Revenge [H.S. MATURE AU]

22.*

*contains strong sexual content

PRESENT

"After that day I was worried..." Spencer says. "I tried to contact her, to make sure she was alright but I've never heard back from her." He's always felt guilty for not checking on her, especially considering what had happened to her but there was nothing else he could do if she was refusing his help the way she did.

"She's always been like that... she's always liked to solve her problems on her own." Aaron says, his eyebrows furrowed while he's clearly reasoning on these new informations. He picks his phone and looks for Harry's number. They have to meet, maybe he could remember something more about that night. Something he hasn't realized he knew.

"What are you doing?" Wes asks him.

"I'm texting Harry. I want to organize a cognitive interview with him, is it ok for you Spencer?" Aaron raises his stare, from his screen phone, to him.

"Sure!" He nods his head.

"Did she talk to you about him?" Wes wonders, sitting down to the chair next to the one Spencer's sat on.

"Yeah, I tried to make her talk about everything but she wasn't to keen. She just wanted to unlock that memory, she didn't want me to help her on anything else." Spencer's memory is eidetic, which means he can remember everything she's told him perfectly, he could recitare every single word by heart, but there was something about Scarlett that was trying to keep him away, out of her mind. She didn't want him to get inside her head, she was smart, she was Aaron's daughter, after all.

"She didn't want you to profile her. As I said, she liked to do stuff on her own terms." Aaron tells him, putting the phone back into his pocket. "What idea did you get about her?"

"I think what she saw is connected to a deeper trauma that had been repressed inside of her for a long time, so what she saw, or thought to have seen, might have triggered that other memory or trauma from her past." Spencer resonates out loud, he doesn't want to tell Aaron what he precisely thinks about her, he's already lost his daughter and he doesn't deserve to feel even worse.

"She's always had problems to talk about her adoption or her birth mother. We figured it was still hard for her to accept that but she's never wanted to see someone for help, not even me or Annalise. She just didn't want to talk about it." Aaron has always known it, that it was difficult for Scarlett to face her past, but he can't see how any of it could be connected to her murder.

"Because seeing someone, or asking for help meant acknowledging the problem. She didn't want to have a problem." Aaron nods his head at Spencer's words. He's been deliberately blind for so long about this whole situation. It has always been easier for him to blame Harry for what she's been going through during the last months of her life, instead of facing his responsibilities.

"Aaron, I know we're already talked about it but are you sure that there's no way that her biological family could be involved?" Wes asks him, trying to consider again every possible path.

"I have her mother's death certificate right here. There's no relatives still alive and we don't know who the father is so there's no way she would've known."

"Have you tried to check if there's a match in the database with her DNA? Maybe her biological father could be filed." Spencer speculates.

"We've already tried, no match. We've also asked Penelope to do a research but nothing came out." Wes quickly tells him. Aaron's phone ring quickly captures their attention. He takes it out of his pocket to check the text he's just received.

"Harry Styles is on his way for the cognitive interview."

AROUND 5 MONTHS BEFORE SCARLETT'S DISAPPEARANCE — 3 WEEKS AFTER THE CAR ACCIDENT