Futile the Winds || s.reid

3. A Woman in White To Be

Hope had been staring at Spencer in silence for six and a half uninterrupted minutes, and if it were any other child, he might have been unsettled.

It was the early afternoon on a Saturday, and Spencer was alone with Hope in your living room while you finished showering. The three of you were supposed to go to Director Preston's barbecue that day, a thought which made his chest tighten a bit in discomfort.

The Director was... Spencer's friend, he supposed. But Christopher Preston was now also his boss, and he had played a vital role in determining whether or not Spencer would get to keep his job after tracking down Alexander Marseille.

He knew Preston would have been on his side. Preston had even said as much to him in a hushed whisper in passing.

"Hope you made the bastard suffer," he'd whispered to Spencer after Spencer's first meeting with him and Attorney General Cortez.

Spencer hadn't responded, mainly because he didn't know what to say.

Because he knew that Alexander hadn't suffered.

Much.

Because Spencer could tell every single detail of that locked warehouse room. He could comment on the water leaking from an overhanging pipe. He could tell the exact temperature (83 degrees fahrenheit, according to an old thermostat on the wall beside the door). He could even talk about the faint shouts from behind that very door, the shouts from Emily to stand down.

But then he'd also have to talk about how he'd ignored her. He could hear her, of course, but had chosen to not think a single second more on her commands, because Alexander was out of bullets by then.

And Spencer hadn't been. And all Spencer was able to think about was ensuring that Alexander did not walk out of that room.

Spencer would have to talk about how he watched the life evaporate from Alexander's eyes after Spencer's third shot at him. About how he'd kept shooting, his mind completely blank for once, until his second gun clicked with emptiness. About how he hadn't felt a single thing as he did it.

But now, all these weeks later, Spencer couldn't think about it too much without the tight grip of disgust and terror gripping his chest. The displeasure didn't stem from Alexander's death (Spencer still had no qualms about that particular aspect of it). Rather, it stemmed from the realization that Spencer was now capable of looking at another human being and seeing nothing.

It wasn't often, but sometimes Alexander haunted Spencer's dreams as well, as if his brain demanded a reminder of the cruelty Spencer was now capable of. Of the fact that he could take a life and feel nothing.

Of the fact that he was a murderer.

And Hope just kept staring silently at him, almost like she knew where his thoughts roamed, or like she knew of what stained his hands.

He pressed his lips together into an uncomfortable smile in her direction, his fingers lacing together in his lap. Absent-mindedly, his left thumb dug into his right palm, where there was still a pale scar marring the flesh there.

He'd been spending a bit more time at your apartment in the past week and a half, ever since he'd come over in the middle of the night. It wasn't a significant change in the typical routine, but you and him had decided that it was pertinent for him to spend more time with Hope.

And in that past week and a half, Spencer had come to the conclusion that Hope was basically just indifferent to his added presence.

And he was going to have to be okay with that.

Maybe he should go and check on you. At least it'd give him something to do instead of—

Hope slid off of her couch and walked up to the one that Spencer was sitting on, hauling herself onto the cushion beside him and standing on it.