CONTENT WARNING: IMPLIED/REFERENCED MISCARRIAGE
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You blinked.
Then you laughed, "No, I'm not. That's absurd."
The doctor pressed her lips together. "Your blood contains hCG levels that are consistent with around five to six weeks of pregnancy." Then she paused, before adding, "hCG stands for—"
"Human chorionic gonadotropin," you cut her off briskly, "I'm aware of what it stands for and what it is. But you're wrong."
Irritation flashed across the doctor's features. You couldn't have cared less. And you refused to even so much as look at Spencer, whose hand had gone limp in your own.
"Oh... kay," she drew out. "Would you—"
You cut her off again as you hopped off your perch from Spencer's bed and walked over to her. "I'm sorry—could I see that for a second?" you asked, pointing to her tablet.
She looked taken aback, even more so as you took the tablet from her hands without waiting for a response. Your eyes quickly scanned the screen.
Your hCG levels were close to 6,000 mIU/ml, which, given the non exact nature of the hormone and the broad range of levels that accompanied any given week of pregnancy, did fall into what could be seen between five and six weeks.
You blinked at the screen a few times as if it would change the data.
And then you shoved the tablet back into the doctor's hands. "There have been cases of phantom hCG levels in non-pregnant women before. It's likely another case."
Behind you, you heard Spencer softly say, "Y/N..."
You ignored him.
The doctor huffed out a breath and asked, "Okay, Agent Y/L/N, when was your last menstrual period?"
"I—" You paused.
You couldn't answer.
You didn't actually remember.
With everything else going on, you hadn't noticed you were even late.
And the doctor gestured towards you, as if to say, well, there you go.
"Okay, but—" You rubbed your face with your hand, resting it over one of your eyes as you closed them. "I take daily hormonal contraceptives to try and regulate my period. I don't know if you've realized, but it's been a rather stressful few weeks. It's not implausible that my cycle's been thrown off, and the chances of getting pregnant while taking oral contraceptives are just so statistically unlikely that—"
"Daily contraceptives are only ninety-nine percent effective if taken perfectly—as in, at the exact same time every single day. Do you take it at the exact same time every single day?"
You dragged your hand down your face, snapping, "I'm a federal fucking agent. I can't just stop in the middle of a takedown to take my fucking birth control just because it hits 8pm."
"Well, then, the rate of effectiveness for oral contraceptives drops to around ninety-one percent, unless you use other methods of contraception along with it. Do you?"
You couldn't believe you were having this conversation right now. You felt like you were fifteen-years-old again, and your pediatrician was asking you whether or not you were even sexually active—which, at the time, you very much were not.
But mortification and denial were the only two things keeping you from succumbing to a slew of repressed memories that you could not confront right now.
Still, the reality of the data on the doctor's screen was slowly settling in, and you managed to mumble, "Sometimes."
And the doctor sighed heavily. "Okay, I understand how and why this information might be upsetting or overwhelming at this moment in time. First time pregnancies are—"
"It's not," you cut her off hoarsely.
"Sorry?"
"It's not... it's not the first..." You couldn't even say it. Your throat was starting to close up. You could feel the blood draining from your face. And your heart was racing.
Honestly, you were so exhausted that you wouldn't have been surprised if you passed out on the spot.
"Agent Y/L/N, do you need to sit down?"
"No. No, I'm... I'm fine," you breathed. The air around you was beginning to thin. You began taking quicker, shallow breaths to compensate.
"Uh, okay," she said, "I think you should sit down." She dragged a chair from the nearby table and placed it next to you.
Despite what you'd said, you slowly sank down into the seat. You cast your gaze down onto the floor as the doctor continued speaking.
"There haven't been any official studies documenting if and how long term ketamine use impacts pregnancy and fetal development. That said, from a purely medical standpoint, there is a definite risk of fetal toxicity and the possibility of reduced neuronal development."
She paused before adding in a softer tone, "But these are just possibilities. The FDA has yet to assign ketamine to an official pregnancy risk category, and considering the fact that you were injected with medical grade ketamine, and not for long term use, I would say that the fetus should be fine. If you plan on carrying this pregnancy to term—" You flinched at that. "—then I would suggest making an appointment with an OB/GYN as soon as you get home, just in case."
The pager in her coat pocket beeped, and she dug it out to glance at the tiny screen. "I'm being called, but you can ask the desk for my card if you have any questions for me. Take care, agents."
And then she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.
And you and Spencer were left in silence.
You squeezed your eyes shut, taking a deep breath as you braced your elbows on your knees and buried your face in your hands. You were vaguely aware of Spencer calling your name.
You supposed you shouldn't have been surprised; you and Spencer hadn't exactly taken extra precautions every single time you slept together. But you hadn't considered the lessened rate of effectiveness for your own daily contraceptives.
And of course this would happen just as you thought you had figured one thing out.
Spencer called your name again.
You sank deeper into yourself.
The smell of the hospital. The harsh fluorescent lights above. That gratingly calm voice of a doctor who knew nothing about you. All of them transported you back into that portion of your life—the one you'd sworn to block out. You couldn't stop the flow of memories.
How you'd collapsed at the lab after feeling sick all day and suddenly like you'd been stabbed in the abdomen. How one of your research assistants had found you and had to accompany you to the hospital. How you'd had to listen to the doctor relay everything she'd told you to Alexander once he'd arrived at the hospital.
The look on his face: grief, then blame.
Even if he'd told you in the basement that he no longer thought it had been your fault, that part of you would always whisper those insidious thoughts to you—the thoughts that had plunged you into an all-consuming funereal darkness.
Because it had been your fault.
Your fault.
It was your fault.
A gentle touch on your shoulder jolted you from your thoughts, and you shot up from your chair, whirling around to see Spencer standing beside you. His left arm was still limp from anesthesia.
"You shouldn't be standing," you breathed.
"I'm fine," he answered brusquely. Then, more gently, he asked, "Are you?"
You'd lost track of how many times he'd had to ask you that, of how many times anyone had to ask you that. For a long time, the question would spark an irrational rage, regardless of the intent of the asker. It was like a reminder of everything wrong with you.
Instinctually, you cleared your throat and said, "Yep."
Spencer didn't look convinced. And you...
You shook your head and corrected yourself: "No, actually. I'm not. That... that's..." You sighed and rubbed the heel of your palm into your eye. "I'm sorry," you whispered, looking back up at him.
He blinked. "What are you apologizing for?"
"I've been... I should have realized this earlier. I've felt sick for the past two weeks, but I just... I thought it was anxiety. And..." You looked down and chewed on the inside of your cheek as you exhaled a sharp laugh. "Just when we figure out one thing..." You trailed off.
Spencer exhaled a laugh through his nose. "You have nothing to be sorry about. I'd remind you of the fact that conception requires two parties, but I, uh... I don't think that's necessary. And..." And he opened his right arm to you. You didn't hesitate before tucking yourself into his side, leaning your face into him.
And that was when you noticed that his body was completely rigid, his right arm trembling ever so slightly.
And you realized that he was forcing himself to keep composure for your sake.
You wrapped your left arm around his back, avoiding where his left arm still hung limp, and rested your right hand on his chest. You shut your eyes to force back tears.
How had you ever thought you could walk away from Spencer? How had you been so foolish as to believe that you would not fall in love with him—the embodiment of all that was patient, and kind, and wonderful in the world?
How had you ever wanted to live a day without him?
And it wasn't about necessity; you could survive just fine for the rest of your life by yourself. You'd done it before; you could do it again. And that deep pit inside you still whispered notions of self-loathing and pity, wrapping you in the idea that you were not deserving of his warmth.
But for the first time in fifteen years, you wanted to try and silence those thoughts. Permanently. You wanted to learn to believe that you deserved to love and be loved, to live life as it was meant to be experienced—whatever that meant.
He continued softly, "Whatever... whatever you want to do, I will support you. You know that, right?"
And you nodded, because you did.
Perhaps it was time for you to finally tell that story—the one you'd never thought you'd be able to tell, the entire truth as you'd experienced it. At any rate, he'd already learned bits and pieces of it, and for the first time, laying yourself entirely bare was not as daunting as it had always seemed.
For the first time, you wanted someone to know every part of you, even those which had never seen the light of day, and those that left scars within you that would never fully heal.
Maybe that was the first step in figuring out what to do next.
"When we get home," you whispered, "Let's talk about... this. And I just... I have to tell you something else."
"Okay." He planted a kiss on the top of your head. "I love you."
And you smiled despite yourself. You didn't think you'd ever get used to hearing that. "I love you, too."
And by the way his grip on you tightened upon hearing you say those words again, you figured that Spencer felt exactly the same way.
Then there was another knock on the door. You pulled away from him and turned towards the door as he called, "Come in."
The door opened, and Preston, Emily, JJ, and Derek all walked into the room. Preston was carrying both of your go-bags in either of his hands, and he gently placed them inside the room by the door. You shot him a thankful look.
"How are we doing?" Derek asked as he closed the door behind him.
You moved to the side so Spencer could sit down in your chair, responding, "Coping. Anything new?"
Work would help clear your head, you thought.
"Hotch and Rossi took the jet to transport Boucher. They've already touched down and are with a small secure team of agents. Victor and Leonardo are currently being transported to DC for their autopsies and processing," Emily responded. "No update on Alexander, unfortunately, but the entire estate in Sagaponack is being investigated for leads on the rest of the mafia's activities."
"He can't have gone far, though," JJ added. "We have search teams all over Fire Island and the surrounding mainland. We'll find him."
Derek continued, "In the meantime, we're all getting agents stationed outside our homes. Wouldn't be surprised if we'll have them tailing us for the next few weeks. The higher-ups have ordered us to stand by. Stay home and on-call until they can figure out how to handle the press and what to do with us."
"That's understandable," Spencer responded. "This isn't just a scandal. One of the bureau's missions is to protect against foreign intelligence threats. This could drastically change the way American citizens view their defense systems, their politicians, their own safety. We might be looking at the next Watergate in terms of media coverage if it isn't handled properly."
"Not to mention—we don't even know if they had ties to other mobs," Preston added. "The Corsican mafia is small relative to the Italian or Russian mob, but that bastard was as well connected as they come. With that much influence in the US government, he could have had threats from all over the globe eatin' out of the palm of his hand."
"And the internal investigation is going to be hell," you said. "Boucher was the director. If he managed to get that far up the ladder..."
"Who knows who he brought with him. He's probably got people in every division," Derek finished.
And the six of you fell into an uneasy silence, the uncertainty of the future of your careers and the entire FBI weighing heavily on all of you.
JJ was the one to break the silence with a heavy sigh. "I'm... I'm ready to go home, now."
"Yeah," Derek said. "Me too."
And you couldn't have agreed more, especially given all that you had just learned, but you couldn't leave Long Island just yet.
"Hey," you asked, "is my car still on the Marseilles' estate?"
Derek shook his head. "Garcia drove it over. She stayed with the vans for tech support while we were all in pursuit. Fair warning—she might try to buy it off you."
She had already tried offering you a price when she first saw it. Unfortunately for her, it wasn't for sale.
More quietly, you said, "It, uh... it was my dad's, so I need to put it back and get my car."
Preston looked down at his watch. "It's a five and a half hour drive back from the Hamptons to DC. We better leave now if we want to get home by noon."
"Oh, you guys don't have to come wi—"
"Funny joke, sweetheart," Preston cut you off. Then he gestured to the rest of the BAU. "C'mon. Let's get the lovers discharged so we can get on the road."
You froze. "What did you just say?"
And Emily looked over her shoulder at you as they started filing out. Despite the heavy tension and uncertainty in the air, she managed a wry smile. "You didn't seriously think the rest of us didn't notice, did you?"
No one aside from JJ had ever formally brought it up with you, and even then, it had been more speculative than definitive. You probably should have assumed, but...
"Uh, how long?" you asked.
Derek looked over at JJ and Prentiss. "Since, what? That night at O'Keefe's?" He looked back over to you, and upon finding your eyes clouded with confusion, he added, "You and Garcia got those frilly pink drinks with the umbrellas."
You blinked. "That... that was in early November, wasn't it?"
He winked at you before shutting the door, leaving you and Spencer alone again in silence.
And Spencer just craned his head up to look at you and smiled.
***
When you arrived at the blue house on the beach, it was still mostly dark, with the sun just barely peeking out over the horizon. There was no activity yet in the neighborhood aside from a single jogger dressed in expensive athletic clothes, running alongside her border collie.
How strange it was that you had been here just twenty-four hours ago. How different your life had been.
Despite all you'd endured, you'd always be astounded by how so much could change in such little time.
Garcia sat beside you in the convertible. After pulling you and Spencer into bone crushing hugs upon seeing you both alive and well, she'd called riding back to the house in the car with you.
"To say goodbye to my brief affair," she'd said as she pointed to your convertible.
Her eyes were brimming with tears of relief at being able to see the two of you alive herself, so you couldn't say no.
Everyone was exhausted. The local coffee shop a few streets over (a family run business that was still open after all these years) would open in fifteen minutes. The six of you could get enough caffeine there to survive the long drive home.
But driving while chatting with Garcia left a slight smile on your face. It certainly was enough to momentarily distract you from what was yet to come, and from the fact that you were pregnant.
After last time, you never thought you would be again.
Maybe you could use the drive home to think about what exactly to say to Spencer.
You pulled into the driveway beside your SUV and clicked the garage door remote, driving into the garage before cutting the engine. You sighed and clambered out of the car after swiping your purse and a garment bag from the backseat.
In the driveway, the rest of the team piled out of the SUV Derek was driving.
Derek let out a low whistle as he approached you. "Big house," he commented.
"It's in desperate need of repair. Before yesterday, I hadn't been here since I was eighteen," you answered, digging your keys from your bag.
You unlocked the door and were met with the hollow silence of the once vibrant home. You sighed softly to yourself before turning back to the team. "It's pretty dusty inside, and everything's wrapped in plastic. But you're all welcome to come in, if you want. I just need to put a few things back."
Then you led the team inside and pointed them to the back wall—completely made of windows—and the deck, where they could see the first rays of light reaching across the ocean through a gap in the otherwise dense layer of clouds.
While they headed to the deck, you jogged up the stairs to your parents' old room. Unlike yesterday, you didn't linger from intimidation outside, instead walking straight in and to the closet. You found the hanger where you had found your mother's shawl and slowly placed the garment bag back onto it.
You unzipped it and ran your fingers through the plush white fur.
And then, after zipping the bag back up, you walked out of the room and down the hall, to where yours and Lizzy's rooms sat across from one another. You opened her bedroom door and headed straight to her vanity desk. You unclasped her pearl necklace from your neck and removed the matching earrings, placing them back in her jewelry box.
And then you paused.
Her vanity mirror was littered with polaroids of her and her high school friends, but resting face down on her desk was a framed photo. It was almost completely covered by stray papers—old school assignments, you realized. You hadn't noticed it yesterday.
You gently swiped the assignments away before picking up the photograph.
Your breath hitched.
It was a baby photo of the two of you. You couldn't have been older than four or five, making Lizzy just a toddler. You were holding her hand as you beamed into the camera. She, however, was looking up at you instead, her eyes bright and full of adoration with a wide grin on her face. She had a tremendous red bow in her hair.
And you remembered that bow to be yours. You had been the one to put it on her.
The perfect image of innocence, of two sisters who could never even imagine the horrors that would befall them.
You didn't notice that you started crying until a tear slipped from your cheek and onto the glass protecting the photo.
"I'm so sorry I couldn't save you," you whispered into the emptiness of the room.
It was the apology that had brewed in your heart since that fateful night, when you'd failed your duty as her older sister. When she'd cried out to you for help and had been met with a silent stare. When you had sat uselessly by the side while she endured agony after agony.
"And I'm so sorry it took me so long to figure it out." You took a deep shaky breath before pressing the photo to your chest. "But I did it. I finally did it." And then you managed a weak smile. "And my team is downstairs. I couldn't do it without them. You would have loved them. I think they've helped to make me brave, just like you always told me to be. And I think... I think I'm going to try to keep being brave—to just... live."
For her. For your parents.
To live, for them, because you were still here carrying on their legacies.
To live, for yourself, for the good you did for the world alongside the BAU, for the delicate still unnamed thing between you and Spencer.
To live, just because you weren't undeserving of the air you breathed.
And for the first time in fifteen years, a part of you was starting to believe it.
With one last shaky breath, you wiped the tears from your cheeks and gently placed the photograph in your purse.
Maybe when you got home, you would go through the photo albums you had stored away in a box in your office. Maybe you'd hang some of them up in the main room.
With one last parting glance to Lizzy's bedroom, you walked out and across the hall to your own bedroom.
You headed to your bed, where your collection of Dickinson poems and Spencer's gift of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde sat on top of the dusted plastic. You'd promised yourself that you'd be back to get them yesterday morning, and so you picked them up as well and set them in your bag alongside the picture frame.
And then you sighed, taking in the evidence of your childhood as your eyes scanned the room.
You couldn't stop yourself from walking to the far wall, where a built-in bookshelf took up the majority of the wall, only stopped by windows on either side. It was horribly unorganized. You couldn't bring yourself to be embarrassed at its sorry state.
You ran your fingers along old and cracked spines of books, glancing over old textbooks that had been shoved here and there.
And when you'd walked the expanse of it from left to right, you stopped.
And then you laughed to yourself.
You had five separate copies of Faulkner's A Light in August—one with just the plain text, and four others with academic annotations printed alongside the original text, all from different English scholars. If you counted the two copies you had at your apartment, you had seven altogether.
If you were to actually look in depth at the contents of your bookshelf, you had no doubt that you'd find several copies of everything on there. Sometimes, it was just because you had somehow accumulated extra copies of a book, and other times, it was because you wanted to annotate the book but also wanted a clean copy.
Regardless, even you recognized that no one needed seven separate copies of A Light in August.
You plucked one of them off the shelf; it was your original copy, with just the original text and your own annotations. Neon colored tabs stuck out of several pages, and you flipped to one of them.
Your eyes softened at the highlighted quote it directed you to:
'Perhaps they were right in putting love into books,' he thought quietly. 'Perhaps it could not live anywhere else.'
Up until recently, you'd thought such a thing to be true.
Now...
You heard a knock on the door, and you jolted in surprise, whipping your head around to find the source.
"Sorry," Spencer said. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just came to check up on you."
By the way his eyes wandered around your room, you figured his curiosity had also gotten the best of him. You said as much.
And he smiled sheepishly. "Well, you can actually tell a lot about a person from their childhood bedroom."
"Is that so?"
He nodded. "I'm sure you already know, but we begin to develop our own genuine preferences in adolescence. We try to build our own identity through things like music, clothing, decor, and more. It's why most people tend to have a deep attachment to their adolescent interests."
You glanced around your room—at the copy of your bachelor's degree hanging over your bed, at the upright piano, at the massive bookshelf behind you.
"You're not going to find anything you didn't already know in here, Spencer," you said with a slight smile.
He exhaled a laugh. "I figured." Then he walked over to you and asked, "What book is that?" You showed him the cover and he laughed again. "That's deeply unsurprising at this point."
You shoved his good arm lightly, and then glanced down at his bandaged left arm. "How's that feeling?"
"It doesn't really hurt yet, but it'll start within the next few hours. They, uh..." He trailed off for a moment, sniffing and scrunching his nose up briefly. "They gave me prescription narcotics for it. I'd rather not take those, though."
You nodded. "Mixing ibuprofen and acetaminophen instead of painkillers will take care of moderate pain and swelling. I have both at home. You can take it when we get there."
He raised his brows, and you realized your slip up.
Your cheeks grew warm, and you breathed a laugh to yourself. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"No, no, it's fine. Do you... want me to stay over?"
You cleared your throat. "Well, just logistically, it makes sense. We still have to... talk, and... you know, my apartment is higher up. It has better security, and..." You looked down at the book in your hands. "I also would rather not be alone. So."
You dared a glance back up at him, and his eyes softened. "I feel the same."
Then his eyes darted down to his feet before lifting back up, settling on the window beside the bookshelf. His brows raised. "It's snowing," he said.
You followed his gaze to find the air full of tiny flurries.
And even though you had grown to associate snow, one of the things you adored as a child, with that horrid night, you couldn't stop yourself from smiling at the sight. "And miles to go before I sleep," you whispered.
Spencer looked back down at you. "And miles to go before I sleep," he echoed with a slight smile, one which you returned.
Then you glanced over to the door with a sigh. "We should probably hit the road. It's going to be a long drive, and we're all exhausted."
He hummed his agreement as you replaced the novel back onto the shelf.
And then you paused. "Can I be honest for a second?" you asked.
"Of course."
"At the risk of sounding pretentious... Faulkner actually is one of my favorite authors."
And Spencer smiled again as he said, "Mine too."
And so the two of you left that chamber of your youth, forever frozen in a simpler time, and descended the stairs together. You rejoined with the rest of the team, and with half the team in your car, and the other half in Derek's, you all began the long drive back to Quantico.