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The Way Back Home (Spencer Reid x Reader) - Epilogue

The Way Back Home (Spencer Reid x Reader) - Epilogue Reader Insert: she/her pronouns Word Count: 3707 Warnings: major angst, major fluff, mentions of murder, graphic descriptions of dead bodies, crime scenes, near-death experiences, slow-burnish romance, death, canon violence, rape, swearing, guns, knives, prostitution, canon cuteness of the team. Spoilers: Maeve's death, mentions of previous cases or canon events from seasons 1-10.

Spencer and you have an unspoken connection with one another. Nothing has ever happened between you two, especially since everything went down with Maeve, but your love has grown and overcome and is now clear as day to everyone. However, just when Spencer builds up enough courage to ask you out officially, you're requested on an undercover mission that halts your budding relationship in its tracks.

Months go by without a word from you until bodies of prostitutes start showing up in New York and the BAU is brought in to help. Spencer and you finally reunite as both your cases collide, but your lives and your love are both on the line now.

Will you and Spencer be able to find the way back home this time?

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Epilogue

~~~

The water ran hot against your skin as you lathered your body in soap. The bubbles formed quickly from how fast you scrubbed yourself. You didn't like taking showers. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. Showers were both simultaneously the best and worst part of your day since returning home from the hospital.

Your fingers barely brushed across your skin, swiping the soap over and back a few times before you washed it off. You didn't like the feel of fingers lingering too long on your skin. Objectively, you were much better than you were before. The first time the nurses tried showering you, you almost screamed the hospital down as flashbacks and phantom touches invaded your brain.

You turned the shower off and stepped out of it. You didn't look in your mirror, immediately reaching for a towel to cover yourself up with. The towel helped you feel less... vulnerable, even if you were all alone.

Only then did you look in the mirror. It had already been one month since you'd left the hospital after being cooped up in there for two weeks. Today actually marked the day you were told you had to leave for the mission - exactly one a year ago. You were now back in your old apartment in DC - Hotch had pulled in a favour from the FBI to keep paying your rent until you came back, and you had almost choked him to death with the strong hug you'd given him when the team had brought you home.

Home.

The word brought a smile to your face. Well, it wasn't so much the word as it was the images that came to mind with it. Your apartment, the BAU, the team, the Italian restaurant downstairs you always used to visit before you left. A certain genius with unruly hair and the brightest smile in the world...

After this weekend, I'll be seeing that smile everyday, you thought as you quickly dried off and rushed to pull some casual shorts and an over-sized gym t-shirt on. Just the thought of being exposed for too long freaked you out.

You walked out to your lounge room where you were greeted with the afternoon light that would no doubt be setting soon. For a moment, you just allowed yourself to take in your street, standing so close to your floor-to-ceiling window that if you leaned forward you would bump your nose against it. The golden light of the setting sun reflected in fragments off the windows of other apartments; people were already home from work and walking the streets with their loved ones or dogs. The hardware store across the road was closing up, but the lights for the Italian restaurant downstairs flickered on, telling the world they were ready for business.

It had been killing you to stay away from work - Hotch and Penelope had made it very clear they didn't want you anywhere near the office until you had taken your month off to recover and readjust back into life. But, in hindsight, you were glad they had. You'd found a new appreciation of where you lived, reacquainted yourself with what you liked to do and liked to eat and liked to go watch at the movies.

This past month had almost wiped Serena Vanderguff from existence... and you couldn't tell if you liked that yet or not.

A sudden knock at your door knitted confusion in your eyebrows as you looked curiously at the entrance to your home. You spared a glance at the clock hanging on the wall. What's someone doing here at quarter-to six on a Friday afternoon?

You softly padded over to the door and peeped through the spyglass that allowed you to see whoever it was that knocked at the door. You couldn't stop your wide smile of delight at who greeted you outside. Without wasting another second, you unlocked the multiple locks on your door and swung the blasted thing open to welcome the one and only Dr. Spencer Reid.

'Spence!' you exclaimed. 'What a lovely surprise!'

'Hey!' he replied just as enthusiastically. 'I was on my way home from the office and thought I'd stop by.'

It was only then you noticed he was holding a big and beautiful bouquet of your favourite flowers. 'Goodness, Spence, you didn't have to bring me flowers again.' He'd been bringing you flowers once a week every week since you'd been found. Even when you were still in the hospital, those two weeks he had brought you the same flowers, the ones you loved.

He just smiled that adorable smile of his before responding. 'I read somewhere that florals can produce a high level of endorphins and serotonin,' he explained as he offered them out to you, lips still upturned in a crooked, adorable smile. 'And ever since that sewerage pipe break in your building, there's always been a lingering smell that I thought you could use help covering up.'

'That was over a year ago, though!' you argued weakly, but took the flowers from his hands anyways. Your fingers briefly brushed, and it sent a jolt of electricity through you. It was gone as quickly as it came.

You gestured for him to come inside and he did. From your front door the kitchen was easily accessible, which is where he walked to and leant against the counter. You quickly closed the door and followed after him, heading straight for your flowers from last week sitting wilted in their vase.

'And in all that time, they still haven't managed to fix it,' Spencer added jokingly, but the upward pull of his lips wasn't as high now.

You heard what he really meant as you pulled out the dead flowers, filled the vase with fresh water, and placed the new flowers in. All that time...

A lot has happened in that time. Upon your release from the hospital, Khan had been put in jail alongside many of his goons. Madame Lacroix and the other New York club managers were found guilty of human trafficking and dealing in illicit drugs and contraband, and were all thrown in jail and their clubs were shut down. Turned out it was a national operation that Khan was running, and other units of the FBI in other states were currently hunting them all down.

What made you happy though was that the girls you saved were going home, and for those that didn't have homes, they were being found homes of their own. The older girls that worked at the clubs were a different story. Some packed up and left town, wanting to travel or find new work elsewhere. The rest bought up the clubs and were rebranding themselves, taking ownership of their lives. Now they were the ones in charge.

You looked at Spencer, leaning casually against your counter, the light of sunset haloing him as it reflected off the opposite building into your apartment.

And a lot still hasn't happened.

'So, what's the occasion?' you asked, turning to face Spencer, finally finished with the flowers. You crossed your arms and couldn't help the soft smile that pulled at you lips. 'To what do I owe the pleasure of the great Dr. Spencer Reid in my apartment this evening?'

He chuckled at my posh delivery, and the loose curls dangling across his forehead bounced with the sound. It had grown in the time since he'd found you, but he'd cut it once or twice since then to keep it at that perfect length of long-short - long enough to style gorgeously but short enough to be considered clean-cut and suitable for work.

The urge to rake your fingers through the curls itched at your fingertips, and you were so glad your hands were crossed under your armpits.

'I was meant to come in earlier this week like I usually do,' he started, pushing off the counter to wander past the kitchen and into the lounge, ultimately ending up looking out the window as you had been just before. 'But the amount of paperwork we've had piling up this month has been ridiculous, even I was starting to hate looking at endless towers of paper to read then sign.'

'Oh no,' I drawled out, following him to the window with a teasing smirk on my lips. 'Has the great Dr. Reid finally met his match?'

'Not quite,' he replied, still staring out the window.

It was hard not to look at him as the sunlight lit up his amber eyes,. He was simply... ethereal.

'I finished it all, finally,' he continued, 'and thought I'd pay you a visit. Seeing as it's Friday and there are no new cases, I'm not expected in the office tomorrow.'

I blew out a low whistle. 'Wow. A whole weekend to yourself? That's unheard of.'

'Yeah.' His voice was breathy, and you noticed the emotion in his gaze shift as he turned away from watching the world to look at you. A sad smile appeared on his lips, eyes glazing over with a mixture of relief and exhaustion. 'I've missed you.'

'You saw me last week,' you countered, like a mother placating a child. 'And we text and call like everyday.'

'I know. It's just like old times again, but...'

He paused, as if gathering his next words carefully. Spencer always thought about his words so that people understood him the best possible way. It was one of the things you positively adored about him.

'The office is, I don't know, empty somehow,' he said finally, slowly. 'I know that's a silly thing to say when Morgan and JJ and Penelope and everyone else is there, but... Your desk still sits there, waiting for you to come back. And I kept it clean for over a year, almost willing you to come back any of those days.'

You smiled softly at him. 'Well, you don't have to wait much longer. Monday morning, bright and early, I'll be at my desk ready to go.'

Your eyes met and you could tell he was holding back tears. Your words came out quiet but true. 'I've missed you too, Spence.'

You had always been attuned to each other, the team sometimes joking that you both shared the same brain cells (even though, as Spencer claimed continuously, that was not anatomically possible). The sentiment remained true as you and him reached out to one another and wrapped your arms tight around each other.

Reflexively, your breath caught in your throat, and you were thrown back to that night where Khan defiled you in the most brutal of ways.

Spencer noticed you tense, and he pulled back slightly. 'Is this okay?" he asked gently. He had been there when you had your meltdown at the nurses; he knew what Khan had done to you, and how you would never be same because of it.

His arms were warm and gentle around you, and that horrible memory disappeared. You were with Spencer. You were safe. You were home.

You took a moment to catch your breath, to stabilise yourself in the present once more, and pulled him in tighter. 'Yes. This is okay.'

After your permission, his arms tightened around you, and there you stayed for a while longer. Just hugging while the rest of the world passed you by. With your ear pressed to his chest, you knew both your hearts were beating in time with one another.

Synced. Linked. Two halves of a whole.

Your heart practically screamed for him when he and the team had found you, saved you. It had been screaming for over a month since that day, and you knew it would never stop screaming for him.

I would've said yes.

Neither of you had said anything about what you'd said, what you had confirmed. Everything had just happened so quickly, and then Spencer had been busy with work since the team was a man down until you returned.

You'd stolen what you could in your brief touches, the laughs you shared, the scent of the flowers that hung in your apartment for a week before he brought a new set. And despite all he had done to get you back, despite that night at the Chateau - What would you have said? - you'd just been too much of a coward to see if he still felt that way for you.

Because nothing had changed for you. It never would.

You had two days before your life would go back to semi-normal, and by then it would be too difficult, too complicated. Oh screw it, it's complicated already.

You pulled apart from Spencer, disentangling yourself from him completely. As much as you wished to hold him forever, you needed to have your space if you had any hope of finally getting the words out.

'Hey, you okay?' he asked, noticing your tensed form, your fidgety fingers.

'Yeah, I just...'

You took in a deep breath, closed your eyes, and let out that breath. Now or never, Y/N.

Opening your eyes, you spoke. 'I just don't think I've ever thanked you for checking in on me. I know how busy you can be.'

'There's no need,' he replied, a soft smile adorning his face. 'I'll always come to your aid. You're... so dear to me, Y/N.'

Hope sparked in your chest, the only driving force for you to keep speaking. 'I mean it. You literally saved my life in the Warehouse. I had resigned myself to my fate: that I would never see you or Pen or Derek or JJ or the rest of the team again. I knew you'd find me, but I had made peace with dying before that point.'

You sucked in a steadying breath as the dark memories started to claw their way back into your brain, into your heart. Phantom fingers ghosted over your skin, causing you cross your arms again in attempt to protect yourself from them.

'And then Khan... used me,' you managed to get out, words strained and voice croaky as tears formed at the rim of your eyelids.

Spencer's expression turned into one of concern. 'You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, Y/N,' he offered, amber eyes scanning me all over for signs that I would breakdown.

I shook my head. 'No. I need to tell you this. I need you to understand.'

'Understand what?'

'That this past month I have had to learn to re-love myself again, to re-love my body and what it did for me that day.' I forced my arms down beside me, opening myself up completely to Spencer. 'It hasn't been easy, and sometimes... I've hated myself, instead. And the scars run deeper than my skin shows and may last for a long time - possibly for the rest of my life.'

You tell yourself to be brave for a moment, and you look directly into Spencer's eyes, which shine with unshed tears and something else you can't quite figure out.

'But you... Dr. Spencer Reid,' you started, tears finally falling from your eyes as the brightest smile spread across your face. 'You have made me believe in hope again. Hope, that I might one day be rid of this hatred for myself and my body. Hope, that I can carry this trauma and still live a full life. Hope, that I can be more than what Walter Khan made of me that night.'

A hysterical chuckle escapes you, and you wipe some of the tears away. There was a silent voice in the back of your head saying how ridiculous you are for crying over this. But that voice was all of hatred, of jealously. It has been the voice you've let dictate your feelings for over a month.

But, today, you were done listening to it.

'Hope, that... you love you me as much as I love you, Spencer.'

There, you said it. Relief bombarded the space where the weight of those words had held a huge place in your heart for the longest time. Since before the mission, before Maeve, before you even knew you were in love with him. It was out there, now. There was no going back.

Spencer remained silent, staring at you like you had three heads. Slight panic coursed coldly through you, and suddenly your mouth was motoring, words just flying out one after the other.

'That's not me asking you to say it back or anything. I just... oh my goodness, screw it. I have been in love with you forever, Spencer, and I just wanted to let you know because you have taken up such a huge part of my heart that will never belong to anyone else, and-'

'You love me?'

You paused at Spencer's question, locking eyes with the boy genius and seeing a mixture of disbelief and that same emotion again, the one you couldn't put a finger on. Perhaps it was terror, and that one thought had your heart sinking like the Titanic.

'Yeah,' you replied quietly.

'...How long?'

'Sorry?'

'How. Long.'

You rubbed at your eyes, suddenly avoiding his gaze by looking simply anywhere else. It was all going so horribly wrong. But he'd asked a question. And you would do anything, answer anything, if he asked.

'I think I've loved you since the day I met you,' you said, and it was only when you'd spoken the words did you realise how cliche you sounded. A humourless laugh escaped you at your misery.

'I didn't realise until a few years later, though,' you continued. 'But by the time I did, I found out you had a secret girlfriend in Maeve and you were just so happy I couldn't possibly ruin what we had because of that. And I never tried after because you were grieving and I didn't want you to think I was rushing you or pushing you too soon. But then you asked me, and I was so happy, but then it all just went downhill from there. Goodness, this is all coming out horribly wrong-'

'Stop talking.'

'Wha- Mph!'

Your question was swallowed by Spencer Reid's lips as he cradled your face in his hands and pulled you to him, pressing his lips passionately against yours. He tasted like Halloween sweets and fresh air, and that just made you close your eyes and melt into him more. The kiss wasn't frantic. Rather, it was sweet and loving and you couldn't get enough of him. Even as you weaved your fingers into his luscious hair and tugged on them gently, eliciting a deep growl of approval and want from deep within him.

As he kissed you, your doubts faded away, leaving only your love for another that could not be any clearer now. As he kissed you, another mental, emotional scare healed and vanished.

You both finally pulled apart, heaving for breath as your noses brushed one another's. When you looked up at his eyes, you finally recognised the mystery emotion that had been burning ever since he'd stepped into your apartment.

A relieved, genuinely happy smile split his lips wide as tears of joy ran down his cheeks. His thumb swept over your own tears, causing you both to chuckle at your silliness.

'If you hadn't guessed already,' he said, his words only for you, 'I love you, too. I know that's an odd thing to say before you even date someone, but I do, and I have for a while even if I didn't know it before. I'm just so so sorry for making you wait, for being an ignorant, stupid coward.'

You brought your hands up to wipe away his own tears, heart immensely full for the man in front of you. 'Dr. Spencer Reid stupid? Now you're just making stuff up. I thought you didn't do that.'

That pulled a laugh from him, and he pulled you into another hug, this time more bone-crushing. As if he couldn't express how much he loved you enough. You hugged him back just as desperately though. It seemed as though you shared the same sentiment.

In another moment of bravery, you spoke over his shoulder where your chin rested. 'You know... my answer still stands. That is, if your offer still stands.'

Dr. Spencer Reid. Are you asking me out on a date right now?

Spencer pulled away from the hug, with the biggest smile on his face. 'It will always stand for you, Y/N. Always.'

What do you say, SSA Y/N L/N? Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?

It was you this time that pressed a bruising kiss on Spencer's lips, the kiss being answer enough for what you had been holding onto for exactly a year.

Sweet, sweet music wafted up from downstairs, the faint sound of a beautiful violin sparking an idea in your head. You forced yourself to pull away from Spencer and said, 'I know a great Italian restaurant that is super close, by the way.'

'Sounds perfect,' Spencer replied, kissing you quickly again before crouch and picking you up by your underarms and twirling your around in the air. Laughter echoed through your apartment as you clung to him but also rejoiced at the feeling of flying. For the first time in over a year, you were finally feeling like yourself again.

Spencer eventually put you down, saying, 'As much as I find you the most beautiful girl in the world, I don't think t-shirt and shorts are going to cut it downstairs.'

'Oh. Right.' You quickly dashed into your room and put on something more suitable.

And finally, one year after being asked out, Spencer held your hand in his and took you downstairs to have your date, where you both had the best night you'd had in a long time. It might've taken a few twists and turns to get to where you both belonged: with each other. But as you ate your pasta, drank your wine, danced with and laughed with and kissed Spencer, you realised it had only made your bond stronger, that it had been worth it.

You'd finally found your way back home.

You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

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