COVERT : Spencer Reid (II)

09

            I tell myself it isn't even worth it to call Luc. Not in the lobby, when Spencer gets a call saying they are all coming back for a meeting before they fly out. Not when he apologetically wishes me happy birthday, something I'd forgotten was mine.

I don't think about it the next day. Certainly not in the morning, when I am calling Stéphane and wishing him a happy birthday. Not when I eat the leftover cake Estelle bought that is in the fridge for breakfast. It's too dense; cooking isn't her strong suit but not thinking is mine. Not when I'm drinking coffee with Rachel, learning all about her new job in counterintelligence.

When I go home to pack for the move that evening, I definitely do not think about it. The team is gone. Garcia might not even notice if I didn't come into work tomorrow. How long would it take for Estelle to notice I'm not just disappearing with them like I'm prone to do biannually? Would they realize when Bastien shows up at my door, drunk and bloody again? Or would it be Reid, back from the trip and expecting to see me only to realize I'm not there? And then, where would we be?

No. I don't think about it.

I don't even make it a full two days without thinking. During my lunch break on Wednesday, with no one else in the breakroom to bother me. I call Luc.

"Hello, this is Sergeant Luc Levesque," he answers in French.

"Luc," I reply, glancing at the doorway in case anyone comes. "It's Colette Bouchard."

"Cole," he shortens my name. It sounds less foreign on his tongue.

He didn't say it when I saw him, almost a year ago, when He was let out. Well, he did say Colette Morel. He did not say Cole, the way he said my name when we were young. When he I walked in on his holding Stéphane, who had just testified. Stéphane sobbing, Luc shaking, and my name on his lips like he had expected my ghost in the room, like he wasn't intimately aware I had survived that night.

"I just..." I pause. "You're a Sergeant?"

"I took the job last week," he manages. "I'm not in victim services any longer. I work in cybercrime now."

I look around the room, expecting the team to roll back in.

"Congratulations," I manage.

Neither of us says a word.

"I'm still following his parole," he whispers into the phone. "I told Stéphane I couldn't, mostly for his sake, but I have been keeping tabs on him. He's attending his scheduled visits. No contact with minors. He has a night job cleaning an office building."

I nod, somehow expecting that Luc can see it. Obviously, he cannot, through the phone. The fridge kicks into higher gear, getting louder.

"Are you doing okay?" I swallow, the words feeling more traitorous than the lies I'm telling Spencer. I don't have any desire to be with Luc. Just talking to him brings me back there, to Québec, to cold winter nights and screams and basements and-

I run to the freezer and grab out the ice tray. Pinching the phone to my chin with the ice, I shake as I try to grab out a cube.

"Been better," Luc admits. "I've been trying not to think about it for a while. It's part of the reason I sought out a promotion. My last partner asked me about it a few times. No one knows I'd testified since the file is sealed."

I can't get the cube out of the tray.

"Listen, Cole-"

"I've got to go," I switch to English, my hands trembling and wet with melted ice. "I'll call you later."