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Spencer knocked on Hotch’s door.
“Reid,” the older man said. “Come in. What can I do for you?”
“Actually, I’m here to apologize.”
Spencer stepped inside. He didn’t quite dare shut the door behind him, but he pulled it almost closed and then went to stand in front of Hotch’s desk. He could feel the other man’s eyes on him.
“All right. For what?”
“I’m sorry for the way I distracted the team on our last case. I know you got them back on track almost immediately, but still.”
Spencer was looking at the wall over Hotch’s left shoulder, but in his peripheral vision he saw Hotch’s habitual frown deepen. Suddenly Hotch rose from his chair.
“Here, sit down,” he said, gesturing to the sofa.
He went over to close the door, then sat down facing Spencer, who swallowed nervously. He’d expected at best a curt acceptance and at worst a harsh chastisement. This seemed to be neither, and that meant Spencer was out of his depth.
“Spencer. Why do you think you need to apologize for that?”
“Because I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Done what, shared something personal?”
“Yes. No. Not in a way that interrupted the team’s work. I’ve done that too many times already.”
Memories of the many ways he’d messed up by being too emotional or too invested or just too much tried to intrude on his focus, but he pushed them away.
“You clearly expected them to already know.”
“But they didn’t. And as a result, time was spent on my personal bullshit that should have been spent on the case.”
“As you pointed out, only a few minutes.”
“It’s the principle of the matter. I promised- no, I swore that I would do better. After I missed the plane in New Orleans.”
Hotch leaned back and studied him while he tried not to fidget.
“’Personal bullshit.’ It could also be called trauma.”
“Off the clock it can, maybe. When I’m working, I should focus fully on that. The victims deserve that, you and the team has a right to expect that from me.”
Hotch looked away briefly, then down. Finally, he met Spencer’s eyes.
“You know, it’s a little disconcerting to hear some of my own harshest self-talk spoken out loud by someone else. Especially from you.”
Spencer flinched and looked away.
“You know, they say it helps to talk about… things.”
“Do… you talk about ‘things’?”
From the way Hotch’s lip almost curled into the ghost of a smile, he appreciated the dry disbelief in Spencer’s voice.
“No.”
“All right then.”
“All right. But I think perhaps, when we have had too few people be kind to us-”
“My Mom was kind.”
Hotch kept going as if Spencer hadn’t interrupted. Spencer kept talking over him, because this conversation was heading in a direction that scared him.
“-then we never learn to be kind to ourselves-”
“Half of the time, at least.”
“-even if we were taught to be kind to others.”
“Okay, more like a third.”
“That’s not enough Spencer. I’m glad you had someone, even if it was just a third of a mother. But that’s just not enough. You deserved more.”
And that’s exactly what Spencer had been trying to steer them away from. But Hotch was annoyingly calm and patient and had only snapped at Spencer a few times during all his years at the BAU, so it shouldn’t really have been surprising that Spencer’s ploy to irritate him away from this dangerous subject had failed. And now they were here, and Spencer had to ask:
“How do you know?” even though he was afraid of the answer to that question.
More accurately, he was afraid that there was in fact no answer because the statement was nothing but a platitude. It had been like that with Gideon, he’d said such wonderful things sometimes, about how Spencer deserved respect and regard, but then he’d been unable to explain why. Just, “everybody does.” Except Spencer knew for a fact that there were people Gideon didn’t think deserved respect, so his words didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
“Because you are consistently kind to others. You’re one of the kindest people I know, and you deserve kindness in return. From others, and from yourself.”
Spencer ducked his head.
“Hm. Well. That’s…”
“Hard to hear and impossible to believe.”
That was so weirdly accurate that Spencer had to look up. Hotch was smiling one of his small sad smiles.
“I know.”
And the thing was, Spencer was fairly certain that Hotch really did know.
“It’s something to work on, maybe,” Hotch suggested.
“What about you?”
Hotch, being Hotch, understood what Spencer was asking and didn’t take offence.
“Working on it,” he said. Then with a small nod: “Since you feel you need it, I accept your apology. But I also want you to know that I don’t think you have anything to apologize for.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Round-table in ten, I’ll see you there.”