"Psychotics, say what you want about them, tend to make the first move" - David Foster Wallace


It wasn't like he had a choice on going, he had decided his presence was inevitable the second he walked out of Mount Pleasant Woman's Correctional Facility three years prior. Spencer had to see her soul leave her body with his own eyes, reports and documents had been used to fool him before, he couldn't let it happen again for something so pivotal.

He also knew it was wrong, Spencer had been dating someone new for some time now and knew Max had no idea of his whereabouts in this moment. She was understanding when he said he had to visit his mom that day, even gave him a smile that filled him with guilt. A little white lie never hurt anyone...

Right?

The weak justification was quickly dissolved once he stepped into the execution chamber. Spencer had only attended one execution in his life, not counting the self inflicted death of Diane Turner that he wished he had seen behind glass, rather than in an old warehouse joined by the love of his life. He tried not to let his mind wander to the protected happy place in his neocortex, the place where he stored all of the precious memories he held of Maeve Donovan, the woman he intended to marry all those years ago.

His attention was snapped back to the event unfolding in front of him as he heard the door click shut, and the brunette woman he had longed to forget was escorted to her seat. There was the same plastic mask over her face that he had seen weeks before, under much different circumstances, but he knew she could sense his presence. However, once it was removed and their eyes locked onto eachother, he felt his carefully crafted facade start to crack.

Until she giggled.

It was the same laugh he remembered, the one that made him lurch awake in the middle of the night as she still plagued his dreams. Albeit she had no way of knowing the full extent of the damage she caused on him, Spencer knew she took pleasure knowing there was any at all.

"Hello, Cat." He whispered, quietly enough that no one else heard him, not even the angered families of her victims that joined him for the solemn event of her death.

Her eyes remained on him, trying to study his vulnerable state on the day of her demise, trying to understand why he decided to come despite everything she had put him through. Sure, she had asked him to on the silent ride after their date, but she never actually thought he would oblige.


"Would you have written me back?"

Cat shifted in her seat, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the emotions she was allowing him to read on her. Even after everything, something still terrified her about the man sitting next to her. Perhaps it was the way he was able to always see through the walls she had built so sturdily over the years, or maybe it was the fact Spencer hated her for the emotions she brought out of him, not the heinous crimes she had committed.

"I don't know." He said it flatly, so full of defeat. She'd be lying if she said it didn't take her by surprise, that even after the wreckage the night had turned out to be, he was still facing the internal struggle that was Spencer Reid v. Cat Adams.

Cat knew this was her chance, despite how weak it would make her look, she had to ask.

"Will you be there?"


Spencer never answered her question, he didn't have to, both of them knew the moment she said goodbye to him before being whisked away in handcuffs, it wouldn't be their final goodbye. That's how he ended up here, lying to his girlfriend, staring at the woman who both ruined his life and gave him a new perspective on it. The woman who managed to make him question everything he thought to be true in the same mind that had fought for much of his life to remain stable.

Neither had realized their eyes still hadn't left each others until Cat felt the needle enter the vein of her left arm, causing her to wince slightly. The cold reality of the situation began to set in, after today Spencer would never have to worry about Cat Adams ever again, he cursed himself for the sadness he felt at the thought. To tell the truth, he had imagined more than once a future in which the woman sitting before him had used her dangerous mind for good, in which they had met under normal circumstances. He knew deep down she would've been the so-called "one" for him, granted Spencer had never admitted it to himself.

Right as his mind had begun to drift to one of his darker imagined futures, the chaplain holding a microphone to Cat's lips had snapped him out of his trance.

"Any last words?"

She had contemplated this a lot, forming two columns of choices in her brain, "If he's there" and "If he isn't", finally deciding to decline the offer to get the last word. That is, until the side of her only Spencer could provoke chose to make an appearance. The side of her that felt things she had been told by countless psychiatrists she was't capable of feeling. Empathy. Gratitude. It was in that moment she made a new decision, a decision that for the first time, wasn't to cause him pain or suffering.

"Thank you." Cat let the words roll off her tongue in the calmest way she could manage.

The phrase was so simple, it made his head spin. Spencer had prepared for her to get the last laugh, drive in the knife as far as she could, the unexpected kindness he didn't know she had was enough to make his eyes well up as he kicked himself for it. He brought his attention back to her, taking in the small smile that traced her eyes. They held a glimpse of the Cat he wished he had the chance to know, the Cat from before life took its toll on her, and it made him empathize for her as she had learned to do for him in her final years.

Their moment was cut short by the harsh tone of her heart monitor flatlining, her final breathe tore through and rung in his eardrums. For a minute, everything else in the room seemed to fall away, leaving him staring face to face with the lifeless body of the woman he would never admit he cared for.

"Time of death: 5:10 P.M."

The end of Cat Adams.