Chapter Text
You and your daughter arrived in Virginia exactly fifteen days after the US Marshal that was assigned to your case, Marshal Tabitha Ronan, gave you the big update on the search for Alexander Marseille. Marshal Ronan had advised you to wait before going home, to see if there were any surprise developments that might come about in the few months after, but you were done waiting.
You hated the fact that you’d been put in that position in the first place. Had you known what was happening, you would have put a stop to it immediately.
But the decision had been made for you.
You’d been informed of everything when you woke up from surgery—or, several days after surgery. You hadn’t woken up immediately when the anesthesia was lifted. And during that time, you had been transferred out of the United States to a hospital in Vancouver, where you met Marshal Ronan for the first time. She was one of several marshals that oversaw citizens in Witness Protection in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
Because of the nature of your case, however, they wanted you out of the country. In your condition, they hadn’t wanted to move you overseas, so they stuck you in western Canada, right by the border.
And when you were finally lucid and strong enough to even just open your eyes for extended periods of time, Marshal Ronan told you what you needed to know.
During the tail end of your surgery, the hospital security system had been hacked into. Suspected mob affiliates brought their families into the hospital with them to try and provide civilian cover. The nurse in charge was notified and informed Hotch of the current threat, and he had made the decision to proclaim that you’d died. Once the hospital was secured again several hours later, Hotch had informed the team of the truth.
And, after several inquiries to the US Marshals Service, and after Hotch made several calls to the Attorney General, they decided that the threat to your life was still imminent were you found to be alive while Alexander still ran the mafia. And if a key witness—which you were—in such a high profile case was deemed to be in imminent danger, that witness could be required by the bureau to go into the Witness Protection Program. The US Marshals Service made quick arrangements with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and your unconscious battered body had been transferred out of the country as soon as you were stable enough for travel.
And so you found yourself in that hospital in Vancouver, and as soon as you were well enough to leave the hospital, you would assume a new identity in your new town: Osoyoos—Canada’s only arid desert.
You didn’t believe it at first. Your vision still blurry from the morphine coursing through your veins, you almost laughed at Marshal Ronan.
And when you finally realized that, no, this was not another coma-induced dream, you were so furious that you tried several times to contact the BAU just to curse them out.
But there was security posted by your door, and a nurse that came back around every half hour.
Rationally, you knew that this was simply the protocol for witnesses in cases dealing with organized crime, and you also knew this was likely for the best. You would have been a liability if working on the case, especially while injured and vulnerable.
But that didn’t make you resent them any less for shipping you away while you were fucking unconscious.
And you had sworn that when you were recovered, there would be hell to pay.
But recovery had not been as easy or simple as you’d hoped. In those first weeks, it had been excruciatingly painful to move even the tiniest bit. And you had been informed that, because of the proximity of the bullet to your spine, you had sustained minor spinal cord injuries that left you in physical therapy for almost two years at a small clinic in Osoyoos.
Not to even mention that you were still pregnant throughout all of this.
For a while, you wondered if it was a blessing or a curse. Healing from such major surgery and learning to walk properly again was made infinitely more difficult when you were carrying around an ever growing amount of extra weight. And when you didn’t make progress in your recovery as quickly as you had wanted you, you would feel that ebbing darkness spread through your chest.
You really, really hated hospitals.
But then you went into labor at thirty weeks, underwent an emergency c-section, and met your daughter through the glass pane of her incubator in the NICU. You remembered sitting beside her in a wheelchair soon after you’d finished surgery and watching her tiny chest rise and fall with the aid of a ventilator.
You hadn’t known what to feel. If there was something you were supposed to feel.
She was just so small. So fragile.
And as she started growing, as she no longer needed a ventilator to breathe, as her features developed more and revealed Spencer’s familiar button nose and soft brown eyes, and you were assured that she would be alright…
Well, you didn’t know anything other than that you loved her with every fiber of your being. That you’d always love her. That you were so, so thankful that she’d somehow made it through everything that had happened.
And some of that darkness fizzled away in the presence of the light she brought to you.
And on her first night out of the hospital, when you were alone in your new two bedroom house right on the edge of Lake Osoyoos, cradling her in your arms while she slept, you promised her that you’d never make her question whether or not you loved her. That she’d never have to prove to herself that she was worthy. That you would be the parent you wished you’d had when you were just as tiny and vulnerable as she was now—never lying, never putting her within the vicinity of danger if you could help it, never making her believe that she needed a reason to be loved.
And as the years passed, as you tried to document every “first” and every birthday and every moment that you just thought special enough on a camera you’d bought, you found that raising her was simultaneously the most difficult thing you’d ever done and the easiest.
Such a paradox was probably due to the fact that she seemed to have taken after both you and Spencer with regard to her cognitive development.
She was speaking in full proper sentences by the time she was three, and could add and subtract large numbers. And by the time she was four, she understood the more complex nuances of the English language and used metaphorical language with increasing ease. And her reading level was far beyond that of the average four-year-old. So there was never a dull moment.
Still, she was a child. She could read a chapter book with ease, but still couldn’t tie her shoes. She could hold her own in a conversation without deviating from the subject, but sometimes she still cried out of frustration when she couldn’t zip up her jacket by herself. She could recite long passages of text to you from memory, but she still needed you to cut up her food for her because she couldn’t hold a fork and knife properly.
And some days had been harder than others. Some days you’d lie awake at night after a day of tantrums and tears and wonder if the BAU had forgotten about you. If Spencer had. If you’d ever get to return to your real life to reclaim your identity and continue doing the job you loved.
But some days the two of you had also fallen asleep in a pillow fort you’d built in the living room, the floor covered in comforters and blankets, after she’d drifted off while you read her poem after poem in a soft voice, because she always asked for you to read to her, and you would never deny her that simple joy. And when you had smoothed the hair from her face and settled down beside her, closing your eyes as the gentleness of sleep claimed you too…
It was hard to resent anything about your life in those moments.
And you had hope that one day you’d be able to go back home and return to the job that, despite everything that had happened, you still loved. That Spencer would get to meet his daughter, and she’d finally have a father in her life. That you could be the family that she deserved to have.
And now you were finally here.
You’d first gone to see Preston early in the morning the day after you arrived back home. You’d stayed in a hotel in DC for the night, not wanting to deal with your apartment quite yet, and had gone over everything with your daughter again—the same story you told her when she was old enough to ask why she didn’t have a father.
You’d told her what you could without letting her know about the truest evils the world had to offer—that both you and her dad were agents on secret missions. When she asked about his “mission,” you’d just told her that Spencer was off trying to find the bad guys. And when she asked what your “mission” was, you’d scooped her out of the chair she was sitting in and spun her around while she shrieked and giggled.
“To keep you safe, duh !” you’d told her.
You had been worried that she would grow up feeling like she was missing something integral to her life, but she was pretty convinced that both you and Spencer were real life superheroes.
But in the hotel, she’d cried over the fact that you would be moving back to Virginia. She didn’t want to leave Osoyoos. She didn’t want her life to change.
Perhaps the thing most indicative of the fact that she was just a young child was the fact that she was severely upset by any major change. If she knew the whole story, perhaps she would be more agreeable, but you would try to keep that truth from her until you couldn’t possibly anymore.
She still looked at the world through delicate glass eyes, uncracked by the horrors that lurked beneath the surface of beauty. You wanted to keep it that way for as long as you possibly could. So if moving from Osoyoos was the worst thing that could happen to her right now, if she would be “angry at you until forever” like she said she would be, you were okay with that.
And in Preston’s new shiny office, after introducing him to your daughter and catching up, and after you’d gotten over your shock at the fact that he was now the Director of the whole fucking FBI, he’d given you a brief rundown of the case. And when there was no possible way for the two of you to discuss it in child-friendly language anymore, he’d just handed you the case report to read while he showed your daughter around his office.
And you’d learned that the BAU had learned of a breakthrough found by the DoJ and had figured out the rest themselves. Alexander, who’d gone deep into hiding, was found in Louisiana. The new BAU, now led by Emily, tracked him to a warehouse where several girls were being prepared for overseas shipment.
And Spencer had gone against Emily’s orders of staying with the girls as they were being rescued. He left them in the care of Matt Simmons—a name you vaguely remembered—and had been the one to finally find Alexander, who was injured and bleeding from an earlier shootout. Spencer had killed him in “self-defense” by emptying two clips worth of bullets into him.
That had been a shock in and of itself. You supposed you would talk more about that later, when your daughter wasn’t sitting in a chair beside you and reading through the book she’d brought with her—a National Geographic animal encyclopedia for kids—but even after everything that had happened, you couldn’t help but feel a pang in your chest over the fact that Alexander was now dead.
And at this point, it had nothing to do with the fact that you’d once loved him. It was more so a sadness over the death of the once sweet boy you knew in your youth. And you couldn’t find it in you to blame him for ending up the way he did; he’d been groomed into that life since birth.
At the same time, you breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that you could finally have your life back.
And then Preston had to leave for a meeting with Spencer and the Attorney General. Preston assured you that he would try and move it along as quickly as he could, that it was the last meeting and Spencer was likely to be cleared, and that he’d tell Spencer you were back now afterwards.
In the meanwhile, you showed your daughter around DC for a bit before heading to Quantico in a rental car to see the rest of the remaining team and to meet the new members.
Your daughter dozed in the backseat the whole ride there.
And you arrived at the academy around 5pm, the warm June sun glittering off of the windows of the towering building. You parked by the entrance and pulled the key from the ignition, snatching your purse from the passenger’s seat and walking around to the side to get your daughter.
“We’re here,” you said softly as you tapped her shoulder and started unbuckling her from her car seat.
Her face scrunched up with a yawn, and she blinked a few times against the sun streaming into her car. She leaned forward in her seat, peering up at the academy, before looking back at you. “ That’s where you work?” she asked, a hint of awe seeping through her tone.
You nodded as you lifted her from her seat and placed her on the concrete. She adjusted the straps on the light blue slip dress she wore on top of a white t-shirt. Then she leaned down to fix the Velcro strap on one of her sneakers.
“Mhm,” you answered as you took her tiny hand in yours and locked the car. “And my job is way cooler than anything in Osoyoos.”
You realized that you’d likely have to be officially reinstated into the bureau and that the next few months (or, if you’d were lucky, several weeks) would be a nightmare of paperwork and reevaluations. But, for now, you were just happy to finally be back.
And she narrowed her eyes and glared up at you. “Not true. Osoyoos is more cool. It has a special ecosystem, and it even has its own climate zone . Do you know what it’s called?”
You did know, but you shook your head as you led the two of you into the lobby and towards the elevator.
She continued, “It’s called the ‘Osoyoos Arid Biotic Zone.’” She said it slowly, sharply enunciating each syllable as if trying to ensure that the rounded and clumsy manner of speech that all young children had didn’t obscure the name. “Virginia doesn’t have that,” she huffed.
You made a noncommittal hum in response as the elevator reached the BAU’s floor. The two of you stepped out of the elevator and…
You froze right outside.
She looked up at you in question.
Then you took a deep breath and started walking again—across the hall and through the familiar glass doors that you never knew you could miss as much as you did.
The bullpen was empty save for two people standing around the main desks.
JJ was the one who noticed you first. She stood up straight from where she was leaning against your old desk, and her eyes widened.
Rossi, who had his back towards you, turned around and spotted you.
JJ’s face split into a smile as she strode towards you across the bullpen and pulled you into a tight hug. Rossi quickly made his way over to do the same.
“God, it’s good to see you again,” JJ breathed as she released you. “Marshal Ronan gave us a call to tell us you’d be coming back, but…”
“We didn’t think we’d see you for a while,” Rossi finished. He put a hand on your shoulder. “We missed you.”
You tried to swallow the lump in your throat. “I missed you guys, too,” you managed to say. Then you cleared your throat. “I’m… so happy to finally be back.”
JJ smiled again, and then looked down. You followed her gaze to where your daughter had taken to hiding behind your legs. She peered up at JJ and Rossi, and you felt her hands grip the skirt of your dress.
Gone was the girl proudly boasting a fact just mere moments before. She was painfully shy, and the fact that she’d had a long day and had her nap in the car interrupted likely didn’t help.
JJ crouched down to be eye-level with her, and you moved your hand to the back of her head to try and coax her forward.
“Hi,” JJ said softly. “I’m JJ. What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer.
Then Rossi’s phone buzzed, and he took it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen. His face tightened. “Listen,” he started, and JJ stood back up to look at him. “Prentiss and the rest of the team went to DC with Reid this morning. She figured having fewer people to meet you here would be better, but they’re on their way back. Prentiss just texted and said they’ll be here in five.”
Your heart rate picked up at his words.
You’d spent so long thinking about this moment, the moment you’d finally return, that it didn’t feel quite real to you. Even more, you’d spent so long wondering what it might be like to see Spencer again.
You looked down at your daughter again and swallowed thickly.
JJ gently said, “Do you… do you want me to hang out with her for a bit so you can talk with Spence? I can just take her into Emily’s office, and you can wait in the briefing room.”
“I can wait out here and let him know where to find you,” Rossi added.
Talking with him first would probably be for the best.
You hesitated before nodding and then crouched down beside your daughter. She was forced to let go of your dress, and her eyes darted between you and JJ in mild panic.
You’d never left her with anyone before—never a babysitter, or a daycare, or anything. There hadn’t really been a need to, and frankly, you were terrified of being found by the mob. You didn’t trust anyone else to watch her. And she hadn’t started school yet, and when she did, she’d likely be a few grades ahead already.
But you trusted JJ, and your daughter was going to have to get used to there being other people in your lives, now.
So you reached out and took both her hands in yours. “Can you go with JJ for a little bit? I need to do some things alone.”
She didn’t respond, but her furrowed brows and pout gave you answer enough.
So you reached into your purse and handed her the animal encyclopedia she’d been reading earlier at Preston’s. “You can point out all the animals that we saw in Osoyoos and tell her about them.”
She was going through an animal phase, and at the prospect of delving into her interest with someone new seemed to appeal to her. So she slowly took the book from your hand and looked up at JJ.
JJ held out her hand with a warm smile, and after several moments of hesitation, your daughter took a few slow steps towards her and reached up for her hand.
The two of them walked towards Hotch’s old office—Emily’s, now, you realized—and you sucked in another breath.
Rossi nodded in your direction and leaned against the desk closest to him. “It wasn’t a light decision to send you away with no warning,” he said. “The DoJ wouldn’t give an alternative, but none of us wanted to make that choice for you, especially without at least saying ‘goodbye’.”
You’d gotten over your anger after the first month or so of giving birth, but a part of you still twisted at the mention of it. You knew that it would be a longer conversation for another time, so you just said, “I know.”
Rossi continued, “But it tore the kid up inside the most. It hasn’t been easy for him these past five years.”
You supposed that made two of you, but Rossi’s words carried an added weight, like there was more to that tidbit of information than he was leading on.
But you just nodded again with a tight smile before heading over to the briefing room, entering and closing the door behind you.
Once there, you stood by the round table, and for a few moments, all your worries dissipated in the presence of overwhelming nostalgia. It was still set up the same way, but the tech had been significantly updated. There were a few mobile cork boards and whiteboards around the room with photographs and case information on them.
You walked up to one of the boards and read through the information, running your fingers along the rough surface of cork.
It had been a simple case—a series of home invasions and subsequent murders of single men and women between the ages of thirty and thirty-seven alone in their homes. Valuables had been stolen in each invasion.
You assumed that the team had already solved the case, but you’d missed the thrill of the job, the ability to do real good in the world, the chance to stop real life monsters. You couldn’t stop your mind from going through all the possibilities. Clearly the assailant had needed money of some kind, but the consistent murder told you that there was likely a vendetta against the home owners. Perhaps it was a debt-collector sending out a worker to collect on those who hadn’t paid, or—
The door of the briefing room opened swiftly, and you jumped in surprise.
And you locked eyes with Spencer standing in the doorway—eyes wide, face slightly flushed, a bit breathless. It was like he’d sprinted across the bullpen.
But there was something different about him. Gone were his usual sweaters. Instead, he was dressed in a suit. His hair had grown out again into wild fluffy waves. Stubble peppered his jaw.
He looked older than when you last saw him. Tired. You knew the look.
And while something inside you had healed over these past five years, it seemed as if something had finally broken in Spencer.
But you decided that was a conversation for another time.
Instead, you said a quiet, “Hi.”
And as if your voice broke some sort of trance he was in, his lips pressed together tightly, and he looked down. Even from that angle, you could see his face crumpling.
“Spencer,” you called softly, taking a step towards him.
He sucked in a shaky breath and responded with a choked, “I’m sorry.” His voice was quiet and strained, like it was taking every ounce of energy within him to keep from breaking down completely.
“What are you sorry for?” you asked. You took another step closer to him.
He dragged a hand down his face, pausing briefly to rub at his eye. “I didn’t… it… it took so long,” he whispered. “I didn’t think it would take this much time, and… and…” he trailed off before letting out a shuddering breath.
So you took another step towards him, and then another, and then another—until you were standing just a few inches in front of him. You lifted your hand and gently placed it on the side of his face, sweeping a thumb across his cheek to catch a falling tear.
And, your voice thick and your own eyes watering, you murmured, “But you did it, and I’m back.”
He nodded against your hand and finally glanced back up at you. His eyes swept over your body as if searching for any sign of harm or distress before he tried, “Can… can I…” He trailed off again.
But you understood. You nodded and opened your arms to him, and he quickly swept you up into his own, burying his face into the crook of your neck as you wrapped your arms around his neck.
“I missed you,” he whispered into your skin. “Every day, I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
And the two of you stayed like that for several moments, in each others’ arms, silent tears streaming down faces, hearts united once again at last.
And when you could finally stand to pull away, he let one hand linger on your waist, the other coming up to cup the side of your face.
You leaned into his touch with a teary smile. Then you turned into his hand and pressed your lips against his palm, murmuring a soft, “And I still love you just as much as I did five years ago.”
His hands were trembling where they rested on you, and he whispered back, “I love you, too. And…” He sniffed and cleared his throat. “Um… Preston… he told me that you went to see him this morning, and you… you brought…”
You smiled softly. “She’s in Prentiss’ office with JJ.”
His eyes widened. “We… we had a girl?” he breathed.
You supposed Preston didn’t say much other than that you were back with your child.
So you nodded. “Yeah,” you said, “we did.”
And for the first time in the interaction, a smile split across his face, and he huffed a quiet incredulous laugh. His eyes, originally weary, had lit up. “What did you name her?” His voice was still quiet.
“You can ask her yourself,” you answered. “If you feel… ready to meet her, or—”
“Yes,” he cut you off. “Yes, I want to meet her. More than… more than anything, I…” He let out another quiet laugh. “Can I… now?”
You smiled again. “Yeah, let me just… tell her first, okay?”
Spencer nodded, and you took his hand in yours as the two of you walked out of the briefing room and towards Emily’s office. You glanced into the bullpen and found Emily and Rossi chatting with three unfamiliar faces.
Then Emily looked over at you and Spencer and smiled fondly. The three new agents looked over as well.
There would be other times to meet them formally, to catch up with Emily and JJ and Rossi independently and discuss all that needed to be said.
So you paused outside of Emily’s office, right at the window beside the door, and turned to Spencer. “I’ll call you in when she’s ready, okay?”
He nodded rapidly, and when you extracted your hand from his, he quickly ran his fingers through his hair and fiddled with the lapels of his jacket with nervous energy.
You opened the door and stepped into the room, and you found JJ sitting on the floor with your daughter. Her book was open to a page about amphibians.
JJ looked up at you, and you nodded.
She smiled before getting to her feet. Your daughter looked between you and JJ before she turned her gaze back to her book and flipped the page. And as JJ walked out of the room, where you could hear her speaking quietly with Spencer, you sat down beside your daughter.
“Hey,” you said quietly, reaching for her hands so that she’d face you. When she looked back up at you, you continued, “I know it’s been a really, really big day. You’re probably really tired, right?”
She nodded.
“We can go back to the hotel soon, but there’s one really special person I want you to meet.” You tried your best to keep the waver out of your voice. Your heart began racing again. “Remember when I told you that your dad was on a secret mission, just like me?”
She nodded again.
“Well, he just came back, and he really wants to meet you. Is that okay?”
She stared at you in silence for a few beats before nodding yet again.
And you breathed a sigh of relief. As much as you desperately wanted Spencer to meet her, you wouldn’t have let him if she wasn’t ready. But she was okay with it, so you smiled and leaned forward to give her a kiss on the forehead.
Then you cleared your throat and softly called, “Spencer, you can come in.”
And almost immediately, Spencer’s tall frame filled the doorway. He sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes fell on her, and he pressed his lips together to conceal the wobble in his bottom lip.
She took a step back and hid behind your back, only poking half of her face out around your arm to keep an eye on him.
Spencer noticed and took a few steps towards you until he was a few feet away. Then he slowly kneeled down to her level.
You lifted your arm and wrapped it around her back, trying to coax her forward. “It’s okay,” you murmured. “Can you say ‘hi’?”
She looked up at you before glancing at Spencer quickly. She dug the toe of her sneaker into the floor and looked down. “Hi,” she mumbled.
But Spencer was unfazed. “Hi,” he whispered back. “I’m Spencer. I’m your… your dad.”
She nodded.
“Can I… can I ask what your name is?”
And she looked back up at you instead of answering. You nodded in encouragement and swept a hand over her back.
Then she turned back to Spencer. She was silent for a few moments before quietly answering, “My name is Hope.”
Hope Elizabeth.
When you learned that you’d be having a girl, you had initially planned on naming her directly after your sister. But when you met her, you decided against it. You wanted her to have her own identity—to not be a reminder of what you lost, but a reminder of the beautiful thing you gained.
So you named her Hope—for the thing that helped you catch up with the world after unspeakable tragedy, for the little kernel inside you that never died, for the thing that made you decide to stay.
Hope—for the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings a tune without the words, and never stops at all.
Spencer’s eyes softened, and he smiled and said, “That’s a beautiful name. It’s nice to meet you, Hope. I’ve… I’ve been waiting a really long time to meet you.”
And she whispered, “Me too.”
Spencer’s smile widened, and his eyes brimmed with tears. He quickly blinked them away and softly cleared his throat, turning his gaze down to the open book on the ground. “Is this yours?” he asked. “Amphibians are very cool. Do you have a favorite?”
You couldn’t stop your own smile from spreading across your lips, because you knew that it was the perfect question to ask her.
Hope finally perked up a bit and nodded. “The tiger salamander.”
And even though Spencer likely knew every single thing there was to know about the tiger salamander, he said, “ Oooh , that’s a good one. Can you tell me a little bit about them?”
Hope beamed and took a step forward, plopping down to sit in front of the book.
And as she began rattling off all the facts she knew about tiger salamanders, you leaned back on your hands and watched them interact.
You knew that there were a million other things you had to do before your life could return to any semblance of normalcy, that it would likely be an exhausting and complicated process to get there, but for now, you cared about nothing other than this moment.
For the first time in your adult life, you saw a bright future, one that illuminated even the darkest corners within you. And though it did not negate everything that had ever happened to you, though it did not take away all your pains and burdens of the past, it was a constant reminder that you were more than what you had been through.
It served as a reminder that you loved and were loved, and you no longer felt like you needed to prove to yourself that you deserved such things.
For you had found a new source of light, an eden through which to row instead of the tumultuous sea that once tried to drown you, and you would never let them be taken from you again.