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CHAPTER SIX { Silent Night } ***
4 A.M. KNOWS ALL YOUR SECRETS. The night has become the hardest time to be alive.
You've always envied people who can sleep easily even when there is something weighting on them. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well-swept.
Sitting up in bed, your hands draped over your knees that are hidden beneath a white comforter, you force yourself to lift a glass to your lips. Cold water slides down your throat. It's not that you're not tired—you are—but as soon as your eyelids fall, your brain replays all of the things you didn't do right. With Jude, with your parents, with everything under the sun.
You take another sip of your water and begin a mantra. Stop thinking. Swig. Empty your head. Swig. Now seriously, empty your head. A clear mind never comes.
You toss and turn, thrashing in your sleep after laying still for only moments at a time. At some points, you think you might drift off, but you never do. You're not going to get any sleep tonight.
***
The warm glow of light filters through your eyes as you enter the station. There's one officer at the front who you recognize from earlier, so you offer him a polite nod before walking into the common area of the precinct.
You're surprised to be met by Spencer's gaze. He glances up from the file in his hand and screws his face as you meander toward him.
"Hey. What're you doing here?" He questions.
"Couldn't sleep." You shrug. "What about you? It's 2 A.M."
Placing your hand on the edge of his desk, you lean some of your body weight toward it. He doesn't make eye contact as he readjusts in his seat. There's a stack of papers close to you, as well as two folders directly in front of Spencer, only one of them being open as he surveys it. The only light on the table is coming from a small lamp at its corner.
"Just looking over some things. Due to the lack of distractions and low-levels of noise, I tend to work better at night." He replies.
You sit down at the desk across from him and take a file off of his desk. It's identical to the one in his hand, so he doesn't object. He's silent and his eyes fit up to you, as if he's secretly attempting to read you. He's a great profiler, but Spencer isn't too adept at keeping his behaviors unseen by you and the rest of the team. You can feel him trying to profile you as you read the file, which you'd already read through multiple times the day before.
