The ground was frozen in the cemetery out on Long Island, frigid winds blowing by and forcing chills down Spencer's back, but despite the cold weather, the sky was clear. The sun glittered off the crests of small leftover piles of snow.
Spencer wished it was raining. Or hailing. Or at least cloudy. He thought it would be more fitting.
Instead, he helped hoist the casket out of the hearse alongside Christopher Preston, Hotch, Derek, Rossi, and Emily. JJ and Garcia trailed behind the rest of them as they carried your casket across the grass to the prepared grave. They were all dressed in black—even Garcia.
And they couldn't get you a plot beside your family; those plots had already been taken years ago. The best they could get, especially on such short notice, was a few rows down.
Spencer hated that it was the best they could do. He hated that he had to carry your casket down an aisle between tombstones to get to your grave. He hated that just a few days ago, he was imagining what it might be like for you to walk down an aisle of a different kind, not towards a grave, but towards him, surrounded by friends and family alike.
In those fleeting hours of bliss, when he fell asleep with you tucked into his side, he wondered if he should just ask you to marry him then and there. But between your child (Spencer's jaw clenched in agony at even the mere thought of what might have been), and Boucher's capture, he figured that it would be better to wait. To ease into this new confirmed thing between the two of you. To handle one thing at a time before twining your lives together in a way that no one could ever deny. And now...
And now he was here.
And though you were gone, you were still the only thing that occupied his thoughts—an echo that would never fade.
Then he heard Garcia let out a shaky sigh and JJ murmur something he couldn't make out to her, and Spencer swallowed thickly. His grip around the handle tightened.
He'd cried enough at the hospital.
And then the eight of them arrived at your grave. The lowering device was already set up above the plot.
They gently placed the casket on the device and took a step back. It wouldn't start lowering until one of the graveyard staff came and unlocked the breaks. So instead, the eight agents stood around the grave and stared at your casket.
Several moments of silence passed.
Then Hotch quietly asked, "Does anyone have anything they'd like to say?"
No one responded—not even Preston, who always had a well-timed quip ready for any occasion.
But the rest of the team took quick glances between Preston and Spencer. And Spencer hated that too, that they expected something from him.
After several moments of silence, Garcia sighed, "She was just starting to be a part of the family." Her bottom lip wobbled as she spoke, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away.
"She's still a part of it," Derek answered, lifting a hand to place on her shoulder. His eyes, narrow with exhaustion and regret, were fixed on the casket.
Another silence settled over the eight of them.
Then Rossi asked Hotch, "You think the DoJ will ever let us help catch this bastard?"
Hotch didn't respond at first. Then, so quietly that Spencer nearly had to lean forward to hear him, Hotch finally answered, "It's unlikely. But that's never stopped us before."
He'd been staring at your casket, too, but his eyes flicked up and scanned the faces of each of the agents. They settled on Preston.
Preston shoved his hands into his pockets. "I won't say anything as long as I'm in on it, too. I wanna make that son of a bitch pay just as much as the rest of you."
Hotch studied Preston. "You know her best," was all he said.
Spencer also hated that Hotch was right.
And Preston managed to send a ghost of a wry smile in Hotch's direction, but didn't say anything else.
And they stayed there for a while, exchanging quiet sentiments to each other every now and then. Spencer didn't partake in any discussion. He hadn't felt like speaking much in the past two days. It was difficult to speak when the only person he wanted to talk to wasn't beside him anymore.
And despite the fact that Spencer was surrounded by his closest friends—his family—he'd never felt more alone in his life.
He supposed he'd have to get used to that again—loneliness.
And now that he'd experienced such fulfillment with you, such a state of being was like a viper that struck harder on the second blow. It was like venom that coursed through his veins as he clawed at his skin, desperate to carve it out with his own nails if he had to. It was like truly understanding what it meant to be hollow.
And as the rest of his team chatted in quiet voices and through forlorn sighs, Spencer looked up at the sky, at the beaming sun that mocked him with its joy, and he made a vow—that he was going to find Alexander Marseille. And when he found Alexander Marseille, Spencer was going to make sure Alexander knew the extent of his hollowness.
But until then...
The agents finally left the cemetery after half-an-hour. Spencer, who had ridden alongside Morgan on the way to the cemetery, returned to his passenger side seat of Morgan's car. He had to move his messenger bag, which had been resting on his seat since they'd arrived, so he could sit.
But the bag slipped from his hand and tumbled to the ground of the car. His bag popped open, and a book fell from the worn leather as the bag fell.
Spencer felt his heart flutter before it constricted.
The Complete Works of Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, read the title.
After the hospital, Spencer had returned to your apartment. He'd found your poetry book in your purse, alongside a framed picture of you and Elizabeth as young children, and the annotated copy of Troilus and Criseyde he'd gifted you for Christmas.
And when he saw that you carried around his present with you, he had broke down into sobs in the middle of your apartment.
Now, he carried your collection of Dickinson poems with him wherever he went, just so he'd be able to have some part of you here with him.
So he bent over and slowly plucked up both the bag and the book from the car floor. He let the bag fall back onto the passenger's side seat, but he turned the book over in his hands.
It was old and worn, with yellowing fragile papers. It was practically everything he loved aesthetically in a book; the wear and tear meant that it was a beloved copy of something, which meant that it was reread regularly. It was a symbol of love for the literature being devoured.
Spencer often thought that the most beautiful books were those which warranted such breakdown over time.
And he thought your collection of Dickinson poems was the most beautiful book he'd ever seen.
But it looked wrong in Spencer's hands. It felt wrong to hold it in his hands.
And he couldn't help but remember what he'd said to you on the phone—one of the last things he'd said to you before you'd been ripped from his life.
He said he'd read to you if that was what you wanted. He would have read aloud for the rest of his life if it meant making you smile.
But he was yanked from his thoughts from Derek softly calling his name. Derek had already settled into the driver's side. Spencer hadn't noticed at all.
Wordlessly, Spencer tucked into the car and placed the bag and book on his lap separately. His eyes stayed on the collection of poems.
Derek stuck the key into the ignition as he quietly asked, "What are you reading?"
Spencer didn't answer Derek's question in full. Instead he quoted, in a voice that was equal parts sorrowful and nostalgic, "It grieves me that you speak of death with so much expectation. I know there is no pang like that for those we love, nor any leisure like the one they leave so close behind them, but dying is a wild night and a new road."
Derek didn't respond.
Spencer didn't look over at him as he continued. His voice was slow and quiet, so unlike his usual tendency for rambling. He said, "Emily Dickinson is her favorite poet. She once told me it was because Dickinson wrote for those who want to experience life in all its facets." Spencer huffed a humorless laugh. "And to Dickinson, death is merely a part of life. The whole thing is almost a bit ironic, isn't it?" He shrugged. "Dickinson wrote that in a letter to her cousin Perez Dickinson Cowan. I think Y/N would agree with her."
And Derek still didn't respond. He waited a few beats, studying Spencer, before quietly saying, "We're going to get him, Reid. We will."
And Spencer just nodded again. "Yeah," he said, "we will."
There was no alternative. And Spencer was going to make Alexander pay for tearing apart his family.
As Derek pulled out of his parking space, Spencer tightened his grip on the book and stared at the passenger's side view mirror, watching the cemetery, then Long Island, then all of New York fade into the background.
Dying is a wild night and a new road.
He supposed he agreed with Dickinson, as well.
So Spencer turned his gaze forward, towards the horizon, towards this lonesome path that he'd been forced on. Towards you, your child, and the eden you introduced into his life.
Spencer supposed that he would have to learn to navigate this new wild road himself. So long as you were the destination, he was perfectly content to drive down the longest of roads, sail across even the most treacherous of seas, and climb the tallest of mountains.
So long as you were the destination, he would have done anything to make it back home without hesitation.
So he swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to see the three of you one day inhabiting that Eden together again.
And with that, Spencer embraced the ending of one life, and the beginning of the next.