fifty-four || "mr and mrs anderson" season 9, episode 15
The DNA test results from the used condom of Alan Anderson came back and the matches were extensive. With the new information under her belt, Tate went in to interrogate the suspect: Judith Anderson. She patiently watched them unlock the handcuffs around the woman's wrists and took a seat as the officers left them alone.
"Hi, Judith. My name's Tatum. Or you can call me Tate," she said softly. "Can I get you anything to drink?"
"I'd like to make a phone call," Judith said immediately.
"To who? Your husband?"
The woman looked down at the table, but didn't respond.
"You're coming up on your 20th anniversary, is that right? Congratulations. That is a huge accomplishment."
Tate faked a smile for Judith's benefit, but the woman cocked her head to the side, clearly not buying it. So, Tate cut to the chase.
"We recovered a used condom with Alan's DNA in it. Nothing odd about that except... you've had a hysterectomy. So, why use condoms if you can't conceive?"
Judith's eyes narrowed at Tate. When she finally spoke, her voice was feather light, but confident. "You seem to know a lot. You tell me."
"Well, you don't strike me as the unfaithful type. I mean, Alan, on the other hand, he's a different story-"
"You know nothing about my husband."
"Actually, I know a lot." The file stretched out in front of Tate held a new weight in the room. "I know your husband tested positive for an STD back in 2010." Judith looked back down at the table, but Tate continued. "Now, you two were married in 1994, which tells me he isn't as committed to your marriage as you think."
Judith smiled slightly. "There was a point in time when both of us were unfaithful in our marriage. When I found out he had cheated-"
Tate was already nodding along. "You thought if you retaliated, it would make you feel better."
"My husband and I no longer keep secrets," she said solemnly. "I've known he's had an STD for years. The reason we use condoms, to answer your question, is that he insists on protecting me. That's how much he loves me."
On the other side of the glass, Rossi, Blake, and Reid were listening closely and this line from Judith gave them a lot in terms of the two's relationship psychology. 2010 was the beginning of the dormancy period and the time Alan contracted his STD. As punishment, she likely took away their killing as a pair, but this meant she probably didn't know he continued killing without her.
Tate laid out a series of victim files on the table of the interrogation room. "I can't wait to see where this is headed," Judith said, her fingers knotted together beneath her chin.
"When you discovered your husband was cheating, you took away the one thing that mattered most to him," Tate said, having drawn the same conclusions as her coworkers. "His partner in crime... Now, how do you think he dealt with that?"
Judith looked up at Tate, confusion slowly coating her gaze.
Tate pointed down to the open files. "Do you recognize any of these women?"
"How many times are we gonna go through this?" she said without looking. "No, I do not."
"And these are only a few of the victims that he raped and murdered without you," Tate said bitterly. Judith's resolve began to crack in front of her. "And which one do you think gave him the STD? Just take a look for yourself... His DNA is all over each of these women."
Judith looked back up from the photos, still staring at Tate in silent discontentment.
"It's the killing without you that's most painful. It's the cheating that you can't forgive. I know it."
"Are you married... Tate?"
"No. Not yet, anyway."
"Got a boyfriend?"
Tate hesitated. "Yeah. Sure I do."
"Where's your boyfriend?"
"On the other side of that glass, I'd guess."
"Hm. A couple that catches bad guys together stays together."
Tate flinched and wished she didn't.
Judith smiled. "I'll bet it wasn't always like that. What would happen if he were to slip up?" Her next words were almost a whisper. "How would you know?"
"A girl knows," Tate replied without hesitation. "Which is why you know I'm telling you the truth."
"My husband and I aren't perfect-"
"Look at these women. Look at the way he treated them," Tate spoke over Judith's continued insistence of her husband's innocence. "He hates them because he hates you."
"He loves me!" Judith contradicted. "I want to talk to a lawyer."
Tate closed her eyes, trying not to feel defeated, as she returned to behind the glass. "You alright?" Spencer asked, rubbing her arm.
"'We're rebuilding step by step'?" Tate said, repeating some of Judith's rhetoric.
"Interesting choice of words," Alex agreed.
"Oh, I've heard those many times before," Rossi said. When he got a look from the others, he added, "Marriage counseling."
"That would make sense with how they've been able to move through Alan's cheating. They were seeing a therapist," Tate said.
"Maybe they still are," Spencer realized, dialing Garcia. "Can you check and see if Judith and Alan have a therapist?"
"Looks like they sought help from a bunch of different people, but for the past couple of months, anyway, they've been seeing a Kathleen Benedict," Garcia uncovered. "Says here, she specializes in something called insight therapy."
"Insight therapy is also known as psychodynamic therapy," Spencer rattled off. "It helps patients rediscover what motivates them in an effort to resolve old conflicts."
"And if the conflict stems from their marriage, then helping Judith and Alan rediscover what motivates them would reignite their compulsion to kill," Rossi followed.
"Therapy was most likely Judith's idea," Alex said. "Alan doesn't seem the type to take guidance from a woman."
"Maybe the emasculation we profiled didn't come from Judith," Tate murmured. "Maybe it came from the therapist. Which puts her in danger."
<3
Spencer and Derek went off to the therapist's office. They got there just in time to find Alan with his belt wrapped around the woman's neck, but she was recovered completely safe.
Tate returned to the interrogation room solemnly. "We found Alan," she reported.
Judith smiled brightly. "Where is he? Is he okay?"
"He's fine and so is Dr. Benedict... who he attempted to rape and kill."
She closed her eyes and sighed.
"Judith, your husband is going away for a long time, but you don't have to. If you cooperate, I will move to get your sentence reduced."
"This is the last time I'm going to say this. I will never betray him or my marriage again."
"You might want to reconsider that. He certainly betrays you every chance he gets." Tate flipped over two photographs she'd taken with her. "I noticed that necklace you're wearing as we speak. It's lovely... It's also Gloria Walters'. It was given to her by her fiance."
Judith's hand raised, hovering over the gold, heart-shaped pendant around her neck.
"She was raped and murdered last night by your husabnd, who we've also identified as the Crestview Rapist."
Judith hesitated, steepling her hands beneath her chin in thought. "Can I see him?" she asked.
Tate agreed, walking her out and through the precinct to where Alan had just been brought in. When the man's eyes settled on his wife, he smiled, accepting the warm greeting she'd always been so privy to give him.
Instead, Judith walked right up to him and slapped him across the cheek. She ripped the necklace from her chest and threw it at him, calling him a liar before he was carted away from her while Tate escorted her back to containment.
<3
The night ended slowly, but Hotch made sure everyone got out of the office as quickly as possible, leaving the paperwork for the next morning, as that night was Valentines' Day and he was determined to make sure they all got to spend the evening with the ones they loved.
Tate was leaned up against the wall by the elevators when Spencer approached. One dinged open and he said, "Perfect timing."
"Fate, you could say," Tate returned, lacing his fingers through hers.
"Well, you could say. I would say that it was a nice coincidence all thanks to the precise timing of when I left my desk and when you hit the button to the time it took for the elevator to reach this floor."
Tate patiently waited for the elevator doors to close before pressing him up against the wall and saying, "Shut up already, Spence." He obliged, savoring the feeling of her hands pulling the material of his sweater closer to her while his arms found their way tightly around her waist. Their mouths finally met in a frantic, but deep kiss as Spencer's tongue swirled rhythmically in her mouth.
He moved to press her up against the opposite wall, making an involuntary sound come from her mouth as he picked her up by her thighs. "Please tell me this means you're coming home with me," Spencer muttered into her mouth.
"Well, it was my place last night," Tate said breathlessly. "It tracks that it's your turn to host."
Sure enough, that's where they ended up with a dinner of take-out Chinese food from the restaurant on the end of Spencer's block and a movie rented from the place next door. They were sure to pick one they'd each seen plenty of times as it was background noise for the entire latter half once their meal was finished.
"God, our last Valentines together was so much fancier," Tate mentioned while Spencer kissed down her neck. "From champagne and hotels to Chinese food and a shitty movie."
"You mean the Valentines where I asked you to be my girlfriend and you locked yourself in the bathroom?" Spencer teased, pausing his trail of kisses to face her again. "Look how far you've come... You called me your boyfriend today."
"Did I? I don't seem to remember that?" Tate feigned innocence.
Spencer laughed lightly and pressed a kiss to her lips. "I think I would remember."
"Or you're falling into that mass hysteria thing around the office. Oh, God, it's contagious!" Tate exclaimed dramatically. "Get away before you infect me!"
Spencer held her chin up with his thumb, while the rest of his fingers laced through the hair just behind her ear. "I think it's a little late for that one." He returned to kissing her, this time much slower and with purpose. "Did it freak you out? To call me your boyfriend?"
"A little. But I knew I had to... So that Judith could relate to me. Empathize."
"That's why? The only reason?" he murmured between kisses.
"Maybe not the only one."
Spencer paused and sighed, keeping his face beside hers for a moment. He then fully pushed up from the couch and Tate followed.
"What's wrong?" she asked quietly.
"Can we talk seriously for a minute?"
"Sure we can."
Spencer pulled her legs so they were splayed across his lap, the two still remaining close even sitting properly. "You can joke with me about children and having a life together... but you can't just admit that I'm your boyfriend. Is it always gonna be like this? Like pulling teeth?"
"It's not... No. I, um... Spencer, I just don't care about labels like that. They freak me out, so why put so much weight on them? Why can't I just like kissing you and that can be the end of it?"
"Avoiding them puts more weight on them than just owning up to it. I like you, Tate. A lot. Always have... Commitment, to me, just means we're exclusive. If there's someone else, that's fine, just-"
"There's not someone else, Spence. I would have told you. But there hasn't been anyone since... Well, since you."
Spencer smiled slightly and lightly grabbed her chin, pulling her closer so he could press a kiss to her cheek. "It's getting late," he said. "I'm gonna shower, then I'll meet you back in bed, okay?"
"M'kay," she murmured and kissed him once more. "We're exclusive, Spence. So you're right... It's just a label. Let's not freak out about it."
Spencer broke out into a smile. "So you're my girlfriend?"
"I am your girlfriend," she agreed with an equally wide smile. Spencer quickly pulled her into a hug and shook her by the waist, making her laugh wildly. "Okay, okay! I said 'Let's not freak out about it', dummy!"
"We sure are consistent," Spencer said, pushing up from the couch and heading for his bathroom. "Valentines' Day. Like clockwork."
"Exactly," Tate laughed, sitting back and contently watching him walk away.
She moved back towards his bedroom, changing from her work clothes to a t-shirt and pair of sweatpants belonging to Spencer. Her mind wandered, hearing the sound of the water from the showerhead through the walls. She bit her lip, thinking about him on the other side of that thin wall in the steamy bathroom. Her boyfriend.
Tate curiously opened the drawer of his nightstand and sure enough, there she saw a small box of condoms with just one missing. The first night they'd spent together. Since then, here the box had sat, as if waiting for her return. She laughed lightly at the thought and took one from the box, heading for the bathroom door.
|| author's notes
cliff hanger! you're welcome.
anywho, every time i come to this story it is crazy to me how much y'all have blown this one up. to be completely honest, i think this was the second fanfiction i ever wrote, so to feel like so many of you appreciate it is so insanely special to me and i literally say this all the time (i think it was in last week's author's note too), but i love you all tons and thanks for sticking around this long <3
four more chapters and an epilogue! i am also currently fine-tuning the last parts of the development stage of my new criminal minds fic and will def have the details up by the time this book ends. see you next time :)))