Spence did get a certain amount of pleasure from being right. Hard not to in this business, but he wasn't the type of PI who let it go to his head. In this case, though, Eleanor’s confirmation was met with a small sigh, the only sign that for once he regretted the accuracy of his assumption. Twins couldn’t help it; they did everything in pairs whether they wanted to or not. From an outsider and an eternal optimist’s perspective, Spence couldn’t help but think that always having someone with you on your journey was a blessing, but sometimes… Sometimes, it wasn’t.
Sibling rivalries existed even in the closest of families, and the Lazarus brothers were no exception. Squarely in the middle, Spence had the unique privilege of envying all his brothers in one way or another growing up, but it was the twins who bore the brunt of his small, quiet grudges. None of the brothers were close like Nate and Noah were close. They had someone who understood them completely built-in from birth, whereas Spence wasn’t so much caught in the middle as marooned in it. Too young for the older brothers, too old for the younger ones, but looked on by all of them as the reliable one, simply because there was no room for him to be anything else. And sometimes the reliable one was also reliably left out, accidentally or otherwise. More than once during his teenage years he found himself wishing he’d been the brother with the twin instead of the ones who came immediately after him.
He grew out of it, of course. Age and the seven Lazarus brothers living their separate lives – Noah and Nate especially – brought some much-needed perspective. Twins could drift apart like all the rest, but it hurt more for them. Disappointments cut deeper, and the fear of disappointing even more so. Nowadays, Spence knew it was a stroke of luck that he wasn’t a twin. Both Nate and Noah had become reincarnates of heroes, but the most likely option for Coop’s matching pair was about as far away from heroic as a person could get.
He wasn’t cut out for being a twin any more than Eleanor was to be away from hers. That much was very clear to him.
“I had a feeling.” Spence touched his thumb to his lips, then took another quick drink of his coffee. For now he left the donuts untouched, though either he or Victoria would most likely clean up whatever was left after Eleanor's appointment ended. “In the early days, it’s easy to forget that it’s an adjustment for them too, but don’t worry.” He smiled over his mug, as warm as the beverage they were sharing. “You’ll get there. Both of you.”
After a moment’s pause, Spence set the coffee down again and reached into his desk. Pulling out a prepared folder, he opened it to the card paper-clipped to the top, clicked a pen, and added his personal phone number beneath the office line. Normally he never gave it out, if only because the office phone was routed to his own phone after business hours anyway, but instinct told him it was the right move. Or felt, rather, but he’d learned a long time ago not to question these almost precognitive feelings he sometimes got from Coop. He didn’t know when or how, but at some point, she’d need that number.
Closing the folder, he slid it across the desk. “In the meantime, though, here’s a list of information I’ll need from you about Aaron to check other avenues, mostly just to cover all the bases. You don’t need to fill it out now, there’s an e-mail at the bottom where you can send whatever you can find. I’m the only one with access to that account, but if you'd rather fill it out by hand and send it back, that's fine, too.” Another pause, before he added offhandedly, “I added my personal phone number to my card, just in case. Any questions, anything urgent, no matter what time – call, and I’ll pick up. That’s a promise.”