Whenever Spencer could, he visited Gideon’s grave.

There was comfort in the stillness. A kind of quiet that didn’t demand anything from him. He’d sit cross-legged on the grass, jacket pulled tight around him, and just talk. About the latest case, about Garcia’s newest obsession, about the things he didn’t say out loud to anyone else. It never felt like he was talking to a headstone. It felt like Gideon was still listening, somewhere just beyond the veil.

After a particularly grueling case—one that left his mind buzzing and his chest hollow—Spencer found himself driving to the cemetery before he could talk himself out of it. The October air was sharp, fog curling low over the damp ground as he weaved through rows of headstones with his hands tucked into his coat pockets.

But halfway to Gideon’s plot, he stopped short.

Someone was already there.

You stood still in front of the grave, hands folded behind your back like it was the only way to keep yourself anchored. A quiet kind of reverence clung to your posture, the sort of silence reserved for people who carry their grief like a second skin.

Spencer recognized you instantly.

You had once been part of the team. Brilliant, brave, sharp-eyed—you’d left too soon and with too few answers. You hadn’t said goodbye, not properly. Just a transfer request, a short email, and a space where your presence used to be. He’d told himself it had been the job. A case that cut too deep, maybe. Burnout. Self-preservation. But even now, years later, he thought of you more than he cared to admit.

He approached slowly, giving you space, his footsteps soft on the grass. The two of you stood side by side in silence, the air thick with memory and fog.

He glanced at the headstone. Jason Gideon. The letters were beginning to wear with time, the edges of the engraving softened by rain and seasons.

You didn’t say anything right away, and neither did he. The moment stretched—quiet, familiar, strangely unbroken by the years between you.

When you finally turned to him, your smile was small but real. The kind of smile that came from shared history. The kind that said, I remember, too.

He returned it, just as quietly. Something passed between you—an unspoken recognition of everything that had been lost and everything that still lingered.

“How have you been holding up?” Spencer asked softly, voice just above a whisper.