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The air outside bit at her cheeks, the cold autumn wind carrying with it the weight of everything Alex Blake was trying not to feel. Her transfer papers crinkled in her bag like an accusation. She wasn’t at fault. She knew that. And yet, here she was: starting over. Again. Shoved aside after the Amerithrax case collapsed into political blame games.
Demoted. Relocated. Repackaged.
New York.
The elevator dinged, and she stepped out into the bustling field office. The noise was immediate: phones ringing, overlapping conversations, printers whirring, agents moving at a rhythm only they understood.
Alex paused, just for a moment. Her shoulders were tense, her sharp brown eyes flicking over unfamiliar faces. Her dark curls framed a face that was trying hard not to show the ache behind her composed expression. She had always been good at putting up walls, this was no different.
And then…
“Hi, I’m Jo Danville. You must be Alex Blake, from the D.C. office?”
The voice was warm, clear, and effortlessly grounded. Alex turned, and for a second, the chaos faded.
Jo was striking in a quiet way. Tall, graceful, with sleek dark hair falling around her shoulders like a frame of calm against the red walls of the bullpen. Her smile was easy, sincere, a rare commodity in Alex’s recent experience.
“Yes,” Alex said, extending a hand automatically. “That’s me.”
Jo took it with a firm, steady shake. “Welcome to New York.”
There was something about the way Jo looked at her, attentive, open without being invasive. It made Alex straighten her spine, instinctively defensive.
“Thanks,” Alex replied, voice cool but polite. “It’s...louder than I expected.”
Jo’s smile curled, a flash of humor in her eyes. “You get used to it. Or you don’t. Either way, coffee helps.”
Alex couldn’t help it, a dry huff of a laugh escaped her. “Is that part of the official onboarding?”
Jo tilted her head thoughtfully. “It should be. Come on, I’ll show you your desk, and then we’ll track down something strong and scalding.”
There was a pause. Not uncomfortable. Jo waited, not pushing, just...waiting. Letting Alex decide.
After a beat, Alex nodded.
And just like that, she followed.
--
It was easier than expected.
The rhythm of the New York office became second nature in a way she did not expect. It was a mixture of the feel of the city and the people she now worked with. An energy she was not used to but came to love. Maybe it was the lack of ghosts. No echoes of her old desk. No shared looks across the bullpen with Dave. No late-night case reviews with Erin, feet tangled under the table, hands brushing when they passed files back and forth.
Alex shook her head, willing the memories to leave her. She felt the warmth of her teacup in her hands, grounding her. It was early still; she’d always been an early riser and preferred getting to work earlier rather than later. It was strange to still be in the FBI, but so far from the people who had once defined it for her.
Dave, who’d been more of a brother to her than her own ever had been.
And Erin.
Erin, who had loved her with quiet intensity, who had held her in a way that made Alex believe, for a moment that this life didn’t have to be so lonely.
And Erin, who had thrown her to the wolves.
The ache twisted in her chest. Then it turned sharp.
It hadn’t been her fault. She knew that with every part of her. The linguistics error wasn’t even hers. A wrong person arrested, yes but Alex had flagged it immediately. She had followed protocol. She had raised concerns. She had tried.
But someone had to be blamed. And Erin had let it be her.
She took the demotion like she took most things: quietly. With grace. With her chin up.
But it had broken something in her. Not just her career.
Her heart.
She would never get that relationship back. Even if Erin called tomorrow, even if she begged, Alex wasn’t sure she’d answer. And yet, the grief lingered like smoke. Hard to see, harder to clear.
But here... New York was something else.
A fresh start. Not just professionally. Personally.
There was no expectation of who she used to be here. No history that followed her into every room. Just this place, and the low hum of traffic outside, and the steady cadence of a team she was still getting to know.
And Jo.
Jo, who had made good on that offer of coffee.
Jo, who checked in without hovering, who laughed easily, and who somehow always knew when Alex needed a moment to breathe.
Careful, she told herself. Don’t mistake kindness for something more. Don’t hope.
Still.
When Jo passed by her desk that morning with a quiet, “We’re grabbing lunch later, yeah?” and a soft smile, Alex found herself answering without thinking.
“Yeah. Sure.”
It was easier here.
It didn’t fix everything.
But maybe… it didn’t have to.
--
It was strange, starting over.
Not just the city. Not just the job. But the version of herself she was letting surface, one that hadn’t had the air to breathe in D.C.
There were fewer expectations here. Fewer eyes watching, waiting to decide if she was the right kind of professional, the right kind of woman, the safe kind of queer. No one in the New York office cared about the subtle dance she used to perform, keeping her personal life just vague enough to avoid suspicion, or worse, conversation.
Here, she didn’t have to hide. And more importantly, she didn’t have someone next to her asking her to.
No girlfriend terrified of association, of the glass ceiling or the whispered gossip that could come from holding Alex’s hand at a Bureau function. No lover whose career ambitions eclipsed the simple act of being seen.
It was sad, in a way.
But it was also freeing.
She stood outside a small, red-brick bar in the Village, the sign flickering in soft neon: June’s. She’d walked past it three times before gathering the courage to step inside the first night. And yet now, a few weeks in, it was becoming familiar. Not a home. But a refuge.
The music inside was mellow, jazzy, someone always had good taste on the late shift. Low lighting. Leather booths. Conversations happening in soft hums, easy laughter at the bar. And women. Lots of them. Older, younger, tired, vibrant. Talking, kissing, reading alone. Just...existing.
And no one looked twice at her.
She had a drink in her hand, her fingers trailing lightly on the rim of her glass. She wasn’t looking for anything. Not tonight. She wasn’t sure she ever was, really. But she liked being in spaces like this now. Where she no longer had to hide. That realization snuck up on her. The tension in her shoulders that used to be constant was gone. The cold sweat when someone flirted with her in public had faded. The fear that she would be found out, reported, ruined, it had been left somewhere in the fog behind her.
In its place there was something quieter. Still fragile. But steadier.
There were new habits forming: late walks after long shifts. Ordering bourbon instead of wine. Reading poetry again. Leaving her hair down more often.
When her phone buzzed, she smiled.
Jo Danville:
You ever gonna invite me to one of these mysterious bars you keep disappearing to?
Alex laughed under her breath.
Then typed back:
Only if you promise not to wear your badge in.
Jo's reply was instant.
Deal. I’ll even wear leather boots. Blend in a bit.
Alex sipped her drink and felt something strange bloom in her chest.
Hope.
--
It was late, pretty much everyone had left. Except Jo. And Alex. Alex stood in the doorway, files in hand, but not really thinking about the paperwork. She lingered.
It wasn’t the first time she’d stayed this late. And it wasn’t the first time Jo had offered her a cup of terrible office coffee just for the excuse to sit and talk.
What was new was the way Jo’s eyes softened when they landed on her. The way her smile, just the hint of it lingered longer than it used to.
Alex knew Jo was flirting. She knew.
But she didn’t know if it was just fun. A distraction. Something safe and harmless that Jo offered to pass the time. Jo had been married. Had a son. There was a life behind her, complicated and full of stories Alex didn’t know yet.
But a friendship had grown between them all the same. Steady. Comforting.
And maybe, just maybe something else.
Jo looked at her, “You look like you’re about to say something, but you're not sure if you should.”
Alex huffed a breath, “That obvious, huh?”
Jo smiled. “You’re not as mysterious as you think.”
That earned a dry laugh. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin the wonder.”
There was a pause. The kind that sat soft between them. No pressure. Just space. Alex studied her fingers, then the rim of her cup. “I’m not great at...this. Whatever this is.”
Jo didn’t rush her. Just sipped her coffee and waited.
Alex finally looked up. “I don’t know if you’re just being kind. Or if this is something else.”
Jo’s expression didn’t change, but her voice was gentle, soft. “Do you want it to be something else?”
Alex blinked.
She’d only ever really had Erin. And even that had been built in the shadows; whispers in hotel rooms, weekends that blurred the line between colleagues and lovers, then years of holding each other in secret, afraid of what it would cost.
Before Erin, there’d been a few university flings. Short-lived. Furtive. The kind of romances you look back on with a mix of fondness and ache.
But when she joined the FBI, her identity became a liability. Her career couldn’t afford even one visible crack.
Then Erin. For a decade. Until love twisted into betrayal.
And now… this.
Jo. Smart, grounded, intuitive Jo. Who didn’t ask her to be anything but herself.
“I’m scared of being wrong,” Alex admitted quietly. “Of reading too much into something and... getting hurt. Again.”
Jo set her cup down and leaned forward, elbows on the desk, eyes steady and kind.
“Then let’s take it slow,” she said. “No assumptions. No pressure. Just... see what this is. Together.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
A small smile curved Jo’s lips. “Okay.”
-
The wine left her warm, her defenses softened but not gone. She and Jo had gone out after work before, but tonight felt different. The air between them was quieter. Closer. They were tucked into a small booth near the back of the bar, Jo’s glass was half-full. Alex’s nearly empty.
“You have scars,” Jo said gently, breaking a comfortable silence.
It wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t pity. Just a truth Jo had quietly noticed, the way she always did, with care, with interest, with that uncanny ability to see past the surface without ever pushing too far.
Alex stared at her glass.
There were a hundred ways to dodge. She was good at that. Had spent most of her adult life being good at that. But tonight… the wine loosened her spine. And Jo made her feel less like a confession was a risk and more like it was a choice she was allowed to make.
“There was a woman,” she said, voice even, almost clinical. “Back in D.C. It didn’t end well.”
It was the first time she’d said those words aloud at work. Not just hinted. Not just danced around it with safe pronouns and neutral phrases. With Dave, back then, it hadn’t needed saying. He’d known. He’d been right in the middle of the mess, guessed what was going on long before Alex had been brave enough to put words to what she was feeling. Who she was.
She hadn’t told anyone. Until now.
Jo didn’t blink. Didn’t shift away. Just nodded, her fingers curling casually around her glass.
“I get that,” she said. “Ex-husband, remember?”
Alex glanced at her, unsure.
Jo offered a crooked smile, a touch wry. “I’m bisexual. It was easier when I had a husband. I fit the boxes better. No one asked questions. But I didn’t like it as much.”
Alex blinked. Jo was so honest with it, so open. She said those words like they didn’t matter, could break her. She was proud of it. Of them. There was something grounding about Jo, like she’d already worked through the knots Alex was still untangling.
“It was hard,” Alex admitted, eyes fixed on the flickering candle between them. “It is hard. Finding out how to be without showing it. You learn to love small.”
Jo nodded. “Or quiet.”
Alex met her eyes again, and for a moment, they just looked at each other. She didn’t say the words; they were not comfortable on her lips as they’d been on Jo’s. Alex hoped she’d get there someday. To be able to say I’m a lesbian without worrying about the world ending. But for now, this was enough. Jo held her gaze. Soft. Certain.
“Well,” Jo said, raising her glass slightly. “Here’s to not living small anymore.”
Alex hesitated. Then she clinked her glass against Jo’s.
“To something better,” she said.
It wasn’t a promise. Just a moment.
But maybe, for now, that was enough.
--
It happened slowly, the way all the best things did. After that night at the wine bar, when Alex had laid herself bare in a way she’d never expected, and what she’d gotten in return, something had shifted between them. Not loudly. Quiet. Soft. Like the anticipation of something more. Something new.
They started going out more often. Sometimes just the two of them, sometimes with colleagues, but more and more often, it became something of their own. A rhythm.
There were patterns to their time together, familiar places that became theirs, even if they never said it out loud.
They started with wine bars in the Village. The kind of places where the tables were crammed too close together, so their knees touched under the table whether they meant them to or not. They’d order red wine, split a plate of olives, and lose track of time. Jo talked with her hands, animated and quick, and Alex found herself following the shape of her mouth more than the story.
They talked about everything. Cases. Books. Tyler’s latest fixation. The weight of their work. And sometimes, late enough and after enough wine, they talked about the past. Jo with her ex-husband. Alex with her silence. Neither of them flinching from the truth.
Jo never made her feel like she had to explain herself. And Alex never once had to pretend.
They’d been out for wine, tucked in the corner of a tiny place with tables too close together. Jo leaned back, her glass nearly empty, and grinned across the table. “I think it’s time I take you somewhere fun.”
“Fun by your definition or mine?”
Jo smirked. “Mine, obviously.”
Alex shook her head, half amused, half wary. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It’ll be worth it,” Jo said, already reaching for her coat.
The bar wasn’t new to Alex. She’d started going to bars like this not long after moving to New York. At first, she kept to the edges, ordering one drink and leaving early. But over time, she got used to it, the noise, the crowd, the women. She learned how to relax, how to stay without constantly checking over her shoulder. But walking in with Jo was different.
At first, Alex stayed close out of habit. Jo, on the other hand, moved through the place like she’d been there a hundred times, straight to the bar, cracking a smile that made the bartender grin back.
“Two rum punches,” Jo ordered, “And don’t skimp on the umbrella this time.”
The bartender rolled her eyes fondly. “You’re lucky you’re charming.”
Alex snorted. “Do you flirt everywhere we go?”
“Only when it gets us better drinks,” Jo said, sliding a glass across the bar.
They found a booth in the back. The music thumped through the floor, steady but not too loud. Their drinks were over-sweet, neon-colored, each topped with fruit on a plastic sword. Alex took a sip and grimaced.
“This tastes like melted candy.”
Jo grinned. “See? Fun.”
Alex rolled her eyes but leaned back against the worn leather seat. Around them, women laughed, kissed, leaned in close. Nobody stared at them. Nobody questioned them.
And suddenly, Alex realized something she hadn’t before: she didn’t have to earn her place here. She already belonged. She let herself breathe, just enjoy the moment, feeling a kind of peace she hasn’t since she was twenty-one and still believed there was space in the world for someone like her.
Jo nudged her glass with hers. “You look lighter.”
Alex glanced at her, startled. “Do I?”
“Yeah,” Jo said simply, holding her gaze. “Like you can breathe.”
Alex didn’t answer right away. She just smiled, and for once, let herself agree.
And then there were the clubs. That had been Jo’s idea too, of course. Alex had groaned the first time. “You want me to stand in a loud, crowded room with overpriced drinks and sticky floors?”
“Yes,” Jo had said, grinning. “And you’re going to love it.”
Alex hadn’t. Not at first.
Alex stood at the edge of the dance floor, arms crossed, pretending the noise and lights annoyed her. Then Jo reached for her hand. No pressure, just an offer. Alex let herself be pulled in. They didn’t really dance, more like moved around each other, close enough that the music seemed to press them together. Jo was comfortable out there, easy in the way she swayed, eyes catching the light. Alex shook her head, rolled her eyes, but didn’t step back. She stayed close.
Because the truth was, it was fun. Not the noise or the drinks, but Jo. Jo laughing in her ear. Jo’s hand slipping around her waist. Jo pulling her close during a slower beat, and Alex not stepping away.
It wasn’t just about attraction. It was about feeling herself again. She hadn’t felt this queer, this free since university, before the Bureau, before every decision she made felt like it might cost her something. Her job. Her safety. Her sense of self.
Back then, she'd let the fear of being found out define her. Shape her. Even Erin, with all the intensity between them, had always come with secrecy.
But here in New York, there was something different. There was freedom in this version of her life. A lightness. A space where she didn’t have to choose between being a good agent and being a whole person.
Somewhere along the way, Jo became the center of it all. Not a fix. Not a dramatic turning point. Just steady. Safe. Someone who saw Alex for exactly who she was and stayed. Even before either of them said it, the love was there. In the way they touched. In how close they danced. In the quiet, constant flirting.
But they never crossed the line. Not until the night they did.
Jo had moved into a new apartment a few weeks earlier. Something cozy, quiet, tucked into a brownstone with a narrow staircase and hardwood floors that creaked like they had stories to tell. Alex helped her unpack the last of the boxes that evening after dinner with Jo’s son. Tyler had gone to bed hours ago after insisting Jo and “Agent Blake” both watch some mind-numbing cartoon with him.
Now it was late. Wine glasses half-full. Music low on Jo’s speaker. The city murmuring outside the window.
Alex sat in the corner of the couch, barefoot, one leg pulled up, a small smile tugging at her mouth. Jo sat next to her, legs folded under herself, watching her. The moment sat between them, obvious and quiet. Easy to ignore. Easy to pretend it wasn’t there.
But Jo didn’t pretend.
She leaned in slowly, quietly, searching Alex’s face with eyes full of something soft and certain. “I’m not misreading this, am I?”
Alex didn’t blink.
“No,” she whispered. “You’re not.”
Jo’s breath caught. Then she smiled, just a little. Then leaned in.
And kissed her.
Soft, at first. Gentle, like a question with an answer already known.
Alex kissed her back.
And just like that, the line between them was gone. Not broken, just gone, like it had never really been there. There was no rush. No urgency. Just the quiet press of lips and the warmth of long-earned closeness, deepened by all the time they hadn’t said the words but had felt them anyway.
When they finally pulled back, Alex rested her forehead against Jo’s.
“This okay?” she asked, breath warm.
Jo nodded. “Yeah. It’s more than okay.”
Outside, the city kept moving.
But inside, something new had finally begun.
--
For a while, it was everything Alex had never dared to want.
A real relationship.
Not a secret coded in glances across a Bureau hallway. Not a string of texts that said I miss you without ever attaching a name. Not a love that had to be protected from sunlight and scrutiny.
With Jo, it was different.
It wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t whispered behind hotel doors or disguised under the word friend. It was open. Steady. Hers.
That alone was something Alex still wasn’t used to, having a hers. Someone who showed up without being asked. Someone who introduced her to their son, who kept a toothbrush for her in the bathroom cabinet, who touched her hand at work like it wasn’t a risk.
Jo had called it simple once, the way they fit together.
They’d been curled on the couch, watching some bad thriller with half-eaten takeout between them, and Jo had looked over and said, “This feels easy with you. Simple. Good.”
Alex had smiled. But inside, she had felt a kind of awe she didn’t know how to name. Because there was nothing simple about what it meant to her.
It was profound.
It was the undoing of years spent twisting herself into a version of womanhood that could survive the Bureau. It was unlearning the caution she’d been taught, to never say she when telling a story, to never linger too long, to never let anyone see her joy.
It was healing in the quietest, realest way.
The healing came in the routines: Sunday mornings in bed with Jo’s fingers running lazily through her hair. Grocery shopping with Tyler trailing behind them and asking for things they’d both pretend to say no to. Jo’s hand finding hers under the table at crowded work functions. The soft buzz of her phone with a message that just read: home soon.
It came in the mornings Alex no longer woke up waiting for something to go wrong. It came in letting herself want things. Letting herself keep them.
Some nights, when Jo was sleeping next to her, Alex found herself just lying awake and breathe. Not because she was anxious. Not because she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But because she still couldn’t believe she had all of this.
Not a perfect life. But a possible one.
And for someone like her, for someone who had once believed she had to choose between love and survival that possibility was everything.
--
Alex had dressed twice that morning.
She started in the usual; button-down, blazer, neutral colors. Then she caught her reflection and changed. She looked like she was headed to an interview, not brunch. So, she tried again, something softer. Something that didn’t look like armor. She didn’t know what she was expecting from this meeting with Jo’s ex-husband. A challenge? An awkward silence? Thinly veiled judgment?
What she hadn’t expected was that Jo would reach across the cab seat just before they got out and squeeze her hand.
“You okay?”
Alex nodded. “Just... overthinking.”
Jo grinned. “Of course you are. You’re you.”
Alex laughed, despite herself.
The café was small, on a quiet Brooklyn corner. Sunlight came through the windows, and everything smelled like coffee and cinnamon. It was calm for a Sunday. No noise, no rush. Jo moved through the tables like she’d been there a hundred times. She spotted him right away.
He stood when they approached; tall, glasses, salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a sweater that made him look friendlier than he probably meant to. His smile was polite, unsure, like he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the whole thing but was trying anyway.
And then Jo turned to her.
“Alex, this is Russell.”
Then, to him, with ease, without hesitation, “This is my girlfriend.”
Alex blinked. Just a beat. Just long enough for her heart to trip over itself. She hadn’t expected it. Not the word, not the way Jo said it, like it was nothing. Like it was obvious. Like it wasn’t a thing to be hidden, or hedged, or softened.
Girlfriend.
And suddenly all those hidden parts of herself, all the small and careful ways she’d lived for decades, curled around that word like it was a match in the dark.
She shook Russell’s hand. Said all the right polite things. Sat across from him while Jo ordered coffee and swapped parenting stories about Tyler’s sudden refusal to eat anything that wasn’t shaped like a dinosaur.
It was awkward, sure. Some pauses too long. A few glances that said more than they meant to. But it wasn’t unbearable. In fact, it was… human.
Normal.
Alex sat with both hands around her mug, watching Jo laugh at something Russell said about Tyler’s science fair project. One word kept looping in her head.
Girlfriend.
When they left, Jo slipped her arm through Alex’s and kissed her cheek before calling a cab. Alex was still thinking about it. Still holding onto the word like something she didn’t want to let go. And for the first time, she wasn’t afraid of people seeing it.
--
The apartment smelled like garlic and something slightly burned. Alex didn’t mind. It was familiar by now. She let herself in, Jo had told her to stop knocking weeks ago and kicked off her boots by the door. The early spring air clung to her jacket.
Jo was at the stove, sleeves pushed up, hair clipped back messily, stirring something with a look that landed somewhere between focus and frustration. She glanced over her shoulder.
“Hey, you,” Jo said, smiling. “You’re just in time to witness either dinner or a disaster. Still deciding.”
Alex smiled. “Smells like dinner.”
“Liar,” Jo muttered, turning back to the stove. “Twenty minutes.”
Tyler was camped out on the living room floor, knee-deep in Lego. Star Wars ships in various stages of construction were spread across the rug.
“Hi,” he said without looking up.
Alex crouched beside him. “Hi.”
He reached toward a pile of pieces, paused, then glanced sideways. “Hey, Lexie, can you pass me that one?”
Alex blinked.
“…Lexie?”
Tyler looked up, casual. “Yeah. I made it up. It’s like Alex, but more fun. And shorter. You don’t mind, right?”
She handed him the piece. “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t mind.”
“Cool.” He went right back to building. Alex stood, still processing, and glanced toward the kitchen. Jo was definitely listening, though she pretended not to be, stirring with more focus than necessary.
“You heard that?” Alex asked, keeping her voice low.
Jo turned to face her, her smile was soft now. “Yeah.”
“You didn’t… put him up to that?”
“God, no,” Jo said. “I wouldn’t dare. He doesn’t even let me give him nicknames.”
Alex laughed, then looked back at the boy on the floor, who had now completely disappeared into his imaginary starship engineering world.
“He just called me Lexie,” she murmured.
Jo stepped forward, brushing Alex’s arm as she passed her a glass of water. “It suits you.”
Alex swallowed. “It felt like…”
“Being invited in?” Jo offered.
Alex nodded.
And that was exactly it.
She hadn’t expected this. Any of it. She hadn’t expected to be building Lego ships with a kid or helping stir pasta sauce while someone she loved danced around in fuzzy socks and hummed along to the radio. She hadn’t expected to fit.
But here she was. Folding napkins. Smiling for no reason.
Being called Lexie by a kid who didn’t think twice about letting her in.
And feeling, for the first time in a very long time, like she belonged.
Like family.
--
The bookstore was wedged between a bakery and a flower shop; narrow aisles, crooked shelves, creaky floors. The kind of place that felt lived in. Dave’s reading was exactly what she expected: smart, relaxed, just enough dry humor to make the crowd laugh, and just enough weight to remind them he hadn’t lost a step.
Alex stood in the back with Jo, their shoulders touching. Every so often, Jo leaned in to whisper a comment, half teasing, half curious. Alex hadn’t expected to feel proud. But she did. Of Dave. Of Jo. Of herself, standing there with them. Not hiding.
Dave spotted them near the checkout and lit up. “Alex,” he said, grinning as he pulled her into a hug. It was solid, familiar, it still felt like home. “You look good.”
“You sound surprised,” she teased.
“Well, last time I saw you, you were throwing a stack of case files at my head.”
“That was affectionate.”
Dave turned to Jo then, and the warmth didn’t dim for a second. “And you must be Jo.”
“In the flesh,” Jo said, shaking his hand. “She’s mentioned you.”
“Oh?” Dave glanced at Alex. “All good things, I hope.”
Jo winked. “That depends on your definition of good.”
Alex just rolled her eyes and motioned toward the door. “Come on, you two. Dinner.”
--
The restaurant was small and dim, tucked off a quiet side street. Far enough from the noise that it felt private. They ordered wine and pasta. Dave was halfway through a story about a Florida case gone sideways when Jo cut in.
“Wait, let me guess. He confessed to something he didn’t do just to be dramatic?”
Dave blinked. “How did you…?”
Jo leaned back with a smirk. “Criminal psychologist.”
Alex laughed, surprised by how quickly they’d fallen into a rhythm. She didn’t have to mediate. Didn’t have to explain either of them to the other. It was effortless, like they were all old friends, like this version of her life had always existed.
Jo made Dave laugh more than Alex had seen in years. And Dave, for his part, asked Jo thoughtful questions, listening like he was cataloging her with care. Not interrogating. Just curious. Kind.
At one point, as the conversation drifted toward books and kids and the worst food they’d ever eaten in the field, Jo reached under the table and laced her fingers with Alex’s.
Alex froze, just for a second. Not because she was afraid. Not like before. But because it still felt new. Unbelievable. To be loved like this. Seen like this.
Dave saw it. Of course he did. He glanced at their joined hands and then back to Alex.
And he smiled.
Said nothing.
Just smiled.
When the night started to wind down and they were waiting on the check, Dave stepped away to take a call.
Jo leaned in. “You okay?”
Alex nodded. “Better than okay.” Her voice was quiet, but sure.
Jo gave her hand a small squeeze. “Yeah. Me too.”
And Alex thought: this is what it feels like to be fully known. Not just accepted. But welcomed.
It was the best Alex had ever felt.
The kind of peace she hadn’t realized she was allowed to have. A steady relationship. A found family. Laughter in the mornings. A toothbrush next to hers in the medicine cabinet. Texts from Tyler asking if Lexie could come over for game night. A version of life that didn’t feel borrowed or borrowed against.
Real.
She’d built it with Jo slowly, piece by piece. Nothing dramatic, just steady, careful work. A real life, made out of the parts she never thought she’d get back. For the first time in years, she wasn’t waiting for it to fall apart.
She wasn’t bracing for the cold.
And then Erin called.
It had been nearly eight months of silence. No voicemails. No texts. No late-night emails dripping with guilt or apology. Just that hollow space where something once lived and then died violently.
Her phone buzzed. The number wasn’t saved, but she recognized it immediately. Alex froze. She stared at the screen for ten seconds, not moving.
Long enough to feel the tremor start in her hands. Then she answered. The voice was the same. Low. Controlled. A tone Alex used to find comfort in. Now it wrapped around her throat like a noose.
Erin didn’t apologize.
Not really.
She talked about the past like it had happened to both of them. As if they’d both been victims of circumstance. As if she hadn’t stood by while Alex took the blame. As if she hadn’t stepped aside and let the Bureau chew her up and spit her out so Erin could stay safe. So Erin could keep her name clean and her career intact.
Alex couldn’t remember what she said. After the first minute, her brain shut down. She went on autopilot; short replies, flat tone, the kind of detachment she hadn’t used in years.
Five minutes later, she hung up.
Her hands were shaking. Her stomach felt hollow. She didn’t cry. She just stood in the dark, the phone face down on the counter, heart pounding hard and fast in her chest.
The damage was done.
How do you forget the woman you loved for ten years? The woman who knew your fears, your weaknesses, your softest places and used them all against you in the end?
You don’t.
Not really.
Alex told Jo it was just a bad day at work. That she was tired. That she needed a little space.
Jo nodded, concerned but understanding. She always gave Alex room to breathe. Trusted her.
Believed her.
At first.
But Alex didn’t stop with one excuse.
She started shrinking. One moment at a time.
She flinched when Jo reached for her hand at dinner. Started “working late” on the nights they usually spent together. Turned down Tyler’s invitation to movie night with a weak smile and a lie about reports that needed finishing.
She said I’m fine more times than she could count. Said I just need time like it was a shield she could hide behind.
Jo stopped pressing. She never pushed. But her eyes said enough.
And then there was Dave.
Dave, who knew. Who had been there for the fallout. Who had watched Alex break the first time Erin left her behind.
He called. Left a message. Then another.
“Hey, just checking in.”
“Blake, call me back.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here. Whenever you’re ready.”
She didn’t respond. Not because she didn’t want to. But because she couldn’t bear to say the words out loud.
Erin called.
And I crumbled.
Again.
So she let the silence win.
Let the walls creep back in. Let herself spiral in the comfort of isolation, because at least it was familiar. At least no one could leave her there.
She stopped answering texts. Ignored voicemails. Let dishes pile up. Avoided mirrors.
Jo’s name on her phone screen became a warning sign, not a comfort. Every vibration felt like another reminder that she was ruining something good just by existing inside it.
She was becoming someone she thought she’d left behind.
Someone who didn’t believe she deserved happiness.
And she hated herself for it.
But she couldn’t stop.
--
It didn’t take more than a week.
Alex should have known better. She had known better, deep down. She hadn’t been able to hide from Jo since the day they met. And yet here she was, hunched on a dusty bench in a corridor no one used anymore. Concrete walls. Bare pipes. Silent, cold air that made her feel like she didn’t exist at all.
That had been the idea.
She didn’t hear Jo coming, but she knew the moment she arrived.
“Fuck this, Alex.”
The words hit hard. Alex flinched. Jo’s voice didn’t soften. “I don’t know what happened,” she said, walking toward her. “But this? You shutting me out, disappearing, it’s bullshit.”
She stopped a few feet away. “I love you.”
Alex’s heart stuttered. The words hit harder than Erin’s call ever could. Jo wasn’t quiet about love. She never had been. Not like Erin. Erin had only ever whispered it, like it was something shameful. Something to hide.
But Jo, Jo loved with her whole chest. Loudly. Unapologetically.
“So, get your head out of your ass,” Jo snapped, “and accept that you deserve good things.”
Alex stared at the floor.
She wanted to say I’m sorry, but the words wouldn’t come. Her chest was locked up, full of everything she hadn’t let herself feel for the past eight months.
Grief. Guilt. Fear.
It all sat heavy in her throat.
“She called me,” she said finally, voice low.
Jo didn’t answer right away. She didn’t have to.
“Erin,” Alex said. “One call. That’s all it took. Everything I thought I’d worked through just… collapsed.”
She made herself look up. Jo stood a few feet away, arms crossed, jaw tight but her eyes were steady. Soft.
“I thought I was past it,” Alex went on. “Really. I thought I’d buried it deep enough. But it still got in. And then I panicked. Thought if I let it touch this, let it touch you; I’d ruin everything.”
Jo didn’t say You didn’t ruin anything. She didn’t say anything at all. So, Alex kept talking. Her voice shook, but she kept going. “She broke me,” she said. “Ten years of hiding and lying, loving someone who never really picked me. And then she threw me away like I was nothing.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it.
“And then you,” she said, voice catching, “you gave me everything I never thought I’d have. A relationship. A family. Peace.”
She let out a breath. “And I didn’t know how to trust it. Part of me still doesn’t. Part of me is still waiting for the phone to ring with bad news.”
Jo stepped closer. Alex didn’t move.
“I don’t know how to stop bracing for pain,” Alex whispered. “Even when I’m happy. Especially when I’m happy.”
Jo was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, she knelt down in front of her. Just like that first night they kissed.
Alex’s vision blurred.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, voice raw.
Jo reached out and took her hand, gentle but sure.
“Good,” she said, her thumb brushing over Alex’s knuckles. “Means it matters.”
Alex let out a broken laugh. Then another tear. Then another.
And she held Jo’s hand tighter.
--
The apartment was quiet now. The kind of quiet that came after bedtime; after teeth brushed, lights out, and one last plea for water. Jo had fallen asleep on the couch, a book face-down on her chest, glasses slipping crooked on her nose. Alex didn’t fix them. Not yet. She sat beside her, legs tucked under the blanket they’d half-shared, the baby monitor crackling softly in the background.
She glanced at the screen, Ellie was asleep, thumb in her mouth, blanket tangled around her like a nest. Safe. Loved. Home. It still hit her sometimes, the magnitude of it.
That somehow, this had become her life.
A life that hadn’t been planned but had arrived anyway, soft, wild, whole. Alex had been there the day Jo brought Ellie home. Not officially. Not yet. Back then, she was still tiptoeing around the language of what they were. Still figuring out how to be present without fear.
Jo had told her about the case: a mother, addicted, violent, spiraling. A murder conviction. A baby girl with no one left to take her home. Jo had been working it; standard protocol, until it wasn’t. Until she’d seen Ellie for the first time in that sterile hospital room, swaddled in a worn pink blanket and screaming like the world had already let her down.
And Jo had known.Alex hadn’t questioned it. Ellie came home with Jo three days later. Alex had never seen Jo so steady, so full of fire and calm at the same time. And now, here they were. Ellie asleep in the next room. Tyler down the hall, snoring faintly. Jo, beside her, already dreaming.
And Alex?
She was still awake, watching the quiet, her heart full of something that barely felt survivable.
Jo had called it simple, once. The way they all fit together. But it wasn’t simple. Not to Alex. It was extraordinary.
Tyler, who still called her Lexie when he was being silly but who had, without fanfare, started introducing her to people as his other mom.
Ellie, who didn’t know the whole story yet, wouldn’t for a long time but who reached for Alex with both arms in the morning and squealed Mama! like it was the only word that mattered.
And Jo, who’d cracked her open without breaking her. Who gave her space but never left. Who didn’t make her prove anything, just asked her to let it in.
Alex leaned over, gently slid the glasses off Jo’s face, and set them on the table. Then she pressed a soft kiss to her temple.
Jo stirred, just barely, voice rough with sleep. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Alex whispered. “I’m really okay.”
Jo gave her a small, sleepy smile, and reached blindly for her hand.
Alex laced their fingers together.
She thought about the worst year of her life, the aftermath of Erin, the unraveling, the cold silence. The fear that maybe that was it. That she’d already lived her story, and there was nothing left but the echo.
But then Jo.
Then Tyler.
Then Ellie.
The worst thing that ever happened to her had somehow led her to the best.
A daughter. A son. A partner.
And maybe, if life stayed kind just a little while longer, a wife.
She smiled to herself in the soft dark.
This was her life now.
And finally, she wasn’t afraid to hold onto it.
--
Epilogue — Quantico, 2012
The first thing anyone noticed about the woman walking into the BAU that morning wasn’t the tailored suit or the polished resume or even her calm, precise posture.
It was how steady she was.
There was something in her energy, quiet, contained but not closed. Not guarded. Like someone who had learned how to carry weight without letting it hollow her out. She looked like a woman who had built a life she didn’t have to apologize for. One she didn’t need to prove to anyone.
"Agent Blake," Hotch said, standing to greet her. He offered his hand. "Welcome to the team."
"Thank you," Alex said, shaking it firmly. "Glad to be here."
Her tone was warm, professional but not stiff. There was the faintest glimmer in her expression, like she wasn’t just saying it. Like she meant it.
Because she did.
She’d thought she was done with this world, this level of field work, this proximity to ghosts. But then the opportunity had come. Dave had called, gently, like he always did, and said, You’d be good here. Come meet them.
And she had.
Because she was ready.
Jo had kissed her before she left for D.C. that morning. Tyler had made her a lunch she absolutely wouldn’t eat, and Ellie had cried when she saw the suitcase, until Jo promised they’d FaceTime every night and decorate cookies when Alex got home. They’d drawn a plane on a construction paper card that said Good luck, Mama!
Alex carried it in her bag, tucked between her tablet and her case notes.
She wasn’t walking into this alone.
And she hadn’t left anything behind.
She was different now, different from the version of herself who once took a call from Erin Strauss and unraveled. That woman had been surviving.
This one was living.
She’d thought it might be strange to see Erin again. Awkward. Unnerving, maybe.
But when Erin stepped into the conference room, clipboard in hand, smile tight, eyes just a little too controlled, Alex felt… nothing sharp. Just distance.
Not coldness.
Just clarity.
Erin’s gaze flickered when she saw her. Something unreadable passed behind her eyes, but Alex didn’t flinch. Didn’t break stride.
“Strauss,” she said smoothly, with a polite nod.
“Blake.” Erin’s voice barely wavered. “Welcome back to D.C.”
And that was it.
No apologies. No explanations. Just the ghost of something that used to matter and didn’t anymore.
Alex sat beside Dave at the briefing table, her spine straight, her hands calm. She listened, contributed, observed.
And when the first case came down, a double homicide with overlapping linguistic patterns she stood, already two steps ahead, and said, “I’ve got something.”
She didn’t look back to see if Erin was watching.
She didn’t need to.
She knew who she was now. A partner. A mother. A brilliant agent. Someone who had broken, yes, but who had built something better from the pieces.
And if Erin Strauss couldn’t see that?
That wasn’t Alex’s problem anymore.