"What coping strategies do you have in your toolbelt right now?" Mary asks.

Ice. The coldness of it, although it isn't long-lasting in the summer. Last week, I debated freezing my passport in a block of ice just so that I couldn't leave, and that seemed foolish. Especially since Spencer would see it in his freezer.

Spencer's place doesn't have a balcony to sit on, and even if it did I don't think my therapist would accept that suggestion as an adequate therapeutic strategy. The only personal time I really take for myself is the ten minutes I dedicate on the bus to stretching out my wrists before and after work. They seized up the other day at work, and we really can't afford to have two Bouchards in physical therapy.

"Honestly, I'm not really on the verge of panic anymore," I tell her. "I'm too tired to panic. Really, I'm too tired to think, so I don't really need any coping strategies."

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I flinch at the sound, but pull it out. It's a text from Caro.

Now he says please, but it doesn't sound right.

Nine words now. Fourteen days, and Stéphane has recovered nine words. No, yes, food, hi, bye, bro, sis, and Care. Care for Caro, sis for me. It was also sis for Caro until two days ago, and she's with him most of the time.

"Cole," Mary begins.

"Sorry, it's my brother," I stare at the screen before turning it off and putting it back into my pocket.

"How did you feel when you got that text message?"

I swallow, leaning back in the chair, "nervous. I thought it might be Luc again."

Somewhere, intellectually, I knew it was coming. When I first got the letters, Luc told me when His parole was up. July 2009, and it is July and it is 2009.

At least, somehow, it wasn't the worst phone call I've gotten in the last year. Not even in the past few weeks.

He told me about His parole well before I knew the letters were Rachel manipulating me. At least he updated me on the case when he called about Him. No fingerprints were recovered on the letter, as I expected, which is more Rachel's MO than his. Rachel is methodical, requiring forethought, and he didn't.

It doesn't sit well with me though.

"Have you considered that you are working so much as an unhealthy coping strategy?" Mary tilts her head slightly. "All of this work leaves you too exhausted to panic, and so rather than addressing your feelings, you are draining your own battery."

"Well, I can't really talk about them anyway," I shrug.

Before now, I've always taken for granted my ability to communicate. I never have used it well, or wisely certainly. If I could, I'd give it all to Stéphane. He's always been better about talking than I am.

She bites her lip, but I know we are out of time. We set up our next appointment, she gives me some homework that I don't even write down. I don't have the energy to do it and she knows it. The whole thing is a formality, a check in a box.

I return to work, and I stop by Garcia's office. Visiting her is the only time I can really pull myself away from her desk. It's work, just a different kind than I'm used to doing.

"Hey lovey, how you doing today?" Garcia stops typing and spins around in her chair to look at me.

I nod, "same old, same old. Any word on our friend who framed me?"

"You know I'd tell you if there was," she frowns. "Although, I will say the countersurveillance guys think she's out of the country. I'm not convinced though, since I imagine she'd announce herself to stake a political asylum claim somewhere. Russia, I'd imagine."

"Could it be Canada?" I ask.

"I doubt it," Garcia snorts. "They are sending some representatives to the national cybercrime conference in August, so I could ask them about it."

A phone rings in the office and I flinch. Garcia furrows her brow. She grabs a pen off her desk and presses the end against her plump lips.

"How are you doing?" she puts her feet on the ground and rolls her chair closer to me. "You know, with your brother-"

"I should get back to work," I cup the frame of the door as I pull myself back.

"Wait!" she calls out.

I stop in the doorway, looking over my shoulder back at her. Garcia's brow is knitted tightly.

"Why did you want that RCMP guy's contact info?" she leans closer. "You asked me for it while you were dating Spencer, didn't you?"

My face is as scarlet as my hair, as the letter they should sew onto my clothes. I straighten my back. She's not a profiler. She's not, as so I rattle off the same excuse I gave Spencer all that time ago, "he was good friends with my brother, back in the day, and I was worried about him. I... fuck, I never told him."

I leave the room and work has started but I haven't told Luc. The kitchen has one of the chatty receptionists in it, and they are still gossiping about Spencer and I, as far as I know. So, I wind up in the records room, with my back to the door. I pull the phone out of my pocket and call him. Luc.

"Hey, Cole, any news?" his French doesn't jar me anymore, not the way it used to.

It's rusty, an old bicycle, but it's rideable, and so I reply in the same language too, "you mean... no. It's, it's Stéphane. I know you haven't seen him in a while, but... he hurt his head."

I don't have the words for it in French, and I doubt Luc has the vocabulary in English for all the words that I've come to know. Dyspraxia, aphasia, migraines, amnesia, motor function impairment, the brother that was my brother that might never be my brother again.

Luc tries to say something, but I hang up the phone. I fold in on myself, knees crunched up into me. A sob rushes through me, one loud solitary gasp, and tears start to flood the records room. Then, I cry.

He's doing better. He's doing better but he's not back. Stéphane is the only sibling who knows He is out of prison. My twin who is the most up to date on my life, even when Bastien was living with me. The only one who really, properly, remembers what it was like when our parents were together, the only other one who had to drive our father to the hospital toward the end of his life. My brother, who played the saxophone and hockey, who loves to rock climb and put out fires, physical ones and metaphorical. Who loves the outdoors and who loved Estelle and who now might never be able to understand me when I say I love him, ever again.

And I just fucking cry.

My phone rings and I wail at the sound. It's Luc, and I hang it up without answering.

The door bumps into me from behind. I look up at the jiggling knob.

"Colette?" Spencer's voice is on the other side. "Can you... can you let me in, ma chérie?"

I spit out a laugh, wet and snotty mixed with all the tears. I've never even heard him attempt to speak French in front of me, and I peel myself off the door. I hiccup once, trying to contain this all within me as Spencer opens the door.

He kneels down on the floor, not bothering to close it and wraps his arms tightly around me, pulling me to him. Even with his weight on the new cane, it's a struggle for him to get to me.

"Was there news?" Spencer whispers.

I reach my arms around him to wipe under my eyes, which are surely black from my streaking mascara. I shake my head against him, "just therapy. You know how it goes sometimes."

He sits there, hugging me a while. His thumb caresses my waist, his other hand smooths out my staticky hair. I try not to let my face fall against his shirt, to not smear my mess against him. Finally, I let him go. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief, which I use to clean myself up. I'll have to wash it now for him, but I don't mind. I'd do anything for him.

Except tell him, I guess. I still haven't. I still can't. Too many things are happening all at once.

"Come on," he stands upright and holds out a hand for me. "I'm taking you home."

I shake my head, "no. I've got work to do. I'm already behind and-"

"Colette," he warns. "Hotch... Well, Rossi is the one who found you. He came and told me he thought it was you. When we get back into the bullpen, Hotch is just going to call you into his office and send you home for the rest of the week. I can all but guarantee it."

"Well," I bite my lip far too hard. "Well, I'll fight him."

"Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir."

I freeze, the only thing I let my eyes do is wander his face. How does he know that phrase? Maybe Estelle told him. I can imagine that, somewhere deep in the back of my memory, but his pronunciation is quite good. Certainly, better than the few words of Spanish I've heard him say, and he actually knows quite a bit of Spanish. He's been practicing. He's been preparing saying those words to me.

It is better to prevent than to cure.

I can't imagine prevention at this stage. Everything is already as bad as it can be.

"Okay," I don't take his hand, knowing the bacteria from my blubbering is grossing him out more than he'd ever admit. "Okay, I'll go."

~~~~~

Just a little cry here and there. It's solidly banger after banger for a while after this, whoops. Do enjoy!