The bullpen still doesn’t feel the way it used to.
It’s familiar in the way a photograph is familiar—recognizable but somehow flattened, like something essential has been removed and replaced with an imitation.
Three weeks.
That’s how long I’ve been back.
Three weeks since the Bureau decided I was fit to return to work. Three weeks since I stepped out of a federal prison facility and attempted to reintegrate into a life that no longer resembles the one I left.
The team is pretending everything is normal.
Morgan is halfway through explaining something about the geographic profile of the latest case when he suddenly stops talking.
Completely.
Morgan never stops talking.
I look up.
He’s no longer looking at the case file.
He’s looking toward the bullpen entrance.
His posture straightens just slightly, and something in his expression tightens.
Concern.
Recognition.
Regret.
“Reid.”
The tone alone makes my stomach drop.
“Yeah?”
Morgan doesn’t look away from the entrance.
“Just… don’t.”
“…don’t what?”
“Don’t look.”
That instruction is statistically impossible to follow.
Because my brain is already trying to understand why Morgan’s voice sounds like that.
I follow his gaze.
At first my brain doesn’t register the full image.
Because the pattern is familiar, but the context is wrong.
Then the details resolve.
Black Kevlar vest.
Radio clipped to the shoulder strap.
Holstered sidearm.
Gloves tucked into the front of the vest.
Her helmet hooked against her belt.
And the long strands of platinum hair pulled back loosely at the base of her neck.
Unit Chief Hale walks into the bullpen in full operational kit like she’s just stepped out of a tactical briefing.
Which means HRT is deploying.
Which means she’s about to lead an operation.
Which means she looks exactly the way she always did when everything in my life still made sense.
Morgan exhales slowly beside me.
“Kid.”
I don’t answer.
Because my brain is doing something much worse than observing.
It’s remembering.
The way she used to stand in rooms like this.
The way everyone unconsciously straightened when she entered.
The quiet authority in her voice when she gave instructions.
The way she used to look at me like I was interesting.
The way I somehow convinced myself that wasn’t enough.
She stops near the bullpen entrance to speak briefly with one of the Bureau coordinators.
Up close the tactical gear makes her look even more imposing.
Like she’s carved out of confidence and discipline.
Morgan shifts slightly closer to me.
“Reid.”
“Yeah.”
“Just leave it alone.”
I can’t.
Because the math is suddenly so painfully obvious.
Two women entered my life.
One of them was steady.
Disciplined. Brilliant in ways that didn’t require attention or validation.
The kind of person who would have elevated everything around her simply by existing within it.
The other one was… interesting.
Different. Unpredictable.
At the time my brain categorized novelty as potential.
Which is a very common human cognitive error.
Except novelty fades.
Patterns don’t.
And sometimes by the time you recognize the pattern, the damage is already irreversible.
Morgan studies my face.
“You good?”
“No.”
Across the bullpen Cynthia finishes speaking with the coordinator and begins walking toward Hotch’s office.
The tactical vest shifts slightly with each step.
The same confident stride.
The same quiet command presence.
The same woman who used to sit across from me at dinner tables and listen patiently while I explained statistical anomalies she didn’t actually need to understand.
The woman I left.
Because someone else walked into the room...Cat.
Someone I thought was more interesting.
Someone who eventually became the reason I spent two years in a federal prison.
Morgan follows my gaze and grimaces.
“Reid.”
I barely hear him.
Because the realization forming in my chest is almost unbearable in its simplicity.
“I could have chosen the woman who would have elevated my life,” I say quietly.
Morgan goes still.
“I chose the one who destroyed it.”