Work Text:
“Since when do you knit?” Morgan asked as he wandered into the break room, coffee in one hand and a file tucked beneath the other. He slowed almost immediately, his attention caught by the pair of wooden knitting needles in Spencer’s hands and the uneven strip of navy wool pooled across his lap. It took him a second to process what he was seeing before a grin spread across his face. “Hold on, is that actually you?”
Spencer looked up, startled enough that one of the needles slipped from his fingers and landed against the table with a soft clatter. He muttered something under his breath as he picked it back up, taking care not to lose the stitches he’d spent the last twenty minutes fighting to keep in place. “I know how this looks,” he admitted, a faint flush creeping across his cheeks. “And before you ask, no, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Morgan pulled out the chair across from him, curiosity winning over whatever he’d originally come into the room for. He leaned forward, studying the scarf with exaggerated seriousness before looking back at Spencer. “That’s…probably the lumpiest scarf I’ve ever seen.” His smile softened before the joke could sting. “Which means it’s important to somebody.”
Spencer’s eyes dropped back to the knitting in his hands, his thumb absentmindedly smoothing over a row of uneven stitches. The wool wasn’t as soft as he’d expected when he’d bought it and one edge was noticeably narrower than the other, but he’d stopped caring about perfection somewhere around the fourth failed attempt. “It’s for Elle,” he said quietly, the words carrying an unmistakable warmth that made the corners of his mouth lift. “She gets cold long before anyone else does.”
Morgan sat back in his chair, eyebrows climbing higher. “So instead of buying a scarf like every other boyfriend on the planet, you decided to teach yourself an entirely new hobby?” He shook his head with a laugh, watching Spencer carefully guide another loop of yarn onto the needle. “That’s either incredibly romantic or deeply impractical.”
“I considered buying one,” Spencer replied, never taking his eyes off his hands as he counted stitches under his breath before continuing. “Objectively, it would’ve been the better option. A professional would make something warmer, more durable and considerably more symmetrical.” He paused long enough to inspect a crooked stitch, carefully undoing it before trying again. “But she’d know I didn’t make it.”
Morgan was quiet for a moment, his teasing expression giving way to something more thoughtful. He’d seen Spencer obsess over books, statistics, chess problems and case files before, but this was different. There was a patience to the way he handled the yarn, a determination that had nothing to do with getting the technique right and everything to do with the person waiting unknowingly at the end of it.
“So what started all this?” Morgan asked, resting an elbow against the table as he watched Spencer knit another painstaking row. “Don’t tell me you woke up one morning with a sudden appreciation for textiles.”
A quiet laugh escaped Spencer before he shook his head. “Last winter,” he began, setting the needles down for a moment as the memory resurfaced, “Elle forgot her scarf almost every week.” His expression softened into something absent-mindedly fond. “She’d insist she wasn’t cold, but her hands would always give her away. They’d be freezing.”
Morgan nodded, listening.
“I’d let her borrow mine,” Spencer continued, smiling to himself now. “She always argued with me first. Said I’d end up cold instead. Then she’d wrap it around her neck anyway.” He looked back down at the navy yarn in his lap, his fingertips brushing lightly across it. “I realized she never remembers to bring one, so…I thought maybe I could make sure she always has one.”
Morgan let out a slow breath through his nose, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face. “Reid,” he said, shaking his head in quiet disbelief, “do you have any idea how unfair you make the rest of us look?”
Spencer frowned, genuinely confused by the question. “How?”
“You’ve spent, what, weeks learning how to knit because your girlfriend gets cold?” Morgan gestured toward the scarf, its edges still uneven despite Spencer’s obvious effort. “Most guys stop at flowers.”
Spencer looked down at the scarf again, almost self-conscious. “I don’t know if she’ll even like it,” he admitted, turning the fabric over in his hands. “The tension is inconsistent, the border curls and I’ve already had to restart five times.”
Morgan laughed softly, pushing himself to his feet. Before leaving, he rested a hand briefly on Spencer’s shoulder, glancing once more at the imperfect scarf lying across the table.
“Trust me,” he said. “The first thing she’s going to notice isn’t the stitches.” A knowing smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he headed for the door. “It’s that every single one of them was made because you were thinking about her.”
\\
The first truly cold morning arrived sooner than Spencer expected. A thin layer of frost clung to the edges of parked cars outside Quantico and everyone who walked through the glass doors carried the lingering chill in with them. Elle shrugged her coat higher around her shoulders as she stepped into the bullpen, rubbing her hands together while muttering something about Virginia deciding to skip autumn altogether. Spencer noticed the gesture immediately, though he tried not to smile. His messenger bag suddenly felt much heavier than it had during the drive to work.
“You looked like you’re keeping a secret all morning,” Elle observed as they gathered their things after the day’s paperwork had finally wound down. She slipped her badge into her coat pocket before glancing over at him, catching the way his fingers had been hovering protectively over his bag since lunch. “At this point I’m starting to think you’re hiding classified documents from me.”
A quiet laugh escaped Spencer as he adjusted the strap over his shoulder, though the sound did little to hide his nerves. “It’s significantly less exciting than classified documents,” he admitted, looking down for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “But…I was wondering if you’d mind waiting a second before we leave.”
She tilted her head, curiosity replacing the teasing smile she’d been wearing all afternoon. “You’re asking me to be patient? That usually means you’ve planned something.” Crossing her arms loosely, she leaned against the edge of his desk and watched him kneel beside his bag. “Now I’m definitely curious.”
Spencer carefully moved a stack of journals aside before pulling out a neatly wrapped parcel, the brown paper folded with meticulous precision despite one corner that refused to stay perfectly flat. He stood again with both hands around the package, hesitating just long enough to gather his courage. “I know it’s not your birthday,” he said, a faint blush already climbing into his cheeks. “And it isn’t an anniversary or…really any occasion at all. I just wanted to give this to you before it got any colder.”
Elle accepted the package more gently than she normally would have, sensing from the expression on his face that whatever was inside mattered far more to him than the wrapping itself. “You’ve been carrying this around all day?” she asked softly, running her thumb along the folded edge of the paper before looking back at him. When he nodded, suddenly fascinated by a spot on the floor instead of meeting her gaze, she smiled to herself and began peeling the tape away with deliberate care.
The room seemed strangely quiet as the paper loosened beneath her fingers. She folded it back slowly until a length of deep navy wool spilled into her hands, soft enough to catch the light from the bullpen windows. It took her only a second to notice the tiny imperfections–a row that sat a little tighter than the rest, one edge that wandered ever so slightly before straightening again–but they only made her brow knit together in confusion. Looking from the scarf to Spencer, realization gradually settled across her face. “You…made this?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling with obvious embarrassment as he watched her unfold it completely. “I learned how,” he corrected quietly. “I figured there was a difference.” His shoulders lifted in a small, self-conscious shrug. “It took longer than I expected.”
Elle looked down at the scarf again, letting the fabric slide carefully through her hands. It wasn’t something that had come from a department store and it certainly wasn’t the work of someone who had been knitting for years. Every uneven stitch was proof that somebody had sat down, made mistakes, undone them and tried again. When she looked back up at Spencer, there was something wonderfully vulnerable about the way he was waiting–not for praise, but simply for her reaction.
“When?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “How did you even have time to do this without me noticing?”
Spencer’s smile grew a fraction, encouraged by the fact that she was still holding the scarf instead of setting it aside. “Usually after we finished talking at night,” he admitted. “I’d knit for an hour or two before I went to bed. Some evenings I only managed a few rows because I kept dropping stitches.” He laughed quietly at the memory, shaking his head. “Morgan said it looked like it was losing a fight.”
A laugh slipped free before Elle could stop it, though it was quickly replaced by something much softer as she looked at him again. “So while I thought you were reading before bed…” She glanced back at the scarf draped over her hands, unable to hide the smile spreading across her face. “…you were sitting at home making this for me.”
Elle looked down at the scarf again, turning it over in her hands with a kind of careful reverence. The navy wool was soft against her fingertips, warmer than she’d expected and the closer she looked, the more she noticed the tiny imperfections hidden between the rows. One section sat a little tighter than the rest, another relaxed just enough to tell her he’d found his rhythm somewhere in the middle. Instead of making it look unfinished, the uneven stitches made it feel unmistakably human. She could almost picture him sitting on his couch late at night, frowning in concentration every time the yarn slipped from his fingers.
“You made every one of these?” she asked quietly, lifting her eyes to his again. Her voice had lost its teasing edge, replaced by something much gentler as she searched his face. “You actually sat down and taught yourself how to knit…because I complain about being cold?”
Spencer let out a small, embarrassed laugh and slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers, more to keep himself from fidgeting than because he was cold. “You don’t really complain,” he corrected with a fond smile. “You usually insist you’re fine, even when you’re rubbing your hands together every five minutes.” His gaze drifted toward the scarf still cradled in her hands before returning to her. “I figured saying you weren’t cold didn’t actually make you any warmer.”
She blinked, caught off guard by how closely he’d been paying attention. Those moments had never seemed significant to her–she’d forgotten them almost as soon as they’d happened–but somehow he’d remembered every one. The realization settled warmly in her chest, and she found herself smiling before she even meant to.
“You noticed that?”
“I notice a lot of things.” His answer came with the quiet certainty she knew so well, though he ducked his head almost immediately afterward, as if worried he’d admitted too much. “I just don’t always say them out loud.”
Elle laughed softly and stepped closer until barely a foot separated them, the scarf still draped over her forearms. “Apparently not. Otherwise I would’ve known my boyfriend had secretly become a knitter.” She tilted her head, studying him with affectionate disbelief. “How many times did you stab yourself with those needles?”
He considered the question with complete seriousness, his brows knitting together as though he were mentally counting. “Seven.”
“You counted?”
“I didn’t mean to. It was memorable.”
That earned another laugh, fuller this time and Spencer felt some of the nervousness he’d been carrying all day finally begin to loosen. He’d spent weeks imagining this moment, running through every possible reaction she might have. She might think it was silly. She might tell him he should’ve just bought one. She might smile politely and tuck it into a drawer somewhere out of obligation. None of those possibilities had prepared him for the way she was looking at the scarf now, as though it were something infinitely more valuable than wool and yarn.
“I don’t think anyone has ever made something for me before,” Elle admitted after a moment, her thumb absentmindedly tracing one of the uneven rows. She smiled to herself, though there was a tenderness in her expression that made Spencer’s heart beat just a little faster. “Not like this.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Really?”
She nodded. “I’ve gotten gifts. Flowers. Jewelry once.” She looked up at him again, the corners of her mouth lifting. “But nobody has ever sat down and learned a completely new skill just because they wanted me to be warm.”
Spencer felt his face heat immediately. He glanced away with a bashful smile, clearly unsure what to do with a compliment of that size. “When you put it that way,” he murmured, “it sounds…a little excessive.”
“It sounds like you.”
He looked back at her, puzzled.
“I mean that in the best possible way,” she continued, closing the remaining distance between them. “You don’t do things halfway. When you care about someone, you pay attention. You remember little things they don’t even realize they’re doing.” She lifted the scarf slightly, smiling at its imperfect edges. “And then you spend weeks fixing a problem they never even asked you to solve.”
For a moment, Spencer couldn’t think of anything to say. His gaze lingered on her face, taking in the quiet warmth in her eyes and he realized that all the worry he’d poured into the last three weeks–the dropped stitches, the countless restarts, the nights spent wondering whether it would be good enough–had disappeared in an instant.
Elle unfolded the scarf completely before lifting it around her neck. The wool settled neatly against her coat, one end falling slightly longer than the other and she reached up to smooth it instinctively. It looked as though it had always belonged there.
“Well?” she asked, turning just enough for him to see it properly. A playful smile tugged at her lips, though there was a hint of vulnerability beneath it. “How do I look?”
Spencer forgot to answer.
She waited a beat before laughing quietly. “You’re staring again.”
“I know.”
“Is that a good sign?”
“It’s…” He smiled in spite of himself, his eyes soft with unmistakable affection. “It’s exactly how I imagined it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I kept wondering if the color would suit you.” He laughed under his breath, almost embarrassed by the confession. “I spent an unreasonable amount of time standing in the yarn aisle trying to decide. Then I remembered you always steal my navy sweaters whenever you’re at my apartment.” His smile widened just a little. “I figured that probably meant you liked the color.”
Elle’s heart melted.
“You chose this because of my sweater theft?”
“I prefer the term ‘borrowing.’”
“I’ve never given one back.”
“I noticed.”
She reached for his hand then, her fingers slipping easily between his as she gave them a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” she said, the words simple but deeply sincere. “Not just for the scarf. For noticing me in all the little ways I forget to notice myself.”
Spencer looked down at their joined hands before bringing them gently toward him. Without a word, he pressed a soft kiss against her knuckles, lingering just long enough to make her smile.
“I don’t think the little things are little,” he said quietly. “They’re usually the things that matter most.”
Elle didn’t trust herself to answer right away.
Instead, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, the new scarf brushing lightly against his jaw as he hugged her back. He held her carefully at first, as though still asking permission in the way he always did, but when she settled closer and rested her cheek against his shoulder, his embrace tightened just enough to keep the cold and everything else at a comfortable distance.