Chapter Text
[October 2004]
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
Ethan heaved a deep sigh and shook his head. “Sorry, Pen. I tried to argue it out with them, but they won’t let you go into normal witness protection. The next best thing I could manage for you was the BAU.”
A long time ago, Spencer had been of the opinion that he would’ve chosen a career in the FBI over the CIA, if it had been up to him. He had changed enough in the last four years that he barely recognized himself when he looked into a mirror now; and he was on the verge of losing his mind at the thought of his environment changing again, so soon after New Orleans.
“You can’t let them do that,” he hoarsely said, his skin crawling. “I need– I just need some more time here. I can’t–”
He couldn’t do this again – the secrets, the lies, the eventual, always lurking, impending hurt. He was pretty sure that he was going to go out of his mind if he had to pretend to be someone else again. He had finally gotten his own name back – had finally been allowed to call himself Spencer again, wear cardigans instead of leather jackets and smile softly instead of sharply – he didn’t want to give that up again.
He just couldn’t.
Ethan leaned against the door of the dingy hotel room Spencer had been taking refuge in for about a month and a half. On the surface, he seemed very well put-together in a cleanly tailored suit, his hair gelled back and an expensive yet elegant watch on his wrist – but he was tired. Spencer could see it in his eyes.
“I know,” Ethan quietly said. “I managed to argue for more time, though. You get five more months here.”
Spencer tried his best to swallow his fear. “Okay,” he said, though it sounded unconvincing even to his own ears – and considering how he was sitting on the floor and hugging his knees like a child, he probably didn’t look too convincing either. “Thank you.”
“You got nothin’ to thank me for.” Ethan pushed off the doorframe and sat on the floor next to him, knocking their shoulders together. Spencer cast him a sideways glance – Ethan really did look tired.
“Can you promise me something?” he quietly asked.
Ethan took his hand and squeezed it gently. “Sure.”
Spencer swallowed thickly. His voice came out in a tone that he was very unused to hearing from himself – small, and scared.
“Don’t let them change me any more,” he quietly said. “Please.”
Ethan looked at him softly. “I won’t. I promise.”
Spencer and Ethan had broken off their relationship before Spencer had gone undercover. Pretty dramatically, even. For almost five years, they hadn’t spoken of the love that used to so persistently infuse every moment they shared.
But Ethan was here now – older, but still here. His hair was longer, but Spencer still knew the feeling of it against his fingers – intimately remembered, courtesy of his good memory, the smell of Ethan’s cologne, the way his beard gave Spencer endless stubble burn, the way they fit together so perfectly. His Ethan was still here.
They were both still here, after all those years.
So Spencer leaned forward and kissed him, because frankly, he needed to feel something that would assure him that everything was alright – his life had gotten ripped to shreds in the last couple of months, and he needed something familiar, something stable to fall back on. Ethan cupped his face with his hand and kissed him back, sweetly, steadily.
“I’m your handler now,” he quietly said when Spencer pulled back a little. “I’m gonna make you an identity that is as close to the real you as they’ll allow. A life that you’re gonna like living. But you gotta promise me somethin’ in turn, okay?”
“Okay,” Spencer mumbled, stealing another kiss, and another. God, how he had missed kissing Ethan. “Promise you what?”
Ethan pulled back enough to look him in the eyes. Spencer froze under his serious stare, in a way he quite literally never had and never would with anyone else.
“You have to promise me that when it gets too much, you’ll talk to me,” Ethan said. “I don’t give a shit if it’s against the rules for us to be in contact. I need to hear from you. I need to know you’re alright, because I–”
He stopped himself mid-sentence, but Spencer already knew what he was going to say – heard it in the hitch of his breath, I need to know you’re alright, because I love you.
It was pretty clear. Spencer was good at reading people. He’d known for a long time that Ethan loved him.
“Yeah, I know,” he quietly said. “I promise I’ll check in. I love you, too.”
Ethan kissed him this time around.
[April 2005]
“This button answers the call,” Spencer told Evan Davenport, who was looking more like a nervous wreck with every minute that ticked by, “this button makes everyone in the room silent. It will flash red. You’ll be able to hear his side of the conversation, he won’t be able to hear us.”
The agent from Davenport’s staff checked his phone. “We’ll be running the trace through the field office, Evan,” he said. “You’re in good hands with Agent Gideon and his team.”
Spencer nodded at Davenport in what he hoped was a reassuring matter and promptly wandered off, feeling a lot more tired than he should’ve been. This case was grating at his nerves – every time Evan Davenport’s eyes filled with tears, every shake of his hands, Spencer just so very deeply understood. He’d been in a similar situation not even a year ago, maybe not with his biological daughter, but a girl that pretty much held the same position in his mind.
He pulled out his phone and texted a number that he shouldn’t have had.
SPENCER
I know you said I shouldn’t be in touch for my own safety, but I’m working a ransom kidnapping of a young girl right now and I’m not doing great at it. Could do with a reminder that my charge is alright.
Also, don’t ask me how I got this number. Magician never tells his tricks or whatever.
He stuffed his phone back into his pocket when he heard Morgan and Elle speaking in low tones in the kitchen. When he caught the end of their conversation, he walked over to them, some amusement growing against his anxiety.
“You think Cheryl’s a wackjob because she claims she can feel her sister’s anxiety?” Elle asked, not really accusatory but close to it.
Morgan frowned. “I never said wackjob.”
“Actually,” Spencer interrupted with pure, unadulterated glee, “there may be a physiological basis for it.”
Elle grinned while Morgan sighed in mock-exasperation. “Don’t ask.”
Spencer was a man of science. He loved presenting theories. “Reversed asymmetry monozygotic eggs split late, between nine to twelve days. The DNA matches right down to the very last stranded code. And there’s sporadic documentation of shared physiological pain.”
“And you believe it?” Morgan asked.
“Oh, I’m just saying it’s possible.” Spencer shrugged. “I don’t know everything. I mean, despite the fact that you think I do.”
“I’ve never said that,” Morgan boldly said. “When have I ever said that?”
“Every day since I met you.”
“This morning at breakfast,” Elle helpfully supplied.
“Yesterday when he beat you at cards,” Hotch added, suddenly having appeared next to them. “We’ve got one minute.”
“Anybody ever heard of sarcasm?” Morgan asked as they walked back to the room with the phone. He only got non-committal hums in response.
Spencer checked his phone.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
are you okay?
SPENCER
Not really. I’d just like hearing her voice, if you don’t mind.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
gimme a couple minutes & get back to work we'll record somethin for you
Read 20:00
He put his phone away for good when they entered the room where the Davenports were both looking incredibly nervous. Spencer sat down – he’d gotten appointed the post of taking notes about the unsub, since he could type the fastest. (They had vetted this fact.) Gideon had also told him to try and locate the call, which Garcia had given him an impromptu crash course on, but he highly doubted he’d be able to do it. He’d bet good money on the unsub using a disposable cell.
Gideon looked more somber than usual. “Remember, keep your voice even and calm,” he told Davenport. “And agree with everything he says.”
The clock had hit eight, but the phone didn’t ring. Davenport looked unbearably nervous. “He’s late,” he quietly said.
“He’ll call,” Hotch reassured him. “Just try to relax. This is a strategy. He wants you on edge.”
Spencer put on headphones that were so soundproof he couldn’t hear the rest of Gideon’s instructions to Davenport – he set up his notes and put his fingers on the keyboard right as the phone rang.
Davenport picked up. “This is Evan Davenport,” he said, the barest tremble in his voice.
“Hello, Mister Davenport,” a kind of smarmy voice answered.
“Are you the man who has my daughter Patricia?”
“I have your daughter.”
“Can I ask you…”
“You may ask me nothing. This is not an interrogatory. You will only listen to my instructions.”
Spencer instantly jotted down the aggressive tone and the missing contractions. He had a literature professor for a mom – he knew his way around profiling language.
“Okay,” Davenport shakily said.
“But I will not give them to you.”
Spencer looked up, confused. Everyone else in the room seemed to share the emotion.
“I don’t understand,” Davenport weakly began.
“I do not want to talk to you, Mister Davenport.”
Spencer side-glanced at Gideon.
“Excuse me?”
“I want to talk to her. I want to talk to Cheryl.”
Suddenly, all the eyes in the room were on the girl. She looked terrified – Spencer barely kept himself from making a face. Yikes. It must’ve sucked to be her right now.
Davenport more or less smashed his hand down on the button that muted their end of the conversation. Spencer pushed his headphones aside a little so he could hear. “What’s he doing?” Davenport shakily asked.
“What most of the offenders we catch try to do,” Morgan said next to him. “Establish dominance.”
“How long can we keep him on hold?”
“We can’t put her on,” Gideon said.
“Why not?” Cheryl suddenly asked. “I want to help. I’ll talk to him.”
That’d just be giving him what he wants, Spencer thought. This doesn’t feel like a traditional ransom kidnapping – why not want the U.S. attorney on the line? Why his college student daughter? She doesn’t hold the same authority as him at all.
Morgan pretty much said the same thing a split second later, which further convinced Spencer that he and Morgan were somehow mentally connected on cases. Seriously, it was like they were the same person. Or related. Except… Morgan was black and he wasn’t.
Fucking hell, Reid, focus the fuck up.
“I think that she should speak to him,” Elle said.
“Do I need to repeat myself? I want to talk to Cheryl.”
“Put her on the phone,” Davenport said, “now.”
Spencer cast him a shamelessly judgy glance. This dude was way too comfortable letting his non-kidnapped daughter talk to this creepy asshole.
“No,” Gideon said.
“I think she should speak to him,” Elle said again. “He wants to talk to her. The more he speaks, the more he reveals.”
And the more he traumatizes Cheryl. Awesome, Spencer sarcastically thought.
“She is right, Gideon.”
“He has my sister,” Cheryl said, tears of anger brimming in her eyes.
“No,” Gideon said for about the millionth time. “Elle, you’re up.”
“I’m waiting.”
Elle briskly made her way to the phone and unmuted it. “This is Cheryl,” she softly said. After a moment of silence, she repeated, “Hello, this is Cheryl.”
“I have Patricia by my side. I know her voice, therefore I know her sister’s. Get off the phone. I want Cheryl. I will give you sixty seconds. If you do not put her on the phone, I will hang up and you will never hear from me or Patricia again.”
Spencer felt like he was going to actually gag soon. He kept typing, focusing on pulling apart the way the man spoke instead of the possessive and just fucking weird content of his words.
Gideon seemed to give up. “Prep work,” he said to Cheryl, moving aside so Elle could take the lead. “Come on over here, please.”
“Fifty seconds.”
Cheryl rounded the table quickly. She looked scared shitless, and Spencer found her ten times braver than he could’ve been in her situation. Elle sat next to her and quickly instructed her on what to say, reassuring her that she would step in if there were any problems. Cheryl nodded and clenched her jaw and finally, when the countdown was nearing its end, pressed the button.
“This is Cheryl,” she said.
The smarmy voice leveled up in smarminess. “Hello, Cheryl.” Spencer could hear the unsub smiling. It was kind of gross. “How are you?”
Cheryl’s voice shook. “I’d be a lot better if I knew that my sister… that Patricia’s okay.”
“I can tell you have a lot of empathy, Cheryl. You care about others.”
Spencer’s fingers stilled on the keyboard for a second. Then he noted that down, because that sounded weirdly… BAU-esque? Like the unsub knew they were working this case and had heard Elle telling Cheryl to empathize only moments before.
“Yes, I do,” Cheryl said. “And it sounds like you understand.”
“You mean that I empathize?”
Spencer debated briefly if that line of thinking was too CIA-ish, then decided to type it out anyway and noted down, Sounds like they missed a bug in this house. Empathy… why empathy? What does he need?
“I empathize with you, Cheryl. I know you want to be with your sister.”
“Yes,” Cheryl said firmly. “I want Trish back.”
“Good. Tell me what you want, Cheryl. I am very interested. Tell me all about yourself. What is your favorite color?”
Who the fuck asked the kidnapping victim’s sister what her favorite color was in the middle of their own ransom call? Yeah, this was definitely not a typical case.
Elle hit the mute button. “Don’t answer that,” she told Cheryl. “Stay with Trish.”
Cheryl nodded and took a deep breath. “If I tell you,” she said, “will you let me talk to my sister?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
This was really hard to witness. Spencer kept his attention on the analysis, but it was getting harder when Cheryl more or less croaked out miserably, “I like blue.”
“How… ordinary. Do you like chocolate, Cheryl?”
Spencer inwardly cringed. Cheryl didn’t answer for a moment, looking like she didn’t understand the world anymore. It was very understandable, considering the situation she was in at the moment.
“Do you like chocolate?” the unsub repeated, slower.
Elle gave Cheryl a reassuring nod and a small smile. The young girl hesitantly answered, “Yes.”
“I do as well.”
“Please let me talk to my sister,” Cheryl begged. “All I want to do is hear her voice. Please.”
Silence.
Cheryl shakily asked, “Hello?”
Then, a weak voice spoke on the other end of the line. “Cher…?”
“Trish!”
“Cheryl, is that you?”
Trish sounded delirious – out of it. Probably drugged. Her sister said, “Trish, it’s me. I’m here. Are you okay?”
“Cheryl, I can’t…”
She trailed off. Cheryl asked, clearly distressed, “Where are you? What do you see?”
“I see the moon,” Trish quietly said. Then there was some kind of noise at her end of the line.
“Trish! Trish!”
“Have five hundred thousand dollars ready,” Smarmy Man said, his voice colder than before.
“Let me talk to her!” Cheryl more or less yelled at the phone.
“Five hundred thousand dollars is what I am owed. The Davenports will wait by the phone. You will receive a call with precise instructions in exactly fifteen minutes.”
The line went dead – Cheryl jumped to her feet and stormed out, her father on her heels. Spencer did his best to trace the call, but his suspicions about the disposable cell seemed to have been correct.
“She said she could see the moon,” Elle quietly said. “She sounded delirious.”
“She was sedated,” Gideon said. “Could’ve been a light.”
“If he’s keeping her drugged, it might mean he’s not very strong,” Morgan said, fiddling with his headphones. “He might have to keep her weak just so he can dominate her.”
“Or he’s keeping her quiet,” Elle said.
“Or more fitting,” Spencer mumbled.
When silence lapsed, he looked up from his sprawling notes and realized that the team was looking at him expectantly. Gideon’s eyebrows were drawn together.
“Penny for your thoughts, Doc,” Morgan said.
Spencer blinked, then repeated word for word, “Hello, Cheryl. How are you? I can tell you have a lot of empathy, Cheryl. I empathize with you, Cheryl. Tell me what you want, Cherl. I am very interested. What is your favorite color? Do you like chocolate, Cheryl? Do you like chocolate? I do as well.”
The team collectively stared again. Hotch raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought you only remember the things you read,” he said with a faint smile.
“My memory is good on all fronts, I just remember things I read better than everything else,” Spencer said, feeling slightly annoyed that that was what they were focusing on. “Does this guy not sound like a stalker to you?”
“He doesn’t want the money,” Gideon finally concluded. “He’s not interested in Evan Davenport at all. He wants the twins.”
“It’s erotomania,” Spencer said, nodding. “I mean, he was the most relaxed talking to Cheryl. He admires her and Patricia and genuinely thinks they admire him too. Probably believes that they’ve been sending him signals through gestures and glances.”
“Delusional,” Elle commented.
“Very much so,” Gideon said.
If Spencer were allowed, he would’ve told them off about their derisive tone. It was a thing that had bloomed out of his close relationship with his mom, so it was definitely biased, but he hated it when people demonized delusions and psychosis. His team had an unfortunately frequent tendency to encounter the low, low percentage of actually dangerous people who experienced those things, and it showed sometimes.
He reigned himself in a split second before he could say something. Instead, he turned to his messenger bag and started rummaging around in it.
Gideon turned to Hotch. “Has Davenport told us everything about his staff?”
“Yeah. We have detailed reports, but we should revisit background on household staff, aides and current docket.”
“Has to be someone the twins weren’t too close with,” Morgan said. “If Reid’s right– Reid, what the hell are you doing?”
Spencer was taking the phone apart with his trusty screwdriver. He said as such and got confused looks in turn, so he sighed deeply. “There’s no way it was just a coincidence that he brought up empathy and empathizing moments after Elle told Cheryl to empathize.”
It was Morgan’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “You think there’s a bug in the phone?”
Spencer held the bug up a second after Morgan finished his sentence and tried not to look too self-satisfied. “Bingo,” he said.
Hotch sprung into action. “I’ll find Davenport. We have to find out who brought the phone in here–”
Spencer split the bug in two with his screwdriver. “The security guy that called him Evan,” he said. “The one that said the trace will be routed through the field office, and that Davenport was in good hands with us. He brought the phone in.”
“You sure?” Gideon asked.
Spencer looked up to find the older agent staring at him with the barest hint of suspicion in his eyes. He pretended not to notice it and just nodded. “A hundred percent.”
“Then let’s move,” Hotch said, “and hope that Reid is right.”
Spencer stayed in the room alone, his team leaving to do their action hero shit. Morgan clapped him on the shoulder as he left and Elle gave him an appreciative smile – he did his best to return it.
“I’m always right,” he whispered into the empty room.
Later – after Elle put a high-heeled boot on the guy’s crotch and threatened Trish’s location out of him – Spencer came home exhausted and yearning to watch some Doctor Who reruns with his cat snuggled up at his side. He opened the chat from earlier in the stairwell and tiredly smiled when he saw the voice message from a couple of hours ago.
He pressed play.
“Hi, Spencer,” Hannah’s voice filtered through the speaker and he relaxed immediately. “Dad says you’re worried about a girl in one of your cases and that it’s making you miss me a bunch. I miss you a bunch too. Dad doesn’t know how to do physics magic and he doesn’t know the answers to all my questions like you do.”
Spencer smiled painfully. Hannah went quiet for a moment, shuffling audibly. Her voice came a bit more hesitant.
“…He says it might be a really long time before I can see you again, ’cause it’s not safe for either of us. I just want you to know that I know that you’re going to save the other girl that’s in danger. You’re good at saving people, and helping them. I hope we can see each other soon anyway. I love you, bye.”
The audio ended, and Spencer felt better than he had in months when he got to the door of his apartment and found a package with Ethan’s messy handwriting on it. He picked it up and texted with one hand as he unlocked his door with the other, locking it behind him thrice out of habit.
SPENCER
Thanks. We did save the girl. Tell the kid I love her too.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
you got it
get some sleep its like 1AM in dc
SPENCER
On it. Good night.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
sleep well
Read 01:12
Spencer opened Ethan’s package with a kitchen knife and smiled when he saw that he had sent him a bunch of videotapes and pictures, along with a handwritten note.
Pen, it read, this is the last of the stuff from your old place. I didn’t even know you still had those stupid videotapes we made in college. Good to know you’re still twice as sentimental as you pretend to be.
I miss you. Be in touch. I’m trying to pull strings to get an in-person meeting arranged. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Love, Ethan.
It was strange to contrast the feeling in his chest with the creepy infatuation of their unsub with the Davenport twins – this, Spencer thought as he looked through the pictures of Ethan and him over their college years, this was what real love felt like. Warm and safe – familiar and comfortable. Terrifying. Absolutely and completely terrifying.
So, so worth it.