Caro doesn't answer my calls over the weekend.

Stéphane does. No, she didn't move back in with him. Miscommunication on our end, but that means it's been a few months and she's living somewhere. Stéphane, the moron he is, told Caro that Cletus stopped to see me, which is probably why she's dodging my calls. Avoidance isn't really her thing, at least not with me, but she is quarantining herself over the Cletus virus, and not just for forty days.

"I've tried to tell her that she can't avoid him forever," Stéphane tells me through the phone. "I mean, they are married. There are surely tax documents that they needed to do together."

"Taxes aren't the point of this conversation."

"Cole, I'm just giving an example," he says. "I actually... well, I told her she was being a bit like you in avoiding it. And she had some choice words for me after that."

"Ouch," I say.

"You still haven't told Spencer, about what happened in Québec."

I roll my eyes, "I will when I'm ready. We're moving slowly. We haven't even had sex yet."

"Estelle says you've moved in."

I scrunch my nose at that comment. I had hoped that she would finally stop reporting on me, and yet here we are.

On Monday, they won't let Spencer on the plane. He glossed over the fact that he has been cleared to return to the office and not for fieldwork on his crutches, and so I go on the trip. Spencer can manage without me. I mostly spend the time making coffees and shaking hands, and the trip is quick so I don't even have time to pester Caro.

I do call Bastien where we land.

"I know where she is," Bastien tells me. "She's doing great without that bastard."

"Well can you tell me where she is?" I press the phone into my ear as I stand in the parking lot. Spencer has pulled up his car, ready to take me back to his.

We haven't talked about what happens when he recovers. I have half my clothes at each place, and I suppose I should be getting back to Estelle. At the very least, I should do it to tear her a new one. Fucking chatting to Stéphane. Now, I get why Caro wouldn't tell my brother where she is.

"She thinks you'll tell Cletus."

"Since when have I ever been on Cletus' side?" I cross my one arm over my chest, folding it in tightly. I'm sweating in this late June heat. The sun is down but somehow, I'm sweltering even without it.

"Don't know and don't care," Bastien says. "Listen, I forgot my passport at yours, can you mail it to me?"

"Pick it up yourself," I growl.

It's his birthday in two weeks. We always celebrate his and Caro's birthday at the same time even though they are months apart, so we already technically did a thing for him, but I usually mail them both gifts closer to the date. Now, Bastien isn't getting anything. I hang up on him, cutting the conversation painfully short.

"Bouchard," I turn my head, looking over at Hotch as he crosses the parking lot, hurrying next to me. "Sorry to keep you. I wanted to make sure you are going to be okay to continue fieldwork while Spencer is on medical leave."

I nod my head, "of course, sir."

"Let me know if that changes though," he says. "You aren't contracted to come out this frequently, so I won't hold it against you if you decide you need more time in the office. Alright?"

I nod my head again. He reaches forward and we shake hands before I finally can climb into Spencer's car.

He looks over at me from the driver's seat, "you okay?"

I smile back, "course. Sorry, I was on the phone with Bastien. No word on Caro, but he says she's doing fine."

As he pulls out of his spot, he smiles at me. It stains him, down to his fingers that tap on the wheel as we wait at the first red light. I try not to say something, really I do.

"What?" I ask.

"You're just... it's nothing."

He doesn't ramble. I sit up properly, leaning my head forward and off the seat, trying to peer around to get a better look at his face.

Spencer's lips burst into a grin, "you're blocking the side mirror, Colette."

"Oh, come on," I roll my eyes, leaning back, a laugh playing at my lips. "It's never nothing with you. You could drone on and on and on about wallpaper."

Then, which I didn't know was possible, his grin gets wider, "did you know that modern wallpaper isn't always made out of paper?"

He starts to talk about the history of wallpaper, and I relax myself into the chair. God, his voice. Just, the thinness of it. It's rough, but thin. As smooth as sandpaper. By all accounts, I shouldn't like it. Then again, it's his. Spencer's alone, as unique as he is. I could place it anywhere. I love him. Irreparably so.

When he's finally done explaining the history of the aristocratic uses of wallpaper to me, I try to lock eyes with him. Of course he's driving, but he must feel his eyes on him. I can feel him too, every cell in his body vibrating. It's tickling, it's magnetizing, it defies all logic of time and space.

"Now, what was it that made you smile?"

He snorts out a laugh, "okay, fine. It was... you're telling me things about your siblings. You didn't used to do that, you know. I mean, you've never had trouble complaining about other people to me. Mostly the administrative assistants and the CASMIRC team, but it's nice to hear you just talk about your sister, you know?"

My cheeks feel warm. I crack the window, just a bit, letting the cool air rush in. It's loud, filling the car, blasting out the radio. He reaches over and touches my knee, stroking it with his thumb.

"I love you, you know that?" I tell him. "It... I still find it hard to talk about my family, but I forget that when I'm with you. I forget how hard life can be."

He swallows, "I love you too."

It's late by the time we pull up to his place. We don't waste time moving about in the car. Both of us shuffle into his place and begin to get ready for bed. He balances on his crutches while he brushes his teeth and I try not to get in his way, moving around him as I comb my hair and wash my face. His routine is quick, which surprises me given how nice his hair is. On the contrary, I spend too much time on my evening routine. He's already half asleep in bed when I finally creep into his room.

Before I go to bed, I pull out my phone and scan through my emails.

Spencer wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me in close to him. He must have showered before he picked me up, because he smells like his coconut shampoo. Spencer presses a kiss against my shoulder.

"Sorry, I've just got to check," I whisper.

"You should talk to your therapist about your inability to stop working," he murmurs against me.

"I'll add it to the list," I say. "Although, I've alphabetized it, so workaholic might fall toward the bottom, unfortunately."

He smiles so wide I can feel it.

No emails about acceptances yet. It's not all that odd, since turnaround is eight weeks and it's only been somewhere around six. I haven't been counting. Intentionally. I don't want to hear back from UPenn. I put my phone down.

Though it hasn't been assigned to me for a while, I think about the homework I was assigned by Mary to say something personal. Yes, talking about my family is personal, but it isn't about me in the same way as other things. I take in a deep breath, and then another.

"I'm..." the word trembles in my mouth. I clamp down my jaw to steady it. Spencer leans in against me once more. I force out air and push through the shakes. "I'm afraid to move again, because it feels like regressing. I've worked so hard to stop running from hardships, and I just want to be in one place."

He squeezes my waist. My heart thumps in my chest. The adrenaline comes from the confession, I think. Not him, although it is sometimes hard to tell. He ignites my skin.

"What hard thing are you running from?" he asks.

There is too much to begin. A confession, first and foremost. Telling him the truth, about Karine the friend who does not exist, and not because she's dead but because she never did. Then, there is sex with him, which I think I'm avoiding, mostly because I'm afraid of what I'll do. I wonder if I will quake the whole time beneath his fingers, or I fear that I'll start crying abruptly. Something which should bring us pleasure might only make my heart ache. He'll think it's him, because he always thinks it's him, and part of that is my fault because I haven't told him about the huge gaping hole in my life. I'm afraid of Estelle, of finally putting space between us because as much as I love her, I cannot have a friend who reports to my brother about my goings on. I need independence, and I need connection, and I need things that don't make sense but that fit together.

"Me," I cling to the word, let it join the bed with us. It's not big enough for the three of us, no matter how close I lean into Spencer. "I'm running from the hard work that it takes to be better. It is labour, you know? I know my behaviour is hard on everyone else, but it's even harder on me. It's not sustainable, being this fucked up, but fixing myself feels like running a marathon every day. And Spencer, I'm just so tired."

He kisses my forehead, and then I lie down and turn off the light.

It totally is like running a marathon. The next morning, when I blow-dry my hair after the shower, the wind blowing is too hot and too loud, worse than opening the car window last night. When I pack my lunch, I think about the laundry that I'm going to have to do this evening, at Spencer's.

I am never going to be done laundry. The last time I thought about this was when Spencer asked me to tell the team about us, and I made up an excuse about Stéphane to get out of his place. It all blew up in my face when Bastien threatened Spencer over it, and I should have learned my lesson, but I guess I didn't because I don't tell Spencer I'm thinking about laundry, about the never-ending cycle of me doing the same shit over and over again and it never working out.

Then, of course, the same thing happens again. I think I'm right about my mother cursing my family by lying about us being sick as children so she could skip work. There is no other explanation for how we are patterned siblings. Colette Marie Claude, Stéphane Marc Andre, Caroline Julie Josee and Sébastien Luis Lucas.

This time, I have saved the caller ID, so I know it is the hospital that calls me at 2:37 PM on a Tuesday, to deliver me bad news about my brother.

~~~~~

And, we've got the bad news! Here it goes haha.