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So I’d been going about this all wrong. The whole time that I’d observed the FBI from the outside, they all seemed to be strictly business. I knew they cared about each other but I never expected them to be family. I was going to have to start slowly nudging my way in if I ever wanted to earn respect and do what I was hired to do. I had to stop thinking about this like a co-worker situation and had to start thinking about it like a client situation.
I had good social skills, I just hadn’t been using them correctly thus far. Whenever I needed to talk to someone that was vital for my survival, or the survival of my ring or gang, I could always be very charming. Usually, I would take them to a high end restaurant and we would talk things over. That’s what I decided I needed to do with each member of the team. They were my clients, and I was going to sell them Aundreya Chambers.
The first person I decided to take to dinner was Aaron. He was the nicest to me, by force or by choice I didn’t know, but either way, he’d be the most inclined to accept my offer. Plus, if it was okay for the Unit Chief to go to dinner with me, hopefully it would show that it was okay for the rest of the team to go to dinner with me. The night with him went well. We talked about work of course, but I also got to know about his family. He already knew what happened to mine, so he didn’t ask about it. That’s probably another reason I picked him first. I knew I wouldn’t have to answer as many questions.
Next I asked Emily. She was the first to voluntarily share a personal story with me about her tattoo, and I figured she’d be the next I could get to accept. She was also a big personality on the team so getting to know her would only be helpful. Emily was a lot of fun to go out with. She ordered wine for us, something Aaron did not do, and we talked until the restaurant closed at 11. I learned about her childhood, she taught me some French, and I heard all about her new cat, Sergio. She didn’t tell me about her time with Interpol (a fact I’d learned when I was privately investigating each member), which I knew she wouldn’t, but it was still interesting hearing about everything else she’d done. She asked me about my childhood so I told her and got the same sappy reaction I got from everyone. As much as I hated being pitied, I needed the team to soften their view of me. My childhood story was the most efficient way to do that.
After that, I asked Penelope, then David, then Jennifer. That’s when the easy part ended.
By the time I got to Derek, he already knew I was going to ask. Apparently, the rest of the team had already filled him in. I was just curious to see how much they told him. He clearly wasn’t ashamed to let on that he’d heard a lot, because he started asking me deeper questions, skipping over the surface level talk. I didn’t mind. Why repeat the same conversation I’d already had four times? For the first hour, he didn’t have any reaction towards what I told him, but as my backstory kept going, I could tell that he was softening up, just like everyone else. However, I saw something different in his eyes that I hadn’t in the others’. He was relating to me. He finally let me ask him questions, and I learned about his father’s death, how it was living with three girls, and how he worked hard to move up the ranks in Chicago PD to eventually get to the FBI. He didn’t neglect to remind me how much of a pain in his ass I was though, running around as The Figure. I joked that I made him a better investigator and he finally cracked a smile.
So that left one more person to win over. Doctor Spencer Reid. I was leaving the best, and the hardest, for last.
I was sitting with Derek and Emily while I waited for Spencer to show up.
“So is it finally pretty boy’s turn to have to suffer through dinner with you?” Morgan teased.
“Oh come on. You know you enjoyed my company,” I said to him with a wink. Ever since getting to know one another better, Morgan was more inclined to tease me like he had when we first met.
“Or maybe you just aren’t as good at profiling as you think,” Derek replied.
“Oh, there he is,” Emily said before I could respond. I watched Spencer casually walk into the bullpen, then pick up the pace when he saw me watching. And those goddamn back muscles were twitching again.
Look, I understand that I make people uncomfortable. Some I make really uncomfortable. And I know that Reid is kind of awkward around a lot of people, but come on. After five weeks of me constantly being around, he still could barely stand to be in the same room as me. What was going on?
He rushed right past us to his own desk, not even stopping to say hi to Derek or Emily.
“Woah, woah woah. What’s going on, kid? Where’s the fire?” Morgan said, brow furrowed. I gave Emily a knowing look.
“Nothing. No fire,” Reid said, setting his bag down, then quickly moving toward the pot of coffee across the room from us.
Derek turned to look at me. “You sure you want to take him out?”
“We’ll see. First I gotta keep him in my vicinity long enough so I can actually ask him,” I retorted.
“What? Three seconds isn’t long enough to ask him to dinner?” Morgan said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes at him and sighed.
“What is it?” Prentiss asked.
I laughed. “I’ve been in a gang, an underground ring, drugged, hunted by the police, trapped by the FBI, and sent to prison. But of all things, what’s really going to stop me in my tracks … is an angry genius?”
Morgan laughed with me. “He can be pretty feisty.”
“But hey. You have made it all the way to the FBI, far enough so that you can even consider that a problem of yours,” Prentiss pointed out. I nodded along as she spoke, “And you're still alive.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “I mean, it only cost me four ER visits, three ribs, two bullets, and a knife. Well, and now an angry genius.” Both of them whipped their heads toward me, shock taking over their face. I wish I could have captured their priceless reactions on tape.
“W-Wh-What?” Derek said through a confused laugh. Emily just stared at me open mouthed.
“But you’re right,” I casually continued, “being alive is important.”
“Guys we have a case,” Hotch strode into the room, holding up a case file. Morgan and Prentiss were still just staring at me. I tilted one side of my mouth up and shrugged at them, leaving our spot to head to the briefing room.
“You can’t just leave us hanging like that?” Derek called after me.
I turned around while walking so I could face them, putting my hands up in surrender. I tried to sound as innocent as possible. “We have a case.”
The case was standard, you know, just your usual headless bodies in a lake. The unsub was quickly devolving, so it wouldn’t be long until he made a mistake and we could catch him. I was getting the silent treatment from Reid, as always. On day two, him and Jareau went on air to alert people in the area.
The very next day, we had an odd visitor come into the precinct. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘Reid’. She was about average height, blonde, probably five years Spencer’s senior, and enthusiastic. Too enthusiastic for a person in a precinct.
She walked right up to him and started talking to him. I couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, and I couldn’t see her face because Spencer’s back was shielding it. Across the room, I saw JJ look over at them, but then quickly dismiss it. I was about to do the same when a familiar sight caught my eye. Spencer’s back was twitching.
He had a variety of tells of discomfort, but when he wanted to, he could keep himself completely composed. Except for his back muscles. They had become the number one thing I looked for every time I saw him, because every single time, they told me he was uncomfortable.
The longer he talked to this woman, the worse the twitching became. I was initially going to just leave it alone and let him figure it out, but my curiosity got the best of me. Who is she and why is he so uneasy?
I decided I’d pull one of the oldest tricks in the book, and hoped he’d pick up on it.
I approached the two of them, placing my left hand on Spencer’s right shoulder blade, slowly moving it up his back to rest on his shoulder. I knew he had a germ thing, so I didn’t want to get too cozy. I interlaced my fingers so it looked like I was leaning on him. I could feel the twitching beneath my fingertips, but he didn’t flinch or falter at my sudden presence. I peered up at him through my eyelashes. “Hey,” I tried to sound as seductive as possible. “Who’s this?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, uh, this is-”
“I’m Kristy,” Kristy said, holding her hand out to me. I ignored it and instead looked her over.
“I wasn’t asking you, sweetie,” I said. She opened her mouth and let out a noise of offense. She practically had the words ‘ shallow bitch ’ written on her forehead. I turned my attention back to Spencer.
“She and I went to CalTech together,” his voice was dry and he swallowed, like he was in desperate need of water. I hadn’t gotten the whole story, but I knew that he was relentlessly bullied in high school, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued on in college. If I had to guess, this girl fell into that category.
“Oh really?” I asked. I turned toward her again and she nodded at me eagerly. The level of fake radiating off of her definitely equaled ‘mean girl’, which to me meant she deserved to taste some of her own medicine. I aimed to be as demeaning as possible. “So, Kathy-”
“Actually, my name is Kristy.”
“Whatever,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes. I could already tell I was getting under her skin. “What brings you in?”
“Well, I work for a magazine, The Triplehorn Tribune, you’ve probably heard of it-”
“Nope,” I interrupted. It took all of my willpower to not roll my eyes.
“Anyways,” she said slowly, about to continue on.
“Anyway,” I corrected. She looked at me confused. “You meant to say ‘anyway’. ‘Anyway s ’ isn’t a word and is grammatically incorrect.” Out of my peripheral, I saw Spencer quickly press his lips together, fighting a smile. I’d just pulled his signature move. At this point, JJ had looked back to see what was going on, and had nudged Prentiss to pay attention. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the team was watching.
Meanwhile, Kristy-bitch was starting to fume. She released an annoyed breath through her teeth. “ Anyway, I’m here because we want to do a story on what it’s like to be in the FBI. I saw Spencer on the tv yesterday and figured he’d be the perfect person to interview.”
“Oh, so you only want to talk to him now that he’s been on tv?” I asked.
“What? No! It’s not like that-”
“Then what is it like?” I asked. When she didn’t respond quickly enough for my liking, I decided I’d answer for her. “See, I think that you’re only here for you. I think that you got out of college and got a crappy job working for a crappy magazine. You want to be recognized and appreciated which means you need an interesting article. This serial killer thing would be big, but what would be even bigger would be interviewing one of the top profilers in the top unit of the FBI about the serial killer, who has also been on tv for press conferences. Lucky for you, this top profiler just so happens to be the easily manipulated kid you bullied in college, so you think that you can just show up here out of nowhere and request he give you the big break you supposedly deserve. How am I doing so far?”
Her mouth dropped in unspoken shock. She was floundering and I was more than happy to let her. Behind her I saw the team and at least half of the precinct watching. I hadn’t noticed that Reid’s back stopped twitching for a while until it started back up again at the increased attention. I gently squeezed his shoulder, trying to help him calm back down. Kristy finally regained her ground.
“What are you, his possessive girlfriend?” she spat, incredulous.
“Something like that,” I said. I could barely get the words out before I was left speechless by the arm that wrapped around my waist. His hand landed just above my hip and subconsciously brought us closer together. I was surprised, even more so at the slight swimming in my head, but I forced myself to keep my wits about me. So he did figure out what I was going for. I smirked at her.
“Well why don’t you let Spencer speak for himself,” Kristy hissed at me.
“Why don’t you show Doctor Reid the respect you neglected to give him years ago,” I returned, just as fiery. I felt Spencer’s shoulders straighten just slightly at my title. I removed my hands from his shoulder and reluctantly moved my body out of his grasp so that I could step forward and look down at her.
“Look, Cassy-”
“Kristy.”
“What ever. You clearly are one of the bitches that thought it’d be funny to pick on the young kid in your class. You didn’t accept him for who he was then, so you sure as hell don’t deserve him for who he is now. I think you should go.” I stared her down, and I have to admit, girl’s got balls to continue to stand her ground.
“I’m only asking for a simple favor-” she started.
I took another step forward, cutting her off. “Back off, he doesn’t owe you anything!”
She took a step back, clearly surprised by my sudden change in volume. “You need to control your girlfriend! She’s a psycho!” She gave Reid a quick glance before marching toward the door.
“That’s what makes me good at catching them, Misty !” I called after her.
“My name is Kristy !” she yelled as she stamped out the door like a toddler. It made her look like the pathetic, insecure fool she was.
Once the door shut behind her, I couldn’t help but start laughing. I turned to look at Spencer who was still in shock. I scanned the room and saw that the entire precinct had stopped what they were doing to observe the scene that I helped create. I made eye contact with the rest of the team, all of whom were gaping at me. I stopped laughing.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, turning back to Spencer. I was starting to worry that I’d misread the whole situation and just caused something to go horribly wrong. “I hope you don’t mind that I did that. I could just tell that she was making you uncomfortable and I figured that I could-” I was cut off mid-sentence. Spencer had suddenly erupted in laughter, which triggered an entire laughing fit to wash over the whole precinct. Even Aaron was laughing, which never happened. I let the joyful feeling I’d felt moments ago fall back into my grasp.
“I absolutely didn’t mind you stepping in. You have nothing to apologize for,” he said to me with a smile. The first one I’d ever received from him. It was contagious and I couldn’t help but return it.
“Thank god, I was starting to worry. I’m glad you picked up on what I was putting down,” I stated.
“Oh, yeah. The fake girlfriend trick, one of the oldest in the book.”
“It was the best one I could think of on short notice,” I joked.
“How could you tell he was feeling uncomfortable?” Jennifer asked, approaching the two of us. The rest of the precinct had gone back to what they were doing, but the team’s attention was still on us.
“Yeah, I looked over at them and all I saw was the normal level of awkward,” Derek stated. Spencer glared at him.
“That’s because you were looking at him from the front,” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Reid asked, his voice raising an octave.
“It just means that I’ve gotten very accustomed to your tells of discomfort, from all angles.” The mood of the group shifted at my reminder of the reality that Reid still had a very high level of dislike for me.
“Sure, but that still doesn’t make sense. Reid does a great job composing himself, but I think we all know him well enough to detect if he’s uncomfortable,” JJ pressed. I just shrugged my shoulders, not really knowing how to respond.
“Okay, let’s refocus,” Hotch said to us with a serious nod. I could tell when I made eye contact with him that I was in trouble. “Aundreya, that was inappropriate.”
“I know. That was well deserved, though,” I pointed out, unapologetic.
Aaron toyed with a half smile and let out a sigh. “Let’s just get back to work?”
“Fine with me,” I said with a grin. I got a nod from him and Rossi, a smile from the ladies and a clap on the back from Morgan. Reid gave me a small, closed-lipped smile, and directed his attention back to the maps and pictures hanging on the board.
It took us the next three days to find and catch the killer. Three days full of Reid avoiding me at all costs. Maybe I was crazy, maybe I was hallucinating, but I thought we had a moment. I thought that I’d done something good for once, something to prove to him that I wasn’t a terrible human. But no. Nope. Not a chance, because for the rest of that afternoon and the three days following, the avoidance was actually worse than it was before. I didn’t even think that was possible. It had earned me more respect from the rest of them, but not him himself. Did I embarrass him? Was he weirded out that I touched him? Was his loathing for me just that strong? It didn’t make any sense and by day three, I was at my wits end.
“Emily.” I stated.
“What?” she asked me.
“What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Our profile is good and we hav-”
“No, not about the profile. About Reid.”
“Oh,” she said, seemingly surprised. “How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I get it, I’m bad news, but this feels like more. Was it something I said the other day with Kristy..?”
“Ha! So you do know her name,” she said with a grin. I rolled my eyes. She was trying to get me off topic.
“Seriously, though. He’s not this cold to everyone.”
“Well, he can be a hard person to get to know,” she said, avoiding the breadth of my questions.
“But not this hard?” I tried to finish.
“No, not usually,” she replied. She clearly knew something I didn’t, and was very hesitant to give it up.
“If you aren’t going to tell me, at least tell me it wasn’t something I did the other day.”
“No, not really.” She was keeping herself distracted with the pictures in front of us, even though they were useless considering the rest of the team was already headed to a barn where the unsub kept his victims before decapitating them.
I sighed. “Fine.”
She looked over at me. “Sorry.”
It was all she had to say.
They ended up finding the killer in the barn with his next victim, and were forced to fire because he refused to put the machete down. It was late Thursday night when we were getting on the jet to go home. We were all exhausted.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” Derek came to ask me a few minutes into the ride.
“Huh?” I asked, completely confused.
“With pretty boy?” he prompted. I’d lost all hope, at that point, of ever getting to know him. Even after he thanked me for swooping in and saving him from that bitch, he still seemed utterly disinterested.
“Probably not,” I said, tiredness running through my voice. Other thing: since when did Derek Morgan suddenly care and become my friend? The dinners must really work. All the more reason to lift myself out of my chair and go talk to Reid.
Morgan was still staring at me expectantly.
“Ok, alright, I’m going,” I said, getting up. He raised his eyebrows at me and flashed me that pearly smile of his. It made me want to praise him and hit him all at the same time.
I walked over to where Reid was sitting, thankful that no one else decided to sit across from him.
“Friday or Saturday?” I asked.
He looked up at me, puzzled. “What?”
“Friday. Or Saturday?”
“What are you asking me for?”
“Why can’t you just answer the damn question?” I asked a little too harshly, sliding into the seat across from him. He leaned back in his chair, putting as much distance between us as he could without just getting up and leaving. It seemed to me he’d rather just be swallowed up by the wall.
“Look,” I tried starting over with a softer tone. “Clearly you have something against me. Something more than the criminal thing. I’ve been killing myself for the past six weeks trying to figure out what it is but I’m at a loss.”
He scoffed, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
That set me off. I was trying to be nice, make an effort, but he just kept shooting me down. So I decided I was done being nice.
“Okay, Doctor Reid. I’ve been refraining from judgements because, who knows? Maybe I remind you of someone who hurt you. Maybe I remind you of someone you lost. I don’t want to push it if that’s the case. And, hell! If anything, you guys are the ones who are supposed to be judging me, not the other way around. You all have a six to ten year head start on making connections with each other. I’ve been here for six weeks. I’ve been doing this dinner thing with everyone because I’m trying to get to know the members of this team. I mean, you are considered part of the team, right?” I looked around the jet to the audience I knew I had. “He is considered a part of this team, right?” It was rhetorical and they all knew it. Even if it wasn’t, I think they were all too flabbergasted that I was going after their baby to actually answer. I turned back to him.
“Like, I understand that you are up here in ‘Genius Stratosphere’,” I said, waving my hand around above my head, “but if I were to make a list of all the team members, you would be on it, right ?”
“Yes!” he finally answered, exasperated.
“Great. So go to dinner with me,” I said. It was the most compelling argument I could make in the moment.
“Why?”
I sighed. He was not making this easy for me. Not like I expected him to.
I tried to make my voice sound neutral again. “I’m just trying to get to know you. If you ever decide to stop acting like a little bitch about it, or you finally wanna help me out and tell what your problem is … or just tell me exactly what you need from me, even if that is avoidance, let me know. Because I’m getting pretty sick and tired of … all this, ” I said, gesturing to the air. Spencer was looking down again, and I figured he would continue to ignore me.
I got halfway out of the seat and was about to turn away when he said, “Friday.” It was barely more than a whisper and he was still looking down when I turned to face him.
“What?” I demanded.
“Friday,” he said with more confidence this time, meeting my eyes.
“Spectacular choice,” I said, lacking any emotion. I reached for the napkin sitting next to his coffee cup and the pen I had in my jacket pocket. I scratched my number on it. “That’s my personal number. I gave it to everyone in case you can’t reach me on my work one or it is for something non-work related, which this occasion would be. Text me the place. I wouldn’t want you to have to suffer through bad food you didn’t like, as well,” I stated, crossing my arms. I walked back toward my seat, Morgan long since evacuated. I gauged the reactions around me as I walked, and clearly no one had ever talked to Reid like that before. It didn’t surprise me since he seemed like golden boy number one and no one ever had any reason to get short with him. But I didn’t feel bad. He’d treated me like a pile of shit, almost less than human, and I was over it. I was going to earn my respect from him one way or the other, and it was now up to him to decide. We were either going to be working friends, or working enemies.
Spencer just sat there the rest of the plane ride home, not really being able to focus on the book in front of him. No one had ever snapped at him like that, or at least, not in the last few years, and definitely not from a teammate. But she was not their typical teammate. She was not their typical anything . He may have been in ‘Genius Stratosphere’ but she was in a whole new stratosphere of her own.
He didn’t know why she got to him so much. Well, he did, but he wasn’t willing to admit it. Not even to himself. Plus, he didn’t have to justify why he didn’t like a top-notch criminal. She’d killed people and that in itself was enough reason. But the fact that she seemed bothered by him not liking her, and her genuine confusion and interest as to what was going on struck a chord. Maybe he had been too harsh in his treatment of her.
Spencer was sitting there recounting all of their interactions, or lack thereof, and started to question himself. Especially once he got to their more recent interactions.
Reid was bewildered, which rarely ever happened, and it made him all the more annoyed. Why’d she step in to help me? Did she really mean everything she said? Why was her touch so calming? The last thought took him by surprise, and he tried to shake the feeling.
He could remember the way she just lightly brushed up against him, resting her hand on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. He could also tell that she was being as delicate and considerate of his ‘not-a-fan-of-touching’ thing as she could while also selling the illusion. He remembered how it felt to have his arm around her and that slight squeeze she gave him to let him know she was there to help…
He forced himself to snap out of it. He could hardly stand to be in the same room as her, yet having her right next to him was fine? It didn’t make any sense. But the one thought that was driving him crazier than the rest was why, out of all the people on the team, was she able to detect his discomfort better and faster than anyone else? Yes, like she said, she’d gotten quite used to seeing him uncomfortable, but so had the rest of the team. They’d known him for six years plus and she’d only known him for six weeks. How was it that they couldn’t pick up on it and she could? Had she really been paying that much attention to him?
No, he concluded, definitely not. Someone like Aundreya would not care enough to pay that much attention to me. She was probably just doing her job. She was very skilled, after all.
But he still felt weird.
Once the plane landed, Aundreya bolted like her life depended on it. She’d never been one for sticking around longer than necessary. It made sense, considering she had gotten used to avoiding the police and now she was constantly surrounded by, not just police, but FBI. The rest of the team slowly made their way to their cars, and Spencer decided to stop Derek and ask him about it.
“Hey Morgan,” he said. Derek turned around to face him.
“What’s up, pretty boy?”
“Have I really been that awful to her?” That caught Emily and JJ’s attention, who turned around to walk a few paces back to where Spencer and Derek were standing.
“Are you asking about Aundreya?” Derek asked. Spencer nodded. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from.”
“That wasn’t my question,” Reid pointed out. The three of them stared at him, but he waited for an answer.
“Maybe a little bit,” JJ said.
“Look, Reid, we all had reservations about her going into this. But Hotch was right, she’s had a troubled background but she’s not a horrible person. I think it would benefit both of you, and the team, if you just tried getting to know her,” Emily said. She was always so good at making sense out of every situation without seeming to take sides.
“I know. I just feel … weird about it,” Reid stated. It was hard for him to describe what he was feeling and what the issue was.
“I understand how you feel. I didn’t want to go to dinner either because I just kept telling myself that she’s a criminal and I didn’t want to get involved,” Derek said. Spencer was looking at him intently. “But it was actually kinda good. It helped me understand her, and it’s been a lot better coming to work now that I feel like I can at least somewhat rely on her to help us out.”
“I agree. Talking to each other will only help,” JJ reminded him. They were right. It would help him feel more comfortable at work if he felt more comfortable with her.
“Okay. Thank you,” he said to them. He turned to walk toward his car when Derek’s voice stopped him.
“Oh, and uh, Reid,” he said, “Clearly she’s willing to put in the effort to make it work. She did step in to help you out the other day. I don’t think a cold-hearted criminal would’ve done that.”
Spencer nodded at Derek and he nodded back. Spencer got into his car and started driving back to his apartment, trying to think of the best place he could to meet Aundreya for dinner.
I slept until noon the next day. That wasn’t typical behavior for me, because I always enjoyed being up around seven in the morning so I could feel like I was doing something more productive than sleeping. However, I didn’t get back to my apartment until around three am and figured that I was going to need more that four hours of sleep if I was going to make it through an entire dinner with Doctor Grumpy.
The government finally trusted me enough to have a work phone after four weeks, especially because a case of ours almost ended in a dead ten year old because I didn’t have a phone to call the team on when I had new information. I’d already gotten myself a personal phone that the government didn’t know about, and neither did Dalton. It’s not like I actually used it for anything, except for personal texts from the team and occasional calls, but as you can imagine those didn’t happen frequently. Aaron turned a blind eye as long as I gave Garcia full monitoring permissions. Not like she actually needed my permission to hack into my phone and get my records or anything. He did make me agree not to have anyone ‘firewall’ it and I made the convincing case that it has a GPS, so as Dalton was slowly removed from his duties, the team would always have a way of tracking me. Plus, he didn’t think it was a terrible idea to have a secondary contact for me in case something happened.
However, today was one of those days that I used it.
It’s Reid. How’s Fabi’s?
He’d sent the text at 5:30 in the morning. Why was he up?
Good. How’s 6?
I quickly replied and put my phone down. I didn’t bother eating because I didn’t care enough. I threw on some workout stuff and went down to the clubhouse gym. I worked out practically every day. When I was younger, I always wanted to play college volleyball. I had just started training when my life went awry, and one of the things that kept me sane, that kept me connected to my humanity, was continuing that training. I did high intensity workouts everyday on the streets. I was then roped in to a mixed martial arts gym that I would visit regularly, which is where I met Sydney for the first time. It’s how I got involved with the Cloaks. Once I was thrown in prison, working out was one of the only things we could do. We had limited reading material, limited social time, limited gym time. But the nice thing about working out is that you don’t necessarily need a gym.
I was about to start my final set of squats when Dalton blasted into the gym.
“Have you been here this whole time!” His face had a slight pink color to it, like he’d been holding his breath for far too long.
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ! Did you forget that today was a check in day?”
Yes. “No. I just thought that I’d be finished by two and was counting on you being late.”
“When have I ever been late?” he asked me, dumbfounded. It was a valid question considering it only happened once and it was only by about five minutes. I didn’t call him on it then, but I figured I would now.
“Uh, let’s see. How about that one time that you were late to the airport picking me up because you were having a good time with your lady friend.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him.
He sighed. “Dammit. When you didn’t say anything I thought that you were too tired to notice and hopefully too tired to remember. I should have known better.”
“Yes you should have.”
“Wait, how’d you know I was with someone? I’ve never even told you anything about me.” He didn’t sound irritated, which I figured he might be, but all I heard was curiosity.
“Come on. I’m working as a profiler for the BAU and before that my life depended on my ability to pick up on the slightest details,” I reminded him. He nodded. Then just for fun, I added, “Plus, I’m also a really good spy and private investigator.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Have you been watching me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you implied it.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.” I always found a bit of extra pleasure from messing with my trusty watch-dog. “Have you actually been following me?”
“Definitely not. That would be weird and completely inappropriate,” I said with a wink. I walked past him, deciding to cut myself one set short.
“Seriously?”
“Bye, Dalton,” I said in a sultry tone, halfway out the door.
“Don’t forget, I’ll be back Sunday!” he called after me.
“I’m counting on it. Tell Renee hi for me!” I said, letting the door slowly close behind me.
“Aundreya!” I turned and waved to him through the glass doors, a big grin spreading across my face.
When I returned to my apartment, I checked my phone for a response from Reid.
Good.
That was all I got. At least we were keeping it simple.
I got to the restaurant about five minutes early, refusing to be late to my own dinner. I walked in and looked around to see if Spencer was there yet. He wasn’t. I thought about waiting for him, but instead I just got us a table. I slicked my dress down under my legs as I sat. I’d picked out a cute, black, pencil dress with an arrowhead necklace and combat boots. Someone kill me if I ever voluntarily wear heels for longer than a few minutes. I had never gotten my ears pierced, so I didn’t have any other jewelry. I also didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.
He came in wearing a dress shirt and a tie, but no jacket. He looked nice. He spotted me quickly and came to sit down.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi.” We sat there in awkward silence while the waitress came and put water glasses down in front of us. We both immediately took a sip.
He decided to break the silence first. “I just want to apologize for-”
“Don’t even worry about it,” I cut him off. I had a good idea as to where that sentence was going and it was unnecessary.
“No, I am going to worry about it. I want to apologize for how I’ve treated you. I immediately judged you for your label without actually getting to know you. That was wrong of me and I’m hoping we can start over.” His voice was steady and his eyes were calm. I gave him a small smile and a nod.
“I can definitely work with that. What do you want to know first?”
“You just want me to ask you questions?”
“Yeah. I’ve found that that works the best. I want to start where you’re the most interested.”
“Um, okay,” he swallowed. “You said you ended up on the streets when you were fourteen?”
“Yep.”
“So tell me what happened before that.” I smiled at him. It was a great starting point.
“Okay. I grew up with divorced parents. They got divorced when I was six. My father was abusive, mostly verbally-”
“Mostly?” he asked.
“Yeah. Mostly,” I replied. I wasn’t ready yet to talk about what happened on the other end of the ‘mostly’. He saw it too. “I stopped living with him when I was nine or ten. My sister decided to stay in contact with him over the phone and occasionally in person after that, but I completely cut him out. I haven’t seen or talked to him since, except for the times that he showed up at my school or sporting events unannounced and unwanted.”
Spencer was shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m sorry.”
“I appreciate that. From ten to fourteen, I lived happily. I was solely with my mom and I was going to school, planning my future. At the start of the year, I walked into the right place at the wrong time. I witnessed one of the biggest serial slaughters ever committed, by one of the FBI’s most wanted.”
“The Storefront Slaughterer,” Reid said.
I nodded. “I don’t know how, but he didn’t realize he left a survivor. Somehow my face got leaked to the press so my family and I had to go into witness protection. Long story short, by the end of that year, he’d found us before the FBI found him. He burned our house down and I was the only one who got out.”
“So then you decided to live on the streets?” his voice was soft, not a hint of judgement like I’d imagined in my head before having this conversation.
“Yeah. My options were to go back and live with my father or fend for myself on the streets. I was willing to take my chances and I wanted to help catch the man that took everything from me.”
“That was very brave of you.”
“Thanks.”
“Didn’t the FBI catch him the following year with the help of an-”
“Anonymous tipper? Yeah, they did.”
“That was you?” his eyes got bigger as realization set in.
“Sure was. I’d spend my first year on the streets making connections and setting a trap for the Storefront Slaughterer. Everyday I got up and I did more digging. That’s how I got good at private investigating and spying. Once the final pieces of my plan came together, I tipped off the FBI and they were able to catch him.”
“Once they caught him, didn’t that mean you could get off the streets and go back to normal?”
I smiled at how intrigued he seemed to be. “Not really. Nothing was normal for me anymore. I’d spent a year in witness protection and another on the streets trying to catch this guy. Plus, I still would have had to go back and live with my father, and at that point, I had just gotten comfortable out on the streets. People babied me at first because of my age. I realized that, but I also realized I looked older than I was, so I started lying to people about my age and I earned massive respect for my talents and catching the Slaughterer. I made the decision that things might end up better for me on the streets then going back to how things were. The streets became my new normal.”
“Wow, that’s…” he trailed off.
“Crazy?” I offered.
“No. Well, kind of. But I was going to say incredible. I mean, you were already one of the smartest and most skilled informants on the streets at the age of fourteen.”
I laughed. “Well I hear you weren't doing too bad yourself at age fourteen.”
“That’s true,” he smiled, “but I wasn’t having to learn street survival skills.”
“No, you were doing something much harder.” There was that sweet sound of laughter again. He told me all about his childhood, which honestly seemed non-existent, and I realized how much we actually had in common. His dad left him when he was young, his mother has schizophrenia, he practically raised himself, was constantly bullied, and despite all that he was still able to be successful. It amazed me and I told him that.
“Thank you. That means a lot,” he said, humbly. I could tell he didn’t fully believe the words himself, which made me sad.
“You know I mean that, right?”
“Yes.”
“So why don’t you believe it?”
He looked up at me. “No one’s asked me that before.”
“If you don’t want to answer me that’s fine. I’m just wondering because despite being one of the coolest people I’ve met, and I’ve met a lot of people, you still don’t seem to resonate with my praises.”
He let out a huge sigh. “My dad had told me many times that I was smart and important and deserving of a good life. But he then turned around and told me that I was too hard to care for and he left. Ever since then, it’s hard for me to believe anyone when they compliment me because I never know if they mean it. On top of that, being constantly bullied didn’t help,” he met my eyes, his own glistening. It hurt me to think that someone who overcame so much and is probably one of the smartest people on the planet didn’t think he was all that. I had already respected him, but that feeling continued to grow the more I got to know him.
“Let me tell you something. If you get nothing else out of this dinner, get this. You and I were in very similar situations when we were younger. You were strong enough to overcome all of the obstacles put in your way and came out the other side as a caring genius who saves lives. Someone else in your situation, someone like myself, wasn’t as strong as you and chose the wrong path. Sure, I’m here now, but you stayed the course and made it here yourself. No one had to come and save you, you saved yourself. And I’d say that’s something to be pretty damn proud of.” I was dead serious and I needed him to know that. An unfamiliar feeling surged through me that I wasn’t able to immediately put my finger on.
Admiration. I admired him. He was who I wanted to be before my life got flipped upside down and I was forced to change my ideals.
I barely heard him when he whispered, “Thank you.”
I nodded and our waitress came over to place the bill on the table. Spencer started to reach for it before I quickly put my hand down on it, sliding it my way. “Nuh, uh. I’m taking you to dinner, remember?”
“But you’ve paid for everyone else-”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said with a wink.
“Oh you two make such a nice couple,” the waitress said. She was a woman in her late fifties and appeared to be swooning over what she thought was young love.
I gave a single nervous laugh, slipping my dollar bills in the fold, before replying, “No, ma’am, we’re not a couple.”
“Sure you’re not. Just keep telling yourselves that,” she said, taking the bill and cash from me, strutting away. Spencer and I made confused eye contact and we both started laughing.
“That was bold,” he said.
“You’re telling me. I think we should inform her that we’re the profilers here,” I said, and we both laughed again.
“Hey, I have one more question for you,” he said, attitude quickly shifting back to serious.
“Shoot.”
“Why’d you step in the other day?”
I was confused for a moment before remembering what he was most likely referencing. “Oh you mean with Kristy? It wasn’t a big deal, she seemed like a bitch anyways.”
“Anyway,” he corrected with a smirk.
“Okay. Fine. You got me on that one, Doctor Genius,” I said, playfully rolling my eyes.
“But seriously, why did you? And how could you tell before everyone else that I was uncomfortable?”
“I guess I’ve been able to pick up on a tell that no one else has learned to pay attention to. And I stepped in because I saw you were uncomfortable and figured you had enough of that going on with me around,” I replied. I made a small joke out of it, hoping he wouldn’t press me farther, because I honestly didn’t know why I stepped in. Sure, I was curious as to who she was, why she was making him uneasy, and it was a means of extending an olive branch, but there was something else. I respected him, and I wanted him to respect me (I don’t know why it actually mattered that much to me) but I didn’t think that was it either. Plus, I would have done that for any of the team members.
Probably.
I sighed, not willing to dig further into my psyche, at least not today and definitely not now.
The waitress returned with my change, giving Spencer and I a longing look. I smiled to myself, wondering what happened to this poor woman that she felt the desire to watch us exit the restaurant together. We walked toward the parking lot in silence.
“Thank you again,” Reid said to me. There was an undertone that implied he was thanking me for more than just the food.
I gave him a half smile. “Of course. Thank you for agreeing to go out with me.”
He nodded, but before he turned away, I caught him with one last question.
“Just out of curiosity, how much of that did you already know?”
He looked at me, confusion apparent on his face. “None of it.”
“Really? The team didn’t tell you anything?” It was my turn to be confused.
“Well they tried, but it didn’t feel right. I figured whatever it was, you’d tell me on your own terms. I wouldn’t have wanted them sharing things with you that I wasn’t ready to have you know about me yet. I owed you the same courtesy.” With that, he turned around and continued on to his car. I was bewildered by his gentlemanly manners, especially since they held up in a situation regarding a criminal he loathed. Or at least he used to loathe.
That thought made me smile.
“Goodnight, Spencer,” I called over as he was getting into his vehicle.
“Goodnight, Aundreya.”
I returned home, able to fall asleep feeling better about my life than I had in awhile.