CHAPTER THREE
( original sin )

"GET ON YOUR KNEES."

Natalie's handcuffs clasped around the wrists of the man beneath her, and she'd rarely felt as much satisfaction as she did right then.

Derek stepped in to escort him to the police car, and she allowed it without putting up a fight. The chase had lasted longer than she wanted to admit, and as proud as she was for catching the guy, pride didn't have the ability to cure asthma.

The loud puff of her inhaler was only a little bit embarrassing. Natalie had gotten used to ignoring it, after a while.

"Nice save," she felt JJ pat her on the back, which unintentionally forced a haggard cough from her lungs. JJ flinched at the sound. "Oh, geez, sorry."

Natalie shot her a weak smile, coughing once more before stuffing her inhaler back into the pocket of her cargo pants. At any opportunity to wear something more comfortable than her typical trousers, she took it, especially in the sweltering heat of Miami.

(The deep pockets were a bonus.)

"Hopefully we can connect him to the others. Everything we have on the first two is circumstantial."

JJ shook her head, as if any other outcome would be ridiculous. "We'll get him. Rossi and Morgan are searching the house now, I'm sure they'll find something."

Natalie's gaze drifted down the quiet street towards the two-story suburban home, perfectly ordinary if not for the flashing blue and red lights infiltrating through the windows.

It had been years since she'd trusted the mowed lawns and picket fences to be indicators of innocence. As a kid, she'd walk for miles until she saw them, envious of the normalcy and unremarkable nature of the people who who were lucky enough to be born into it.

At the time, she believed that the pureness of a home was reflected on those who lived inside of it.

A monster's home would look like the monster, right?

Of course, she knew better, now.

"He killed three kids, Jen."

As she spoke, Natalie felt the breath leave her lungs for an entirely different reason than the chase. She indelicately wiped her hands against the fabric on her thighs, the same hands that touched the killer only minutes prior.

With a shaky exhale, JJ gently ran a hand over her stomach, and Natalie knew it was nothing more than a subconscious urge. She did it every time they worked a case involving kids.

Nobody ever mentioned it. They all had their things.

"We'll get him."

The words were said with such assurance that Natalie didn't dare to doubt the woman, let alone voice her concerns. Instead, she swiftly changed the topic, sensing the drop in her friend's mood from a mile away.

"Hey, uh, where's Spencer?"

She didn't miss the knowing, god you're hopeless eyes JJ sent her way, but she did ignore them without any trouble.

"He's just getting patched up by the EMT's."

Natalie swore she got whiplash from the speed at which her head turned.

All at once, there was a pounding in her ears, blood rushing towards her brain as her anxiety spiked to a concerning degree, and her fingers readily clenched towards the asthmatic device in her pocket just in case.

"Um... what... what happened?"

"Oh, he's fine," JJ gently touched the side of Natalie's arm, with just enough pressure to snap her out of whatever panic was rapidly spreading throughout her body, "The unsub knocked him around a little, but he's okay, really. It's just a precaution."

Natalie, as hard as she tried, couldn't shield the way her muscles relaxed all at once.

"Oh."

Still, she brought the plastic inhaler back up to her lips and took another puff of oxygen for good measure.

JJ studied her, and with the way her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, Natalie easily could have pointed out that her interest was very, very similar to profiling.

"He's riding with Hotch back to the station... if we leave now, we can beat 'em there. I'm sure Emily can handle these guys on her own."

JJ motioned towards the group of local officers loitering nearby, all of whom were men, and most of whom knew the unsub prior to the murders; they deemed him an 'upstanding citizen' all the way to the end, until they saw the rotting flesh in his basement with their own eyes.

Natalie pretended to think about it.

"I'm still dizzy, so you'll have to drive."

Patting her on the back, much softer this time, JJ shook her head, a grin twitching at the edges of her lips despite it all.

"Nat, you nearly got us both killed trying to do a U-turn. I'll always be driving."

Frowning, Natalie tossed her the car keys.

"That only happened once."

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

Spencer clutched the bandaged portion of his bicep, trying and failing to ignore the shame that came with being bested by a man who was at least ten inches shorter than him.

Hotch sat in the drivers seat, and Spencer could appreciate the fact that he was ignoring the embarrassment enough for the both of them.

"You alright, Reid?"

Spencer glanced away from the passenger side window, looking back at the man next to him, who continued to stare straight at the highway after he spoke. Hotch's gaze only drifted a fraction of an inch when Spencer cleared his throat.

The truth was, Spencer didn't really care if he was alright. His mind was otherwise occupied, running rampant with thoughts he had a difficult time controlling.

The clearest of those thoughts, though, was Natalie.

He wished he were surprised, but more often than not, that was the case.

Spencer knew that she hadn't seen it coming, that she wasn't aware he'd even done it in the first place. But the unsub was seconds away from placing a bullet in her brain, and so Spencer had to tackle him. He didn't have a choice.

(That being said, he didn't think the unsub would be able to push him off so easily and get away, either, but still.)

He'd saved Natalie's life less than an hour prior, and yet for some reason, he couldn't shake the odd feeling that she was dying anyway.

"I'm fine," Spencer eventually answered the question that had been hanging in the air for the better part of a minute. "Is Natalie?"

Ever so slightly, Hotch's fingers twitched against the steering wheel. Spencer assumed that was due to the fact that he and Natalie hadn't really spoken since the last case, for reasons Spencer had personally spent days trying to decipher. Technically, she hadn't done anything wrong, though it was pretty clear their boss didn't agree.

"She's fine."

Spencer felt his brows cave inwards.

"Really? 'Cause I—I don't think so."

Hotch's voice was low, and a little rough, when he replied, "Stay out of it."

Spencer blinked.

The last time his boss had spoken to him like that, they'd been trapped in a hospital with a psychopath, and Hotch had taken on playing the role of a bad guy. But he wasn't the bad guy now, which only proved Spencer's point that everything was not alright at all.

"I just..." he trailed off, suddenly feeling a million times smaller than he had in years, "I'm worried about her, Hotch."

The older man sighed, his grip tightening on the steering wheel, and Spencer bit the inside of his cheek before he said anything else and annoyed him further.

"She's fine, Spencer."

Spencer?

Okay, so, she was not fine.

That was the thing about Natalie, the thing he both loved and hated with equal measure. Loved, because of her ability to be calm, levelheaded, a small offering of gentle peace in their otherwise violent and fucked up world. Hated, because she was always so calm, always so levelheaded, that when something was actually wrong, he had no fucking idea how to help.

That's all he wanted, really. To help her. To talk to her. To understand her. To love her.

Hotch didn't say anything else, and so Spencer went back to looking through the window.

His mind couldn't help but drift back to their hushed arguement on the plane, or better yet, Natalie's hushed beratement. Spencer hadn't been able to make out any of the words, but he'd seen Hotch's lips set into a stern frown, and for the briefest moment, he swore that he'd seen sadness in his eyes, too.

Silently, he wondered just how bad it would have to be to get both of them to lie to his face. 

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

Franklin Stewart.

God, even the guy's name sounded creepy.

He sat in the interrogation room, clad in a pair of boxer briefs and the stained white tank top they'd found him in when they burst into his home.

He shivered, and Natalie tilted her chin upwards to glance at the vent on the ceiling. She'd asked the Sheriff to blast the air conditioning in the tiny room, just enough to keep him on edge.

(His visible uncomfortableness was simply for entertainment.)

Franklin's arms crossed over his chest, and Natalie knew then that he felt exposed, a sitting duck in his underwear on the opposite side of a one-way mirror.

Good.

Maybe, he could get a feel for how those kids felt, right before he slashed their throats.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and she could've recognized them from a mile away. Spencer always walked at a funny pace, either too slow or too fast, sometimes an odd mixture of both.

(Natalie found it more endearing than she'd like to admit.)

It wasn't until Hotch spoke that she realized he was there, too. She should have known that he'd want to do the interrogation himself. After the last case, she assumed that his trust in her was wearing thin.

Consciously clearing her face of any strong emotions, Natalie turned around to face them, trying not to think about the fact that Hotch's disappointment felt like a bullet in her chest.

"Is he ready for us?"

"Us?" she tilted her head, her eyebrows practically shooting up to her hairline. Hotch nodded curtly, as if she should have been expecting it, and Natalie stuttered for a moment before she replied. "Um, yeah, I—I turned up the AC, so he's pretty restless."

Spencer hadn't said a word, but Natalie couldn't help herself from searching for his eyes in the silence anyways. 

He smiled, ever so gently, and she wished she had the emotional capacity at the moment to do the same.

"Good," Hotch brought her back to reality, placing a large file box into her hands. Natalie shook it, and it was mostly empty, which he then elaborated on. "He's a narcissist, but he's also a coward. We just need to get him talking, and he'll tell on himself."

"And he's intimidated by women—well, grown women—so I get to be the bad-cop, I'm assuming?"

If the older man was impressed by her deduction skills, he didn't show it. "Let's get in there."

Hotch brushed past her without another word, his heavy steps softening to a quiet thump as he carefully opened the door to the interrogation room. Natalie wasn't sure whether he was playing the role of the understanding agent, or if he forced himself to calm down so he didn't lose his cool, but the action unsettled her all the same.

"Good luck," she heard Spencer say when she followed Hotch into the room, just before the door shut behind her.

Without either of the men noticing, she sent an impossibly small grin towards the window, which was now a mirror from her view. It slipped from her face a mere second later.

"Hey Frank," she deadpanned, throwing herself onto the metal chair. "So, do you want to give me your confession now, or should we go through all the gory details first?"

Without an ounce of care, she slammed the file box onto the table, seemingly discarding it as she leaned back in her chair with her hands idly hanging between her spread legs.

Franklin winced at the sound of the cardboard hitting the metal, and she let her lips quirk upwards at the edges, her eyes never leaving his own.

Natalie chose to sit like a man, and speak like a man; but she kept her hair down and framing her face, and she kept JJ's borrowed lip gloss on her puckered mouth.

He was frightened.

How pathetic.

Natalie did her best to keep up the act.

It wasn't typical for her to be so callous, even during interrogations with a killer. Truthfully, it was the worst part of her job.

It reminded her that no matter how far she dared to run from her father, there would always be a piece of him wherever she ended up. As much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, they were more alike than she cared to admit.

Natalie wanted to kill the man sitting in front of her. She wanted to slit his throat like he slit those children's, and slip him a drug like he did to them, and make him feel everything they felt.

It wasn't a vague feeling. She wanted it.

Her father would be proud, and that was the only thing she was truly afraid of.

Franklin shifted in his seat, but he didn't respond. Maybe, he could sense how she longed to cut his tongue from his mouth.

"Mr. Stewart," Hotch started, completing the good-cop, bad-cop duo, "We can't help you, unless you talk to us."

Franklin opened his mouth, but Natalie didn't let him get a word out. Okay, maybe playing bad-cop wasn't the worst thing in the world.

"He's not gonna talk, Aaron," she chuckled, "Look at him, he's about to pee his pants."

Franklin already felt emasculated, but Natalie was sure that calling Hotch by his first name was what fully sealed the deal. The idea that a young woman could have any power whatsoever would make his blood boil, and she planned to exploit that fact for as long as she could.

"Agent Blair, be respectful," Hotch pretended to scold.

Natalie made a show of rolling her eyes.

"I would listen to your boss, Agent."

It was the first thing he'd said to her since she brought him down to his knees earlier that day, aside from a disgruntled, get off me, bitch.

"Yeah? Or what?" she grinned at him, a real grin that she couldn't choke down. "You gonna kill me? Like how you killed Elizabeth Miller?"

Franklin paled, ever so slightly.

"I didn't—"

"We found her rotting corpse in your basement, Frank. I think we're a little past the stage of denial."

Natalie sat up in her chair, and Hotch, who was still standing against the wall, moved forward to pass her the file he held. She opened it, flipping it around to show Franklin without so much as a warning.

Her finger landed on a photo of the first victim, one they hadn't been able to find any forensic evidence linking to him. "What about Brandon Coles? Are gonna leave me naked in the woods like you did to him?" Her finger moved one photo to the right. "Or Sam Parker? She was left in a dumpster. You gonna do that to me, Frank? Is that what you want?"

"Shut up—"

Hotch took a step forward, but his nice guy tone didn't waver. "Don't interrupt, Mr. Stewart."

"You killed three children," Natalie snapped, pushing the file forward with enough force to make it nearly slide off the table, "Innocent, young, trusting children. Sam was the oldest, and she was only eight. Eight-years-old, and her entire life has been ripped away from her, and her friends, and her family, all because of you."

It wasn't until she said it out loud, that she felt the gut-punch of her own words. The air in the room changed, then.

Everyone felt it.

Only two knew the reason why.

Natalie wasn't dead anymore, but sometimes, she felt like she was. Hotch was the one who brought her back to life, but sometimes, she felt like the CPR didn't work, and the water never left her lungs.

She was eight years old, too. A child.

Franklin leaned forward in his seat, the front of his shirt brushing against the photos of the dead kids.

"She was hardly innocent, Agent."

Natalie failed to ignore how much she saw her father in the sick man before her. How much she saw him in herself. Only staring for several long moments, it seemed that Hotch sensed her inability to speak, and so he took the seat beside her, speaking with more of a bite to his tone than before.

"What do you mean by that?"

Franklin scoffed at Natalie's lack of response, clearly trying to get her to show some emotion other than rage, turning to face Hotch instead.

"I mean, they were sinners. All of them."

Natalie did her best not to flinch.

Hotch's gaze was now unwavering, and he seeming to be giving up the good-cop act all together. "You think these children were sinful?"

"We all are," Franklin shrugged, his confidence boosted after Natalie was consequently silenced by her own interrogation tactics; the vision of this sick man feeling any sort of safety was enough to make her eye twitch. "It's our original sin, Agents. Don't blame me, blame Adam, or God."

Natalie did flinch, that time.

The girl in question suddenly got the urge to take the pen sitting on the desk and jam it into his eye socket. Hotch, somehow, noticed this quickly enough to move the pen out of her reach.

He continued his line of questioning with an upset, "So what, you think the best way to deal with sin is to kill children who, by your logic, had no choice in whether or not their innocence was stolen?"

Natalie had to give it to him: for a guy who wasn't raised with strong religious beliefs, Hotch sure as hell had a good understanding of the warped logic behind them.

Franklin laughed. Openly laughed.

Natalie's whole body twitched.

(Biting her tongue was getting harder by the minute.)

"I don't think you understand the concept of original sin, Agent. We are born with the urge to sin, but it's not necessary. We aren't forced, we choose. And everyone chooses wrong."

Natalie's eyes narrowed into slits, and she leaned forward in her seat, her elbows slamming against the cold, metal table. To see someone disrespect the Bible like that—even when she had her own issues to take up with it—was enough to snap her out of the frozen state she'd been in.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but thou shalt not kill." The phrase made a chill run up Natalie's spine, but she said it with her full chest anyways. "You seem a little confused for a guy who's pinning his murders on God, of all things."

"No! I wasn't murdering them, I was saving them! I spared all three of those little fucking devils of their future sins, and you should be thanking me! Surely, you two are smart enough to understand that."

Hotch didn't say a word.

The room seemed to pause, like the television had lost signal right at the climax of the film.

And then, Natalie smiled.

"What I'm smart enough to understand, Frank," she whispered into the dead quiet room, "Is that you just confessed to all three murders."

Franklin's face dropped.

Hotch and Natalie had already left the room before he had time to say anything else.

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

"That was intense."

Natalie looked up from the computer screen when JJ sat next to her, occupying the desk of an officer who must have been out that day.

All that was left to do was verify evidence and get a written confession, neither of which would take long if either of them had anything to say about it. As soon as they could leave Florida, they would leave Florida. It was essentially an unwritten rule.

"Yeah," Natalie agreed, coming to the realization that she hadn't responded yet. Her eyes went back to the screen, a frown firmly in place on her lips.

"What are you looking at?"

"Sam Parker's obituary."

JJ opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out, and Natalie couldn't blame her in the least. What can you say when a child has died, justice has been served, and nothing feels any different?

"Uh, Rossi and Morgan found some clothing items we think belonged to Brandon and Sam. They're going through some testing, and then back to the families."

Natalie, finally exiting the page on her screen and turning the whole computer off altogether, looked back at JJ, and she knew her face gave away exactly what she was feeling.

The BAU had been called to Miami after Brandon's body was found. Franklin Stewart killed the other two right under their noses.

Sure, they got the guy, and sure, the parents had closure, but three kids were dead. Three kids who won't graduate high school, or find love, or travel the world, or have kids of their own. Three lives wasted, all because of one fucking man.

"That's good," Natalie said quietly, not thinking it was good at all. "And hopefully, Frank will get beaten to death in prison, so."

Honestly, she forgot she was speaking out loud when she said that last part, but JJ interpreted it as a dark joke, and breathed out a puff of air vaguely resembling a laugh.

(But it wasn't a joke. Natalie meant it.)

She heard incoming footsteps almost a full second before she heard a voice to accompany them.

"JJ, do you mind speaking to the victim's parents before we head out?" Hotch questioned, though, it came out as more of an order.

With him, it usually did.

JJ glanced to Natalie, and back to Hotch, before she agreed, leading the younger blonde to believe they were having a silent conversation with their eyes that she wasn't a part of. Probably about her.

JJ got to her feet, her eyebrows raising when she assumed she was out of view.

Yeah, definitely about her.

Hotch took the seat that the other blonde had just given up, and he didn't even try to be subtle about staring Natalie down until she spoke.

With a sigh, she quickly gave in.

"Have you talked to Jack?"

Bringing up his kid was a deflection tactic, but a good one at that, so Natalie didn't even feel guilty about it.

Hotch couldn't help the way he smiled, despite it all. "I just got off the phone with him. He wants to know when you're coming over for another play date."

Maybe it was because Hotch's grin is practically contagious, or because she really did love Jack to pieces, but she matched his expression wholeheartedly at the thought.

(Their play dates were pretty awesome. Jack owned nearly every Lego set on the planet, and he liked to share.)

"You can tell him that I'll come over when he gets his dad to buy him more Star Wars Legos."

Hotch laughed, nodding in concession, and for half a second, everything almost felt okay.

That happened, sometimes. Everything was complete shit, and then she'd talk to Hotch, or JJ, or Spencer, and suddenly it all was alright, only for the tranquility for vanish the second she started using her brain again. Or, in this case, the second she glanced to the left and saw the grieving parents of an eight-year-old sobbing into JJ's arms.

Watching with sad eyes, she sighed.

"You did well today, Natalie."

Hotch's words stole her attention away, and she blinked at him with heavy eyelids. How could he possibly say that, sitting less than twenty feet away from two people who's entire world was falling apart?

"Three kids died in the last week, Aaron."

"But you did your job, and you did it well," he continued, like he expected to get that response from her, "You got him to confess. I'm proud of you."

Oh.

Her eyes started stinging, for some reason she couldn't figure out right away. Maybe because of the relief she felt, not being a disappointment in his eyes.

Or maybe, it was because she couldn't remember the last time she heard those words come from his mouth, or from anyone's mouth, and be directed at her.

But Natalie didn't cry, ever, and so she sucked it up, blinking a few times to rid her eyes of any shine they may have developed.

(How embarrassing.)

Clearing her throat, she gave him a half-smile, acting like she hadn't just come close to crying in front of her boss, let alone in public.

"Thanks."

Hotch nodded, something in his eyes that she couldn't quite get a read on, and he got to his feet. Gently, he pat his hand on top of her own that was resting on the desk.

He walked away, and for some fucking reason, Natalie had to stop herself from crying again.

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

Spencer was, for the fifth time since he'd started at the BAU, reminded of why he hated Florida so much.

He easily could've worked up a sweat merely watching the interrogation, or walking up the stairs in a normal police station, and the added humidity really didn't help matters much.

The team had gotten back onto the jet only an hour after they'd recieved Franklin's signed confession, and of course, they got the one with the crappy AC.

All he wanted was a cup of coffee.

What he got, on the other hand, was a clear view of Natalie's bare stomach as she thoughtlessly changed her shirt in the corner.

(Since when did she have abs?)

"Hey, Spence," she smiled at him, snapping him out of his daydream with that ridiculously beautiful smile, the smile that was all teeth and gums and usually made his stomach feel weird if he thought about it for too long.

"Uh—hi."

"Sorry, the bathroom is occupied, and I've been wearing that shirt for way too long. Anyways, I'll, uh, get out of your way."

"No, it's, um—that's okay."

Spencer's eyes drifted down to the shirt in her hand, the one she'd been wearing when she took down the unsub and everything after that.

This happened every time; she'd always change her shirt on the jet, even if she didn't touch anything more than a case file.

He always wondered why, but he never pried.

His eyes were drawn back up by the shirt she currently wore, which made him laugh pretty much immediately after he noticed it.

Natalie let out a snort as well, glancing down as if she'd forgotten what she had on. "Oh, yeah, I knew you'd like this one."

Spencer did. He really, really did.

It was a black t-shirt, a couple sizes too big, and had a photo of Edgar Allen Poe holding an umbrella in the center; above it were the words, when it rains, it Poes.

Yeah, so, Spencer might actually be in love with her.

An odd time to realize it, but he wasn't complaining.

"I love—it."

For some reason, she seemed to brighten at his compliment, her smile widening even further. He would say things like that a million times over if that kept happening.

Against his every subconscious wish, Natalie walked away from him, taking residence at the back of the plane despite everyone else congregating near the front.

Hotch and Rossi were still looking over some files, JJ was on the phone with who Spencer presumed was either Will or Henry, Emily had been asleep since takeoff, and Derek must have been in the b—

"Please tell me your kidding, man."

Spencer jumped at the feeling of hands on his shoulders, and he was thankful that his coffee cup was still empty, or he'd be wearing the caffiene instead of drinking it right about now.

"What?"

His exclamation was a bit dramatic, he knew, but between the jump scare and briefly seeing Natalie half-shirtless, he honestly didn't have much brain power left.

Derek raised a single eyebrow, and Spencer sighed before the other man even opened his mouth again.

"You still haven't asked?"

"I—"

"What's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem," Spencer emphasized the last word, but decidedly kept his voice quiet out of fear that the others would overhear. "It's... it's not the right time to—"

Derek held a hand in the air, stopping him mid-sentence.

"Reid, it's been not the right time for months now," he shook his head, more inclined to cut the bullshit than Spencer was at that moment. "It's simple, but you—" he poked him in the middle of the forehead, "—are making it complicated."

Spencer swat his hand away with a frown.

"I'm not making it complicated. Asking a coworker out on a date is inherently complicated."

He wasn't lying, really. Over fifty-eight percent of people have been in a relationship with a coworker, and of those fifty-eight percent, one in every three romantic work relationships end in someone getting fired, not to mention the fact that the FBI has a strict fraternization policy, or that—

Sighing heavily, Derek crossed his arms. "Reid."

Abruptly, Spencer blinked out his stupor, but his opinion hadn't changed. If anything, he was only reaffirmed that asking a coworker out of a date was one of the worst decisions he could possibly make ever.

(That, and he was pretty sure that she would say no.)

"Even if I wanted to, I—I wouldn't know how."

"Here's what you do, kid. And pay attention, 'cause it's tricky." Nodding along, he watched raptly as Derek gestured wildly with his hands, his left being Natalie and his right being Spencer. "You walk up to her, okay? You with me? Okay, and then you say, hey, wanna go on a date?, and then you wait for her to say yes or no."

Spencer did not appreciate the sarcasm.

"I'm serious."

"Yeah, so am I," Derek pat him on the bicep and promptly winced, quickly remembering that was where he was cut earlier that day. "Sorry—look, I don't know everything, but I do know that girl practically worships the ground you walk on. Just ask her, man."

He left, after that, sitting by Emily and in a clear viewpoint to see if Spencer actually went through with it.

Spencer turned back to the coffee pot, suddenly not needing any more energy. The adrenaline pumping though his veins was enough.

No, he couldn't.

He finally had a friend he could talk to about anything, a friend who wouldn't judge him, a friend who was genuine and kind and lovely, a friend who was beautiful, a friend who—

By the time he realized that his brain wasn't really giving him a choice in the matter, he was already standing in front of her with her gentle, expectant eyes looking back up at him.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, he couldn't, he couldn't—

"Uh, earth to Spencer?"

Right. He was just standing there.

"Hi."

(Hi? Who the hell says hi to someone they just spoke to not five minutes prior? What was wrong with him?)

Natalie didn't tease him, though. She just said it back, the smile coming back at full force and making him lose his breath.

"Hi."

"Um, I was—" Spencer swallowed, debating between remaining on his feet or sitting down; he eventually chose the latter, though he probably looked like an idiot while he was deciding, "Have you, um, have you heard about the Van Gogh exhibit they're doing at the museum downtown this weekend?"

(Okay, okay, that wasn't completely terrible.)

Natalie tilted her head, as if she was trying to remember, before shaking her head. "I haven't, no. Is it supposed to be good?"

He couldn't do this. He really couldn't do this—

"Well, it's Van Gogh. I know art is subjective, but I think it would be a reach to classify it as anything other than incredible."

Spencer cringed at his own voice.

This happened sometimes, with him. He'd gotten much better over the years, not only at understanding other's tone, but his own, as well. When he was trying to be sincere, he came off as sarcastic, and when he was trying to be sarcastic, he came off as rude.

He was aware of this, but that didn't make it feel any better every time someone misinterpreted what he was trying to say.

Natalie just looked at him for a few moments, before her features relaxed, and she nodded as if he'd told her something she didn't already know.

"That's cool," she smiled kindly, instantly washing away all of the self-hatred Spencer had going on at the moment. "Are you planning to go see it?"

Nope. He could not do this. Nope, nope, nope—

"Yeah, I—um, I was wondering if—if you, um, if you maybe wanted to go see it, um, with me."

He did it? Did he do it? Did he actually—

"Yeah, um..." Natalie paused before she said yes, and Spencer was already writing his resignation letter from the BAU in his head. "Like, as in... sorry, you mean..."

Spencer sucked in a harsh breath of air, not entirely sure what she was asking. He thought he was clear, but maybe he was too vague. Maybe he needed to actually say the words, but Natalie could always read between the lines better than he could, couldn't she?

Biting the inside of his cheek, he waited for her to go on, but she just stared at him, what could only be described as emptiness behind her eyes.

"I mean, uh," Spencer cleared his throat again, his fingers wringing together underneath the tray table, "I mean, as in a date. Like, uh, a date date."

(Natalie didn't speak for a total of seventeen full seconds, which is a lot longer than it seems when it's happening in real time.)

Spencer had never heard her voice come out as small as it did when she finally replied, which confused him more than anything.

"You want to... go on a date? With... me?"

Truthfully, he wasn't sure why she sounded so surprised. He prided himself on being a good liar, but not that good. Derek had noticed, JJ had noticed, and even Rossi had made a few comments here and there.

"Only if you want to," he rushed out, suddenly concerned that he'd be talking to HR in the morning.

(Natalie was silent for another fifteen seconds. Spencer's fingers wrung themselves out, and he was now bouncing his knee fast enough to move his whole body at once.)

"Why?"

"Why?" Spencer repeated, and this time, his voice was small, too. "Um, I just—I really enjoy talking to you, and you're, um, you're very intelligent and kind, and you like the same authors as me, and you're—you're beautiful. That's—that's why."

Silence, again.

Did he say too much? Did he scare her away? Did he confuse her, or offend her, or hurt her, or—

"Yeah, I—I'd like that, Spence."

—or was Derek right, and he should've done this much sooner than he did?

That stupidly gorgeous smile returned onto her cheeks, along with a red tint flushing down to her neck, and Spencer had to bite his lip to not openly grin like an idiot.

"Okay, then... it's a date."

Natalie nodded, and it was only then that he noticed how her fists had been clenched the entire time, the blood flow returning to her white knuckles right in front of his eyes.

"Okay then."

(Spencer already had the whole night planned out in his head.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE ! ━━━━━━━━━━━
idk if i've said this before, but bleid is indeed
a fast burn relationship ,, sort of. it's so fast
until it's not. but. it's a fast burn. kinda. you'll
see. that being said. ABSNWNDJ3$82:@2&:!

also ,, hotch saying he's proud of her ,, i only
cried a little bit! i could have cried more!

the next chapter is a really important one, so
stay tuned!!! <3 until next time!