A familiar face from Spencer's past joins the BAU, his ex-girlfriend, who left him fourteen years, two months, and fifteen days ago.
A slow-burn love story in which she and Spencer figure out who they are together and apart, and whether or not the h...
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Jasper Donnelly Keaton (Long Lost Love AU)
Word Count: 2899
Summary: After Spencer takes her home, Jasper spirals further into the depression she's been heading towards.
Warnings: Allusions to child abuse, alcoholism,
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Jasper sat in bed after Spencer left. She finished the bowl like he'd told her to, then watched the wall as she pet Booger softly. He sat at attention, watching the door while she wallowed in her post-panic attack haze.
Her brain struggled through the slush that often came after, making her head heavy and her mind thick. She felt like nothing. She was empty.
Jasper resented her brain for turning on her, forcing her back against a wall and letting the wild animal her PTSD was loose on the world. It was cruel of her own mind to betray her, those damned memories erupting from her calcified heart without her permission.
A few hours later she got out of bed, shakily swinging her legs off the side and standing. Stumbling to her closet, she fell to her knees in front of the door and crawled inside. She dug through the back for one of her old shoe boxes, hidden between the ones with actual shoes in them. She pulled it from the floor and tucked it under her arm as she got to her feet.
She wandered into the living room, hardly looking at the coffee table as she dropped the box on the wood and headed for the kitchen. In the pantry sat an unopened bottle of Maker's Mark, the familiar red drip seal just begging to be opened. She snatched it off the shelf and poured herself three fingers into a tumbler, leaving the bottle on the counter.
Jasper took about two steps before she thought better of it, looping her fingers around the neck of the bottle and taking it with her to the living room. She ignored the microwave clock that read 11:23 am, not wanting to have that conversation with herself about whether or not this was a good idea so early in the day.
Plopping down on the couch, Jasper covered herself with a blanket and took a quick swig of her glass, then opened the box. She opened her Spotify app, turned on her country playlist and let it play.
A Waylon Payne tune echoed through the empty apartment as Booger joined her on the cushions. Jasper waved the box lid at him so he could sniff it. He licked it and dropped his head on her thigh, so Jasper tossed it on the table and looked inside.
"But oh, woah-oh, the sins of the father are never gonna hang around me no more."
Right away she was confronted with her own face, a dark shiner outlining her left eye as she posed with her father, his arm possessively wrapped around her shoulders in an old yellowed photograph.
His dark hair had grayed early around his temples, despite only being forty in the photo. It was titled, Sugar and Gerard, 1993 in her mother's neat handwriting. Jasper would have only been around twelve, a few years before her mother left and everything really went to shit.
