𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚, 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠

chapter eleven. love was never logical

"I'm not ashamed of him or anything." Spencer was behind her now, she could feel his presence as the two stared down at the baby, for the first time in Percy's life, he had two people staring down at him. He didn't just know Spencer anymore; there were another pair of eyes to look into before he fell asleep. "I didn't say you were." They stood there for a while until Percy's eyes were finally closed, "Do you have something to drink?" She stretched out her arms, the two of them making their way out of the nursery. "I have coffee."

"I like coffee." Five minutes later, they were sitting on his couch, drinking coffee while she asked him about Percy, never asking about his mother, she didn't want to intrude any more than she already had. "He's beautiful." She complimented him and he gave her a weak smile, "That's all Delaney." He got up from his seat and when he came back, he handed her a picture of Percy's mother. She was so young, so full of life. In the picture, she was on the beach, a surfboard under her arm as she smiled at the camera. She was beautiful, she could see where Percy got his eyes.

Spencer spent the night talking about her, Elle listened to all the stories. She laughed along with him when he told her about Delaney crying during Burger King ads and running after birds on the beach, she smiled when he told her stories about their dates, and when the stories came to an end and he remembered she was gone, she let him rest his head on her shoulder. She let him be weak because he had to be strong for too long. For the first time, Elle felt truly needed and Spencer felt seen, they were feelings they both had been chasing after for as long as they could remember.

Elle would come to see him almost every day when they weren't working, over time he grew to need her, more and more. She wasn't just his friend; because Percy was also in awe of her.

Spencer finally had someone there to watch his son grow up with him. She was there for every milestone, she was there when he started walking, she laughed when he walked from one side of the room to the other just so he could bite Spencer. She was there when his first tooth came in, when he cried all night, and she was there when the sun came up and the pain faded away. Elle was there when Percy was sick for a week, she was the one he threw up on, she was the one who he called for in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep. Elle taught him how to ride his bike when he was ten, she was the one with Spencer the day they taught Percy how to swim. Spencer never liked being in the water, so she was the one telling him not to be scared of anything, she taught him how to be fearless.

For as long as Percy was on this planet, he knew Elle and from that very first day that Elle and Spencer sat on his couch until three in the morning, she loved them both and she didn't know when her love for her best friend stopped being platonic. She knew it was stupid to fall for someone who couldn't love her back but over time, she couldn't help herself, after all love was never logical. But he was the first person she went to after she quit her job with the BAU, because she needed to see him and Percy. She thought being with him would make her realize she had made a mistake but the second she walked through the door, it felt like going home.

Over the years the love grew, stretched itself out and she wore it like a second layer of skin, she loved him with every bit of her and that love seemed to overspill in everything she did.

When they fell asleep at the cabin, holding hands, she thought he knew, and she ran. The day Percy fell off his bike and had to get ten stitches and she held Spencer's hand the entire time, she thought he knew. When he came home from rehab for the first time and she was waiting for him, when he fell and she caught him, she thought he knew. With every hug, with every kiss on the cheek and every time she held his hand, she thought he knew but Spencer was blind. He was so stuck in his own head that he never noticed all the small touches they shared, he never felt her looking at him when he looked away and he never knew why he looked at her when she wasn't looking back. He missed the signs, the way he was the first person she looked for when she walked into any room, the way he always comforted her, the way her pain would become his and vice versa.