Chapter Twenty-one: One step forward
Thanks to my awesome beta, Tafferling!
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They're on leave for two weeks while Doyle's case is investigated.
Reid uses the time to remind himself of his life before Aaron Hotchner walked so casually into it and destroyed everything he'd thought he had.
"You're too skinny," his mom scolds him when he enters the sunlit room where she's quietly reading. She sets her book down and clucks her tongue, a smile creeping in at the corner of her mouth. "Always too skinny, Spencer. Aureilo, my brave hare, you've been missed."
It's a greeting so familiar it's like stepping back in time. He's thankful she knows him today. Reid sits in the chair opposite his mom and watches with a tired smile as she welcomes Aureilo onto his lap and strokes his silky ear. Her hand pauses over the thick scarring on his head and he braces.
"Those of us who love too much carry the heaviest scars," she says softly, tracing her fingers over it and closing her eyes.
Sonnet chirrs in the back of his throat and presses his head against Reid's hand. "We're okay, Mom," Reid tells her gently, resting his palm on the cheetah's ruffled fur. "We're doing okay."
She eyes him and her gaze is sharp. "No you're not." She shakes her head for emphasis. "Don't lie to your mother, Spencer. We always know."
They're not okay.
Aureilo is silent and Reid feels nothing.
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Spencer packs his stuff with the speed and efficiency of someone well-used to pulling vanishing acts. Hotch tries to stay out of his way, and pretends it doesn't hurt when he walks past a bookshelf half empty, or finds a drawer that echoes hollowly when he opens it.
Jack isn't there and Hotch isn't sure how he's going to explain to him that Spencer is leaving and not coming back.
He isn't even sure that he's come to terms with it yet.
Hal tries to approach Aureilo, just once, responding to the unspoken yearning that tears at Hotch's heart. Aureilo flattens his ears in warning and ignores her. When she still presses in, he hisses and lashes out with a quick paw.
She doesn't try again.
Hotch has never seen Spencer this angry before, and the rage that simmers beneath the quiet man's eyes is breathtaking. It's more at home in Morgan's gaze than Spencer's, and he wonders how long it will take to burn out. Too long for them, he assumes.
Hopefully not too long for the team.
"Where will you stay?" he asks quietly when the packing is done and Spencer goes to leave, his face dark and unapproachable.
"That's not your business anymore," Spencer replies coolly, and tosses his key onto the counter.
Then he's gone, leaving Hotch and Hal alone with their ghosts.
There's one last thing Hotch can do for him, and he reaches for his phone.
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It's like deja-vu when Reid unlocks the hotel door and steps through to find Rossi sitting on his bed flicking idly through the channels on the grainy TV. Eris is perched on the curtain rail, and they both turn their heads in eerie unison to glare at the younger man and his hare.
"Now, I know we're on a budget and all," Rossi begins, his voice dangerously casual. "But I know for a fact that you're getting paid enough to at least find a place with working hot water."
Reid closes the door, looking around at the peeling paint and shabby carpeting. The décor matches his mood. He thought he'd be safe from meddlesome profilers here. He should have known he wasn't. "Why are you here?"
Stupid question. Rossi's here because he's Rossi and he can't help but get involved. A spark of anger burns in Reid's chest, flickering into a flame easily. He's angry a lot these days.
Underneath the anger is nothing and they don't like feeling nothing.
Rossi drops the remote and stands, stretching calmly. "I paid your bill and did you the favour of checking you out before you catch something gruesome from the door handles. Get your stuff."
He freezes, sensing a trap. "I'm not going back to Hotch's." The name sticks on his tongue, tripping him over. He flushes, knowing Rossi has seen the stumble.
The older man nods slowly. "I know. But you're not staying here. Come on. I have a spare room, working hot water. And you're much less likely to get murdered at my house, unless you annoy me."
"Actually, in the last forty years only twenty-two people have been found deceased in hotels and of those, nine were from natural causes. Statistically, I'm in more danger in a private residence." Reid tries to smile, sensing the dark mood that seems to have settled on the other man despite his calm demeanour. "I'm fine here, Rossi."
The large owl ruffles her feathers loudly. "Did we say you have a choice?"
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"Some of us had an inkling," Rossi says quietly to him, and Hotch's heart misses a beat. His friend is watching Prentiss carefully unpacking her desk, and there's a wistful expression on his face. "What? I'm good at what I do."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Hotch asks him, swallowing hard.
Rossi shrugs, and closes his eyes for a second, looking regretful. "I thought you'd… handle it. I was wrong."
There's a long painful silence broken only by the click of Hotch's pen on the desk and Hal's soft breathing. "Is he...?" Hotch begins finally, unable to hold back the question that's bouncing around his mind in endless rotations.
Is he staying with you? Is he okay? Is he angry?
Is there still… something?
Rossi just shrugs again and picks up a file to read. Hotch decides not to point out that the file is a budget sheet from three years ago, and lets him deflect. If his friend is one thing, he's loyal.
At least one of them still holds Spencer's trust.
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The empty bed hurts.
He skips breakfast because it's not the same without Jack drawing pictures in his cereal with a plastic spoon. Dinner is a quiet affair broken only by Rossi swearing at the TV or grumbling about politics. He doesn't try to talk to Reid about Hotch or work or his mental state, and he's thankful for that. He doesn't know what he'd say anyway.
Eris spends two days trying to goad Aureilo into a prank war and gives up when the hare shows little inclination to do anything but follow silently at Reid's heels with his head low. She takes to watching them from the corner of her eye when they're in the room, and they all pretend she's not out of her mind with worry. Rossi's the best at pretending.
Reid's had a lot of practise, but Rossi has perfected it to an art form.
He doesn't unpack any of his stuff because he knows this is an imposition and it's only a matter of time before Rossi's sick of him and he has to move on.
He might have been the one to end it, but he's vividly aware that it's Hotch who withdrew first.
He doesn't really blame him for that.
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Spencer's not the only one who's angry.
Hotch looks down into the bullpen and Spencer's chair is empty. Emily's isn't though, and it's an odd sort of conflict as he's relieved and miserable all at once. Morgan walks past her desk and turns slowly on his heel, walking towards her with careful reluctance. Hotch almost smiles as they awkwardly talk, the tension visibly draining from Morgan's shoulders.
Emily is their glue. She'd held their team together. She's been sorely missed.
"Where's Reid?" he asks JJ as the woman pops into the room. Her face is drawn. She's stressed. Their team is splintering, torn apart by guilt and blame. He knows she's been getting the brunt of it.
"Firing range," she answers, pushing the door shut and leaning against it. "We have to do something, Hotch. Morgan isn't talking to me; Spence isn't talking to anyone, and Rossi is… well, he actually seems okay. Just relieved to have Em home."
"I'll talk to them," he says finally, pushing back the misery that's clouded around him since Spencer had determinedly walked out of his life. "It was my call, if they're mad at anyone it should be me."
"If only emotions were so logical," Hal cuts in dryly, lifting her head from where she's sulking on the couch.
JJ's mouth twitches slightly. She hesitates, hand on the handle, clearly holding something back.
Hotch knows what she's going to ask. It's the unspoken elephant in the room they've all been dodging around since they'd returned to work and found Spencer and Hotch distant and painfully professional.
He doesn't give her the chance. "I'll talk to them," he repeats, picking up the phone in a clear message. She nods and leaves. As soon as she's gone, he lowers the phone slowly into the cradle and sighs.
He doesn't know how to fix this.
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His aim is improving incrementally. His mental state seems to be having a positive effect on that, at least.
Aureilo senses them coming before Reid does. A wash of misery and worry swamps him, throwing his aim off, and he empties the clip before lowering the weapon and turning reluctantly.
Hal and Hotch stand on the other side of the soundproof barrier with Aureilo. Three pairs of eyes locked on him, waiting for a reaction.
"You're getting better," Hotch states when Reid finally exits the range and stands in front of him. Reid hangs his arms by his side and blinks. He doesn't know how to react anymore, hyper-aware of the awkward position he's standing in and the minute twitching of his facial muscles.
He can't hide his reactions from Hotch, and that's reason number one he should have never dated a profiler. Overcompensating for his muscle tics only makes them worse.
"Generally the expected outcome of practise," Reid replies, his voice cracking. He can't help the snarl to his tone either, leaving him sounding young and sullen. Not quite what he's aiming for. "Do we have a case?"
Hotch takes a deep breath and pauses, mouth tantalisingly open. Something kicks low in Reid's belly, sending a cold spark up his spine to settle on the back of his neck. Even after everything, the betrayal and the fights and Emily, Hotch still leaves him breathless. "I need to speak to you about JJ."
"Hmm?" Reid hums, snapping back to attention and running his tongue over his lip nervously. He notes how dry his mouth has suddenly become. "JJ?"
"If you need to be mad at anyone, be mad at me," Hotch says firmly, and there's nothing on his face to reveal what he's thinking. Unlike Reid, he's a closed book. Emotionally distant. "She was following my directions."
Nothing's changed there.
"It's not quite the same, is it?" Reid says, dropping his gaze and looking at his feet. The heavy feeling in his belly is gone, replaced by a tightness to his chest that threatens to suffocate him. There's none of the sadness he usually expects to accompany that feeling. Just the tightness, and nothing. "I'm mad at her because I went to her crying for ten weeks and she still kept it from me. You? What you did is so much worse."
"I did what I needed to do to keep Emily safe."
"None of us would have done anything to put Emily in danger, you know that. You could have told us. We're the last people to leak." That's the core of it. He hadn't trusted any of them, any of his team. The team that he needed to have his back every day; the team that would give their lives for each other.
Hotch hadn't trusted them with Emily's life, how can they trust him with theirs?
"Will we ever move past this?" Hotch whispers and there it is; what Reid has been watching for. The slight waver in his voice, the evidence that Hotch is feeling this as well.
Reid nods without looking up. "As a team, yes. But that's it. Don't come looking for more."
He walks away first and realizes with a numb sort of comprehension that maybe that's exactly what Hotch had come here searching for.
More.
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"Where's Daddy?" Jack asks querulously that night, breaking the tense silence that seems to have settled on the household since Spencer left. "When's he coming home?"
Hotch tenses, searching for the words, but Arelys beats him. "Dad told us, stupid," she snaps at Jack, her fur ruffled and bristling. "He doesn't live here anymore. He's not coming."
"Don't talk to Jack like that," Hal scolds quickly, seeing Jack's lip quiver slightly. Arelys might be angry, but he's everything else. Sad, confused. It's strange how daemons work sometimes.
Aureilo is Reid's confidence. Hal is Hotch's affection. Eris pulls pranks because Rossi doesn't, and Naemaria is always the first to snuggle up against a friend in pain. They're the parts of them that they struggle to show.
"Is he going to be gone forever like Mommy?" Jack asks finally, and Hotch gasps with the shock of pain that brings.
"No," he says, and he almost shouts it in his haste. He lowers his voice and tries again, aiming for calm. "No… no. He loves you very, very much Jack, he just had to go away. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes adults can't be together anymore, even though they really want to."
"Can I see him?"
Out of the corner of Hotch's eye, the slender young hare ripples with something more than just anger, and when he glances at her there's something ever so slightly different about her. He frowns, studying her carefully. "Yes," he says eventually. "Of course you can."
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Turns out, Rossi isn't keeping as hands off as he promised. At least, that's what Reid assumes when he looks up from his book and finds Emily standing in his doorway like a dream.
He's barely spoken to her since her return, not because he's mad at her-he could never be mad at her-but because he doesn't know what to say. Seven months of missing someone led to a lot of things left unsaid, and none of them felt right anymore.
"Dammit, Spencer," she says finally, leaning against the frame and tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear. Her nails are bloodied, bitten down to skin, and her face is haggard. "What have you done?"
He puts the book down and draws his knees up to his chest, knowing it makes him look vulnerable and hurt, but not really caring. If he can't be vulnerable in front of the woman he'd grieved over, who can he be vulnerable in front of? "Mourned you. For seven months. Do you have… do you have any idea what that was like? You were there, and then you weren't and then… you were dead."
She walks into his room and he breathes in the scent of her with a sharp inhale that burns. That was one thing that his dreams had never captured – the scent of her skin and her perfume and everything about her. The bed dips slightly as she sits down and scoots backwards, pressing against his side in a warm line and leaning back against the bedframe.
They lay in silence for a long time. Neither looks at the other. "You mourned one friend," she says finally. Her voice is raw pain. "I mourned six. Do you think any of us would have done that if we didn't need to?"
Aureilo pulls himself onto the bed with languid movements and huddles into her lap. She freezes for a second, shocked, before curling her arms around him and holding him close.
It's almost like being held himself, and Reid hadn't realized how much he'd missed it. Sergio appears at his side and tucks himself under Reid's arm. He purrs loudly, a steady metronome that Reid focuses on.
"I came here to yell at you." Her voice is low and Reid has to strain to hear it. "I was so damn angry because I thought you'd used me as an excuse to destroy everything. You do that, you know. Self-destruction. Even before this, you were always ready to throw everything away for a cause. You're so damn smart you don't even realize how stupid you actually are."
He doesn't know how to answer that. "You were angry? Not anymore?"
She leans her head against his shoulder and it hits him suddenly that she really had missed him just as much as he'd missed her. He hadn't believed it until now. "No. Now I'm just sad. And happy. Sad and happy all at once."
So is he, he realizes with a jolt. The tightness is back, but this time it's accompanied by a wave of cold misery that blurs the world at its edges. Tears. He didn't cry when they buried her, or after. Not even when he walked away from the man he thought he'd never walk away from.
It's something.
"Can you stay?" he asks finally when the silence between them becomes oppressive again. "I… please?"
She chuckles, and they're sitting close enough that the sound resonates through his chest. "Yeah. I don't know how to say goodbye anymore either. It feels too final. Are you going to talk to him?"
He hums softly. "No. Yes. I don't know. It feels like a bridge well and truly burnt." Move on. Keep going forward. Do not collect any money, do not pass go. It's the only way he can find himself again, by not looking back anymore.
"Bridges can be rebuilt." She kicks her shoes off and tilts her head back onto the pillow, her breathing evenly out slowly. "If the destination is worth the effort."
He rolls his eyes at her even as she relaxes, face smoothing out in a way it hadn't since she'd returned. He wonders what had happened to her while she was gone, what kind of a life she'd lived.
Aureilo shifts and stretches. "Being dead changed you," he complains, his voice husky with disuse. "You never used to talk in metaphors."
She looks asleep, but her mouth twitches. "Here's a metaphor for you. Go the fuck to sleep or I'll turn you into shoes. And tomorrow we're all going to see JJ and you're both going to apologise for being presumptuous dicks."
Reid waits until he's sure she's asleep before answering, keeping his voice a whisper in case she's still faking. "That's not actually a metaphor, Emily."
He thinks maybe he can be happy again.
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Monday and he's making a coffee in the breakroom when a familiar form appears at his side. "Thank you," Spencer says, and when Hotch looks up there's something changed about the other man.
He looks… happy. Almost. "For what?" Hotch asks warily. Hal narrows her eyes at Aureilo. He ignores them to lick his front paws fastidiously, running them over his ear.
Spencer takes a deep breath and smiles. It doesn't quite reach his eyes. It's a start. "For Emily."
And then he's gone, vanishing back into the squad room as though he'd never been there to begin with.
He should be happy because this is a step in the right direction for them all, but Hal droops by his side and betrays the clawing desolation that's settled in his stomach.
Spencer's moving on, and Hotch isn't sure he's ready to let go yet.