#my mom says i have trouble saying no to things but really it's like. i struggle to express any opinion really . or any 'want'. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

januaryembrs · 10 months ago

Text

TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader

Description: The ONE time the BAU needs you + the FOUR times you need them.

word count: 24k (what on earth was I thinking)

trigger warnings: mentions of spencers addictions + use + side affects. MOMMY ISSUES thankyou ambassador Prentiss. hostage scene + injuries. mentions of forced/pressured marriage. fem!reader. reader and Emily struggle to bond.

authors note: We never meet Emily's dad nor do we see a picture so while reader is given a nickname of Bugsy, she still keeps her real name (no use of y/n) and is given ZERO physical descriptors. ALL of my fem!readers should feel included here, let me know if this is not the case! also I don't speak any language besides English however she does speak many because of her mom, so I really tried to get it right, message me if I'm being stupid!!

series masterlist | next chapter

[this] means its spoken in another language.

—

‘trouble on my left, trouble on my right,

I’ve been facing trouble almost all my life’

1. the one where you become a translator.

“I’ll make some calls, I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries,” Ambassador Prentiss announced to the room, standing from her place on the plush sofa.

A case had landed quite literally in Emily’s lap when her mother had come by that morning asking for Hotch, a Russian migrant looking for her father with a ransom note and a sliced off finger shoved through her mailbox, wedding ring still attached.

It wasn’t every day Emily wished she’d brushed up on her Russian, but today of all days she was struggling to keep up.

“We don’t have much time, we need a division of labour,” Hotch’s serious face settled, the time constraints making him just that bit more dictatorial, “Morgan, someone needs to go to the Chernus’s house in Baltimore in case they are contacted again,”

“What about the language barrier?” Derek raised, smoothing a hand over the short scruff of his beard, “We can’t have the unsub speaking with the family directly. He could say anything to them without us knowing,”

Bugsy would hate to admit she fit the criteria for youngest daughter of a workaholic mother and distant father to a tea, but Emily would say different.

Elizabeth Prentiss had never been a warm woman; Emily used to tell her the scowl was a side effect of the overplucking of her eyebrows, not the serious nature of her job. Her youngest girl once said her mother’s lips looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Of course they admired her work, but world peace meant jack shit to a little girl wanting nothing more than a mother’s hug.

Despite the fact she’d pushed away her husband and both her daughters in favour of her career, the one useful thing about being the Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t just the money, but the widespread culture the girls had been crammed full of since they could so much as beg for a sippy cup.

“Baltimore, you say?” Emily asked Hotch with a somewhat doubtful wince, “I mean you could always-”

“Absolutely not,” Her mother cut her off, rubbing the stress lines already creasing her forehead at the very notion of her other daughter, despite the fact Emily hadn’t even finished her thought.

Emily’s sigh was a reflex, the years of her mother cutting her off sparking the frustration on instinct.

“She lives right in the city, Mother, it can’t hurt to have her just talk for them-” Emily tried to bargain, only for the sharp mouthed Ambassador shoot her a frown.

“End of discussion, Emily,” Elizabeth snipped, her manicured fingernails twitching with annoyance, “Your sister is much too young for an assignment so serious,”

Emily rolled her eyes with a scoff, as if the two had slipped back into the role of rebellious teenager and scathing mother without much thought.

“She's twenty-two, mom. She’s getting her masters degree for Christ sakes, she’s not ‘too young’,” The dark headed woman fought back, clicking her pen a few times as if the spring loaded ink would take away some of the temper Elizabeth seemed to flare up.

Her mother’s lips pursed, in the way Bugsy hated, in the way that meant she was going to be mean.

“Immature may have been a better word, then,” She replied, and Emily seemed to pause. She couldn’t argue with that. “Or perhaps lazy, or puerile; callow, wild, irresponsible. Would you like me to name more?”

“Asinine would be a good term; deriving from the Latin asinus it not only means foolish, but to be stubborn and lazy like an ass,” Spencer input helpfully to the Ambassador, only for his bright smile to fade when he saw the daggers Emily stared at him with, “Sorry, I love word games,” He muttered into his lap.

“Asinine. Perfect, Dr Reid,” Elizabeth said, and Emily could only roll her eyes harder.

Hotch huffed, the victim’s daughter watching between the two women’s quarrel with wet eyes, the ice box with her father’s finger clenched tightly in her lap, the cold of the limb bleeding into his own gaze.

“Unfortunately, Ambassador Prentiss, despite just how asinine your daughter might be, Morgan is right. Having the Unsub possibly speaking with the family without us understanding what he’s saying could prove fatal,” He explained, ignoring the way the older woman’s mouth scrunched in bitterness. They didn’t need to be profilers to see that despite how tempered the relationship between Emily and her mother was, a tension seemed to fall between the women the moment the younger Prentiss was mentioned.

Spencer was sure he was the only person who even knew Emily had a little sister.

“Very well, but don’t be surprised when you find your hands full of the girl,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head as she led the victims, a mother and daughter that seemed to cling to one another for comfort as if to rub salt in her matriarchal wound, into the break room to get away from the frosty atmosphere that now lingered around the table.

Emily sighed, picking around her fingernails the way she did when she was bothered.

“I’m going to hate these next words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” She started with a long exhale, “But my mother’s right. Bugsy is a handful. Just try not to get her wound up, that girl smells fear,” She looked to Reid who seemed none the wiser, “I’m talking to you, wonder boy. She’ll eat you up and spit you right back out,”

Spencer gulped quietly.

Derek only chuckled, slapping a hand down onto Emily’s shoulder, “Relax, Prentiss. Your mom’s just got you all worried. Need I remind you I grew up with two sisters? This will be a piece of cake,”

–

Those were the famous last words of Derek Morgan.

Loud, heavy metal music jumped through the wooden door, so loud Morgan worried his three polite knocks would go unheard as the two of them waited outside her dorm for her to answer. Morgan was about to knock again, figuring the music had drowned out the first lot, when the door swung open and a frown the spitting image of Emily’s stressed expression met their gaze.

She looked so different to their Prentiss, but the way she seemed already scorned by the two of them told them they had the right woman.

“Miss Prentiss?” Morgan asked formally, though he felt the warmth grow when he caught sight of a beat up friendship bracelet around her wrist amongst newer gold chains, five white blocks spelling out her sister’s name pulling tight on her skin, as if she’d quickly outgrown the thing but hadn’t the heart to remove it.

It was then that he and Reid seemed to both reel back slightly at the fact she was standing in a large shirt, ratty around the edges, and what seemed to be a pair of men's boxers covering her bottom half, clearly not suspecting particularly important visitors.

She looked him head to toe with a frown, a dozen piercings in her ears, her hair highlighted with streaks of cardinal red, as if he was the one confronting her in his underwear, before she moved onto Spencer, who’s face seemed to be getting hotter by the second as he forced his eyes away from her bare legs.

“Are you guys strippers? Did someone send strippers to my door?” She asked, strawberry gum smacking between her lips as her gaze seemed to finish mulling over Spencer’s tall form and returned to Morgan.

“Emily sent us.” Reid said shortly, the music blaring in his ears making it difficult to focus on what it was she was saying, “As co-workers, no-not strippers. We’re with the FBI,”

He hated loud noises anyway, cringed at the sound of particularly cutting rock songs, but since he’d developed his … problem, the dilaudid had him feeling like someone was clawing at his skull, tugging his brain through his ears.

“Emily sent you here?” She asked with a scoff, looking the two up and down again. They both easily caught the way her face hardened, “Are pigs flying today or something?”

“We’re here to ask for your help on a case,” Spencer rushed through a sweaty brow, “Emily said you’d be able to act as a translator for us and some Russian citizens who are being targeted,”

She sighed sceptically, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, “Any strippers or non-strippers can fraud an ID. Emily’s name was in the paper just the other week. I’m gonna need a little more than that,”

She keeps track of her sister despite the supposed distance between them. Spencer was quick to profile, his mind whirring at all the ways she reminded him of her sister down to the way she raised her eyebrows expectantly at them.

“Emily was born October twelfth, 1970 at 7:12am, graduated from Garfield High School in 1989,” Spencer said as if reporting the weather, her eyes narrowing in on him all the more coldly, “She attended Chesapeake Bay University and speaks six languages, as I expect you do from moving so often with your mother. She coined your nickname Bugsy from your childhood love of ladybugs, which she said you grew out of by the time you turned eleven yet the name stuck, though you still like counting the spots to identify their species. Your parents split when you were five and your father moved in with his now wife, born September ninth-”

“Alright- alright. What are you, living in her walls?” She interrupted incredulously, before turning her attention to Derek who seemed to hide a chuckle with a cough. “Either you really are a stripper or you’re a terrible friend,”

“She loves Kurt Vonnegut,” Derek held his finger as if to prove her entirely wrong, although not much else came to him. Maybe he was a bad friend, he thought guiltily, or maybe he simply lacked an eidetic memory like the wonder boy next to him, who had been about to tell her how old she was when Emily’s pet betta fish died, “Slaughterhouse 5?”

Rolling her eyes, she grunted at them, kicking her door open for them to enter.

“Everyone loves Vonnegut; only losers under a rock dislike Vonnegut,” She drawled, edging back into her room, the heavy bass rock growing in volume as they followed her in, “I’ll be ready in a second- Emily’s always bugging me about wearing pants,” She said vaguely, scanning around the dirty dorm, until she found one particular pair of jeans laying half under her bed, quickly yanking them up her legs. “Come in, come in.”

She flicked the speakers way down to which Spencer took a breath of relief. His eyes fell to the laptop that had been set up on her desk, the five different textbooks littered around the spare space, energy drinks and empty mugs filling the cracks where he could barely see the generic white of the table top, his nose crinkling. About as gross as he’d expect from a college student.

“Emily said your Russian was pretty good,” Derek made conversation, his eyes wandering over the various posters plastered over her walls, some fraying round the edges from where she had likely been moved from bedroom to bedroom when the Prentiss’s inevitably had to move country again.

“Yeah,” She snarked, pulling a nicer top over her head, “Kinda tends to happen when you live in Russia,”

Morgan raised his eyebrows to Spencer who seemed to give him the same look back, though the latter was biting back a snicker at her words.

How in the hell was she the Ambassador’s daughter?

–

“This all involves Russian Mafia, it’s really beefed up here the last ten years or so,” Agent Cramer, a tall, slim man who looked entirely overwhelmed by the workload on his shoulders reported, as she listened intently.

She had been somewhat de-briefed in the car, Emily messaging her for the first time since Christmas, the message a simple: “Have you met with Morgan and Reid yet? Make sure to put on pants,” to which she sent her a thumbs up emoji. She didn’t have much to say to her at the moment, barely even knew her sister anymore.

“It started off mainly in New York and LA but they send lieutenants from the old country,” Cramer went on, and she caught Reid scratching his arm beneath his shirt. She knew it was mozzy weather, and he was already under the blaring sun in a little sweater, it wouldn’t surprise her if he felt a bit prickly.

“Pahkans,” She interrupted, the man named Gideon shooting her a glance as she dug through her purse.

“Your Mom do much work about the Mafia?” He asked, as she produced a clear nail varnish.

“Here and there, I had to sit with her in her office for a whole Summer once when I got caught sneaking out. Picked up a few things, though,” She said, holding the polish out to Spencer, nodding to his arm, “Here. Supposed to help bug bites,”

He looked at her as if he wanted to say something, perhaps question her sources for such an old wives tale, but he stopped himself quickly, taking the varnish out of her hand with a dejected nod.

“Thankyou,” He muttered, shoving it in his pocket.

Three months he’d been in this rabbit hole. She had noticed it in a matter of hours.

“They open up branch offices in other cities. Baltimore, Saint Louis, Chicago, Dallas, the list goes on,” Cramer added, nodding at her words, “They’re mainly offshoots of the Odessa Mafia and they’re especially tough to crack from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean beside being well organised with sophisticated technical equipment, there’s Vory v Zakone to contend with,”

“The thieves code, eighteen principles they live by,” Reid jumped in before she could, to which she nodded as Gideon looked to her for more.

“It means ‘thief in law’, or ‘thief with code’. It's a system of repeatedly jailed convicts that have been crowned or ‘made’ with a strict list of ideals, breaking them usually means death,” She explained, kicking a stone between her feet.

“It’s like bible to these guys. We’re not gonna be turning any of them informer anytime soon,” Cramer said. Gideon seemed to tune the three of them out however, his gaze locking on the house across the street, where a curtain twitched, and a man’s face appeared in the window, watching the crime scene with guilt.

“Then we’ll need a witness who will talk,” Gideon replied, heading straight towards the neighbour who seemed just a little too invested in what was happening, much more than a concerned third party should be. Though, she had barely noticed, digging through her purse once more for chapstick.

“So, you study Russian or something?” Cramer asked as she applied it gently, Spencer swore he could smell the cherry flavour from where he stood beside her.

“I lived in Moscow until I was six, moved back to France, then back to Italy, then Algeria for a bit. Bounced around Europe for a bit longer, but I still speak better Russian than anything else,” She clarified, and she saw Cramer’s eyebrows shoot up, “Military brat except I don’t get the cool discount at the store,”

“You must have had a lot of friends though, going to so many schools,” Spencer added, and though there was nothing teasing about his tone, she laughed sharply anyway.

“You’re funny,” She snarked, but smiled at him anyway.

Spencer had never been called funny in his life. ‘Funny looking’, ‘funny sounding’ maybe, but never funny.

In fact he was so confused by what she had meant, whether it had been a taunt or genuine that he almost missed the sound of the whole street locking their front doors, dead bolting their lives away when a black prius, an expensive one at that, pulled through the street and swerved into park next to them.

“Guess who,” Cramer bit, her eyes ripping away from where Gideon had the door slammed in his face.

Detective Cramer aged by about five years when two tall men got out of the luxury car, opening the door for a shorter man in the back seat, their faces thunder.

“You familiar with them?” She asked, shoulder brushing against Spencer as she turned to watch the men approach, entirely aware of the .9mm on each of their hips.

“Arseny Lysowsky,” The detective identified, his voice cold, eyeing the two men who flanked the leader, towering over them.

“Agent Cramer, how are you?” Lysowsky smiled at him, which oddly enough seemed somewhat real, as he also took stock of the three other people around him. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, noting her lack of gun and badge, trying to decipher if she was local or just a very unprepared fed.

“Lysowsky, what brings you out?” Cramer asked, a tightness to his tone, his hand all too eager to grab his own pistol.

“I heard Chernuses had problems,” He kept it vague, didn’t reveal too much, and looked back at the victim’s house with a scorned frown.

“How did you hear that?” Gideon challenged, stance unwavering as the mob leader turned to meet his cold gaze.

“And you are?” He asked, a sinister smile on his face that flipped her stomach. She didn’t like the tension that had overcome the little patch of sidewalk they took up, and she was quick to notice how Spencer moved towards her.

He, by far, wasn’t the best shot on the team, but he was sure Hotch and Prentiss would have his and Morgan’s heads if any harm came to her.

“Churneses said they hadn’t told anyone,” Agent Gideon ignored his question, hands firmly planted on his hips. If he was unnerved by the criminal in front of him, he never showed it, not even when Lysowsky’s grin widened horribly.

“It is a small community. Word gets out,” He said simply, looking past him to the neighbours house that had kicked Gideon to the curb, “Are you a friend of Gorban’s?”

A second of silence passed between them, neither of them backing down from the moral standoff they’d engaged in.

“Mr Gorban wouldn’t talk to me,” Gideon admitted, and Arseny only smiled again, flicking a look at the house behind him, as if hearing his dog had obeyed without command.

“Would you like me to talk to him for you?” The threat was there clear as day, clear enough to have Gideon’s eyes narrow, “I can’t promise something will come of it,”

“You!” In a second, Natalya, the victim she’d briefly met when Morgan had pulled up around an hour before, had stormed out of her house, her black kitten heels clicking against the concrete, “Where’s my father? He has my father!”

“Wait a minute,” Derek called, restraining her where she stood, trying to pull his muscled arm from her shoulder, “Do you know he has your father?”

“He’s responsible for all of this,” She spat, her eyes cold as she glared at the three men with vitriol hate, “Why everyone’s afraid, him and his animals,” She threw a hand up to his bodyguards that seemed barely contained by Cramer’s silencing hand.

“I am only here to help,” Lysowsky replied, confident and calm in his words, though not as taunting as the agents would have thought, as if he truly cared for her.

A vast difference to the sadistic mob boss Cramer’s team had painted him to be.

“Help?” She laughed woefully, tears in her eyes, “You’re a dog,”

“Natalya,” Arseny said in a warning, the way a teacher would to a student, as her breath rattled in her chest through a weep.

“How exactly can you help them?” Bugsy braved to speak, Gideon and Reid both flashing her a look. She’d always had trouble holding her tongue.

Lysowsky turned his attention to her then, his eyes running down her figure, still deciphering whether she was armed; she looked much too young to be an agent.

“In any way that they’d like me to, darling,” He replied, the disdain in her frown clearly not deterring him in the slightest, though again the act of concern held up in his own grimace, “As I said this is a small community. If one is in pain, we’re all in pain.”

Natalya weeped behind Morgan, sniffling as the boss made his way over to her, “Natalya, [you didn’t have to bring in outsiders],”

The younger woman’s ears pricked up as he spoke in his native language, Spencer’s eyes flicking to her from behind his sunglasses.

“[Let me help you],” He continued, taking a step towards Natalya, unthreatening yet she saw Morgan tense, his fingers twitching towards his gun.

“[My family will never come to you for help],” Natalya hissed back, also in Russian, her face contorted in disgust, “[Get away from my house],”

“[You are not right, Natalya],” He replied, yet again the concern in his eyes was either genuine or very well faked, “[You have made the wrong decision],”

Taking a step away from the victim that wept with a scorned sneer, he looked back to the agents, noting the way the youngest of them glared at him hotly, before retreating to his car.

“What did he say? Did he threaten you, Natalya?” Morgan asked, the woman watching the group of men drive away, as if Mr Chernus wasn’t still missing and they hadn’t just bumped themselves up to number one of the suspects list. “Talk to us and we can do something about it,”

“He said I made the wrong decision,” She said wetly, frustration turning on Derek as he pushed her for an answer, “I hope I didn’t,”

With that she stormed off back into her house, the same stomping of her kitten heels in her wake, leaving the agents to all look between one another before they simultaneously turned to look at Bugsy, questions hovering on all of their lips.

“What did he say exactly?” Gideon asked without frills, a hand rubbing his brow. Relaying the information, the men’s faces all drew into frowns as they heard Lysowsky’s parting statement. Gideon huffed, turning to Morgan and gesturing for him to follow Natalya inside.

“Morgan, keep an eye on her, Reid and I are going to Cramer’s office to look over the files,” He looked at her then, worry lines littering his otherwise friendly face, damn near scowling as she looked over at him, “You are here to interpret, you understand? You do not speak to the suspects, that’s our job.” He growled, watching her with disappointment, the same tone a father used when scolding a petulant child, “Do you have any idea how much danger you could put yourself in? These guys won’t hesitate to take you out the second we’re not around, kid,”

“But-” She started with a bite, though her whole fight left her when he silenced her with a raised hand.

“Buts are for cigarettes, kiddo,” He interrupted, and Spencer winced slightly, knowing he’d heard that one a few hundred times when he’d first started under Gideon and had yet to mature entirely. Reid watched something rebellious flare in her eyes, and he worried for a moment she might just slap his boss for the patronising tone he took, “Just keep your mouth shut, you’re doing great so far,”

She opened her mouth to protest, only to then register his words entirely and stay silent once more, appreciating his praise with a guilty smile. For once, she listened.

–

The grandfather clock chimed to tell them it was merely 11am; two hours until the unsub would start cutting more if they didn’t get the ransom fee, two hours to figure out who wanted Natalya’s family to suffer.

Said woman paced her living room at the sound of the hour, as Bugsy picked over the knick knacks on her fireplace, a small smile teasing her lips when she saw a picture of three small children grinning toothily at the camera.

She had never gotten any photo’s similar, Emily being fourteen years older. The majority of their childhood photos consisted of a very grumpy teenager holding her baby sister that seemed to squirm in the tight, formal dresses Elizabeth Prentiss had forced them into, identical scowls on their faces as they were made to sit for the picture.

There were some good memories, ones where Emily let herself be a sister and not a mom, where she would put makeup on her for fun and do her hair, let her have all the clothes out her wardrobe she thought looked nice, reading to her before bed, even letting her sister keep her pet corn snake when she left home for good.

But now, it seemed like she was too caught up in her super serious grown up job to give a shit that her sister lived just an hour away. Still messaged each other for holidays, but the last few times she’d braved a call to the eldest Prentiss, it had gone unanswered. They argued the majority of the time they spoke, or there was an awkward long silence in between words, whichever was worse, but they each knew the other would come running if they were to ever need them so desperately.

“Are you hungry? I could make something?” Natalya offered kindly, Derek having a poke through her collection of books that sat on the end table, though he’d have a tough job reading them as she’d already caught most of them were in her home language.

“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine,” He replied with a small smile, putting down the books to calm the clearly on edge woman that looked to the twenty-something year old hopefully.

She shook her head, “I’m good, thanks,” which seemed to deflate her entirely as she sat next to Derek with a sigh.

“I guess I’m like my mother. When she’s upset, she cooks,” Natalya said with a sad huff of a laugh, running a hand through her short, dark hair.

“Yeah, mine does too. I think that’s just a mom thing,” He replied, and Bugsy felt the two of them look at her as her finger traced the old brass ornaments gently, “How about you, baby Prentiss?”

She snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” smiling bitterly, “My mom never cooked for us, she said we needed to figure it out for ourselves rather than relying on the staff. Didn’t stop her from trying to end world hunger though,”

It wasn’t lost to Morgan the way her eyes trained on the picture of Natalya and her mother, cuddled together with genuine love in their embrace, the snarky humour as she spoke, the same longing Emily seemed almost too good at hiding from them.

“Your mother is a great woman,” Natalya complimented, though she missed the way the girl’s face steeled over, chewing her bottom lip as if to stop herself from snapping at the woman who meant well. She said nothing. “Where is your mother?” She turned her attention back to Derek who seemed the more talkative of the two of them.

“Chicago. That’s where I’m from,” He replied, watching Bugsy turn away from the two of them to inspect more of the Chernus’s trinkets on their walls.

“I’m from Dolgoprudny. Just North of Moscow.” Natalya replied. Opening her mouth to add something else, she was cut off by a knock at the door and the three of them froze in their place.

“Are you expecting someone?” Morgan asked Natalya in a hushed tone, reaching for his gun and heading for the door.

She shook her head, “No,” She whispered back. Morgan pulled the curtain back the smallest inch to see a small blonde boy staring back, a box in his hands and a bored look on his face.

It all happened too fast from there, Natalya opening the door for the neighbourhood kid, opening the box to see a decapitated ear, the blood fresh and pooling in the bottom of the box. It couldn’t have been taken longer than an hour or so ago, unless they were keeping the parts on ice.

Bugsy’s hand slapped over her mouth, Natalya’s scream piercing through her as she shoved the box into Derek’s hands, fleeing to the toilet, and she heard the woman retching. Part of her felt the same nausea settle in her stomach, looking away from the body part with a wince as Derek got straight on the phone to Gideon.

“They didn’t wait, man. They sent a box with-” He swallowed thickly, “With Mr Chernus’s ear inside.”

Gideon replied, and whatever it was, it had Derek looking back to her. He agreed, hanging up the phone and rooting through his pockets, producing a set of rattling keys, holding them out for you between the tips of his fingers.

“Gideon wants you, kid. He said they’re at the Little Kiev restaurant, they’re going to talk to Lysowsky,” Morgan said, grimacing as he held the ear away from her, “You sure you’ll be okay to drive?”

“I’d rather be on the road than look at what’s in that box,” She said in disgust, taking the keys and heading out to the car.

She thought it best for everyone she didn’t tell him she hadn’t yet got her licence as she made her way over to the restaurant.

“Reid and I will do the talking, just see if anything he’s saying connects with Vory v zakone, think you got that?” Gideon instructed her the second she got out of the car, taking the keys and handing them back to Reid who gave her a small nod.

“We think the reason it was Mr Chernus who was targeted has something to do with the code,” Reid explained, his hands in his pockets as the three of them approached the restaurant, “You said earlier you understood the tenants,”

“Why me, though? I thought I was just translating?” She repeated Gideon’s earlier words, almost cocky that they needed her.

“Lysowsky would feel the need to show face in front of men like Morgan and Cramer, even in front of Natalya since she lives locally. Between the three of us, he had less reputation to uphold, less so with a young woman like yourself,” Reid added, holding the door open for her to go in front.

And so there she was, trailing behind Gideon and Reid over to where Lysowsky sipped a spoonful of borscht, as she tried not to marvel at the grandeur of the establishment inside. Clearly, Arsney had money to build a place like this, and wasn’t afraid to be flashy about it either, that much was apparent from the other clientele that tended to their beers around their own tables, Rolex watches and designer shoes adorning nearly every one of them. She hated to think of how many ears or fingers those suits had cost.

“Would you like something to eat?” He asked, a chunk of bread in his hand dipping into the thick sauce, seemingly unbothered that they were there, “This borscht is exquisite, it’s my mother’s old country recipe,”

“Didn’t you forsake all your relatives when you swore the thieves code?” Reid asked, which she guessed was hit foot in to get Lysowsky to talk.

“I didn’t forsake her recipes,” Lysowsky replied with a shrug, looking to her where she seemed to be staring at his plate, “Borscht?”

She shook her head, her nose wrinkling, “Much preferred stroganoff, mom used to force me to have borscht to make sure I ate my veggies,”

His eyebrows raised, surprise written over his face, before he gave a short laugh.

“[Where are you from]?” He asked in his mother tongue, gesturing for the three of them to sit down, though his eyes lit up as he watched her carefully.

“[I was born in DC, but my mother worked in Moscow for a few years],” She answered shortly, and he seemed to find it even funnier that the near child they’d brought along on their case spoke as fluently as he did.

Laughing with a heavy hand smacking on the table, he gestured to a nearby waiting staff to come over.

“What are you having then, borscht for the gentle man?” He looked at Reid and Gideon, the former shaking his head while Gideon nodded with an awkward smile.

“I’d love a taste,” He said, though any enthusiasm seemed to have drained out of his voice.

“And what is the little lady having?” Lysowsky asked, his eyes falling back to her, as she straightened in her seat.

She chanced a quick glance to Gideon, who nodded at her to play his game. She had not expected to be so deep in criminal territory when they’d said they needed a translator, and truly they hadn’t planned on getting her in the field until they realised she would know much more about this than they would.

“Do you have sharlotka?” She asked, returning his smile wearily as he clicked at the waiter who all but bolted to the kitchen.

“A sweet tooth. I like it,” Arseny replied, shovelling a heap of beets into his mouth, “Our favourite was always Leningradsky,”

“Ours?” She prompted, giving a polite thanks to the waiter who returned too quickly with a slice of cake. She caught Spencer glancing at the bowl with intrigue, the hunger clear on the quiet man’s face. Gently pushing the bowl and clean spoon towards him, he flicked a look up at her, “Apple cake,” She whispered, sending him a small smile, “Really yummy with the sugar on top,”

“Mine and my mother’s,” Arseny replied, though Gideon and Reid both caught how he paused before he replied, as if he had to think about the answer he was giving; the oldest tell that it wasn’t entirely true, “We didn’t have much when I was a boy, but that was always our dessert of choice,”

She stopped for a mere second, missing the moment when Spencer spooned the tiniest bite of the cake into his mouth, trying to ignore the way his tongue exploded in the sweet, fruit taste. He hadn’t eaten anything properly in days, and maybe that was why it tasted so good, but more likely it was just the fact that everything sweet tasted even better when he was on his come downs.

“We need to talk, Arseny,” Gideon interrupted, ignoring the way Spencer pined to go back in for a second mouthful, but chose to hand the bowl back to her with a small smile.

“We are on first name basis?” Lysowsky asked, shaking his head, and she took a small bite of the sweet cake for herself, “I still don’t even know who you are,”

“I think I understand something about this,” Gideon replied, his thumbs tapping together, the waiter returning with his borscht, “You have a problem,”

“I do?” The pahkan titled his head at the agent, the annoyance clear on his face.

“That’s why you came to the Chernus’ house this morning,” Gideon answered, unbothered as he began to scoop the borscht onto the spoon, the apple cake in her own mouth going down a treat.

She kept her head down, took tiny bites of the dessert that certainly tasted like a fresh baked sharlotka. But her thoughts lingered on what Lysowsky had said, about his own favourite pudding.

It made no sense that he would have ever tasted Leningradsky shortbread, not for the time that he was born, nor with the amount of money he claimed his family lacked. Infact, the way he fully pronounced his vowels, the akanye, the stress he put on certain parts of his words, all pointed to the same dialect you’d heard back in Moscow, more central than anything else.

So how on earth would he have eaten the so-called ‘Royal Cake’ that had only been made eight hours from there, in the town it grew its name from.

There was something glaringly obvious about his story missing.

“A man like me?” She tuned back into the conversation, swallowing another mouthful down as Gideon took another bite himself, though it seemed the topic had turned sour as Arseny wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin.

“Four watchtowers and a convict signifies a stay in prison,” Spencer cut in, nodding towards the tattoos branded across his knuckles, “Each one of those crosses symbolises an individual sentence,”

“Twenty three years in prison in the Ural mountains,”

But she was still stuck on what it was she was missing. It had been such an odd thing to lie about, particularly when he’d even admitted himself that they hadn’t had much money, so he clearly hadn’t been lying to fake a reputation.

So why lie?

She was ripped out of her stumped silence when Natalya entered the restaurant, her voice grabbing the men’s attention immediately.

“Mr Lysowsky. You said you could help me,” She said, her purse over her shoulder and her own car keys gripped tightly in her hand as if she’d all but thrown herself out the vehicle to get there faster.

“Don’t you already have help,” Lysowsky snapped, clearly Gideon had dug under his skin enough to garner a reaction.

“I made a mistake,” Natalya replied, barely meeting Bugsy’s gaze as she stared at her from her seat at the table. “I talked to my father on the phone,”

The girl frowned at her, “That’s a lie,” It came out before she could hold herself, brows furrowed at whatever it was she was trying to pull. Gideon said her name in a reprimand, though he too was looking at the woman as if she’d grown a second head.

“Thankyou for coming, but I don’t need your help,” The woman met her confused look with a saddened expression, nodding to her solemnly.

Leave it alone, she seemed to be saying, there’s nothing more I want you to do.

And with that, the two of them left the restaurant, Natalya walking by his side obediently, her purse tucked in close under her arm, as Morgan and Cramer filed in from the parking lot, watching their only leads drive away without a fight.

–

The team were quick to head back to Natalya’s home, only to find the ear missing and the finger gone too, the only evidence left of any crime being committed leaving with the victim’s daughter herself.

“She’s not here, and the garbage was never taken out,” Morgan said with a grimace as he walked down the front steps to meet the four of them on the sidewalk.

“Her dad just went missing, surely we can cut the girl some slack-” Bugsy words were hidden in a huff, rolling your eyes at the man who cut a glance to her.

“No, no. When Hotch first talked to us, he said she noticed her father’s car in the driveway when she took the garbage out,” Morgan explained, his shades blocking the way the cogs turned behind his dark eyes.

“Right?” Reid asked, his own sunglasses now covering his eyes that winced at the brightness, surrounding them.

“Garbage can in the kitchen is completely full, she never took it out.”

“She lied,” Gideon said with finality, the penny beginning to drop for him too.

“She could be half way back to Dolgo-whatever by now,” Morgan scoffed, his arms smacking against his side as the lightbulb went off over her head, the final puzzle piece falling into place.

“Dolgoprudny?” Spencer asked, exchanging a glance with Cramer, “Isn’t that where Lysowsky’s from-”

“Yes, YES, of course!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto Spencer’s arm as he spoke.

He looked at her with wide eyes, not that she could see since his shades blocked the way, only to feel her shake him harder in the midst of her enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to rip his arm out of her grip, waiting for the sickness to crawl up his throat at a strangers germs touching him, but the oddest part of him reasoned she had the same germs as Emily did, that the fifty percent DNA the women shared negated the fact she was a stranger, just as it did when he met Jack. Jack had Hotch germs. Bugsy had Emily’s. He didn’t feel so sick thinking of it like that.

“I knew I was missing something,” She said, turning to Gideon, “He was lying before, about his favourite dessert. There was no way he could have had Leningradsky with his mother. Given his age, at that time in Soviet Russia, shortbread was incredibly expensive, only extremely wealthy families could have eaten it. That, and given the Central dialect he speaks in, I’d pinpointed he lives somewhere near or around Moscow, which means there was no way he was eating that cake considering it was only ever baked in one shop at first, one way up in Leningrad, where St Petersburg is now, like nine hours away from Moscow-”

“What’s your point?” Cramer asked, tired of the somewhat slew of thoughts she’d been saving until she knew for sure what she meant.

“Before when he said it was ‘our favourite’, I don’t think he was talking about him and his mother,” She explained, looking to see if Spencer at least understood what she was getting at.

“It was him and his own child…” Spencer finished, as Morgan’s phone began ringing.

“Yeah, what?” He asked, the frustration clear in his tone that they were all still without the evidence needed to pin it on Lysowsky, “You’re sure? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks doll,”

The four of them looked at him expectantly as he nodded to her, “Garcia just got into the bank’s system, somebody wired 500 thousand dollars into the account ten minutes ago,”

“Who wired it?” Spencer asked, though he was still reeling from the way she’d touched him, the way her voice went up about five octaves and a dozen decibels.

“She didn’t say, but the name on the account is Lyov Fulenko. She says that’s Lysowsky’s wife’s maiden name. Fulenko.” Morgan replied, and her brows furrowed.

“Why did she bring us into this?” Gideon asked, though the solemn look on his face said he already knew, “Because she needed to put pressure on the other victim,”

Gideon headed towards Mr Gorban’s house once more, though it was clear he had already sketched out in his head who was their unsub and Natalya’s involvement, he simply needed the confirmation.

Morgan clapped a hand on her back, “Nice job, baby Prentiss. Those were some mean profiling skills out there,”

She frowned at him, scoffing, “I’m not a profiler, that’s Emily’s job. It was just basic linguistics really; more a display of how I need to lay off cake for a while.”

The man kissed his teeth with a grin, “Don’t put yourself down. What’s your degree even in?”

She shrugged, picking under her nails for something to do, “Individualised genomics and health.” She said as if it were child’s play, though Spencer’s head shot to her.

“Biotechnology?” He asked, and she glanced at him with a nod, “What’s your thesis on?”

Gideon had returned by the time he’s asked, and began corralling the two of them back to the car, “We’re heading back to the restaurant. We need to speak with Lysowsky again,”

But it had fallen on deaf ears as Spencer looked at her expectantly.

“Just some new research into prenatal screening, nothing too fun,” She simpered, climbing into the back seat as he nodded with her.

“I read a fascinating paper on the uses of hCG in a woman’s body-”

“Reid,” Gideon cut him off with a short glance from the front seat, “Continue this conversation once we’ve found Mr Chernus alive,”

Spencer blushed, feeling like a kid caught in the cookie jar, “Sorry, sir,” He looked over at her, only to see her hiding a smile to herself.

He thinks it was then he’d decided Emily had been wrong about her.

“You paid the ransom already,” Gideon said plainly, the four of them trailing behind him as he followed Lysowsky to a small seating area in the front of the restaurant. She could tell the whole way Spencer had been itching to ask her more questions about her paper, barely contained as his fingers had twitched in his lap, but he seemed to straighten himself out once she’d reached the restaurant, “You paid all the ransoms,”

“Sit,” The boss ordered, barely glancing at them as he held his strong whiskey up.

“Are they going to kill Mr Chernus?” Morgan asked, cutting to the chase as Lysowsky spared him a bored glance.

“No,” He replied shortly, the look on his face about as grumpy as when they’d left.

“The account is in the name of Lyov Fulenko. Lyov is a man’s name.” Spencer input, crossing his arms as the boss glared at him, “A son’s name. Vory v Zakone. Never have a family of your own. No wife. No children.”

“Lyov,” He looked at her then, gesturing to her with the glass of strong liquor, “You know what it means?”

“The Lion,” She replied gravely, steeling herself against his dark eyes.

“No one else would be so stupid,” Lysowsky ran a hand over his weathered face, swigging his drink as if it was the only thing keeping him talking. “At first it didn’t mean much. It was a way of letting him earn his own money. I could afford it, it came from the fund. And no one questions the use of the fund-”

“Where is he?” Gideon asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned in.

“What else could I do?” He was ignored, “I couldn’t admit I wasn’t blessing the kidnappings, I couldn’t even admit my son existed.” He huffed when he saw Gideon’s face unmoving from the glower, his question still unanswered, “Chernus will be home in a few minutes. You should be there, he will need medical attention,” He shooed them away, with his final words, drink sloshing in his hand. His face darkened, impossibly so, and the five of them looked at him, something sad and remorseful shining back.

“What are you gonna do?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

“Vory v Zakone.” He said heavily, nodding to her, “We take care of our own troubles.”

It was a silent journey back to the Chernus’ house.

Morgan and Reid pulled up to the campus, the younger girl in the back seat almost dozing off with the rhythmic hum of the engine, the evening sun much nicer on Spencer’s sensitive eyes.

“This is you, baby Prentiss,” Derek’s voice jolted her out of the half sleep she was in, straightening herself from where she had her head pressed against the window.

“Thanks,” She muttered, rubbing her eyes and unbuckling herself as they did the same, assuming they wanted to walk her back to her dorm since it had gotten dark, “I’ll be okay on my own, campus security should be out by now,”

“You sure?” Reid asked, flicking his watch up to his eyes to see the meagre 6:13pm staring back at him, “I thought they started at 7,”

She blinked at him, her eyebrows quirking for a moment, “How do you know that?”

“Johns Hopkins was my backup option- well actually it was my third, I much preferred Caltech’s curriculum, Yale was my second-” He started, flicking a glance to her where she waited for him to finish, “Not that Johns was bad, there were just better- alternative options out there-”

“Don’t shit your pants, I’m hardly the dean of the university,” She chuckled indignantly patting them both on the shoulder before sliding over to open the door, “Nice meeting you both, I’ll just get back to my mediocre college with my poor curriculum, nothing like the solid gold bathrooms at Caltech-”

“I never said that!” She laughed again, with her whole chest, at his defensive tone as she stepped out the car, hand on the door to shut it behind her.

Leaning down to give them both a wave goodbye, Derek’s voice stopped her again, “Baby Prentiss, do us all a favour and enrol yourself into forensics, we need more people on our team,”

Smirking at him, she shook her head, “Very funny. Never gonna happen. I like my little slides and samples, thankyou,”

Slamming the door on the two of them she headed for the front gates, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and she quickly realised she’d been too tired to even realise a set of footsteps jogging after her.

Maybe she should have taken that walk home after all.

Whirling around, her eyes widened as Spencer had clearly not been leader of the track team as he was half out of breath just from the few feet he’d covered, though she reckoned she could have guessed that seeing his lean ribs beneath his shirt.

He shoved a business card in her face as he caught his breath, though it was more just his name and credentials followed by a phone number.

“I-I don’t have email otherwise I would-” He huffed, scratching his forehead as she frowned and looked at him.

“I’ve never been hit on via business card before,” She bit her lip with a smile, reading over the card again as he choked on his words even more than before.

“N-no, I-” He spluttered, ignoring the way Morgan beeped the horn for him, seemingly in a debate with a ticket metre that had caught him parked on yellow, “If you needed us for anything, or if you needed a second pair of eyes for your thesis, I’m happy to help,”

“You don’t have faith in the dummy that got into Johns?” She asked, and his head couldn’t shake fast enough, though he seemed to catch her teasing and shared her smile, “Thanks, Dr Reid,”

“Spencer’s just fine,” He said, giving her a small nod and a wave as Morgan’s palm bounced on the horn a dozen times. She flashed him one more smile, pocketing his number and heading back to her dorm, wondering what the doctor would think about the paper due in tomorrow she’d yet to get started on.

+1. The one where you get arrested.

The case had been heavy. They’d felt it in the car on the way back to headquarters. A little girl, molested and groomed by her own uncle, his own wife covering for him.

His mother always told him love makes you do crazy things, but Spencer hoped that whatever part of him worth loving would at least stay sane by the time he found the one. He was loyal to his team, to his mother, but that was where he drew the line. He was loyal to his family, undoubtedly so.

Yet so was Emily.

The call came to the second SUV, her phone set up to hands free mode, quickly flicking to answer the call on speaker, the other half of the team ahead of them on the freeway.

“Prentiss, speaking. Who is this?” She spoke clearly to the unknown number, her knuckles going white at the wheel when she heard a nervous laugh.

“It’s me,” Her sister mumbled through the speaker, “You wouldn’t by any chance be near DC would you?”

She huffed, cursing the knack Prentiss women had for showing up at the worst times.

“Can’t this wait, I’m on the clock,” Emily hissed, her finger edging towards the ‘End Call’ button, “I’ll call you after,”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up!” As if sensing her movements, she all but screeched, “This was my one phone call, they won’t let me have another,”

The car went silent for a moment, Spencer’s eyes narrowing on the dash from his place in the passenger seat, JJ also leaning forward from the back with a frown.

Emily grit her teeth, her upper lip twitching the way it did when she was mad.

“What do you mean by one phone call? Where are you?” She bit in a cautious tone, though knowing how reckless Bugsy tended to be, she had a pretty good idea.

The hesitation on the other end of the line was palpable, as was the way she awkwardly cleared her throat.

“Fairfax County Jail,” She murmured sheepishly, “But it wasn’t my fault, these assholes don’t know what they’re talking about, I swear-”

“Stay there and keep your mouth shut,” Emily ordered, her expression furrowing into a sneer, “And for the love of god don’t antagonise the officers,”

The agent didn’t even wait for a response, knowing it would probably be something snarky, her mind already racing at what the hell her sister could have done this time, every worst possible explanation jumping to the forefront.

“I’ll call Hotch and tell him to turn around,” JJ offered, her fingers already searching her contacts for their boss, as Emily sighed through her nose.

“Tell him not to worry, I’ll drop you guys back to headquarters, make my way there myself,” She said, picking the skin of her nail softly with her thumb.

“By the time we’ve reached Quantico, visiting times will be over and she’ll have to stay the night,” Spencer pointed out, his own surprise evident. Sure, she had certainly been a personality when they had met, but a criminal seemed a stretch.

“Maybe it would teach her a lesson,” Emily mused, shaking her head to herself, “Who am I kidding, that psycho would Shawshank her way out of there by dawn,”

“You don’t actually think she would hurt anyone do you?” JJ said, the dial tone ringing out from the phone she held to her ear.

“Wouldn’t put it past her. She once cut a girl's pigtail off for wearing the same dress as her on her birthday,” Emily winced as Spencer’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.

“I thought getting swirlied was bad,” He muttered, watching out the window as Emily made a U-turn at the traffic lights. He and the now twenty three year old had been bouncing research papers back and forth for a few months, the odd one every week, Bugsy even once joking it was much more interesting and riveting than foreplay, which had his face red hot at his desk.

She was like that, he’d quickly realised, had a vulgar sort of humour about her, yet he couldn’t help the snigger that came out whenever he’d receive one of his papers back through the mail with pink writing scrawled all over his ideas. The little hearts that dotted her exclamations whenever she wrote “AMAZING!”, the odd time she’d written “sexy ideas, doctor Reid” which he’d come to understand meant it was really good. He’d even gotten back the drawing at the end of the paper of a stickman of the two of them, his hair a curly scribble and a purple tie which told him immediately who was who, her line of a hand pointing at his caricature with the speech bubble, “everyone point and wave at the smart man,” which had made him laugh.

She was odd, toeing the line between childish and witty, nothing like the scholars he usually worked with, and the writing he usually sent back on her papers were all in standard black ink, his own pharmacist handwriting staring back at him as he crammed in his every thought of her research into the margins. If she couldn’t read it, she hadn’t said, but he liked to think she took notice of it all, even if it wasn’t strewn with stars and doodles and the occasional flirt he knew meant nothing. He knew her from her writing, knew her from her ideas that sometimes kept him up at night thinking more about them, but the two of them hadn’t spoken directly, most certainty hadn’t seen one another since that day with the Chernus’.

Emily hummed, fingers drumming on the wheel, entirely unaware of the thoughts rattling around in Spencer’s head, then again that’s how it always was, “I just pray to god she’s listened to me for once in her damn life and keeps quiet,”

“Fucking bitch. The nuns in Moscow hit harder than you,” She spat, blood dribbling from her split lip. She wasn’t entirely lying, but god did her mouth sing with pain as she tried to muffle a moan.

“You got jokes, pig lover?” The other woman asked, a tattoo covering half her cheek, her nose crooked from the shiner the Prentiss girl had already given her. “Won’t be fucking laughing when I’m done, bitch,” The woman was quick to tackle the girl around her stomach, slamming her into the hard concrete of the holding cell. Bugsy felt her skull rattle, the wind whooshing from her chest as rough hands grab her shirt and pin her down harder.

The younger girl reached the nerve under her opponent's armpit, the soft of her ribs, twisting until the woman gave a bark of shock, and she took the opportunity to shove her off, climbing on top of her as they both scrambled for some sort of control.

“I got one for you. What’s got a broken nose, a black eye and doesn’t know what’s good for her?” She swung twice as hard, the other women in the cell rattling against the bars as if watching a matador taunt a bull, the air thick with excitement as the two of them cursed eachother out.

Emily’s sigh was audible across the room as the wardens separated the cat fight, the largest of the officers all but grabbing her sister by the scruff of the neck like a feral beast, dragging her over with stubborn feet to where the BAU stood in the lobby, eyes widened at the state of her.

“You better start acting your age, little girl. Mommy’s not gonna be around forever to save you,” The officer hissed in her ear, manhandling her over to where Emily glared daggers into the side of her head. She knew that look, it was eerily similar to mom’s that time she’d been caught sneaking out of the house, something in the warm brown of Emily’s eyes frosting over into a cold blackness. Fury.

She chewed her words for a moment, waiting until the man had turned around with a grunt of acknowledgement to the badge Emily had flashed to get his attention, before she spoke.

“She’s not my mom, she's my sister, dumbass-” Emily slapped a hand over her mouth, gripping her shoulder with the bear-like strength her jagged nails possessed when she was mad, the scoff of disgrace leaving her mouth as her team trailed behind the two of them.

“What the hell happened, baby Prentiss?” Morgan asked, ignoring the way Emily’s heated gaze turned on him, “What’s got you so worked up?”

“Don’t entertain her, Morgan,” Emily seethed, all but shoving her into the back of the SUV. She looked up at her sister with an open mouth, the guilt flashing in her eyes as she wavered under the pointing finger Emily jabbed in her face, “Don't you even dare,”

“But-” She stammered, cut off when she saw the glare intensified, if that had even been possible.

“I don’t want to hear another word from you for the rest of the day unless you’re prepared to give me a good explanation why I’ve dragged my team out here to save your sorry ass,” Emily hissed, and the girl’s mouth bobbed a few times, feeling the rest of the team watching as she got thoroughly chewed out.

“Wait-” Emily’s hand lingered at the car door, ready to slam it in her face as she rubbed her cuff over her chin, mopping up the damage. Her head tilted for a moment, hoping her sister had something good to say, only for it to be; “He just called you old, I hope you realise that,”

Emily’s gaze darkened, slamming the door shut with an anger she imagined her mother had kept warm for the past twenty three years, whirling around heatedly when she heard a snigger from one Derek Morgan.

“Damn, mama, hear the girl out.” He said, slapping a hand on the woman’s shoulder as he passed, heading back to their own SUV, “Maybe she’ll surprise you,”

If Emily was going to bite anything back, she didn’t. Instead she ran a hand over her brow, the group disbanding to their cars now the problem child had been picked up from daycare, except for Hotch who watched the older Prentiss with a scowl, despite the worry in his eyes.

“Hotch, I’m so sorry, just take it off my timecard, I’ll cover all the costs,” She said shakily, her own frown adorning her face as she felt herself blush from embarrassment under her boss’s gaze.

“I understand she’s your sister, but this was a gross misuse of agent time and resources, Prentiss,” He said, his gaze drifting to where Spencer sat next to the girl, pulling a packet of tissues and hand sanitizer out of his satchel while JJ rooted through her own purse for a plaster, “Don’t let it happen again,”

Emily nodded vehemently, flushed with anger, her palms sticky as she wiped them on her jeans.

“Absolutely sir. Believe me, this ever happens again, she’s on her own,” She replied, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. Emily would never.

He nodded stonily, deciding quickly that it was punishment enough that she felt so ashamed, he knew from his years of arguments with Sean what it was like to have a sibling stray so far.

“We can fill out reports in the morning, just get Reid and JJ home,” Hotch said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder as he passed her to head towards his own vehicle, “And try not to kill each other in the company car. It doesn’t look good on paperwork,”

She beat off the smile on her lips as she got back into the driver's seat, the air that engulfed the four of them foul as she glared over her shoulder and into the back. Spencer twitched in his seat uncomfortably, his hand still passing over tissues to the bloodied girl.

“So, you gonna tell me what that was about?” Emily asked, her tone brittle and warning, not in the mood for any snarky response she could give, “Or is this old lady going to have to lay into you some more,”

The smell of strong ethanol engulfed her nose as she held the soaked tissue to her face, frowning into her lap silently and avoiding the burning stare as Emily stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car.

“Let’s start with why you were there,” JJ input, the same tone of voice she used as when talking to victims, calm and motherly, unlike the pissed off snarl Emily gave, “You wanna tell us why you were arrested?”

“You two really gonna pull the good cop, bad cop on me?” She snapped, her lip swelling around the wound, tongue grazing it softly despite the heavy taste of the sanitizer.

Emily said her name in a warning, her last warning, and she knew better than to push her luck even more, the SUV pulling out of the station and onto the road.

“I was just shopping for groceries,” She started, fiddling with the bloodied tissue, wincing under her tongue stroke, “Store clerk made a pass at me, I told him I wasn’t interested. So he put a pack of smokes in my handbag while I wasn’t looking; the alarms went off. I didn’t even know what was happening until security grabbed me at the door,”

JJ flashed a glance at Emily, like two parents deciding an appropriate punishment, the brunette’s lips straightening out into a line.

“You’re telling the truth?” She asked cautiously, glancing in the rear view mirror to see how her sister balled the mess of paper between her palms.

Rolling her eyes, she gladly accepted the other packet of tissues Spencer slid over the leather seat between them.

“I went out for milk and oranges, I was not looking to get picked up, Em,” She bit back, groaning when she felt it jostle the cut, “And certainly not for cigarettes, you know I only smoke on New Years,”

Spencer looked at her with a frown, and she caught his confusion quickly, pulling another leaf of paper from the packet.

“Emily and I had a rule after she caught me smoking when I was like fourteen, that we could have one cigarette between the two of us on New Years eve,” She explained, JJ also perking up to hear it, “So that by the time morning came around, it would be last year’s mistake, and it would be like it never happened,”

JJ smiled to herself, remembering the time she caught Roz sneaking one of her dad’s cigarettes on the back porch back when she was just ten. She remembered the little secrets the two of them kept back then, held them even all these years later.

“So how did that lead to, well,” JJ gestured to her lip, “That,”

“Yeah, didn’t I specifically tell you to not antagonise anyone?” Emily chimed in, signalling she was changing lanes as they headed down the freeway for a second time that day.

“Technically you said not to antagonise the officers,” She pointed out, before Spencer had the chance to, shutting his mouth as he caught the glare Emily shot through the mirror.

“Keep talking,” The older Prentiss ordered, as Bugsy sighed and blotted her lip some more.

“That woman, Mira I think her name was, anyway, she recognised me from that picture mom had us take on Independence Day, the one they put in The Hill, and she asked me if it was true my sister was a fed,”

Emily’s fingers twitched at the wheel, knowing the status agents and even people associated with agents held in prisons; knowing just being a Prentiss in a jail cell held a big, dazzling price over her head that said ‘kill me, kill me!”

The air sucked out of the car, a look passing between JJ and Reid as they thought the same thing, waiting for her to go on.

“So then you hit her?” Emily guessed, the bitterness slowly ebbing as she understood maybe her sister wasn’t as unruly as she thought.

“No, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, but she said you guys sent her brother down for something a while back, and she asked again if my family were all Pigs,” She picked her nails, the blood stain on her sleeve staring back at her, “I told her if she didn’t stop calling you a Pig, I’d make her squeal like one. And then I hit her,”

Emily tried to pretend she didn’t smile hearing that, her cheeks tightening, lips pulling down as she fended it off.

“Is that good enough, officers, or will you be needing fingerprints?” The girl chimed after a moment, a weight seemingly lifted from the car as Emily quickly realised she had, for once, not been entirely at fault.

“I want a handwritten apology to my boss for wasting his time,” Emily demanded, her unforgiving gaze softening when she saw her smile, “And you owe my team coffee,”

“I can do coffee, coffee coming right up,” She agreed, shoving the used tissues into her purse with a crooked smile, “It’s a date,”

Spencers ears turned red, looking over the seat at where she dabbed at her lip gently. She didn’t look much older for six months, but she had gotten her nose pierced since the last time he’d seen her, unless he just hadn’t noticed it before, and the streaks of red were slowly fading out into a blush pink that said it was old, and he wondered if she’d done it herself in that tiny little cubicle bathroom of hers she shared with the four other girls in her block.

“You finished your stats papers yet?” He made polite conversation, though part of him was dying to know out of curiosity if she could crunch numbers and equations as well as she could in her own labs.

“Got two more this week, they’re kicking my ass man,” She replied with a huff, and he didn’t think he’d ever been called ‘man’ by a woman before. He knew if he’d known her in college, ignoring the fact he would have been twelve, he would have thought she may just be the coolest person alive, “I miss my labs with my microscopes and watching all the little baby cells move around in the ethanol. Stats are like, just not sexy,”

He smiled at her as she stared out the window, unaware of the way she’d managed to make DNA sound like a play pen full of kittens. He held off from telling her he found stats really quite sexy, knowing it would never sound the same coming from his mouth.

He pulled a leaf of the tissues from the packet, producing his own pen from his pocket and began doodling carefully so as not to rip the delicate canvas.

Sliding it over to her after five minutes as Emily and JJ made conversation in the front seat, she didn’t care that the grin tugged on her split lip, the reaction was instant, she couldn’t stop it if she tried.

Two stick men stared back at her, her hair a close match in texture and a childish triangle drawn as means of a dress, a very tall stick figure next to her patting her metaphorical head, a speech bubble coming from his mouth.

“Maths is fun!” It said, and she flicked a glance at him, her smile the most genuine he’d seen yet. He just smiled back.

+2. The one where you graduate

Emily felt the looks on her the moment JJ had mentioned Maryland. The case was a little under their pay grade, nothing more than a stalker, no bodies or bloodshed, but one very rattled woman that had turned to the communications liaison with fear for her life.

With Hotch and Rossi in Boston helping a case of their own, the rest of the BAU had been twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come across their desk.

“This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her,” JJ took a heavy breath, her eyes lingering on the three names Keri had given her in case of her untimely death, “I’ll be the one notifying her family,”

Derek, despite his own hesitations about using their time for a case like this, caved the moment he saw the guilt on the blonde’s face.

“Okay,” He shuffled the papers into a pile, Emily and Spencer gathering their own resources on the case and standing from the round table.

Luckily, one government SUV was more than enough to carry the four of them for the hour drive North, all of them well aware Hotch would flip if they used more funds than necessary.

JJ piled into the front beside where Morgan climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Emily next to a particularly fidgety Reid. It took all of fifteen minutes of the man flicking a glance at her, his mouth quirking as if he were about to use it, before he thought better and looked out the window, and the whole thing would start again.

Derek, the less shy about his thoughts of the two men, even glanced at her through the rear view mirror, before he too returned his gaze out the window silently. JJ shifted in her seat, knowing she had to tread carefully around mentioning Bugsy to Emily, particularly after the last time they’d seen her. Emily had said they’d grabbed coffee once or twice since then, but that was all she spoke about it, which left her team walking cracked eggshells at the thought of bringing her up.

It seemed the three of them were bursting at the seams with the same thought, and it wasn’t until Reid cleared his voice, his puppy eyes stuck in his loop, that she had had enough.

“Does anyone here have something to say?” Emily huffed, Derek immediately reaching to turn the radio up the same time that JJ flicked the AC on for something to do. Realising they weren’t easily broken, she turned to Spencer who already looked slightly guilty, thumbing at his sweater, “Reid?”

“Did you want to see your sister?” He asked without hesitation, as if the words had fallen out of him, “You know, since we’re so close on this case. It would be a good excuse to-”

“You did say she owed us a coffee,” JJ pointed out, spurred on by Spencer’s nerves, “Wouldn’t mind cashing in if we’re coming all this way.”

“Morgan, do you have anything to add?” Emily asked with raised brows, though she already knew what was coming.

Derek chewed over his thoughts a second, “I’m just saying, you only get to see your baby sisters grow up once- you know, and it couldn’t hurt to see her even if she runs rings around you with that smart mouth-”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the case?” Emily cut him off incredulously, but received three knowing looks back. She met JJ’s gaze where the woman had swivelled in her seat to talk to her, and Prentiss was fast to catch the buried grief in her best friend’s eyes. She knew it pained her to even bring up sisterhood, let alone watch Emily throw hers away for the sake of a decade and a half between them. It was the desperation in JJ’s face that did it, knowing she would give anything to spend just an hour with Roz one more time, that had her drawing her cell out her pocket and calling the contact with the little ladybug next to it, “Fine,”

As a profiler she would have been tempted to ignore the way Spencer smiled into his lap; as a sister, her eyes narrowed at him.

The phone rang surprisingly only once before she answered, and she heard an unnaturally tame version of her sister answer.

“Emily?” She asked, her voice hushed, worried almost, “You okay?”

Her brows furrowed, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” She got no more than a hum in return, somewhat agreeing though Emily could tell clear as day she was holding something back. “Look, we’re gonna be in Silver Spring, I was thinking tomorrow we could grab lunch-”

“Can’t, I’m busy, it’s an all day thing,” Her sister cut her off, yet it wasn’t rude or demeaning like usual. Nervous almost, sad, “Sorry,”

“What’s an all day thing?” Emily asked, the concern matching her words.

Her sister swallowed on the other end of the phone, before she found her words, or maybe even the balls to actually speak, “I’m graduating tomorrow,”

Emily’s face lit up, the smile spreading fast on her face, ignoring the way Morgan’s words seemed to ring true in her ears; she was growing up too fast.

“Graduating, why didn’t you say!” She asked, the joy in her tone unmissable, “How’d your papers go?”

Spencer held himself off from correcting her that she’d only done five papers, that the rest of her results had come from theory and labs, thinking better than to interrupt the one conversation they’d had where there was no underlying argument brewing.

“Full honours, obviously.” Bugsy drawled with a snicker, and Emily shook her head, the smile never dimming.

“Look at you, y’little superstar,” Emily bit her lip, ignoring the guilt that tore at her when she realised she barely knew what Bug spent her days doing, “Did Mom and Dad get good seats? Oh god, dad’s not bringing Stephanie is he?”

The silence on the other end had her halting, the light in the conversation wavering for a second, before she understood the nerves, the quick defence her sister had been on the moment the call had been answered.

“Bug-”

“They’re not coming,” Her heart ached in her chest hearing it, “I sent Mom the details, she said she’s in Ukraine this week settling some papers. Didn’t even get a chance to ask Dad before he and Stephanie were off on their fifth honeymoon in the Bahamas until October,” A painful laugh echoed down the line, as if she were holding back the gravity of the situation.

“Bug,” Emily tried again, picking her thumb viciously, punishingly, hating herself for being so blind to her sister’s troubles, “Why didn’t you invite me?”

“I figured you’d be busy,” Came the reply, sad and tender, the most honest she’d heard in a while, “You’re always busy,”

“Never too busy for you,” Emily’s guilt tripled when her sister didn’t answer, knowing if she were to counter the statement with hard evidence it would only hurt both of them, “Look, I have some time today, probably,” She didn’t, not even a few minutes, “Why don’t we get that coffee, you don’t even have to pay,”

Bugsy gave a sad laugh, “Sorry, Em, I gotta get my dress fitted today, and some of the lab techs invited me to a party later. Maybe some other time,”

“A party with biology nerds?” Emily asked with false excitement, the air turned stagnant between them now, “Well, rock on, science freak. Don’t leave your drinks with strangers, and don’t walk home alone, and for god sake use protection-”

“Bye, Emily,” She said with a chuckle, the older of the two gracing her with the same, as they put the phone down.

The car was quiet, waiting for Prentiss to speak, none of them missing the way her lip pulled between her teeth, a bitterness on her face that told them she was holding in something close to sadness. You’re always busy. It echoed around her head, stabbing at her chest to think her sister was graduating alone, no one to congratulate her, no one to pat her on the back and tell her how clever she is despite the fact Bugsy would happily tell anyone just how smart she was on her own. Never too busy for you.

“She’s graduating tomorrow,” She said to the three people waiting for an update, Spencer’s brows shooting to his hairline. He hadn’t heard from her since her last paper got sent off, and why would he? They had exchanged a few little anecdotes and doodles, sent each other research papers to be graded like teachers exchanging lecture notes, “She didn’t even tell me. She’s gonna be alone,”

JJ grimaced, “What? What about your mom- or, or your dad, an uncle, someone-”

“Mom and dad are out of the country, Mom’s brother lives in Mexico with his seven kids, he can barely get a night’s sleep let alone a day off to travel up to Maryland. Dad’s sisters passed away when I was a kid,” Emily explained, running a hand over her face, “I can’t let her go up there alone,”

“So we don’t,” Spencer said, as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, “We don’t let her do it alone,”

“Graduating with Masters in Biotechnology; Jasper Adams, Tom Adamson, Kristen Afkins, Gavin Agriths-”

The dean read off the names of the students as she fiddled with the hem of her dress.

The dress fit beautifully, her make up done to near perfection, her hair styled neatly, she was graduating with full honours for christ sakes. Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? Why had she got to be so spoiled?

Lots of peoples parents missed their graduation, lots of people her age didn’t even have parents anymore, she ought to be grateful her mother was increasing famine aid in foreign countries, all the lives she would save, or even be happy her father had found a pretty, rich new wife to tour every known vacation destination with. Or even that her sister had called her just yesterday and told her in a few words she was proud of her.

But none of them quelled the feeling of loneliness that blossomed inside Bugsy. The kind that had always been there, the kind that just wanted someone in her corner, telling her she was doing pretty good for a kid who raised herself in all those big houses they’d moved to, who saw the au pair more often than her own mother.

All those rooms were so empty, the houses so quiet besides for her. It was like living in a cemetery.

“Robert Lewsinsky. Marcus Linford. Tara Lorence. Katie Macauley.”

P would be up soon. Each name of her classmates drew an applause, some whoops and screams, one family she swore there must have been ten of them in the back row cawing and howling like monkeys at a zoo, proud of their son for making it.

She willed a smile on her face, hearing Orla Parkins get called up, and she knew just by the steward that directed her where to stand in line she was close.

“Kenneth Patterson. Joshua Perriman. Harriet Pimms. Lauren Pintons.”

She held a rattled breath as Renly Prackett walked ahead of her, strolling over the stage to collect his degree, flashing the crowd a wide smile and a fist pump. She had always liked Renly, having been his experiment partner for a year, despite the fact he never washed up after himself in the lab.

Then it was, her name was called. The one no one but her mother and Stephanie ever called her, she solely went by Bugsy courtesy of Emily. It was a family name, a nice one at that. Maybe it had been the fact she had been eight and her cool big sister crowned her the new name, or maybe it just rolled off the tongue better, made her feel less like a Prentiss, that she chose to go by her monika.

She tried not to think about where or what Emily was doing, only hoping she was safe, as she began walking over the stage, her heels clicking loudly with her hesitant steps.

To her utmost surprise she heard a loud whistle echo through the auditorium, a group of jeers and screams of her name, even an air horn signing off that had her almost tripping over her own feet turning to see who it was.

Surely it was a joke, a cruel prank, she barely had any friends in her class. Acquaintances sure, but no one so bold as to make such a fuss over her.

Squinting down at the audience, her cap nearly slipping off her head as her head turned to the source, she felt her chest burst when she saw the dark hair and bangs, her sisters butchered fingertips in her mouth with a loud cattle whistle, screaming like a firework right to the stage where she graciously accepted her award, despite the fact she barely paid any attention to the dean anymore, more to her sister who smiled at her widely as she clapped. Behind her, her team she’d met on the off chance, the pretty blonde, JJ, who pressed the air horn a few more times, cheering just as loud for her. Morgan, the handsome one who had stood himself on top of his chair, cupping a hand over his mouth to scream “Kicking ass, baby Prentiss!” at her, ignoring the way other people stared wide eyed at them.

And Spencer, tall enough to be seen over the crowd even without the help of a chair, who smiled at her, clapping those big hands of his loud enough to reach her, his own whoops never ceasing even as she stepped off the stage to head back to her seat.

The rest of the ceremony dragged, a speech from one of the alumni and the exit music playing, but she simply grinned into her hand, where her degree smiled back at her, counting down the moments she would be allowed to stand.

And then she was fast walking down the stairs, amongst the bustle of students, the black gowns flurrying around her as she burst out into the square where parents, fiancees, brothers, sisters, cheered their loved ones, pulling them into tight hugs.

Her eyes scanned the wave of black hats, landing on two dark eyes, the thick sable hair framing the dazzling smile that awaited her with open palms. All but shoving her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of her sister, the urge to jump at her with a hug shying the moment she got close.

“Told you. Never too busy for you, Bug,” Emily said, pulling her in by her shoulders for a tight hug. She knew her sister wasn’t one to beg for affection, wasn’t one to let her guard drop so soon, but she also knew she’d needed it by the way she melted against her, the way she chuckled into her hair, pulled her closer.

“Do I owe your boss another letter of apology for this or do I get you guys for free?” The girl asked, as her sister pulled away, keeping an arm around her shoulder as they turned to the rest of the team.

“No, this one is entirely on us, promise,” JJ said with a smile as she saw Emily beaming maternally over at the girl, the flat of the cap knocking against her cheek as she squeezed her in once more, “We’re very proud of you,”

She heated under the woman’s words, wriggling in her shoes as bad as Emily did when she felt awkward, Derek chuckling and taking the degree out of her hand.

“Alright, lets see the creds, Prentiss,” He held it up next to her face as she shrugged, the ‘4.0’ clear as day next to her name, “Good looking, and smart. Those boys in the lab ought to watch out,”

She grinned under his teasing, “What can I say, I got the deep end of the gene pool,” She teased, feeling Emily swat her ear, her eyes falling to where Spencer held a plant pot with a poorly wrapped bow of twine around it, the soil a little displaced from the journey.

“This is for you,” He said, handing her the small green sproutling, his cheeks blushing as her face lit up, reading the small inscription on the front, “It’s-”

“Dionaea muscipula,” She said, biting her lip as she smiled at him, “This is so cool! Where on earth did- I had a paper last semester on the ways to study their electrophysiology you just have to read- oh thank you!”

“English, please?” Emily asked, though the warmth flooded her chest when her sister threw her arms around a very rigid Spencer.

Thinking she should grab her and warn her the man disliked touch almost as much as she does, she was surprised to see him give her a small embrace back, smiling proudly the way he did when he’d made someone happy.

“Piège à mouches Vénus,” Her sister responded cockily, tugging herself away from the tall man, to inspect her new plant, well aware that Emily rolled her eyes at her use of French, “Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never seen one so young, still I should be able to pull some slides on the Rhizomes in the soil-”

Emily put a hand to her temple, JJ smiling widely as she saw for once Spencer be the one on the receiving end of an earful, chuckling to himself when she began dishing out name ideas for the sapling.

“Holy shit, there’s two of them,” Morgan grumbled, nudging his shoulder into Emily who simply sighed, her migraine already starting as Reid began jumping in with his own thoughts, which didn’t take much effort.

“Don’t even,”

+3. The one where you’re taken hostage

“Tell us about the 911 call,” Spencer requests, flicking through the file himself beside her in the back seat. She had her own set of paperwork in front of her, her pen attached to a clipboard the lanyard around her neck reading her real, honest credentials, unlike the fake ones Emily and Reid were given. She’d been to one of these sects before, invited kindly as part of her research on the effect isolation has on cultivation of crops, knew one of the mother’s well from her last research paper, and had managed to get the group a foot in the door to entering the Separtarian Sect with little fuss.

Hotch, usually hesitant to allow outsiders in on the job, especially as young and spirited as Bugsy, had to admit it would calm any potential unsubs and make them see the team as unthreatening if they had a friendly face there. He’d signed the papers with a frown that morning, and they were on their way to the little apartment the girl occupied just outside Baltimore, sample tubes stuffed into her pack ready.

“I believe the he that they refer to is the church’s leader, Benjamin Cyrus,” Nancy, a woman from child protective services, replied from the driver's seat, Emily thumbing through her papers as they neared the compound.

“Benjamin Cyrus, no criminal record; no record of him at all actually,” Reid replied, watching Bugsy scribbling notes into her lab book, perfecting her report before she had even begun, “What else do you know about him?”

“The sect I spoke to before, the one in Utah, said he was rumoured to be practising polygamy and forced marriages,” The younger woman said, looking back at him with a frown, “They were much more modern in their beliefs than these guys. Last time I spoke to Marina she was happy there, I can’t see why she would want to move here,”

Spencer looked as if he were about to answer, perhaps to tell her he was sure her contact would be just fine, when Emily shrugged and turned to Nancy.

“Do we know who the caller is?” She asked, sipping her now lukewarm coffee out of the disposable cup.

Nancy’s head tilted in a so-so motion, “Uh, Jessica Evansen is the one who the age fits, but we can’t be sure.”

“Well given their view on outsiders, it would be best if you didn’t identify us as FBI.” Emily instructed, handing Reid his new, fake credentials and his gun she’d kept in her bag through customs. “Just use our real names and introduce us as child victim interview experts.” Nancy nodded, the compound coming into view, the dust flurrying under the car wheels as the road turned into nothing more than a sandy path.

A guard seemed to be expecting their arrival as he stood, unarmed at the main gate, unlatching the bolt in the middle and opening it wide for their vehicle to pass through. She nodded in thanks, her eyes flicking out the dirty window to see a collection of mobile homes surrounding a large church, a few smaller outbuildings dotted around the compound. It was quiet, not full of laughter like the last group she had been to, the children nowhere to be seen, only a few of the handier members of the flock that were either fixing up walls, trimming trees besides a man sprawled too casually on the steps of the chapel, a bible in his hands he seemed to be catching up on.

The car pulled to a stop in front of the man that barely batted an eye at their arrival, the safety locks flicking off each of the doors, Nancy collecting her briefcase and exiting the car first.

She had all but reached for the handle when Emily stopped her, swivelling in her seat to look her dead in the eye.

“Your job is mediator, you got that?” Her sister had never looked more serious, but then again she did know her almost too well, “You and your field research are a… buffer between our investigation and the unsub. Just try to take the focus off what we’re doing, but do not provoke anyone,”

She raised her hands in innocence, “Got it, jeez, what could I possibly do that could ruin this investigation?”

Emily stared back at her blankly, unnamused, as if they both knew there was a lot she could, and would, do that would blow the whole thing.

“You look like mom when you give me that look,” She bit back, leaving the car, as Nancy spoke to the man laying on the steps, “It’s terrible,”

“I’m looking for Mr Benjamin Cyrus?” Nancy reported, her tight, knee length skirt and blouse entirely out of place amongst the dirt track.

“You found him,” The man replied, still not so much as granting them a glance of interest as he flicked through his passages.

“I’m Nancy Lunde, we spoke on the phone regarding the allegation,” She replied, which was the only thing that garnered his attention as he looked up at them behind slightly bent reading glasses.

“Savages they call us; because our manners differ from theirs,” He said, though it was clear it wasn’t entirely his own words, more likely a segment of his preach he’d repeated a handful of times. Bugsy tried to hide her disgust behind her hand tightening around her lab books she kept tightly to her chest.

“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr Cyrus,” Nancy snipped as he approached the group, pocketing the glasses though he kept hold of the bible in hand as if it was part of his own arm.

“Actually it’s Benjamin Franklin,” Spencer murmured to the woman, which had Cyrus’ cold brown eyes narrowing at the tall man, assessing for a motive.

“Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid. They’re child victim interview experts,” Nancy introduced them quickly, the two of them flashing their badges, the unofficial ones at least. Gesturing to the youngest woman, she introduced her with her real name, his gaze flicking to her as he seemed to recognise it.

“Marina’s friend? The plant lady?” He asked, face half amused as she fought her lip from twitching into a sneer. Instead she smiled, holding out her hand.

“That’s what they call me,” She said, shaking his hand, ignoring the way he flashed her a cheshire cat smile, “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Marina said I could take some samples for my research,”

He laughed, shaking his head, looking at Spencer, “Women and their flowers, right?” Spencer swallowed back a retort, shrugging his shoulders, though Bugsy’s eye twitched. Benjamin patted her on her shoulder, “Of course you can honey, I’ll find Jared, our head gardner, and you can run along for your research,”

He said it as if she were lying, that her degree and endless hours of work would only ever chalk up to a few doodles in a notebook, or a garden full of hydrangeas, or tulips, or roses, because she couldn’t possibly care about anything else but pretty flowers.

Nodding her head graciously, choking back the hateful response she wished to spit in his face, she gave him a polite thankyou, feeling Spencer’s eyes burning into the side of her head.

“The children are in the school as I indicated,” Cyrus said, turning back to the other three, Emily and Nancy taking off in the direction he pointed, the former knowing her sister was at risk of blowing a fuse if they were here for long.

Spencer hung back, partially because he had a plan of distraction in mind to allow the women a chance to speak with the children whilst Cyrus wasn’t around, partially because he didn’t want to leave Bugsy anywhere on her own. Sure, Emily had said they were both trained in self defence when they were kids, but with no weapon of her own, he was reluctant.

“You're using solar power?” He prompted, gesturing towards where the eight blue panels warmed under the Colorado sun.

“We’re completely self-sufficient,” Benjamin nodded along, catching the impressed look on both their faces, “Electricity, food, water. Ben Franklin said ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ you look surprised,”

“No, impressed actually,” Spencer replied, and he wasn’t entirely lying. The system was incredibly complex, particularly if they received no help from outsiders, for as many people as there were in the compound.

“Thankyou; for admitting that,” Cyrus said earnestly, flicking his gaze back to Bugsy who studied the solar panels, “I’ll go find Jared, he can take you to the greenhouses,”

Thanking him again, he led the way towards the school where Nancy and Emily had headed, as the two of them exchanged a look, Spencer smiling half piteously, wishing he could shake her and tell her just how smart she was and that Cyrus knew absolutely nothing.

He didn’t miss the way she walked closer to him, or how she thumbed the corner of her notebook, or how she looked back at him, biting the inside of her cheek. He thinks he might get slapped if he pointed it out, but Emily had the exact same tell when she was nervous, which is why he bumps their shoulders together in means of reassuring her he was still there.

It was only then she gave him any sort of smile back.

Jared, as expected, had been just as condescending and patronising as Benjamin whilst she slipped on her latex gloves, scooping no more than a handful of homemade fertiliser into one of her test tubes. It had been a partial cover, their story, but she had been telling the truth when she’d contacted Marina and asked if she could drop by. She’d been meaning to expand her field research in hopes of stumbling on a job opportunity since she spent most of her postgraduate days reading while her cat pawed at her leg for more treats than he deserved, the odd phone call with her sister much more common than it had been before.

She didn’t miss the way Jared’s hand fell into the small of her back as he led her back towards the school, after having noted down a few more readings, fussing over the state of the carrots that seemed to grow entirely naturally thanks to the systems they’d been smart enough to set up. He seemed rather bored by the whole thing, for a head gardener, more interested in staring at her legs as she leaned down to identify the fat black beetle that crawled along the rockery.

It wasn’t until they were halfway to the school that the sound of tyres on a dirt path met her ears, and she saw five armoured SUVs out the corner of her eye.

She hadn’t even the time to question what was going on, before Jared’s face dropped, the hand gently holding the soft of her back grabbing on her forearm hard enough to leave bruises, as he was dragging her to the chapel they had seen when they had pulled up.

Emily had said the rest of the team stayed in Quantico, if it wasn’t them, who was it.

“Whats going on- who is that?” She asked him lamely, her feet stumbling as she half fought his heavy hand off.

That was when the shooting started.

She thinks it came from the compound first, she’d seen two men stationed on top of one of the outbuildings, thinking nothing much of it, until she saw clearly now the assault rifles they bore, pointing it straight at the vehicles that drew closer. The whistle of bullets, bangs of the chambers emptying their artillery, and it wasn’t until she heard the doors to the SUVs start opening, more gunfire began hitting the wall ahead of them that she started running. Running fast, for the cover the church provided until she figured out just what the fuck was happening.

Jared all but threw her past the chapel door, where Cyrus and four other men were waiting, a heavy barricade in their hands, her chest pounding with adrenaline, she couldn’t help the yelp that left her as Cyrus whirled on her, grabbing her shoulders firmly and looking her dead in the eye.

“Did you know anything about this?” He asked, his calm demeanour cracking when she scrambled for a response, “ANSWER ME,”

“No-no not at all.” She shook her head, voice weaker than she’d like, but the sight of more guns in the men’s hands twisted any resolve she had, “Where are the others- the- the experts-”

“Take her into the tunnels,” Cyrus ignored her question, nodding at one of his men to grab her as Jared armed himself. She felt another callused hand yank on her upper arm, and part of her wondered if that was how men handled all women here, as if they were herding cattle, as she was dragged down into the catacombs below the church.

They’d made plans for a day like this to come, she realised.

Her heart constricted at the sound of bullets rattling above them, she hadn't been able to tell in that last moment whether Cyrus believed her or not as, nor whether she was being taken to the tunnels for her own safety or to be questioned harder about the gunmen.

She could only hope Emily was safe.

She felt her tongue too big for her mouth as the man all but shoved her into the bunker, the nervous chatter of women and children, some of the more elderly men, as they clung to one another for safety, the scathing remark she would have usually made about his heavy hands failing her as she scanned the room for her sister.

Emily was faster however, and she nearly yelped again as two bony arms yanked her into a hug, a rare one, and she knew by the blazer and the sigh of relief in her ear it was Em.

Usually she would bat her off, tell her to stop fussing like a mother hen, but today she embraced her right back, trying to note if her sister had any bullet holes in her before she allowed herself the same relief.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Emily asked, the whole thing coming out in a slew of worry, and she nodded, pulling away as if she needed to see the proof in person.

Bugsy’s eyes were wild, as if she were a doe in a meadow hearing a rifle cocking near. No scratch that, she was a doe being chased and shot at and hunted, narrowly escaping being mounted on a wall.

“They were all shit shots,” Bugsy said, through a laugh she didn’t quite mean, “You would have done much better.”

Patting her sister on the shoulder, Emily finally released her when she realised the humour meant she at least had her head on her shoulders. Spencer watched her with meticulous eyes, knowing the shock that registered on her face, knowing it was the same one he wore when he first had shots fired at him. He saw her own eyes quickly check him over, satisfied with a breath of relief when she saw they were both fine.

“Where’s Lunde?” Emily asked, and she realised then Cyrus had followed her down into the shelter, two of his men grabbing handfuls of guns she had never seen before, likely imported out of country, and returning to the ground level, preparing for more shooting.

“It wasn’t us,” Cyrus replied, as if that negated the fact their recklessness had gotten the agent killed.

“What? You can’t shoot it out with the cops, you have children in here,” Emily seethed, her voice harsh and incredulous.

“I didn’t start this,” Cyrus bit back, looking towards his men as they grabbed boxes on boxes of ammunition, “I’ll take the front, you take the roof,”

And with that they stormed their way back through the tunnels, leaving the three of them to look between each other, knowing this could only end badly. Knowing the only people that could figure out how to get them out of this mess was the BAU, all 1,700 miles away.

–

They’d been in the bunker for fourteen hours when there was finally movement. The shooting seemed to have quietened down, in which Spencer whispered it was around 11pm and it was likely neither party had a clear shot. She’d managed to fall asleep leaning against the wall, Emily’s blazer draped over her legs. She’d regretted wearing cropped pants, despite how the shade of green complimented her eyes nicely, and she’d been shivering by the time she fell asleep, Emily’s hands stroking her hair gently as if she knew she was struggling to relax.

She hadn’t realised she was staring at her little sister, frowning even as she slept, which made part of her want to laugh, until she caught Spencer’s tired eyes looking between them, something knowing and warm in his gaze.

“You know, she’s always scowled in her sleep, ever since she was born,” Emily said, quiet enough it didn’t interrupt the hum of small snores, the odd baby cry that filled the bunker, but loud enough for him to smile at her, “She used to sleep walk terrible too. I’d find her in the kitchen trying to make pancakes with a cheese grater. It’s like that big brain of hers doesn’t know how to shut off,” Emily shook her head with a fatigue, rubbing her eyes.

“Was it weird? Being fourteen years older?” Spencer asked, his own hands shoved into his sleeves to try defend from the draught. Emily thought for a moment, her hand slowing for a second on her sister's hair, before she answered.

“I felt guilty leaving her in that house with my mom when I went to college,” Emily answered, Bugsy unconsciously tucking her face closer into the jacket, “I think part of her kind of hated me for it for a while.” She went quiet, the shame in her voice thick as the silence that encompassed them, “She’s never been very affectionate you know? Before her graduation I don’t think I’d hugged her in twelve years,”

Spencer held himself back from pointing out that she had been just as touchy with him since they’d met, and that maybe it was Emily’s own regret that seemed to shut the both of them down. He wasn’t one to rub salt in the wound, not since he’d gotten this job and learned to watch what he said.

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give her advice, knowing the whole subject of their slowly repairing relationship was a sore one. He had no siblings of his own, had a mother who loved him despite how much she grappled with her own mind, and he had only known the girl briefly enough to consider her a friend at a push.

“I always thought the two of you were similar,” Emily chose to continue, offering him a small smile. He returned it, his face blushing at the fact that was a huge compliment to him, “Granted, you roll your eyes at me less and don’t act like I’m dumb, but you remind me of her,”

“Thankyou, I wish that were true,” He replied, eyes flicking to her sleeping form, the way her eyebrows were indeed scrunched in a permanent frown. He wondered if she was actually angry, or if she was just thinking hard, perhaps her dreams were full of equations or labs she needed to sort through. Either way, he wanted to know. “She’s much cooler than I’ll ever be,”

Emily snorted, shuffling against the wall to cosy herself, “That’s one way to put it,” She said, smiling over at him as he did the same, his head resting against the wall, Bugsy’s legs stretching out to knock against his feet, and he didn’t mind that she scuffed the bottom of his already dirty trousers. “Get some sleep,”

And so they did.

–

Cyrus had corralled the whole flock into the church, where the shooting had stopped and the bodies had been removed, stating at the break of dawn that there was a hostage negotiator coming in to make sure everyone was safe before they made any deals.

She sat next to Spencer, the three of them stiff from their sleeping arrangements, and her stomach churned with hunger. It had been over 24 hours since they’d gotten here, and besides the small bit of bread and water Cyrus gave everyone for breakfast, she was starving.

“Remind me to never leave the house, ever again,” She grumbled, as everyone waited in the pews for the negotiator to arrive, “My cat is gonna be pissed I’ve not fed him,”

“Since when did you get a cat?” Emily inputted from the other side of Reid, keeping one eye on the door in case any agents start shooting again.

The girl shrugged, “I got lonely, there’s not much to do now I’m not studying anymore,”

Reid watched how she clutched her stomach, feeling his own complaining at the lack of nutrition, “Morgan wasn’t lying when he said you should sign up for the academy. We could always use the help, we wouldn’t have solved that case in Baltimore without you,”

She snickered, nudging his foot with her boot, “You’re being modest, you would have done it just fine,”

He was a little, wasn’t surprised she called his bluff either. “Okay, so probably yes- but it would have taken us a whole lot longer. Mr Chernus likely would have died,”

She shook her head, glancing at Emily who watched her carefully, “That was all you guys. I just translated.”

Emily and Spencer exchanged a glance, leaning back in their uncomfortable seats calmly.

“You’re probably right,” Spencer said, dusting the dirt off his trousers, “Probably couldn’t handle it, high intensity mind games and such,”

She blanched, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head, not knowing him to be so brutally honest, realistic yes, but not bordering on rude.

“And it’s a lot of work,” Emily jumped in, her mouth a straight line, “I don’t know if you’d be dedicated enough,”

Bugsy scoffed, indifferently. “I have a masters degree, I was offered a scholarship to do a PHD, asked to be an assistant professor at Yale, I can work hard, Emily,” She snipped, and perhaps she was particularly just hangry or they had struck a nerve with their doubt, “and I could do it if I wanted to, I’d have the best shot they’d ever seen, guaranteed- mom made me take lessons when you left- trust me I could do it-”

She shut up when she saw their small smile exchanged, as if she’d told them a joke, or moreso they’d had the same identical thought and that alone was hilarious.

Scowling at them, she looked from where Spencer looked almost, almost, guilty at making her the butt of the joke, to where Emily had a ‘told you so’ smirk, and she kissed her teeth at their childishness.

“Are you guys reverse psychology-ing me? Seriously, so original guys,” She snapped, crossing her arms and straightening herself in her seat, ignoring the snigger that passed between them.

“You’re not wrong though,” Emily replied quietly as Cyrus walked past them, his eyes falling to them with a frown. Bugsy kept her head down, heeding Emily’s warning of not provoking anyone, and Spencer eyed the way she leaned closer to him.

If she was going to retaliate, whether agreeing or not, she stopped herself, the doors the church opening and an older gentleman walking through the doors, arms full of supplies she’d figured must have been part of the negotiation. He was patted down by an armed guard, searching for his own weapons do doubt, or a wire perhaps, as he handed the box over to another who took it without a thankyou.

“Rossi,” She heard Reid whisper beside her, and from the look he shot Emily and Spencer she gathered he was from the BAU, just as they’d expected. His eyes fell on her, softening as alot of Emily’s team did when they saw the two of them, as if they were picking her face apart for the tiny ways in which she resembled their Prentiss, or maybe it was the way she curled up in her seat, tired, hungry, on the defence. He just looked sorry for her.

“The children,” Cyrus said with no greeting, the air between them particularly frosty. He gestured towards the three of them, though Rossi had already clocked their tired faces staring at him with worry, “And our guests,”

She saw him trying not to react, guessing they had not let it slip to Cyrus he worked with the two undercover FBI agents, looking away from them as if the sight of their forlorn figures was enough to turn him sick.

Judging by the way Cyrus and he spoke quietly, tensely, Bugsy just hoped they had a plan to get them out of here soon as he soon left with a rigid handshake to the man keeping them hostage.

–

The three of them had been moved to a backroom a few hours later. Her stomach ached, the little sustenance Rossi had brought being distributed to the community before they’d been offered anything, which hadn’t left much. Reid and Emily had tried to get her to take some of their sharing, and despite how her insides cried out for it, she declined, stating they would be more use than she would; that they needed their strength more than her if they were going to get out of here alive.

The two of them hadn’t liked that answer judging by the frowns on their faces, but they sat in their seats with little fuss as they waited for things to quieten down after Cyrus’ staged “mass suicide” that had turned out to be nothign more than a test of loyalty and grape juice.

They had been sat in silence, aside from her foot bouncing on the floor impatiently, as she picked at the threads on her pants, the material uncomfortable on her skin after a day of wearing it. The door slammed open, Cyrus entering the room with nasty scowl. She didn’t know what had changed in the man in a matter of hours as he stormed over to them, two of his men behind him, loaded rifles in their arms.

This was not good.

“Which one of you is it?” He asked almost too calm for his demeanour, his eyes flicking between the three of them, where Emily attempted to brush her hair using her fingers, Reid played with the hem of his cardigan, an she sat beside him, resting against the cold stone wall behind them, her eyes narrowing at his furious expression.

The three of them remained silent, waiting for him to explain more, though clearly it was not the answer he was looking for as he threw his jacket open, revealing a loaded pistol tucked into his jeans. Drawing it into his dominant hand, her body tensed up, her back straightening like a rod as she looked up at him through fear.

“Which one of you is the FBI agent?” He repeated in that same calm tone, and her heart fell through her stomach.

She opened her mouth to say something in retaliation, though the way she saw his hand shaking with fury, she knew it was better to stay quiet in case her voice would be the final straw that made him trigger happy.

“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer replied softly, and if he was panicking even a fraction amount she was he held it back, though his eyes flicked to Emily.

But it was a tell. The smallest movement alone was a tell he was lying, or perhaps it was the fact he’d answered a question with one of his own, distracting from the attention on them with the unsubs own answers. Maybe his quiet and calm showed how trained he was for a situation like this, showed he had gone up against bad guys before and won.

Whatever it was about him, it had Cyrus cocking the barrel of the gun straight at Spencer’s temple.

“God forgive me for what I must do,” The preacher murmured, his finger moments away from the trigger, when she lurched forward in her seat, hand shooting out to grab his wrist deathly tight.

“It’s me,”

She hadn’t realised she’d said it until the room went quiet. She thought for a moment it had come from Emily, Emily had always been the braver of the two of them, but it wasn’t until Cyrus’ unforgiving, dark gaze fell to her where she froze in her spot, that she understood her mouth had been the one moving.

Emily looked as if she was about to vomit, Spencer looked dumbfounded, but all she could do was stare back at Cyrus as if to will herself not to back down, knowing all three of them could fall victim if she gave them reason to doubt her; he could kill all three of them just to be sure the mystery agent was dealt with.

“It’s me,” She repeated, voice stronger this time, and she felt her chest relax just the tiniest amount as he turned the gun away from Spencer’s head.

He stared back at her for a moment, before the weapon smacked across her face in a sharp whip, her cheekbone crying out in a sting she knew was going to bruise.

He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her into a stand hard enough she yelped, despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the torture.

“Watch the other two,” Cyrus barked, dragging her out of the room as she squirmed under his hand, feeling it only tighten into an unforgiving pull.

She barely caught Emily bolting out of her seat to yell at the other men, all but fighting in their heavy grasp to follow wherever it was he was taking her, only for the door to be slammed shut behind them.

It was only then she realised how fucked she truly was.

–

She struggled to breath through the blood clotting in her nose. She didn’t think it was broken, not that she could check where her hands had been tied to the bedpost, tape over her mouth to stop her calling for help, her feet bound. She’d done nothing but give him hell as he’d been laying into her, keeping her cries and groans of pain silent as he’d kicked her in the ribs hard enough to know he’d damaged something at least.

She’d not made it easy for him to tie her down, worried about what they were planning next, she’d managed to headbutt him in the mouth, and the way he clutched at his jaw when he’d left gave her a sick satisfaction, though her temple now hurt more than she’d like to admit. But they’d only covered her mouth after she’d screamed obscenities at them for an hour or so, hoping to attract attention, hoping if the BAU were on their way, Emily and Reid would be able to find her fast before they could dispose of her.

Bugsy didn’t want to go like this. Tied up like cattle, gagged and beaten, the spirit kicked out of her as the dehydration gnawed at her limbs, making her too weak to even try wriggling out of the binds.

She felt herself dropping off to sleep, or maybe it was a concussion, he’d slammed her face into that mirror quite viciously, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had rattled her head around. Fighting with her eyelids to stay open, she jumped in her battered skin as the door unlatched, and she thrashed on the rickety bed to get away from the impending second beating.

But it wasn’t Cyrus. A fawn haired woman entered, her eyes falling on the girl on the bed, where blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from her nose like a thick liquor. Frowning, she was on high alert as the woman approached, a small, damp cloth in her hand.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you honey,” She hushed, approaching the young girl. Bugsy didn’t believe her for one second, her head pulling away from her as far as it could, her eyes wild and distrustful as the woman kneeled down beside the bed. “I’m Kathy,”

Bugsy debated jabbing an elbow in her face then and there, telling her in few words to stay as far away from her as possible, that the moment she was free she didn’t care who she hurt; she was getting out of here even if she had to crawl.

“That woman’s your sister right?” The blonde said, and the words stopped her heart for a moment, giving the woman the chance to run the cloth over the dribble of blood, “Emily,”

“Where is she?” She tried to ask, but the gag made it little more than a muffled cry, the woman’s eyes turning down in sadness. Pity. Bugsy hated every second of it.

“She’s okay, she’s worried about you though,” Kathy said, wiping under her nose, making her wince at the feeling, “Put up a hell of a fight after they took you away,”

She must have rolled her eyes, or perhaps it was just telling on her face that that didn’t surprise her as the older woman wiped over the superficial cut on her forehead she hadn’t realised was deep until the cloth went over it and she yawped like a dog having it’s tail pulled.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Kathy cooed, and she seemed genuinely guilty as she did. She tutted, shaking her head, fighting the urge to smooth the girls hair down the way she did when her own daughter was upset, “Emily said they’ll be coming for us at 3am, Cyrus has a mass suicide planned but they think they can stop him, you just have to hold on a little longer honey,”

“I want to see her,” Bugsy tried to talk again despite her mouth being covered, only for it to come out unintelligible once more. Huffing, she resigned herself to glaring at the ceiling, biting back frustrated tears. Kathy seemed to want to say something else, but thought better of it as the twenty something year old turned away from her to stare out the window, as if she were being dismissed.

Sighing, she rose from the bed and headed for the door, praying the FBI would get them out in time, before Cyrus put his plan into action.

–

Bugsy didn’t start panicking until it hit 2:50. She’d managed to kick the small analogue clock on the beside into working, the red numbers seeming to take a millenia to change over.

Yet it wasn’t until 3am neared, and the hallways remained silent, did she start to wonder if Kathy had been telling the truth at all. What if they had found out Emily and Reid were FBI and not her? What if they’d already been caught?

She really had wanted to see Emily, wanted to scream at the woman, who had meant well, to bring her sister to her or she would make every damn bible basher in this compound regret the day they were born. She felt helpless. She despised feeling helpless.

It was only when she heard shots rattling from outside did the cold fear set in. 2:52. Any minute now.

It was then an even worse thought struck her. What if they didn’t bother to come for her? Reid and Emily were safe downstairs, at least that was how Kathy had made it seem. If they got the women and children, the agents out first, she wondered if they would leave her for last since she wasn’t their top priority.

2:53 stared back at her.

At least Emily would make it. She was more important, had more going for her. She was supposed to be an only child anyway, mom had said it herself. Bugsy was the product of a failing marriage and a shared bottle of 1896 Bourbon that had been a wedding gift they’d never opened.

2:54.

She could have sworn she tore something the way her head snapped to the door as it swung open on its hinges, as if two large men had thrown their weight into it. But it wasn’t two men at all, just one frantic Derek Morgan with an FBI grade assault rifle.

The relief in his eyes was immediate, and he pulled a pocket knife from his boot, rushing over to where she lay, almost in shock, wondering if he was real at all, her heart pounding as she heard shouting in the corridor.

“I’m gonna get you out, kid,” The man promised, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he sliced through the rope on her ankles, her eyes trained on the 2:55 that watched them as if to laugh at them.

She whimpered, cursing behind her gag when she heard footsteps pounding through the hallway, and she was sure they were going to get caught. She thought then it would have been better if they’d forgotten about her, that at least Derek would have been safe, and he could have made sure the children got out safely, could have gotten Spencer and Emily medical.

Derek whirled on the doorway the same as she did as a tall figure all but skidded around the corner, his legs weak as hers felt, too long and not at all built for running. Clumsy almost.

Spencer. She should have known from the way he looked white as a sheet the moment he saw her it was him, but maybe she really did have concussion, as it seemed within moments he was fussing over her face, tearing a little too sharply at the tape over her mouth.

She thinks she groaned, or maybe cursed him out, as he started apologising immediately, his eyes a puppy kind of sad as she stared up at him, Derek handing him the knife to cut her arms free.

He was talking, but she couldn’t make a lot of it out, just that he was really sorry, it was 2:56 now. It was like her brain switched itself back on when she realised she was free, and the two of them were trying to haul her to her feet.

“Come on, princess, we gotta get out of here,” Derek said, as Spencer looped an arm around her waist, helping her limp across the room where her weak limbs did little to hold her upright, her ribs throbbing with every step, “We managed to stop Cyrus from detonating it manually, but the circuits are all still live,”

Morgan took the lead with the rifle, knowing some of Cyrus’ men had stayed to look for them, that they would go down with the building even though he’d already shot their leader the moment they’d breached the front door, because that was how loyal they were. They’d proven so already with the wine.

She kept her groans behind tight lips as they made it down the stairs, knowing Spencer didn’t mean to hold her bruised bones so tight, that he was just worried and her legs were doing the bare minimum to keep them both moving very fast. It wasn’t until they made it within a few feet of the door that they seemed to pick up the pace.

And she saw why.

Jesse, Cyrus’ child bride that had been the reason they’d come here in the first place was holding the detonator, her face tear streaked at the sight of her husband and prophet dead on the floor, the people responsible all but dragging a lame girl through the foyer and to the doors as if they hadn’t killed a handful of her flock tonight.

Bugsy saw the moment Jesse decided she wanted vengeance on them, but then, she guessed Spencer had already acted as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, yanking her out the front door in a matter of seconds as Morgan pulled up the rear, and the two men shoved her down behind the small wall outside the church steps.

Bugsy expected the bang to be louder as the rubble flew over their heads, the floor shaking with the impact of the bomb detonating, and it was then she realised one of Derek’s large warm hands held her head into his shoulder, protecting her already rattled skull as best as he could. Spencer had done the same, throwing half his body over her back as he covered his ears, the two men tucking into the wall tightly and waiting for the dust to settle.

Spencer started coughing first, though his position over her never faltered, and she heard his chest wheezing, and knew they needed to move away from the thick smog that blew into their faces. Morgan released her ear, tipping her head back to check her over once more.

“Kid! You okay?” He fretted, noticing the way her nose had started bleeding again from all the movement; the way the bruise had already started blotching her cheek from where Cyrus pistol whipped her.

“I didn’t think you’d come for me,” Was all she could say, and Derek thought it was the saddest he’d ever heard her.

Reid was pulling her to her feet then, where he was still hovering over her, despite the fact the blast had already cleared, still sputtering and hocking up a lung, but it didn’t stop her from throwing herself at his middle, burying her face in his dusty sweater, not caring one bit if he jostled her aching ribs.

He was trying to be gentle with her as he squeezed her back, but she knew by the way he pressed his face into her hair he needed it just as badly.

“You saved my life,” He said, his long arms wrapping around her waist, hauling her whole body against his.

She laughed through a cough, their cheeks brushing past one another as she pulled him in tighter, thankful, relieved.

“You saved mine,”

And then she heard Emily. Emily, who sounded frantic and heartbroken as she called for her, her voice breaking as if she was crying, or atleast on the verge of, and as comforting as Spencer’s long arms around her cracked ribs were, she needed to see her sister was okay.

Ripping herself from his embrace immediately, she tore off after the sound, and there she was. Her older sister, who had always seemed immovable, like she wouldn’t so much as budge for a bucking horse, like water couldn’t drown her, or however many unsubs she’d faced could stop her from catching them. Her older sister, who looked like she’d taken a few punches of her own, judging by the blood on her blue blouse, that looked around the crowd of fleeing people with watery eyes and a shaking bottom lip.

“EMILY,” She yelled, her voice a bleat, a lamb calling for its mother, as she sprinted down the steps, whatever strength she had left carrying her to where Emily was rushing towards her, taking the stairs in threes, “EM-”

She crashed into her sister’s chest, and it was only then she started crying.

“I swear I’ll never give you trouble again, I’ll never talk back, I’ll never be a bitch ever again-” It was all a slew of mumbles against her sisters shirt, that was beginning to wet through at the rate the tears were coming, “I thought he was going to shoot you-”

“I was so scared, Bug, oh my god,” Emily murmured into her hair, squeezing the life out of her baby sister that sniffled and sobbed, “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again,”

Bugsy shook her head, clawing at Emily’s back as she pulled her closer, feeling Emily stroking her hair softly to calm her even in the slightest. They stayed like that until she managed to wrangle her sobs into little sniffs, the fire burning her eyes where it burned the rest of the church to ashes.

She stayed with Emily for a month after that.

+4. The one where you leave the altar.

She knew she was turning heads, walking down the street of a drizzly day in Virginia, hair wet and sticking to her face, makeup running down her cheeks, and the sodden, dove white wedding dress clasped in her hands as she paced towards the government building.

Whether the guards recognised her as the Ambassador’s daughter, or whether they really didn’t want to get into it with a bride looking like that on her day, she didn’t know, but they opened the door for her nonetheless, exchanging raised brows as a trail of wet followed her gown over the marble floors.

Heading up the desk, she flashed her driver's licence, which was enough to gain her a visitors pass she didn’t bother putting to use as she headed for the elevator, her ballet pumps squeaking under the body of the dress. Waiting for the doors to start closing when she finally let a few tears slip, burying her face into her cold, drenched palms, undoubtedly making the mess of mascara even worse.

Her heart gave a leap when she heard someone stop the doors, hoping she could get to her sister with little delay, and she quickly wiped her face with whatever was left of her pretty, dobby cloth shawl she had yanked on before she’d ran.

Whatever excuse she was about to give, whatever one liner she was about to drop to clear the awkwardness this agent was about to walk in on was sucked out of her when she saw Spencer staring at her, his briefcase in his hands he’d used to hold the doors, a wide eyed look plastered on his face as soon as he saw her state.

“Bugsy,” It was somewhere between surprise and sadness, jumping into the elevator before the metal could shut again, the button for the sixth floor already lit up in a ring of red, “What are you- I didn’t even know…”

“Spencer!” As seemed to be a common occurrence between them now, she threw two very cold arms over his shoulders, tugging him for a hug he quickly reciprocated, feeling like she needed it in the moment, “It was so awful, I just couldn’t all those people staring at me, and he- I just feel so-”

“Hey slow down,” He soothed, slipping his favourite cardigan off his body to put over her shoulders, ignoring the way he cringed as it quickly got sodden, “Let’s get you to Emily, I’m sure we can fix this,”

She nodded, though he could tell she was still shaken up, the elevator dinging to a stop on the fifth floor where an agent looked ready to step in, his face dropping when he saw the sight.

“Sorry, we’re full,” Spencer said, with little room for discussion, pressing the button to close the doors once more, and taking her by the elbow as she began shivering, “We’re gonna be just fine, you look beautiful,”

She laughed sadly with a roll of her eyes, the tears sticking to her cheeks. She knew she looked no better than a drowned rat, windswept and disgruntled, her dress full of muck from the street.

“Thankyou, Spencer,” She mumbled, the door sliding open to the sixth floor, where Penelope and her everlasting smile greeted her favourite boy genius.

She almost dropped her glitter pen when she saw the woman stood next to him looking like Dorothy dragged through the twister.

“Oh you poor little lamb, what has happened to you honey!” She all but cried, the cute little pom poms in her hair bouncing as she brought Bugsy closer, taking her hands tightly. “Your hands are ice! You’ll catch cold with that wet hair, and your gorgeous dress-”

“Garcia,” Spencer cut her off, though the woman didn’t seem to mind being manhandled into the kind grip, he guessed her state had her letting her guard down, “This is Bugsy, Emily’s little sister.”

Penelope gasped, her ponytails swishing around some more, the gems on her glasses as bright as the light in her eyes as she yanked the younger girl in for a tight hug.

“It is so nice to meet you! Emily talks about you all the time,” She said, pulling away and fumbling through her pockets for her fresh pink handkerchief she always carried around, mopping up the girl's eyeliner.

“She-she does?” Bugsy asked, sniffling, her body trembling as the AC beat down through the water ladened on her body.

“Of course she does, come on, let’s go get you coffee, I have a new machine in my office that makes the best espresso-” Garcia grabbed her hand as if they were kids in the playground, as if she’d known the girl years, which she sort of had. She had, of course, stalked every single one of Emily’s known relatives, even a distant cousin that never left Europe, and that had thrown up the quiet corner of the internet that Bugsy took up.

“I needed to talk to my sister, if that’s okay,” Bugsy braved enough to say, the swishing of her dress on the carpet making her wince, practically hearing the gallon of rain that soaked the expensive fabric.

“Ofcourse! How silly of me, I’ll bring it out right to you, little bug. You just go with Spencer,” Handing him the handkerchief, she set off towards her ‘bat cave’ in search of a hot beverage for the shivering woman, “Spencer, clean her makeup!”

He did as he was told, dabbing the water off her face as he led her to the BAU, where Emily and Morgan sat on their desks, chatting as they finished off lunch, Emily flicking through photos on her phone of baby Henry that JJ had sent over to her that morning from maternity leave.

“He’s just the sweetest little boy, he’s got the biggest blue eyes just like Jayj,” She said through a smile, “You know Will even said-”

“Holy shit-” Morgan cut her off, and she glanced at him, wondering about his use of a curse. Following his eyes over her shoulder, she swivelled in her position to see where Spencer led a very wet, shaken version of her little sister through the doors of the BAU, a snowy ball gown hanging off her, a veil clinging to her hair that had seen much better days.

“Holy shit,” She agreed, immediately darting for the girl that tugged Spencer’s cardigan tighter to her body, “Bugsy,”

“Emily, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t take up too much time- I just couldn’t do it- and I know mom’s always saying ‘Bring home a doctor, bring home a rich man,’ but I just couldn’t no matter how rich his daddy is, he wasn’t even too bad-” It all came out in a slur, not making too much sense, and she didn’t stop until Emily held up her hands, as if easing a wild dog.

“Woah, take it easy, kiddo,” Morgan hushed, as Emily brought a hand over her sister’s cheek, wiping away the last of the mascara, “What happened?”

Bugsy took a deep breath, looking between Emily and Derek, feeling the rain drip down her back.

“So a few weeks ago, Mom made me go to that stupid debutante ball,” She started, rolling her eyes already as Emily winced, knowing Elizabeth loved any excuse to dress her youngest up like a Barbie doll.

“I hated those things,” She confessed, shaking her head, “I thought you’d agreed you didn’t have to go to them anymore,”

“That was while I was in college, she said at least I could focus on my studies,” The girl explained, as Garcia tottered back through the office, a steaming cup of coffee in her beloved Bratz mug. Taking it from the chirpy woman, she took a deep gulp, not caring if it burned her mouth as she wished for the damn chill to go away, “Thankyou- But she made me go to this one on the condition she would pay off some of my college loans, and I was dumb enough to fall for her bribe,”

She huffed, taking another sip, her stomach warming with the hot liquid settling through her throat.

“You know how she is at these things, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her. I had four guys asking for my dance card within minutes of arriving there, it was like trying to walk through a dog pound wearing a meat suit, all the hand holding, trying to touch my waist- one guy even called me Madam Prentiss,” She grimaced, shuddering at the thought of it, “Madam? No one even calls mom that-”

“Focus,” Emily reminded gently, and she seemed to nod to herself, setting back on track.

“Right. And then he was there. Byron Hastings.” Bugsy said, wrapping her hands around the mug some more.

“Oh, isn’t he that super yummy bachelor that just inherited his fathers business?” Garcia jumped in, not noticing how it made her wince, “I hear his dad totally owns a bunch of shares in Facebook and as like just signed a deal with a new company that will change the future of computing-”

“Not now, baby girl,” Morgan said calmly, patting Penelope on her shoulder when she saw the bride’s crestfallen face.

“Right, sorry. Your turn, little bug,” She said, shaking her head and fiddling with her dozen rings.

“Yeah, that’s him.” She replied, running a slightly warmed finger over her eyelash where rain even collected there, “And you know, I wasn’t complaining, he was certainly easy on the eyes, and he smelled nice, like he just smelled rich, but man alive he was so boring,” She sighed, “I like computers as much as the next girl, no offence, but he didn’t once ask me what I was into or, and when I tried to bring up my degree he just patted me on the head and said ‘That’s nice’ like I was some child that had brought him a pretty colouring or something,”

“Ouch,” Emily grimaced, rubbing her arms over the cardigan to warm her up a little more, “And then?”

“And eventually, his dad and my mom cut a deal that we’d make a good pair. He said we could be married within the season, and suddenly everyone seemed up for it, and it was like no matter how hard I tried to dig my heels in, no one would listen, and mom just seemed so pleased with me-” She spluttered, sipping her drink to catch her breath, “I just let it happen and just thought, you know, maybe we could learn to like each other, or we could just be like mom and dad and separate in everything but paper,”

“It’s your life, who is she to tell you how you’re gonna live it,” Emily was outraged, the tip of her nose pink, her dark eyes stormy as her hands fell to her hips, huffing as if it had been her backed into a corner, “I can’t believe she would do this to you,”

“I was fine with it, really. It's not like its the fifteenth century when I’d be forced to consummate- anyway,” Bugsy rubbed her face, “I just got there, and mom put on my veil and told me I’d make a lovely Mrs Hastings, and just the sound of it- I couldn’t-”

“What on earth is going on?” A new voice cut through the BAU, and the group disbanded like kids caught trading answers to the homework. Rossi and Hotch stood by the unit chief’s office, brows furrowed at the wet bride and his team that tended to her as if she were a princess.

“Should we be expecting four wet bridesmaids too?” Rossi asked, the two of them making the steps down to the floor, approaching the guilty faced woman, noting Spencer’s cardigan wrapped over her shoulders.

“Nope, just me,” Her joke fell flat as she met the stony face of Aaron Hotchner, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, “Nice to see you again, Mr Hotchner, sir,”

His gaze slid to Emily, mouth opening to share whatever scathing remark bounced around his mouth, but the younger girl beat him to it, everyone’s eyebrows raising when she all but cut him off.

“This wasn’t on Emily, sir, I just showed up out of the blue, I can go- I’ll go- I just need to figure out where I’m staying since I left my purse at the church- don’t you worry I’ll be out of your hair, Aaro- sir,” Bugsy stammered, plonking the mug onto Emily’s desk, backing away to the doors of the office, clutching her visitor pass tight in her fist.

Maybe it was because she looked so hopeless, or maybe it was the way his team shot him the same look of horror he would be so regimental, or maybe even it was the fact part of her reminded him of Sean, only his brother wouldn’t have had the courtesy to apologise for his mess.

Sighing, he gestured her to come back, “Wait,” He said her name, her government name because the other one didn’t fit right in his mouth, “Reid, get her some clothes out your go bag. Emily, tell your mother she’s safe and will be staying in Quantico until you can figure something out,”

Heaving a sigh of relief, she launched her still sodden form at the chief, wrapping him in a stiff hug, bolder than anyone else on the team had ever dared to be.

“I swear to god, Mr Hotchner, the next letter you're getting will be the best one yet,�� She mumbled into his hard chest, and he fought off the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards. Patting her on the back gently, he ignored the way his dress shirt wet through.

–

let me know what you think! mAYBE A FEW MORE PARTS COMING UP ??

Edit: This is a part one of 3 or 4 I have planned, thankyou so much for all the love on this I did not expect the reaction 🥺🥺

SECOND EDIT: part two and three are out now!! Have a look at the top where it says ‘next chpt and it’s there bbys!!

THIRD EDIT: we are now balls deep into this universe here's th link for the masterlist

#spencer reid x reader #Spencer reid imagine #Spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds x reader #Prentiss #prentiss!Reader #criminal minds fanfiction #dr spencer reid #criminal minds fic #spencer reid fanfiction #mathew grey gubler #Matthew grey gubler x reader

4K notes · View notes

ahgasegotarmy116 · 6 months ago

Text

Faking It | Jeon Jungkook | Chapter One

Summary: Being divorced by the time you're thirty isn't the best feeling in the world but what happens when your parents find someone from your past that's in a similar boat? Pairing: f!reader (30) x Single Dad Jungkook (33) (Arranged Marriage Slow Burn?) Word Count: 11.3k (oh man holy shit) Warnings: Troubles with conceiving/seeing pregnancies to full term, Jungkook's first wife passed away in childbirth. (These themes will be spoken about throughout the fic and I will add extra warnings when need be in future chapters) a/n: Okay this one is gonna be a long one (in terms of chapter length, idk how many parts there will be) I'm really really in love with this story line so I hope you'll come along this cute, silly, awkward, heartwarming and heartbreaking journey with me 🥰 p.s. I've been brainstorming with @kkusadmirer (ofc 🤭) about this fic for a while now and I've just fallen in love with these characters too much that I had to get at least one part out. Okay okay enough from me. I hope you enjoy! (barely edited per usual I'm sry 😅)

"You should start dating again" my mom says to me, a dinner with a table for two this time since she said she wanted to talk to me about something important. If I would've known it was to nag me about something like this again I would've declined the invitation.

"Mom I already told you, I just got divo-" "You got divorced last year" she cuts me off and I sigh, knowing I'll probably get no where with this argument but continue on nevertheless.

"Point being, it hasn't been that long since Robert and I got divorced. I need time and space to figure out what I want out of life. I'm not interested in rushing into another marriage just for it to fail again" I explain and she simply downs the rest of her champagne in response, polishing it off in record time.

"You don't want to end up an old maid who didn't give me any grandchildren do you?" she says, repeating the same old argument again. "Mom I'm thirty, not forty five. I still have plenty of time to worry about babies and getting married again" I argue and she rolls her eyes before asking for another glass when the waiter passes by.

"You should at least try. Don't you like going out on dates?" she asks and I sigh, hating having this conversation over and over again.

"Dating was fun in my twenties but now that I'm more interested in finding someone to settle down with, it seems like all the guys that are remotely my age and happen to be decent human beings are already married" I explain and watch how she immediately takes her glass of champagne off the table once it's placed in front of her.

I'm glad she's drinking because having this conversation with her when she's sober is even more painful.

"You're exaggerating honey. I'm sure there is a fine young man just waiting for you around the corner" but before I'm able to respond to her, her eyes suddenly light up and she quickly gets out of her seat.

"Is it really you?" she says and another woman around her age that I've never seen before comes up to greet her. "How are you? It's been so long!" the mystery woman says and they quickly share an embrace before she turns to face me.

"And who is this beautiful young woman here with you?" she asks, making me shy away from them. "Oh this is my daughter y/n. Y/n this is Mrs. Jeon" she introduces us and tells me all about how they used to go to college together.

"Oh wow I think I remember my mom mentioning you before. You used to come over when I was little right?" I question, now remembering seeing her face in some of the pictures in my baby album.

"That's right! Little Jungkook and I used to come visit you all the time when you were just a teeny tiny little thing. You were the easiest baby I've ever come across, always sleeping and when you woke up you were as happy as can be" she rambles and I get a warm feeling in my chest, loving to have met someone who clearly cared so deeply for my mother and I.

"Who's Jungkook" I ask, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Jungkook is my son, he's just a few years older than you. I remember he was so fascinated by you, always wanting to come over and would watch over you as you slept, never causing a fuss as long as you were around" she says and I blush at the fact that her son would care about me just as much if not more than she does.

"How is he? Is he doing alright?" my mother asks and Mrs. Jeon gets a somber look on her face eyes fluttering to the floor before responding.

"Actually, he lost his wife a few years ago. She passed away after she gave birth to their daughter" she mumbles and I feel my chest tighten up at the thought of someone so young losing their life to something that is supposed to be so beautiful.

"My condolences to you all" I say, my eyes going glossy and she smiles in return, the memory bringing a tear to her eye as well. "Thank you love, that's very kind of you" she says, placing a hand on my shoulder before she clears her throat and blinks back her tears, wanting to put on a brave face in public.

"Why don't you come visit us at our home tomorrow evening? I would love to catch up and it would be good if the kids got reacquainted again" my mother suggests and I glare at her, knowing exactly what she's doing but also knowing there's no way I could stop her.

"I would love that! Our husbands might enjoy catching up too since they used to get along so well" Mrs. Jeon points out. "Then it's settled! How would you feel about making it a dinner instead?" my mother questions, digging us deeper into this evening we'll all be spending together. "I think that sounds perfect!" she agrees and I tune out the rest of the conversation, already trying to mentally prepare myself for the scheming I know my mother has planned.

~~~~

Kicking off my shoes and walking into my apartment I'm greeted by the serene sound of silence.

My black tuxedo cat meows as he jumps down from his cat tower and stretches for a second before coming over to greet me. "Hi Salem" I say, scooping him up and carrying him with me into my bedroom where I plop him down in the middle of my bed. "Mom only invited me to dinner because she wanted to tell me to start dating again" I relay to him, while I walk around my room, grabbing all the things I'll need to get ready for bed.

"I should've known she was up to something when she decided to invite me out on a random Wednesday night to go to my favorite restaurant. If the previous glances I had of the totals on those receipts didn't clue me in enough I don't know what would" I say in disbelief, having convinced myself hours earlier that it might've been about something good instead of another chance to nag me about something.

"I don't know why I even bother sometimes. She just has this worst case scenario mindset that I'm going to die alone and not leave a legacy. I understand that I'm their only child but with the way she talks, you would think I was well into my forties already" I say, verbally processing to him while he curls up into a ball, his eyes watch me walk back and forth until I walk into the en-suite bathroom to turn on the shower.

"Thanks for always listening to me Salem" I say, walking back over to him and scratching his head, "Don't know what I would do without you" I mumble before walking back over to the bathroom and closing the door.

Looking in the mirror I study my features, my hair styled just how I like it, my brows perfectly shaped but when I get to my eyes I notice it. I notice why my mother has gotten so worried about me.

It's as if the light's gone out of them. It's more than just 'Hey it's been a long day and I'm tired' no it's 'I don't even know what I'm doing here anymore' and for the first time, I admit to myself that I truly feel that way.

I reach for my cleanser and quickly wash off the little makeup that I still have on, lips completely plain and gone back to their natural color and some how my cheeks don't seem to be as rosy anymore after I had made sure to put on some more blush today to bring some color back to my face. Maybe it's not the makeup that's been washing me out, but the way that I've been living.

I will admit my days consist of going to work and coming home and doing that same thing over and over again. I don't really go out much and I only have a few friends but ever since I got divorced I just end up politely declining any sort of invitation I get from them. Doesn't matter if it's dinner or drinks or clubbing or even just a shopping trip.

I just can't get myself wanting to do anything anymore.

I step into the shower and I flinch slightly at the burning sensation the hot water brings to me but adjust it and step further under the stream once it's just to my liking. While going though my shower routine mindlessly I start trying to get to the bottom of what has got me living like this.

Robert wasn't the best husband in the world, mainly because he cheated on me but before that things were good between us. He made me laugh and was a perfect gentleman that always made me feel special and when we got married I swear I thought I couldn't be happier.

It felt like my life was falling into place, our life.

Until it wasn't.

I'm knocked out of my train of thought when I hear Salem pawing at the door and remember now that in my whirl winded state of mind I forgot to feed him. "Sorry Salem I'll be right out!" I call out for him and he meows in response. I swear that cat is more intelligent than I am most days.

I finish up my uninteresting night as I always do, turning out the lights and cuddling up with Salem until I eventually fall asleep but it took a little longer tonight. Thoughts full of what my future might look like if I don't start living instead of just existing.

As the 'what ifs' plague my mind they eventually drown themselves out as that same welcoming feeling of calm finally lulls me to sleep.

~~~~~~

"Hurry up they're almost here" my mother says, yanking me inside the house before I even have a chance to knock on the front door. "Nice to see you too mom" I say under my breath and she's wound up so tight it doesn't even phase her. I can tell she's been working hard to make sure everything is perfect once the Jeons arrive.

"Did you get that wine I told you to get?" she questions, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the wine bottle carrier in my hand, quickly taking it and rushing into the kitchen. "Yeah no problem mom you're welcome" I say, talking to the air in front of me still waiting for her to show any sign of gratitude.

"Go place your things in your old room so they're out of the way" she call out, leaving me sighing and trudging off to do as she says.

Once I retrace my steps and walk past the door to go to join her in the kitchen I'm stopped in my tracks when the doorbell rings.

"Oh honey can you get that? My hands are tied here" my mom yells and I take a deep breath in and out before doing just that.

"Hello y/n! It's so nice to see you again" Mrs. Jeon greets me as I step aside and let them in, soon after her is her husband who holds out his hand in greeting. "It's been quiet a long time hasn't it? I remember when you use to be-" "Grandpa! Grandpa! I wanna meet the pretty lady too!" a little girl no older than five years old says, walking around her grandfather's legs to get to me, greeting me with the most adorable bunny smile.

"And now who might this be?" I ask, already melting into a puddle from seeing how absolutely adorable she is. "I'm Juni" she laughs when I go down to her level. "Well it's very nice to meet you Juni and how old are you?" I ask and she lights up when I continue taking an interest in her. "I'm four! Well Daddy says I'm turning five soon but it feels like it's taking forever. Right Daddy?" she says and looks back towards the man now left standing in the doorway.

"That's right Juni" he responds and the deep tenor of his voice sends a slight shiver down my spine, so full of love and admiration that is obvious to anyone who might come across the pair. "Oh!" I say, quickly straightening back up to meet this mysterious Jungkook and my throat goes dry once I've laid eyes on him.

Tall, strong build, dark brown hair that's well taken care of and styled perfectly, strong jawline accompanied by the contrast of the softest look in his brown almost black galaxy eyes that are still focused on his beautiful daughter.

"I'm sorry" I say but he shakes his head before he turns his head in my direction, taking in the sight of me as well before speaking. "That's alright, Juni kind of grabs everyone's attention right away" he says giving me a soft smile. "I'm Jungkook" he says, holding his hand out to me. "Y/n" I say shyly and shake it, his hands being much larger than mine is comforting in a way.

"My mom told me we used to come see you when we still lived here" he says once we let go, Juni now quietly watching our exchange. "Used to?" I question, curious to know more about why our mothers had lost touch. "We went back to our hometown for a while and then moved back to the city soon after Juni was born" he says and I nod my head, accepting that as an answer for now but wanting to know more.

"Sounds like I was just an infant though so I don't really have any memory of it" I admit while rocking back and forth on my heels, a nervous habit I've picked up over the years. "It's alright, I didn't expect you to remember" he chuckles, "I was only three so I don't remember much of it either" we laugh at his returned confession and a more comfortable air settles between us.

"Well it's nice to finally meet you" I say and he nods his head. "Likewise" he replies and we stand there for a moment, not really knowing where to go from here then, thankfully Juni breaks the silence.

"Daddy I wanna talk to the pretty lady" she says and grabs my hand and pulls me away from him. "Be nice Juni" he warns and she pouts, leaving me crouching down to her level and tilting my head to meet her gaze. "There's enough of me to go around little one. Don't worry" I say, booping her on the nose and making her giggle again.

Jungkook walks in a bit more and closes the door behind him, watching our little exchange before my mother comes out to check on us.

"Y/n why don't you take Jungkook and..." she says trailing off, not having learned his daughter's name yet. "Juni" Jungkook says and my mother smiles at the sound of the adorable name. "Jungkook and Juni outside. I'm sure she'd love to run around a little bit before dinner is ready" she suggests and I agree while Juni starts jumping up and down, excited to explore an unfamiliar place.

Jungkook follows closely behind as I lead the way but I ultimately end up getting dragged along by Juni who is surprisingly perceptive and has already mapped out the door that we'll be going through. "Come on Daddy keep up!" she calls after him once we've reached the door, looking back and seeing that he's fallen behind.

"I'm right behind you Juni" Jungkook chuckles and once we step outside Juni lets go and runs back and forth all around the yard, looking at anything and everything she can find.

"Be careful!" I say, worried that she could hurt herself but Jungkook comes over and stands next to me and reassures me she'll be fine.

"It's alright, if she gets hurt it'll be a little reminder to pay attention to what she's doing next time. That's the only way kids really learn right?" he says turning towards me, granting me with a soft smile, almost as if he's looking for validation on his parenting choice.

"Of course," I respond, returning the smile, "even some adults need to crash and burn before they learn their lesson sometimes" I point out and it makes him relax a bit more, thankful to see that he's right in his dealings with situations like this.

"She's a good kid" I say after leading him over to the patio set we have out here so we can sit down and watch her. "Thanks, it's been difficult raising her on my own so I'm never really sure if I'm doing a good job or not" he admits and I nod my head, taking a second to think about my response since it's a sensitive subject.

"I can tell that you love her very much so I have no doubt in my mind that you'll always do right by her" and I can tell that my words bring him a sense of comfort. Being a single parent can be extremely difficult especially when you lose the love of your life as soon as you become a father.

I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.

"Y/n?" I hear him call out and realize that my mind had drifted off for a second. "I'm sorry what did you say?" I say, my cheeks heating up from having been caught daydreaming. "I asked if you had any children of your own" he chuckles and I again try to figure out the best way to word this but figure the best way to go about it is to be honest.

I've got no reason to hide from him.

"No, I got divorced last year and my ex husband and I were never able to have children" I say, looking down at my lap, embarrassed to have admitted it but also feeling a certain weight lifted off my shoulders.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know" he trails off and I panic, realizing I might've made him feel uncomfortable, telling him something so personal so soon. "No don't be, I honestly dodged a bullet with that one" I chuckle, hoping to lighten the situation a bit which thankfully it does as I see his body relax a bit.

"Our relationship had been on the rocks soon after we got married and I don't think we were a good match for each other so I think it was the universe's way of doing me a favor in making us somewhat biologically incompatible" I chuckle and he softly does the same.

"Biologically incompatible" he questions, a deeper meaning obviously hidden behind those words. "We both got checked out and everything looked completely fine but I guess it wasn't meant to be, thank God" I sigh, sincerely thanking whoever might've been in charge of making that executive decision for us.

"I'm not exactly sure what to say to that but I'm glad it worked out?" he states almost as if it was a question and I laugh, in response hoping I can recover this incredibly awkward conversation. "I'm sorry, that was a huge overshare that I probably should've kept to myself" I say, clearing my throat in hopes it would aid in clearing the peculiar air that had settled between us.

"You have nothing to apologize for, I asked and I feel honored that you felt comfortable enough to be so transparent with your answer" he says, the warmth in his tone giving me an ache in my chest. How could someone be so kind to someone they've just met? It's as if I could tell him anything and he would listen to me as if I was the only person in the world.

"Daddy!" 'Well me and Juni', I say to myself and watch as his attention now shifts to his daughter who is running up behind me. "Daddy look!" Juni says, holding out her hands that are now thoroughly caked in mud but hold a rock that is almost a perfectly shaped heart in the center of her palm. "Oh Juni" Jungkook chuckles, the ends of her dress now matching the state of her hands and neither Jungkook nor I can hold in our laughter.

"That's a very beautiful rock Juni! You're so clever" I say and I can see a sense of pride straighten her posture a little bit. "Juni your beautiful dress" Jungkook chuckles, clearly not minding but also trying to figure out what to do. "I'm sorry Daddy" she say, that pride slowly dwindling after seeing the mess she's made of herself.

"Hey Juni" I say, turning her attention back to me and I can see her spirits lift a little. "Would you like to see some of the clothes that I used to wear when I was your age?" I ask and her eyes light up at the thought. "Did you wear pretty dresses too?" she asks, clearly excited about seeing more new things. Her childlike wonderment makes my heart ache. Must run in the family.

"I did, but none of them were as pretty as yours. If you like, you can borrow one of mine while we wash this one" I suggest and the way her head nods up and down so fast makes me chuckle.

"Let's go to my room then! Hopefully we can find something you'll like" I say, standing up and straightening my dress while Jungkook reaches out for Juni's foot.

"Let's take your shoes off before we go back inside baby. We wouldn't want to track any mud into the pretty lady's house right?" Jungkook says, flashing a soft smile at me before looking back down to complete his intended task and Juni complies right away.

My breath hitches as he purposefully uses the nickname Juni had given me and I quickly walk past them and open the door to go inside, trying to clear my head for a second, willing myself to keep it together.

"Are you coming with us?" Juni asks and he nods his head, "I gotta go clean your shoes off first though" he says and I walk all three of us over to the bathroom so Jungkook can do just that as well as wash Juni's hands off.

"Wow!" is the first word that comes out of her mouth when we walk into the butterfly themed bedroom, mesmerizing her from the first glance. "Your room is so pretty!" she says, quickly running around here and there, being careful not to get too close since we haven't gotten a chance to change her dress yet.

"You like it?" I question and she's quick to nod her head again. "I wish my room looked like this" she says, spying all of the little butterfly details from the dainty embroidering on the bedspread to the knobs on the dresser, all of them working in harmony.

"We can go look for some butterfly stuff next time we go to the store if you'd like" Jungkook says while he walks into the room and right up to her while she stares up at the ceiling where there are a couple scattered across it. Nothing is too over the top but there is clearly a theme going on that she is captivated by.

"Really?" she asks, confirmation of what he's said being important to make sure she's hear him right. "Promise" he says holding out his pinky that she quickly wraps her's around as best as she can with her little ones being so tiny in comparison to his. She looks at the two of us before beckoning Jungkook to come closer so she can whisper something in his ear.

"Can the pretty lady come with us too?" she 'whispers' in his ear almost as loud as her speaking voice and I try to hold back my laughter, pretending like I didn't hear a thing. "Why don't you ask her?" he whispers and when he leans back she looks him in the eyes and he nods to further encourage her.

"Um, would you like to go shopping with us to get butterflies for my room too?" she asks, walking up to me shyly. Jungkook looks at me with a soft smile and I notice how the tips of his ears have almost gotten a little pink, his expression soft and charming but his body still showing tell tale signs of nervousness.

"Sure Juni, I'd love to go shopping with you" I say and she giggles in response while running back to her Daddy. "Can we go right now?" she asks jumping up and down. "We'll go another time don't worry baby, we've gotta set up a time so the pretty lady can go with us too right?" he reminds her and although she's sad she has to wait she nods in agreement. "Good, now let's get you out of this so we can make you all nice and clean again" he says, unzipping the back of her dress and revealing the cute little white tank top and tights that she wore under it.

I focus my attention on opening up the closet and grabbing a couple of dresses out for her to choose from. "These ones should fit. Which one would you like to wear Juni?" I say and her eyes flitter back and forth between all of them before giving her a Daddy a devious smile and hugging them to her chest. "I want all of them" she giggles and my heart melts, thinking about how fun it would be if I had a daughter just like her.

"Pick one Juni" Jungkook chuckles and she pulls back flipping through the selection I've made before her eyes light up and find the one she's dying to wear. "This one, this one!" she says, lightly holding onto the skirt and jumping up and down. I shift my grasp on them and hold out the one she chose for Jungkook to take and once he does there a static jolt of electricity that shocks us leaving the both of us pulling away slightly.

"Sorry it's probably from all the fabric of the dresses" I explain and he smiles in response. "Don't worry about it. A little spark never hurt anyone" he says and it's almost as if his voice had dropped a bit with that remark, leaving me widening my eyes a bit before turning back around and placing the dresses back in the closet.

Why does he make me so nervous?

"Lady, lady look!" I hear from behind, and watch as Juni turns this way and that once Jungkook has finished putting the dress on her. "My goodness Juni don't you look adorable!" I say and she runs up to the the mirror in the corner of the room, watching the skirt swish this way and that. "Say thank you Ms y/n" Jungkook says, correcting Juni and finally telling her my name. She sounded too cute calling me 'the pretty lady' I just didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise.

"Thank you Ms y/n!" she says, running up to me and wrapping her arms around my legs since she is still too small to reach anywhere else. "You're welcome Juni" I say, smiling down at her and smoothing her hair down. "Remember Juni, we're just borrowing it so we can wash your dress. We have to give it back to Ms. y/n before we leave" Jungkook says and I can see her excitement dwindle a bit but is no less thankful for being able to wear it tonight.

"Thank you for letting me borrow it Ms. y/n!" she says and I smile again, falling more and more in love with this adorable little girl with every smile she graces me with. "You're welcome" I say and she lets go of me and twirls around in it before stopping.

"Oh! I promise to be really careful and keep this one clean" she says holding out her pinky to do just as she had done with her father moments ago and I kneel down to her level and do just that before booping her on the nose causing another fit of giggles to spill out of her.

"Y/n, dinner is ready" my mother says while poking her head around the corner and I can tell she is completely satisfied by the scene that she's walked in on. "Oh Juni what a beautiful dress!" my mother says, noticing it right away, remembering it was one of my favorites. "Ms y/n gave it to me!" she says, swishing around in it again before doing a full twirl for us.

"Well aren't you the most darling little girl I've ever seen! Are you ready to eat? I heard that mashed potatoes are one of your favorite foods right?" my mom says, holding out her hand for Juni to take and she gladly does.

"Did my grandma tell you that?" she asks, clearly surprised that this complete stranger already knew something about her. "Yes she did. I hope you like them!" my mom says and Juni rushes down the hallway dragging my mom behind her. "Juni be careful!" Jungkook calls out to her but my mom just laughs it off.

"Why don't you show Jungkook where the laundry room is so you can put her dress in the washer" my mom offers up and I nod my head and look up at him. "That's okay I can just wash it when we get home" he says, politely declining the offer. "It's alright, it's best to wash it right away so it doesn't stain" I say, holding out my hand for the dress and he smiles before handing it to me and following my lead.

"You have a lovely home" he says shyly, looking this way and that taking notice of the small details just as Juni did. 'Like father like daughter' I think to myself. "It was my childhood home as you could probably tell from my old room" I say and he hums in response as I stop at the door to the laundry room.

"I know Juni is never going to stop talking about it" he chuckles and I smile at the loving tone that is always present in his voice whenever he speaks about her. We stand there in silence for a bit while I gather the various cleaning products I'll need.

"If you like, I can show you how to get stains like this out? If there was ever a day when I was her age that I didn't get some sort of dirt, mud or grass stains on my clothes my mother would write that down as a national holiday" I say and he laughs at that before accepting the offer.

"Sure, I'd like that" for some reason I can't seem to find the right words so I simply turn around and rinse off the mud in the little sink we have in here. "Do you think you could get that one for me?" I ask, nodding toward one of the stain removers. He wordlessly does as I ask and helps apply a drop or two of it to each of the areas I point out.

"I could've done that" he says now realizing how he's just standing there watching me clean his daughter's dress. "No, that's okay I offered!" I say, reassuring him that I don't mind. I wordlessly ask for the next stain remover before rubbing it in and ringing out the excess water. He opens up the washer lid for me and I toss it in and look this way and that for the laundry detergent.

"Looking for this?" he asks, pulling it off the shelf above the washer. "See, that's a perk of living on my own now. I don't have to worry about things being up too high for me anymore" I chuckle and quickly scoop in the appropriate amount and start the washer.

"Well let me know if you ever need anyone to get something that's out of your reach, it's one of the perks of being tall" he jokes and I laugh but almost shy away from the fact that he expects to see me again. "So I've heard" I say and try to put the detergent back on my own but it soon tips back over and is close to crashing down until he catches it, which in turn ends with him trapping me between him and the washer.

He slides the detergent back in it's spot and takes half a step back, giving me the smallest bit of space. "Why didn't you let me help you? I was standing right here?" he asks, tilting his head at me. "I don't know, I guess I'm just used to doing things on my own now" I chuckle awkwardly. "Well hopefully you'll get used to letting me help you soon" he says, finally taking another step back and giving me a bit more space to breathe.

"Sorry about that" I apologize awkwardly, leaning my back against the washer now with him leaning up against the wall directly in front of me and giving me a crooked smile. "Don't apologize, there's nothing wrong with being independent" he says and quickly scans my body but he does it so fast that if I would've blinked I would've missed it.

"Daddy it's time for dinner" Juni says, her soft steps not having been heard by either of us over the sound of the washer, breaking us out of the little moment that we had been having. "Okay Juni we're coming" he chuckles and holds out his hand for her to take but she giggles and dodges it, reaching for mine instead.

I squeeze past Jungkook as this little room is only wide enough for one person to walk through and the front of our bodies brush up against each other only for a moment until she's tugged me halfway out the door. "Let's be a train Daddy! Grab onto Ms. y/n's hand so you can be the caboose!" she says, turning this trip down the hallway into a game.

"Oh that's okay sweetie why don't you-" he starts but I hold out my hand for him to take, him only having refused for my sake, not wanting to make me uncomfortable with any unwanted skinship. "Grab on Daddy!" Juni giggles and I look up at him and see that he's looking down at me. He chuckles before grabbing onto my hand and the both of us are soon trailing behind Juni as she drags us to the dining room.

Once we get to the dinner table Juni lets go of my hand and runs back to where Jungkook's mom is so she can continue to help her eat her mashed potatoes.

When everyone notices that Jungkook and I have arrived, we're greeted with four sets of eyes, all of them extremely happy to see us. It's then when I realize that we were still holding hands so I gently slide mine out of his, almost wishing I didn't have to.

He looks down at where our hands had been connected when I do and I can almost see that he's also disappointed that I let go but his expression is quickly replaced by an awkward smile aimed at our parents.

When I look at the table I see that Jungkook and I are meant to sit directly across from each other. Which I'm sure is another one of my mother's ploys to get us to keep glancing up at each other, this time though I don't really mind.

When I go to walk to one side to sit down next to Mr. Jeon, Jungkook follows right behind me.

"Oh did you want to sit on this side?" I ask him and he shakes his head, "No, I just wanted to pull your chair out for you" he says and I feel butterflies in my stomach. "Oh, okay" I say quietly and watch as he does just that and slides the chair in behind me once I've sat down. "Thank you" I reply, smiling up at him and he does so in return before rounding the table to take a seat in his place.

"So y/n, your mother told us that you work in photography, is that right?" she asks and I take a drink of water before responding. "Well not really, I've done a few freelance jobs here and there. Enough to keep me afloat so to say but I hope to do it full time soon!" I say and I see Jungkook perk up at that.

"Jungkook has always loved photography as well! He's always been tinkering away with cameras since he was just a few years older than Juni" his mother says while Jungkook cleans off Juni's face as it seems like she's gotten more food on her face than in her mouth.

"What subject do you usually shoot?" I ask, curious to see where his interests lie. "Mostly editorial, but I tend to enjoy the shoots a lot more when they have to do with nature. I believe beauty can be found in almost anything so I tend to just capture whatever inspires me at the moment" he says, his answer being very similar to mine.

"I feel the same way" I respond simply before shying away from the topic as I feel our parents are studying our interaction.

Once they notice the silence they decide to pick up the conversation just throwing facts about Jungkook and I back and forth, pretty much doing the getting to know you game for us without giving us much room to get a word in edgewise. Which leaves the both of us to just follow the conversation and occasionally making eye contact when either side makes a slightly embarrassing comment.

"Hey Dad" Jungkook calls out to his father over the never ending conversation they're having about us. "How's that new project at work going?" he says and I can already tell that it's one of those kinds of topics that once you get him started on it he won't stop and that's just the case as we now watch the conversation take a turn that is thankfully so far off from the two of us.

As time ticks by and the subjects change a few more times I notice that Jungkook has started to get up and clear the table to which I jump up in response to help him.

"Oh Jungkook don't worry about that I can do it later" my mother says but he shakes his head. "It's the least I could do after you've provided this wonderful dinner for my family and I" he says and I can almost see my mother swooning from his response. "Well thank you very much, sweetie can you show him where to place them, just next to the sink is fine" she says to me and I nod, looking up at him and nodding my head towards the direction of the kitchen.

Once we've gone there and back from the table a few times I decide to just start loading up the dishwasher, trying to escape that mortifying conversation for as long as I can. "I brought your glass for you. Wasn't sure if you were planning to finish it or not" he says, walking over and placing my wine glass on the counter next to me. "Thanks" I say quietly, neither of us having said a word to each other since the very beginning of that dinner.

"Your parents are really sweet" he says, breaking the ice and clearly acknowledging how obvious they all were about their motives. "Yours too. I'm sorry about tonight" I say and his brows furrow, clearly not understanding why I would need to apologize. "I knew my mom would end up doing something like this but once her mind is made up there's no stopping her" I admit and he gives me a crooked smile in response.

"Don't worry, I knew what all of them were up to too. My mother was praising you so much and telling me how beautiful and smart and respectful you are so I had an inkling that this was their plan all along" he says and I turn away from him, trying to hide my flustered expression.

"She's right you know" he says, coming around to stand next to me, leaning against the counter while I face it, cleaning up the inside of the sink and grabbing the towel next to me to dry my hands.

"Right about what?" I question, now turning to face him and noticing just how close he's gotten. "About how beautiful you are" he says and I have to blink a few times, trying to figure out why this incredibly handsome man in my kitchen is flirting with me.

I just wanna thank past me because whatever I did in my last life must've been incredible if I'm being offered up a man as remarkable as he is.

"I-" I start but am soon interrupted by my mom walking in on us. "Y/n could you- oh! I'm sorry, as you were" she says, taking small backward steps out of the kitchen, keeping hers eyes on the two of us before turning around to walk back to the living room that they had moved to.

"I'm sorry about her" I say, taking a drink of my wine but he laughs it off. "It's alright, I don't mind" he says watching me with curious eyes as I polish off the rest of it. "Juni has taken a real liking to you" he says and my heart melts at the sound of her name.

"Really? She's probably the happiest child I've ever seen. I really like her too" I say and he smiles, no doubts memories over the years flashing through his head.

"You've done a really good job raising her Jungkook" I say, and his eyes flutter back to mine, this time being the first time I've spoken his name and it looks as if just that alone brought him so much satisfaction. "Thank you y/n" he says, and I feel my heart flutter, the deep baritone of his voice sending a shiver down my spine.

"Daddy can I have some cake?" we hear as Juni walks into the kitchen, "Can I have some cake..." Jungkook says, trailing off and waiting for those magic words. "Please?" she says, realizing what he had been getting at.

"Sure baby, Ms. y/n and I will bring it out in a second okay?" he says making her smile as she runs out of the kitchen "Thank you" she calls out over her shoulder leaving the two of us laughing at her enthusiasm.

"That's probably what my mom was coming in to ask us for" I say and he nods in agreement, helping me carry everything out so we can all have a slice of the small cake my mom had gotten for tonight. "How much you want to bet that they sent Juni looking for us earlier too?" he whispers to me as we make our way over to where everyone else has gathered. "You might be right about that one" I whisper back, quickly catching onto all of their little games.

After setting the cake and all of the plates and forks down on the coffee table my mom takes on the task of cutting it up and serving it, with the very first piece going to little Miss Juni. "Thank you!" she says, eyes wide as saucers leaving all of us cooing at her. "Eat slow Juni" Jungkook reminds her, no doubt having troubles with her eating her desserts too quickly.

I take on the task of helping my mother hand out the slices and once I give one to Jungkook I finally notice that the only empty seat is right next to him and he looks down at it before looking back up at me in a silent invitation to sit down and I take it cautiously.

The couch that we're sitting on is kind of a love seat ironically, seeing as the whole theme of tonight is trying to set us up with each other.

Once I've sat down I realize that I've sat right next to him to the point of where my shoulder ended up bumping into his. "Oh! I'm sorry" I say, scooting away from him but with the size of the couch I don't really end up moving all that much. "It's okay I don't mind" he says, before taking a bite of his cake and turning to face the rest of the group.

The seven of us continue talking and talking until we notice that Juni has fallen asleep in her grandma's lap. "Here mom let me take her" Jungkook says, standing up but both my mom and his stand up and wave him off. "That's okay, we're just gonna go put her down in y/n's room" my mom says and before he's able to say otherwise they've disappeared down the hallway.

"Does she have school tomorrow?" I ask once he's settled back down. "No, she's on spring break right now until next Monday" he relays and I nod my head. "And what about you? Do you work tomorrow?" I ask and he gives me a shy smile before responding. "I had a shoot scheduled in the morning but we went ahead and pushed it to the afternoon so I don't have to worry about going home anytime soon" he says and my heart skips a beat.

"No, I mean, well I don't want to keep you for too long. You probably have other things you'd like to get done tonight?" I ask and he shakes his head. "No, this is the only thing I have planned for the night so I guess you're stuck with me" he chuckles. "I didn't mean to make you feel like I wanted you to leave I just-"

"It's okay I know what you meant" he laughs and I now take notice that we're the only ones left in the room. "Oh! Where did my dad go?" I ask, my eyes darting this way and that, not even being able to hear his voice.

"I think I heard something about them setting up the fire pit? I'm not sure but he's outside with my dad right now" he says and I spy both of them looking through the glass door before quickly ducking out of view once they realize they've been spotted.

"Maybe we should head out there" I say but he cuts off that thought by asking me a question that keeps me frozen on the spot.

"Is there a reason why you don't want to be alone with me?" he asks, arm now having been draped around the back of the couch a while ago, completely unknown to me making this all seem a lot more intimate than before.

"Who said that?" I chuckle nervously, clearing my throat before sinking back into my seat. "You just did" he says, nodding towards me and I feel like I want to crawl in a hole and die. I thought I could escape this night without being awkward like this but I guess not.

"You trying to get rid of me?" he teases and I shake my head right away, "No I'm sorry I just-" "It's okay, I'm only joking" he says and I laugh nervously. "So why don't you tell me about yourself?" he says, giving me the most open ended question ever and I scramble to find something but I just can't seem to come up with anything interesting enough to mention.

"Well, my parents pretty much said everything there is to know about me over dinner earlier" I say and he shakes his head. "I want to hear something about you from you. Like what are some of your hope, your dreams, something you're passionate about" he says, being a little more specific this time.

"My dreams?" I trail off, thinking for a second and he watches me as I wrack my brain for something notable. "It's kind of silly" I admit once I've settled on something. "Good thing I've got a sense of humor" he replies, trying to encourage me to continue.

"Well, I've always wanted one of my photos to be on the cover of TIME magazine" I admit and see his eyes light up. "I have a similar dream" he says and my eyes widen in surprise turning my body to face him, wordlessly asking him to share his too.

"I'd like one of mine to end up on the cover of National Geographic" he relays and I smile in turn. "That would be perfect for you! Well, since the subject you love to capture the most is nature I could definitely see your work fitting right in!" I say, excited to see someone else who's trying to aim as high as I am.

"And I could see yours being a shoe in for TIME as well" he says, and I shy away from his praise. "Okay and what's something you're passionate about, and don't say photography" he says, interrupting me causing me to slump down, having to take another second to come up with an answer.

He chuckles a bit at my reaction and I glare at him causing him to smile at me even more so look up to the celling as if it had the answers to something interesting about me.

"Well, I really love reading. I know it might not seem like a passion but when I read a really good book and I find someone who has read it or will at least let me talk about it it's as if I gain a boost of energy and can't contain my excitement. That's definitely the nerdy side of me showing but that's all I can really think of at the moment" I say honestly and when I look back at him it's as if he thought I was the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

"Sorry, I think I got a little carried away there" I say, getting shy from being looked at like that, his soft gaze an expression I'm not used to, especially from someone I just met. "Um, your turn" I say, hoping to get some of the spotlight off of me.

"I know this might be cheating but I do enjoy taking video and editing them. Even if it were as simple as filming Juni for an afternoon, it's something that if given the chance, would be something I could be extremely passionate about" he says and although it is cheating since it's somewhat similar to photography, I'll let it slide.

"Have you thought about switching up your profession to include video as well as pictures?" I ask and he nods before answering. "I have but I haven't taken enough time to seriously consider it. Juni is still young and I want to make sure I have a stable income in order to take care of her and if I'm being honest I feel almost as if a career change could jeopardize that" he says and I watch him with the same intent that he had given me and he too seems to shy away from it.

"It's silly since it would probably be a seamless transition but I can't help but feel reservations towards it" he says and I place my hand on top of his that's in his lap.

"It's normal for a parent to worry about providing for their child. I don't think it's silly at all and it shows how much you truly care about Juni and her well being. She's lucky to have you as her father" I say and he cringes only for a moment before his expression goes back to a softer one. I want to ask what would've warranted a reaction like that but I leave it alone.

"Okay your turn, what is something you hope for?" he asks and I already know the answer to it but I'm hesitant to say. I take a second to try and figure out how to formulate it properly but decide to just go for it.

"I hope to be a mother and have children of my own someday. Doesn't matter if it's naturally or through adoption, I just hope to have someone I can love and care for unconditionally and watch them as they grow and change and pray I'll receive that love and care back from them" I say and he gives me a wary expression and I quickly try to backtrack, not knowing if I've messed up or not.

"I'm sorry that was probably extremely insensitive of me" I say, pulling away my hand but he holds onto it and gives me a sad smile before responding. "I think you would be a wonderful mother. If you were to give your children even half the time and attention you've given to Juni today they would still be incredibly lucky to call you their mother" he says, reassuring me that it's okay to talk about these topics around him.

"Last one?" I question, seeing if he's up to telling me something he's hopeful for. "I just hope that no matter what my family and friends stay happy and healthy. It might be simple but I enjoy the simple things in life" he says and I smile, seeing how truly kind and compassionate he is just from his simple answer. "That's a good answer" I say and we both chuckle a bit before we're broken out of yet again another moment by the sound of our mothers stumbling into the room.

"Oh don't let us bother you we're just going to head outside with your father" Jungkook's mom says to him and I can see now from the warm glow shining through the glass door that they've finally started up the fire pit.

"Oh we'll come outside too!" I say and try to get up off the loveseat. I'm able to stand but immediately lose my balance and feel a strong set of hands on my hips and end up falling into Jungkook's lap. "I-" I start, turning towards him and trying to get out an apology but stop short when I see how close his face is to mine, our noses almost touching.

I hear our mothers head outside quickly and close the door but neither of us pay any mind, both focused on each other to the point where neither of us move for what feels like forever but was only a matter of seconds. When I do try to get up I feel his grip on me tighten.

"I'm s-sorry, this couch is always difficult to get off of" I explain and he smiles. "Like I said before, you have nothing to apologize for" he says, his voice a bit deeper than before and it takes every fiber of my being to stop myself from looking at his lips but when I see his flutter down to mine I can't help but do the same.

"Daddy, why is Ms. y/n sitting on your lap?" we hear Juni say and I immediately get off of him and throw my face in my hands, trying to hide the embarrassment written all over me but Jungkook handles it like a champ.

"Ms. y/n just fell down Juni and I caught her. You know how I catch you sometimes before you fall?" he offers and she walks over to us, rubbing her eyes and immediately climbing onto Jungkook's lap. "Oh okay" she says, yawning again after Jungkook places a kiss on the crown of her head.

"Do you wanna go see the fire that grandpa and Ms. y/n's dad made?" he asks and she hums in approval, still half asleep but wanting to go outside with everyone. "Okay let's go" he says, standing up with Juni in one arm and holding his hand out to help me up. I glare up at him and he smiles, knowing he's added to my embarrassment but I take his hand anyways and he makes no moves to let go once I'm up on my feet, walking us all towards the back door.

Once we're outside though that's when he lets go so he can hold Juni properly while he walks down the patio steps so we can get to the fire pit.

"Juni woke up?" his mother asks and Jungkook nods. "Yeah she wanted to come outside with everyone even though she is still very very sleepy" he says, talking in a silly sweet voice that makes Juni pout although her eyes are still closed. "I'm not sleepy" she says mid yawn causing me to coo at her and when she realizes I'm still close by she sits up off of Jungkook's chest and reaches towards me.

I look between her and Jungkook for a second and he nods his head in approval and hands her to me, grabbing a chair afterwards for me to sit on and pulling up another one next to mine and looks over at Juni to see she's practically sound asleep again. "Are you okay with her?" he asks and I hum in approval leaving him placing another kiss on Juni's head before leaning back in his chair.

"So Jungkook, what do you think of my daughter?" my mother asks and Jungkook chokes on air, not expecting the straightforward question. "Mom!" I scold and she chuckles, "What? It's a simple question. No need to give a complex answer, unless he wants to" she teases and I swear I can even hear Jungkook's dad chuckling at my mother's antics.

They couldn't make it more obvious that they're trying to set us up even if they tried.

My dad luckily somewhat comes to Jungkook's aide and hands him a bottle of water to hopefully help him stop coughing which it does thankfully.

He takes a second to clear his throat and I would be lying if I said I wasn't on edge, waiting to hear what his answer might be. "I think she is a very kind hearted and very intelligent young woman" he says simply and the echos of him calling me beautiful earlier on tonight attach to the end of that.

"And would you like to see her again?" she continues and he then looks over at me, giving me a soft smile and glancing down at Juni before looking me in the eyes again. "We've already planned to see each other again" he says, memories of Juni's invitation to the butterfly shopping trip fluttering through my mind again.

"Did you hear that? Jungkook has already asked to see her again" my mom says, calling over to Jungkook's mom as if she hadn't been listening the whole time. "Well technically Juni asked if I could go shopping with them" I explain and Jungkook chuckles. "Juni is a very smart girl" my mother compliments and Jungkook and I can't help but laugh.

The rest of the night flies by and before I know it we're already standing in the doorway saying goodbye. "It's was so nice seeing you again y/n! I hope to be seeing you again soon" Jungkook mom says, winking at me. "Oh come on honey leave the girl alone" Jungkook's dad says, coming to my aide and saying his goodbyes as well.

Jungkook's parents say a quick goodbye to Jungkook and Juni as well since they came in separate cars and I notice after that my dad pulls Jungkook aside and says something that I regretfully can't make out. Luckily he doesn't seem bothered by it as they smile and shake hands before my dad pats him on the back, sending him off with I can only assume is well wishes.

Jungkook says goodbye to my mother and I can tell how much she's praising him, he thanks her for everything and makes his way over to me a few moments later and it's almost as if it was a ghost town with only Jungkook and I in the entryway now, with him holding a still very sleepy Juni in his arms.

"Thank you for coming, I know this was probably a lot for you" I say, rocking back and forth on my heels and he smiles before answering. "I had fun, and I know Juni did too" he says and I can feel my heart skip a beat, "I did too" I reply shyly. He reaches into his pocket and unlocks his phone before handing it to me.

"Do you think I could have your number? You know, so we can set up that shopping day soon? I know Juni won't be able to stop talking about it until we go" he says, turning into what I could only describe as a shy teenage boy, asking his crush for her number. "Sure" I say, putting it in and calling my number so I have his too.

"Let me know when you get home safe" I say and place my hand on Juni's back and whisper a quick goodbye which regrettably stirs her awake and I mouth a quite sorry to Jungkook but he smiles in response.

"Wanna say goodbye to Ms. y/n?" Jungkook asks and she nods her head before opening her eyes and leaning towards me to give me a kiss on the cheek leaving me speechless. "Goodnight pretty lady" she mumbles before laying back down on Jungkook's chest. He chuckles after seeing my reaction and gives Juni a kiss on her head in response.

"Goodnight y/n" he whispers to me and I send him the same sentiment, walking him to the door and watching as he walks over to his car while he puts Juni in her carseat. He looks back to see if I'm still watching and smiles at me again before getting in his car and driving off.

"So should I schedule an appointment with the caterers tomorrow or...?" I hear my mother say behind me, making me jump before taking a few steps back into the house and closing the door. "Very funny mom" I say, walking over to the living room and plopping down on the couch Jungkook and I had been sharing a couple hours ago.

"What's wrong? He's a nice man isn't he? Plus his daughter seems like she loves you! Why don't you give it a shot?" she asks and I sigh, sinking further back into the couch. "I don't know, I just don't want to get my hopes up" I mumble and she sits next to me, placing a comforting hand on my thigh. "What makes you say that?" she asks curiously.

"It's almost as if he's too perfect. He's handsome, charming, charismatic, a great dad and I don't know, he just seems too good to be true" I admit and she nods her head, understanding my hesitation. "Everyone puts their best foot forward when they're meeting someone for the first time. Just go out with him and Juni in a few days and keep an open mind. It's not the fact that he has Juni that's holding you back right?" she questions, trying to figure out what exactly has got me doubting.

"No not at all! If anything Juni is an added bonus" I say truthfully and she smiles at me. "Good, because I think she's already become very attached to you" she says and I nod my head. "Yeah I think I have too" I mumble and she claps her hands, jolting me out of my train of thought.

"Now all we have to do is get a ring attached to that finger and the three of you can live happily ever after" she says, getting up to clean up the cake plates that sit on the coffee table in front of us.

"Mom" I groan and she laughs, "I want some beautiful grandchildren and if that handsome young man can't help you give them to me then I don't know who could" she continues leaving me sighing, not bothering to argue back since she is definitely right about that one.

I hear my phone chime in my purse moments later after I walk into my bedroom to gather up my things to go back home and see a message from an unknown number but check my call log and see that the numbers match up from when I called myself off Jungkook's phone.

I quickly add him to my contacts before opening up our chat and see a short but sweet message from him.

'Home safe and sound. Thanks for having us tonight. Hope to see you soon?' he sends with a question mark at the end, clearly still wanting to double check on if I'll actually want to see them again. I wait a few seconds, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard before finally composing a message and hitting send before I chicken out.

'See you soon Jungkook. I really enjoyed getting to know you and Juni. Looking forward to shopping for butterflies together!' I say and cringe once I reread it. 'Ugh could I possibly sound more desperate?' I say to myself and toss my phone on the bed, sitting down at the computer chair across from it.

A minute later I hear another message come in and I practically lunge for the phone, praying I didn't weird him out but moments later I feel heat rushing to my cheeks and have to will myself into not squealing.

'We're counting down the minutes until we can see you again. Let's talk tomorrow and set up a date and time' he says and I rush to respond.

'Sounds great! Goodnight Jungkook' I say, ending the conversation before I end up embarrassing myself even more but before I can even lock my phone his message pops up.

'Goodnight y/n, sweet dreams' the message is so simple but it still makes me smile.

"Is that Jungkook texting you?" my mom asks, poking her head into the room and I quickly lock my phone and grab my purse. "Yes it is, goodnight mom" I say, walking past her and straight to the front door with her trailing after me. "Oh come on sweetie you know I'm just teasing you. I really think he's going to be a good match for you" she says and I turn to face her before I leave.

"I really hope so. Say goodnight to dad for me" I say giving her a kiss on the cheek and getting in my car to drive home.

~~~~

Once I walk in I'm greeted again by Salem and he walks up, waiting for me to pick him up. "You're such a little baby you know that?" I chuckle and he meows in response.

I follow the same routine as I always do, carrying him with me into my room and rambling off to him about my day before hopping in the shower but this time I have a lot more to say, leaving me wasting half the hot water and causing me to have to finish up the last bit of my shower in a freezing cold stream.

After finishing up and finally settling into bed I lay down and Salem curls up next to me. "Things might be changing around here boy. I only hope they're for the better, what do you think?" I ask after having told him everything and I'm met with the feeling of him purring and if that isn't a good sign then I don't know what is.

"I hope he likes cats" I say, giving him one last pet before turning off the light and for the first time in a very long time I can finally say I've gone to sleep feeling content. The last thought that runs through my head is one that helps me fall asleep with a soft smile on my face.

I can't wait to see him again...

prev / next Series Masterlist

Taglist: @jkslipppiercing @trina864 @kaitieskidmore97 @goddesofimortality @coolbluedude @00frenchfries00 @coralmusicblaze @pastelpinkjoon @joonwater @marvelbun @j3nni-rs @evidive @beomieboi @forevrglow @jesssssmaybankk @teugiie @chaconnelatte @whoa-jo @snehal @xumyboo @mindurbuzznezz @diorh0seokie

Join my Taglist!

Feel free to fill out the form or just comment on any of my fics to be added :)

1K notes · View notes