We All Fall Down - A Criminal Minds AU

Twenty Nine

“The question is, what will you do now?" 

That was the question indeed. One you’d been asking yourself for years. 

Your mother has left, what will you do now? Your father has died, what will you do now? Your childhood sweetheart, the person you thought you’d be with forever, has ended your relationship, what will you do now? You slept with your professor and now you’re pregnant,what will you do now? 

If you’d had the correct answers to any of those questions perhaps you wouldn’t be in this position and you told Diana that much. You told her how you didn’t know what to do with your life, how you’d never known. She stopped you mid sentence at one point. 

"Darling, you’re trembling. Let’s move to the living room and we can talk some more." 

She was right, you were trembling. Perhaps because it was cool in the kitchen and you were just a thin robe. Or perhaps it was because yet again, you were opening your heart and soul to someone who was little less than a stranger to you. You moved to the living room and you wrapped one of the blankets that adorned the back of the sofas around you, Diana sitting next to you once more. And then you spoke. She had opened up to you, spilling secrets that even her own children didn’t know so you did the same. You told her everything, about your first relationship with Derek, about how you and Spencer came to be, about how your affair and how since then you and Spencer had been living as a married couple but one who actually had no relationship with each other.You told her how you didn’t want to come here but you felt left with no choice. You told her about the night you ended up at Tara and Emily’s and how later Spencer had begged for you to come back. And then, you had no words left, no words to describe how exactly you’d felt over the last four years or so. No words could describe how damaged you thought you were. 

Diana was initially lost for words herself, her face as pale as Jennifer’s had been when she had learned your truth. She opened her mouth to speak and then stopped, collecting herself before trying again. 

"My son…..” she shook her head. “My husband has….” she stopped again. “Spencer…." 

Words weren’t coming from your mother in law so you tried instead, piecing together everything you had learned about Spencer. "Spencer idolised his father, a father who by your account was not the loving entity he should have been. The box I threw out was letters, letters Spencer later told me were from a woman his father loved, a woman that was his father’s ideal. Spencer told me…. he told me that I was everything his father said he should look for in a partner, although I’m really not sure what that actually means if that’s true. He’s… he’s hung up on his father’s words, on his father’s declaration that he knew he shouldn’t have had the affair but it was only because he was so in love with this woman. Yet none of it was true. Your son, my husband is hung up on a lie, and he’s determined not to let me go because of it.”

You wanted to be angry, to be angry at her for not leaving William when she had the chance, a chance that could have stopped Spencer turning out the way he had. You wanted to be angry at Spencer, for holding someone in such high regard that he would let it shape him so deeply. Mostly though you wanted to be angry at William Reid. That man didn’t deserve his children, he didn’t deserve his wife. He didn’t deserve the many women that had apparently thrown themselves at him. 

“That box, those letters Y/N.” Diana spoke finally. “That woman was the first, the first of many.”

“Spencer thinks there was only one. And he said that as much as he was upset with his father for doing that to you, he could understand it if he loved her that much.”

A moment passed between the two of you, neither knowing now what to say or do, until Diana spoke again. 

“Did Spencer ask you to come back to him because of me? Is that why you didn’t stay away?" 

You nodded slowly. "More or less. I didn’t want to hurt you either. And I can’t afford to divorce him myself. And….” You almost didn’t want to admit to her that you just couldn’t but you did. “I don’t think I can just leave. My mother left me, my father left me, Derek left me twice, my aunt cut all ties when I told her I was marrying my professor. Everyone leaves me…." 

"And you can’t see it being the other way around,” Diana finished your sentence for you, it seeming very much like she was inside your head right now. She mused internally for a moment, hesitating briefly before speaking again. “Y/N, what do you think would happen if Spencer were to discover the truth about his father?”

You thought carefully for a second, not aware of the undertones of her question. 

“I think… I’d hope that it would shatter his illusions. Maybe… Maybe it would make him realise that the way he views me, the way he views women, is wrong. Perhaps it would make him realise that I’m not the person he thinks I am and he’d stop holding on so tightly. And maybe he’d change.”

“I think so too. Y/N darling, you’re a beautiful, lovely, young woman, but you’re not right for Spencer and he’s not right for you. I think you should leave him right now and not look back but I understand that it’s not that easy. Some of us are a glutton for punishment and it’s very hard for us to break that habit. I’m speaking candidly and I hope you’ll forgive me but I think you both would benefit from talking to a professional, I’ve been seeing someone recently myself, someone who has helped me begin to recognise that Spencer is more like his father than any of us ever could imagine. I don’t think that Spencer would willingly agree to speak to anyone though because he doesn’t think that anything is wrong with him.”

You brushed aside her words about you benefiting from a therapist, it not seeming important to you right now. Aside from being married to Spencer still, you were getting back on track you thought. Instead you concentrated on him. 

“So how do we get him to see a therapist?” You asked. 

Diana bit her lip, something you’d seen both Spencer and Henry do when they were in thought. “We shatter his illusions. Or rather, you shatter his illusions." 

And there it was.

"You want…. You want me to tell him?! I… I can’t! It would ruin him!" 

Diana reached for your hands, taking them in hers and stroking them softly. "Y/N, you said yourself that he’s the way he is because he idolises a man who wasn’t real, not in the way Spencer thinks he is. If he finds out how manipulative, how awful his father actually was then yes, it will break him. But only briefly. He will put himself back together again, and in doing so he will release you from the bindings you feel you can’t just walk away from. And I get why you can’t just leave, I understand, I understand probably more than you think I do, trust me. And I know… I know I’m asking a lot of you but I can’t tell him myself, I can’t ruin the image his has of his father. I’m not sure he’d even believe me. But I can’t do that to him, he’s my baby boy. You though… You don’t love him, you said that to me. You could change him, for the better.”

You pulled your hands away from hers, ignoring the dejected look that fell upon her face. You couldn’t, could you. You couldn’t…. 

“I…. I…." 

"Please Y/N. You’d be able to leave with no guilt. He’d divorce you once he sees that he only fell in love with you because of some twisted ideal his father put in his head.”

“No guilt? I would be pushing a man to his rock bottom. You’d expect me to feel no guilt about that? I can’t… I can’t tell him.” No, it was too much to put on you. You would find another way to get out of this, to make him leave you. 

“If you can’t tell him, then show him. The journal’s are upstairs, they’re in the attic. If you found something belonging to his father, he would devour it. And they’re William’s words, he would believe them from him.”

“I…. I… This is your house Diana, but I’d like you to please leave.”

She slowly nodded and pulled herself upright, her face crumpling somewhat. You knew that what she was asking you was wrong, but you also knew she was right, that you were both right. Spencer needed to know about this in order to change. 

“I’m sorry Y/N, I’m so very sorry.”

She made her way to the door and you followed her, opening it ready to leave. She paused only when you said her name.

“Diana…. I’ll…. I’ll think about what you’ve asked of me.”