Sincerity - Criminal Minds || Spencer Reid Fanfiction

4. Changes

"I just mean, with work," She explained, setting the tray on the nightstand to turn to face me properly. "I'm Chief Hotchner, and I fought so hard to find my dad and build our relationship... I guess I'm not ready to say goodbye to that yet." She shrugged bashfully and I smiled, running the back of my hand down her soft cheek.

"That's okay," I reasoned. "What about Hotchner-Reid?"

Her face screwed up distastefully and we both laughed.

"That sounds pretentious..." she sighed and chewed on the bottom of her lip for a moment or two. "I guess it's funny," she said eventually.

"I've never really known who I've been, what name to take, and who to be from one job to the next. It's always been 'take a new name' 'make a new identity'. But, me?" She smiled sadly. "I guess I've never really known who I am." She shrugged and my heart squeezed.

"Well, now is your chance to be whoever you want to be. Now is your chance to be you," I reached forward and cupped her cheek with my hand, her eyes tearfully batting as she leaned into my touch.

"And no matter what version of you that you are," I said meaningfully. "I will love you unconditionally, no matter what."

She looked at me emotionally, her hand reaching up to cover mine.

"You mean that?" She gulped.

I nodded and smiled,

"Always."

The Protector

After saying goodbye to Will, Aaron had driven us to our house so that I could pick up some more things for Tilly.

But, just like the last three times, I had sat outside, my nails dug into the car seat as I refused to step foot out of the car.

So, Beth and Aaron had taken Tilly inside to gather some more things, and as always, they brought with them a pile of mail.

Back in Melanie's old bedroom, I flung the envelopes down onto the pile with the others and turned to the window, staring out gloomily.

"Don't you think you should open those?" Beth said sadly, nodding to the envelopes on Mel's old dresser.

"Nope." I grunted without turning around.

I heard her shuffle over to the desk and sort through the envelopes.

"Spencer, there's a handwritten letter here," She said after a while. "It might be worth opening, once you're feeling up to it." I grumbled a response, and a few moments later she left, closing the door behind her.

I thought of Melanie, of the multiple traumas she'd suffered whilst living here with Aaron and Beth and Jack, and how all of them had treated her just as they were currently treating me.

Persevering, caring, loving, nurturing. Trying their hardest to engage me in something. But, no matter how hard I tried, I still saw her face.

I could still hear her voice, her laugh and her cry, and each time I closed my eyes to sleep or cry, I could see her face and all it's beauty, right in the moment before she'd died.

'I love you.' She'd mouthed.

That was the last time I'd ever delay in going for my gun again.

The Rainbow

My stomach was flipping, doing somersaults as I pushed into the foyer after showing three types of ID to the guards I'd walked by almost every single day for almost two decades.