Garcia knocked once and waited, somewhat patiently. She knocked again, but this time she didn't wait. Instead she rummaged in her bag for her jumbled keyring. Was it mildly unethical to make copies of Reid's apartment key without his knowledge? Potentially. Was it incredibly helpful in the current situation? She certainly thought so.

She let herself inside and set her bag down by the front door, next to JJ's shoes. The apartment was silent, eerily silent. I really hope he's asleep, she thought.

She didn't see JJ, though, and that worried her a little bit. It was just past nine o'clock, and she'd kind of expected to see her up and about at this point in the morning. Or at least see her asleep on the couch.

I hope everything's okay, she thought fervently. Over the past few days she had been the communication center for operation: help Reid, staying in touch with whoever was currently staying with him and compiling information. Out of everyone else, she probably knew the most about what their youngest team member was going through. And while she was still trying to maintain her sunny optimism, it was getting harder and harder to keep it up.

She tapped the bedroom door open and smiled despite herself. Reid slept in JJ's arms, his cheek tucked against her shoulder and her blonde hair strewn across the pillow. She seemed peaceful, her chest rising and falling in slow even measures and her hand resting protectively over his, but Reid seetmed restless, his face scrunched up and his lips twitching.

For a moment she was tempted to wake them up, but Reid desperately needed any sleep he could get. So instead she backed out of the room and closed the door quietly.

She might as well find something to do, but she wasn't sure what. Reid's apartment was small but approximately ninety percent books, and she wasn't about to mess with those- most likely he kept them in a very precise order known only to him.

She pulled her laptop out of her bag and sat down at the couch, propping it up on the armrest. "Oh, of course," she said aloud, her voice sounding too loud in the thick silence. "Why did I expect that the boy wonder would have wifi? I should have thought of that."

She closed the laptop lid and set it aside with a heavy sigh, glancing around her surroundings. Reid's apartment was depressing. Scrubbed clean but a little cluttered around the edges, heavy curtains, everything secondhand (not even charmingly vintage, just old). Why doesn't he have anything fun? she thought.

She couldn't stand sitting around hoping for them to wake up. It reminded her of being the only awake kid at a sleepover, burrowing in her sleeping bag and listening to her friend's parents bustle around the kitchen- slightly uncomfortable and a little unsettling.

Garcia drummed her fingers on the armrest. Coffee. She could use coffee. And JJ probably did too. Not Reid, not now, but she could get him at least a little something to perk him up. He deserved it. And she couldn't handle sitting around in the heavy silence alone. Maybe by the time she came back from her errand, things would be a bit less uncomfortable.

The first thing she realized was that her arm was asleep. Not just asleep, but fully numb, not even pinpricks in her fingertips.

JJ opened her heavy eyes slowly, wincing as she tried to move her hand. Spencer slept curled against her, pinning her arm in place, his cheek pressed against her shoulder and his head tucked against her cheek. She cautiously slid her arm out from underneath him in tiny intervals, trying not to wake him up.

Miraculously he stayed asleep. She shifted carefully so she could see him better, letting him sink into the pillows. His cheeks were still flushed red with fever, his hair curling against his damp temples, his lips parted as he breathed heavily.

JJ bit back a sigh. She'd been hoping he would be better in the morning, but this didn't seem better to her. At least he'd slept through the night without getting too restless. Maybe the sleep still helped, even though his fever hadn't broken.

She cupped her hand over his forehead. Heat still radiated from his skin, burning into her palm. Yeah, the fever hadn't broken. It might have even spiked a little higher.

She slid out of bed as carefully as she could and moved the blankets, pulling back the comforter and tucking the sheets around him. Spencer mumbled something under his breath, rolling over onto his stomach and burrowing into his pillows. She snuck out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Garcia sat on the couch, jabbing at her laptop keyboard. "Why can't you pick up any signal, you stupid creature, I don't understand," she said to herself.

"Computer troubles?" JJ grinned.

"We need to get this child some modern-day internet," Garcia said. "I would take AOL dialup at this point."

"Internet for what? The computer he doesn't own?"

Garcia laughed. "Okay, we'll get him a computer and then we'll get him internet," she said. "How are you doing, sunshine?"

"Fine?" JJ sighed. "I think. It was a really rough day yesterday."

Garcia closed her laptop and turned to face her. "Yeah, that seizure sounded pretty bad," she said. "How was he afterwards?"

"Not great," she admitted. "He was really disoriented. It's...it's really hard to see him like this. He's not himself at all."

"Yeah, but we'll get him back," Garcia said. She was unusually subdued today- still dressed in a cheerful shade of yellow, but with a distinct lack of jewelry and accessories, and her hair was pinned up with a single jawclip. "Hey. I got you coffee."

"Oh my god, thank you." JJ sighed.

Garcia nodded towards the end table; JJ picked up the still-warm cup. "I didn't memorize everyone's coffee orders for nothing," Garcia said. "I would have picked up something for Reid, but I don't think that would be the best idea for him right now."

"Yeah, you're probably right," JJ said. She took a sip of her coffee. "He's out like a light. It's so hard to get him to sleep even under normal situations, I feel like we need to let him sleep whenever he can."

"Oh, absolutely," Garcia said. "After reading his case file, I'd be shocked if he's slept at all since Georgia."

JJ hesitated. "Garcia...can I read it?" she asked. "The case file, I mean. I know Hotch and Gideon have read it, and you guys talked about it when...when Morgan caught him in the bathroom."

"Oh!" Garcia said. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. You were in your office watching Reid while we...yeah. Yeah, I have the file downloaded to my laptop. I figured I'd hold onto it while…" She cleared her throat. "Yes. Okay. I'll get you caught up."

"Garcia, can you translate this?" JJ asked, holding out her phone. "I swear to god, someone needs to teach Morgan how to text. I can't read anything he sends me."

Garcia squinted at the screen: Cler bllpen wait in ur ofice reid sos

"Clear bullpen, wait in your office, Reid SOS," she read.

"Are you sure that's what he means?" Emily said, craning her neck to look over JJ's shoulder.

"I'm absolutely sure," Garcia said. "I don't know why he sent that, but that's what he said."

"JJ, go," Hotch said. "Everybody else...conference room."

"Okay, okay, but what's going on?" Garcia pressed. Hotch didn't answer, but she had her own suspicions...and they weren't good.

She purposefully took a seat near the window so she could peek through the blinds, setting her closed laptop down on the round table. "Oh, there they are," she said. "Oh, Reid doesn't look good."

Morgan was holding Reid up, his arm tight around his shoulders. Even at that distance she could see how pale he was, how his steps stumbled. Morgan had to keep his pace slow to let him keep up.

"He definitely doesn't look good," Emily said in a low voice. "What should we do?"

"I assume Morgan wants to talk to us," Hotch said. "We'll stay here until we hear from him."

It took a little while, but eventually Morgan let himself into the conference room and closed the door firmly behind him. "What's happening? What's wrong?" Garcia demanded.

"Is Reid all right?" Hotch asked.

Morgan closed the blinds. "We need to talk," he said. "And no. He's not okay." He folded his arms over his chest, his broad shoulders bowing. "He was...he's high."

Garcia's jaw dropped. "You're fucking kidding me," she said. "High? On what?"

"The dilaudid?" Hotch guessed, his voice so quiet it was unnerving.

Morgan gave a tight nod back in response. "It's the stuff Hankel gave him."

"So Hankel injected him repeatedly with his dilaudid concoction, and Reid got addicted?" Emily said. "Makes sense, I guess."

"No, it doesn't make sense!" Garcia said sharply. "He's...hello, okay, we're talking about Reid, right? Dr. Spencer Reid? Our Reid? There's no way. He's too smart for this."

A long, stilted silence.

"It does make sense," Hotch said softly. "He's been quieter than usual, withdrawn. He won't eat, he won't sleep."

"But he always acts like that," Morgan said. "There wasn't any way to tell the difference."

"No, he's been different," Hotch said, gritting his teeth. "We wrote it off as him just being Reid, or that he was just still recovering from Georgia."

"But even if that was the case, we should have said something!" Garcia said. "We should have done something!" She twisted around in her chair to look at Morgan. "How did he get like this? How could none of us catch this? You guys are profilers, you literally do this for a living! How couldn't you catch that something was wrong?"

The silence fell over them again, thick and uncomfortable. She clenched her hands into fists, but after a moment she reached for her laptop instead. "Well, we'll just have to fix this," she said.

"That's not going to be easy, baby girl," Morgan said. "He's not going to get better overnight. This is the long haul. And he's got to go through withdrawal."

"Mm-hm," she said, typing furiously. "Dilaudid withdrawal. It can last seven to fourteen days. Vomiting, muscle and bone pain, fever, tachycardia, anxiety and agitation…" She looked up from the screen. "Guys, we can't leave him alone for this. There's no way in hell."

"And if he's been using Hankel's private stash all this time, it's stronger, that's going to make it worse to get out of," Emily said. "What should we do? Hospitalize him, send him to rehab?"

Hotch shook his head. "If anyone higher up finds out, he could lose his job," he said. "We need to keep his detox a secret. Hospitalization would be a last resort."

Garcia clicked through the search engine results, her head spinning. "Guys, dilaudid withdrawal can trigger seizures," she said. "That's bad. He nearly died after a seizure."

"We'll have to stay with him," Hotch said. "Someone should be with him at all times. Even if he doesn't think he needs someone, there's no telling what can happen."

"I'll make a schedule," Garcia said. "We'll all take turns. I don't think anyone would be opposed?"

"Not at all," Emily said quietly.

"I'll take him home and stay with him first," Morgan said. "Out of all of us, I think I'm the only one who can mandhandle him into listening."

He started to get up, but Hotch held out his hand, signalling him to wait. "Before we get into this," he said. "You need to know what Spencer went through. Garcia, can you pull up the case file?"

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded and clicked around on her laptop until the document filled her screen.

He was dreaming, but it might have been a memory.

He was small- four or five, six at the oldest. He was curled up on the couch, his head resting on his mother's lap, and she held a book in her hand.

"'Ah, courteous knight,' quoth she, what secret wound could ever find, to grieve the gentlest heart on ground?" Diana read, her voice soft and soothing.

She stroked his hair as she read, even and perfectly rhythmic, her fingernails scratching lightly at his scalp. He cuddled up close, his cheek pillowed on his hand, his eyes half closed.

"The knight much wondered at his sudden wit, and said 'the term of life is limited, nay may a man prolong, nor shorten it'," she read, and there was a clarity in her voice that he hadn't heard for a very, very long time. He'd nearly forgotten what she sounded like back then.

"Diana, can't you read him something a little more age appropriate?"

He raised his head. His father stood in the doorway, still dressed in his work clothes, his tie half undone. "This is age appropriate," Diana said, unbothered.

"Can't you read him something better for a kindergartener?" William asked. "Thomas the Tank Engine, or Clifford, or-"

"Picture books bore him," Diana said. "Besides, this copy has pictures. Look, here's a lovely illustration of Talus dismembering Munera."

William shook his head. "Jesus," he mumbled under his breath as he walked out of the room.

"Never mind your father," Diana said. She bent over him and kissed his temple. "He just doesn't understand things the way you and I do."

He smiled, sighing a little in contentment as she kept petting his hair. She kept reading, calm and warm. He could hear how much she loved him in the sound of her voice.

"All ends that was begun. Their times in his eternal book of fate are written sure, and have their certain date. Who then can strive with strong necessity, that holds the world in his still changing state, or shun the death ordain'd by destiny? When hour of death is come, let none ask whence, or why."

He was nearly asleep, lulled by his mother's voice and the comfort of her presence. It had been a long time since he had felt so small and safe and peaceful.

"I was like you, you know."

His eyes shot open. The sense of peace was gone, replaced with an ice-cold prickle at the back of his neck.

Tobias Hankel stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, his dark eyes sad.

Diana kept reading, quiet and measured, her diction perfect.

"The longer life, I wrote the greater sin- the greater sin, the greater punishment. All those great battles which thou boasts to win, through strife, and bloodshed, and avengement, now prais'd, hereafter dear thou shalt repent. For life must life, and blood must blood repay."

Tobias didn't move. He just watched him. "We're not that different, you and me," he said.

He sat up slowly. "Mom," he whispered. He grabbed her arm. "Mom, help me."

But she kept reading.

"Is not enough thy evil life forespent? For he, that once hath missed the right way, the further he doth go, the further he doth stray."

Tobias still didn't move, but he wanted to run away before he had the chance to come closer. "I was smart, like you," he said quietly. "Everybody said so. But my mom left, and things got real hard, and my dad just kind of…" He shrugged, gesturing towards Diana. "You know what I mean."

He clutched his mother's arm, his nails digging into her skin. "Mom, help," he begged. "I'm scared. Mom, I'm scared."

But she kept reading.

"Is not he just, that all this doth behold from highest heaven, and bears an equal eye? Shall he thy sins up in his knowledge fold, and guilty be of thy impiety?"

"You're a sinner," Tobias said sadly. "Maybe my daddy was right after all."

Gone was the sense of calm and safety. Panic choked him as Tobias stared him down from the doorway and he shook Diana with all the strength in his body. "Mom, help me, please," he begged. "I don't know what to do. I'm so scared."

And still Diana read.

"Is not his law, let every sinner die? Die all shall flesh? What then must need be done? Is it not better to do willingly, than linger till the glass be all outrun?"

Tobias tilted his head, but said nothing. "I'm sorry!" Spencer sobbed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" He clung to Diana desperately, but she didn't even look at him, lost in her own little world. "Mom! Help me!"

"Death is the end of woes," Tobias quoted, finishing the stanza. Dark red blossomed over his chest. The empty syringe fell from his hand to the floor. "Do you think I'll see my mom again?"

Spencer screamed.

JJ rubbed at her watering eyes with the heel of her palm and kept clicking through the PDF, forcing herself to read through Spencer's notes. She had told herself for months that he was fine, that he'd recovered, that what had happened had been put away and filed on a shelf as nothing but a vague bad memory.

There was no polite phrasing in his words, no sugarcoating, no nuance. He spelled everything out in terse tight sentences, and he forgot nothing.

Of course he forgot nothing.

A sharp scream startled her out of her reverie; she unfolded from her spot on the couch and closed Garcia's laptop. "What's wrong?" she demanded, pushing open the door to Spencer's room.

Spencer pushed himself up into a sitting position, his hair hanging over his eyes. He said something garbled and intelligible, his hand tangling in the neckline of his shirt. Garcia leaned over him, her hand resting on his forearm. "I think he was dreaming," she said. "He just...I don't know. I don't know. Has he been like this?"

"He's been pretty quiet, honestly," JJ said. She sat down on the edge of the bed and took Spencer by the shoulders. "Spence, are you okay?" She drew back. "Oh my god, he's burning up. Can you grab the thermometer? It's in the bathroom."

She gently pried Spencer's hand from his shirt. "Hey, Spence," she said. "What's wrong? Can you talk to me?"

He stared past her, his eyes fixed on the doorway. "He's here," he whispered, his jaw slack. "He's here."

"Who's here?" she asked. She stroked his hair back from his forehead. "It's just me and Garcia here. Nobody else."

His chest heaved, but he didn't answer.

Garcia handed her the thermometer. "Do you think we should take him to a hospital?" she asked.

"I don't know," she said. She slipped the thermometer into his mouth, cupping his chin to keep him steady. "It comes down to which the bigger risk- losing his job, or if he's in danger."

She waited for the thermometer to beep, and her heart sank. "What's that face for?" Garcia asked. "That's not a good face."

"A hundred and three point five," she said. "Shit. That's the highest it's been so far."

"What should we do?" Garcia asked.

JJ touched his cheek, rubbing her thumb against his jawline. "If he reaches a hundred and four, or he has another seizure, we're calling an ambulance," she said.

Spencer blinked, and a little bit of clarity broke through the cloudy haze in his soft brown eyes. "JJ?" he said, his face scrunching in confusion.

"Hi," she said. "Hi, sweetheart. Are you okay? Can you talk to me?"

He dragged his hand over his face. "I don't feel well," he mumbled.

"I know," she said. "You have a really high fever. But you're going to be okay." Spencer's thin shoulders hunched, and she could already tell that he was slipping away again. "Just rest. Go back to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up."

He nodded, trusting as a child. Slowly he sank back against the pillows, his eyes sliding shut. "God, I hate this," Garcia said under her breath. "What do we do?"

"We have to get his fever down," JJ said. She rested her hand lightly on Spencer's chest. "It's all we can do for now."

He ran.

He ran like his life depended on it, his heart pumping, his slick-soled dress shoes slipping on the soft wet earth. Dry cornstalks bent and waved around him, tearing at his face, his arms. The air tasted wet and rotting, threatening rain.

He ran like his life depended on it, because it did.

The footsteps behind were heavy, steady, sure. No matter how fast he ran, the steps followed, never picking up in pace, but always just behind him, threatening him.

The moon was big and bright above him, but he was hot, he was on fire from the effort of running, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. He was burning from the inside out, and he couldn't stop, he couldn't take a breath.

When he was a little kid- an eight-year-old starting his freshman year- they made him take gym class with teenagers twice his size, almost twice his age. He couldn't keep up. They made him run the mile, gasping for breath in the dry Las Vegas heat, his too-small sneakers pinching his feet and cutting blisters into his heels. They teased him mercilessly, until he was able to talk the adults into letting him switch, and he didn't have to dread his third period class anymore.

It didn't dissuade the older kids from teasing him, though. If anything, it gave them more ammunition.

He kept running, hoping for the footsteps to go quiet, hoping to see a break in the neverending cornstalks, hoping that someone would find him before the person chasing him caught him first.

He was ten years old when they tied him and left him in the late summer sun, let him scream and burn and cry, and in the end he saved himself.

They came, once. He was pulled from the grave he'd dug for himself, biting back tears, his legs threatening to give out from underneath him. For that one moment, had been safe.

It was too hot. He ran and he ran, his strength draining from his body, the heat sinking into his skin and sapping his strength.

The footsteps followed him, steady as a metronome.

He ran.

JJ draped a cool damp washcloth over Spencer's forehead. He was breathing hard, as if he'd just run a marathon, and his long limbs twitched and jumped.

"Do you think we should call somebody?" Garcia asked. She had pulled a chair into the corner of the room and stayed sentinel, watching over them. "Hotch, maybe? Or Morgan?"

"What for?" JJ said. She touched the back of her hand to his thin cheek. "No one else is going to be able to do anything for him. All we can do is try to keep him hydrated and try to cool him down."

Spencer whined through his teeth, rolling over onto his side and drawing his knees up to his chest. JJ placed her hand on his side. "It's okay," she said softly. "You're okay, Spence."

She rubbed her thumb lightly against his side, hoping the slight weight of her hand would reassure him. He shifted restlessly, his discomfort flickering over his face, and he shivered. The chills came in waves, making him shake uncontrollably, and she ran her hand over his tangled hair.

"Poor baby," Garcia said softly. "Do you think we should call his mother and let her know what's happening?"

"She can't do anything either," JJ said. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged at Spencer until he was curled up with his head resting on her lap, his arms tucked against his chest. He shivered, his teeth chattering, and she tucked him in securely. She stroked his hair gently, rhythmically, watching his face for any signs of change. All she could do was wait and hope that this would all be over soon.

It was cold in the cabin.

The cold sank into his skin, deep into his bones, and his thin shirt offered almost no protection from the chill in the air. He thought that just a moment ago it was hot, too hot, but now he was freezing cold, his wrists locked tight to the old railback chair and the roughhewn floor scraping at the soles of his bare feet.

No matter where he went, he kept coming back to the cabin.

Tobias stood beside him, his left hand cradling Spencer's arm, his right holding a syringe. "Tell me it doesn't help," he said softly.

He looked up at him. "I want it," he whispered. "I want it, I want it, make it go away."

"This isn't going to help, Reid."

He raised his head and saw Hotch standing in front of him, his ever-present frown etched across his face, his arms folded. "It will," he said, and even in his own ears he sounded small and lost and childlike.

"It's not going to help," Hotch repeated. "It'll make things worse. Why are you always making things worse? You don't think anything through. You don't listen."

"I do, I do listen," he protested.

"They sent me in here with an unarmed kid who can't shoot his way out of a wet paper bag," Hotch said.

His heart thudded in his chest.

"He failed his qualification. Twice a year, I gotta listen to him whine about requalifying. So I tutor him, and he fails again."

Tobias looked down at him, the syringe hovering over his arm. "You learned eventually," he said, and Spencer stared down at his chained wrists.

"Why did you leave me behind?"

It wasn't Hotch now, it was JJ, her blue eyes big and round and sad. "You left me behind, Spence," she said. "You shouldn't have split up from me. You ran and you left me behind."

"I'm sorry," he said. "JJ, I'm so sorry."

"I could have been killed," she said. "And it would have been your fault."

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"It's your own fault you ended up like this, you know," she said. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't been so stupid."

Tears burned behind his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, softer and smaller still, and he couldn't look her in the eye.

"You could have told me, you know."

And it wasn't JJ, it was Emily, hands on her hips, shoulders sagging in exasperation. "You didn't tell anybody," she said. "You had so many chances to tell us. You could have told me. I could have helped you, if you would just open your mouth and say something."

"I couldn't," he said helplessly.

"You could have," she accused. "Everyone knew something was wrong. I've only known you for a few months, and even I could tell. You should have said something."

"I couldn't," he said. He looked up at Tobias. "Please, please, just make it stop. Make it stop."

"There hath no temptation taken hold of you but such as is common to man," Tobias quoted softly. "But God is faithful; He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

Spencer sagged against the chair. They were right. They were all right.

"You're weak."

He looked up, and it was Charles Hankel, wild eyed and teeth bared, and he flinched. "I see you cower at me, boy," Charles snarled. "You can't stand up to me. Just like my son couldn't stand up to me."

He tried to make himself small, curling into the chair, his wrists pinned, the cuffs cutting into his skin. "Please, please, please," he begged. "Tobias, help me. Just do it, just do it."

But Tobias kept his hand on his arm, the syringe still hovering over his skin. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind," he said gently.

"Tobias, I don't deserve to get better," he whispered. "I don't, I don't deserve it…"

"You are stronger than him," Tobias said. "He cannot break you."

He recognized the words, Gideon's words, and Tobias capped the syringe. "It'll be okay," he said, smiling at him. He touched Spencer's inner arm, his fingers covering the track marks. "Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends."

Tobias unlocked the cuffs and his hands fell limply to his lap. "You've confessed your sins, Spencer Reid," he said. "Go on home now."

He opened his eyes, dizzy and disoriented. It was dark, but after a moment he recognized his own bedroom, faint early evening light glowing through the crack in the curtains. Sweat clung to his body, soaking his pajamas, but he wasn't on fire, and he wasn't freezing.

The bedside light switched on and he winced, scrunching up his face. "Hi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Garcia said hastily. She smiled at him, a little unsure. "How are you?"

"Tired," he rasped. "Thirsty."

She picked up a glass of water from his nightstand and helped him sit up, moving his pillows behind his back. "Drink all of that," she said. "I'll get you more. There's some gatorade in the fridge, too, you probably need that."

He drank greedily, cold water spilling over his chin and dripping on his shirt, and when the glass was empty he felt like he could keep drinking and never have enough. "How long have I been sleeping?" he asked, groggy and squinting in the warm amber light.

"Most of the afternoon," she said, gently prying the glass from his hands. "Your temperature spiked really, really high today. Like almost let's-call-an-ambulance high. But the fever broke about two hours ago. I think we've got you out of the woods, champ."

He rubbed his eyes. "Where's JJ?" he asked.

"I sent her home once we realized you were doing better," she said. "She was exhausted. But you're not going to be alone, okay? I'm staying with you, and someone else will be here in the morning."

He was exhausted too, the bone-deep ache in his body and the last remaining vestiges of fever leaving him weak and shaky and limp as a wrung-out dishtowel. "Can I go back to sleep?" he asked.

"Of course, my darling," she said. "Do you need anything else?"

He shook his head, sleep already pulling at him, and he eased back down. Garcia adjusted the blankets up to his shoulders, smoothing them out with gentle little pats. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in months he slept without dreaming.

Author's Notes:

OOF. This was a hard update to get out!

I started back at work (in the blistering heat and humidity, in the midst of a global pandemic) and I've been super super stressed, which meant that updates kind of suffered. I missed two weekends (two? or just one? I don't even know anymore) and this one is late, but it's here!

Originally this chapter was going to be VERY different, but I had two requests on tumblr! One was to write about what happened in the office when they talked about Spencer...and the other request was to make it even whumpier. Hopefully it was achieved!

Diana is reading from The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser (book three, canto nine, I think? I forgot to write it down in my notes, oops) One of my headcanons is that William and Diana argued a LOT about what to name their son, and William was adamant that he needed a normal name and nothing crazy from Diana's books. He didn't realize the Spencer connotations until much later.

Just a few more parts left! The next two parts will probably be much shorter, but with a solid closing chapter, and then it'll be time to move on to the next arc!

My tumblr is themetaphorgirl if you'd like to be pals! (and tomorrow will be an update for Patron Saint of Lost Causes, hurray!)