Chapter Text
The following day, you and Spencer set out on a mission to buy JJ and Will a present for their happy news. After debating several impersonal and semi-robotic items, you decided instead on a beautiful hand woven papoose made by women in Africa.
Coming home after a quick bite to eat for dinner, you wrapped up the gift. Glancing at the wrapping paper, you sighed.
“It’s so nice to have real friends,” you commented.
Spencer tilted his head to the side. You hadn’t realized how strange that sounded until you saw his reaction.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You should have had lots of real friends in high school and college.”
“Should have?”
Spencer smiled shyly.
“You’re the most amazing person to be around. I doubt you had any trouble making friends.”
“I didn’t have trouble making friends,” you said. “I had trouble keeping them.”
He looked confused, and waited for you to continue. You thought about your past, and the feelings talking about it would bring up, but knew you had to share it at some point.
“In my experience, I have found that you don’t discover who your friends really are unless you go through something major together.” Spencer settled in, realizing this was going to be a significant story. “I had these friends, like my main core of people. I thought they were all super funny and awesome. I thought they had my back no matter what. This was back in high school where you sort of knew everyone, even if you didn’t know them. So there was this girl, Rachel who was kind of an outcast. She was the one in all black, with piercings and rumored tattoos. Most people made fun of her and never included her in anything. We sat next to each other in art class though. She was sweet. She helped me when I broke my clay dinosaur, I helped her when she couldn’t draw hands to save her life.” Spencer smiled at the unlikely kinship. “But Rachel was troubled. I knew she struggled with drugs. I saw the redness of her nose, and even needle marks when she rolled up her sleeves sometimes. One day, she didn’t show up to class and I didn’t know why. When she showed up the next day though, she looked like she’d been through hell. Word was that she’d been too strung out on some drug to get up for school. When I asked her if she was okay, she didn’t really answer me, and fairly enough, as we weren’t really friends on that level. I wanted to make her a little happier, so I commented that I liked her necklace. It was this little black crescent moon. She smiled a little, and told me I could have it. She insisted, actually. She gave it to me even though I told her she should keep it.” You looked down at your hands, readying yourself to say the next words. “That night, she overdosed. Apparently the previous day when she hadn’t shown up for school, she had attempted suicide. I guess that night she succeeded.”
“Suicidal people often give away possessions to those they care about,” Spencer noted softly.
You nodded.
“I didn’t know that until afterwards,” you said. “If I had just known … Maybe I could have--”
“You were a teenager,” Spencer said. “You couldn’t have known.”
You shook your head, feeling all those old feelings swell up inside you.
“And my ‘friends’ didn’t understand. They thought her death didn’t matter. They were selfish and heartless. They didn’t even go to her memoriam.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Spencer said, moving closer to hold your hands in his. “But you remember her, you cared about her. That means something.”
“I can’t believe her parents didn’t do anything about it either.”
“They might not have known,” Spencer suggested. “Teenagers, especially ones with suicidal ideations, are very secretive. She could have passed off her overdose as sickness, or simply had a friend take her to the hospital. There are a thousand ways around it.”
You looked up at him, knowing he knew from experience what it was like to hide such an addiction and its consequences. It hadn’t really occurred to you until now, that helping Spencer through his depression and addiction had been a way to correct what you had been unable to do in high school.
“My point is, I know who JJ is, I know who you are, for real,” you said. “We’ve been through stuff together, stuff that matters. I know that I want you by my side if that or worse should ever come to pass.”
“And I will always want you by my side,” Spencer agreed, kissing your forehead gently.
You wiped away the few tears that had fallen during your story, and Spencer got up to make some tea. You finished wrapping the present. The rest of the day was uneventful, though Spencer treated you a bit like you were something fragile after your story. He was right in his unspoken assessment that it had brought up some feelings you’d rather have forgotten, but telling the story, especially to him, had also helped.
He waited a while, simply holding you in silence, before speaking again.
“Were you going to mention that it’s your birthday tomorrow?” he asked quietly.
You pulled back from the embrace, surprised. Wiping the last of the tears away from your face, you blushed.
“How did you know?” you asked.
While you’d made a big deal of celebrating his birthday, you didn’t usually like drawing attention to yourself for yours. You had been with him only a little while when your first birthday passed with him, and it had been wonderful, even if you hadn’t officially celebrated it. You knew he’d figure it out eventually.
“I had Garcia look it up,” he smirked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
You shrugged.
“No real reason,” you said. “My parents never really celebrated with me or anything because they were traveling a lot, and you know my issue with friends now…”
He nodded slowly and then got up. He walked over to the mantel and grabbed the frame from it, bringing it over to you. Our Story still stood in graceful font at the top. One of five frames had been filled.
“Every birthday,” he repeated your words to you. You couldn’t stop your smile.
“I meant every one of yours ,” you explained.
“Why just mine?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “I guess those are the only ones I thought about.”
“You didn’t think about yourself?” he asked.
You blinked. You guessed you hadn’t. In terms of how you were going to measure your life, Spencer had become the focal point, and not your own aging.
“Well, I think if it’s going to be our story, it should be our birthdays that are represented.”
“Does that mean we have to take a picture right now?” you asked, almost giggling.
“No,” he answered. “But soon.”
“How about when you get back from your case?” you suggested.
“Whatever you wish,” he said, placing the frame on the table and kissing your forehead as he stood. “Speaking of which, I should probably get to sleep if I want to be functional at all tomorrow.”
You glanced at the clock and saw how late it had gotten. Nodding, you followed him into the bedroom and got ready for bed.
That night, however, you couldn’t sleep. Spencer had fallen asleep quickly, but you couldn’t. Perhaps it was a mixture of knowing that in all likelihood he’d be leaving for a case tomorrow, mixed with the emotional turmoil from earlier, but you couldn’t just lay in bed. You got up and closed the door to the bedroom, walking silently into the kitchen.
You decided to bake some muffins. If you couldn’t sleep, at least Spencer and the team could wake up to the fruits of your insomnia. Careful not to wake him, you worked quietly, gathering ingredients from around the kitchen to create some delicious mix. Watching the muffins slowly rise in the oven, you contemplated your life for a moment.
It seemed surreal that you’d been with Spencer for a little over a year now. You never thought you’d click with anyone, let alone the way you did with him. It was the first time that you could truly see someone being in your life forever. Those fake friends in high school, and all the similar ones after that, had all had that tinge of impermanence. Something in you knew that they would never last. In the past year, you hadn’t met anyone with that same feeling. The team and Spencer seemed so different. It was scary, because that meant there was more to lose, but it was also exciting that for the first time in your life, you had people who you could truly trust, be yourself, and have fun with.
Packing the muffins away once they had cooled, you slipped back into bed and stared at the ceiling until you fell asleep.
Spencer’s alarm woke you up early, and you’d only managed to have a few hours of light sleep. You tried to hide your tiredness, however, and got up with Spencer. You offered to drive him to work and bring the muffins along so you could see everyone before they had to run off to another case. He happily agreed, and you drove in, a few muffins mysteriously disappearing while you drove, with ample denial by Spencer.
Walking into the bullpen with the muffins, the team looked absolutely thrilled. You and Spencer went to grab some napkins for them from the kitchenette while they munched.
“You know, they’re now going to expect these treats from time to time,” Spencer teased you.
“That’s fine by me, I love to cook for them.”
“I can’t believe you made these because you couldn’t sleep,” Spencer laughed.
“I thought I’d be productive with my time,” you shrugged.
“Well, it was sweet of you. And I love you… You make me happy to wake up in the morning,” he said shyly.
“What, seeing me isn't enough to make you happy in the morning?” Morgan asked, grinning as he walked between you to get a coffee cup.
Spencer blushed and rolled his eyes.
“Shut up,” he answered half-heartedly.
“I am a wonderful, delightful human. And I, for one, would think you’d be overjoyed to wake up and see me at work every day.”
Morgan grinned impishly at you as you shook your head at him, trying not to laugh.
The mood immediately changed when Hotch came out of his office. Without even a word, and only the slightly nod of his head, he directed his team into the conference room. Something was very wrong, and you had no intention of sticking around to find out what psycho had killed what innocent person this time.
“Call me when you know where you’re going. Love you,” you kissed Spencer quickly.
“Okay, love you too,” Spencer said.
“No kiss for me?” Morgan asked, half joking and half anxious to get into that conference room.
Going up on your tiptoes, you quickly kissed him on the cheek.
“Protect my boy,” you whispered. He nodded.
You waved to the rest of the team as you made your exit. Hotch’s stern face worried you, although you couldn’t differentiate it from the other times you’d seen him on a case.
You drove home and nibbled on a muffin you’d left for yourself. You took a nap and read, basically allowing yourself to be lazy in a semi-celebration of your birthday. Around three in the afternoon, Spencer called.
“Hi,” you answered happily, wondering if, for some reason, they’d finished the case early.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was strange, nervous almost. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” you answered honestly. “Staring at the ceiling, trying to muster up the enthusiasm to get another book off the shelf.”
“Good,” he said, sighing.
“Why, what’s up?” you asked. “Where are you guys?”
“We’re in Quantico still,” he said. “On a case here.”
“Oh, that’s good,” you said. “At least you won’t have far to go when it’s over.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “You’re… You’re not planning on going out today, are you?”
You were puzzled by the way he asked this.
“I can if you need me to get something,” you offered. “Otherwise I had no intention of putting pants on.”
While he would have normally laughed at this, he was silent.
“Okay, good,” was all he said.
“Spencer, is something up?” you asked, suddenly growing worried.
“No, um, everything is… Just stay home and enjoy your birthday okay?” he asked. “I love you.”
“Love you too, but--”
“I gotta go,” he said quickly. “I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” you said. You managed to get a goodbye in there before he hung up.
Now you were feeling off. Something was wrong, but he wasn’t saying what. Why would he lie to you? Was he in danger? It hadn’t sounded like it, but still…
You couldn’t figure it out, but nor did you want to call back and find out. He seemed stressed, and you knew the case was more important than whatever questions his mysterious call had conjured.
You tried to shift your attention to organizing your bookshelf, and that worked for a while, but you still found yourself wondering what it was all about.
You were in the middle of treating yourself to Mexican takeout food, when Morgan called.
“Hey, handsome,” you greeted, your mouth half full of burrito.
“(Y/N),” he said seriously.
You swallowed and felt your hands go cold.
“What’s wrong?” you asked. You knew this tone. You were scared of this tone.
“Stay calm. Everything’s okay,” Morgan said. “But… He’s in the hospital.”