It had been a few years since Maeve’s death, and while time didn’t heal all wounds, it had at least dulled the sharpest edges of Spencer's grief. He’d managed to create a rhythm, a kind of fragile peace that held him together day by day. But every year, without fail, when the calendar tilted back toward the date she died, Spencer unraveled just a little.

He understood the psychology of it. The body remembers trauma. Grief echoes in the bones. It was a pattern as predictable as the sunrise- his mind slipping back into mourning, quiet and raw. When that time came, he always retreated inward, shutting doors behind him that no one else could open.

Including you.

You, who had been the bright surprise in his life. Confident, kind, the sort of person who would brake for squirrels and stop to pet every stray cat on the sidewalk. You met him by chance- your names scribbled in the wrong places on two coffee cups- and something about your warmth disarmed him. What started as coffee and conversation turned into friendship, and eventually, something more. Something real. You had asked him out, brave and smiling, and he’d said yes- like maybe the world was offering him a second chance.

But now, something was off.

The daily check-ins had gone quiet. Lunchtime phone calls- once filled with soft jokes and quick updates- became clipped, distant. At first, you told yourself it was work. You knew what his job demanded. But when he finally returned after a week away, walking into your shared apartment like a ghost, every part of you began to scream that something deeper was wrong.

You’d spent the evening trying to coax him out of his silence. Asked about the case, the team, his sleep. You asked about anything other than the obvious. And he gave you nothing. Mumbled responses, polite disinterest. A glass of water left untouched on the coffee table. You stood in the doorway of the living room, arms crossed, watching him on the couch like you were watching a stranger in Spencer’s skin.

He didn’t even flinch when you exhaled sharply in frustration. Just shifted, grabbed The Narrative of John Smith from the bookshelf, and dropped it onto the cushion beside him. A not-so-subtle sign to leave him be.

"You’re crowding," he said without looking up. His voice wasn’t unkind, but it carried an edge- like he was trying to protect something inside him from being touched.

His eyes finally lifted to meet yours. Glassy, tired, but sharp as ever- scanning your posture, the set of your jaw, the tension in your shoulders.

"You’re upset," he added softly, as though it were just another fact. Another line in a profile.

Your heart clenched. He could read the nuances of a killer from a , but when it came to you- this- he treated your pain like data. Distant. Clinical.

And that hurt more than anything else.