Chapter Text
I'd wait, forever in your hallway
“My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.” - Jodie Foster
“Weathervane” by Hunter Metts
…
Spencer strolls back into the bullpen the weekend after they return from their case in San Francisco, clothes pressed and hair brushed as if nothing ever happened. Aaron watches carefully from his office as she carefully places her bag next to her desk and gratefully accepts the steaming mug of coffee that Morgan brings to her desk.
Being caught alone and drunk in her apartment seems to serve as some kind of wakeup call for Spencer in her grieving process. The weary heartbreak that weighed her down seemingly transformed overnight into frenetic determination, leaving Aaron simultaneously reeling and relieved.
Much of her unexpectedly neat appearance, Aaron knows, is because JJ, Morgan and Penelope came over to her apartment and helped her clean up. She’d invited them over on the flight back home. He's also fairly certain that Penelope fully stocked Spencer’s fridge in an effort to make sure that she’s actually eating.
Part of Aaron at the time had felt a little stung when he hadn’t been invited to help out, hadn’t he had proven himself of being worthy to help Spencer bear her burdens? Why wouldn’t she let him repay every single time she’d made a difference in his life?
Later when he had sat at home with Jack working on his math homework, he realized that Spencer’s exclusion was likely a gift in disguise. He’s relieved to not show the shields he drops when he’s at Spencer’s place. The person he becomes when it’s just them talking about everything and nothing at the same time. Somehow it all seems too tenuous for anyone else to see. Like if they were witnessed, it would make them so vulnerable not even Aaron would be able to control or protect them from what would happen next.
He passes by Spencer’s desk later that morning on his way to refresh his coffee, bringing back another mug for Spencer on his way back. Usually by this time in the day, she’s downed at least two cups.
“Morning Reid” he quietly mutters, sliding the mug across the desk towards her elbow. He’s hoping that it will convey all of the things he wants to say without putting Spencer in the spotlight.
She hums quietly in thanks and continues staring at her screen, eyes squinting due to how intensely she’s looking at her computer. It’s the classic corporate message of someone who wants to be left alone to do their work. It’s a look that he’s seen a million times, usually on Emily if he’s being honest, but almost never on Spencer.
Aaron isn’t quite sure what to make of it when the mug is left untouched on her desk at the end of the day.
Time flows on as usual, there’s always other cases, more fires to put out, more lives saved (and lost) and more paperwork that seems to consume all the other breathing moments.
Spencer never seemed to rest anymore, diving headfirst into cases like they were the only thing giving her oxygen. Making connections and throwing herself into the action with more enthusiasm than she’d ever had shown in her work before. Spencer had always been diligent with her work, but this bordered on fanaticism.
Aaron finds himself wondering if there ever was a time when he wasn’t worried about Spencer. Worried that she would make it safely home on the metro or worried that she’s going to be hurt by an unsub. Or worse, the fears that she’s spending too much time alone or wasting her youth, time and intelligence in a career that only ever seemed to give them all heartbreak.
Usually, his worries would be eased by the quiet cups of coffee passing hands late at night in his office, cheering at a children’s soccer game, a trip to the museum, or sitting side by side on Spencer’s couch late at night as they watch the world turn around them. But, those seem to be few and far in between these days. Jack’s soccer season is done and as he gets older he’s spending more and more time with his friends at school. But even if Jack wasn’t a missing part of their equation, for reasons why Aaron can’t even fathom, Spencer’s been avoiding him.
At first, it had just been politely declining rides after the end of a long day and avoiding seeking him out in the bullpen. But it only seemed to escalate from there. Spencer glued herself onto Rossi when they were out on cases, using the older man as a buffer in between them, much to the older man’s chagrin. When Aaron had stopped taking no for an answer when Spencer declined his rides home, she’d started asking Morgan or Alex before Aaron could catch her instead.
The first time it had happened, Morgan had accepted it, no questions asked. But, as the avoidance grew, every time Spencer asked for a ride, dodged a cup of coffee or pairing together at the precinct for cases, Morgan was starting to look at Aaron with an unreadable expression that promised trouble on his face.
As he sits in his office and watches the two of them leave the bullpen after a case in Austin, Aaron realizes with no small amount of dread, that it’s only a matter of time before Morgan confronts him on the tension in between him and Spencer. Aaron honestly has no idea what he’s going to tell him.
Derek is an exceptionally loyal team member and the right-hand man that Aaron has come to rely on to keep the team safe. The younger man had grown a lot since he was acting unit chief after the Foyet incident. The sharp parts of his personality that characterized his early career have since smoothed to something far more comforting and mature. He falls into the role of defender like he was born for it.
But, any loyalty that Derek might have for Aaron is eclipsed by his affection for Spencer. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes, Derek is the only one that’s allowed to call Spencer “Pretty Girl”. Aaron has seen Derek go toe-to-toe with local law enforcement when they refuse to look past her age and her gender. If Derek suspected that Aaron had done anything wrong regarding Spencer, Derek would throw him to the wolves without hesitation and without a second glance.
But, there’s no point in agonizing over what the future might hold. Aaron takes a steadying breath and looks back down at his paperwork. Another budget proposal, this time with decreased funds for hotels while they’re out on cases, it looks like they’ll have to start doubling up again.
It’s only after they get back from a particularly taxing case where they once again failed to trap down the replicator, that Aaron gets the confrontation he’s anticipating, only, it’s not the person he’s expecting.
He’s sitting at his desk, working on the latest after action report for Strauss when he hears a soft knock on his door. Looking up, he sees Alex Blake standing at the door.
Alex always chooses her words carefully, letting them run through her mouth like she is savoring each one. Aaron wonders if it’s just the way Alex has always spoken or it’s a habit engrained through her education as a linguist. Somehow, Alex’s approach is more terrifying than anything that Morgan could ever have confronted him with.
Crossing the floor she comes to sit quietly at one of the chairs in the front of his desk. She always does, stretching out her legs slightly before carefully tucking them back underneath the chair. She looks completely at ease, just waiting for the right moment to say what she’s thinking.
“It’s always difficult to see the people we love in pain”. Alex’s voice isn’t loud, she’s never needed to be loud in order to command a space.
Aaron can’t help but shift uncomfortably at the declaration. The word “love” isn’t something that he’s ever been able to use casually. If he thinks about it, he’s never been able to say it to anyone else but Jack and his romantic partners. Aaron can’t even recall if he’d ever even said it to Sean. The idea that he might love Spencer, even platonically makes Aaron feel he feels like he’s been caught doing something wrong. Alex doesn’t need to say Spencer’s name for them both to understand who she’s talking about.
Alex doesn’t wait for Aaron’s discomfort to subside. She pushes forward in the same understanding, yet, persistent cadence. It’s the same voice she uses whenever she conducts an interview with a witness or presents a profile to a room full of skeptical law enforcement. She doesn’t wait for him to respond, pushing forward.
“It’s even harder when they start pushing us away” Alex looks pointedly at him, as if she’s daring Aaron to deny what the entire team has been witnessing since Spencer got back from her bereavement leave.
Aaron can’t hold back the sigh that comes out of his mouth, “ I don’t know what I did to make Spencer feel like she needs to avoid me” he admits reluctantly. It feels like a personal failing to admit that the person from the team that he spends the most time with outside of work doesn’t want anything to do with him. Yet another person that he’s let down.
It’s like Alex can sense where Aaron’s mind is going, she probably can, despite being a newer member to the team, she’s a uniquely insightful profiler. The chair creaks slightly as she leans forward, placing her elbows on her knees, staring thoughtfully at him.
“Hotch, I’ve known Spencer for a couple years, long before I ever joined the BAU. Most of our work together has been in a professional capacity, she can be deeply private about her personal life. But, there’s one thing that I know for certain about Spencer. She cares deeply about what you think of her.”
“She pushes herself hard in order to measure up to the standards she thinks that you have for her”
Aaron cringes, he’s got expectations for his team but he’s always made them clear. They work a high intensity job where failure means that another life is lost. But, he’s never had specific or unfair expectations for any member of his team, least of all Spencer.
“I don’t have stan-”
Alex cuts him off again, waving her hand dismissively in the air. “I know that and you know that, but Spencer doesn’t, no matter how many times you tell her, she isn’t going to believe you.”
“If you asked her to jump, she’d ask you how high.”
“Hotch, rather than asking about what you did to make things difficult, you’re better off asking why Spencer feels like she needs to hide”
Alex critically examines him with her eyes before she continues. “Spencer told me about what happened when you went over to her apartment to check on her”. She doesn’t elaborate, watching Aaron as he shifts uncomfortably back into his seat.
He’d seen Spencer when she was in active addiction, recovering from knee surgery, when she was mourning for Emily. Seeing Spencer passed out on her couch surrounded by her destroyed apartment had scared him, more than anything else ever had.
“She needs to know that no matter what, you’re not going to think any less of her”
Suddenly, Aaron can hear his phone chirp, it’s another case. Alex looks at him for a second, examining his face as if she’s trying to find out if he’s figured out how to help Spencer, before she pulls herself to her feet. “I’ll see you in the round table room”.
The door behind Alex closes with a quiet click, Aaron slumps into his chair for a second, the tension leaving his body. He wants to go and find Spencer right away to talk about it, but they don’t have time.
He straightens up, checking that his tie is still in place. It’s time to present the case.
Their next case becomes what Aaron can only describe as an unmitigated disaster. They had travelled down to St. Paul Minnesota, chasing after an unsub who had been utilizing social media and blogging profiles to commit his crimes. It had been violent, the unsub had been removing their tongues before stabbing them to death.
As they had investigated, they had discovered that the unsub had been a pseudo writing therapist who had encouraged his students to write out their dark fantasies as to avoid acting them out. He’d taken them and acted them out instead. Capturing the therapist, Mark Jackson was relatively easy, it had been the secondary perpetrator Peter Harper that had caught them by surprise. A participant in the group therapy, enraged at the theft of the story, had gone to kill his magus opus. The woman he’d fantasized and stalked for the longest period of time.
Aaron’s not there at the takedown, he’d needed to smooth some things down at the precinct, but he notices the blotchy look on Spencer’s face with the tear tracks and JJ shaking head tells him everything that he needs to know.
Once they get on the plane, it’s like they all silently agree to give Spencer some space. She curls up on the couch, arms hugging her satchel across her chest, eyes closed, she doesn’t fool anyone, the tension in her shoulders and her rigid breathing tell everyone else that she’s still awake and desperately wants to be alone.
Aaron usually tries to get a head start on his paperwork, hoping that the soft sound of the plane's engines will get him into some kind of flow state. This time, his attempts to reel his regularly orderly thoughts and procedures are a failure. He spends more time examining Spencer’s face, searching the lines and creases as if it’ll tell him what Spencer’s thinking about. Aaron can see Alex and Dave shooting each other furtive looks across the aisle. He just ignores them.
The chaos and disaster that was the takedown only becomes more apparent when he reads JJ and Spencer’s takedown report when they’re back at Quantico. They’d both submitted them within an hour of getting to the office. JJ left to go relieve Will from caring for Henry, Spencer had just sat at her desk and started on some new files.
It looks like everything had been going well until Peter Harper brought a knife to his throat and during the deescalation, he had slit his own throat.
JJ’s report is always a little more casual than Spencer’s, hers reads with the cadence of a press report. Personable, but clear and to the point. Spencer’s reports read like an engineering schematic. They’re to the point, reference legal and department policy and usually longer than all the other reports combined.
Usually, when they’re faced with an unsub who is clearly mentally ill, they placate them. Anything to get them to loosen their grip on a weapon or hostage and get them to come quietly. Instead, Spencer had been blunt about his prognosis. This had been the wrong move as the hopelessness had been too much for the man to bear. Something that would almost certainly make her come under fire from Strauss.
Aaron can’t help the sigh that escapes out of his mouth as he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the headache that’s starting to creep in just behind his eyes. It’s time for him to get to the bottom of this, to get to the bottom of everything. If he doesn’t, things are going to spiral out of control before he can fix it. It’s what happened with Elle, with Gideon and with Prentiss. He can’t let this happen again.
Aaron pulls himself to his feet, poking his head around the door and calling in what he desperately hopes is a casual and non-threatening tone.
“Reid, could you come into my office?”
Spencer freezes, her shoulders drawing up tight, like it’ll help her avoid needing to come into his office. But it’s only the two of them here now, the rest of the team and other agents having left for home. Aaron wonders if she’ll make a run for it- damn the consequences- but moments later she’s striding towards Aaron’s office with a neutral expression plastered on her face.
Aaron settles himself into one of the chairs in front of his desk, gesturing for Spencer to take a seat on the couch. She sits down gingerly, perched at the edge of her seat with her hands twisted on her lap.
“Hotch, you wanted to see me?” She’s looking anywhere but him.
“Reid, I’ve been reading your report”
“Oh” It’s like all the air gets pulled out of the room and Spencer’s straight posture curls inward.
“Why did you tell Harper that his prognosis was bleak during the takedown?”
Spencer’s foot scuffs the carpet, she’s looking anywhere but at Aaron.
“The last time I was faced with a similar situation, I told the perfect lie and it didn’t work. I just wanted to see if I could change the outcome”
“This is about Maeve isn’t it”
Spencer doesn’t answer him, not verbally at first anyways. But the way her face crumples into unadulterated misery is enough for Aaron.
“Do you ever wonder if we’re just repeating the same patterns over and over again with the same result?” Her voice is tight, like she’s holding back tears.
“Maeve dying, it was my fault Hotch. I’ve got this blood on my hands that I can’t seem to wash away.”
“Spence” the nickname falls from his mouth like it was always meant to be there, Spencer looks up quickly, shock coloring her face. It was not intentional, just like all the other times. At least this time, she’s conscious enough to hear it.
Aaron starts slowly, he’s still not sure how to approach the situation. He feels like he’s out alone on a playground where someone keeps nailing him in the face with a soccer ball. “You can’t live your life like this, our work isn’t a game of cosmic justice. If you think like this, this work will consume you and leave nothing behind.”
“That’s what happened to Gideon” he tacks on quietly. None of them had forgotten about Gideon’s descent after the Adrian Bale case, when the scales had finally tipped and he’d lost his purpose as a profiler, as an agent.
It had only been a matter of time before he was going to leave. It didn’t have to be that way for Spencer.
Spencer flinches at the name of her former mentor. It had been over 5 years since she’d last seen him but even then, the loss was still too close to the surface. Aaron can’t help but feel a little guilty that he’s reminding her of yet another personal tragedy in her life. But, if it’ll keep her from following the same path, it’ll be worth it.
He can’t lose her too, not after all they’ve been through.
“When Haley died, I thought that the grief would be inescapable. I had no idea if Jack and I would even get close to ever being okay again.” Aaron remembers sleepless nights that he cradled a sobbing Jack to his chest, wondering if they would have been better off if Aaron had died when Foyet had first attacked him in his apartment. If the serial killer would have left his family alone had Aaron not defied him in the first place.
“But you- Spencer- you pulled us from the fire. You kept on showing up and proving that we could get better”.
She had, from quiet visits at night to read a bedtime story, soccer games and playdates with Henry. The book about grief that he kept in his bedside drawer like a talisman. Spencer had been the saving grace that Aaron had needed.
“ I can’t ever repay you for what you did for Jack, what you did for me.”
“We can’t keep going like this, you can’t keep shutting me out. You helped me get out of this pit, please let me help you too”. Aaron can feel tears pricking the corner of his eyes. He blinks them away, embarrassed, somehow Spencer always manages to bring his most vulnerable feelings to the surface
Spencer just hangs her head, staring down at her clasped hands “Hotch, You found me drunk and passed out at my apartment. You had to stick me in the shower. I’ve let you down” her voice is quiet, as if she expects that her admission will earn her condemnation and she’s come to terms with it.
“Spencer, absolutely nothing you can do would make me think less of you” Aaron doesn’t wait for Spencer to answer before he raises himself from the chair and walks around the coffee table. He internally thanks whatever higher power is out there that he hasn’t tripped over the coffee table. Taking a seat next to Spencer on the couch, he pulls her into a massive hug, tucking her head into his chest. He can feel her loosening her shoulders and leaning into the embrace.
The skin near his clavicle vibrates as Spencer mumbles something into his shirt.
“This is the 5th time you’ve ever hugged me”
“Huh?”
“We’ve worked together for almost 9 years and this is the 5th time you’ve ever hugged me”
Spencer shrugs a little before mumbling “you know, I don’t mind hugs.” Her face is red, embarrassed.
Aaron can’t help the chuckle that bursts from his chest and he pulls her back to his chest. There’s something right about the way she fits into his arms, he feels her arms tentatively encircle him, lightly touching his back so he tightens his grip.
He hasn’t hugged a lot of members of the team, he’s never particularly been a hugging person. That has never stopped Dave and Penelope from hugging him. Dave’s hugs make him feel respected, it’s firm pats on the back and a quick embrace that never lasts too long. Penelope’s hugs make him feel warm, her flowery perfume wafting through the air and permeating his suit jacket.
Spencer’s hugs? Spencer’s hugs made him feel seen. Like all the different pieces of himself are assembled in equal measure by careful hands that accept all of them, every crack, defect and imperfection wholeheartedly.
“Come on Spencer, let me take you home”
The cracked leather seats of the couch let out a soft hiss as they both rise and leave Aaron’s office and the empty bullpen behind them.