You hadn’t known Gideon.

Not personally, at least. You hadn’t joined the team until later — but his legacy lived on in the team and you knew that. Sometimes the other members would bring him up, telling stories about the notorious killers he caught and the tendency he had to be overdramatic.

It was the day you stood over his body, covered by a white sheet, that you realized just how deeply he had impacted the team. Been loved by them.

Spencer, specifically.

It wasn’t easy for Spencer to open up to anybody. But you… when you’d first become friends, you managed to get him to open up like nobody had before. Or perhaps it was just the amount of care you showed that let him know just how safe he was with you.

But you had never seen Spencer cry like he had when Gideon died, when the man he’d looked up to, cared for, was murdered when he finally found happiness. The way he locked everybody out, could barely hold back his emotions.

And after the case had ended, it was so, so difficult for everybody. You had never even met Gideon and yet his death had affected you greatly — seeing the team you cared about so much hurting like this. Seeing Spencer hurting like this.

It’s been a week, now.

Everybody’s healing. Things are getting better — it’s still broken, still painful, but better.

But you can tell Spencer is still hurting more than he lets on. He’s always immersing himself in work, as he typically did, but it was worse. And when his eyes weren’t on a file then his hands were on a chess piece, playing the same game against himself as if he would come to some sort of peace.

His eyebags grew deeper, hair messier, muscles stiffer. You could tell when he didn’t sleep. You’d learned to see the signs, especially in him… and right now it was bad.

Its late at night in the bullpen when you head to the break room, grabbing a bottle of water before deciding to head out — but you pause as you hear Spencer and Rossi speaking, Rossi asking if Spencer was heading home. Spencer says yes. But you know better.

And sure enough, not even five minutes later, Spencer is in the break room and heading straight for the coffee machine — not even noticing you until you clear your throat, his eyes going wide. “Thought you said you were going home?”

A slight blush overtakes Spencer’s face and he looks down, swallowing as he picks at the end of his sleeve. “Yeah- yeah I was just…”