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something to look forward to
HER HAND IS CRAMPING WHERE IT'S CLUTCHED AROUND THE PEN. Her grip is tight but it's not a conscious decision. Her vision is blurred as she fills out the autopsy report before her. The solitude of her office is something she's relished in over the past few months she's been back while the BAU functions without her.
But it's not what she's thinking about now. She's thinking about the fact that in her time surrounded by the co-dependent FBI unit that was the Behavioral Analysis Unit, she'd forgotten that silence rarely bodes well for her.
Her body feels fuzzy and her fingers are numb at the tips, and she wonders what she's writing as the black ink loops along the paper, growing increasingly illegible.
She can hear her father's voice, then, telling her that sloppy handwriting is embarrassing, and no one will believe she's got anything in her brain if she doesn't prove it to them even with something as trivial as handwriting. That overly sweet voice that always made it sound like you were stupid simply for the fact that he had to say anything at all. So condescending and cold, even with a smile on his face.
The voice morphs into Calvin's as it always does when she has the nerve to think something bad about Arthur, and he's telling her that she's got no leg to stand on. She's just as bad as Arthur. Impossible to please. Entitled and egotistical all because of a few degrees with her name on them. A murderer. Calvin had a way of comparing her to Arthur in ways that took even her by surprise.
He had a knack for bringing things up that she otherwise wouldn't have noticed about herself that remind her she can burn her skin with hot water and scrub it raw, and she can run away and change her name as many times as she likes, but she'll never be able to wash her hands of her father's blood. Not when it courses through her veins.
The pen in her hand falters and she drags a stuttering line across a paragraph when a knock sounds from behind her on her open doorway. She inhales sharply, the only noise of shock she allows herself as she drops her pen on her desk and snaps around to find Ben standing there, his rosy cheeks dimpling as he offers her a smile, oblivious to the nausea drowning her in waves.
"Someone from the BAU is here to see you, Dr. D,"
Her blue eyes drift past his tall, lanky frame, and she finds Spencer Reid's familiar figure standing in her lab, hands wrapped around the cross strap of the satchel bag he carries everywhere with him as if it's the only way he can keep himself from touching anything.
Clearing her throat, she pushes back from her desk, standing as she drops her gaze to the report in front of her. Her fingers flex and writhe against the flat surface of her desk when she sees the last three sentences she'd filled out in the medical history section are practically carved into the paper, repeating in a loop of torment for her to see in the light of day.
