonders if he can really blame him, while also not quite understanding how Gideon could have caused this. Would he ever replace Sebastian with a protegee linked to his work? Could he do that, if he saw more of himself in a stranger than he did his own son?
He doesn't think so. After all, he's not Gideon.
"You're married, huh?" Stephen asks suddenly, his eyes on Spencer's wedding ring. "Kids?"
Another nod. Spencer focuses on the headstone: Jason Gideon. That's it. Jason Gideon, and the dates of his birth and his death with his entire life distilled to the small dash between them. No devoted father, beloved husband, dearly missed friend.
"Yeah, well." Stephen looks back at the headstone and Spencer realises: he's the one who would have ordered it. Was it spite that made him keep it empty… or was it just that he didn't know the man he was burying? "Good luck. Hope you're not like him."
And then he walks away.
Spencer doesn't stay after that. He turns his back and leaves that place, determined to go home to his family in order to continue proving to himself something he's just realised is integral to who he is: that he's not Jason Gideon, and he never will be.
.
July
A storm blows over them, but they're safe within. The kids are asleep. The windows are open. They're awake, watching the wind and the rain and the crash of the thunder and being thankful that none of their children are frightened by the noise. It's beautiful, really, the way that the purple clouds overhead change the hue of the night, the horrendous July humidity washed away in the downpour. Maeve is under him when it truly reaches them, her eyes wide open to see the way that the flash of lightning directly overhead throws him into stark relief. In that second, she sees every way he's different from the first time they did this, and she sees every way that he's the same. His weight on her is heavier, his hair shorter and curlier, his eyes surrounded by shadows that hadn't been there when they were younger. But inside her he feels just the same, despite her having had two kids since that time and the wry thought that maybe she doesn't feel the same to him anymore, although technically only one of them had used that route. His hands on her are just as gentle, his mouth just as loving, and he's saying all the same sweet things he always has when they're reminded of why they're together.
The storm ends but they don't, and she doesn't regret being tired in the morning to see the sunrise confirm everything she's seen tonight: she's always going to love this man and this life, and their ability to weather every storm, together.
.
August
August is the month of several things happening, all of which they celebrate together, except for one.
The day that Alanna turns four, Sebby starts school. It's tearful for all of them, not the least Spencer, who wakes up extra early just so he can cheer his son on before leaving for work. Sebby's backpack is almost bigger than he is, standing nervously by the door in his brand-new uniform as Spencer takes endless photos on his smartphone.
"Maeve, help me text these to JJ and Garcia," he calls out, tapping buttons curiously and accidentally turning the photo upside-down. "Wait, Sebby, one more—I broke that one."
"Don't be late home tonight," Maeve warns him, carrying out their birthday girl with a party hat already on her head and maple syrup ringing her mouth. "You'll miss her party." They both know he's already going to be cutting it close, but he's determined to at least be here for the cake and presents. Maeve's taken a day to plan it, and he'll be damned if he doesn't at least get to taste the cake she's going to attempt to bake.
"I'll be here," he promises.
But he's not, because that's the day Scratch attacks.
.
September
Spencer is hiding something. It's been two weeks since Alanna's birthday, and something has gone very, very wrong in their home. It had started with him not coming home that night and, when he had, bringing with him the distinct smell of sage on his clothes. There's a bruise on his cheek and a cut over his eye and he's not talking, he's just not talking.
Following that came the nightmares. He's had nightmares before and she's been there for them, when she can be and their schedules allowing, but these are different. They drive him not only out of their bed but also away from any sleep he's gotten, right back into the arms of the insomnia he'd battled when they were first getting together and that'd he's managed since then, until now. She finds him pacing the house at all hours of the night, working his way from Alanna's room to Sebby's and then back to theirs, perching on the side of the bed before starting the whole loop again. When he does sleep, it's light and broken, fitting awake and complaining that everything is keeping him up. The light of their digital clock, even though it's never woken him before, the sound of a car passing outside.
If she didn't know better, she'd say it's hypervigilance. If she didn't know that there's no way he'd hide it from her, she'd suggest it's a symptom of PTSS.
If she didn't know him so well, then she'd think he was lying to her.
When she tries to question his team, she meets a wall of silence. Even Garcia is refusing to say anything and all she gets from Morgan is, "There was an incident." But Spencer isn't talking and they won't tell her, and it all comes to a head the night Alanna cuts herself. It's a complete accident—she'd dragged a chair to the fridge to reach the cookie jar up there and knocked down the knife block they keep up there out of reach instead—but it's also bad enough that she's going to need stitches. Maeve is calmly wrapping it for the drive when Spencer walks in, and reacts.
There's no denying it after that. They also don't talk about it until after the hospital, when they've brought home a sleepy, stitched-up Alanna and put her and Sebastian to bed, when Maeve finds Spencer in the kitchen staring down at the dribbled line of their daughter's blood.
"Something happened at work," Maeve says firmly, expecting no response and not getting one. "Spencer, look at me."
He doesn't.
She closes her eyes and sees, once again, the way he'd buckled when he'd seen the blood on the floor the first time. The blank terror in his eyes and the rasp of his breath and the way he'd completely and utterly shut them out. "You had a panic attack because Ally hurt herself," she presses. "I can't remember the last time you had a panic attack—and certainly not because of an accident. You didn't even blink when Sebby fell down the stairs and concussed himself. Spencer, you need to talk to me."
"Nothing happened," he lies. And she sees it: he's going to keep lying. There's not a single part of his expression that reads like he's thought otherwise.
So they fight.
It's the worst they've ever had and, for the first time, they raise their voices at each other. Later, she'll be horrified by this, especially when he slams out of the apartment and she's left to realise both the kids are awake and crying. Sebby's in Alanna's bed, hugging her tight and staring at Maeve like he doesn't recognise her, and she thinks she might throw up at the horror of that. Her fear of Spencer's lies had manifested as anger at his work, and she knows that she's pushed him dangerously close to having to choose: her or the job.
They'd agreed when they'd married that they would never ask that of each other but, tonight and in the heat of the moment, she'd screamed it at him. And he doesn't come home, so she calls the only person she knows can reach him when she's like that, now that's she's proven that it's absolutely not her: she calls Emily.
It's four a.m. when he slips into their room, sober and red-eyed and silent. She's awake and he knows it, turning to look at him and pressing a finger to his lips in case he hasn't noticed that both children and Maurice are all asleep in the bed with her. Obediently quiet, he ghosts over to her on silent feet and crouches to press a kiss that's all stubble to her cheek, opening his mouth to say something.
She doesn't let him. "Don't tell me yet," she says, closing her eyes and hating that this is her penance. "Not until you're ready."
Because Emily had promised her: this isn't forever and, one day, he would be.
.
October
They're given a gift for their tenth wedding anniversary that's infinitely more precious than tin or aluminium. Two weeks before then, when Spencer's sure that he's about to crack from the pressure of trying to separate his home from his work when Peter Lewis has so violently thrown them both together in his mind and welded them close with a glue made of blood and fear, Hotch calls Spencer into his office and sits him down to give him the gift. It's from all of them, he says, plus Emily—who'd come up with the idea after a frantic midnight phone call from Maeve.
And the guilt of that fight is still destroying him, so that's what's on Spencer's mind when he opens the envelope and finds that their gift is a weekend at the cabin they had their honeymoon in, just him and Maeve with JJ and Will ready and willing to take the kids for that time, Garcia offering to look after Maurice.
He doesn't know what to say, but they all seem to understand how much he appreciates this anyway. And he makes a decision: they might not be saying it in so many words, but he knows what this weekend is in aid of.
He needs to tell her.
It's their second night there when he sets the fire going and joins her in the bed. There's nothing in this room to haunt him except the very best memories he cherishes and so, in the safety of their sanctum, he finally tells her what happened the night that he'd gone to save the doctor from the man hunting her. What Scratch had made him see, and feel, and taste.
Their children, dead. Her, dying. His hands, bloodied.
The knife in his hands, still warm from his grip.
"He made me believe that I'd killed you," he whispers, closing his eyes and seeing Sebby's empty eyes again, the same as he has every time he's closed his eyes since. "And now I dream of it, as soon as I fall asleep it comes back and I'm hurting you, again and again and again…"
Maeve is silent and he's too scared to look at her in case he sees that Scratch has turned him into him: a monster in her eyes.
"Your work has never changed you, not in all the time that you've been doing it," she says finally, sliding down into the bed to pull him close against her body, his heart beating fast and hers slow. "You're still the same gentle, loving man I tripped over at that party all those years ago—this man can't change that, no matter how much he tried. You know that, don't you? He hasn't changed you."
"He's damaged me."
"He's a blip." Her voice is angry now, but it's an anger aimed at Scratch, not him. "He's a blip on the radar of our lives and already getting further away. And you're still you—you wouldn't be so frantic if you weren't. Do you really think that if you were capable of hurting us in the way he made you see, that you'd be so utterly terrified of the concept?"
He shakes his head slowly, but she's not done.
"Spencer, look at me. Promise me—you haven't changed and I don't think you're ever going to, because you being kind is a fundamental part of who you are—but if you ever really think that you're changed or hardened or, I don't know, 'damaged' by your work, love, walk away. Don't try and push through it alone. The moment you stop being you and start becoming Hotch or Gideon or Rossi, you walk away and come back to us before it's too late. Please?"
He rasps out, "What if I become like Scratch?"
And she responds without hesitation: "Impossible."
And he sounds so sure that he promises her. No matter if its in two days or three years or twenty, he promises.
.
November
After a gruelling three days in Portland, Spencer stumbles home in the painfully bright hours of the morning and crawls into bed, knowing that most of his Saturday is going to be spent trying to catch up on the sleep he's lost instead of spending this rare time with all his family home. He's sorry, but also aware that he desperately needs to sleep, and barely manages to kiss Maeve before passing out. The next few hours pass in the broken sleep of the night shift, a feeling he'd forgotten in the interim years since leaving the BAU and that he's horrified to realise seems to be hitting him a lot harder now that he's older than ever before and with three years of regular life behind him. At one point, he's aware that Alanna has crawled into bed beside him and is sleeping under his arm. At another point, he wakes just enough to know Maeve is putting a glass of water beside the bed for him.
And at the last, he wakes to Sebby screaming. He goes from dead asleep to completely aware in seconds, Alanna blinking sleepily awake beside him even as he leaps over her and sprints out into the hall of their apartment towards the sound, already mentally unlocking his gun safe and arming up.
But no one is hurt, or in danger, or injured even. He finds Sebby crouched on the carpet near the window leading out to the fire escape, Maurice crouched over something that's moving weakly under him. Maeve is lingering, her eyes on that thing and a plastic bag in hand.
"Maurice got out," she explains, Spencer catching Alanna before she can toddle past and into striking range of the deeply growling Maurice protecting his prey. "I think it might be a rat."
"Is it dead?" Spencer asks warily, thinking of disease vectors and inoculations and having to see his children cry at the sight of a needle. Sebastian, at his words, sobs louder.
"No, no," he bawls, so red-faced and frantic that Spencer has to do an awkward half-shuffle over there—still holding the fascinated Alanna back—in order to try and one-armed hug his son. "It's not dead, Daddy, it's not dead. You have to help it!"
Maurice just rumbles another growl, tail lashing and white-filmed eyes narrowed. Spencer looks at their geriatric cat, well aware that if it comes to a fight, Maurice will likely win. Even mostly blind and almost deaf with one gammy leg, he'll win. But the snippet of fur under him moves weakly and Maurice does a surprising thing. Instead of biting it until it ceases to live anymore, he lays down flat with the fur under him and begins to clean it busily. Spencer blinks, Maeve making a soft noise of disgust—and the fur uncoils into a whisper of a kitten, little blue eyes blinking up at them hazily as it opens its mouth and rasps out a peeping sound.
"Oh!" says Sebby. "Daddy, look. It's a baby Maury."
"Can I touch?" Alanna asks hopefully, inching closer to the patch of dirty, yellow fur.
In the end, the outcome of that day is inevitable, and that's how Spencer finds himself sitting alone in the living room at midnight attempting to syringe feed a kitten that's smaller than his palm laid flat. Maeve is long asleep, as are the children, and Spencer watches the kitten with wary acceptance of what it's bringing into their life. Its chances of survival are minimal, the vet had warned them, and Spencer can tell that both kids are already deeply invested in its survival. Maurice, now that care and feeding of the starving newborn have been handed over to his people, ignores it.
"You're not going to survive, are you?" Spencer asks the kitten in a whisper as it makes a low squeaking noise and begins to knead his hand with tiny, needle-like claws, eyes squashed shut. It's really very ugly, with a pointed tail and stubby paws and strangely shaped face surrounded by that wispy yellow fur. "You're going to make me have to explain the concept of death to my small children, aren't you?"
The kitten sneezes milk onto him in response, and then it does something very surprising.
It lives.
.
December
Despite Spencer and Maeve being the ones who nurse the barely-alive kitten back to the land of the living over the month they have her, Sebastian is the one who falls in love with her first—which is unsurprising, Maeve realises, since she's pretty sure Sebby had loved her even when they'd thought she was a half-eaten rat. Because of his devotion to her, even learning how to correctly feed her using the syringe right up until she figures out solid food, he's given the task of naming her.
And that's how Cheese Whiskers joins the family.
It's two days before Christmas and Sebby's birthday. Later, Maeve will think about this, something terribly wonderful hurting deep in her chest. If ever she's doubted the intelligence of animals, this goes a very long way towards dispelling any of those doubts. Ethan finds him. He's staying in the guest bedroom, having arrived with a child's violin for Sebastian's birthday, wrangling a promise of lessons for Sebby out of both her and Spencer before handing it over to their son. Maurice, who's always loved Ethan more than possibly anyone, except her children, sleeps in there with him. And, on this cold and miserable December morning, that's where it happens.
The first they know of it is a soft knock at their door interrupting Spencer trying to talk her into sex, promising that they can be quiet enough that no sound of it will carry through the sleeping household. Distracted from their bed, he opens the door and finds Ethan standing there, holding their cat.
"He's not breathing properly," Ethan says with horror in his voice and tears in his eyes. "I woke up and he was like this."
Maurice is wheezing, his eyes barely open and his chest rapidly shifting as he tries desperately to get air. Maeve barely has time to cuddle him close before Spencer and Ethan are dressed and gone, whisking him away to the vet's in the cat carrier he's always hated but doesn't fight today. The last she sees of him is Ethan holding the carrier, a single paw pressed against the mesh, and then he's gone.
They come home without him.
That's a horrible morning. They sit the kids down before breakfast, still sleepy-eyed and confused as to what's going on and why Mommy is crying. Ethan holds Alanna; Sebby is cuddling the kitten. Maeve looks at that kitten and thinks, Maurice knew. He knew. That's why he brought Cheese home.
With that thought, she's crying too hard to be of any use, Alanna beginning to sob too even though Spencer hasn't told them yet that Maurice is gone. That the terrible, ugly, mean old cat that Maeve had found in the trash all those years ago, the one who'd been there to see both of them be born and grow, who'd seen Maeve and Spencer graduate and move on in their careers and who'd been alive for their wedding, was put to sleep by the vet in the early hours of the morning with Ethan petting him the whole time. In typical Maurice fashion, he'd bitten Spencer when he'd tried.
And when Spencer finally manages to find the words, they don't understand. They're just too young. Despite this, they know that something awful has happened, and there isn't a dry eye in the house.
It feels like something has ended.