Ineffable - S.REID

31

・゜゜・．TWO WEEKS LATER .・゜゜・

They both took four days off at the end of the month following that conversation, deciding that was the day that they'd move all his stuff over from his apartment to their home. They planned to decorate the bedroom too, she loved the colour of his living room walls and wanted to include that piece of him into their room. Spencer let her shop for decorations mostly, not that they needed many things, trusting her creativity but he came along for every trip and picked out things he liked too. Surprisingly, an ornate skull had been the first thing that they purchased for their home together.

Despite the fact that they both weren't at work, they would always turn up for their coworkers achievements. Hotch's attempt at the FBI triathlon brought them out of their few days of painting and domestic bliss, unfortunately it had been placed directly after a pre planned and prepared ladies night. Hotch's first triathlon.

The four women of the BAU slouched over their barrier as they waited for Hotch to cross the finish line, all of their eyes covered with various sunglasses to help with the headache that plagued them all. However the screaming and cheering around them, coming loudly from Spencer and Morgan especially, rendered the sunglasses somewhat useless. "A couple hours! A couple hours? You guys didn't come home till sunrise," Spencer yelled as he heard over the crowd. He had babysat Henry, JJ's son, so she could join the ladies night experience after her babysitter pulled out.

"Why are you yelling?" JJ complained instantly, using her fingers to soothe some of the pain within her head.

Prentiss sighed in annoyance as she added, "Clara, will you get him to stop?"

"Clara's a little dead to the world right now," Garcia responded, gesturing to the woman who was seconds away from falling asleep on her shoulder. Both Garcia and Spencer had wordlessly positioned themselves in such a way that if she did happen to fall asleep, she would be caught before she could fall. One of his hands was placed in the small of her back, just about holding her upright.

Derek Morgan had other plans however and slowly leant closer and closer to her ear. Suddenly he yelled into her ear and instantly jolted her awake. "Clara!"

Clara frowned and flicked her glasses up, giving him an evil state she had learnt from Rossi, as she whispered, "Mr Muscles I will cut you."

He laughed despite the threatening tone her whispers possessed. "What did you guys drink last night?"

"The green fairy. You're FBI, can you get the entire crowd to stop cheering?" Garcia asked Derek hopefully, wanting nothing more than to escape the shrills of people celebrating.

"By my estimates, Hotch will be finished any minute," Spencer interrupted in the hopes it would give the ladies some comfort as they wouldn't have to be there for much longer.

As if on queue, or highly calculated assumption, Hotch came around the corner and their group erupted in cheers and congratulatory yells. Clara, from the noise, was jolted awake again and instantly called too despite how much pain plagued her mind.

Hotch finished the race and they all left the major crowd, walking over to meet him at the table where he would grab his medal. His kid ran over first, giving the slow and pained women a little longer to get where they needed to be "Never let me out on a ladies night again," Clara let out a pained sigh as she leant her head against Spencer's shoulder as they walked side by side. He chuckled softly and looped an arm around her, tucking her in his embrace as he pressed a kiss to her hair.

-

That following night, Clara awake with a start at nearly two in the morning. Her heart pounded as she attempted to get some sort of natural breathing pattern compared to her current panicked breaths. Deciding she didn't want to be in the bedroom any longer, as sitting in the darkness just further reminded her of her dream, she carefully crept out of bed without waking him. She took the blanket her Ma had made her from a hanger on the back of the door and walked downstairs carefully. She took a glass of water and another blanket from the couch outside and sat on the back porch, attempting to calm herself down from the dream with the cool night air.

Spencer had woken ten minutes after she had left the bedroom, having noticed a distinct lack of presence even in sleep. He pulled on a hoodie over his pajamas and went in search of her, turning on the lights in the house so they wouldn't have to walk back in the dark. The second he got downstairs, after having planned to go and check her studio, he noticed the back door was open and headed that direction instead. He poked his head around the door and smiled reassuringly when he found her there, staring out into the night. "You okay?" he asked sleepily,pulling her attention away from whatever thought she was in.

"Yeah. I just had a nightmare. Scariest thing I've dreamt about in a while," she explained whilst he moved to sit down next to her. They shifted both blankets around so that they could comfortably be warm together. One was draped over their legs and the other over the back of their shoulders, both were squished together in order to keep in the most warmth.

He broke the silence first, just as she was about to give some excuse as to why she was fine, even though she wasn't. She could vividly hear the exhaustion in his voice as he whispered, "You look like you need to get it off your chest."

She shook her head, already feeling guilty that she had woken him in the first place. "I don't want to keep you up."

"Ara, if you need me to be awake, I'm awake. No matter what," he replied softly, watching as her eyes flicked up to his instead of their surroundings. Her gaze softened and tears welled within her eyes at such a gesture. If it hadn't been obvious to her before, she knew then as clear as day. She loved him. But now wasn't the time or the place, plus she didn't want to say something like that and have the feeling not reciprocated. Clara had once been told, in her youth by an old boyfriend, that she fell into that emotion far too quickly. So since then, she had never said that before the other person did so she didn't happen to scare away the people she loved the most as she had with that boyfriend. So she remained silent and instead pressed a gentle but feverish kiss to his lips, relishing in that joyful movement before having to relieve her darkest of nightmares.

"It was in a building that looked like a bank but it was sort of weird and distorted so I couldn't really tell that much. It looked like it had those screens where the tellers stand, you know? So the first thing that happened in the dream was JJ's boyfriend being shot, twice. We didn't know if he was dead or alive and it was decided that we would storm the building. Anyway I was standing in this building and I remember having my vest on because my chest felt all tight, I think I did it up too tight or something I don't know. But then all of the sudden I was up in the air and my ears were ringing so loud that it hurt. Then I blacked out. When I woke up the surroundings were blurry but I could tell that some sort of explosion had happened because of all the rubble and broken things scattered about...There were bodies all around, some still raggedly breathing and..." she trailed off, desperately fighting the emotion biting at her every word. She took a deep breath and steadied herself, constantly reminding herself that it was just a dream even if it had felt so incredibly real. "I looked down and I was covered in blood, my own blood. It sept into my hands and poured from a wound in my side. I think something had embedded itself in an organ or something because it was bleeding so much. Then I had one of those like out of body experiences, where you watch yourself in a dream. And I watched as you and JJ ran in, screaming for medics who didn't arrive before I died."

Spencer, who had been listening intently whilst dozens of emotions flickered across his face like a sped up movie, whispered in disbelief, "You watched yourself die?"

She nodded and sniffled, wiping her tears away with the corner of the blanket wrapped around their shoulders. "In your arms, whilst you cried so hard you couldn't breathe," she paused to clear her throat, desperately trying to forget the raw and heartbreaking yells that echoed in her mind. "Then I woke up... It was just a dream, I don't know why it's affected me so much."

"It's a pretty traumatising thing to see," he paused and squeezed her hand gently. "But like you said, it's just a dream. And if we ever do have a case in a bank, we or you can just stay outside or away from the case entirely if that makes you feel more at ease."

"They'd all think I'm crazy," she chuckled softly, leaning her head back against his shoulder.

"Maybe slightly odd but not crazy," he responded, slight concern furrowing his brow. Silence but for the typical night noises of outside befell them. It was the type of silence that made thoughts so incredibly loud, almost uncontrollably so. After a few minutes further, the cold had begun to bite at her cheeks despite the cosy blankets they were wrapped in. So they both headed upstairs, still wrapped up in both the blankets and fell asleep intertwined. It took her a little longer to reach the level of peace that sleep required but once she had, she didn't wake again until the alarm went off.