Spencer wasn’t one for hyperbole— so when he said he was considering fleeing the country, never looking back, and perhaps getting a new identity entirely, he meant it.

Partly, anyway.

Maybe, that’s slightly dramatic. He could never abandon his life’s work, and mainly, his people at the drop of a hat, of course. But, when he found out his mother’s medical issues ran deeper than just schizophrenia, it was an option he was halfway considering. He, for once in his life, couldn’t decode what this meant for him, snd he certainly wasn’t equipped or ready to answer the questions that were sure to suffocate him once he told the team.

So, he didn’t.

He knew that everyone could tell that something was off, but he figured they’d always think something was ‘off’ with him. Too talkative, too unsocial. Too Spencer. Nobody asked what was wrong, because they knew he’d just lie his way out of a straight answer.

And somehow, it was forced out of him anyway.

Cat Adams, for some reason unknown to him, managed to pry it out of him. It was the lives of innocents she’d dangled over his head as a threat, and his goodness couldn’t let there be any lives lost on account of him. He’d damned himself into honesty, once again. Even though they arrested her, he could tell she’d haunt him for a while. As if he needed anymore ghosts.

He walked home with you, Derek, and the phantoms.

Derek eventually left the two of you when he arrived at his house, with his girlfriend and a very intoxicated Penelope. You stayed behind a moment to talk to them, and Spencer wasted no time in silently slipping away as he did. He didn’t know where he’d go, and he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to be alone at the moment, and yet he did anyway. For all of his genius, he couldn’t figure out why. That seemed to be a recurring theme, recently.

That was how he found himself on a child’s swing at a local playground.

He had to sit awkwardly to even make himself fit on the seat, feet fully touching the ground, and the metal chains protested and creaked under his weight. And yet, he didn’t move. It didn’t feel like he could, even if he wanted to. He’d become a permanent fixture, there, if he had to. A statue of stone and warning.

That was about when you showed up.

You didn’t offer any useless consolations, knowing they’d bounce right off of him, anyway. Instead, you sat on the swing next to him. The metal, once again, groaned, but once even that stilled, it was quiet. It was quiet, and for once, Spencer didn’t mind it. You didn’t look at him, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking at you. You weren’t offering him a way out of the pits of his self-loathing and grief, but instead, a friend to weather the depths with.