#canon has no jurisdiction here anymore

[sophfandoms53]

They are everything to me, you don’t understand

[pluckyredhead]

“I have larger thoughts about how DC has kind of written themselves into a hole with Jason and now he's stuck in this limbo that's unsatisfying to everyone which is why so many Jason fans are mad all the time, but that's for another ask.”

🤓 Do tell…

Okay, let's see if I can do this in less than a thousand words!

So Jason, at his core, represents a challenge to Bruce's ideology, right? Bruce's #1 rule is No Killing, and Jason's basic idea is: "That doesn't work. Some villains are bad enough that they have to be killed for the greater good." (There's something very funny about Jason, famously undead, thinking killing stops ANYONE in the DCU, but we'll leave that aside for now.) This is a really interesting ethical quandary to throw Bruce's way, and by having it voiced by his beloved son, his greatest failure, his second most profound tragedy, it becomes a deeply thorny emotional problem as well as an ethical problem. That's all great.

The problem is, DC can't allow Jason to be right, for two reasons:

Batman must always be right and must always win.

...I mean, come on. They can't actually publish a story advocating for a traumatized 19-year-old with assault weapons to be the arbiter of who lives and who dies, that's nonsense. I love Jason but really.

The problem with that is, Jason is a major recurring character.

UTRH works great in a vacuum. But if Jason is showing up in a comic every month, or even just a few times a year, this central conflict has to be addressed, and the options for doing that are limited:

Bruce and Jason fight and Jason wins. DC will never let this happen. (And what would "Jason wins" even look like, honestly? He's not going to kill Bruce.)

Bruce and Jason fight and Bruce wins. They've done this a bunch (sometimes with Dick in place of Bruce), but Jason fans don't want to see him repeatedly getting his ass kicked while being lectured, and frankly it doesn't make Bruce look great either.

Bruce allows Jason to kill people. This can't happen either; it would be wildly out of character for Bruce, not to mention literally everyone in the Batfamily. They are all canonically pretty opposed to murder.

Jason continues to operate however he wants, but outside of Bruce's reach/jurisdiction. As wretched as RHATO was, I actually think it was a smart decision to keep most of the action outside of Gotham, because then we can pretend Bruce doesn't know what Jason's up to, just like we pretend Clark couldn't super-hear everything in Gotham and save Bruce's ass every single night without breaking a sweat. The problem here is that it means Jason is unavailable for the kinds of casual team-ups and crossovers that fans of all stripes crave - plus, every time he comes back to Gotham, he and Bruce have to relitigate their entire relationship AGAIN.

Jason compromises and agrees to follow Bruce's rules in order to have a relationship with the Batfamily. This is basically where DC has landed, and I understand why they did, because it's the option that allows them to publish the most comics with Jason in them, which they want to do because he is an immensely popular character who makes them money. However, it leaves him in this awkward position where instead of being a tragic villain/badass antihero, he's just...the sassiest member of the family, while simultaneously always being available to be treated like shit because he's Bad. He gets punished without even the fun of doing the crime anymore.

So what's the solution? I don't know. Theoretically, DC could try to do what Marvel does with the Punisher. People always get mad when I say Jason is DC's Punisher, but he kills pretty much indiscriminately in UTRH and RHATO, for pretty much the same reasons. ("Dudebros think it looks cool.") And Marvel heroes inexplicably let Frank just kill however many people he wants unless they're appearing in a Punisher comic, at which point they go "Frank, you naughty boy, I shall stop you!" and then Frank kicks their ass and makes them look like an idiot. DC is never going to let Jason do that to Bruce, plus it would put a real damper on the Wayne family Thanksgiving dinner.

Alternately, they could make him a Nightwing villain. Dick has spent 40 years fighting inconclusively with Deathstroke; he's much better suited to go endless rounds with Jason without either of them Always Triumphantly Winning than Bruce is. I don't personally want this option because I just don't care that much about Dick, but it could be really interesting, though it would limit Jason to fewer appearances and primarily in Dick's book. (Jason would have made a superb Red Robin villain 15 years ago for similar reasons.)

My vote, I think, would be for a really good (god, if only), really thoughtful Jason series where he has reason to seriously reevaluate his philosophy towards crime - something that reshapes him into a character who can still challenge Bruce's entrenched ideas without being so diametrically opposed to them as to make him a villain. He needs to be close enough to Bruce's rules to appear in crossovers, but far enough and specific enough that he's not just Meaner Nightwing. Jason is a passionate character; DC needs to find a new way to let his passion work for him, because right now he doesn't have anything driving him, and it's satisfying no one.

(900 words, BOOM!)

[theneighborhoodwatch]

*thinking emoji*

it's been pointed out before that almost every neighbor Conveniently has a backstory that involves them having existed Somewhere Else before they arrived in home... but it seems unlikely that those backstories are the whole truth. i think the question here is whether or not they are Mostly true and it's a matter of lying by omission OR if they were fabricated entirely. or in other words: is there a world out there in that plane of existence that home keeps its population isolated from as a result of human interference (i.e. the show)? or are they all just Completely made up and home is all there is. what does it mean if some backstories are more vague than others? alternatively: it's an "it's a good life" by jerome bixby situation and there Used to be a world outside of home, but well. Not Anymore.

also - i know i've ragged on this idea before for being overplayed as fuck in puppet horror - but i have to admit that the idea of there being Some kind of haunting/possession/transmutation bullfuckery is becoming more plausible. something something dehumanization/erasure of one's identity for the convenience of the status quo being taken to its logical extreme. that said i'm still banking on them having Always been puppets for various reasons so i'm putting that theory on the "FINE i GUESS i can roll with it if it ends up being canon" shelf for now. alternatively: some kind of SOMA-esque situation where a base personality/set of traits is derived from a human puppeteer but bc of the environment/being at the jurisdiction of the studio/having totally different memories, they develop in Radically different ways than their source? so many possibilities...

[velnica]

Lv. 60 — The Ballad of Oblivion (part 1)

Here we go again! After 84 years I am finally ready to finish the Heavensward bard questline. Continues on from A Saint of Song.

So of course we find Sanson waiting near Moglin. And of course the stubborn arse of a bard has yet to return. Sanson reverts back to 'Guydelot isn't dependable' anymore, after pining for however long the trek was from Tailfeather to here.

Okay now this bit is totally not canon in my book because why tf would you go back to Gridania when you have a perfect airport in Ishgard? And Sea of Clouds is under Ishgard's jurisdiction, it's probably more prudent to go there and hitch a shorter ride.

Anyway I'm going to ignore this in my own headcanon as Fjora has a standing with Ishgard and either the Haillenarte or the Fortemps would be able to spare a spot on an airship that's bound for Cloudtop, no questions asked.

I accidentally clicked here so I didn't catch the bit where Mogta said he's spoken to Guydelot, oops. Anyway of course Mr Dramatic Bard is hiding on the bloody peak of the mountain, the one with the selfsame view that Sanson wanted to show him. Of course. They're far too alike actually, and both of them are quite literally staring at the same sky and wishing for the same thing—for Guydelot's return but no, the leading man is still moping.

Melynor I give you permission to peck his stubborn skull

Why yes he did, because he cared about you, dummy.

This journal will be passed on from generations to generations of bard. It's their bible and origin story rolled into one. Nobody talks about the lovesick scribbles around the margin, and if anyone does, one of the bard veterans is ready to smack the back of their heads.

BECAUSE HE IS GUYDELOT.

God this bit is one of my favourite, when Guydelot FINALLY admits that he was wrong. He's going through the exact same motion Sanson did, where he initially thought the worst of Guydelot and then realised that he was more than what he appeared—his talent was not just a show, and he was honourable and sensitive and is a steadfast ally in combat. Guydelot here finally realised that Sanson wasn't at all about currying favours with the brass, he truly believed in the power of song and he wants to cultivate that old belief again.

They've both learned, rather painfully perhaps, that they both fell for their prejudices and the need to learn to communicate and meet in the middle if this plan was to succeed.

Something something Pride and Prejudice.

Both of them look SO DEJECTED when they realise they'd done wrong by the other. Absolute mirrors.

And the humility that he's shown here. He was all about running off by himself and doing whatever he wants, and if Sanson gets annoyed then all the better, but now he doesn't think he has the right to this quest anymore. He knew he had a good thing going and he fucked it up.

Yeah they absolutely should have just gone from Ishgard, idk why Sanson would want to beg the Adders for even more resources here when they were loath to give him any in the first place. Probably the least believable thing in this entire questline lmao.

Will be continued in Part 2!

[cilil]

🏜️, 🧩 and 🧃 for the ask game ❤️

Thanks for the ask, love❤️

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

As I'm sure many authors do I always love and appreciate the long comments going through a lot of things that happen in the fic and adding their two cents, like for example what people use the floating comment box for or them going through certain story beats on their own like "there was this thing that I liked and then this thing happened and I loved that".

In general I just LOVE to hear people's thoughts and what resonated with them on a personal level because some throwaway line for me may be someone else's top quote. I also don't mind and actually really appreciate commenters expressing that they don't usually read fics like the one in question but tried it and liked it anyway or that they got into a new ship or headcanon or that they saw something different in it than I do - in my jurisdiction one of the defining qualities of art is that it can always receive new and different interpretations, so it makes me feel like I created an "artsy" thing :3

Just to be clear in case any readers and commenters are reading this, everything I mentioned can very much be expressed in one sentence, there is absolutely no need or obligation for the aforementioned long comments; only wanted to honor the time and effort that goes into those in particular :)

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Not too many things I dare say, but:

A) A character being very "OOC"/misinterpreted to the point of being unrecognizable, especially if it feels like it's coming from a place of malice on the author's part and they're bashing the character (we don't like that on this blog). Now, I actually don't like using the term "OOC" here (just couldn't think of something better) because I am willing to bet that I have written stuff others see as OOC either in regards to canon or their headcanons and I probably read and enjoyed that sort of material in other cases too; I suppose we all have varying levels of tolerance for that. What I mean by being unrecognizable is for example if character A is canonically kind, friendly, patient, polite and then suddenly they're written as super angry, hostile, rude and abrasive in a fic - again especially if I have grounds to believe that the author did this because they dislike A and want others to do so too. It's just... idk man it feels icky to me and if I like that character the whole atmosphere begins to feel hostile to me on a personal level as well

B) The story is confusing for me (I really want to avoid making any comments about "badly written" fic here because this is a hobby and people are allowed to be learning and improving on all levels and at their own pace, so I'm highlighting that these cases are about me having personal difficulties others might not have). I don't even care much about grammar mistakes or the prose not being super smooth or a bit of confusion when it comes to who's talking or who's in what position, but if the story gets confusing to the point that it feels jarring or I don't know what's going on and why anymore, I may stop reading.

🧃 ��� share some personal lore you never posted about before

There's actually a bit of lore specific to this day, but it's a bit of a sad and sensitive matter so I won't bother anyone with it.

Instead something funny: I own a little plant collection, mostly cacti and succulents, but there's also some sort of poisonous bush thingy. I have no idea what kind of plant it is; in fact I have no idea what any of them are beyond "cactus", "succulent" and "the bush". One succulent of unknown origin has outgrown its pot twice now and is about to conquer the third. I'm going to need an entire garden for it one day, I fear.

[quietwings-fics]

Last Call

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: Major Character Death Fandom: Five Nights at Freddy's Ship: Gen Additional Tags: Horror, Canonical Character Death, Suspense, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Pre-Canon, POV Phone Guy (Five Nights at Freddy's), Introspection, Possessed Animatronics (Five Nights at Freddy's) Wordcount: 1,392 Summary:

He's going to die here. the last night of the man over the phone

He’s going to die here.

That’s all company loyalty was ever going to get him in the end. Back pain from the cheap office chair. A dozen disrupted friendships from his messed up sleep schedule. His doctor pulling him aside to say he should take it easy, he was putting too much strain on his heart, and with his family history… But he never did put in his two weeks notice or apply for another job. Retirement was out of the question. Same old, same old. At least he understood this place.

He checks his watch, not for the first time this hour.

He misses the dayshift. He got a pat on the shoulder from one of the founders of this place back in the day for hard work. (Which one? He can’t remember.) Relished it for a week. Put on his security badge and stomped around the place like he had anything more important under his jurisdiction than calling the janitors when a kid puked.

God, he was barely more than a kid himself. He couldn’t have known. No one imagined- It wasn’t- That sort of thing just didn’t happen in places like this.

But he was on duty. 

That’s probably why they come after him. Watching him walk in day after day, safe amid the daytime crowds he was meant to be protecting while those plastic eyes clicked and rotated to follow him, and waiting like… Not predators. Predators had purpose. Predators were hungry. These things- He has heard enough echoed sobbing down the halls. These were children, and they torment with inherited, imaginative cruelty. They make messes that management blames him for, broken furniture, destroyed decorations. They reek, those stink bomb felt corpses. They’re masters of persistence, scraping and banging and wailing at the doors night after night, hour after hour.

It’s a game. Games have rules. Rules can be learned.

He was always pretty good at hide and seek. He wins now by staying in his office, steel locked down between him and the things. He’s seen the dents they make. He put his hand in the middle of a big one, found it swallowed up by metal.

He survived.

He looks at his watch. He’s surviving.

He’s still going to die here, but he’s earned the right to be a sore loser.

There’s one outside his office window. On the right. He doesn’t turn on the lights. He can’t afford to.

Doesn’t need to, anyway, when he can hear it. Hulking, metal monstrosity like that, stained and worn out fur like sagging skin, and it sits outside the door and breathes like it hasn’t realized that it should have stopped a long time ago. It keeps sucking in that one last breath before- Before whatever happened to those kids… happened.

(Like he didn’t read the same articles as everyone else, greedy for whatever gory details he could get. Like he doesn’t know. Still, he wasn’t there when they opened those things up to find what was left. He was a security guard at a pizzeria, not a cop.

He knows what their insides look like, though. One night, that one, the one leaned in so close to the window the the dim office light illuminates the sickly yellow of its face, stood on the stage and slowly pulled itself apart while he watched through the camera. Mechanical innards spilled over grainy footage.

So, he can guess what it would be like to get shoved inside one and never come back out.)

He looks at his watch again.

Fredbear’s, Fazbear’s, whatever the goddamn name is anymore, they’ve got one big company secret: cut the cost on whatever you think is expendable.

It’s not him, actually. He’s not an expendable asset. They’d have fired him if he was.

The power is. He’s just collateral. Useful collateral, until the minute he isn’t. And he knew that. And he saw how those doors sucked up more and more of that dwindling power each night. And he kept coming back.

Where else was he going to go?

They’re moving in. He’s got a second sense for them now. He’s heard gleeful laughter all night. Footsteps up and down the halls. Out the other window, the last time he used the light, he saw one walk past. He was too slow to close the door. It should have gotten in. It just looked inside the office, and then at him, slowly, the click-click-click of parts that needed oiling as it turned its head down. He half expected it to open its mouth and begin to sing its familiar routine. He shut the door.

It’s been there ever since. That one. The one at the window. The one waiting in the dark. The impatient one who bangs on the door.

He’s had no breathing room to open the doors again.

They learned, too. They want to win.

He’s been leaving messages on the phone. Recordings. Pleas.

Silence was never going to protect him. They knew he was in here. He looked at them when he was recording himself sometimes, through the windows, and wondered why he would fumble his words because he heard the fan stutter but not because he was staring at something that wanted to kill him. Familiarity, maybe.

He’s not sure anyone is ever going to hear him. He makes up a person in his head. Down on their luck. Desperate. Would have to be to pick up a job here. And the kind of person that would stay? Insane.

Or stuck. Maybe they looked at their grocery bill the same way he did yesterday and thought, I still need to eat. I made it this far. What’s one more go?

He looks at his watch again. He grimaces. He shuts off his fan. It doesn’t do much but make the breathing outside sound heavier.

He considers it. He waits a minute. Sweat beads on his neck.

He looks at his watch again. He chuckles hopelessly.

He turns the fan back on.

On his final recording, he apologizes, “I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow.” He explains, “it’s been a bad night here for me.” He lies, “maybe it won’t be so bad.”

He asks them, this person who might not exist, to look for him. A pipe dream; He’ll be cleaned up long before they hire someone new.

His eyes move from his watch to the indicator of how much power he’s been allotted for the night. He stutters as it bleeds out. They surround him, eager.

He’d forgotten what it was like to be scared of these things. Those doors seemed so strong. Only dented, never broken. He’s been doing this for so long that the monsters on the other side were almost comforting in their one, repetitive desire.

Company loyalty: it only goes one way. He takes a shaky breath.

He hopes that someone hears this. He’s got to be selfish now because he’s not going to have much more time to be. He hopes some idiot stays here and listens to every message he left. He should tell them the important stuff now, he’s got people he loves, things he wished he could have done, apologies he never gave, and he opens he mouth to say, “You know-“

It’s gone. All of it is gone. No light. No doors.

He stays so still; he doesn’t even breathe.

He can hear the one at the window. Slow. Ragged. Final.

The one at the door, standing behind him. Clicking. Creaking floor under its weight.

Impatient scraping on the walls outside. Humming played on an old voicebox.

And then that song is drowned out by another. The closing number of every show. He knows it. He used to hear it every hour on the dot during his daytime shifts before the band shut down and the curtains closed for maintenance to move in and pull out parts to make sure they were working right. It trills from his right side.

He doesn’t know if the phone is still recording. He should- He should-

This isn’t supposed to happen. He’s been here so long. He’s survived so long. He-

“Oh. No.” It’s a whisper. He can feel them close in around him. They groan like they’re in pain. He chokes on the stench.

He drops the phone.

(Enjoyed it? Any interaction is welcomed. You can even support me on Ko-Fi <3)

[joysmercer]

ok but what if (more s3 canon div coming uppp)

“eric. I think we should tell the children.”

“tell the children?” eric looks up at victor, confused.

“TELL THE CHILDREN?” harriet screeches before he can explain himself.

well, at least she appears to have enough braincells to figure out what he’s getting at. victor sighs. 

“they know about robert. I think we can get them to come willingly.” 

“THEY KNOW ABOUT ROBERT?”

(goodness, could she speak a little quieter?)

“Not that he’s in a tank. but the children are quite familiar with his…contributions to anubis house and the school,” eric explains, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “mr. lewis would certainly be easy to persuade, but i’m not sure about—”

“williamson. she’s causing problems in my classes already and it’s only the second day of school,” harriet interjects.

“what on earth is she up to? I certainly hope my son has no part in it.” 

“your son will also be the death of me, if i’m quite frank.” 

“stop that, stop that,” victor says, rubbing his forehead. it’s like herding sheep that really don’t want to be herded with these two. 

seriously, he swears eric was more mature as a teenager than he is now.

“this ceremony is of the utmost importance. we cannot have the children meddling and ruining it before it’s time! surely the easiest way to ensure that is to tell them what we need from them?” 

“miss mercer would immediately refuse, and harriet’s right—patricia is unlikely to listen to her elders on a good day, which this conversation you’re proposing would certainly not be a part of.” eric shakes his head. “I’m sorry, victor, but as Seeker I cannot allow—”

“as Seeker, you have no jurisdiction anymore. the Descendents have already been Sook. Seeked. Found. Whatever.” harriet turns to victor. “As Keeper, responsible for Robert’s safety, I must put my foot down.” 

Victor wishes desperately he could assign these two detention for all eternity. “as Enabler, I am telling you that the Ceremony will be damaged in some way by November. The children are already aware something is up, with the missing parcel—I’m certain they had something to do with it.” 

he takes their silence as agreement. 

------

“I’m sorry, sir, you have— you want—” Jerome shakes his head, his long hair flailing violently (just as his father’s used to—never a good sign.)

“I’m with him on this one, actually,” Joy says, grimacing to herself as the words leave her mouth. “I’m sorry, this just seems—”

“Is no one here worried about Zombies?” Alfie, who had been sitting in shock until now, suddenly jolts up. “You want us to awaken a dead guy in a tank, something that’s never been done before, and you’re not at all worried that he’ll want to EAT OUR BRAINS or something?”

luckily, patricia whacks him on the head before victor has to. “we have more realistic problems, dumbass.” the glare she shoots victor makes him regret his earlier thanks to her. 

“this man left death traps all over this house and made a god so angry he got cursed to live in a tank. not to mention the fact that he has indirectly tried to murder all of us”—she gestures around the group as they nod in agreement—“like three times each. I’m not doing it.” 

Victor draws himself up to his full height, towering over the children slumped on the couch before him. “I was not asking for your permission, miss williamson. you were brought to this school, on scholarship, for one purpose only. I’ve seen your grades—why else do you think Eric would have offered to pay your tuition?” he nods at the others. “You will lose your places at this school if you don’t comply. I don’t anticipate that being a conversation you would want to have with your parents.” 

with that, he turns and marches up the stairs, leaving the children behind him in silence. 

--------

“Fabian, Eddie, I hope you’re fully-clothed because we’re coming in,” Jerome announces, ignoring the girls blushing behind him. He forces open their bedroom door and marches in. “Victor’s making all four of us participate in some crazy plan, except he doesn’t even know what the plan is or when it’ll happen, so we’re all going to get kidnapped some time soon.” he stops and stares at the Nerd and the Osirian before him. “well?”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to need you to repeat all of that again,” eddie says. “Yeah, me too,” Fabian agrees. 

Joy steps in this time and explains what’s going on.

eddie, understandably, freaks out over his father’s involvement in everything. It’s not until patricia says something like “all of us except fabian have problematic dads, get over yourself” that he snaps out of it

“Wait. A great evil. This must be why KT was sent here!” he exclaims. 

Patricia looks about ready to commit a murder. “KT was sent here? and you just trust her? she could be working with sweetie and victor!”

“I don’t think so, trix,” alfie says. the others stare at him. “she seems cool!”

“you also said that about—”

“joy, you swore—”

“I’m not going to tell, but I’m just saying—”

“wait, joy, now I want to know—”

“never in a million years, jerome, get over yourself,” joy says, then turns back to alfie. “point is, you don’t aren’t always the best judge of character.” 

“yeah, I mean, most of us could tell meredith from the parent trap was evil the minute she came on screen,” patricia adds as jerome cackles next to her. “you’re the only one who thought she was nice.”

“okay, okay, stop,” fabian interrupts before jerome could say something that would make eddie say something that would make alfie say something that would derail this entire meeting. “I think victor’s parcel has the instructions. we’ve just got to decode it.” 

“wait, you had victor’s parcel this whole time???”

fabian sighs. this is going to be a long day. 

anyway, with ample time to figure things out, they perform the ceremony correctly and the rest of this happens and (mostly) everyone lives happily ever after the end <3

[idontlikethings]

U know what people don't seem to understand about tobi? He's supposed to be a good guy. In canon at least, he's depicted as morally good and on the right side of the plot. And his stans defending him saying that the anti should rather focus on mad.ra who kidnapped a kid or ob.to killing his own clan... they're the bad guys. Canon acknowledges that and makes them villains.

The same doesn't happen with tob.rama while he's the base of the whole shinobi system. The one who created the academy, an institution that raises children into killers, the Chuunin Exam, and I hope I don't have to explain why that is wrong, the Uchiha police force and at the same time the ANBU, which literally nullifies the police force's existence, beyond the obvious morally wrong choice of restraining a whole clan to one job.

"But op, the academy is a positive thing, so child soldiers don't have to exist anymore! And people leaving the academy at 6 like k.kashi was only because of hiruzen! And the children killing each other during the chuunin exam too!" Okay first, 12 is still child soldiers except if I missed something, but dude he literally created the chuunin exams. The whole thing where twelve year olds kill each other. Second, the situation being worsened by hiruzen is your own headcanon, we literally do not know. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Tob.rama was his teacher tho, doesn't that tell you something. This post talks about tob.rama and his students, btw.

"And what about hash.rama?! U guys never criticize him!" But tob.rama was literally the one who created the institution. Don't get me wrong here, I still don't appreciate hash.rama, but tob.rama was the one who made his dream into a concrete thing and build the administrative side of the village, which is the real problem in naruto (besides the positive portrayal of the whole thing. If canon was critical of this, I wouldn't be here). Hash.rama has to be criticized for letting his brother do everything he did (the fact that he did nothing to stop him could indirectly say that he agreed with what tobirama was doing, and with how canon is it is very likely that he did. But we also know that even if he disagreed, he is shown to cede to his brother s argument pretty quickly, with the first election for example) , I agree with that, and for never truly understanding the Uchiha and Mad.ra in particular, but he's not directly responsible for the village system like tob.rama is.

Finally the anbu's existence. The tactical ans assassination special brigade. So, just to remind you, the age limit is 13 and they pick younger kids that show predisposition to the job even before the Academy. Again, you could argue that it was worsened by hiruzen, but how likely is that? It was never implicated in canon, just like the chuunin exam. That's just your headcanon. However the limit between the police force's power and the Anbu's jurisdiction is clearly stated to be vague, creating conflicts between the two, as the anbu is supposed to deal with more delicate matters than the police force. And do I have to remind both were created by tob.rama, who notoriously never particularly like the Uchiha clan?

What a coincidence. And I find it more easy to believe in than hiruzen worsening the conditions of the chuunin exams and the anbu, while it is never implied in canon.

[boldlyvoid]

Hypothetically | Chapter 16-20

summary: Reader and Spencer were friends in kindergarten, she watched him grow up and explore the world while she was still trying to catch up to him. now that they work together, they fall in love incredibly fast.

friends to lovers, case of the week style story

A/N: Set between seasons 4 and 6, not following canon. all original crimes based on real-life stories.

Warnings 18+: Murderers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Blood, Guns, mentions of autopsy, Fluff, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, bed-sharing, Riding, Unprotected Sex, Virgin Reader, Case of the Week, original crimes, Food mention, Smut, Oral Sex, Light BDSM, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Talk, obgyn appointments and info, Home Invasion, Past Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Emotional Manipulation, Grooming, Pedophilia mention, non-con oral (male receiving), Pregnant Sex, Daddy Kink, Breeding Kink, Homophobia, conversion therapy

Word Count: 10k

chapter 16

It was 7 am when they got the call. Y/N had barely gotten any sleep that night, Spencer was adamant that laying on the left side helps maximize blood flow. Meaning she faced the wall all night with him happily cuddled into her back. She hated it.

Between peeing 100 times a day and the constant heartburn, she couldn’t really pick the worst part about creating a human.

It fuckin’ sucked and no one thought to warn her.

She dragged herself out of bed, trying her best to do her morning routine with only one eye open. Spencer, on the other hand, seemed to bounce out of bed like he slept 12 hours. Dancing around the kitchen as he poured his coffee and took a smoothie out of the fridge for Y/N.

He fed the cat, changed the litter and even took out the garbage by the time she pulled herself from the bathroom and to her closet.

Her jeans didn’t fit, she let herself take a minute to cry out of frustration in the closet before she looked for anything presentable. The only pants she could get into were a pair of leggings, and at that point, she didn’t care anymore. She was probably going to stay back with Penelope anyway.

She threw on an FBI sweater to hide her bump from the rest of her co-workers, grabbed the rest of her shit and followed Spencer to the car. Getting in the passenger seat and immediately closing her eyes again.

“Wake me up when we’re at Quantico,” she told him. Leaning against the window, ignoring the world.

Maternity parking was the only bonus, she only had to walk 4 feet from her car to the elevator. She felt lazy, but she was allowed to.

“Hopefully,” Spencer finally spoke to her as they entered the elevator. “At the end of this week, your energy should return as your placenta is done developing. You’re the most tired right now because your organs are working 3 times harder than they’re used to.”

“I’m tired because I had nothing to cuddle with all night, but thanks for the insight,” she tried her best to be cheery.

The door dinged, opening to the rest of the team standing in the entryway. “What’s up?” Y/N asked them.

“Hotch got a call, we’ve got a weird one coming in, he’s in his office talking to someone right now,” Morgan said. He looked just as tired as Y/N.

“Are we going in?” She asked, walking past them and towards the bullpen.

She rushed through the room and waddled up the stairs, searching for a chair before she actually passed out. Everyone followed her soon after, patting her back as they walked around the table to their seats.

“Over the past few months 6 feet have washed up on different beaches along the coast of Maine,” Penelope started explaining the case while Hotch was still on the phone in his office.

“6 feet belonging to 6 different people, all incredibly hard to identify. Interpol, Europol, the RCMP and the FBI have all been in communication with each other as no one knows where the feet washed in from. International Water laws prohibit just one of us from taking jurisdiction until we identify the nationality of the victims.”

“How are we going to Identify the feet?” Prentiss asked.

“We’re currently running the DNA against missing persons along the east coast as well as anyone who recently travelled to North America by boat, so far we don’t have any matches. We do know all 6 feet are white so hopefully, hopefully,” Garcia repeated for extra magic help, “this isn’t a refugee transport gone wrong.”

“We’ve been seeing an increase of boating accidents from Syrian refugees recently,” Spencer added. “The wars in the middle east are continuing to push people from their homes in mass numbers, meaning a lot of the boats are overpacked and capsize mid extraction.”

“So we’re probably looking at someone from North America who is using their own boat to sail out and release victims,” Y/N added. “Do we have the ME reports on the 6 feet?”

“Oh, yeah,” Garcia said, flipping through papers and handing them to her.

She read it over carefully, trying to see through her new blurred vision. Another wonderful pregnancy symptom. “Normally when feet wash up on shore, they’re in shoes. If a body is lost in a boating accident or drowning, the rubber soles will always want to float to the surface. When a body is decaying in water long enough the bones will separate, and when the ankle bone goes, the feet float to the surface,” Y/N explained.

“How do you just know that?” Rossi asked.

“In Nevada, we had a lot of drownings in a man-made lake, people would get stuck at the bottom on tree roots. And every year a few feet would wash up,” she added. “I only explained that because it says in the ME report that the feet were cut with a sharp blade, all clean cuts with no shoes or socks. So someone is cutting these bodies up and bringing them out to sea, probably to use as bait for a big catch.”

“It’s weird to me that the feet are the only parts washing up?” JJ’s face was absolutely puzzled as she flipped through the files.

“Not really,” Y/N argued, “I’m more concerned with why he’d even cut the feet, to begin with. With most shark attacks they go for full limbs, if I was the unsub and I was cutting the body up for bait, I wouldn’t make the pieces so small. There isn’t enough blood or flesh on feet to entice a large fish or shark to take it.”

Rossi was tapping his fingers against the table, “Do you think he wants us to find the feet?”

“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t look good.”

Then, Hotch finally walked in. “Which 3 of you want to travel to Maine to take a look at all the findings?” Prentiss, Morgan and Rossi raised their hands, “alright, meet me on the runway in 20. The rest of you, find a way to identify the feet.”

—

She sat at her desk most of the morning, munching on a bag of animal crackers to keep her nausea at bay. JJ brought her a cold ginger ale around 11, rubbing her back for a bit while she flipped through files.

She had a doctor’s appointment during lunch that day, so she headed downtown to give blood in the hour she was permitted. Knowing that she could be late and no one would really care.

She waited in Dr. Korrapati’s room patiently, looking at her arm as she rested it on the table. Her veins were more prominent now than they had ever been in her life. JJ insured her that they would go back down but it did make her a little self-conscious.

“Hey mama,” Dr. Korrapati cheered as she walked into the room. “How are we feeling?”

“Good, tired but good.”

“Work kicking your butt?” She asked as she prepped her arm for the blood draw. “Or just the baby?”

“Having a hard time finding a comfortable sleeping position, I’m probably going to get one of those long pillow things to help,” she rambled to take her mind off what was going on with her arm.

For someone who looked at dead bodies as her job, seeing her own blood freaked her out. Dr. Korrapati noticed she was a little stressed, “how about when I’m done here we take a look at your little person?”

That piqued her interest, she sat completely still and looked away as the nicest doctor she could’ve asked for, got the test over and done with, in record-breaking time.

“Do you have any other symptoms that are bothering you?” She asked as she wrote the exact tests down in her paperwork.

“Yeah,” she struggled with the sleeve of her shirt as she tucked her arm back in. “The nausea is driving me nuts, I’m living on animal crackers and ginger ale.”

“If you eat small meals every few hours it should settle it out,” she explained. “But if it is really bothering you we can give you some anti-nausea medication.”

“I tried that, everyone keeps bringing me snacks and trying to take care of me but I don’t want anything because I’m so tired,” she ranted as she climbed onto the exam table.

“Have you tried sleeping on the other side of the bed?” She asked.

“no, why?”

Dr. Korrapati laughed, “you sleep on the left side of the bed right?”

“Yeah?” She questioned, wondering how an OB could profile so well.

“So I'm assuming your smart and overprotective boyfriend has advised you to lay on your left side like he told JJ?” She smiled. “And because you sleep on the left side of the bed already, that means you’re not cuddled into him. He’s the big spoon now and you hate it.”

It was like a lightbulb went off in her head, “oh my god?”

They laughed at the fact it was so obvious and she never clued in. “It happens all the time, you’re so in a routine that you don’t realize you can just switch sides and it’ll work.”

“You’re so smart!”

“Ready to hear and see this baby of yours?” She asked, waiting for Y/N to raise her shirt and lower her leggings to expose her lower stomach.

“Can we?”

“Yep,” she nodded, “you’re in week 9, so you’re exiting the embryo stage and moving towards the fetal stage. We’ll be able to see the fetus and hear the heartbeat.”

“Can I record it for Spencer?” She asked, not wanting him to miss it.

“I’ll do you one better and put it on a disk for you.”

Just like that, she was smothering her stomach in warm jelly. Spreading it around with the ultrasound wand before she began to search for them. Pressing in slightly on her right side, she heard her own heartbeat whooshing. The closer she got to the centre, the more they heard the second.

Her baby’s heartbeat was strong. She saw them on the monitor, they had changed from being a jellybean to actually looking like a person. 4 strong limbs were stretching and moving, growing faster than she thought possible.

“That’s insane?” She was in such awe of it, “when will I feel the kicking and stuff?”

“In a few more months, they’re only the size of a green olive. You’ll probably feel it around Christmas?” She guessed. “You’ll be 16 weeks around then.”

“Wow okay,” she was just astounded by the magic of growing a child, she felt like absolute shit but it all made sense at that moment. In just a week, muscles and limbs formed and her baby grew the ability to self-soothe in the womb. Growing 10 fingers and toes that they already knew how to put in their mouth.

She cleaned the gel off Y/N’s stomach and began exporting the files for her. “So, I will call you when the results are in, and I can just email you guys a copy and go over it with you on the phone when you’re free? I know your job is unpredictable?”

“That would be perfect, thank you. We’re working on an international case right now so for all I know I’ll be in Ireland next week,” She laughed.

“Of course, take care of yourself make sure you’re taking all the vitamins and having 8 cups of clear fluids a day, you have to stay hydrated.” Dr. Korrapati handed her the disk in a sleeve as well as her contact card.

“Yes ma’am, I can’t wait to hear from you,” she smiled before leaving the office.

—

Y/N walked back into the BAU around 1:15, wandering down the hall to Penelope’s office to get a rundown of what she missed.

Spencer and JJ had the same idea, all turning towards the door as Y/N walked in, “hey.”

“How was it?” Spencer asked softly, beckoning her to his lap.

She sat down on him softly, “I got a DVD copy of the ultrasound.” She waved the disk around. “But, we can’t watch it until I get a rundown on what we know so far.”

“I hate how professional you are sometimes,” Penelope huffed. “Luckily, it is very important.”

“We matched a tattoo on one of the feet to a missing person’s case in Nova Scotia. So we focused our efforts on missing person’s cases who fit the same features and backgrounds as her,” JJ explained.

“Okay cool, who was she?”

“Andrea Carlton, 18. She was hitchhiking, apparently wanting to run away to meet her boyfriend in Newfoundland. I traced her transactions before she disappeared and it looks like she bought a ferry ticket, however, there are no reports of her ever getting on it,” Penelope added. “So I’ve looked into other people from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, who went missing hitchhiking or after booking a ferry ticket.”

“Smart, how many matches did we get?”

“5,” She laughed.

“You’re kidding?”

They all shook their heads, “nope. And we were able to match all the feet to them.”

Y/N handed the ultrasound video over to Penelope. “Your reward.”

She snatched it from her hands so fast, taking it out of the packaging and shoving it in her CD port. Loading the file within seconds.

She watched Spencer’s face the whole time. Already having seen the footage herself, knowing the real show would be his reaction.

He was so mesmerized, his eyes blown up in awe as tears welled. His grip on her leg was more intense, he was squeezing along to the beat of the baby’s heart, absentmindedly. He shook his head in disbelief, that was his baby in there.

The phone rang before they could really talk about it, Hotch requesting the team hop on a plane and meet them in Nova Scotia. The RCMP and the FBI have taken sole jurisdiction over the case.

Y/N was able to convince him that it would be best if they get some sleep before they go. He agreed, telling them he expected to see them in Canada at 10 am sharp.

“Before we go home tonight can you cross-reference freelance charter boats or fishermen in the area the day each victim missed a ferry? Someone desperate to get a ride might be willing to hop in a boat with anyone going where they are,” Y/N suggested to Garcia.

“I’ll run it in the background, you two go home and get some rest so my god-baby can get big and strong!” She hugged her lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Y/N and Spencer didn’t need to be told twice, practically running to their car. She let out the deepest sigh ever once she had her seatbelt on, so excited to go home.

Spencer drove them home, getting used to it as she got more pregnant. Soon she’d be too big to drive at all let alone stay awake the whole time.

“How are you feeling?” Spencer asked as they cleared the security check.

“Good, Dr. Korrapati is going to email us the results when they’re in and go over them with us on the phone. I told her we’d probably end up going out of the country soon,” Y/N recalled the day.

“The ultrasound was so cool,” he gushed.

“Yeah,” She smiled. Reaching to hold his hand on the centre console. “She also suggested we switch sides of the bed so that we can still cuddle while I’m on my left side.”

“She’s a genius.”

“that’s what I said!” She laughed, “literally how dumb are we?”

“187 till I become a dad and then I’m an idiot,” he smiled back at her quickly. “I’m glad you had a good day. Now we can go eat and get a full night’s rest.”

She let out another deep breath, “I can’t wait to cuddle.”

—

Garcia was waiting for them at the elevator the next morning. “Patrick Timmins.”

“Who?” Y/N asked, fully awake and ready to go, just confused by the ambush.

“I ran the perimeters that you asked for and I found a freelance fisherman slash charter service run by a guy named Patrick Timmins,” Garcia explained. “The townspeople call him Patty Tims, they think he’s fine and lovely according to his Yelp page but his criminal record tells a different story.”

“Really? I thought that was such a long shot!” Y/N was cheery from the extra sleep she got with Dr. Korrapati’s advice.

“The plane is ready when you guys are, I have all the updated info in this as well as some snacks for the plane,” she handed Spencer a cloth bag.

“What would I do without you? My pretty penny,” she kissed her friend on the cheek.

“If it means I get some sugar from you, I’ll do anything,” Garcia flirted with her in the absence of Morgan. “Go get on your plane, I will see you when you return my loves.”

They landed in Nova Scotia around 10 am like Hotch had requested. Bypassing customs and driving directly to the RCMP headquarters. They needed to come up with a plan, they had no idea how to find a man who travels by boat and lives at sea.

“We could always send undercover’s out in the areas he’s picked up before, have them dress as hitchhikers, miss the ferries and wait and see who tries to pick you up. Everyone will have a team watching and police boats on standby?” Morgan was theorizing as Spencer, Y/N and JJ walked in.

“We have report’s that he’s in the bay, if we’re going to do this we need to do it now,” An RCMP officer she hadn’t met yet announced to the room. “Who here is comfortable posing as a vic?”

JJ raised her hand, “get me some dirty clothes and I can be ready in 5.”

They raided the lost and found, they filled a backpack with random things and tried their best to dirty her fingernails and hair. She looked like she had been travelling without a proper place to stay for a while.

They managed to hide a wire on her, prepping what she was going to say if she was in danger and they needed to move in. Hiding a gun and a knife in her socks in case she needed them later.

They drove her down to the bay dropping her off 1 kilometre away, letting her walk into town while they parked closer to watch with binoculars. They planned it for her to arrive as the ferry pulled out of the bay.

She ran down the dock, trying to catch the ferry. Putting on the best performance of: “fuck, I missed the boat!” That they had ever seen.

“She’s going to win an Oscar,” Morgan whispered in the back of the surveillance van, trying to make Y/N laugh.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” They heard over the wire, trying to identify the source of the voice. The man was standing on his boat, hanging over the edge to get JJ’s attention.

“I missed the ferry, do you know when it’ll be back?” She played dumb. “I promised my mom I’d be back tonight and now I won’t be.”

“I can give you a ride, for a price,” the man suggested. “Names, Patty Tims.”

Hotch turned around from the front seat and motioned for Y/N and Morgan to head out quietly without making a scene. Listening in their headsets as JJ replied. “How much?”

They hid around the corner of the ticket booth, watching as the undercover officers walked around the civilians.

“Just a simple photo, I like to put a face to the stories I run across. Come on up,” he motioned for her to get on the boat.

She walked closer to him, “I don’t know sir, I should probably wait for the ferry.” She smiled.

“No,” he ground his teeth together and clenched his jaw, reaching for her.

She grabbed his arm and flipped him, getting into the boat and pushing him to the ground. She cuffed him by the time Morgan and Y/N could board. “What the fuck is this?” He struggled in her grasp.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of 6 people,” JJ replied, about to tell him his rights.

“Only 6?” He laughed.

JJ shoved him into the floor harder, reading him his rights before lifting him to his feet and shoving him off the boat and into RCMP custody.

Y/N lifted her hand up to high five JJ, pulling her into a half hug as they walked back to the surveillance van.

She never had a sister before, JJ was probably the only woman in her life that she felt this close to. It was mostly to do with the fact she’s always been so wonderful to Spencer. She helped him feel loved before Y/N, and that was important to her.

“Can we search the boat? Or are we still waiting on the warrant?” Y/N just wanted to check with Hotch before she barged onto the boat. Not wanting to jeopardize what they’re allowed to enter into evidence.

“We got it, you can start looking,” Hotch said, handing her a pair of gloves and a handful of evidence bags.

JJ went with her. They walked in together, noticing that he wasn’t lying about wanting a photo to go with the story. Below the deck, the entire wall was filled with Polaroids of terrified people moments before their deaths.

They bagged them all into evidence, dreading having to put them all into the system and match them to missing person’s reports. Delivering the news that someone’s loved one was gone for good was never fun.

Telling 58 families that their loved one was dead was a nightmare.

chapter 17

She’s a little confused when she wakes up to the sound of geese honking. Rolling away from Spencer’s embrace and immediately being blinded by the sunlight in the room. She sat up in a small panic.

She had forgotten that they stayed the night at the new house.

The large windows in the bedroom faced the water. She could see the sun’s reflection on the lake as it stretched over the house from the east. It was absolutely stunning. She could get used to waking up early with a screaming baby if this was the view.

Then she remembered it was the day they got their test results, she bounced a little as she reached for her phone to check her messages.

“Morning bunny,” Spencer’s groggy morning voice startled her a little.

“Bunny?” She questioned, never hearing him call her any form of nickname before.

He reached out of her, wrapping his arms around her growing belly, resting his head in her lap. “Have you ever noticed you hop a little bit when you get excited?”

“Yeah, it’s called Asperger’s,” she smiled as she ran her fingers through his hair. “It’s honestly better than bugs bunny though, just don’t throw carrots at me okay?” She laughed to herself as she recalled the childhood trauma.

It was a little funny, looking back now.

“Never, you’re my bunny. I love my bunny.”

He was so soft in the mornings. Snuggling in against her skin as he slowly woke up. He stretched and yawned a bit, making the cutest little sounds as he did so.

She kept her fingers in his hair, twirling the ends every once and a while. Mostly running her nails along his scalp, soothing that big beautiful brain of his that she loved so much.

“We find out what the sex is today,” she reminded him.

He lifted up her shirt to expose her belly. Kissing the skin as she laid back against the pillows.

“What’s going on in there today?” She asked softly.

“They’re the size of a prune,” he mused. “speaking of, as you enter the fetus stage this week you’re going to get constipated.”

She couldn’t help but laugh, “thanks that’s exactly what I wanted to know!”

“Right now the fetal development is focusing primarily on the bones, tummy and teeth,” he explained with the largest smile on his face.

“There we go.”

He hovered over her, brushing the hair from her face so he could look at her, “You look so beautiful right now.”

He said that as if he wasn’t blocking the sun from her view, perfectly casting a halo glow around him. She placed her hand on his cheek, “I love you.”

He leaned in and kissed her, pressing his body softly against her’s. “I love you,” he whispered between kisses. Covering her face and neck with small pecks, making her laugh as he covered her body in kisses.

The phone rang on Spencer’s night table causing him to press his forehead against her hip, letting out a deep sigh. Y/N reached over and picked it up. “Doctor Spencer Reid’s phone,” she answered. “He can't come to the phone right now, can I take a message?”

“Funny,” Penelope replied.

“We have a case,” Morgan added.

“What time do we need to be on the plane by?” She asked.

“Uh, it’s 7:46 now, so you’ve got an hour, tops?” Penelope guessed, “why?”

“I said he was busy. I’ll see you later.” She hung up.

“You did not just do that?” He looked absolutely horrified, his whole face turning pink.

“They could either think you got some, or you could actually get some?” She teased. “We have an hour.”

—

“All 3 Vic’s had been strangled and raped before they were wrapped in plastic and released into the river,” Garcia explained to the team over the laptop as they travelled through the sky. “Washing away all of the unsub’s DNA, however, they did find carpet fragments under the victim’s finger-“

“Like the ’84 Oklahoma Child Murders,” Y/N cut her off.

“What?” Garcia asked.

“Oklahoma 1981 to 1984. Local black children between the age of approximately 6 and 17 were being abducted, raped and murdered. Their bodies were mostly discovered in wooded areas and along the edges of the river, never submerged. The BAU worked the case, only ever being able to solve the last 2 murders before the Oklahoma governor, I think, kicked you off the case, right? They cared more about the money going towards the investigation than the black children going missing,” She explained.

“Gideon and I tried,” Rossi said. Still very bothered by the ending. “We wanted to catch the guy, the last 2 murders were so different from the others and yet the local cops considered it the same guy. Much like this new unsub, he raped young men before strangling them and dropping them in the river. All the way down to the carpet fibres.”

“It ended up being a local man named Oscar Pope, they caught him dumping an older male victim at a police checkpoint. They matched carpet fibres at his house to the 2 rivers Vic’s, but none of the children,” Prentiss cut in. “This has to be a copycat right?”

“We don’t know that,” Y/N added. “The BAU was working the angle that a local boy who knew the majority of the victims was in on it. Um, Daryl Livingston, he was in foster care at the time. He was the 7th boy to go missing and then every one of his friends was found dead after that. However, his body was never found. They suspected that he formed a bond with his captor and offered to bring him, other boys, if he let him live.”

“Any chance that this unsub could be the same kid, using Pope’s tactic to get our attention back on him?” Morgan asked.

“I was about to say that too,” JJ cut in. “they might’ve even been a team back then as well. That would explain why the murders stopped when Pope was caught but they still never found that boy.”

“That’s possible. They concluded that the last victim Pope dropped into the river was a long-time, secret boyfriend of his who found out what he was doing to the children. His MO changed when he didn’t want people to tie the murders together,” Spencer provided the extra information. “Only backfiring when local cops patrolling the river heard a splash.”

“Garcia, can you see if any of the Vic’s have any relation, contact or even geographical coincidences with the original murders?” Rossi asked. “If this is a victim continuing Pope’s work we need to find out who knew him.”

“Sir, Oscar Pope is still alive in a local correctional facility,” Garcia added. “I’m going to run background checks on all contact he’s had in his entirety at the prison, it might take a while but I’ll get it.”

“Garcia, I can go to the facility and just read everything they have there. It might not be all digital yet,” Reid offered.

“Good idea, take Y/N with you. You two bounce ideas off each other better than the rest of us,” Hotch agreed. “Morgan and Rossi join the search teams at the rivers. JJ and Prentiss, we’ll set up communication with the locals and go through old case files.”

“Reid’s good at bouncing somethin’ off her, alright,” Morgan teased him. “You were on speaker this morning.”

Spencer turned bright red once again, burying his face into the table as everyone laughed, reaching across the aisle to give Y/N high fives.

—

Being in a prison was always weird for her.

Having to hand in her gun just to read papers in a dusty office made her uncomfortable. She understood the protocol and she knew the guards would keep them safe, but knowing she was near men she helped put away, that scared her slightly.

“I’m not finding anything,” Spencer sighed. “There was a flood 2 years ago that destroyed most of the files near the ground. Including the Pope documents.”

“We can always just go ask him?” Y/N suggested, “he’s in D cell, he’s behind bars. We can just talk to him from the hallway unofficially. Pretend we’re here for someone else. I’ll say I never thought he really did those murders and gain his trust, see what happens.”

“I don’t like it but, I think we have to,” he agreed. Opening the office door for her to lead the way, “after you.”

Spencer felt very protective, she could tell. He was never pushy or controlling with her, but for some reason, he was now manhandling her. Making sure she walked on the inside of the hallways, closer to the brick walls so that no one could get her through the bars.

“So Doctor Reid,” she picked up the conversation as they hit the D block. “I was reading the book you lent me about engineering.”

“Oh,” he tried to play along. “How did you like it?”

“It was good,” she replied while trying to look at each inmate she passed. “I loved page 187— oh my gosh?” She stopped at Pope’s cell.

“You’re Oscar Pope?” She pointed at him.

“and you’re?” The old man questioned her. “A fed?”

“We’re here for something political, nothing to concern yourself with,” she lied, getting closer to the bars, whispering. “I just want you to know I never thought you did all 16 of the child murders back in the day.”

“Thank you,” he was suddenly enthusiastic. “Now why can’t all the fed’s be as smart as you?”

She laughed, tapping his arm through the bars. “How are you doing? Is there anything I can get you while I’m here?”

“Phone privileges!” He answered quickly, “the mail’s taking forever and I’ve got people to talk to before I croak in here.”

“I’m sure you do sir,” she smiled at him. “I’ll pull some strings, you have a good day!”

“You too, beautiful!”

Spencer placed his hand on her hip and led her away from the bars, she waved as they walked away.

“Agent Y/L/N,” a voice stopped her at the end of the hall.

She turned to see a man sitting cross-legged on the cell floor. His orange jumpsuit gathered around his waist as he sat in an undershirt. She glanced over his body, stopping at his face. She’d know those eyes anywhere.

“Didn’t I say only good boys get to talk to me, Bitch?” She snapped at him.

“Congratulations on the little one.” He replied. Laughing as Spencer placed his hand over her small stomach and led her out of the room, through the big metal doors.

“Keep walking with me,” Spencer insisted. “Or I will turn around and I will kill him.”

She huffed and continued down a narrow hallway with him. “We need to call Hotch.”

“Yeah,” he flipped his phone open and hit the speed dial.

“Reid?” She heard Hotch answer.

“We couldn’t get any of his information from forms, they all had water damage so Y/N and I walked past Pope’s cell and struck up a conversation,” He explained.

“And?”

“She got on his good side, pretending that she could get him a favour while she’s here for political reasons. He said he’s desperate to make a phone call today.”

“I’m on my way, get Garcia to prep paperwork to allow us a meeting with him now,” Hotch instructed, hanging up.

Y/N dialled Garcia on her phone. “How’s it going love birds?”

“Not good,” she replied. “We need you to get the paperwork going to allow us to sit down with Oscar Pope today. And we’re going to need to tear through his cell.”

“Oh, damn okay,” She replied. “Ask him about Cody Kollins.”

“Who?” Spencer asked as his phone rang again. He flipped it open, “we’ve got Garcia here too.” Putting it on speaker.

“Morgan and Rossi just intercepted a man dropping a body in the river,” Hotch confirmed. “I need you to rush that paperwork.”

“Sir, what was the man’s name?” Garcia asked.

“Cody Kollins.”

They sighed at each other, “let’s do this.”

—

Y/N watched him through the mirror. She could see him fidgeting. He was frustrated. He was exhibiting the exact same behaviour as he was when he was caught the first time.

“Every time we one-up him, he breaks down,” she whispered to Spencer. “Even in his interrogation tapes, he was like this. When they found the single patch of carpet left in his closet and were able to match the fibres, he lost it. He likes to play it cool and under control, he wrote the story and he wants us to stick to it.”

“How upset do you think he’d be if we went in there and told him we actually caught the original killer and he’s going to be released pending DNA testing?” Spencer suggested.

She tilted her head, biting her lip as she thought. “I think he’d be violent.”

“Sit here,” he said as he walked into the interview room.

She hated having to just watch. It helped that Pope was cuffed to the table, and the table was drilled into the concrete floor, Spencer wouldn’t get hurt. The guards are right behind the door. It’s fine.

“Sorry for the abrupt interrogation, I promise this isn’t what you think,” Spencer smiled softly. “We have reason to believe that the original killer has returned, the state is running the DNA now.”

Y/N watched as Pope’s right eye started to twitch, his finger on his leg was tapping at an odd rhythm as Spencer talked.

“The second we can prove you had no hand in any of the killing’s we’ll issue a pardon and your discharge papers will be filled out,” Spencer finished his sentence and moved to open the door once more.

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot,” he hissed. His voice was completely different than it was when they were speaking in D block.

“Why?” Spencer asked, easily playing the innocent and stupid role.

“You think some crazy-obsessed, fuck toy of mine whose doing half-assed attempts at my signature, is the real killer!!!” Pope spat his confession out. Literally covering the table in spit as he became more feral. Shaking violently.

Spencer walked right out of the room. Y/N watched as Pope smacked the table, tugging violently at the cuffs, scratching himself all up. The guards had to run in and hold him down, shooting a sedative into his neck.

“Jesus,” she whispered. Taking her phone out of her pocket to call Garcia, when she noticed the voicemail notification in the bottom corner. She ignored it, calling her friend instead.

“Hey,” Penelope answered quickly. “So turns out we were right, who would have thought, Cody Kollins is actually Daryl Livingston.”

“We just got a confession from Pope,” Y/N shared her news. “They had to sedate him so we’re going to come back to the station. Wait until tomorrow to interview him again.”

“Yeah, sounds good, Hotch and Morgan are in with Livingston right now,” she updated them. “Make sure to eat something when you get there.”

“Yes mom,” she teased, hanging up and smiling.

Spencer put his hand out in an invitation to hold it. She interlocked their fingers and followed him back to the filing room, gathering their things before exiting the prison.

She sat on the passenger side of the SUV, she and Spencer just sat there and took a few deep breaths. Processing everything the exact same way, quietly and on their own.

She cut the awkward silencer by taking out her phone and playing the voicemail. Putting it on speaker.

“Hi Y/N, this is Doctor Korrapati calling. I’ve emailed you your results. The gender is at the bottom, under the little read more button, in case you wanted it to be a surprise. Call the office and let us know when you’re free to go over the results and we’ll book you in, as far as I can tell everything looks good, so don’t feel the need to rush. Take care!”

Spencer looked over at her with a soft smile on his face, reaching out for her hand once more. Holding her hand with both of his now, “do you want to do this?”

“I’m ready if you are?”

He nodded, watching her contently as she opened her email up, finding the right one and scrolling to the bottom. Her heart fluttered a little as she looked at the read more option.

She took a deep breath and clicked on it.

Chromosomal sex: XY

“Well?” Spencer asked softly.

“I’d really love to tell you,” she bit her lip trying not to laugh, “but I don’t remember what this means?”

He laughed, shaking his head as he looked at the screen. He blinked with glossy eyes as he read it, a light chuckle escaping his lips as he cried softly.

It had to be a girl, she knew he wanted one. She convinced herself in that millisecond that it was a girl.

He reached over and placed his hand flat against her belly. “Hi Matthew,” he said softly.

“You’re kidding?” She couldn’t stop herself from crying.

Spencer wrapped her up in a hug, the two of them happily crying into each other. She wasn’t sure if she was giggling or sobbing, she just knew she was shaking in Spencer’s arms with happiness that this was her little family.

He kissed all over her one cheek as he held her close. “I love you so much,” he reminded her.

She pulled back, wiping her tears off on her shirt sleeve, laughing at the serendipity of it all. “I love you too, dad.”

“I have to drive, don’t make me cry again,” he laughed, wiping his own tears before tucking his ever-growing hair behind his ears.

“Let’s go.”

—

Y/N sat beside JJ in the break room of the police station, salad bowl in her lap, shovelling the dressing-covered leaves in her mouth.

They weren’t tasked with anything until Hotch and Morgan attempted to get some info out of the unsub. “Were you crying earlier?” She asked.

“A little,” Y/N smiled at her. “We’re having a boy,” she whispered.

“Oh my god!” JJ whispered back at her, reaching out for her arm and shaking her a little. “I have a feeling your little guy will be bigger than Henry was so he’ll fit into all Henry’s summer stuff when he’s born!”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah!” She confirmed. “By the time he grows out of everything I might have a second boy and we can rotate it around again,” she laughed. “This is going to be so fun.”

“Matthew and Henry are going to be best friends,” Y/N smiled.

“Matthew,” she repeated. “That’s a nice name, I like it.”

“My brother’s name is Levi, I thought it was a nice way to keep a family name in my baby’s life, and his middle name is going to be Gideon,” she spoiled it for Spencer.

JJ looked a little emotional, “sorry it’s just so surreal thinking about me and Spencer having kids who are friends.”

Y/N moved her dinner out of the way and hugged her then, holding her tightly. “You better not be pregnant too,” she whispered in her ear. Not wanting to give it away if she was.

JJ just laughed, rocking Y/N back and forth in her embrace, not answering. “Right?” Y/N asked again.

“We’re trying, so who knows,” JJ replied.

“Shut up?” Y/N pulled back and stared into her eyes to see if she was telling the truth or not. “Holy shit? Since when?”

“Honestly, I think the night we celebrated Canadian thanksgiving,” she laughed. “You and Spencer got us talking about babies, and you got Henry to sleep through the night, so this is technically your fault.”

“JJ,” Y/N started to cry, “I’m so happy for you.”

“They’ll only be a few months apart, so they’ll be best friends too,” JJ smiled. “This is going to be really fun.”

chapter 18

For Christmas this year, Y/N just wanted to be fully moved into their new home before they had to leave for Vegas. Spencer followed through with the present. Inviting the entire team over for drinks if they promised to stop by Y/N’s apartment and bring a few boxes to the new house. It was basically just free labour.

She spent the night nesting while her friends drank in her kitchen. They understood why she was nervous, she was going to tell her parents about the baby and the engagement, and the house, in 3 days.

It was all going to be a lot.

She was 16 weeks along as of Christmas Eve. Waking up the morning of their flight to a weird twitching sensation in her gut, like butterflies or a muscle twitch but right where the baby would be.

“Spence,” she shook him awake. “Spencer.”

“What’s wrong?” He sat right up, squinting at her as he tried to figure out what was going on.

“It’s like, I don’t know how to explain it?” She worried.

Spencer placed his hand on her belly feeling the slight flitter. “He’s kicking.”

Spencer’s early morning smile was the best, he tackled her back against the pillow and dug his face into the crook of her neck. “That’s my baby in there.”

“I wouldn’t have known,” she laughed, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “We have to go to the airport soon.”

“I know,” he mumbled into her neck.

“If you get up now, we can go get breakfast before we have to board?” She enticed him, “we can get sprinkle donuts for the flight.”

“Okay,” he said as she freed him from her grip. “Are you nervous?”

“I know they’ll be happy, just not ready for them to ask why I didn’t say anything sooner,” She explained. “I’ve been really distant since I got the job, I’m really excited to spend time with them this weekend.”

“Same,” Spencer smiled. “Come on you two.”

They took a 9 am flight one-way to Las Vegas. Y/N slept most of the ride, spending the last 45 minutes just snuggled into Spencer’s shoulder as he watched a documentary on some form of science or math. She couldn’t hear what it was about, all she saw was a man writing out numbers on a chalkboard.

She ran her hand over her belly lightly. There was no way she could walk into her mother’s house in a few minutes and just pretend it wasn’t there. It was there. So were the 5 pounds of baby weight on her hips and the swelling in her face and knuckles.

She was pretty quiet during landing and baggage claim. Thinking in her head what she was going to say to everyone, how she would explain it. She sat in a cab beside Spencer, absentmindedly following him through the airport they’ve both been through at least 20 times.

It was a short trip to her parent’s house. Spencer traced little shapes into her leg with his finger to distract her. A flower, a 4D cube, the words I love you. It was sweet, non verbal comfort was very important to her.

When they arrived, she stayed in the cab to pay while Spencer got their bags out. Taking as long as possible so she could avoid it a little longer.

Biting the bullet, she took a deep breath and walked out into her parent’s front yard. Taking the handle of her suitcase and dragging it up the walkway.

She walked right into her house, her parents and brothers all standing up from the living room and rushing into the entryway. She was wrapped up in 7 hugs within a matter of seconds.

“You look so different,” her mom said as she pulled back from her hug. Holding her arms as she examined her, “what did you do?”

“I got pregnant,” she replied, scrunching her face as she waited for their response.

She could’ve sworn she went deaf at that moment, reaching down to cover her bump as everyone cheered and jumped around her. She was pulled into a group hug before she could process anything. Laughing awkwardly at the whole experience.

“Be quiet, he can hear this week!” She laughed.

“He?” Her father inquired.

She looked back at Spencer, smiling at him. “It’s a boy,” Spencer confirmed.

“Holy shit!” Her brothers cheered, high-fiving each other. “When are you due?” Harrison asked.

“June,” she smiled. “3 days after mom’s birthday, see I do remember it.”

“Come sit,” her mom insisted, pushing everyone out of the way and dragging her to the couch. “Put your feet up, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Y/N insisted. “You’re almost worse than my co-workers.”

“Are they taking good care of you?” Her father asked.

She waited for Spencer to join her on the couch, they had all been so excited about her they forgot he was there. “Yeah. Um, we have a lot to tell you,” She explained, holding Spencer’s hand for comfort.

“I asked Y/N to marry me,” Spencer announced. “I am so in love with her, this baby is a dream come true and I’m very excited to become a part of your family.”

Her mom cried, tossing her hand over her eyes as she sobbed. “Mom,” she was so overwhelmed with everything she started to cry too.

“You’re a wonderful man Spencer,” her father interjected. “It’s an honour to have you.”

Spencer smiled and nodded towards him, silently thanking him for the approval.

“So, it’s kind of insane how it all happened. It wasn’t intended, but we love him so much already,” Y/N glowed as she spoke. “Are we going to tell people the name yet?”

Spencer nodded, “we can.” He smiled down at her with such wonderment, the moment she had been scared of for 16 weeks turning out to be the best time she’s had with her whole family in one room.

“His name is Matthew Gideon Reid,” Y/N smiled. “After my favourite brother, no offence Harry, and Spencer’s mentor.”

Levi was her more emotional brother. He was her best friend growing up. The 5 year age difference gave them the time to grow up separately but still find common interests to bring them together. They were the closest in the family before she moved to Virginia full time it became hard to keep up with him as much.

Now they were both parents, their kids only having a 3 year age difference. Meaning next year there would be 2 little ones at Christmas.

“That’s a lovely name,” Levi smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s whatever, don’t expect our kids to have your name either,” Harrison replied as he held his wife close, pretending he was a little offended.

“We also got a house,” she added to change the topic, “Jason Gideon, he kinda gave us his place in Virginia.”

“You’re kidding me?” Debbie gasped. “For free?”

She laughed, “it’s complicated.”

“I grew up without a father, and Gideon neglected his son for his work at the BAU,” Spencer chimed in. “We bonded, and he wanted his house to be used for good. He specifically asked for us to fill it with love and laughter. We’ve just finished moving into it. You can visit any time!” He panicked and rambled by the end.

“I don’t know if you know this,” her mom tried to joke with them. “But there’s this thing called a phone, where you can call your mother and tell her these things.”

“I wanted to!” she hurried the words out. “But I’m still working in the field, I was weary with who really knew besides the team. It’s my only weakness on the job.”

“I get it,” Debbie smiled. “Honestly, I’m so happy for you both.”

“Thanks, mom,” Y/N choked back tears. “Sorry,” she laughed. “Pregnant things, y’know.”

—

Visiting hours at the nursing home changed during the holidays. Spencer and Y/N were permitted to enter anytime between 8 am and 10 pm, giving them lots of time to spend the afternoon with Y/N’s parents before visiting her.

They borrowed her dad’s truck, driving to the nursing home with a special gift for Diana. Spencer had spent the last 2 weeks making a scrapbook page about Matthew for her, he knew how much her book meant to her and he wanted to add to it.

Her mom’s co-workers all stared at them as they walked in hand in hand. Her bump on show under the T-Shirt she chose to wear.

Diana was in her room, then walked down the long hallway to her suite. Knocking lightly on the door, waiting for her to greet them.

The door swung open, “Spencer!” She cheered. Hugging him tight in her arms.

“Hi mom,” he held her just as tight. Knowing he was a mama’s boy always made Y/N’s heart flutter.

She pulled back and looked at Y/N, “you look so nice!”

“Thank you,” she smiled. Stepping in close to give her a hug as well.

Diana welcomed them into her room, closing the door behind them. Y/N took a seat on the couch while Spencer looked around at the new things she had on display.

“I made you something,” he said softly, taking off his bag and pulling the pressed cardboard out of the protective sleeve. “here.”

She held it in her hands, looking at the ultrasound photo they got a few weeks ago at the anatomy scan. “What is this Spencer?”

“You’re going to be a grandmother,” he explained. Watching her run her fingers over the words on the paper. She was in shock, she had nothing to say. She just looked at the photo.

She quietly walked over to Y/N and sat beside her, “may I?” She asked, holding her hand up.

Y/N leaned back a little, “absolutely.”

Diana placed her hand on the bump lightly. “I was so worried I wouldn’t get to really experience this one day,” she whispered. Trying her best not to cry. “Thank you.”

Y/N cried, not realizing how special this must be for them. She was so focused on her family that she forgot that this was going to change Diana’s whole world. She now had 2 boys to love unconditionally.

“His name is Matthew?” Diana asked, running her hand over the bump softly.

“Yeah,” Y/N smiled. “He’s due in June. If you can, you can fly out and stay with us for a little?”

“I’d love to,” Diana replied. “I have enough points for a trip, and I’ve been feeling really good on my medication.”

“If your doctors clear it all, Debbie and you can fly in together,” Spencer confirmed.

“Wow,” Diana smiled like Spencer. Wide thin lips, straight white teeth, big rosy cheeks and glistening eyes. She hoped Matthew inherited it too. “This is my best Christmas yet.”

—

Y/N woke up Christmas morning with Spencer cuddled into her side in her childhood bedroom. She slipped out of his grasp and sat in her windowsill instead.

She pulled her knees to her chest as best as she could now that she was pregnant, looking at the lone swing across the street that swayed in the December morning breeze.

It should be 8 am back at Quantico, her parents must have let them sleep in while they opened presents. She could see Chloe in the front yard trying out her new car. Levi smiled as he pushed her down the road, Lizzie filming the whole thing on her phone.

Her whole life was so different from the last time she really sat on the windowsill in her bedroom. Back then she was about to move to Virginia, graduating college in Nevada and getting into the training program at the academy. Harrison was already there at Fort Meade, she was about to move into his house with his wife for the first semester before settling into DC. Levi and Lizzie had just started dating, Chloe wasn’t even conceived yet. And she had no idea when she’d run into Spencer.

She rubbed her hand over her belly as a tear rolled down her cheek. She couldn’t wait for the day that she was pushing her own child on that swing across the street. The day she and Spencer tell him about the love story that bubbled between two kids with books who looked at each other for years before they fell in love.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, removing her from the moment she allowed herself to have.

She wiped the tear from her cheek, “they’re happy tears. Go back to sleep.”

“Come cuddle?” He pouted, his big puppy dog eyes drawing her back to the bed.

She snuggled into him, running her fingers against his bare chest as she watched him breathe. “Can I tell you something?”

“Always,” he kissed the top of her head.

“When I was 17, I had my appendix out.” She rolled over and laid back, showing him the 3-inch scar on the right side of her stomach. “It was pretty bad, they said I would have died if my mom waited 15 more minutes to get me to the hospital. They had to fix parts of my stomach and intestines that were eaten by the ruptured appendix bile.”

“I had no idea,” he whispered, running his finger along the scar. “I always thought that was just a scratch.”

She shook her head lightly. “It was December 5th, ’98. They uh,” she took a deep breath before resuming. “They put me on a drug called Dilaudid, they told my mom it was a non-addictive version of morphine and that I’d be fine but, I kinda got addicted to the pill version when they let me out,” she scrunched her face as she told him. Not wanting his opinion of her to change.

“You’re kidding?” He asked, a chuckle fell past his lips as he sat up. “In my second year at the BAU I was kidnapped by a man with dissociative identity disorder and he drugged me.”

“Dilaudid?” She asked, sitting up too and shaking her head in disbelief.

He laughed at how absurd it was, “yeah.”

“I moved to Benadryl for the sleepy and calm effect after I couldn’t get any more refills and didn’t want to admit I had a problem, and weed in college” she added. “but I haven’t even taken a Tylenol in the last 5 years now.”

“I had a small problem with it after everything, but I’m also clean now,” Spencer smiled at her. “Why did you want me to know?”

“Because I don’t want to take any drugs when I deliver the baby, even if I beg for them I don’t want them to give in. I talked to Dr. Korrapati about it but I wanted you to know too,” she explained. “Being in here all night got me thinking about a lot.”

He wrapped his arms around her and tackled her back against the pillows. “I love you,” was all he said.

“I love you too?”

“Seriously,” his voice was so soft and low. “I’ll never stop.”

chapter 19

She woke up to the feeling of hair tickling her face. She swatted at her face to try and get it to stop before opening her eyes. She blinked into the early morning sunlight, only to Spencer looking down at her, his hair long enough to tickle her skin.

“You were snoring,” he whispers down to her. “Also, Happy Birthday.”

She smiled, pulling him down and into a hug. “Thank you.”

Every morning with Spencer for the last 10 months had been special. Something about the warmth of his body against hers, and the sunlight bouncing around their new bedroom made this morning her favourite.

It was so calm on the water. She could see the snow settling on the ice as the sun made it glisten like diamonds. The birds had all but disappeared for the winter, the stillness in the world was lovely. It was like time stopped with Spencer laying in her arms.

“What do you think Penelope has planned at work today?” She asked him softly, playing with his incredibly long hair. It was almost longer than hers now.

“She told me to bring you in after 8.”

“So does that mean you have to distract me for a little while, Doctor Reid?” She teased him.

He pushed himself up, leaning on his arm as he hovered over her. “Any requests?”

She spread her arms and legs out like a starfish. “Have at ‘er,” she couldn’t stop herself from laughing as Spencer just shook his head.

He dipped down to her belly, blowing a raspberry onto her protruding bump. “Good morning to you too little dude,” he whispered against her skin. “Go back to sleep.”

She shoved him lightly, not able to stop herself from smiling, “he is asleep, leave him alone.”

It was the best morning ever.

Every time she thinks that she’s reached peak happiness she discovers another level. It felt like every time he touched her, she wanted to describe it as the best she’s ever felt.

When they finally got dressed and made their way downstairs for the morning, she found it incredibly odd that he wasn’t asking her what she wanted for breakfast, like he did every morning. Very concerned that she had all her meals and then some.

She fed the cat, picking him up and giving him a little snuggle after he finished his breakfast. “You are getting so big and chunky buddy, I might have to change your food timer.”

He meowed at her, sounding really pissed, making her laugh. “Fine but when you can't climb all the stairs in this house it’s your fault.” She placed him back on the ground and watched him wander into the sunlight. Plopping onto the hardwood and stretching out. Just living the life.

“Ready to go?” Spencer asked.

“Yeah, are we stopping for breakfast?” She asked, the second trimester making her hungrier than ever before.

“Penelope has it covered,” He said, placing his hand on her back as he leads her to the foyer.

“Oh this’ll be good,” she smiled, putting her shoes on before arming the alarm and heading outside.

Spencer locked their beautiful green front door, it was colder out than they had expected. He held her hand as she shivered slightly, they walked down the 3 steps together, Spencer not wanting her to fall if it happened to be icy.

Seat heaters were a blessing from god. The car was freezing when they first got in, the heater barely kicked in by the time they reached Quantico. Living 10 minutes away now was really nice.

Up the elevator they went, she was basically bouncing with excitement. “See?” Spencer nudged her with his shoulder. “Bunny.”

“Shut up,” she smiled as the door dinged before opening.

They walked into the bullpen to find it empty. She took off her coat and placed her bag on her desk before slowly walking up the small set of stairs and heading towards the briefing room.

All her co-workers were sitting around the table waiting for her and the boy wonder to arrive. Strawberry cheesecake danishes sat on a tray on the table, a strawberry milkshake in front of Y/N‘s regular spot.

“Happy Birthday!” They cheered as she walked in.

“You guys!?” She was so flattered. Never in her life has she been thrown a party by someone who wasn’t her mother. “Thank you.”

“Sit, sit,” Penelope insisted. Placing a danish on a napkin and putting it on her spot on the table. “I know you can’t have ice coffee right now, I thought a milkshake was the next best thing.”

“I seriously love you, come here,” she pulled Penelope into a hug, kissing her right on the mouth as everyone cheered.

“See that?” Penelope blushed. “Kisses are how I should be thanked around here.”

“HR already hates us,” Hotch made everyone laugh, “don’t push it.”

They all ate breakfast together, sharing stories from their weekend. They decided to spend New Years’ apart, everyone taking time to themselves for the first time ever.

“Where did you go, Prentiss?” Morgan inquired.

“Sin to Win weekend in Atlantic City,” she sighed and leaned back in her chair.

“Oh my god?” Y/N looked at her with absolute astonishment.

“What’s that?” Morgan and Spencer asked at the same time.

“Nothing.” Emily and Y/N replied in unison. Making a look at each other that screamed: ‘tell anyone and I’ll hurt you.’

Like a saviour, the fax machine in the briefing room turned on, spitting out 15 sheets of paper in a few minutes. Penelope cleaned off the table while Hotch ran everything over.

“Last night a family in Boston had their home burned down with them inside it,” Hotch explained.

“How is that something for us to look into?” Rossi asked.

“Because the unsub broke in and turned the water off and tampered with the gas system, causing CO2 to render them unconscious. He stabbed the father to death in the bed before laying gasoline all over the floors and lighting the house on fire.”

“Damn,” Y/N whispered under her breath. “That is personal.”

“I’d say,” Hotch agreed.

“Who was the family?” JJ asked.

Garcia looked through the sheets of paper spewed across the table. “Thomas Greenway, 61. His wife Alison 43. And 2 children aged 8 and 12.”

“We need to head to Boston,” Hotch announced. “I’ll call about prepping the plane. Y/N you can stay here with Garcia if you’d like, your insight will aid her search greatly.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind,” she smiled at Garcia. “Good luck out there.”

“Wheels up in 30.”

Everyone sighed before standing up. Spencer leaned in and kissed Y/N softly before standing up. “I’ll see you later.”

“Come home to me safely Doctor Reid.”

He smiled down at her, fixing his shirt before he left with Morgan.

“I hate to see him go, but I love watching him leave,” She said softly towards Penelope, making her laugh in the process.

“Come on mama, let’s go to my office,” Garcia said, putting her arm out for Y/N, the two of them skipping down the hallway with their arms linked as the team filled the elevator.

Y/N sat in Garcia’s office and immediately put her feet up, still drinking her milkshake as she flipped through the case files. “Can I suggest possibly the dumbest thing ever?��

She laughed, “shoot.”

“So, homeboy here breaks in and knocks out a family with co2 poisoning, just to stab the father to death and light the house on fire.” She ran it down once more, “What if we just search mothers stabbed before dying in a fire and just see if this is some traumatized kid, at this point that’s what they all end up being.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Garcia said, typing away as she added the parameters. “It’s like you can see the fucking future?”

Y/N threw her head back in a laugh, “did you get something? Seriously?”

“Adele Hollis was found dead in a burning apartment building in Boston in 1978. ME reports say she was already dead from co2 poisoning before she was stabbed 6 times in the chest. The whole apartment complex went up in flames after the unsub doused the bed in gasoline and lit her up.”

“Well fuck,” Y/N replied. “Does she have children?”

“Yes, her son Cameron was at school when it happened. He was 8, he moved in with his step-dad shortly after, they ruled him out and never found the guy,” Garcia added.

Y/N leaned across the desk and dialled Hotch, the plane hadn’t even left yet. “I think I found the unsub?”

“How?” Hotch asked.

“I jokingly asked Garcia to search and see if there are any men whose mothers died in a fire after being stabbed cause we deal with sooo many traumatized kids, and we found one,” she laughed at just how insane it sounded.

“Video in and give us a rundown.” Hotch hung up. Ever the conversationalist.

Garcia and Y/N squeezed into the same frame seeing everyone gathered in the little plane seats. She gave them the basic rundown of her findings, watching them all shake their heads at the fact she solved the case already.

“Have the local PD issue a warrant and bring him in. Can you check and see if he knows the victims?” Hotch asked.

“On it sir,” she smiled, clicking away.

“How did you do that so fast?” Morgan has to ask, “it’s not human.”

She laughed again, “If I’ve learned anything in the last 10 months it’s that traumatized little boys can fuck up a lot of people’s lives.”

“Preach,” Rossi added.

“Um, guys,” Garcia’s tone changed. “Cameron Hollis’s birth father is the father who was stabbed in this case.”

“You’re shitting me?” Y/N couldn’t believe it. “Do they have any kind of relationship?”

“His father is on the birth certificate but it looks like Adele left him when Cameron was 3, after some domestic disputes that had the cops at their door. She was remarried when he was 6, it doesn’t look like they ever really talked,” Garcia explained while continuing to dig.

Y/N watched through the monitor as the team gripped their seats, the plane was taking off now. They would be in Boston with this guy in just a few hours.

“Thanks, Lady Wonder,” Morgan winked at the camera for Y/N before leaning in and turning the monitor off.

She sat back and put her feet up once more. “Best birthday ever.”

—

They had Cameron Hollis in custody with a full confession before 5 pm that day. Everyone was beyond thankful that they would be back home with their families shortly.

Y/N had said goodbye to Penelope shortly after, driving home to have some alone time. Rossi would drive Spencer home, they lived close enough now that they could all carpool if they wanted.

She had never been in their new house all alone before. She took the time to just walk around and admire everything, being thankful that her life ended up like this. Not taking a second of it for granted.

She sat down on her bed finally, taking her phone out and calling JJ.

“Hello bestie,” she answered.

Y/N smiled, “Hey, do you think Will could find a babysitter tonight?”

“Probably, why?”

“Tell him to drop Henry off and head to my place. I’m going to have pizza delivered and you can come here with Spencer when you land,” Y/N offered. “Have a date night with us.”

“That would be amazing, I’ll call Will right now. See you later,” JJ sounded happy. It made her smile.

“See you.” She hung up, laying back against her bed softly.

She changed quickly before heading downstairs, wearing a pair of leggings and an academy t-shirt. She was getting too big for almost everything she owned now.

She placed an order for a few pizzas to arrive at 8:30. Next, making sure she had more beer in the fridge, for the nights when Will wandered over with JJ. They had visited almost every weekend since she and Spencer moved in.

That’s when she saw him.

chapter 20

Previously...

The dream was always the same:

A man would get into their home, he knew their schedule, he knew when she’d be alone.

He’d get in without any trouble and he never made a sound. She wouldn’t even know he was in the room until she felt the cold metal gun press against her face, as shaking hands instructed her to tie her own behind her back.

He’d always use her supplies. Duck tape, shoelaces, scarves. Anything at his disposal that he didn’t have to bring with him. Almost as if he didn’t fully choose her to be his victim until the very last minute.

He assaulted her all for what felt like hours, stopping occasionally to cry in the bathroom or eat a snack in their kitchen. And he always showered at the end. Sometimes, he’d wrap her up in a housecoat, put her sheets in the wash and sincerely advised her to invest in a better lock for the sliding door.

Then he was gone.

Slipping into the night, on his way to become someone else’s nightmare...

There was a man in her yard, he was dressed in all black, with a backpack wrapped around his shoulders and a ski mask on his face.

He couldn’t see her from where she was in the kitchen, but she could see him. She ducked to the floor and crawled towards the stairs, booking it up the steps and grabbing her gun. She made sure it was loaded, grabbing a second clip from her nightstand and tucking it into her pocket. Then she detonated the alarm system from the remote on Spencer’s bedside table.

She crawled into her closet, making herself look like a pile of clothes.

And she waited.

She felt a little insane, she tried to convince herself that it could be anyone from a neighbour to a lost person from the trail. For all she knew, it was someone from the academy lost in the woods.

She tried to calm her breathing, calling Will with her cell phone. “Hey, JJ just filled me in-“

“There is someone in my backyard in all black with a backpack, how fast can you get here?” She panicked in a whisper.

“Fuck, okay, I just dropped Henry off at the sitter. I’ll be right over, stay put and I will call you when I’m there,” his southern accent came out more when he was stressed.

“Okay, thank you,” she hung up and took a deep breath.

She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds in her house.

She remembered what the house sounded like that morning. The stillness, the quiet peacefulness of her and Spencer in the bed only 12 feet away from where she was now hiding.

She remembered the way the floors creaked as it popped and settled with the heat, how the tree outside would sometimes tap the window, the sound of snow tumbling off their roof. Passing cars on the main road kicking up gravel, the odd bird singing in the cold breeze, her own heartbeat in her ears.

Then she heard the alarm turn off with its overly happy welcome home chime. Only knowing one man would be able to disarm her alarm system without a code, and he was in the air right now.

“Open,” she heard the alarm’s voice as the door opened.

Footsteps travelled along the hardwood floor in wet shoes. She listened to the sound of the wet rubber on hardwood explore the first floor.

There were 2 people in her house, splitting up as one went to the kitchen and one went up the stairs.

She aimed her gun at the doorway, aiming to shoot anyone who walked through the door in the leg. Not wanting to kill anyone who she knew that might’ve gotten in for a different reason, unannounced.

In the rare happenstance that this wasn’t her worst nightmare coming true.

Her hands were shaking as she kept the gun pointed for what felt like hours, just waiting for him to find her. The door handle started to turn slowly, she heard the sound of the old metal grinding ever so slowly.

The first thing she saw were his eyes, yet again. The same eyes that haunted her dreams, the eyes every woman she spoke to for 2 years remembered from behind the ski mask.

Fuck Wichita, he was her own personal nightmare. He had been for a while. Those eyes, big and black all the way around, not a single glimpse of colour or life or hope. Every single dream came flooding back as she saw him in her doorway, the same aura of death, destruction, loneliness and despair from all those months ago was now filling the most special place in her home.

He still hadn’t seen her in the closet, looking around the room carefully as she watched him. Waiting for him to get closer, and closer to where she was. Finally peeling back the wooden closet door.

“Surprise, bitch,” She said before aiming higher and shooting him between the eyes, knocking him down.

She stood and stepped out of the closet, “Travis fucking Johnson,” she shook her head as she looked at the man bleeding on her bedroom floor. Taking his pulse to ensure that he was dead.

She couldn’t hear anything for a second, trying her best to zone in on the sound of someone tiptoeing in her kitchen, “WHO ELSE IS IN MY HOUSE?” She screamed.

Suddenly she could hear the sound of a car on the gravel and then a door slamming. She stepped into the hallway, gun pointed, looking over the railing towards the front door.

“Y/N?!” Will yelled. Gun pointed as he entered her house.

“I’ve got one down, I think there’s another in the kitchen,” she replied.

“On it.”

Y/N looked down the hall, none of the upstairs rooms were open, every door exactly how it looked when she ran up the stairs. She headed down the steps when 2 shots were fired.

She quickly ran to the kitchen to see another man on her floor behind the counter, his feet the only thing she could see as he laid there, dead. Will was standing over him, taking his pulse.

“He’s gone,” Will confirmed.

Y/N finally let herself panic, shaking as she tried to catch her breath, pulling out a chair from the counter and sitting down. Her adrenalin was running wild in her bloodstream, she didn’t even know how to speak let alone think about what had just happened.

“Y/N,” Will’s soft voice brought her back to reality. He was right beside her, wrapping his big strong arms around her to try and calm her down. “Shh, it’s okay.”

“Who was it?” Is all she asks him.

“I have no idea, who was upstairs?” Will asked.

“Travis Johnson, from my first case with the BAU,” she calmed down a bit, breaking away from the hug to get off the chair.

She walked around the counter island, looking down to find another man she knew, bleeding on her brand new hardwood floors. “Oh my god,” she felt sick at the sight.

He smelled the same, stale and rotten. The same look on his face even as he slipped into eternal damnation. Empty as when he was alive, pure evil down to his core. Dead to match how he felt inside as he did those awful things to undeserving mothers.

The second worst man she’s ever come in contact with.

The Winnemucca Womb Raider.

She backed up into Will, he held her close so she didn’t drop to the floor, helping her back into the chair. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah,” she felt herself starting to cry. “How? They were both in prison?”

“We need to call the police,” Will said softly before taking his phone out.

“911 what’s your emergency?” She could hear the muffled woman’s voice as he pressed his phone to his ear.

“This is Detective William LaMontagne Jr. Two men just broke into my friend’s home and tried to kill her,” he explained the situation, making her shutter.

She watched as he talked to the woman, suddenly not able to hear anything as her body slipped into shock. She was completely numb. In the last 10 months she hadn’t fired a single shot on the job, and yet on her birthday, the one time she's alone, she has to kill someone in her own home.

The place where she was supposed to feel safe and happy. Where her new life with Spencer and Matthew was supposed to start. They promised Gideon love and laughter, having that dream stripped from them when Pure Evil stepped over the threshold.

It was just like the dream, the last one she had before Spencer wrapped himself around her, calming her down.

This time he wasn’t here, he didn’t even know that this had happened, he wasn’t always going to be there to save her. She pulled herself back into the moment, calming herself like she had all those years before him.

She wasn’t a damsel in distress, he knew that.

A man walked into her home, the one time he knew she’d be alone and vulnerable.

That was the only part of the dream that matched.

Unlike her dream, she wasn’t a victim. Not in this house. Not in her space. Not ever.

The sound of the sirens echoed in her ears finally, she turned to the commotion of officers running into her new house. Will walked them through it all, telling them who Y/N was and that this was her home. How she saw a man in her yard and hid before killing him upstairs.

“Ma’am?” A stranger in a uniform tried to get her attention. “Ma’am, can you come with me?”

She nodded, standing up and finding support in the man’s arms. He wrapped her up in a silver blanket before he led her outside and into an ambulance. She had her vitals taken and an oxygen mask placed on her to help her calm down.

“Is the baby okay?” She asked the EMT, pulling the mask off her face so he’d hear her.

“Yes,” he smiled. “Strong heartbeat, no signs of distress but you need to relax so we can keep it that way.”

Will climbed into the ambulance then, taking her hand in his, “hey doll, are you okay?”

She nodded, “just a little shook up.”

“I called Spencer,” he said softly. “They’re 30 minutes from landing, then him and the team are on their way. No one told the team about the prison break in Oklahoma, they didn’t even think to connect them back to you.”

She sighed, “two cases in 2 different states, where the offenders ended up going to a 3rd state to meet and do time together and bond over the women who put them away. Makes sense.”

“You put them both away?” He asked.

She nodded again. “I basically made it my life goal to get Travis Johnson, he’s the reason I have this job, he’s the reason I’m pregnant right now,” her words trailed off into whispers. “I saw him in November, he congratulated me when he saw the bump.”

“Who was the other guy?”

“The Winnemucca womb raider, he would kill pregnant women by strangling them before removing their wombs,” she looked at him, horrified. “They wanted to kill us...”

She wrapped her arms around her own stomach, she had almost forgotten to worry about him. To even think that she was more than just one person at the moment.

They weren’t after her, they were after the most important thing to her. Her son, her baby boy. Like all the mothers before her, like their own. They wanted her to suffer, for her son to be spared a future worse than death in their opinion.

All the images from the cases came flying back as she blinked faster and faster. Strangled women, removed wombs, thanking God for a second that Spencer was the one to see the recovered organs in his trailer. A sick feeling bubbled in her body, a chill ran deep in her bones.

Then everything went black.

—

The first thing she remembers when she gained consciousness again was that Spencer was furious. She could see him and Hotch in a heated conversation from inside the ambulance, she tried her best to wake up and zone in on what was going on.

It was too dark for her to read their lips, but he was angry.

JJ was sitting beside her now, holding her hand. “Hey, bestie.”

“Did the cat get out?” She doesn’t know why that’s the first thing she asks, “the door was left open, did he get out?” Still in shock, still trying to understand everything.

JJ shushed her, petting her hair as she leaned in close, hugging her softly. “He was in the laundry room, Will said he made sure to find him when you were getting checked out.”

“Good,” she nodded along as she listened. “I’m so overwhelmed.”

JJ let out an awkward laugh, “I can imagine.”

“I’m also starting to fall in love with your husband,” she found her sense of humour then. “He has perfect timing.”

JJ laughed a little harder, causing Spencer’s focus to shift to the ambulance. Y/N watched him run towards it and jump in.

“Y/N, oh my god,” Spencer wrapped his arms around her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “I’m safe, the baby’s healthy,” she assured him.

He kissed her all over her face, making her giggle when he wouldn’t stop, repeating kisses all over her face, her ears and her neck. She could hear JJ also laughing as she watched with Hotch just outside.

He finally stopped to catch his breath, hugging her again with his face in her neck. “I love you,” she reminded him.

“You love me?” He pulled back, “I love you so fucking much, I am never leaving you alone again.”

“Spencer,” she laughed, “I think I handled it pretty well.”

He huffed and shook his head, “you shouldn’t have had to handle this in the first fucking place! It’s not that fucking hard for someone to call the god damn FBI and say hey two psychopaths that your genius new girl put behind bars, fucking escaped!”

She finally knew what Hotch meant when he said Spencer’s anger scared him. She looked at him like he was a whole different person, “Spence, baby, I know. It’s okay, I’m fine see?”

She placed her hands on his cheeks as she looked into his beautiful hazel eyes, watching his pupils change size as he focused on her. Love and life behind them, true happiness clouded by horror at the thought of losing the love of his life.

He was what a true man was supposed to be, a real genuine person with love and kindness, and empathy. Her soulmate, her Spencer.

“We can’t control everything, that’s what you told me. We handle what’s in front of us, and we do it well,” she smiled as she reminded him.

Spencer started to cry, pulling her in close. “I can’t lose you.”

She cried at the sound of his voice, his heart shattering as he cried in her arms, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Terrified on a level she’s never seen in him before.

She rubbed his back as she held him, rocking him lightly as she shushed him absentmindedly. Soothing him as if her life depended on it, it broke her heart to see him this broken about the idea of losing her. She loved him so much it made her heart physically ache in her chest as she held him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised, whispering against his hair. “I’ll kill a million men if it means coming home to you.”

He laughed in the middle of his cries, she could feel him smile softly as he sniffled against her shirt. “Promise?” He asked as he pulled back to look at her.

She wiped the tears from his cheeks, his beautiful eyelashes clumped together in the wetness. He was so sweet, she couldn’t help kissing him quickly, “promise.”

—

Hotch insisted they head to the BAU with the rest of the team while he handled the crime scene and the forensic clean-up, knowing on a personal level what it was like to clean Evil’s blood out of your bedroom carpet.

Y/N was sitting in the car waiting to leave when she saw Will coming out of her house with 3 pizzas. “I forgot I ordered those,” she gasped at the sight.

“You should’ve seen the look on the delivery guy’s face,” JJ laughed.

It was really bizarre having a pizza party in Rossi’s office after shooting someone in her home. Everyone was trying to be as chipper as possible to try and take the tension off the situation, but Y/N was pretty quiet.

Morgan got everyone to settle down before closing the office door, sitting close to her and Spencer. “Everyone in this room has either been shot, in danger, held hostage or worse,” he offered her some support.

“If you want to share anything, express any feeling or just tell us to fuck off, you can,” his words were soft, she watched him with soft eyes as he spoke.

“The only thing I can think of is that fate is fucked up,” she replied, the honesty slipping off her tongue like it was made of butter.

“You have the floor,” he insisted that she continue.

“I moved into a tiny apartment, farther away from my job, because I needed somewhere to live, and I found Spencer in the hallway. Spencer led me to you, and you guys helped me find Travis Johnson, my personal nightmare case of 2 years,” she explained like they never knew that. “But it’s so much more than that now.”

“We ran into Travis at the prison in Oklahoma a few months ago,” Spencer added. “He noticed that she was pregnant and congratulated her.”

“But the thing that’s fucking me up the most is that, and sorry TMI,” she warned them before continuing. “but we conceived the baby in Kansas when we caught the VICAP counsellor, only a few towns over from where we arrested Travis. Then we ran into him on a different case in Oklahoma, and he happened to be in the same prison as a man from New Mexico I put away for killing pregnant women. Something about this all lines up so perfectly... I hate that I find it so interesting.”

“That is kind of insane,” Morgan agreed. “I think it just means you and Spencer are being pulled together by something with bigger plans than you realize. And you’re a good shot, so thankfully you have nothing to worry about now.”

“Thanks,” she smiled.

She held Spencer’s hand, looking down at the ring on her finger that meant she was his forever. As much as she hated the idea of a man owning a woman, she loved the idea that Spencer was her person forever.

They were tied together in a way no one would understand, she loved him deeper than she ever thought possible.

Everything happened for a reason. Her reason just so happened to be Fate wanting her to spend the rest of her life, Happily with Doctor Spencer Reid.

—

She woke up around noon the next day, Spencer was sitting up beside her reading a book when she finally clued into where she was. They had spent the night at Rossi’s house while the forensic cleanup team handled her kitchen and bedroom.

“Good morning,” she smiled up at him, stretching against the sheets as she fully woke up.

He put his book down and joined her, wrapping her up in his arms and kissing her neck softly.

“Good morning,” he replied finally. She loved his voice when he hadn’t spoken yet. His vocal cords yearning to be used.

She smiled against his skin, holding him against her chest as she breathed him in. Her safety, her cosmic soulmate.

Everything just felt better in the world when they were pressed this close to each other. This was how they were meant to be.

“How are you feeling?” He asked after a few minutes of silence.

She rolled him onto his back, snuggling into his chest and lifting a leg over him so the baby wasn’t squished. “Good, I’m excited to go back home later.”

“You’re not scared,” his fingers ran through her hair as she felt his breath on her face.

“No,” she shook her head against him. “Yesterday could’ve been a lot worse, but I’m trained to think on my feet and the danger is gone now. I’m never going to let myself be a victim in my own home.”

“I love you,” he reminded her. “And after yesterday-“

“I want to get married soon too,” she cut him off, getting up and sitting on his hips. She ran her hands over his chest as she looked down at his beautiful, still puffy, morning face.

He beamed up at her, “I feel it too, I want to make it official. I want to shout it from the rooftops that the love of my life chose me too.”

She nodded softly, “and we agreed that in April this year we’d go to Vegas, and we’d do it. I think we still should, I just want to plan it a little.”

“Of course,” he agreed, squeezing her thighs in his excitement. “Come here.”

She held his face in her hands as she leaned down, rubbing her thumb over his bottom lip as she looked at him ever so softly. “I love you,” she said before kissing him.

His hands wandered over her back, holding her into the kiss. Breathing in deep through his nose, kissing her as if they hadn’t seen each other in months.

Spencer was desperate to love her, and she was desperate to be loved by him.

She broke the kiss to just look at him, moving his hair back and pressing her forehead against his. “The park across the street from my parents house,” she whispered.

“Mhmm.”

“I want to get married there, I want to start the rest of my life in the spot where I first really fell in love with you,” she explained, her lips close enough to him that the words could have stuck to his skin.

“I think I can pull some strings and get us a permit by April,” He smiled against her lips, “what day are we thinking?”

“The 23rd, 1 year exactly,” she said before Spencer pulled her back into another kiss, this time it’s soft and delicate. “Until forever,” she whispered against his lips.

“You need to promise me one thing,” he added. Feeling her nod as she kissed down his neck. “I know you said you’re fine, but the second you’re not I need you to tell me.”

“Okay,” she agreed, sitting back up as she straddled his hips. “You have to do the same, I can’t handle you crying in my arms like that again, it really broke my heart.”

He held his pinky out to her, she smiled as she wrapped her own around his. Both leaning in to kiss the other's knuckle, a small tradition Y/N adored.

—

They were back at their house by 5 pm. Hotch had ensured that everything was completely cleaned and there was 0 evidence that a crime had even taken place on the property. Penelope on the other hand had taken it upon herself to break into their alarm system and reset it for them shortly after everyone left.

They changed the code, closed the door and sighed at the beautiful home that felt a little different now. “I think I want to paint,” she announced.

“Yeah?” Spencer laughed at the suddenness.

“It’s too blah, y’know? I see what they were doing with the whites and beige for all the light. But, I’m thinking green in here to flow with the cabinets in the kitchen,” she walked through the foyer as she imagined the colours that would look good. “Like an olive or forest, maybe even jade. It’ll look nice with the dark wood.”

“That would be nice,” Spencer agreed. “Make it feel more like the old apartment.”

“Exactly,” she smiled. “I miss the clutter and the intimacy of the last place, and I know you miss the look of books everywhere.”

“I’m still alphabetizing them in my office,” he added. “I’d like to paint in there as well, I’ve been looking at antique chairs and couches for my reading.”

“Hotch is going to make us take 2 weeks off again,” Y/N looked at him with excitement. “We can put all our energy into this place now.”

“Let’s make it ours,” He agreed.

“Wanna go to the hardware store and look at paint samples?” She hopped with excitement, grabbing his arm and tugging on him.

He laughed, pulling her into his chest. “Sure, bunny,” he pressed his cheek to the top of her head as he held her. “What about Matthew’s room?”

“Oh, me and Penelope have it all planned, all the stuff is being delivered next month. She kinda went a little nuts,” Y/N laughed.

“He’s going to be one loved little boy,” Spencer chuckled. “Come on, let’s go.”

[violethowler]

A Guide to the Galaxy Garrison

Last Updated: 05/28/2023

To go along with my meta last year piecing together every known detail about the timeline of Voltron: Legendary Defender, I’m now going to attempt to do the same with everything we know about the Galaxy Garrison and how it operates. 

Part I: Location and Jurisdiction

When looking at what we know about the Galaxy Garrison, one of the first and most important things to take into account is the scope and jurisdiction of its operations. 

Because Voltron is an American show and the main Garrison base is located in the US (Keith’s Blue Lion Search Board shows a map of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona), most fanfic that I’ve seen portrays the Garrison as an American space agency with bases all over the world much like how the US military has installations in other countries IRL. 

But as far as official VLD canon, very little information is given in the show itself. 

However, the EPs have provided enough info about the Earth of VLD that we can start to fill in some of the gaps: 

In two separate interviews with Inverse.com following the release of Seasons 6 and 7, the showrunners have described Earth as one that is more progressive, peaceful and united, where things like war and international conflict are a distant memory. 

Here is their post-Season 6 interview [01]: 

“We discussed an Earth where borders weren’t a thing anymore,” Montgomery tells Inverse. “Everyone travels freely. We like this idea of a much more peaceful Earth where countries are open.”

“We never dove deep into it, but we had conversations about how we see the world in the time of Voltron,” adds Dos Santos. “Earth stands united. Inner Earth fighting and borders, all these B.S. constructions we come up with, are a thing of the past.”

And here’s the post-Season 7 one [02]: 

As they told Inverse last time in regards to Lance’s Cuban heritage, Earth has become so progressive and open that welcoming space aliens is no big deal. “We tried to set up a world that is, hopefully a little further along than the one we currently reside in,” says Montgomery. “Minds are a little more open.”

Sure, there’s still some hard-nosed skepticism — the character of Admiral Sanda is meant to represent those views — but Earth, in the world of Voltron, has gotten over things like differences.

“There is a generational peace that can be hand between aliens and Earth. Humans being a peace-loving race. If there’s evil aliens, yeah they’ll fight back, but we have so much crap happening in the real world we didn’t want to go far too into it in this show.”

A throwaway line about a “World War III” may have more impact than viewers may assume. “We didn’t work out the logistics of World War III in the writer’s room, we kept it nice and nebulous,” Dos Santos says, “We knew it was something that happened and led to everybody on the planet realizing war sucks. We’re one Earth.”

Dos Santos’ comment about how World War III “led to everybody on the planet realizing war sucks. We’re one Earth” indicates that Earth in VLD is heavily demilitarized. Combined with the fact that no one at the Garrison ever considers the possibility of coordinating or asking for help from other military organizations, and this all implies that in addition to being a space exploration program, the Galaxy Garrison also functions as Earth’s primary defense force in the event of First Contact with hostile alien life. 

This is nothing new for stories set in space, as Starfleet has similar dual roles of exploration and defense in the Star Trek franchise [03]. And during Sendak’s invasion in The Last Stand: Part 2, Veronica is shown attempting to contact bases on the east coast of the US as well as Russia, China, India, and “all of western Europe.” Combined with the fact that the Garrison clearly recruits from multiple countries (see: Lance being from Cuba), and Voltron shows us without saying a word that the Garrison is an organization with international reach and jurisdiction. 

Part II: Internal Hierarchy

Now that we’ve laid out the Garrison’s affiliation and jurisdiction, let’s take a look at how the Garrison is organized internally. In this section, I will be breaking down the specific hierarchy of the different ranks and positions within the Garrison. 

The leadership of the Garrison is laid out subtly in The Last Stand: Part 1, when Sanda tells Sam that “the Joint Chiefs are eager to hear what you have to tell us.” 

In real life, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the US Department of Defense who advise the President, the Secretary of Defense, and other US agencies on military matters [04].

In the future of VLD, Sanda’s use of the name indicates that the Joint Chiefs of the Garrison serve as the overseeing body for the entire organization, and likely have a similar advisory relationship with Earth’s civilian government. This is supported by the fact that Sanda mentions having to report Shiro’s illness to “Flight Command” in A Little Adventure, indicating the existence of an outside body that provides oversight for Garrison missions. 

Sanda’s reference to Galaxy Garrison’s Joint Chiefs as “us” indicates that Sanda herself is considered part of this body. The lack of any reference to senior officers of equal or greater rank with the authority to overrule her decision to keep the imminent Galra invasion secret from the people of Earth indicates that as the Admiral, Sanda is the highest person within the Garrison’s hierarchy and head of Galaxy Garrison. 

The fact that no one mentions a headquarters to contact during The Last Stand: Part 2, and Part 1 depicts Sanda having an office at the Arizona facility indicates that the Garrison base we see on the show is the organization’s main headquarters. However, Shiro’s comments about Iverson “calling in the big guns” and Admiral Sanda showing up to convince Sam to remove him from the Kerberos mission indicate that Sanda is not normally involved in day to day operations like preparations for the Kerberos mission. 

Iverson’s mention of Sanda having wartime authorization in The Last Stand: Part 2 helps support the indication that while Sanda and the Joint Chiefs oversee the Garrison as a whole, Iverson is the one in charge of the day to day operations at the Arizona base.

The exact ranks for the other officers present during Sam Holt’s debriefing with the Joint Chiefs of the Garrison is unknown, but from tracking how Shiro’s uniform is shown to change from 2 stripes to 4 over the course of his on-screen career, we can determine that the number of stripes on the shoulders of Garrison uniforms correspond to different tiers of rank. 

Every officer present at the debriefing in The Last Stand: Part 1 except for Admiral Sanda has 3 stripes on the shoulders of their uniform.

The only other character with more than 3 stripes besides Admiral Sanda is Shiro, who is only seen wearing 4 stripes on his organic shoulder in his uniform as Captain of the IGF Atlas. In real life naval ranks, Captain is higher than Commander but lower than Admiral [05]. Since Sam and Iverson are both specifically identified as commanders at other points in the series, this indicates that all of the Joint chiefs of the Garrison hold the rank of Commander. 

The Last Stand: Part 1 also identifies that Shiro held the rank of Lieutenant on the Kerberos mission, and his mission photo when Pidge sees the crew declared missing during the flashback in Tears of the Balmera shows him with three stripes on his uniform. However, the flashbacks in A Little Adventure show his uniform with two stripes until the scene where Sam argues with Sanda to allow him to pilot the Kerberos mission. This indicates that Shiro received his third stripe (and was submitted for consideration to be on the Kerberos team) when he was promoted to Lieutenant. 

In real life, Admirals are considered what’s known as Flag Officers. Captains and Commanders are classified as Senior Officers, while Lieutenants and lower are Junior Officers [05]. But given that Shiro’s promotion to Lieutenant coincided with that third stripe, Voltron’s future Earth most likely considers Lieutenants Senior Officers instead, while Shiro having the same number of stripes as a Captain that Sanda had as an Admiral points to the rank of Captain being considered a Flag Officer in VLD’s time period. This is supported by Lance referring to Shiro - still a lieutenant at the time - as “the Senior Officer” when the Paladins prepare to enter the wormhole to Arus in The Rise of Voltron. 

Below the rank of Lieutenant, the hierarchy of the Garrison, especially concerning those who graduated from the cadet program, remains murky. 

The sole example of the MFE pilots being referred to by a specific title comes from Day 47 in Season 8, where Rizavi and Kinkade are referred to as Lieutenants by another Atlas crew member and Kinkade himself. However, the MFE pilots still only wear two stripes on their uniforms in both Seasons 7 and 8.

There is a chance, given that Day 47 was created as a result of the WEP-mandated changes to Season 7 that resulted in the creation of The Feud, that this is an error. I did a whole meta last year outlining how those changes to Season 7 affected the pacing of the Earth arc and caused continuity issues within the episodes themselves, so this could possibly be another example of the inconsistencies created as a result of WEP’s meddling with Season 7.

However in real life naval ranks, there is a ranking known as Lieutenant, Junior Grade [06] that ranks below a full Lieutenant but higher than Ensign, which is the lowest commissioned officer rank in real-world militaries [07]. Officers with the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade in real life are still addressed as Lieutenant, except for formal situations where they are addressed by their full rank. So the MFE pilots all holding the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade in Season 8 and still only having two stripes on their uniforms would be consistent with the pattern we’ve established thus far. 

But again, the accuracy of the MFE pilots having that rank is questionable, on account of the continuity errors present in the episode (Rizavi refers to Shiro as Commander in the same scene she’s addressed as Lieutenant), and the fact that the formal way that Kinkade introduces his video recording means he’d be more likely to use the full rank if Lieutenant, Junior Grade was his actual title. 

Plus, the Garrison’s ranking system appears to be greatly simplified from real world naval ranks, even compared to fictional space forces like Starfleet. There’s no mention of any Commodores, Lieutenant Commanders, or any other types of Admirals aside from Sanda. It would make sense, given the apparent demilitarization of Earth, for their primary defense force to reduce the number of titles to account for their limited size compared to real-world militaries. Because even with the manpower, they don’t have as many vessels as a real military. 

So the Lieutenant Junior Grade title might not actually exist in the Garrison Hierarchy, and the MFE Pilots are all Ensigns in Season 8. But since there’s also nothing in Season 7 or the rest of Season 8 that says otherwise, you can always pick whichever of the two ranks you think the MFEs have according to your own preference or interpretation, and the same applies to Shiro’s rank during his visit to Keith’s high school.

Another potential point of confusion that I feel warrants preemptively clearing up is why Admiral Sanda refers to the MFE pilots as cadets despite Iverson indicating that they’ve already graduated from the cadet program. 

In real life, recruits joining with a four-year college degree are eligible to join the US Navy directly at the rank of Ensign. And in fictional settings such as (again) Star Trek, Ensign is the first rank assigned to officers who graduate from Starfleet academy [08]. Given that the Garrison is obviously shown to teach advanced science courses to high school-aged students, the MFE pilots in Season 7 are all most likely Ensigns in the Garrison. 

But when Sanda refuses to send them out against Sendak’s invasion, neither Sam Holt nor Commander Iverson contradict her reference to the MFE pilots as Cadets. Sam’s counterargument isn’t that the MFEs aren’t Cadets anymore, but that the Paladins are also cadets too. 

Given that Shiro appeared to have been enrolled in a 2-year extended study program following his own graduation from the cadet program, and that Sendak's invasion occurred 1-2 years after their graduation, it's likely that the MFE pilots were enrolled in that program as well. And if the invasion occurred before they had finished that program, it would make sense for Sanda to refer to them as cadets since they were still considered students even after graduating from the cadet program.

Now, let’s talk about the hierarchy of the cadet program, since unlike the rankings for the graduated officers, those are much easier to figure out. 

The only time we ever see one stripe on each shoulder for the Garrison uniforms is with the first year cadets in A Little Adventure. However, just like Shiro switching from two stripes to three when he becomes a Lieutenant, we see Keith switch from one stripe to two over the course of the flashbacks in that episode. 

Those flashbacks show Keith’s whole class training in the simulators as a group - even Hunk, who switched out of the pilot track to become an engineer at some point. There’s no mention of the Fighter Pilot versus Cargo Pilot divide in this training session, which indicates to me that most students entering their first year at the Garrison take the same general courses, and receive their second stripe after being assigned to a more specialized education track based on a combination of their grades and interest. 

This would explain why Pidge was able to enroll in the communications track and immediately start out with two stripes in her first year at the Garrison without having to take piloting classes with the other first year students. 

It would also fit with how many JRTOC programs at US high schools in real life give cadets (students) in their program some sort of Junior rank to prepare them for the structure of military life should they enlist after graduation. Because despite being a cadet, the flashbacks in Tears of the Balmera specifically have Pidge referred to as the Communications Officer of her, Lance, and Hunk’s squad.

During Pidge’s flashbacks in Tears of the Balmera and Reunion, no mention is made of her being expelled by Iverson when she gets caught snooping, nor does she mention enrolling while Matt is gone in S4E02 Reunion. She does, however, mention that it’s going to be tough going through middle school while Matt is gone. This indicates that the Garrison’s cadet program is a  4-year program that serves as an equivalent to a high school education. Meanwhile, Shiro’s promotion to Lieutenant appears to have occurred after the completion of an additional 2-year program.

After graduation, there does not appear to be any minimum number of years served required for officers to be promoted to higher rank, as is the case in real life [09]. This is supported by the fact that as of Season 7, Shiro holds the second-highest known rank at the Garrison within less than a decade of graduating the cadet program and is younger than many of the people directly under him without any older Garrison officers making a fuss or raising any objections about his younger age. 

Part III: Roles and Uniforms

Now that we’ve settled the specific matter of how the different titles within the Garrison are ranked, that now leaves the question of how the different branches of the Garrison are organized. 

Based on roles and appearances of different characters in the series from main characters to background extras, outside of the central command staff and staff teams like the janitors and cooks at Garrison bases, there appear to be six core branches of Galaxy Garrison’s exploration and defense forces:

Communications: First shown in the communications room at the Arizona base during Sendak’s invasion. Comm specialists monitor and maintain communication networks for both ground and space operations. Based on Veronica having 3 stripes on her uniform and every other officer in the war room during Sendak’s invasion having 2, Analyst is the title for senior communications officers.

Engineering: First shown in The Last Stand: Part 1 as Sam describes his Altean pod being salvaged for parts.

Science: First shown in The Last Stand: Part 1 studying the crystal powering Sam’s pod and developing a new laser rifle for use in defending Earth.

Security: First shown in The Rise of Voltron patrolling the Arizona campus to enforce curfew and standing guard outside the quarantine tent when Shiro crash lands. 

Medical: First shown in The Rise of Voltron, where Pidge identifies the people keeping Shiro in quarantine as Med Techs.

Flight: First shown in The Rise of Voltron. Confirmed in the same episode to be split into Fighter and Cargo pilot divisions. Season 7 shows pilots do atmospheric flight in addition to manned space missions. 

This number of branches fits perfectly with the hexagon imagery we see surrounding the Garrison such as the design of its logo and the structure of its particle barrier. 

Four of these six branches have their own specialized uniforms as shown in The Rise of Voltron and The Last Stand: Part 1. But the uniforms for pilots and communications officers is where things start to get murky. 

Non-cadet communications officers are all shown wearing the same gray-green uniform as the command staff - with a specialized variant for analysts like Veronica - while we’ve seen examples of pilots in both that uniform and the orange and white jackets worn by all the cadets. 

The explanation that made the most sense to me was that the gray uniforms corresponded to those who were considered part of Garrison faculty - the people who in one capacity or another were responsible for managing and operating a base and its programs. This would explain why Adam and Shiro would be wearing the gray uniforms while the only other named pilots - the MFEs, who were not faculty - wore the orange ones, since Adam mentions teaching classes, and we see Shiro assisting with simulator drills for Keith’s class in A Little Adventure. 

The only Garrison graduate outside of the MFEs to be shown in the orange uniform was Matt, who based on Reunion was the communications officer for the Kerberos mission. Based on my timeline notes, the Kerberos mission would have launched within less than a month of his graduation from the cadet program, and all appearances of him with the orange uniform were obviously set pre-launch. So it’s likely that either Matt was still attending classes while the mission was being prepared and thus still wore the cadet uniform, or the Garrison was waiting to give him the uniform when the mission returned to Earth.

What kept throwing a wrench into this theory was the scenes aboard the Atlas in Season 8. For all of the season, everyone aboard the ship - including Commanders like Iverson and Sam - wear the orange and white uniforms regardless of rank or position. But in Day 47 and The Grudge, we see groups of Atlas crew members wearing the old gray uniforms in a handful of shots. 

Trying to figure out an explanation for why those officers weren’t wearing the same uniform type as every other crew member was an exercise in futility, because every theory I came up with either didn’t fit with the earlier seasons or was contradicted by Season 8 itself. Which is what helped me finally figure a way out of the box I’d thought myself into. 

Like I briefly mentioned earlier, Day 47 and the Atlas scenes in The Grudge only exist to compensate for changes made to Season 7 by order of the IP holder while production of Season 8 was already in progress. I already mentioned my meta from last year about how the changes made as a result of the revisions to Season 7 created continuity errors, but another thing that clued me in to the fact that the presence of the gray uniforms aboard the Atlas is that we never see these people anywhere outside of those two episodes. 

Every character aboard the Atlas in every other episode of Season 8 aside from the Altean Robeast pilots is shown wearing the exact same orange and white uniform regardless of position or rank. The only exceptions to this rule are the Voltron Paladins, who instead of orange wear uniforms color coded to match their individual armor. 

If these officers weren’t just added as background filler for the new material created from the changes to Season 7, why would they be different when not even a high-ranking Commander gets to keep their grey uniform aboard the Atlas? Since the only anomaly in my main theories originates from material that did not exist when Seasons 7 and 8 were being animated initially, it’s safe to disregard those examples for the purposes of analyzing the Garrison’s structure. 

With that confusion eliminated, my theory that the gray uniform is given to those who are part of a Garrison base’s administrative faculty still holds up. Shiro and Adam having teaching roles on the Garrison staff makes sense when you take into account that in real life, people enrolled in a Masters degree program will typically work as a teaching assistant in exchange for financial aid [10]. This fits with Shiro being referred to by the showrunners in 2016 interviews as an “older student”, and I discussed in further detail the evidence toward him being in the Garrison equivalent of a Grad student program in my timeline notes.  

Part IV: The Finished Guide

So now that I’ve laid out all the details I’ve found and my thought process as I connect all the dots, allow me to present a complete summary of what we know about the Galaxy Garrison:

They are a multinational space exploration agency that doubles as a defense force to protect Earth from potentially hostile incursions by extraterrestrial life. 

They have at least six bases on at least three continents in at least five countries: 

The main headquarters in Arizona, near Grand Canyon National Park

A base on the East Coast of North America (country not specified)

At least one base in Russia

At least one base in China

At least one base in India

Multiple bases in western Europe

Galaxy Garrison is led by the Joint Chiefs, a council led by an Admiral and no more than 11 Commanders. Known members of the Joint Chiefs at the time of Season 1 include 

Admiral Sanda

Commander Sablan (grey-haired officer with glasses and a sash; voiced by Neil Kaplan, name given in credits for non-US dubs of Season 7)

There is a body referred to as Flight Command that implicitly provides oversight for Garrison activities. 

Each Garrison base is run by at least one Commander.

Commander Iverson is in charge of the Arizona base

No other base Commanders are identified in series. 

The officers of the Garrison’s command structure are ranked as follows

Admiral (4 stripes on shoulder)

Captain (4 stripes on shoulder)

Commander (3 stripes on shoulder)

Lieutenant (3 stripes on shoulder)

The following Junior Officer ranks are named according to real-world naval rankings but the exact names and whether it actually is two separate ranks instead of one are not confirmed:

Lieutenant Junior Grade (2 stripes if it exists)

Ensign (2 stripes if it exists)

Potential ranks that might exist (or can be used in fanfic) based on real-world naval rankings include:

Fleet Admiral (Highest possible naval rank)

Vice Admiral (Lower than Admiral; Higher than Rear Admiral)

Rear Admiral (Higher than Commodore; Lower than Vice Admiral)

Commodore (Higher than Captain; Lower than Rear Admiral)

Lieutenant Commander (Higher than Lieutenant; Lower than Commander)

Outside of the central command structure and a base’s administrative faculty, the Garrison is divided into six core branches: 

Flight

Engineering

Communications

Security

Medicine

Science

The Engineering, Security, Medical, and Science branches all have unique uniforms and attire specialized for their respective positions. Communications officers wear the gray uniform of the base’s faculty with specialized variants for senior officers of the branch. Pilots who are not part of the base’s faculty wear the same orange and white uniform as cadets outside of missions, while pilots who continue their education in pursuit of the Garrison equivalent of a master’s degree are permitted to wear the gray uniform of Garrison faculty. 

Following the liberation of Earth, all crew members serving aboard the IGF Atlas wear the same uniform regardless of rank or position that combines the colors and styles of both the orange and gray Garrison uniforms. 

The Garrison's cadet program is a trade school that functions as an equivalent to a high school education, and graduates who wish to continue their studies may enroll in a 2-year program for further training and education.

All students start training in general courses in their first year before branching out into specialized tracks according to grades and interest in subsequent years. This is to ensure that officers can assist outside their specialty when the situation requires it. 

Upon graduating from the cadet program, there are no further age requirements for promotion to a higher position, nor is there any minimum length of time required to spend at a given rank before being promoted to a senior level. 

Sources: 

[01] With Cuba, Netflix's 'Voltron' Envisions a Future Earth Without Borders; Eric Franciso; June 20, 2018. https://www.inverse.com/article/46174-voltron-legendary-defender-season-6-lance-is-cuban-borderless-earth

[02] The Ending of 'Voltron' Season 7, Explained by the Showrunners; Eric Francisco; August 10, 2018. https://www.inverse.com/article/47977-voltron-legendary-defender-season-7-netflix-ending-explained-by-showrunners-interview

[03] Wikipedia - Starfleet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfleet

[04] Wikipedia - Joint Cheifs of Staff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff

[05] U.S. Navy Ranks List - Lowest to Highest 

https://www.federalpay.org/military/navy/ranks

[06] Lieutenant Junior Grade - Military Ranks

https://www.military-ranks.org/navy/lieutenant-junior-grade

[07] US History: Rank of Ensign in Revolutionary Army, Michael Troy, October 10, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20130629023405/http://en.allexperts.com/q/U-S-History-672/2011/10/rank-ensign-revolutionary-army.htm

[08] Ensign - Memory Alpha https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ensign

[09] The Balance Careers - Military Commissioned Officer Promotions

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/military-commissioned-officer-promotions-4055887 

[10] ThoughtCo - What is an Assistantship?

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-an-assistantship-1685091

[the-littlefangirl]

TFATWS episode 1 rewatch commentary

The first scene was so beautiful. I loved that we didn't start directly with the fight sequence. It feels way closer to the quiet beginning of CATWS and I love it so much.

The title is also SO NEAT, music's on point too but hey it’s Henry Jackman the one thing I’m sure it’s going to be great overall is the score.

The choreography is AMAZING, really well shot. Sam shielding himself with only one wing was MA-JES-TIC.

“WHAT'S UP” EXACTLY SAM EXACTLY

I did feel so uncomfortable in regards to the military aspect of it. Not that I was expecting anything else, but both here and in Captain Marvel the military we're good guys < 3 propaganda is so blatant and ugh:/ At least there wasn’t a literal recruitment spot like with CM. 

The yellow filter in the Tunisia scene BYE please stop with the yellow filters 2k21

"I've been working with the Air Force for six months now" So, did Sam even catch a break at all after Endgame? Or did he just throw himself to work like SOMEONE did after being iced for 70 years. Hmmm? Sam????

"Essentially, these people, they want a world that's unified without borders" OH NO! HOW AWFUL, how evil of these bad guys smh

Joaquin: SO about Steve

Sam: :)))))) nope

"Moon stuff" SAAAM

#1 cry with Sam's speech, full on chills.. Fuck. Me. His voice about to break before saying thank you bYE.

Shady politician: "It was the right decision" (FUCKKKKK YOUUU)

Rhodey: *press any key to doubt *

I need someone to analyze the different curation of the two exhibits pretty please

NOT THE PHOTO POST-AZZANO JFC. That photo is my weakness, Bucky sweetie (also I find hilarious that usually when there are articles about Stucky and/or #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend they aaaalways use that photo LMAO)

In case someone wants to read the transcription of the texts about Bucky: "In 1944, while on a mission to thwart a Hydra weapon transport in the Alps, Barnes was thrown from a train and believed to have been killed in action. It wasn't until 2014, over seventy years later, that it was revealed that Barnes was alive, having been found by Hydra operatives. Captain America himself (i can't read) the effort to bring Barnes in only to later aid in a escape from custody having been convinced of his innocence. Steve's loyalty to his old friend, coupled with his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords, led to the dissolution of the Avengers and drove the Captain into hiding with other like-minded Avengers including Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, and Sam Wilson. The current whereabouts of Barnes remains unknown, habing been labeled a fugitive following his escape from custody."

"current wherabout unknown" but not the government, interesting. Also, pretty good summary of CACW from the public's perspective, although one of the things I always wanted to see explored was the public's reaction of the fallout of them going into hiding after Civil War (which I'm hoping we'll get to see a little bit of in Black Widow).

Interesting point about the 70 years without having Captain America. Clearly the sacrifice play wasn't enough this time to fuel the nationalism so they went with a squeaky clean John Walker instead.

Sam saying the shield belongs to Steve I'm going to cry now excuse me. Sam. Sam sweetie.

The No. 1 Captain America comic in the display ugH fuck yes

See this is how you do a cameo that has actual meaning. Thank god for Malcolm Spellman being a competent writer. That scene was so well written.

HAVE YOU PRAISED ANTHONY MACKIE'S PERFORMANCE TODAY?? Holy shit that last shot fucked me up.

I'm loving the use of the wide shots, especially in the flashback. The camera movements are in synch with The Soldier's state of mind and mission focus, so good.

EVERYONE STAND UP FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM aka The Winter Soldier theme composed by Henry Jackman.

Without a doubt the most brutal TWS fight scene there has been, People involved in Punisher and John Wick are involved in this and it SHOWS. 

For the record, still stands that the only time we've seen him chocking someone with his right hand instead of the metal arm remains the Maria Stark assasination. I know it's probably because of blocking and the way the shot was composed but the implications are still bone chilling. God.

Uhhmmmm I'm very ambivalent about the "Hail Hydra". On one hand, it was 100% fanservice and the internet is probably going to go insane over it, and the dead way Sebastian Stan delivered the line. Good shit. Buuut what I love about CATWS is the way Bucky never, ever ever, mouths Hydra rethoric, and even when Pierce tries to gaslight him with it, it's just an empty effort. The Winter Soldier isn't doing anything because of ideological loyalty to Hydra, even if it's product of brainwashing, it's just sheer dehumanization. They don’t need him to say the words because he’s just An Asset. There are people who have put it more eloquently but yeah, I rather go with the fanon interpretation of that aspect.

The music growing louder with the shot of the keys. GOD.

I'm fine this is fine.

#2 cry with the therapy scene of fucking course.

The government monitoring Bucky is noooot going to end well lmao.

"We need to know that you're not gonna * slowmo stabbing motions *

Bucky: * nodding along slowly * 

I laughed out loud.

"It's passive agressive" I love him.

The way this scene just sucker punched me in the face, made me weep and then had me cracking up. Amazing.

Therapist: You can't do anything illegal

Bucky: yup yup check checkity check. What IS considered illegal tho?

*aggresive tablet finger pressing *

"Then why isn't it rule number one?" Bucky your Steve is showing.

I love the close up shot. I'll keep saying it. It's so good.

"I'm James Bucky Barnes" yeah you are🥺

That smile is nightmare fuel LMFAO I love it.

Uhm the way I'm kinning Bucky it's not funny anymore damn

That whole “are you lashing out at me” rambling is really reminiscent of the bar scene in CATFA and how he lashed out at Steve after Peggy left. Uhm yeah fuck.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "Peace"

"That is UTTER BULLSHIT" "You're a terrible shrink"

yeah ugly crying to ugly laughing speedrun for me

"You're free" "To do what?" jesus. That entire scene. #3 and #4 and #5 cries for moi.

Ugh that Brooklyn shot. Someone needs to do a gifset compairing it to the one in CATFA asap.

"It's like Monique but it's got a "U" in there for uniqueness" "That's absurd" LMAO

"You can't keep fighting with your neighbors" uHM * redacted redacted i'm shifting into 1940s mode abort abort *

"Nobody passed 90" "So young. Such a shame" FGADHGA

🥺🥺 yes flex those flirting skills good for you

"It's a dance to this things. You can't… you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943. Feels like." #6 cry I completely broke down into tears with that.

This Yori storyline is going to punch me in the face with a metal fist. Great!

The TWS theme when he looks at Yori fuuuuuck.

GREAT LET'S GO TO LOUISIANA THAT WAS GETTING HEAVY.

Those shots of Sam in the car. Immaculate. Showstoping. Yes.

Marvel, what if instead of promoting the military industrial complex you put a lot of publicity about cars?

"Uncle Sam!" LMAO subtle.

Everyone trying to have the wings lmao same.

I've only had Sarah for a day but etc. Brooklyn 99 meme

Good mirroring about Steve and Sam family's legacy. Good shit. Goooood shit.

Sam is trying so hard ouch my heart. I can't imagine how painful the scene with them reuniting must have been. He 100% still feels a lot of guilt about being gone for those 5 years (and even longer before that).

"Maybe it is time for us to move on" uuuuuuuuuuh

"To the rescue" "Always" 🥺🥺 i love them so much already

That shot outside the restaurant is so beautiful. Can't wait to see the night scenes in Madripoor tbh.

"I tried the whole online dating thing. It's pretty crazy". Uhm well that is something that Bucky Barnes has now said. In canon. Damn.

"It's a lot" "You sound like my dad" LMAO

Every Bucky fanfic trope speedrun with this scene

"Wow you really can drink" OH you have no idea

Just realized we don't even know her name, well.

"You have any siblings?" "I have a sister" THE WAY I SCREECHED. We're definitely getting Becca

Well that escalated quickly. The important thing is to try?

I can't deal with this BUCKY SWEETIE #8 cry right there fuck

The wardrobe department is KILLING IT, there's such a difference between the outfits of the shows vs how ugly and generic it usually is.

"ThEre is NO such thiNg as on time. You're either EARLY or LATE . picK One" lmao the way he delivered that line

At first I thought the flag smashers had thrown two cars out of a window LMAO

"I don't know how jurisdiction works here, but I'mma have to place you under arrest" uhm yikes. The way they changed Joaquín Torres backstory to just random army nice guy #1 is not sitting well with me, what can I say.

Sam's wings motions I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR

Fuuuuck this guy.

"Funny how thing's always thighten around us" "Look, I'm on your side. After all, he's a hero". This script is C R I S P as hell, great fucking job.

"I don't care, I'm not gonna quit" "What are you trying to prove? And who you trying to prove it to" SHIT HSIT SHIT!!! UGH amazing. Look it's not necessary to say the show's questions out loud but how they flow between the conversations is still very satisfactory without feeling in your face about it. Inner conflicts have been set up fucking perfectly everyone * claps *

Ugh here we fucking go.  I knew this was how the episode was going to end but my stomach still dropped like a rollercoster. God.

The score is on point. Damn. Damn.

God, Sam.🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

The captain america franchise's visuals in the credits are always so amazing.

Also, does anybody know why Mackie isn't first in the billing?  Uhm what's that about?

ANYWAY CONCLUSION THAT EPISODE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD LIKE HOLY SHIT. I love them so much. The balance between the personal conflicts and the political aspect (although the military aspect is still very much yikes) was on point and it was overall a joy to watch.

[bevercges]

🐭 • So we literally know nothing about Bradley’s shenanigans between the end of Coon vs. Coon & Friends, when he left Earth to discover what happened to his home planet, and Bring the Crunch, where he states that he is living there now and doing who knows what.

Well I always wanted to write a post giving my thoughts on the subject (and I have a bit of a teaser here) so, for the sake of future RPs, I may as well do it. I will probably divide this into two posts because the Lore and my shenanigans are different things.

Just saying it now: this is mostly my own making and ideas as there’s very little canonical backing on the topic. If I have anything that I can quote to use as proof of my statements I will do it, but this is mostly my own interpretation.

Bradley Biggle has been around as a background character since Season 3, joining the main four as one of their classmates after moving to the fourth grade in Season 4. Still, until Season 14, he has been a (recognizable) background character with voice roles that could be easily counted with your hands –akin to characters like DogPoo or Kevin Stoley–.

The introductory paragraph above is a way of saying: we didn’t really know that much about Bradley until the Coon & Friends Trilogy. Hell, we still don’t, it is only on the final part of the trilogy, Coon Vs. Coon & Friends, when we learn a few things about him, and that episode starts with the video above.

“But Bradley Biggle is no ordinary fourth-grader!”

I am not going to waste time explaining why is Mintberry Crunch and what he does (for that’s what his About Page is all about) but, obviously, the entire clip is a form of foreshadowing to the ending. Spoilers to a 10-year-old episode: Bradley receives a message from outer space in which he’s told that he’s an alien from a far away planet whose destiny is to save Earth from C’thulu. Also Kenny thought that this revelation was going to be for him so he got scammed of his backstory, I guess.

So yeah, Bradley is a superhero with a backstory akin to Superman: he is an enhanced alien that was sent off to safety as a baby during times of crisis, and was found, adopted and raised by a human family, the Biggles. Yeah, I don’t think anyone really thought that Bradley and Henrietta were biological siblings, but whatever.

While we don’t know if everyone in the planet K'oh Kajan (or Kokujon, as I will be typing it like that) has the same powers as MBC, since we know that the berries of that planet “have the power to fuel nearly anything”, I’m going to take a guess that the “nearly” is there because they cannot grant superpowers to people, so Bradley is the outlier and a case of the chosen one. He is the only one with this powers, basically.

So he defeats C’thulu with his mint and berry superpowers and stuff (yes, defeats, he can only summon mint and berry to his aid, which would mostly work to reduce an opponent rather than killing them), and this episode ends with what would mark MBC’s exit from the show (outside of the very rare background appearance) for a very long time:

Canonically-speaking, this is what we know.

Bradley left to search for his biological parents (and his home planet, I suppose) and we would not hear about him for sure until Season 21. To be more precise, we would not hear about MBC’s shenanigans until his appearance in Fractured But Whole’s second DLC, Bring the Crunch.

Timestamp goes from 1:06 to 2:22 (unless you want spoilers).

Funny enough, while this would mark MBC’s return, it still does not give us much information about what he has been up to before the events pertaining this DLC. However, we still get a few clues from his in-game dialogue which I’m going to interpret for you guys.

"I picked up your distress call from the berry mines of my home planet. I've come to offer my assistance."

Something we know for sure is that he made it back to Kokujon!! This means that the main reason he has been away for so long (or so it’s my guess) is because he found his home planet, reunited with his biological parents and decided to settle there instead of returning to Earth with the Biggles. We still know that he visits, however, as he appears in Stick of Truth and in some more episodes (before disappearing again in Season 22):

We still don’t really know anything about his home planet, though, outside of very selective information he gives in and out of battle. Here’s a few examples:

"It's so weird being back on Earth. I can't believe you guys only have one sun!"

“You wanna know the best thing about Kokujon? No school."

"I didn't travel halfway across the galaxy to be treated like this."

He doesn’t live anywhere in the Solar System, that’s for sure, because not only he has traveled “across the galaxy” to respond to Fastpass’ distress call (which is another can of worms in itself, because how could have he received a call like that from literal light years away?), but also our system only has one sun.

This is just me trying to tie things together with South Park canon (so it’s a bit of a tangent), but in Season 13, in the episode Pinewood Derby, we are made aware of the existence of the Federation of Planets, a government body that is on a galactic level. The only reason I mention this is because MBC has proven to be capable of traveling at warp speed –traveling from his home planet to Earth in a matter of (what I am going to suppose were) minutes after receiving that distress call–, and all the planets that have discovered warp speed are part of the Federation, so that must be the case for Kokujon.

The exception to this rule, if anyone has watched the episode, would be Earth, but that’s because they didn’t meet the requirements to join the Federation and were blocked off the rest of the galaxy instead.

Not sure if this is canon anymore, but if it is that means that Bradley is constantly breaking the law by visiting a planet that has been labeled as off-limits, but he is not the only alien that has set foot in South Park anyways.

Actually, speaking of breaking the law and stuff, that reminds me... here is a screenshot of MBC’s character sheet:

While most characters in FBW have the Lawful (and only Lawful) alignment, MBC stands out because he has a more specific alignment. Not only he is Chaotic (which explains the possibility of him being breaking the law whenever he travels back to Earth), but also Neutral, which makes him... a morally grey character. He is neither good, neither bad, he is just... well, himself.

Why am I bringing this up anyways? Because there is one detail about the Kokujonian society that those that have played the DLC are aware about: the caste system.

"On my home planet, you'd get 10 years in the berry mines for that!"

The mention of these berry mines have been a thing ever since Season 14, but this line that can pop up when MBC is attacked in game has quite the connotations. Simple: you commit a crime, you are sent to the berry mines. You commit a crime, you work at the berry mines. You commit a crime, you become a slave. But you could say “oh, Mouse, but it could be like community service like many prisons on Earth- “ and I would have to tell you that you’re wrong because even MBC says so himself.

Despite being a trope in many sci-fi stories based around alien societies it is a very fucked up elephant in the room and everyone and their mother knows this. The last mission in the Bring the Crunch DLC involves fighting (and killing) a mind-controlling alien whose motivation was revenge against the society that put his family (and possibly his entire race to) into this position. Not only that, but if MBC is being truthful, the Kokujonian society has no issue to do the same with anyone that breaks the law, even their own people.

So, does the fact that he is part of this society make Bradley evil? No. Once again, he is Chaotic Neutral, he is just Bradley. And looking at the definition of Chaotic Neutral:

“Chaotic neutral characters like to indulge in everything.  [...]  This type of character will at least consider doing anything if they can find enjoyment or amusement.  Life has meaning, but theirs has the greatest meaning.  According to chaotic neutrals, laws and rules infringe on personal freedom and were meant to be broken.  This character is always looking for the best deal, and will work with good, neutral, or evil to get it; as long as he comes out of the situation on top.  The chaotic neutral is constantly teetering between good and evil, rebelling, and bending the law to fit his needs.”

His alignment makes him more complicated than the black-and-white idea that is being good or being evil on one fact alone. He is defined, however, by the fact that he does what he pleases regardless of what society, morality and laws say. And this is easily backed up by how he addresses the Crooked Cop enemy class in FBW:

"Earth police have no jurisdiction over... Mintberry Crunch!"

"Authority figures are no match for... the crunch!"

So, basically, his alignment makes him a free spirit and, at best, because his family owns slaves, he would be a proxy. He’s mostly a 10-year-old with superpowers that has been granted total freedom to do what he wants and takes full advantage of it (an also a superhero and an illegal alien on Earth, literally and figuratively), so he is not precisely defined by the society of his home planet. I do believe, though, that he has been influenced by the Kokujonian society as a result of living with his biological parents, so his morality and ideas flip-flop a lot.

“Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon!”

MBC choosing to fight that alien (an alien he carelessly allowed to follow him to Earth) could also be interpreted as personal defense and him defending planet Earth from an outer space threat as the Zarganor voices his intentions pretty clearly in-battle, but everyone is welcome to draw their own conclusions since both of them were motivated by very different things.

Anyways, once again, Kokujon is a pretty fucked up planet, but it is also Bradley’s home planet. We can assume that finding this planet and his biological parents helped him discover his real identity as Gok'zarah and, once he accomplished this goal, decided that he had nothing else worth pursuing and settled. He is rather unpredictable, as his alignment dictates, so he may not even stay on Kokujon a lot and instead travels through the galaxy- but those are headcanons of mine.

In conclusion, as a TL;DR: Bradley disappeared from Season 14 to Season 21, and then from Season 22 and onwards, because he’s an alien and has chosen to live in his home planet. Said planet’s society has its fucked up side but Bradley is so unpredictable due to his free spirit nature it is hard to pin-point his morals.

Anyways, for a character that started as a joke character that was used as a deus ex machina, I think he’s pretty cool! :·D And probably one of the strongest characters in this show’s universe.

[atlantis-au]

𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐒: 𝐀 𝐃𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏 𝐀𝐔

Welcome to Atlantis , a cyberpunk city riddled with all manner of creatures , humans & androids alike. Join this cybernetic world & get lost in Atlantis.

- 18+ Only - Canon Characters & OC’s Welcome! - Please be respectful of everyone - Please follow & place your characters within the Lore of Atlantis. If you have any questions , let Olivia ( @griimreaping​ ) know!  - Group AU tag is #AtlantisAU -Lore is a work in progress and constantly expanding!

Out in the East Indies there’s an island rising up out of the sea that is a beacon for every flavor of unsavory individual out there. Through some backhanded diplomatic mix up this scrap of land jutting out of the ocean doesn’t belong to any one country or corporation. This makes it the perfect place to disappear.

After the global economic collapse and war of late 2025, a few select businesses rose from the rubble of the world. They rebuilt cities that had been leveled by bombs and war acting like the saviors of the new world. The Cost of all this was actually untold amounts of debt and essentially a global operation of being plugged into a system where everyone knows who you are. There’s no hiding for anyone anymore.

People come here to escape the bigger colonies and cities that are rife with dangers for those who’ve crossed the wrong people. Hoping to score a new identity with fake biometrics to fool the passive police scanners in nearly every city being a hot trade of those in Atlantis. New eyes, teeth, skin, fingerprints, you name it. They can even change your voice with a little implant on the side of your throat. Some come here to just run away from debts, ex-lovers, parents, some running from more nefarious things. But all the scum of the earth mixes together on this one island. Most never make it back off the island alive.

Atlantis is a double-edged sword for those brave enough to make a pilgrimage there. A huge breeding ground for shadow corporations to essentially operate completely unrestricted because the island is not owned by any one country it has no set of jurisdictions to follow. New hardware hits the streets, new drugs, new artificial intelligence, all of it untested and potentially dangerous. There’s rogue Secret Police that are hired by various L3 corps that will go to the island and scorch earth until they find who they’re looking for, hopefully before they’re able to get a new identity or unplug from the system all together. Who will you be in this vast untamed cybernetic labyrinth?

[machi-kun]

"Iron Man 1 gets quoted so much but are you really telling me that a self-proclaimed genius needed to be directly hurt by his weapons to know that innocent people were hurting over them too? There’s no way to make weapons and be good, there’s no way to make weapons like Jericho and believe that no innocents are being hurt by them. We constantly hear about how he stopped making weapons after Iron Man 1, but he didn’t. (1/6)

He just made weapons for different people. He made Insight for S.H.I.E.L.D., made Ultron for himself, and that’s not to mention the ridiculous amounts of weapons we’re shown in the tower scene in Homecoming, that if he made that weapon for S.H.I.E.L.D. he’s likely to have made others. Tony also pushes the Accords, which are in violation of several human rights, on the Avengers simply because someone walked up to him and said “my son is dead and I blame you”. (2/6)

Imagine having to be told to your face that an American died as a consequence of your ridiculous murder bot so that you care enough to do something about it. Because he knew people had died in Sokovia but did nothing about it until a photo was shoved in his face. There’s no excuse for Tony teaming up with Ross. A man who drove Bruce Banner to attempt suicide. There’s no excuse for Tony restricting Wanda to the compound and calling her “a weapon of mass destruction”. (3/6)

There’s no excuse for him shooting Sam in the chest after Rhodey falls. There’s no excuse for him bribing blackmailing and kidnapping Peter. There’s no excuse for the vicious way in which he attacks Bucky. He never apologizes for Ultron, he says “and then Ultron, my fault” in Civil War and then in Endgame he brings it up and claims he was right, even though Ultron was a disastrous occurrence. (4/6)

He blames Stee for breaking up the Avengers when Tony himself brought the Accords upon them and then pushed Steve away when he chose to help Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Clint, Scott instead of giving up the glory of being a hero. Tony probably only asked Steve to choose between the shield (being Cap) and Bucky (keeping his family, and I mean all of them not just Bucky, safe) because in Iron Man 3 he gets rid the Arc Reactor, symbolically giving up Iron Man for Pepper and then he doesn’t stick to it (5/6)

And he thought Steve would choose the same way. His monologue in the beginning of Endgame was pretty much just Hydra rhetoric, he says “what we needed was a suit of armour around the world whether it impacted your precious freedoms or not”. Our “precious freedoms” are a human right, Tony Stark has no claim to them. Not to mention that a suit of armour around the world would have done jack shit to stop Thanos or the snap.“ Machi, I do not know if I cry or laugh. (6/6)

OH MY GOD. OOOOH MY GOD. OOOOOOHHHH. MYYY. GODDDDDD.

I don’t… Honestly, thank you for sending me this in ask format because I don’t know what I would have done had I seen this on my dash out of nowhere. I honestly can’t imagine what my reaction would’ve been. I’VE REMOVED ANTIS SO EFFICIENTLY NOTHING BUT THE PUREST LOVE FOR TONY STARK CROSSES MY DASH, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

I tend not to interact with antis in any capacity because people who hate a character usually don’t hear to what other people have to say about that character, even if it’s in a calm, polite, and perfectly reasonable manner. My only interactions with antis have been on occasions where they come to me, not the other way around, and that’s why this kind of stuff doesn’t even bother me anymore.

Because I don’t get it. I truly, honestly don’t get their logic. I guess laughing is my pick, because I don’t waste no tears on something like this akdhkajshfkjashfh

Let’s go over this, shall we? For some lighthearted fun. 

The weapons manufacturer argument always sounded weird to me - it sounds like a very standard anti-military speech; Which I could get, if that criticism were ever extended to the other military characters, such as Rhodey, the entirety of SHIELD, and Steve himself. Because… you know… the soldier in super soldier is not just a cool nickname. Steve is also part of this war based system and people seem to be very forgetful of that fact. If you want to be angry about Tony enforcing war indirectly, don’t forget to spare some of that anger of yours for the other characters too! Make sure everyone gets their share! Oh, but Steve only wanted to protect the little guy, you say? Did you fall asleep when Tony says “I saw young Americans killed by the same weapons I build to protect them”? Is the use of the word Americans that bothers them? Enough to ignore everything else this sentence is composed of, including meaning? Also, personal morality aside - Tony is not, in any way, a war criminal or profiteer, as many antis like to put it. He is a legalized, certified weapons manufacturer, and all unlawful use of his weapons seen on screen is caused by Obadiah’s double-dealing. Ever since IM1.

And I can’t wrap my head around getting angry about a character that makes weapons in a universe where aliens are constantly knocking at your door asking if they can blow up your planet! What are you going to fight them with? Please, someone, give me an answer, because I can’t come up with any ideas.

Ultron. Aaaah, I love talking about that garbage of a movie. I also don’t understand why people pin Ultron on Tony as if Tony has intentionally made Ultron evil, when the thing inside the Mind Stone is what makes Ultron sentient, and when Tony builds Ultron with the help of Bruce with the intentions of, and I quote, “not letting the next alien get past the bouncer”. It’s the same speech, “weapons are bad! He made a weapon, so he is bad!”. But again, if weapons are not the things we’re gonna use against aliens, against Thanos, what will we use?! The Infinity Stones? Ultron was made of Infinity Stones! Where is the logic in that! I know, we’ll clock Thanos in the head with a frying pan, that’ll solve the problem akjdaslkfalskf No more weapons, everybody. We’ll just close the doors and windows and pretend we’re not home. Let’s get into a fistfight against Thanos, the huge ass purple alien, when that alien beat the shit out of the Hulk once with no problem! I’m sure that will work out just fine!

But by far, my favorite thing about antis arguments is the use of the Accords as a justification for demonizing Tony, when there is no evidence the Accords are a bad thing! No, for real! Not one! It’s all speculative! I’m sure a lot of people immediately draft comparisons between the Accords and SHRA, but the truth is, they couldn’t be more different! It’s not even that hard to realize this, so long as you’re paying attention to the canon cues. If the Accords where SHRA, Clint would’ve received a copy. So would have Scott, Hank Pym, every single enhanced person in the Agent of SHIELD series, every single superhuman. But they don’t! Only active-duty, currently present Avengers. So it’s not a register of every single individual, only of those who are currently working under Avenger’s jurisdiction. Second, it’s hysterical to me that someone would be angry that Tony is supposedly prioritizing American lives, but is okay with unauthorized American military intervention. Because that’s what the Avengers are! They are a government-endorsed and based paramilitary group, a special unit. It makes sense that they, a specialized team, are sent to deal with alien threats, because no country has a say in the legality of who gets to take the alien to court. So that’s not a problem. But when you go to a country to chase a specific person, a totally human person, without permission and you bring your special ops team with you, destroy some buildings, and then act like you didn’t do anything wrong - that is something people tend not to like, ya know. 

It gets to a point that the hate becomes a total lack of empathy. “It’s not fair that people are acting like Wanda is a threat. It was an accident!”. Had a person I love been in that building, would it matter to me if it was an accident or not? “Clint was fighting for his right to freedom, even if he didn’t read the Accords! He has the right to freedom!”. He sure does. How was his freedom endangered, exactly? By this document he never was prompted to sign? “The Accords are a violation of your right to freedom!”. Are they? Is a person forbidding you from entering their home if they fear you might destroy it, is that an infringement of your right to freedom? Do you have the freedom to go anywhere you please and do whatever you think it’s right, even if it destroys someone else’s property, or wound or kill someone, so long as you did what you had to do? “He has no right to lash out against the people who have murdered his parents or almost killed his best friend! They didn’t mean to!”. Oh, doesn’t he? Is he not allowed this distressed emotional response? Alright then. Where was that rage when Wanda, Toomes, and so many others blamed Tony for the weapons Obadiah sold without Tony’s consent?

I don’t have time for this double-standard. I’m gonna be here sipping on my loving Tony Stark juice and having fun with my complex and well-written faves, while antis marinate in their hate for 25 minutes on low heat. Wake me up when it’s time to kill Thanos with a wooden spoon or with a petition for him to leave. One of the two lksahfakshfskajfhkjsf

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Four: Why Didn’t It Happen To Me? ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

With how often she’s counted herself as her only companion, Hinata has a habit of letting her thoughts run wild. For the longest time, they were her only means of escape, and entertainment. It’s grown her into a somber, quiet adult: she can sit with only their company for hours without boredom or regret.

Something most of her friends can’t quite seem to comprehend.

Well...except him.

Which is probably the precise reason why it’s him lying beside her in the wee morning hours, still asleep when she finds herself awake. Strange...she’s not sure what woke her. Anything to be sensed would have likely roused him, too. He’s too...on-guard, too careful. But Sasuke still sleeps, visage looking far younger, far more...at ease than when awake.

It’s a view she’s not often treated to, and one she takes every spare moment to enjoy.

Lilac eyes watch him silently, a bit surprised the feeling of being observed hasn’t woken him. But maybe by now he’s used to her stare. Head propped up on an elbow in their bed, Hinata’s lips curl in a soft smile, lounging quietly as she just takes in his image.

It makes her remember - as she so often does - how lucky they are to be here. And not just here - not just in these circumstances, this very moment. But alive. And having what they have. Both with brothers returned to them. Fractured, but happy families. And a loving marriage that - though not entirely without pitfalls - has still proven to make her the happiest she’s ever been.

And she hopes that - for him - it’s the same.

Returning to Konoha wasn’t easy for him. Not after all he lost - all that was taken from him in this place. His family...his home...his lineage and his sense of belonging. Even now, he often reminisces about how - if the rest of his family willed it - he would abandon Konoha in the blink of an eye. His only anchor is what little remains of his bloodline. His brother and his wife and children. Shisui.

And her.

He asked her, once. If she would go with him, should he leave. It took a little thought, but in the end she agreed. Her main concerns here - her clan, and her team - have proven able to go on without her. Hanabi is managing well, especially with Neji’s counsel. Kiba and Shino both revel in their work, and seem happy. Though she knows they would all miss her, and she them...there would be more point in her accompanying Sasuke than staying here without him. She has a future with him. The chance for a family. One outside the jurisdiction of her still rather-strict clan. True, she’s no longer heiress...but Hiashi has still hinted that her marriage and future offspring are still of great importance.

And as much progress as the Hyūga have made...she’d still have no qualms about keeping any children of hers far from them, should the need arise.

Sasuke has echoed similar sentiments, but in regards to the village at large.

Much progress has been made for the Uchiha and their freedom. Their future. Itachi’s pardon - though not supported by everyone - was a big step. And the removal of the previous council members to keep their dangerous politics away from the village’s future. The clans rallied in support, and there’s greater hope for their futures: all of them.

...and yet…

The Uchiha are now a rare breed. Any scrap of their bloodline is sure to be prized...and lusted after by any seeking power or influence. Not to mention the strange happenings around them lately. Anonymous letters of hate, threats carved into front doors, and even shouts from strangers. It’s clear they still aren’t fully welcome in a village they not only help found...but the last few of which nearly martyred themselves for.

...it boils her blood to think about.

It could have happened to any of them. Any of the clans! The mistreatment of the Uchiha - echoed down through their lines after Madara’s actions - would have made any clan seek to rebel against the injustice and cruelty. So few had been allies before Konoha’s beginnings. What if another had been in poor standing with the Senju? Could they have found themselves in the same position?

Even the Hyūga.

She used to wonder the same scenario. What would she have done in Sasuke’s shoes, clan slaughtered by one of their own, left alive seemingly out of pity? And what would her reaction have been to the truth? Would she have sought vengeance? Revenge? Justice?

...at times she almost wished it had been them. The story makes her heart ache and burn in the same breath. Struggling to keep her temper in check, a hand spares to gently tuck hair behind Sasuke’s ear.

...why didn’t it happen to me…?

A heavy breath escapes her, tranquility ruined by her own wayward thoughts. The entire subject is still a sore one...and if it feels that way for her, she can only imagine how it still torments Sasuke. Not to mention the others… Deciding enough is enough for now, she carefully slips out of bed and heads into the kitchen to start some tea.

As she guessed, it’s not long before she has company.

Standing at the kitchen sink and looking out the window with her mug, she sees Sasuke’s reflection in the panes, arms slinking around her waist. “You left me alone this morning,” he rumbles in her ear, throat thick with sleep.

“Couldn’t sleep...didn’t want to wake you. Did I?”

“Mm.”

“Sorry…”

“S’fine.” His nose burrows against the crook of her neck, drawing a deep breath before sighing contentedly. “...something bothering you?”

“Oh, just...thinking too much.”

“You do that a lot.”

Hinata can’t help a soft chuckle. “Call it a habit.”

“What about?”

“...a lot of things. Mostly your clan. And how...unjust it all was. Wondering how I would have walked your path if it had been me.”

“Don’t even say that.”

She looks over her shoulder with furrowed brows. “...but -?”

“You don’t deserve that. Even just in theory. The only person I’d wish it on is myself...because I know I could handle it.”

“I still wish you didn’t have to.”

“But I did.”

“...I’m not sure I could have done all you did. I’m not that...resolute.”

Sasuke sighs, clearly unhappy she’s still talking about it...but indulging her for a moment. “...you’re underestimating yourself, Hinata. You’re far stronger than you think. Though...I don’t know if you’d have made all my mistakes. You’re not that cruel. That brash. But you are strong. In both your skills, and your morals. Don’t ever doubt that.”

Despite the somber topic, she manages a soft smile. “...I try not to. Not anymore. I’ve...come a long way. But I’m nothing compared to you.”

“That’s hardly a fair comparison. But…” She can feel him smile against her skin. “...you are the only one who tamed the most notorious nukenin Konoha’s known...and one of the most powerful shinobi it’s ever seen. If that doesn’t make you stronger than me, I don’t know what would.”

That earns an outright laugh. “You’re ridiculous,” she chides softly.

“It’s true. You’re one of my very few weaknesses.” He gives her cheek a kiss. “...now, I think it’s high time we ate. A day off doesn’t mean lazing about.”

“All right, all right…” She turns to return the gesture. “...I’m sorry if talking about that upset you.”

“No...not anymore. And...we should be able to talk about it.” Sasuke lets his brow lean to hers. “...because I don’t want this fading into obscurity. I want it known. Taught. So it never happens again. And that means between us...because my children won’t be kept in the dark about it, either.”

There’s a slight blush at the implication. “...I agree. Both of our clans have their shadows...and we’re working to bring them to light. So there won’t be any more wondering...it will never happen again.”

     Day four! A little late, but I had a rather busy day! Not TOO much to say about this one: just Hinata being her usual introspective self. It's a subject she thinks of a lot, honestly. ALAS sees a lot of canon issues actually worked on, like the Hyūga branch clans, and the Uchiha massacre. So they've both got experience in trying to make things better for their families.      Anywho, that's all for today! I'll see y'all tomorrow - thanks again so much for reading!

[jate-kara]

revive

Noble’s alive, Noble’s back, but not completely together. Not completely whole. Time changes everything -- maybe their sniper most of all.

Jorge hates the silence.

Warnings: implied PTSD, canon-typical language and violence

Word count: 2,728

----

"Still don't know why we can't just wear armor."

Emile's tugging at the collar of his dress uniform for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. Jorge glances at him out of the corner of his eye and nudges him with an elbow.

"How long's this thing gonna take?" Emile growls.

"As long as it takes," Kat hisses, their CO in lieu of Carter for the duration. "Now shut up."

The ceremony is large and loud and full of Spartans and soldiers and civilians alike. Their Commander's trapped at the front for the moment, standing strong and tall beside the others chosen to be at the head. To everyone else, he must look at ease.

To Noble he looks like he's in hell.

Jun's three people to Carter's right, stalwart at Musa's side. Jorge cracks a tiny smile. So solemn. So serious. That's not like him.

Didn't used to be like him.

Jorge loses sight of him by the time the speeches are over and they've marshalled their strength to march back to the barracks. Emile's bunking with Six, Kat with Carter.

That leaves Jorge with his own room.

He should be grateful for the quiet after all of today's noise but it's too unnatural to put him at ease so he lays on the bottom bunk and stares into space and tries not to think about how strange the empty silence is.

----

"Haven't seen you since Reach."

It takes Jorge a moment to realize Kurt means their training on Reach, not the hell he lived just six months ago.

Not the hell that tore Noble apart.

"Right," Jorge says quietly and Kurt slides onto the mess bench across from him and folds his hands on the table. Always so patient. Always so kind.

Jorge lifts his shoulders in a shrug, fiddles with the empty mug that's been sitting between his hands for the better part of a half an hour. "How have you been?" he asks, and it feels so hollow, so wrong.

Kurt shrugs. "I'm surviving."

"I heard. Nukes?"

"A slipspace bomb?"

Jorge snorts softly. "Fair."

Kurt's smile has always been contagious but it's so sad, now -- so burdened. "We've been through a hell of a lot, huh?"

Kurt so much more than most. "Yes," Jorge says. The words ache. So many of them are dead. So many of then are gone. "Noble tells me you trained the Threes."

Kurt's smile collapses. "I did," he forces and Jorge knows he must be thinking of the rest of the companies, the other six hundred in Alpha and Beta. "They're some of the best. Carter and Kat make a hell of a team."

They're all adults now but Kurt talks like they're still kids. Something spasms in Jorge's chest. "They're brilliant," he says.

Kurt coughs. "Kat's a little too brilliant," he says and though he tries to be deadpan a hint of humor creeps in. Jorge nods agreeably. A little too curious -- but not about her own resurrection. They don't know what alien tech ONI used to bring her back to life and none of them, not even Kat, has asked.

"You don't wanna know," Kurt says like he's read his mind. There's exhaustion and death in his eyes. "They got it from the Covenant who got it from Forerunners who built it for who the hell knows what. I've seen what it does when it doesn't work, Jorge."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault."

Silence burns.

"They speak very highly of you," Jorge blurts.

Kurt smiles tiredly. "I'm glad you're back," he says. "It'll be good for Jun."

Jun. Solemn, stoic Jun. "How has he been?"

Kurt grimaces. "He's always been hard to get a read on. You know him better. You tell me. How does he look to you?"

Broken. Alone. But he can't say that. "Controlled," Jorge says instead, wishing that's all it was, wishing they'd been here alongside him for the past six months. "He looks...controlled."

"You've never been a very good liar, Jorge."

Jorge shrugs. Kurt scrubs at his eyes, folds his hands and leans forward onto the table. "Musa pulled him," he says. "After Reach. ONI wanted to redeploy him and Musa fought them down."

Musa, still every bit as fierce as he was all those years ago. "Does Noble fall under his jurisdiction now?" he asks.

It's hopeful enough to get him a rueful grin. "Maybe. You never know with ONI, though."

"But if we were..." Jorge stops himself. Too much.

Too much to want everyone together again.

"Yeah," Kurt says a long moment later. "Yeah, I think he'd approve Jun's transfer."

The smile feels forced. Jorge nods and falls silent. The hope drains away.

He's so damn tired.

----

For all the Spartans surrounding him, he still feels out of place.

Musa's facility is impressive, well-stocked and well-staffed. The Fours carry themselves with confidence and pride and wide beaming smiles and Jorge steps aside and lets them walk by and tries to remember a time when Noble had that.

Tries to remember the last time he saw any of them really smile.

Jun's office is all the way at the top of the building, set in a corner that overlooks the entire city. Vantage. Sniper. Jorge snorts softly and raps his knuckles on the open door.

"You can come in," Jun calls out distractedly, without looking up. Jorge dares a step into the room. Jun doesn't move.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

"Did you need something?" Jun's scribbling something furiously and Jorge has a second to wonder at this new reality before Jun snaps his head up to give him an exasperated stare.

It's washed away almost instantly -- but not by a smile. Solemn. Cold. So unlike him. Jorge's chest aches.

"Jorge," Jun says calmly. Awkwardly. They used to talk about everything. "I...welcome back."

The silence burns. Jorge's heart is in his throat. He wants to grab him, shake him until the damned shell cracks and he has his brother back and Noble's whole again, wants to drag him into a hug and say I'm sorry we left you behind, say I'm sorry you were alone for all that time.

But he can't speak. He can barely even breathe.

"Jorge?"

Jun's voice is softer, more careful, more like him, but he's still so far away. Jorge ducks his chin, tries to suck air into tattered lungs.

The silence burns.

"Jorge." There's a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "Do you need to sit down or--"

Jorge shakes his head and stands motionless for another second. There's something like worry in Jun's eyes when he meets them -- there for a brief breath and then brushed away.

Solemn. Stoic. Silent.

It's so wrong it hurts.

Jun shifts a step away, close enough for conversation but far enough for personal space -- like he would be around a stranger. "Are you all right?" he asks again, halting. "Should I call the Commander--"

"I'm all right," Jorge says and though he tries his voice still cracks, cracks, caves. He scrubs at his face absently and forces a weary grin. "Didn't mean to drop in on you."

"It's all right." Jun shuffles his weight from one foot to the other, rocks, restless. Jorge's chest tightens.

With Jun, restless has never been good.

"I'll just--"

"Of course," Jun says abruptly. The smile's fleeting, a flicker. Polite. Obligatory. Owed. "I can--"

"No," Jorge says. His grin falters and he drives it back up. "No. It's all right. I can see myself back down."

Jun starts to say something, starts to argue, but -- stops. "All right," he says. Brusque. Professional. No warmth. No grin.

Not his best friend, not anymore.

Jorge glances back. Once. Only once. Jun's at his desk, absorbed in his work. Like Jorge was never there. Like the others aren't back at the barracks.

Like they're still gone.

The silence burns.

----

"We can't expect him to be the same," Carter says. He's flopped on his bunk with his arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Thinking. Or worried.

Jorge glances up from the pile of papers spread across Kat's cot. Maybe he shouldn't have agreed to sort her files for her, considering she never does her paperwork in the first place. "Who are you trying to convince?" he asks.

"What?"

"Who are you trying to convince?" Jorge repeats patiently.

Carter swings to sit up, dragging his hands through his hair. "I don't know," he says, voice muffled, head down. He rubs at his eyes like he hasn't slept well in a week.

Like he hasn't slept well since Reach.

"He'll come back," Jorge says.

Carter nods mutely and doesn't lift his head.

"He'll come back," Jorge repeats hoarsely. "Carter, he'll come back."

It feels hollower than it should.

----

"I miss him."

Jorge raises an eyebrow over his mug. The sun's just barely risen, a beacon on the horizon that floods through the mess's windows and bathes the tables in gold. It makes Emile look more angelic than he's ever acted in his life and for some reason it strikes Jorge as hilarious.

Emile slaps his hands on the table and would have shot to stand had Jorge not caught his forearm. "Not that," he manages. "I would never--"

Emile sinks back down with a suspicious glare. "What's goin' on with you lately?" he asks, and though he pitches it as gruffly as he can manage some concern still bleeds through.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

"I miss him too."

Emile grimaces and slouches back in his seat. "It's too quiet without him," he almost whispers. "Ya know?"

Too well.

----

"It's wrong."

Jorge waits a long moment. "What do you mean?”

Kat’s always fiddling with something. Always restless. Always moving. Driven but so impatient. It’s part of why she and Carter make such a formidable team: his reserve balances her riptide.

But she's still now, staring at her hands. "I don't know," she says quietly. "It just...it's wrong."

"Not having him here," Jorge supplies gently.

She nods without looking up. "Carter went to talk to him," she says hoarsely, clenching her fists. Jorge clasps a careful hand over them and she stops, steadies. "To figure out if he needs to request personnel files."

For a replacement. Another Spartan. Another sniper.

No more Jun.

Wrong.

Jorge's chest aches. "What did he say?"

"That he doesn't know." Kat huffs a laugh. "That it's up to Musa."

"He'll come back," Jorge says, and it echoes in the empty mess, a promise he has no power to keep. "Kat--"

She shrugs it off and pulls away. "You don't have to lie, Jorge," Kat says, setting her jaw. "We both know--"

"No, we don't," he interrupts, and it feels more desperate than it should. "Kat--"

"Six months is a long time -- and Reach was hell. He's not the same."

"I know. I--"

"Noble can't be what it was," Kat says and though her tone is steady her eyes bleed. "Let him go, Jorge."

The silence screams.

Jorge watches her leave.

----

"You wanna help me with this?"

Jorge hesitates in the armory's door and then steps hesitantly inside. "Sorry," he offers quietly. Standing there too long. Too still.

It's so damn silent.

Six shrugs and tilts her head toward the table. All of her weapons are spread across it, disassembled to be cleaned and recombined. "Like I said," she offers easily, "you wanna help me with this?"

Jorge shrugs and steps in to stand beside her. Liz is meticulous when it comes to caring for her gear; there's not much to clean in the first place.

It makes the silence all the more unbearable.

"It's quiet around here without him."

Jorge hmms his agreement. The scope is solid in his hands, cool metal and oil. Liz's hand lands on his shoulder and he tries to force a grin, tries to reassure.

"Don't do that," she says, making a face that makes him chuckle. It slips away a second later. "You don't have to pretend you're okay."

"I am."

"Pretending?" Liz tilts her head. "Or okay?"

Jorge rolls his eyes. Liz is motionless beside him for a long beat. "Maybe," she offers at last, "he hasn't come back because he doesn't know how."

Jorge chuffs a heave that's not really a laugh. "I don't follow."

Liz shrugs and slides her gaze back to the magnum in her hands, fiddles with the trigger. "After Reach, he had to keep living. Adapt. Maybe he doesn't know how to come back from that."

Solemn. Stoic. Alone. Jorge's chest tightens. Being in Covenant capture for three of the last six months was easier than this. "How do I help him?"

Liz grimaces, sets the magnum aside and clasps his shoulder. Stalwart. Unyielding.

"The same way you helped me,” she says. “Just be there.”

----

“Am I interrupting?”

Jun glances up from his ever-present stack of papers. There’s exhaustion and aching grief in his eyes for a beat, two, and then he shoves it down, shoves it away. “No,” he says, and Jorge wonders if he’s straining, hoping, or if there’s really a note of relief to his words. “Come in.”

The chair’s built for a Spartan but Jorge still feels like he dwarfs it. Jun shoves a stack so his desk looks slightly neater and sends another three mountains toppling to the floor. He curses under his breath, something Czech, something from New Harmony, a million years ago, and scrambles to scoop them back up and shove them into a drawer.

“Why don’t they just send it to your ‘padd?” Jorge asks. Jun scowls and slaps at a wayward sheet.

“My Spartans do,” he growls. “It’s the damned bureaucrats that don’t listen.”

Jorge nods and waits. Jun leans forward and folds his hands on the desk. “What can I help you with?” he asks, and it’s suddenly measured. So controlled. Polite.

Like he’s a stranger.

“Don’t do that,” Jorge says without thinking.

They used to talk about everything.

Jun blinks at him, once, and leans back and scrubs at his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he groans. “I’m sorry. It’s automatic.”

“It’s all right.”

Jun’s eyes are broken, bloodshot. He drums his fingers on his desk, restless.  Restless. "Carter came by the other day.”

“I heard.”

“He wants to know if I’m coming back. To Noble.”

Jorge nods. Doesn’t ask. Can’t ask. Jun hears it anyway.

They used to talk about everything.

“Jorge, I don’t know.” Jun drops his head to his hands and drags his fingernails down his scalp. His hair’s longer, a shock of bright white blond he usually shaves away. Must be too tired. He looks so damn tired. His voice cracks. “I don’t know. I -- they need me here.”

“Is it up to you?”

“Of course it’s up to me,” Jun shoots back. “It’s Musa.”

Of course. Of course. Not ONI. “Kurt told me he pulled you after Reach,” Jorge says carefully. Jun scoffs, nods. Clenches a fist. Trembles.

“Yeah,” he says. “He saved my life.”

Jorge’s heart twists. How bad? Bad enough. With Jun, restless has never been good. “You feel like you owe him.”

“He saved my life,” Jun repeats emptily. “Of course I owe him.”

“He’d never hold it against you.”

“You’re not really helping, Jorge.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Jun shakes his head, rueful. “It’s all right,” he says. “I don’t even know how in the hell you could.”

They used to talk about everything.

“I can listen,” Jorge offers quietly. Jun meets his eyes. There’s a riptide of relief, flooding and washing over the anxiety and the anguish and the exhaustion like a wave and for once the tension in Jorge’s chest eases. “Jun, I’m here. Talk to me.”

“I missed you,” Jun offers hoarsely. His hands are shaking, shaking, and Jorge pries them gently apart and clasps his own grip over them. Solid. Steady. Jun hangs on like his life depends on it.

“I’m here, brother,” Jorge repeats softly. Jun nods, squeezes his eyes shut and fights. Jorge tightens his hold. Solid. Steady. “I’m here. Talk to me.”

For the first time in a very long time, the silence breaks. For the first time since he got back, Jorge can breathe.

----