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Reid returned to the auditorium just in time to catch the tail end of Rossi’s lecture. He leaned against the back wall as Rossi talked his way through the final few slides, so familiar with the presentation at this point that he could predict the gestures Rossi would make, the quick staccato as he stepped forward and back, hand snapping out to point behind him. He stayed in place as Rossi dismissed the room, waiting until the crowd thinned to a few final stragglers still collecting their stuff and heading the exits, and the even fewer group of people walking downwards towards the podium instead. They’d be back in an hour to hear Reid’s half of the presentation, but there were always a few who didn’t want to wait until then to have their questions answered.
There were a couple of categories that those students fell into, Reid knew from long experience. There were the ones who probably listened to too many true crime podcasts, watched too many police procedurals, and were just hoping to get some scandalous, bloody details directly from the source. Then there were the ones who wanted Rossi to sign their books, maybe take a selfie with him – though there was often a large amount of overlap between that group and the first. And finally, the rare few who would end up following the path Rossi was laying out, who would apply and succeed and join them in seeking out the broken few, the monsters hiding among men. Rossi had already hand-shaked and smiled his way through a couple of the former by the time Reid made his way down the stairs. He stepped up next to Reid just as he finished talking to a young blonde woman who had taken the brochure Rossi had handed her with an uncomfortable degree of enthusiasm.
That left only one person for Rossi to speak to, a very tall, very young man, no older than nineteen or twenty. He had a shaggy haircut that seemed to threaten to fall into his eyes at any second, broad shoulders. A loose t-shirt that did little to hide his obvious strength, or the way he was hunching forward slightly, as if accustomed to trying to make himself seem smaller, less intimidating. He smiled at them as he stepped forward, a slight nervousness flickering around the edge of his expression, and Reid did a double take.
“Hey, I was–”
“Sam?” Reid interrupted before he could think better of it.
“What?” The young man said, blinking at him in surprise. There was no sign of recognition on his face, but Reid was certain, Reid remembered: the dimples when he’d smiled, the familiar brown of his eyes, the expression of open curiosity on his face – this was the same boy that he’d met nine years ago, the boy who hadn’t quite left him. Not as haunting as some of the people and places that Reid had encountered, but plenty haunting. “Sorry, have we met?” he asked, confirming to Reid that he didn’t remember him.
That, or he was an almost perfect liar.
“Nine years ago,” Reid said. “There was a… standoff, with police. At Black Earth Ranch.” Sam frowned slightly.
“Sorry,” he said, “I think you have me confused with someone else.” He said it with enough wide-eyed confusion that for a second Reid almost bought into it, but then he took in the tension around his eyes, the way he’d shifted into a stance just subtly more ready than relaxed, the same one Reid had seen back then. The shift was as uncanny as it had been when Sam was ten, now for entirely different reasons. Reid wasn’t wrong.
“You and your brother Dean,” he pressed, keeping a careful watch on Sam’s reactions. He had no idea what had happened to the boy that he’d met before he became the man standing in front of him, but it seemed safe to assume that however intimidating he’d been as a child, age had only made the already extreme more so. “And your father John.” Sam had tensed at his brother’s name, tensed even further at his father’s, something like anger flashing over his face. Interesting. “Myself and my coworker, Emily, we were there to interview the kids when there was a police raid.” Reid could almost see the moment Sam decided to not try and dissuade Reid of his identity any further. His face and body both dropped the tension they’d been carrying, and his frown flattened out as he laughed.
“Fuck,” he said. “I’d forgotten about that.” Right, because you just forget a standoff with police? Reid thought dryly. “That was a weird summer,” he said. “It’s uh, Spencer, right?”
“Yeah,” Reid said, trying to keep the surprise out of his face that Sam had remembered his name. Instead, he offered his hand, which Sam took with a firm grip. Reid glanced down at his hand, noted the scars on his knuckles – like boxing scars, the skin thin and often split – before meeting his eyes. “Spencer Reid,” he reintroduced himself. Long sleeves, Reid noted. Just like when he was a kid.
“Sam,” Sam said, offering no last name. No surprise there. Apparently age hadn’t tempered his caginess. He turned to Rossi, shook his hand as well before looking back at Reid. “So, how long have you been with the FBI?” he asked. Reid glanced towards Rossi, weighing his options. Sam’s eyes flicked between the two of them, following Reid’s gaze, and then he laughed. “Of course,” he said, and Reid barely stopped himself from frowning. “You were always FBI. Can’t believe my da– can’t believe no one caught on to that. We usually do a better job, sniffing out cops. You guys are good.” Reid shrugged, not sure what to say to that.
Maybe it was because your dad was too busy wondering if we were monsters, he thought.
“Why were you there?” Sam continued, openly curious. “If you weren’t actually CPS.”
“We didn’t lie about that,” Reid said. “We were there to check on the welfare of the kids, they just wanted the expertise of profilers, who had some experience with…” he trailed off, not sure how to end that sentence. This wasn’t a situation he’d ever encountered before, and he had no way to know what, if anything, might set Sam off. If he was still a part of the group his father belonged to, if he still believed the things that had led his father to torture Emily.
“Cults?” Sam finished for him, voice dry. Reid must have made some expression of discomfort, because Sam laughed again, waving his hand at him. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve heard it all.” He looked at Reid for another long moment, his expression considering. “So,” he said, “what was the profile?”
“Sorry?” Reid said, stalling. Sam’s face said that he knew exactly what Reid was trying to avoid.
“The profile. On me, my family, the cult.” He didn’t move his arms, didn’t even change his inflection really, but Reid could still somehow sense the scare quotes around ‘cult’. Reid’s eyes flicked to Rossi again, but the older man’s face clearly communicated that he had no idea how to navigate this situation either.
“Um,” Reid said, “I don’t think that’s… appropriate.” Sam stared at him for a long moment before he finally sighed.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I guess I was just curious about… doesn’t matter.” There was a long, painful moment of silence between all of them.
"So, Sam, you just here for the pitch, or do you go to school here?" Rossi finally asked. It was an awkward transition but was so desperately welcome that both Sam and Reid turned to him with matching expressions of relief.
"I go to school here," he said, rocking back slightly and stuffing his hands in his pockets. Almost bashful, like he thought it was embarrassing. "Full ride." Reid was silently impressed. He’d known Sam was smart back then – could still remember the kid quoting the Vulgate to him like it was nothing – but a full ride to Stanford was remarkable. Especially given, well.
"Wow," Rossi said. "That's amazing, your family must be so proud." Sam laughed again, but this time there was nothing happy about it.
"My brother was," he said, and Reid wanted, so, so badly, to ask – to ask what had happened, what had happened to the rest of the kids from the ranch, what had happened to his father and brother. To finally get answers to the hundred small mysteries of that case that had brought him back to its file again and again over the years, always wondering.
"What are you studying?" he asked instead.
“My course is pre-law,” Sam said. “But, y’know”, he nodded towards the auditorium they were standing in, “not discounting other possibilities.”
“Yeah?” Rossi asked. “What interests you about the FBI?” Reid could almost see him getting ready to shift back into the mode of recruiter and educator.
“The BAU specifically,” Sam admitted, eyes flicking between the two of them. “I guess I’m just… interested in the psychology behind it. What makes people into…” he trailed off, gesturing expansively. Reid watched his face, and tried very hard not to project the memory of Sam’s father, covered in blood, dragging a semi-conscious Emily back into an underground bunker. The memory of a child holding a rifle with the confidence of a grown soldier and telling them that they didn’t know what real evil looked like. An even younger child asking him if he’d ever seen a monster.
The surety that Reid had carried with him for years that the only monster those children needed to worry about was the one who was raising them.
He wondered if that was what Sam had been thinking about as well, when he’d walked into the room that morning.
“Well, Reid will be talking about that more this afternoon,” Rossi said. “If you’re planning on sticking around for the second half.” Sam glanced at Reid, smiled.
“Yeah, I think I will,” he said. “Which, sorry, I should go get lunch before that starts. Agent Rossi, it was nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand and shaking Rossi’s again. His sleeve slid up, and Reid caught the barest flash of silvered scar tissue wrapping his wrist before it slid back down as he turned and offered the same hand to Reid. “Spencer, nice to see you again,” he said.
“Likewise,” Reid said, then “wait” when Sam turned to leave. Sam turned back, expression curious as Reid stuck his hand in his pocket, pulling out one of his business cards.
“If you have any other questions,” he said. Sam looked at the card, then back up at Reid, his expression sharp, considering. He finally took it, with a nod.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding at both of them again before resuming his quick retreat from the room.
“That was fucking weird,” Rossi said as soon as Sam was out of sight.
“Yeah,” Reid agreed, still watching the doors that Sam had disappeared through, once again leaving Reid with more questions than answers.
He wasn’t surprised when Sam didn’t return that afternoon.