Scratch was gone. Peter Lewis was finally dead, but it had come at a cost – the loss of Stephen Walker. They had all stood at the funeral to pay their respects to a team member gone far, far too soon. Bianca's heart broke to see his wife, Monica, trying to be strong for their two children. That so easily could have been her. Inevitably, Will must have been thinking the same thing. There was so much at stake each time the BAU went to save the world. It was a small comfort to her that Reid wouldn't be back in the field for a few more weeks.
As her due date drew ever closer, Bianca had finally taken off of work per her doctor's request, and most of her days were spent on bed rest. Doing nothing was far more exhausting than she'd expected it to be, but Spencer was only at the office a five days out of the week, and was always home before dinner. It was for that reason that it caught her off guard when he called one evening to tell her he'd be home later than usual. Given that the Bureau was reviewing his performance, she assumed there were some extra tests to be run, maybe some paperwork that needed to be done. She kept herself busy with War and Peace as the sky grew darker.
At the approach of his car, she hurried to finish her page, closing the book just as he walked through the door. "Welcome home," she called from the couch. He set his bag on the kitchen counter before coming into the living room.
"How's bedrest treating you today?" he asked. There was a trace of an apology in his voice, knowing how much she hated having to stay put all day.
She shrugged. "Still boring. Tolstoy is keeping me company at least. I've just gotten to the part where Sonya discovers Natasha is planning to elope with Anatole."
"Sonya is good," he said, smiling.
"Natasha is young, and Andrei isn't here," she laughed. "The musical definitely helps to keep all the names straight." With one hand she reached out to him, and he laced his fingers through hers. "I did miss you, though."
Gently, he squeezed her hand. "I missed you too."
"How is it that we always manage to end up apart?" she asked jokingly. "Whenever you have to stay at home, I have to go somewhere; and whenever I need to stay home, you have to work."
It was meant in jest, knowing full well that they would spend more time together if their jobs allowed it. Raising his eyebrows in mock surprise, he replied, "The universe must be conspiring against us. But I'm here now. And the sky is so clear tonight. Do you think you feel up for venturing to the back porch to see the stars?"
Never one to refuse the stars, she nodded, and he offered his other hand to help her up off the couch. They walked slowly to the porch and sat side by side on the chair they kept there. He had been right; the sky was a magnificent sight.
"Now we're just missing some Golden Star Tea," she said. That beautiful night still lingered in her mind, when he'd made the whole Milky Way into a magic trick just for her. He grinned, and she inched a little closer to him. Their gazes moved upwards and she knew from the quiet that settled around them that they were both thinking of all the times they'd looked up together, staring at the stars. Those bright, gleaming dots in the sky, so full of hope in the darkness. Constants in the sky that they had always shared.
Finally, Spencer broke the silence. "The, uh, the Bureau said I could be reinstated today." Eyes wide, she pulled her gaze away from the swirling stars to look at him. The announcement caught her off guard. "Emily offered me my job back. Said I could start as soon as I wanted."
"Th-that's fantastic," she said. "So what did you tell them?" The offer had come sooner than she'd expected, but she knew it was a good sign. The Bureau trusted him again, and the damage done to his reputation was finally being repaired.
He paused ,wetting his lips. "I told them... I told them I didn't want the job."
"Wait, what?"
"I'm leaving the BAU. I told Emily I'd stay on and help out in the office until the baby comes, but I won't be going in the field. I'll be doing a lot of paperwork and working with Garcia on cases, but I'll be home every night."
"You don't have to do that," she gasped. The conversation they'd had months ago at Morgan's house came back to her. "You don't heave to leave because of me."
Spencer set his hand over hers. "This is my choice. I've thought about this really hard, and this is what I want to do. After being in prison – after being accused of a crime myself, it just doesn't feel the same; and I know how dangerous this job is getting. I love the future we're building, and I don't want to lose that." A soft smile spread over his face. "I want to be with you. I want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to cook with dinner with you even though I'm terrible at it and I'll probably end up burning something."
At that, she couldn't help but laugh, and he chuckled too. "I want to be here," he continued. "I want to raise our child together. I want to be around in all the ways my father wasn't."
Neither of them had parents that had been around in the way they needed, no family members they could rely on. They grew up fast and alone. That he wanted this to be different, it pulled at her heart, and she fought back tears. "But the team... they're your family."
"I'll miss it," he admitted. Spencer leaned back, his eyes on the sky once more. Stars above that had watched over them for years. "For a long time, this job was my life. It brought me to all my friends. It led me to you. But my life is so much more now. My life is here."
"Staying home all day would drive you crazy, though." He was never one to just sit around. Boredom inevitably set in with a mind like his.
"I talked to Alex. There's a position open in Georgetown's psychology department, and I applied for it. I won't know for sure until next week, but things are looking really good. And I'd only be teaching two days a week. After the baby is older, I could do more."
It was all coming together. She could tell by his voice, he meant it; moreover he wasn't upset about it. There was a genuine excitement there. He wanted to stay close to home, and be a dad. No more early morning phone calls, no more late night arrivals at the end of a case. She wouldn't spend days at a time in an empty house or spend every evening worrying about his safety. This was their future. The monsters would stay in the past.
"You're serious. You're really serious about this."
"Absolutely," he said. "I've had an incredible 15 years with the BAU, but it's time. This is where I want to be." Spencer stood from his chair, moving to kneel in front of her own. He set his hands on the curve of her belly and leaned in close to speak. "Recent studies suggest that at 32 weeks, you might be able to recognize my voice. I know that I won't be as familiar as your mom, but I - I want you to know that I'm going to be around for both of you, okay? She's working really hard right now, and I don't want her to do this alone. I'm going to be around to see you take your first steps and help you learn your first words. All the big things and the little things. I promise I'll be around for all of it. And I'm really, really excited to meet you. So when you're ready, I'll be here, okay?"
Lips met fabric as he kissed her stomach. Bianca pushed away the tears at the corner of her eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked, a thin line of worry on his forehead.
"Nothing," she assured him. "Nothing is wrong. I just..." How could she put it into words? It was as though she could see their whole future stretching out before them now. Everything was coming together. Spencer would be a professor and work regular hours. She would be able to continue her work. He would come home safe at night. They would both be there for the child that was quickly becoming more real by the day. How could she ask for a better person to share this life with? A good husband, a good friend, a good man. And he was going to be the best father, there was no doubt in her mind.
"It's just that everything is so perfect right now. I don't want to forget that."
Spencer stood up, his expression tender. "We should go inside," he said. "It's getting late. You look tired." It didn't take much profiling to see that. He helped her up, but before stepping through the door, she glanced up at the sky one last time, staring at the patterns of light.
All the constellations that had come together from the infinite number of possible connections in the universe. All the galaxies and nebulas, pinpoints of ash and dust drawn together by gravity and circumstance. In parallel she could see, there in the darkness of the heavens, all the constellation of their lives. All the cosmic circumstances that had to come together for them to be here. All the odds against them, to have risen from the dust. Call it luck, call it coincidence. Call it gravity or solar winds. It was something she felt much deeper than that, ten thousand little points of light that could have gone in any other direction. All of them guiding her here, to this moment, with him.
It was bigger than them. As she followed him back inside, slowly up the staircase to their bedroom, she was okay with that.
"Goodnight, honey," he whispered as they lay beneath the blankets.
The unknown surrounded them, but it was a comforting thing. Everything was about to change. After the year they'd had, she was learning to be okay with that. This was an addition, not a subtraction.
Another little star in the sky. Another feature of their constellation, a map of all the bright places in their world.
[ || ]
Life was clear, simpler than it had been in years. Spencer was home almost every night, unless there was an emergency and Garcia needed his help. When he was around, everything was brighter. He would play songs on the piano, the same little keyboard he'd bought on a whim. Mostly Mozart, he said it was the best thing for babies to listen to. It didn't matter to her what he played, she was happy just to have him there. Many afternoons were passed with a pen in her hand, as she scribbled down poems. She figured there was enough for a third book, if her publisher would have it. To That One had done quite well in the narrow poetry market.
Her first book had been about finding a place in the world, her second about losing it. This one, she hoped, would be about creating new spaces altogether, putting down roots the way she never had before.
Morgan dropped by occasionally, as she worked with him to get Damian's Place off the ground. She tried not to think about what would have happened if she hadn't been with him that day, when Cat and Lindsey decided to take their revenge. Being confined to the house, she stayed sane with regular Skype sessions and phone calls with her closest friends. Eva made a point of calling her once a week to check in on her, knowing how difficult the last weeks of pregnancy could be.
There would be work waiting for her at Darcy and Alam when she returned from maternity leave, and she'd learned that the ACLU had reached out to the firm seeking a lawyer to consult on high impact civil rights cases in DC, and her boss had recommended her to them. If all went well, she would be doing work for them on the side, and slowly edging her way up in legal advocacy work.
After the dizzying storm that had been tearing their world apart since Mr. Scratch escaped prison, it was a startling change to find themselves at peace, content in the life that they were building. There were worries, naturally. The baby, the birth. Spencer was nervous about lecturing on his own on a regular basis, and she'd offered to let him practice his speaking with her. Seated on their bed, she would listen as he ran through the last guest lecture he'd given, one he still had memorized.
He had a habit of standing too still as he talked. Eyes focused off to the side, he hardly looked at her, and his tone stayed a little too even. "And that's how the field moved away from using physical defects as the basis for deviance, and began to focus on behavior and mental processes. Now, that shift-"
Bianca lifted her hand, causing him to pause and nod at her, permitting her to ask a question. "Will this be on the final exam?"
He frowned. "We're only five minutes into the first class, surely you can't be thinking about the final already?"
"What if I am?"
"Well, then yes," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Life is the final exam, and everything is going to be on it. When you're working in the field, whether as a therapist or a FBI agent, you're going to need to know this information. Now, in the twentieth century, that shift led psychologists to speculate on mental defects or disorders that could be the cause of deviant and criminal behavior. Freud suggested such offenses were committed due to feelings unconscious guilt that criminals were attempting to manage. His theory of the unconscious mind wa-"
Raising her hand once more, she asked, "How did Freud develop his theory of the unconscious mind? And hasn't most of his work been disproven."
"If you'd completed the readings, you would know that," he said stiffly. "And while many of Freud's psychoanalytic practices didn't hold up to scrutiny, it's important to understand the major developments in the field."
"I just don't see the merit in his work. Just because Freud had a thing for his mother doesn't mean we all wanted to sleep with our parents."
From where he stood on the floor, he began to pull at his fingers, closing his eyes briefly. "Thank you for your insight, but let's stay on subject, here." It was clear he was trying to remember his place in the lecture. "Freud's theory of the unconscious mind was..."
"I just have one more question. Will I get a higher grade if I sleep with the professor?"
Spencer rolled his eyes. "Absolutely not."
Trying her best to pout, she asked, "Not even if I'm married to you, Professor Reid?"
"It's Doctor Reid."
"Doctor Reid," she purred, batting her eyelashes at him with a playful smirk until he glared at her.
He crossed his arms. "I don't see how you'll manage to get through this class if you insist on interrupting me and... distracting me."
Bianca laughed, holding out her arms to him. "Come here, Doctor." Although begrudgingly, he complied, and she wrapped her fingers around his. "I'll behave, I promise. But you have to loosen up a little, you're so stiff up there. You haven't lectured on your own in a long time, and you're going to have all sorts of students. Class clowns, introverts, people who know nothing, and people who think they know everything. I know you're nervous, but don't let them see that. Just roll with the punches, and keep your head up."
Before his arrest, he'd given plenty of guest lectures, but they were almost always with another team member, usually Rossi or Alex. In that situation, he only saw students briefly. As a professor, he would be on his own, managing students that he saw on a regular basis. It was going to be a challenge for him.
Sighing, he leaned in, shifting his hands to the small of her back. "If I'm this anxious just thinking about it, how am I going to get through an actual class?"
"You have three months to prepare. Don't worry. I'll listen to you practice. And you can rehearse lectures to the baby once they're here. I know it's stressful, but it's exciting too, isn't it?"
Spencer smiled at her. "Being a professor or being a father?" he joked.
"Both?" Time was going by quickly, and she found herself more exhausted than ever, as they made sure the nursery was finished and the house was suitable for a newborn.
He took a seat at the top of the bed, back against the headboard. "Come here." With care, she scooted back until she could rest her head in his lap, her feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. One hand ran gently through her hair while his other trailed down her side, slipping under the hem of her baggy Georgetown Law sweatshirt. The warmth of his fingers against the skin of her ever-rounder belly made her shiver.
"They're as big as a butternut squash," Spencer told her. "Their lungs are nearly done developing, and they can definitely hear our conversations now. They'll be here soon."
"It is a little scary," she admitted.
"A little exciting, too?"
She closed her eyes, letting herself focus on the soothing motion of his hands, the steady rhythm of her breathing, the occasional small flutters she could feel in her abdomen.
"Yeah. It is."
[ || ]
Now that he wasn't traveling, his nights were far more consistent. He was there at home, close enough for her to touch, for her to wake him up just after midnight, shaking his shoulder lightly. "Spencer. Spencer, wake up. We need to go."
"Go?" The question came out in a mumble. It was still dark, why was she awake? There wasn't a case, he would've heard his phone ring if there was. "Go where?"
"The hospital. Now." Her words were followed by ragged breaths and he sat up, suddenly very awake. Hastily, he felt for his glasses and put them on.
"What? The average pregnancy lasts 40 weeks; it's only been 36 weeks and five days! Are you sure?"
In the dim light of the moon, he could barely make out her figure. Bianca winced, her hand flying to her stomach. "I'm sure. We need to go."