Echos of a Genius | Spencer Reid

Keeping it Warm

Stephie

The car ride was silent, but the air between us was anything but calm. I sat in the passenger seat, watching the city blur past as Spencer drove, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. Neither of us had said much since leaving the office. What was there to say? I was supposed to be dead. He had mourned me, lived with my ghost, and now I was here, alive, sitting next to him, like nothing had happened.

But everything had happened.

I swallowed hard, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. His jaw was clenched, and the tension in his shoulders hadn't eased since we walked out of that building. He hadn't even looked at me, not really. Just the occasional, flickering glance, like he was afraid if he looked too long, I'd vanish again.

I didn't know how to feel. I was supposed to be relieved—hell, I was. But now, seeing Spencer like this, part of me wished I hadn't come back at all. The weight of what I had put him through crashed over me, wave after wave of guilt. He hadn't been the same since I "died." I saw it in the way he moved, the way he gripped the wheel a little too tightly, like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

"You okay?" I asked, my voice small in the cavernous silence of the car.

Spencer's eyes flicked to me for a second before returning to the road. His lips pressed together in a thin line. "I don't know."

I didn't know either. The shock still hadn't worn off, for both of us.

"We're almost there," he muttered, his voice tight, like he was trying to hold himself together. But I knew him too well. Spencer was unraveling, and I wasn't sure how to fix it.

My apartment came into view, and my stomach flipped. I hadn't been back since... well, since before. I couldn't imagine what it looked like now. Spencer had been practically living there since I was gone, and I didn't want to see the mess I knew he had left behind. It wasn't like him to fall apart, but grief had a way of swallowing people whole.

The car rolled to a stop outside the building. Spencer let out a long breath, his hands still gripping the wheel even though the engine was off. I sat there, too, neither of us moving.

"We should go up," I said quietly, even though every fiber of my being wanted to stay in the car. I wasn't ready to face what waited upstairs.

"Yeah." He nodded, but he didn't move.

After a few agonizing moments, Spencer finally got out of the car, and I followed. The air outside was cool, crisp with the scent of rain from earlier, but it didn't calm the storm brewing between us. We walked up the stairs in silence, each step feeling heavier than the last.

When Spencer unlocked the door and flicked on the light, I froze.

It was worse than I expected.

The place was a disaster. Clothes were everywhere, draped over the back of chairs, piled on the floor. Dishes were stacked in the sink, crusted over with days—weeks?—worth of food. Empty bottles littered the coffee table, and there were papers and notebooks strewn across every available surface. My heart twisted painfully in my chest.

Spencer stared at the mess like he was seeing it for the first time, his face going pale as he quickly scrambled to clean up. "I—this isn't—Stephie, I didn't—" He fumbled, grabbing a handful of clothes and stuffing them into a laundry basket. "I was going to clean. I just—"

"Spence," I cut him off softly, stepping further into the room. "It's okay."

But it wasn't. None of this was okay. The apartment was a mirror of his grief, the life he had tried to hold onto in my absence, and I hated that I was the one who caused it.