July 2nd 2017

He was beginning to enjoy this new, if infrequent, routine. He would meet with Garcia for lunch most days, but every few days he would receive an invitation for lunch or a coffee depending on the time of day. Today was one of those days. His phoned had pinged around 6:30 am saying nothing more than '12:30, Angelo's'. He now found himself at 12:24 sitting in their usual spot in the back corner of the small bistro. The door opened and in walked the 5 foot 1 inch tall medical examiner. Except, she wasn't the ME, not now. Now, she was just Sasha. In her dark blue skinny jeans, a loose blouse and converse, she could have been mistaken for one of the students attending the academy.

"Hi!" Spencer chirped as Sasha joined him.

"Hey," her voice was low, mascara smudged under her eyes although Spencer noticed she was intentionally avoiding his.

"Is everything okay?" Sasha let out a shaky sigh before picking up the menu, still avoiding Spencer's eye.

"Do you ever wonder if it's worth it?"

"If what is worth it?"

"What we do." She slammed the menu down. "The working out the bad guys, helping put them away." Spencer reached out to take her hand. "How can it be worth it when there's another jackass waiting around the corner to take their place?" His heart went out to her. It was difficult, knowing how many monsters lurked in the shadows. How easily they could put on a mask and be the very best citizen to the rest of the world.

"Sure there's another," Spencer reasoned giving her hand a squeeze. "But they don't wait. At least this way, there's one less active at a time." She looked at him and smiled weakly. Spencer wasn't sure how to process the feeling as her hand wound itself around his, returning the pressure he'd given her. All he knew was that he didn't not like it.

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"For saying the right thing." She laughed. "Sometimes you talk a lot and don't say much. But that, that was just what I needed to hear." He appreciated her compliment, even if it felt almost back handed.

"Are you going back to the lab after this?"

"Where else would I go?" She shrugged.

"Well I was just wondering," Spencer started, his eyes wandering back over the discarded menu. "I mean, I'm not an agent anymore, so if you'd like some company while you work?"

"Honestly," She sighed and Spencer pulled his hand away, preparing for the rejection. "That would be amazing." He heart swelled and he couldn't help but smile, his eyes coming back to meet hers from the worn out card. "It's a really crappy case and having someone that isn't Jeth around would be a massive help to my brain."

An hour later, with full bellies, the unlikely pair made their way over to the large building at the end of the street. Normally, Spencer would enter via the large glass entrance way, scan his pass and go through the FBI offices and floors to his own desk. However, Sasha nudged him away from the front doors, leading him around towards the side and of the building and down a set of stone stairs Spencer hadn't known existed.

"We're not FBI." Sasha shrugged at the unasked question. "We're just the hired help." She punched in a code to a large door at the end of a drive and let them in.

Spencer noticed the sudden change in temperature as he entered the building. It made sense it would be cooler in the lab, but still the difference caused goosebumps to run up his arms. Lights flickered on as they walked through the corridor towards a large amount of noise Spencer assumed to be music.

"Jeth!" Sasha called over the noise. "Honest to god, that boy will be the death of me." She walked over to a young man Spencer assumed was 'Jeth'. He was wearing scrubs and a lab coat - similar to those Sasha had been wearing the first time they had met - and a beanie hat. He bobbed his head in time with the vicious music clearly unable to hear the shouting. When she reached him, Sasha tapped the unaware 'Jeth' on the head, causing him to shoot back and away from his desk, a look of almost fear flashing across his face.

"Boss!" Jeth smiled broadly. "You're back!"

"Turn this crap down Jethro." Sasha picked up what appeared to be a blood result sheet and glanced over it. "Now." Jethro sighed and swivelled in his chair to the open laptop, quickly hitting space silencing the room. "Thank you." Spencer noticed that not only did she not look up from the page as she said it, but she also made a point of over enunciating the words. Something that sounded quite dry in her accent. "What do you make of this?" She held the page out. To Spencer. Not Jethro. He took it with a shaky hand.

"Completely normal." Spencer looked them over.

"Dammit." Sasha closed her eyes and brought a hand to her temple. "Tox was clean too. I was really hoping there was something..."

"For what?"

Sasha said nothing. Just gestured for Spencer to follow her. They went back out into the corridor and into a double doored room labelled 'theatre'. Inside the sterile room, two autopsy tables lay bare. A third was covered in a blue cloth. With a sickening moment of realisation, Spencer knew there was a child on that table. Sasha went up to the table, laying her hand on the body's arm and stroking her thumb over the cloth covered flesh.

"I've brought someone to see you, Peter." She said quietly and Spencer realised she wasn't talking to him. " This is Spencer. Hopefully he can help me get things straight so we can make sure who ever did this to you doesn't get away with it." She started to move the cloth away from the boy's face. Spencer wanted to turn and run. Bodies would never be a person's favourite. Human's are hardwired to fear the dead. He didn't. He held fast, moving closer to the pair as Peter's head, neck and shoulder were revealed to him. "Peter came to see me this morning. He was found on the doors of a local foster parent - one he'd actually lived with as a baby - I was hoping he hadn't felt any of this."

Spencer heard the wavering in her voice and once he looked at the small frame on the table, it was easy to see why. Peter's blond hair was a tattered mess of dirt, blood and fragments of his own skull. His left eye was missing. His jaw clearly broken in several places. Across his neck, the remains of rope burns puckered dark against his pale complexion. His shoulders littered with burns and gouges and bruises deep enough to suggests a broken collar bone and complete dislocation of his right arm. Spencer didn't need to see any more to know that the rest of the boy's body would likely mirror the damage to his face.

"Do you have any scrubs?" Spencer asked quietly. His eyes not leaving the body. Sasha left, and returned after a moment, holding two fresh, bagged pair of scrubs. Once changed, Spencer took notes while Sasha called injuries. "How old are your children?" he asked during a lull in conversation.

"Hm?" Sasha's head snapped around. "Oh, I don't have any." There was no sadness or longing in her voice. That surprised Spencer. He'd begun to profile her as a mother, something he'd never seen her as before.

"Do you want any?"

"Do you?" She shot back. Then laughed at his shocked face. "I've never really thought about it, I guess. Never been the right time or place." She stood back and looked Peter up and down again. "I think we're done here -for now. Just a couple of pictures, Peter and we can rest for the day. Do you mind helping me lift him?" Spencer nodded and put the paper work to the side of the room while Sasha fetched the gurney. "My count, on three." They both slid their hands under Peter's shoulder's and hips. Spencer, unfortunately, was placed at the dislocated shoulder which moved in an incredibly unnatural manner. "One," rock, "Two," rock, "Three." Slide. The Child weight nothing and if it hadn't been for Sasha brace her stomach against the gurney, prepared for the extra force, Peter would have ended up on the floor.

"He weighs nothing!" Spencer gasped still shook from his own actions.

"29 lb." Spencer shook his head, that couldn't be right, he was at least four years old. "I honestly thought he'd had his organs harvested when he arrived." Sasha sighed. "Come on, Peter." She tapped his shoulder and then covered his batter and bruised little face with the blue cloth.

Jethro took Peter for the xrays while Spencer and Sasha went back into the first office they'd been in when they arrived. Sasha gestured to the coffee machine as they walked in the room and Spencer nodded.

"What do you make of that?" She exhaled. "Long term or single incident?"

"Long term." He felt his heart ache and noticed a similar shadow cloud Sasha's bright green eyes.

"Yeah." She muttered. "I was hoping I was the only one thinking that."

"You said he'd been in care?"

"Technically still was." She turned to the desk digging through paperwork. "Went missing from his current foster parents last night, apparently. Missing persons was filed."

"What do you think?"

"I'm not saying they did it." She took a sip of her drink. "But they did it didn't they?"

"Statistically," Spencer nodded. He didn't even have to finish the sentence. Sasha bowed her head. She was good a hiding what she was doing, he'd give her that. Anyone else would have just thought she was mildly upset. Looking at the floor, perhaps. But Spencer noticed the single tear that dropped from her cheek leaving a little bead on the floor by Sasha's feet. Without thinking, Spencer put his cup on the desk and closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her slight shoulders. He thought for a second that he had done the wrong thing, her shoulders stiffened momentarily before dropping and Spencer felt her arms returning the embrace, holding on to his waist, and her cheek pressing into his chest.