A few days later, Emily was back. She had some color back in her cheeks, though she still looked a bit thinner than she had before. She walked a lot more slowly, and you watched her check the clock often. You realized she was probably in way more pain than she let on; she was checking to see when she could take more medicine.
Other than your antibiotics, the doctors had just given you instructions for larger doses of ibuprofen if the pain flared up. Judging from the size and shape of Emily's pills, she was on something stronger. Although it was slow-going, she was allowed back on the case.
You absolutely loathed sitting at your desk while you watched the rest of the team in the conference room. Yes, you had put yourself there for your own well-being, but you hated that you were missing out on everything that everyone else was doing. You tried not to stare, but every once in awhile you would look up to see Spencer keeping an eye on you through the glass.
You were essentially on desk duty, handling files and advising local police departments all over the US. Work had been piling up remarkably over the past few weeks, but Strauss essentially put the team on lockdown until this whole debacle was dealt with, most of the work being handed off to other departments. The buddy system rule was still in place. Most people rotated who they were staying with and where they would sleep, but it was an unspoken agreement at this point that you and Spencer were the exception. Part of you was thankful for that; you enjoyed spending so much time with him. On the other hand, you didn't particularly like that what the two of you had was public knowledge. It's not that you wanted your relationship with him to be a secret forever, but you had wanted to acknowledge it with everyone on your own terms. Not like this.
Spencer was driving your car to his place that evening. Traffic getting out of town fucking sucked, apparently construction was happening on top of some torrential rain, and it seemed like the two of you were going to be there awhile, inching forward sometimes and outright stopping in others. You had commandeered the radio, playing whatever you wanted through the speakers and singing lightly in the passenger seat. Even though Spencer didn't particularly like music that wasn't classical, he didn't seem to mind. You even caught him mumbling lyrics under his breath to songs that you played often around him.
At one point while the two of you were at a standstill, he unexpectedly reached forward and turned the stereo volume way down. You turned to look at him. He obviously had something he wanted to say.
"Who is Adam?"
You froze in your seat. There was no way.
"There's a lot of Adams out there," you replied shortly, hoping he would drop it. In stubborn Spencer fashion, he didn't.
"You know which one I'm talking about."
"How did you get that name, Spencer?"
There was only one way he could possibly have known, and that was if he had done some extremely deep diving into your past. That was a big no-no with the team, very much against the rules of trust and privacy. Spencer sighed, clenching and unclenching his hands around the steering wheel.
"Emily said that you asked for him. During everything, she said that you asked for Adam, asked where he was. I told them that I would ask you before they decided to just find it themselves. So. Who is he?"
There was just a slight edge of bitterness in his voice.
"I can't believe it. You're jealous," you replied incredulously.
"And?"
"And what? Why are you asking me about this? It doesn't pertain to the case. That's all you need to know."
"Does it pertain to me?"
"Are you seriously implying that I'm involved with somebody else?"
You were almost completely turned around in your seat facing him, but he was staring intently at the road even though the car wasn't moving. His cheeks were flushed, his brow furrowed. He was embarrassed.
"No," he denied. "I just... I need to know. Why is he so important to you?"
"Was."
"What?"
"He was important to me."
There must have been something about the tone of your voice, because Spencer stole a glance at you, his next words cautious.
"Is he alive?"
"Not anymore, no," you replied.
"Who was he?"
You hadn't thought in-depth about this in a long time. To be honest, it had crossed your mind fleetingly in recent months, but for the most part you had suppressed it for years, hoping that maybe it wouldn't hurt as much as it used to. It still kind of stung.
"He was my boyfriend," you admitted. "In college. He went hiking with some friends the day after some heavy rain."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"How come you've never told me about him?"
"It was a long time ago. I was a very different person. Are you the same person you were ten years ago?"
"No, I suppose not."
He paused for a moment before speaking again.
"You've never told me about being with anyone else."
"Because I haven't been."
His eyes flicked concernedly to your face before returning to the road. The tension in the car was palpable. You really didn't want to do this right now. But there was no getting out, no leaving. You had to ride it out.
"Ten years?" he asked quietly.
The way he said it made you feel ashamed. It's not like you hadn't been with anyone at all. You still partied, you still slept with people. But you hadn't been in a serious relationship since Adam.
"Give or take."
"Why?"
"What?"
"I'm sure you've had the opportunity since then. Why not?"
"I just never found anyone that I liked."
"I don't believe that."
You frowned.
"I don't care what you believe, Spencer."
"Yes, you do."
"It's none of your business."
He sighed exasperatedly, turning to face you completely.
"We can't keep going back and forth like this. You said you wanted more. This is it. This is more. It's not always good things; you have to give more to get more. Let yourself be vulnerable for once. You can't live life on the defensive. You can't just keep everything inside like that. Tell me why."
He was right. As much as you knew how important it was, you hated this. There were some things you wanted to keep to yourself. But if you wanted more, you had to open up. You couldn't keep secrets forever.
"When I went through his stuff after, I found a ring."
Spencer's anxious hands stilled on the steering wheel. He was quiet for a moment, the only sounds being the rain, the car's heater, and the music you still had playing softly in the background.
"Would you have said yes?" he asked hesitantly.
"I don't know," you answered honestly.
"Did-"
He swallowed nervously.
"Did you love him?"
There was a hidden question after that one, silent yet unmistakable.
Do you love me?
"Yes," you replied softly. "I did."
"Do you still love him?"
"Spencer, don't do that."
"So, you do."
He sounded almost defeated. The sound only made you more upset; you had told him you didn't want to talk about it, and now he was hurting his own feelings about something that wasn't relevant anymore.
"What do you want me to say?" you asked frustratedly. "That I don't care anymore? Whether or not we were going to get married, we still had plans, we still had a future. Feelings like that don't just go away. There are just some things that will never be resolved. He was out of state. I wasn't going to make it. His friends held the phone up to his ear so I could say goodbye, except he was asleep, and the doctors said he was never going to wake up again. The only thing I could hear was the ventilator keeping him breathing. I didn't get to hear him say goodbye, I didn't get the closure of him telling me I could move on. He was cremated. I didn't even get to see him again. One day he left and he just never came back home."
Spencer was still, sitting silent for too long. You felt bad for getting upset at him, but what were you supposed to do? You had warned him, told him he didn't want to know. Now he was upset about something that, though once very important to you, didn't matter as much anymore. You started to backtrack a little, filling the silence with words that you hoped would make him feel better.
"I mean," you started gently, "do you ever really stop loving anyone? It's like... once you love someone, they carve a place in your heart so that even when they're gone, they'll always be there. Even if you wish you didn't care, there will always be a missing piece where they were."
Silence.
"That's so violent," he finally said.
"What?"
"Is that how you see love? Like some forceful thing that just... happens to you? There's only so much room in your heart, only so much you can take away. What happens when you have nothing left?"
"It's not like you can control who you love."
"But you make it sound like it's a bad thing. Like an attack."
"Well, what do you think it's like?"
He was silent for a moment.
"Home."
You sat quietly, patiently waiting for him to explain.
"It takes time to build a house. And then once it's complete, someone moves in. But sometimes people move away, or they tear their houses down. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. One day it's an empty lot, and then another there's a house. But an empty house is just an object until someone moves in and makes it a home."
"Oh. I see."
Spencer was an intricate person, but there was a subtle passion behind the simplicity of his words. You couldn't help but think of how sometimes, when you were upset, you'd stand in the middle of your own empty apartment and think about how you wanted to go home. You lived there, but it wasn't a home by any means.
And then you thought about your phone conversation with Spencer when you were in Arizona.
He had asked you to come home.
In the most gentle and delicate way, here in standstill traffic on the way home from work, he was telling you that he loved you.
And yes, right now you were on your way home, because that's what it was when you were with him.
His hazel eyes were searching your face earnestly, as if he was waiting for something, waiting for you to understand, to say it back. But he hadn't actually said that he loved you, and you were having trouble thinking of a proper response without outright saying that you loved him too. You reached over gently to the steering wheel so that you could hold one of his hands, kissing the back of it lightly before resting it in your lap.
"Let's go home," you said softly.