#actually wait i'm pretty sure it's called rendering and not painting

[natasha-in-space]

New icon time!

Ref. under cut <3

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 4

Chapter 3: Blood everywhere; a lightswitch rave.

Chapter 4: Originally posted on Livejournal, December 8, 2010. Revised and expanded from the original recap to talk more about literary vampiring.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MORNING. -- THE CONSULTATION. -- THE FEARFUL SUGGESTION.

No, I didn't skip it—there wasn't any "offer of assistance from Sir Francis Varney" in the previous chapter. Not even so much as an apologetic plate of cookies left on the garden wall. Was there any revision involved in writing this, or did James Malcolm Rymer just... put the pen to the paper and wait for the check? Not that I don't feel you, my guy, but "I'm just gonna seat-of-my-pants 667,000 words" is a terrifying prospect (I had thought he'd at least write each chapter once and then revise it to be worse). I'm pretty sure I've put more revision into this blog post, for free. Side note, my man James Malcolm:

What wonderfully different impressions and feelings, with regard to the same circumstances, come across the mind in the broad, clear, and beautiful light of day to what haunt the imagination, and often render the judgment almost incapable of action, when the heavy shadow of night is upon all things. There must be a downright physical reason for this effect -- it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun's rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the nerves of the human subject. We can account for this phenomenon in no other way. Perhaps never in his life had he, Henry Bannerworth, felt so strongly this transition of feeling as he now felt it, when the beautiful daylight gradually dawned upon him, as he kept his lonely watch by the bedside of his slumbering sister.

Bram Stoker:

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth.

I'm not pointing this out to say that Stoker did or did not Steal Like An Artist from, perhaps, a collected serial he read in his boyhood, and then wrote it better. Honestly, if he did? Good for him. I'm pointing this out to say, I only have one short life to live, and for some reason, I decided to spend it reading this.

So. In the light of day, Henry finally looks over at the spooky portrait and thinks to himself, you know, that right there is a Spooky Portrait and it gives me a scare:

He tried to keep himself from looking at it, but he found it vain, so he adopted what, perhaps, was certainly the wisest, best plan, namely, to look at it continually.

I don't know why this makes me laugh so much. Sure, that's a plan. And, Henry notes, it's even one of those paintings where the eyes follow you around the room. Maybe we should, you know, take it down. And then he goes, eh. It's a rare work of art, it's painted onto the panel and we'd have to call a contractor out here, we were out all night watching that vampyre fall on his ass, I'm kind of tired, whatevs.

Meanwhile, Flora is still (quite reasonably) traumatized: "My brain is on fire! A million of strange eyes seem to be gazing on me." Like, I'm not actually trying to compare this sentence by sentence (god forbid) to Dracula, but I know it well enough that I remember Jonathan using the same "brain on fire" wording—how common an expression was this? I even went back to check Polidori's "The Vampyre"—"his thoughts were bursting from his brain," an oddly specific throughline of brain-centric disturbance. Just Vampyre Things, I guess.

Despite having chased the vampyre to his own garden wall, Henry is utterly baffled as to why Flora would be so upset—physically weakened, even! She was fine yesterday! What, oh what, could have happened??, he inquires of Mr. Marchdale. Henry is probably saying this while a housekeeper bustles past with a huge bundle of blood-soaked sheets. What do we think was in Flora's room, even though we all saw it gnawing on her throat and we're pretty sure what it was? I mean, we just saw someone making a hideous repast of her, I am completely baffled. But wait! says Marchdale. I've thought of an answer! Now—hold on for this— (I'm holding on—) Because this is gonna blow your mind— (Okay, keep going—) Are you ready for this? (I'm totally ready for this—) I think it was—I can hardly bring myself to say the word aloud and will continue not to say it for another 100 words— (SAY IT GODDAMMIT—) A VAMPYRE!

Well, why do you think this?

"... my pistol bullets hurt him not; and he has left the tokens of his presence on the neck of Flora." "Peace, oh! peace. Do not, I pray you, accumulate reasons why I should receive such a dismal, awful superstition. Oh, do not, Marchdale, as you love me!" "You know my attachment to you," said Marchdale, "is sincere; and yet, Heaven help us!" His voice was broken by grief as he spoke, and he turned aside his head to hide the bursting tears that would, despite all his efforts, show themselves in his eyes.

For shame, Henry, you made your mom's... someone... cry! (Don't get me wrong, I love Weepy Masculinity, and we'll talk about it more another time.) But Henry is shocked, I tell you, shocked! that Marchdale should come to such a conclusion! To believe would drive him mad, I tell you! MAAAAAAAAD!

And then George comes in all like, "Guys, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but—hold on for this—I think it was a—" "VAMPYRE, WE KNOW." And now George the "frail reed" is crying, Henry, see what you've done?

Unfortunately, Henry is pretty much the only person in a hundred-mile radius who is having trouble with this concept; the servants, we are told, immediately ran out and told everyone about the vampyre flumping over the garden wall. Henry rides into town to fetch a doctor and immediately runs into Some Gentleguy on Horseback. "Bro, what's this about your sister getting bit by a vampyre?" "Uh... no. That was... a thief. That was totally a thief." "No? Seriously, the whole town's talking about it. You sure? Like fang marks and everything—" "MAAAAAD, I TELL YOUUUUU!!"

At last Henry gets to the doctor—who starts out as "Mr. Chillingworth" and mysteriously becomes "Dr. Chillingworth" some five hundred pages from now. (In fairness, many doctors, particularly surgeons, were merely "Mister" long into the nineteenth century. Side note: The Scarlet Letter would not be published until 1850, and on a different continent at that. I checked, because I immediately thought the name was an allusion.) So Mr. Dr. Chillingworth listens to Henry's story, and I'm getting all clappy because this has got to be our Van Helsing figure, and I have always loved the Kindly Old Doctor Who Knows All the Legends type, and so Henry finishes and Chillingworth declares—

"I don't care if [the facts] were ten times more glaring, I won't believe it. I would rather believe you were all mad, the whole family of you -- that at the full of the moon you all were a little cracked."

(*record needle scratch*)

Well, Stoker certainly didn't run off with that.

So Henry gets back to Bannerworth Hall and he starts telling Flora that it was totally a thief who was chewing on her throat. Totally. But he'll just keep sitting by her bedside. You know. Just in case more thieving is a-fang.

"Then I shall rest in peace, for I know that the dreadful vampyre cannot come to me when you are by." "The what, Flora?" "The vampyre, Henry. It was a vampyre." "Good God, who told you so?"

She was… there? The holes in her neck? Keep up? Maybe Henry has that Memento thing where he can't remember anything for longer than five minutes, which—well, that would explain a lot about the writing style, actually. Flora replies,

"No one. I have read of them in the book of travels in Norway, which Mr. Marchdale lent us all."

So--a møøse bit his sister?

"They do say, too, that those who in life have been bled by a vampyre, become themselves vampyres, and have the same horrible taste for blood as those before them. Is it not horrible?"

For those of you keeping score, in-story popular belief at this point is that it takes only one bite to turn you into a vampire. This is contradicted later, because of course it is, but it's worth noting; it fits with the idea that the less sexually permissive a society/era is, the more easily you get punished by the contagion. You'd think, then, that this bodes ill for Flora, but as far as I know, either Flora has a Purity Override, or fuck continuity, that's what.

Enter Mr. Dr. Chillingworth, who wants to know about Flora's "dream." "It wasn't a dream, it was a vampyre!" "Is that what you call a dream?" NO, IT'S WHAT I CALL A VAMPYRE. She shows him the bites on her neck, and he's all, pshhhh, those, those are totally insect bites. You know, giant seven-foot insects with scratchy fingernails and hypnotic tin eyes. Bit of Raid's all you need, take care of that in a jiff.

Chillingworth and Henry say nothing in particular for 300 words, at the end of which Chillingworth finally declares that vampyres are "a degrading superstition," and that Flora seems to be "labouring under the effect of some narcotic." You know, those narcotics you staple into people's necks, leaving two (2) holes. Or: blood loss, but that's far less likely, in his medical opinion, so he's just confused now.

"You have, of course, heard something," said Henry to the doctor, as he was pulling on his gloves, "about vampyres."

"I certainly have, and I understand that in some countries, particularly Norway and Sweden, the superstition is a very common one."

And he thinks Let the Right One In was much better than the remake.

WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?

I don't know why I didn't mention this in 2010, but I'm guessing Henry is referring to the Old Norse draugr—like, I know there are Scandinavian vampires, it's just that... I've never seen English-language vampire literature of the 1800s mention them? LeFanu mentions "Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, even in Russia" in "Carmilla" (1872), and Andrew Lang wasn't talking about draugr until late 1897, "with the idea further pursued by more modern commentators." Polidori's "Ruthven" is a Scottish name, and its bearer goes vampiring in Greece, for that matter. In fact, when Henry chimes in, "And in the Levant," Rymer may be alluding to Polidori. But he just throws "Norwegian vampires" in like, well, obviously. What, haven't you read Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar, published in English, uh, twenty years from now?

However Rymer came by this, whatever travelogue he did read, the draugr doesn't seem to have caught on quite the way Dracula, or even Ruthven, did. Who knows, maybe "Transylvanian vampires" sounded equally random in 1897, but that's the lore that won pop culture.

Mr. Dr. Chillingworth also mentions "the ghouls of the Mahometans." The word "ghoul" comes directly from the Arabic word ghūl, which is "associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh," although the concept seems to be pre-Islamic Arabian, not specifically "Mahometan" (i.e., Mohammedan, an archaic or even offensive term; TIL). Rymer would have known the word from the influential 1786 Gothic-Orientalist novel Vathek, and may have even used it here as a specific callback, because it would be a shame to just go on and have a vampyre without blaming it on Those Foreigners. Chillingworth continues,

"All that I have heard of the European vampyre has made it a being which can be killed, but is restored to life again by the rays of a full moon falling on the body."

Here we go. It's worth noting here (no, I swear it is) that the idea of sunlight instantly killing vampires is a complete invention of the German film Nosferatu (1922), an "unauthorized adaptation" of Dracula. I love bringing this up as often as possible, because Dracula being slain by a convenient blast of light (Horror of Dracula, 1958, reporting for duty) is such a deeply ingrained pop-culture thing, and it is 10,000% not in the original novel. Which all you Dracula Daily regulars know, I'm sure. Stoker plays as loose with his Vampire Rules as Rymer does, but Dracula does appear in daylight at least twice that I can remember off the top of my head, although it's said to weaken him. I feel like the functional point of this is to have Any Time At All When The Heroes Have A Shot In Hell At Not Getting Eaten, and so this is why the literary vampire of the 1800s sometimes has to scamper off to its coffin at the stroke of dawn. Carmilla has to do this, but she also strolls back to Laura's house at... one in the afternoon; clearly, sunlight is not terribly crucial to the lore. Rather, it's moonlight that's associated with vampires earlier in the century—as a means of reviving them. It's actually a key plot point in Polidori's "The Vampyre" (back in 1819), and one of the stand-out elements in the popular awareness of vampires at the time.

Oh! By the way, tonight happens to be the night of the full moon. Even Chillingworth says, "If now you had succeeded in killing —. Pshaw, what am I saying."

"To-night," [Henry] repeated, "is the full of the moon. How strange that this dreadful adventure should have taken place just the night before."

Indeed. And the serial really wants us to notice this. You'd think a vampyre might avoid a bright night when they'd be more likely to be seen, but, on the other hand, maybe that's Moon Insurance in case they get capped on someone's garden wall. To confirm, Henry gets Travels in Norway off the bookshelf, and—after a thorough, paid-by-the-word description of how books sometimes open at certain pages, right down to the way the binding gets stretched—

"With regard to these vampyres, it is believed by those who are inclined to give credence to so dreadful a superstition, that they always endeavour to make their feast of blood, for the revival of their bodily powers, on some evening immediately preceding a full moon, because if any accident befall them, such as being shot, or otherwise killed or wounded, they can recover by lying down somewhere where the full moon's rays will fall on them."

There it is. Since we're going chapter by chapter, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, but what I think the serial is getting at is, Varney probably is "dead" somewhere on the heathy landscape after getting his hapless ass shot. Except—EXCEPT! for the moonlight that just so happens to be in place to revive him. Because, while the FULL MOON. IT'S A FULL MOON might seem kind of randomly gothic to us, everyone reading this in 1847 would have been chortling in anticipation.

(Chapter 5 will go up on Friday, March 24.)

[managedmischiefs]

north//chapter one

here she is!! after the long wait, here is the first chapter of north! I hope you all like it. let me know what you think. more chapters to come soon🖤

also i dont have a tag list for this but if anyone wanted to be tagged in this fic then let me know and I’ll create a tag list

genre: fluff

pairing: spencer reid x female oc

warnings: very basic troupe that I’m sure some people are tired of lol but other than that, none!

word count: 3k

SPENCER

Being late to work is not something that I tend to enjoy. I hate it, in fact. I feel like I'm letting my team down if I'm ever late to round table meetings or if I miss a briefing. But these days, sleep is rare. And if I do sleep, it's not uncommon for me to sleep over the array of alarms I have.

Coffee is a must have for me at all points of the day. No sleep means exhaustion and exhaustion means my brain doesn't work as quickly as it could and that means we don't solve cases and not solving cases means more people die. I can't have more people die on my watch so I drink as much coffee as I can. But the coffee in the bullpen isn't always the best so if I ever have time, I stop at a cafe on my way to work. I take the extra five minutes to walk there before hopping on the metro.

I mumble off my coffee order to the tired looking barista and she scribbles down my name. I hand over a few stray bills to pay and get some change in return, tucking it in my pants pocket. I give a tight lipped smile to the barista before moving to a table in the corner of the cafe, pulling a book out of my messenger bag and starting to read, crossing one of my legs over the other. I don't look up while I wait for the barista to call out my name, not even when two people bump into each other in front of the door or a tourist asks someone else for directions. I just read my book and chew my lip, tapping my fingers against the hardcover.

"Spencer," I hear my name being called and finally allow myself attention to be lifted.

I stand quickly, tucking my book in my bag and closing the flap before heading back to the main counter. But the buckle of my bag gets caught on the button of my sleeve when I try to close my bag all the way. I pull at my sleeve, trying to get the buckle unlooped. But in this tussle with myself, I don't even realize that I'm still walking until I bump right into someone. I move my attention from my bag and catch the person's shoulders so I don't completely knock them over and make not only a fool of myself, but of them too. 

"Oh my gosh," I say immediately, my eyes widening, "I'm so sorry,"

"It's okay, it's okay," the girl laughs, her hands squeezing my arms as she regains her balance, “didn’t even fall. You caught me. I didn’t even break a sweat!”

My eyes finally find the girl's face and I'm rendered absolutely speechless. I somehow notice everything about her right away and I memorize her beauty. Her eyes are a bright, beautiful shade of ocean blue and her eyelashes cast shadows over her perfectly pink cheeks. Her hair is wavy and blonde with brown roots, but there's a yellow and blue patterned scarf tied around the front of her head like a folded bandana with pieces pulled out to frame her face. Her nose is small and I can only liken it to a button. Her lips are full and plump and a pretty light pink color and her Cupid's Bow is one that Cupid himself should be jealous of. Both of her ears are full of different types of piercings, and her nose even has a hoop in her right nostril.

She's wearing a light blue knit sweater tucked into a tight denim skirt, along with a pair of short black boots with small heels on them. Her nails are painted white and her fingers are full of rings, each of them different styles and various shades of silver with yellow gems. I notice a tattoo on one of her fingers but she moves and I can't make out what it is. I wonder if she has more tattoos. I find two straps around her shoulders and realize she's wearing a leather backpack, one probably very similar to my own bag. The last thing I notice is the old fashioned camera hanging around her neck, resting just above the waistband of her skirt.

I've seen my fair share of pretty girls. I've seen girls that I wouldn't mind getting to know better. I've met girls that have caught my attention. I've even been in what I believed to be love. But what is this? If I thought I'd seen a beautiful girl before, I clearly hadn't met this girl before. She looks like an angel sent directly from heaven. She looks like she was crafted by God himself and put on this earth to grace mankind with her beauty. Is it fair for one woman to be this beautiful? Is it even possible? I didn’t think that one woman could possess such beauty. 

What the hell is wrong with me? I can barely even breathe. I’m just staring at this gorgeous specimen, admiring her smile and trying to memorize the way her fingertips feel on my forearms. I quickly try to think of something to say, another apology for running into her, but I can barely even breathe when I stare at her, much less speak. 

"Spencer," the barista calls out my name again, setting my cup down on the counter before walking away. Saved by the barista. 

The girl smiles at me and her face lights up, only further illuminating her features. She's got two dimples on her cheeks, bringing out a childlike spirit in her that I pick up right away. "Um," she says with a laugh, "is that yours? You should probably grab it before someone else steals it,"

Okay, Spencer, breathe. You can do this. You’ve spoken to pretty girls before. Sure, it’s hard and it’s scary, but you can do it. Just say words. Preferably, coherent words. Preferably, maybe, a full sentence.

"Right," I finally force out, dropping my hands from her arms. I hadn't realized until now that I was still holding onto her and she was still holding onto me. I reach over and grab my steaming coffee, almost wincing at the heat under my fingertips.

The girl still hasn't moved when I turn back to her, but now she's fiddling with her camera. "Are you," I start to say before hesitating. Her head pops up and she smiles again, letting her camera fall against her stomach. I gulp, shuffling my feet against the floor as I attempt to speak a full sentence. "I didn't mean to bump into you like that,"

"Oh, it's totally fine," she waves her hand at me casually. "I wasn't paying attention either. No harm, no foul. Like I said, I didn’t even break a sweat,” The girl pushes her hair behind her ears and places her hands on her hips. With the confident way she speaks, I almost expect her to keep speaking, but she doesn’t. She just looks at me with the cutest smile, even baring her teeth, waiting for me to say something else. 

So I clutch my cup of coffee and swallow thickly. “I-" I hesitate yet again, but when the girl's eyes scream for me to continue, I do. "What's your name?"

She opens her mouth to speak but before she can, another cup of coffee is placed on the counter. "Amelia," the barista announces before walking away.

Amelia laughs, taking a step over to grab her cup, which I immediately notice is tea and not coffee. "Took the words right out of my mouth,"

"Amelia," I repeat as if testing the way the word rolls off my tongue. It tastes sweet. "You heard already, but, um, I'm Spencer,"

"It's nice to meet you," Amelia holds her hand to shake mine, and the panic starts to set in. For a moment, I debate on actually just shaking her hand so I don’t seem like a total freak to this girl that I seem to have a massive crush on. But the prospect of shaking a total strangers hand is repulsive and when I find myself looking at her hand for more than two seconds, I’m starting to count up the amount of germs that would be present there and I have to force myself not to make a face.

So of course, while my hands get clammy and my heart rate speeds up, I do what I do best. I spit out a fact that Amelia didn't ask for. "On average we carry 3,200 bacteria from 150 different species on our hands,"

Amelia's fingers curl into her palm and she retracts her hand, looking down at her palm and smiling just a tiny bit. "You know, I don't blame you for not wanting to shake hands. It is kinda gross anyway,"

"Sorry," I blurt out immediately, still shuffling on my feet. "That was rude of me,"

"It's not rude," Amelia counters, sipping her tea without so much as grimacing at the inevitable heat. "Are you in a rush?" I glance down at my watch and see that I still have ten minutes until I should be getting on the train. I relay this information to her and watch as she smiles again. "Would you like to sit with me then?"

"Oh," my eyes widen slightly and I squeeze my coffee cup so hard that I think I might poke holes in the sides, "y-yeah, sure,"

"Cool," she breathes out, waving me on and leading me to a booth on the other side of the cafe. I'm far too anxious with this situation and by Amelia's beauty and her comfortability around me to even think about relaxing, or drinking my coffee, or taking my bag off from around my shoulder. I definitely can’t remember any of Morgan’s advice on how to chat up girls or any of the conversation starters I’ve memorized for social situations like this. My mind is completely empty, just when I need it to be full and plentiful. How lovely.

Amelia sits across from me and grins, and every time she does, I swear my heart skips a beat and another butterfly breaks through its cocoon in my stomach. "So where are you off to this morning, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Work," I answer, and then realize that's an incredibly vague answer. Amelia raises her eyebrows as she lounges back against the booth, clearly waiting for me to elaborate. "Uh, I work for the FBI, actually. More specifically, the BAU- the Behavioral Analysis Unit,"

"You're a profiler!" Amelia perks up again, sitting up straighter with a huge grin on her face. "That's super cool! My dad is a police officer, sheriff actually, back home in Texas and I'm pretty sure he's worked with the BAU before and he says you guys are awesome. You catch serial killers, right?"

I'm almost stunned by her reaction. Most people don't believe behavioral profiling works, and most people resist the practice, especially local police. But her acceptance of it is incredibly refreshing, and it's welcomed. Honestly, any type of excitement from this Amelia girl is welcomed. It’s a beautiful sight. 

I can feel my cheeks turn bright red as I nod, still clutching my coffee cup. "Yeah, we do. And um, what about you?" I hate talking about myself so I change the subject. "Where are you off to?"

"I'm actually meeting a friend of mine to go shopping a few blocks over," Amelia gestures out the window. "But since we're talking about your job, I'll tell you about my way less cool job, which is an artist. I went to Carnegie Mellon and then moved here and I’ve been here ever since. My preference is canvas painting but I bring my camera around a lot, hence," she holds up the camera around her neck, "the camera now. I try to capture spontaneous moments for when I do exhibits and galleries and such,”

"I've always loved art. Never been talented at it, but I like it." I shrug nonchalantly and sip my coffee, trying to divert my eyeline down to the table, but when Amelia smiles at me, I can’t find it in me to break our eye contact.

Something about Amelia's smile brings me in. Every time she flashes her teeth, I feel myself sink further into my seat and I feel my head get fuzzier. I almost forget that I have to get to work in just a few minutes. But I don't want to go anymore. I want to stay here and keep talking to Amelia. I want her to keep going on and on about canvas paintings and her education at Carnegie Mellon, or even just tell me why she likes tea over coffee, if that’s even true. I don’t know anything about this girl but I want to.

"Nobody is technically good at art," Amelia responds. "Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in the arts, everyone sees art differently, and that's okay. I'm sure you're not horrible, I'm sure you just haven't found your strength yet, Spencer," She enunciates my name with such beauty and grace that I almost ask her to say it again. I'd do anything to hear her say my name again.

"If-" I'm cut off when my phone rings in my pocket, so I lean over and fish it out. I read a text from Garcia that tells me we have a case, meaning we'll be briefing for a new case this morning. I sigh defeatedly, wishing I hadn't just gotten a text that usually piques my interest. Today, it makes my heart drop. 

"You have to get to work?" I look back up at work to see yet another smile on Amelia's perfect face. "Go ahead, it's okay," I’m so used to seeing disappointed faces when this text comes in, not a smiling face. It’s odd, somewhat confusing.

I grab my coffee cup and stand as Amelia does the same. She holds her cup to her chest, looking down at her feet. "Will," I chew on the inside of my cheek when she looks up at me, ocean eyes wide with anticipation as I struggle with my words for the umpteenth time, "can I see you again? We barely got to talk and you-"

"Yeah," Amelia nods before I can even finish my sentence. "Can I give you my number?"

I have to hold myself back from jumping up and down in excitement. "Y-Yeah, sure, of course," I pull my phone out yet again as she does the same. She tells me her phone number slowly so I can get it down, but of course, it sticks in my brain immediately.

"Just text me," Amelia murmurs, looking over my shoulder at my phone where my shaky thumbs press against the buttons on my phone to type out- hi, it's Spencer. She waits until her phone rings and then she smiles at me. "Great, I've got it. Now, um, go. Don't let me be the reason you're late in helping people. You don't have to text me if you don't want to," she pauses for a moment, and I wonder what she's waiting for. Is she waiting for me to confirm or deny that statement? Is she waiting for anything at all? Is it an open-ended statement? Where have all my profiling skills gone? Forget profiling- where is my common sense? "But if you do wanna text me," I'm thankful when she starts talking again, "don't until after you've solved your case. Don't worry about me until you've saved lives. But like I said, if you don't wanna text me, you don't have to,"

My phone buzzes again and I can only imagine it's someone from the team asking me where I am, hurrying me along so we can get started on our briefing. I ignore it for now. "Well," I have to clear my throat to be able to speak again. I give Amelia a bashful smile holding up my phone for her to see, "I'll text you when I'm back home,"

Amelia blushes, her bottom lip being pulled between her teeth. She breathes out a tiny laugh, nodding. "I look forward to it, Spencer,"

I take a step towards the door and feel my body grow cold at the distance starting to increase between us. "I'll talk to you soon, Amelia,"

And with that, before I have it in me to take one more look at the angel standing in the corner cafe, I hurry out the front door. There's a dumb smile on my face as I rush down the stairs to the train platform, struggling to swipe my card and respond to Penelope's text at the same time, all while running to catch the train at the platform. I'm somehow successful at all of this and only manage to breathe once I'm inside the stuffy car. Amelia's face is stuck inside my head and I can't get it out, and I'm positive that I never want to.

///

"Reid? Reid!" My head pops up as Morgan forcefully says my name, catching my attention and bringing me out of my daydream.

When I look up at him, he's already staring up at me with his eyebrows raised, clearly expecting an answer out of me about something. I have no idea what that something is, but he’s wanting an answer about it. I clear my throat, placing my cup of terrible police station coffee on the table and running a hand over my face. "Sorry," I apologize half heartedly, "I was thinking,"

Morgan sits across from me at the table and folds his hands. "Case related?" I glance up at him before deciding to completely ignore him, standing and walking up to the board, returning to examining the geographical profile. "Reid, come on, we've been on the case three days. You've been distracted ever since you walked in for the briefing. You can talk to me," I keep ignoring him. I stare at the map in front of me. "Is something going on? Is it your mom?"

"My mom is fine," I spin around and cross my arms over my chest, ignoring the way my heart starts to speed up when Amelia’s face resurfaces in my brain. “Can we just solve this case so we can go home?”