damage || [continuation of heather]

realisation -liii-

- H E A T H E R ' S P O V -

Another two weeks went by in a flash and there wasn't as much progress in the case as we had hoped for.

Spencer has grown more and more cautious in the past fourteen days, barely leaving the house and not wanting me to go to my appointments.

He accompanied me to a check up and to a birth-preperation course, which I was really thankful for, but now he didn't even want us to go grocery shopping even though we had people guarding us.

I needed to get out of the house and to my therapist, seeing as I couldn't tell anyone who wasn't directly involved in the latest developements about my feelings and wanting to prepare myself for what was possibly to come.

I was plagued by nightmares and self-doubt in the last few days and as much as I had wanted to tell Spencer, he was too stressed out and worried already.

Spencer didn't need to be even more anxious than he already was by now.

"Spencer!", I call for him, trying to find him in our house.

His head revealed itself in the door to the kitchen and I kissed his cheek.

"I have to go now."

"Don't."

"I have to.", I insist, a small smile tugging at my lips.

"I'll drive you then.", he suggests, even though he needed to get some things done before heading to the bullpen.

"There's no need, Spencer. Steve will escort me, I'll be fine.", I say, referring to one of the agents that was assigned to keep watch at our house today.

Spencer's mood seemed to drop suddenly, his voice raising as he turned to be more frustrated, "I really don't want you to go, Heather. We are being watched and followed, how do you know the person that's behind all this doesn't tape us? Or doesn't decide to attack us out on the streets or at any public space again?"

"They checked the house three times, there wasn't a single bugging device.", I say. From my point of view, Spencer was overexaggerating a bit. I mean, things were already bad and we were all already stressed out and tired due to trying to stay up late in order to gather more information for the profile- there wasn't any need to turn things out to be even worse.

"But-"

"Spencer, please don't worry too much, I'll be fine, I promise. You're stressing me out a bit to be honest."

"Heather, come on- don't be like that now.", he groans.

"I have to go now, Spencer, I'll call you once I'm finished, maybe you're still here and we can grab something to eat with the others at the Bureau today, I mean if I manage to make it in time and they don't object to me being there-", I shake my head slightly, turning around to walk to the door.

___

I greeted my psychotherapist and we talked about the general things that happened over the course of days that I hadn't been here. I answered a few questions and shared my worries about going into labour in a few weeks. What if things haven't turned out to be okay by then? What if the person behind all this was still free and still trying to hurt our family?

Some advice was exchanged and I was questioned on wether or not I shared my feelings with the people closest to me and wether or not I managed to sleep.

"Okay, Heather, is there anything else you want to share with me today before I see you next week?"

I shake my head no.

"Alright, so then, let's move on to the next entry in your old diary, shall we?"

This has become some sort of ritual. I would read out an entry each week ever since Spencer and I had gone to the old house and I had found them. I felt like I was making progress, speaking about wether or not I remembered what happened in detail or not at all, going through each childhood memory and not having to bottle up the associations that came up when I thought about them but rather coming to terms with them.

I flipped the small book open to were the little dog eared page was and cleared my throat before beginning to read the entry out loud.

I have to stop myself after a few sentences, as my eyes well up with tears. I close them and it seems like a few puzzlepieces in my head are connecting each other- some images appear to be clearer than they intitially were.

No, no, no, no, no. This just couldn't be.

It was all my fault.

"Heather? Are you alright?"

Hadn't it been for someone calling out for me, I would've drowned in my thoughts.

I tried to answer but it felt like someone had their hands around my throat, trying to choke me- burying the words I wanted to scream out.

We would be able to close the case, but what would we lose in the process?

It all made sense to me now.