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Chapter Text

Spencer Reid remembered three things about that day.

Lie.

He remembered every second of that day. Still, three moments from that night were permanently ingrained into every thought he had for the next decades of his life.

The first moment began at 4:23 A.M. Enter one Dr. Spencer Walter Reid, twenty years old, the proud owner of two PhDs and in the current pursuit of a third one. His situation was the following: laying down on a bed, sleeping. Next to him, of course, was a woman who shall remain unnamed for now, her memory became too unbearable for her name to be acknowledged. It was important to mention that those two individuals in that one-bedroom apartment were soon to be joined by a third, infant-sized individual. A fluke, a systematic error, a miscalculation in the fabric of reality led this very young doctor to face the very nature of impending fatherhood.

Fatherhood. Almost sounded unreal, like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Sexual relationships were notoriously famous for causing children. Fact.

Condoms are not an infallible method. Fact. 

He had slept with a fellow T.A. in the Physics Department and birth control failed. Fact. 

All these facts were true, not even Descartes’ Method of Systematic Doubt allowed him to question the fact that he had sex with a woman, of the female sex, which caused a pregnancy. A pregnancy that would soon result in a child. A child he would be a father to.

              To anyone who would ask, he would deny that he fainted the moment he heard the mother of his child tell him about her current predicament, as she handed him a pregnancy test. Germophobic habits were nonexistent as he held on to the $8.49 pregnancy stick that proved that she was, indeed, pregnant. After regaining consciousness and being fully aware of the existence of false positives, he asked her to go for a blood test. Statistical improbabilities were not on his side this time, as the human chorionic gonadotrophin levels indicated she was at least 6 weeks pregnant, which coincided with the last time it happened.

Going back to the first moment, the most important thing to know about is that Spencer was awoken at 4:32 A.M. with a phrase he was not expecting for yet another three weeks and 2 days.

“It’s time.”

The following hour was a blur between a drive to the hospital, nurses asking questions, and going over thousands of ways in which everything could go wrong. Of course, this resulted in five-hour labor. Rather short for a first-time mother, according to the nurses, but eternal to the woman facing the worst pain she felt in her 26 years of life. A metamorphosis occurred in his mind and soul the moment his eyes laid upon a very pink (and quite angry at the sudden exit from her mother’s womb) little girl. The world stopped for a moment the second he finally grasped that she was his daughter.

The second moment, quite frankly, still tormented him decades later. After the world froze, he came back to reality. Then he noticed the doctors and nurses surrounding her daughter, and there was a notorious absence in the delivery room. The silence was deafening, his heart sunk to his stomach.

She had not cried. Not a whimper, not a sigh.

 The not-yet-named Baby Girl Reid had experienced cyanosis two minutes and 38.6 seconds after birth. An APGAR score of 4, and a very small body turned blue led to an inevitable thought in the Spencer’s mind.

She could die without ever being held.

Nothing prepared him for this. Not a single parenting book, medical textbook, or parenting class could prepare him for the fact that his daughter, his five-pound one-ounce daughter, his newborn daughter, could die. She could die before he held her. Before he told her he would give up everything and anything for her. Before he could be her dad.

The third moment was the final test of his psyche. No matter how many times he tried to reason with it, the anger never left him. He would wonder years in the future if there was something, anything he could have said or done to make the third member of his would-be family stay.

The scene went like this: His daughter, intubated, not yet named, not yet held, was laying down in a small crib in the NICU. Both father and mother were anxiously waiting for another doctor to give them the news. The tubes and the monitors connected to the newborn baby made him feel like he should have been the one dying. It was noteworthy to say that the mother, currently sitting in a wheelchair, hadn’t spoken a word since her daughter turned blue.

As the doctor entered, followed by a nurse in pink scrubs. Cold sweat begun to creep up his neck, his throat was dry, and his nails were pressing crescents into the palms of his hands. The doctor began to speak but he could only process bits and pieces of the words he said.

“………………………………..congenital heart defect……”

“………………….pulmonary atresia………………”

“…….... heart valve did not form….……”

“…..lucky we caught…………….”

“will need surgery.”

Will need surgery.

Will need surgery.

The next moment became a blur of signing consent forms, listening to risks that came with surgery, and mindlessly thinking about the statistics and numbers that could dictate whether or not his baby would live. Caught up in his grief, the only thing he could think of were the last words the nurse said after the doctor left. A simple suggestion to name her before she goes into surgery. To not let her go gentle into that good night without a name.

“We should name her,” he whispered to the woman next to him. “She needs a name.”

She only hummed in response. Eyes looking glassy as she stared at nothing.

“I was thinking of Eleanor, but she doesn’t look like one, does she? Katherine doesn’t fit either. And Jane, Elizabeth, and Amelia were on the list too, but I can’t help but wonder if she would like those names at all. She seems too stubborn for any of those names.” The rambling continued for a few minutes, explaining why each and every one of the names in the baby book wouldn’t match with the tiny creature that slept in the bassinet.

“I can’t” she responds with a raspy tome.

He crouched down to look at her, grabbed her limp hand, and squeezed.

“It’s okay. I just… I think she needs a name...”

“You can choose it,” she muttered. “I need to sleep.”

Without another word, she left the NICU room, leaving Doctor Spencer Reid to the Herculean task of writing down the only name that seems appropriate in a moment.

She was going in blindly. Her brain and nervous system were not developed to understand what was going on around her. He managed to decide on a name seconds before the doctors took her towards an operating room where only fate would determine whether she would have a chance at life or not.

Her father remained in the waiting room holding the blanket and soft stuffed rabbit he couldn’t resist buying three months ago, waiting, begging, that the news of his daughter’s death never reached his ears. Unknowingly to father and daughter, in another room, a woman signed discharge papers against medical advice. And, with the help of a Social Worker, she signed a form for the Voluntary Relinquishment of Parental Rights in the state of Massachusetts. Cruel, cold, however it may be, it defined the moment Spencer Reid unknowingly became the sole parent his daughter would ever know.

Ignorant of this fact, Spencer Reid remained in waiting for hours. None of his one hundred and eighty-seven IQ points could help him right now. Twenty thousand words per minute were idle. His doctorates and bachelor’s degrees seemed so insignificant. Since the moment he knew, his whole life had revolved around the fact a tiny human would depend on him.

The first decision he took was asking the mother of his future child to move in with him. It was the first time he lived with a (girlfriend? partner? co-parent?) woman. They hadn’t even acknowledged what they mean to each other. Every extra shift he could take at the research lab or at the library was spent towards buying baby clothes, diapers, a crib, a baby carrier, a car seat, and the endless paraphernalia babies needed. He lived over a very strict budget, making sure to optimize the money he was able to save for when she was here. Not to mention he also needed to start another account for when she went to college. Who knew babies were so expensive?

Still, despite the looks the odd couple received at the OBGYN (most likely because he was technically still a teenager and she was six and a half years older), he felt the most hope he ever had in his life. Every sonogram, onesie, and tiny sock turned into a daydream of what his future would look like. Reading Of Great Expectations to a sleeping infant, teaching her how to ride a bike, driving boys away. For the first time in his life, he knew the topic of family would no longer result in a lump in his throat. Absent fathers and screaming mothers who refused to get medicated would no longer define who his family was. The age gap was a bit unconventional, but the next time someone asked he would answer that his family consisted of a daughter, a mother, and himself, a father.  

Six hours later, the doctor came out of the hospital doors with a grin on his face. As he walked towards the waiting room, Spencer awaited with anxiety to hear the news.

“She’s stable. We managed to fix the defect,” The doctor explained with a calm demeanor, “they are taking her to the NICU as we speak. You’ll be able to see her soon.”

Spencer let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. All the stress, all the frustration his body held seemed to exit his body in the instant he knew she was okay. 

An hour later, he found himself next to her crib, as she held his finger for the first time. Her grip was strong despite her having the tiniest hand he had ever seen in his life.

This is why people believe in God, he thinks.

He is hypnotized by the rise and fall of her chest; every breath was a victory he couldn’t help but feel immensely proud of.

Hours passed and his adoration did not cease, but the hypnosis had receded, and he couldn’t help but wonder about the notorious absence on the chair next to him. The nurse who previously suggested they name her comes back to check on her vitals, while a stern-looking woman stands by the door.

“Hello. Hi. Uhm… could you, uhm, tell me the room her mom is in?”

“She was discharged three hours ago. She left against medical advice,” a nurse uttered in a gentle tone. “A social worker is here to discuss her situation.”

“Oh.”

As she said that, the woman walked slowly into the room and introduced herself as Ms. Matthews. She quickly began talking to him about types of adoption and signing away parental rights.

“I’m keeping her,” he said with a furrowed brow. The social worker frowned and looked at him with skepticism. After witnessing his determination, she proceeded to explain the procedure for establishing paternity

With that, two pieces of paper were handed to him, a consent form to grant full custody of his daughter to him.  Only missed his daughter's name and his signature in order to officially declare him a single parent.

He felt his body going numb as the nurse handed him a pen.

Cecilia S. Reid.

Fitting, he thought, he was going in blindly too.

Chapter Text

It seemed terribly irresponsible of the doctors to allow him to leave with a six-week-old child. This must have been some sort of violation against the principles of medicine. Leaving a baby with a skinny, twenty-year-old dude who wouldn’t stop rambling about proper calcium and phosphorus levels in premature infants had to qualify as some sort of child endangerment. He didn’t even look twenty.  She was a small, fragile thing he swore to protect with his whole life. She was so precious that the first time he held her he cried.  5 pounds and 8 ounces were enough to make his knees tremble at the thought of anything harming her.

She couldn’t do much except cry, sigh, and open her eyes, but every little thing she did felt like magic. There was something deep within his soul that made his chest hurt because he never felt so much for anyone. He loved his mother, enough to spend his childhood years looking after her instead of the other way around. But this wasn’t like this. No. It was something completely different. It wasn’t quantifiable. It delved into the edge of irrationality. He read, even memorized entire dictionaries and encyclopedias by the time he was twelve, but none of the words in the English language could describe how grateful he was for being granted the privilege to love her.

The thought of any harm coming to her made his mouth dry, pulse beating in his ears, blocking all sound. There was an entire world outside the safety of the hospital she had never seen. A world where she could get injured or bullied or, God forbid, end up taking care of her schizophrenic father.

She coughed? Well, his mind instantly associated it with the 3,400 sudden unexpected infant deaths in the United States per year, with many of them having undetermined causes. She wouldn’t latch to the bottle while feeding? Trouble with feeding and high-pitched cries were symptoms of meningitis in infants.

Despite his reluctance, the hospital needed the NICU beds and she had passed all her exams with flying colors. After six weeks in the hospital, the dice were thrown, and the doctors decided she was ready to abandon the four walls of the hospital. Forty-five days, six hours, and 23 minutes after leaving the safety of the womb, the young girl would leap into a world full of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, absent parents, and politicians. So now on Christmas eve, after endless paperwork and indications from doctors, Spencer carried Cecilia out of the hospital doors and stepped together into the living room of their shoebox-sized apartment.

“Hey Cece,” he whispered softly at the sleeping infant. “We’re home.”

“It’s just you and me for now, okay?” he stated with a slight frown, “you know, more than 20 million children in the United States live in single-parent households. That’s more than one-fourth of all children in the country. We won’t be the odd ones out.”

“Well, maybe just a little since only five percent of children live with a single father. But it doesn’t matter, right? I-I think we are going to be just fine.” He said, most likely to reassure himself, knowing full well she wouldn’t understand a word he said.

She slowly opened her blue eyes, moving her head in the direction of the strange man who seemed to be the source of that gentle, soothing voice.

“Oh, look at your eyes. I think you will grow out of them, many infants with blue eyes have irises that lack melanin. It’s nothing wrong with you, I swear,” he clarified. “It’s just your body growing and changing, in a couple of months you will develop your permanent eye color.”

Carefully, he started walking in the direction of her second-hand crib and laid her down in the soft blanket.

“This is going to be your bed for a while, I’ll be sleeping right here next to you, so let me know if you need anything,” he said as he pointed to his bed, knowing full well sleep deprivation had gotten to him, “I hope you don’t mind sharing rooms, but I’ve read its better for babies to sleep next to their parents, well parent, and also we don’t have any other choice since this is a one-bedroom apartment.”

She didn’t look very impressed and opted to yawn and blink at him in response. As he started leaving the room to take a shower, a high-pitched wail tore through the silence of the apartment.  

He carefully lifted her from her crib and immediately checked her diaper only to find it clean. His eyes scanned the room, and he grabbed the blanket nearest to him. He attempted to swaddle her with the blanket, and horribly failed in the process. Then he prepared a bottle and tried to feed her, only for her to spit it and cover his shirt in baby formula and baby saliva. A weary sigh left his lips as he could feel his frustration bubbling up.

“Why are you crying?” he asked her with worry. He wasn’t sure if he was going crazy, but her cries seemed to be getting louder by the second. He tried not to panic, but it was inevitable, he had no idea what to do except softly rock her and pray for a miracle.

In the 3716 days since his father left, he never felt his absence as much as he did now. It's crazy how much he was wishing for someone to tell him what to do. His mom hadn’t been lucid since a month ago. He had no one to tell him everything would be alright or to offer to help him in moments like this. He was falling apart and what made it worse was that the tiny baby crying her lungs out had no one except him. He had to care for her and love her enough to make up for the absence of a the rest of their family.

After an hour of crying and neighbors knocking on his walls, he was ready to give up and start sobbing too. He moved over to his bed as she continued to cry into his shirt and took the first book he found next to him and started reading out loud:

“Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy. She was already in the habit of writing down important matters, and afterward, when she was mute, she also recorded trivialities, never suspecting that fifty years later I would use her notebooks to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own…….”

Slowly but surely, her cries turned into whimpers. He set aside the book and stared at her with wonder, not caring how crazy he would look from an outsider’s perspective.

“You like magical realism, don’t you? It was the predominant genre during the Latin American Boom during the 20^th century,” he whispered, “the author of this book was Salvador Allende’s niece, he was a communist leader in Chile a couple of decades ago until he was murdered during a military coup led by Pinochet, which I probably shouldn’t be telling you about because babies don’t need to know about dictatorships and murders.”

His daughter looked up at him through wet eyelashes and rosy cheeks. And, for the first time, he thought she knew who he was. He took in the milky scent of her head one last time and slowly places her in her crib as she drifted back to sleep. He wondered if she’ll dream of him holding her, reading to her, bathing her.

And most of all, he wondered what it must have been like when he was this small. Did his dad lose his mind over him crying for no apparent reason? Did William feel his chest hurt at the thought of anything happening to him? Did he daydream about his future too?

He will never know; he doesn’t actually want to know. Because if his father ever loved him the way he loves her, the fact that he left seemed more inhumane and crueler than it did a decade ago. He has no idea what he is doing. But he knows he loves her and, somehow, he knows they will be okay.

Chapter Text

Spencer did not want to be here. Truly, he had never wanted to be somewhere else more than during that time. But the policies were clear, and if he missed one more class, he could be dropped from his Ph.D. program. Being dropped not only would signify his first and greatest academic failure, but it would also mean he would lose his student worker classification. His source of income, housing, and frankly, his pride also, was relying on him keeping up with his course load and his dissertation. Not to mention, all of this would mean not being able to support his daughter.

But four-month-old babies did not care about Spectroscopy, nor financial aid agreements, nor advisor meetings. They cared about bottles and naps and clean diapers. She cared about having her daddy hold her when she cried and being tucked in at night. The highlights of his week so far were an out-of-town babysitter, a closed daycare due to a flu outbreak, and an absence away from being dropped from his most important course. So, he had to swallow his pride and recognize that the only alternative was taking a baby to his lecture.

She was a quiet baby, a fact for which he was infinitely grateful as he stepped into the lecture room with a sleeping Cece inside a baby carrier. He had been trying out different nicknames for her in the past weeks, which was proving to be easier for her to recognize when he talked to her. Her personality had started to show in the past month or so, just like her eyes had turned into the same hazel shade he saw in the mirror. She was a very healthy baby despite the rough start she had. The only reminder of her awful first hours of life was a fading pink line that ran across her chest.

Tracking her development was the most exciting thing for him. He obsessively made charts and graphics that outlined when she met each of her milestones and the frequency at which she performed them. Unfortunately, no one was really impressed by that besides her pediatrician, who was more likely just relieved that a single college-aged parent was not neglecting his newborn.

But now he had to focus on the lecture and try to figure out how to go unnoticed. He stepped into the room and grabbed a flyer from the table. He hummed and found himself interested in the guest speaker from law enforcement that would be lecturing that afternoon. He moved towards his seat in the back of the room and quietly made sure his daughter was calm and asleep before the lecture started.

As the professor drowned on about isotopic nuclei and their resonant absorption of gamma rays, he could feel the occasional stares from his classmates. Most of them were between five and seven years older than him. Not quite the same type of gap he had with his classmates when he was fifteen, but still enough for them to perceive him as the kid. Still, he knew they were judging him. He had never been an expert in body language, but he was good at inferring why people looked at him the way they did.

In the previous year and a half, he had formed an acquaintanceship with some of the other students he met either in the research lab or as fellow TAs. They even invited him to parties and group outings, which was a big first in his life. But then he had a baby, and the few budding friendships that had formed were long gone.

A few choose to ignore him, not even bothering to look at him. But others looked at him with pity or disbelief. Unplanned babies were something they preferred to witness from afar. No one really congratulated him about being a father except that kind nurse at the hospital and a medical student on rounds who seemed to really enjoy his rants about gene expression in newborns.

The stares really did make him uncomfortable. It was a doctorate program and most of them were in their late twenties, but a rumor was a rumor and there wasn’t have much else to gossip about. He heard their whispers behind his back, the accusing stares in the library and down the hallways. The version of the story was constantly changing, ranging from it being part of a social experiment to him not being her real father, to accusing him of stealing a baby from the hospital.  He tried not to let it bother him, he used to be shoved into lockers and bullied relentlessly every day of his life during high school; not to mention the constant pranks they pulled on him at Caltech.

But it was different when it concerned his little girl. It’s not fair how they thought of her existence as some sort of joke or hot gossip. It pained him knowing that her first set of tormenters were sort of his fault. He wished someone was there to witness what an amazing person she was becoming and, especially—

“Mister Reid!” called out his professor, Doctor Holden, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Can you describe which circumstances lead to a scattering process where the cross-section for the coherent elastic scattering becomes only a fraction of the total cross-section?”

“I uh, uhm it would be when–” He tried to recall the text he had started to read yesterday. The one he had to put aside when Cece was having a meltdown over her favorite stuffed toy being out of her reach. Of course, it took him well over an hour to calm her down, and by that point, it was already her feeding time, which eventually led to bath time and bedtime and cleaning up his apartment.

Long story short, he didn’t know the answer right away. A first in his life. So, the only thing to save his neck would be to mentally derive the equations that the professor had written on the board and try to guess what would be an answer that made sense.

“Mr. Reid?" Crap.

“It uhm, it happens when the initial substate is equal to the final substate." He could hear his heartbeat pounding against his chest.

“Why?” Professor Holden replied with a raised brow.

“They contribute to a, uhm, a more coherent scattering amplitude, sir.” At that, Holden looked at him almost as if studying his behavior and gave a slight nod.

"Mister Reid, could I have a word with you at end of class?” Spencer swallowed twice, took a deep breath, and nodded weakly. He could already feel the bile rising up his throat.

Mister Reid. He had two PhDs, one more than Holden, yet he still called him Mister Reid, as if he wasn’t worthy of his titles. If he were any bolder, he would have corrected him since the first day of class, but he had too much on his plate to even consider standing up against someone.

The rest of the class droned on in the background. The only thing grounding him to reality was his finger being grabbed by his baby’s chubby hand. She had the tendency of holding on to his hand whenever she could, almost as if to ask him don’t go. Right now, he was grateful for her presence, which was the only thing keeping him from a nervous breakdown. The dreaded moment came when the professor dismissed the class. He gathered his things and made his way to the front, ignoring the sympathetic glances the other students gave him. Professor Holden looked at him with an air of condescension.

"I take it this is why you gave been slacking in my class for the past month,” He said expectantly. Reid knew exactly what the professor was referring to. He was the head of the department and of his doctorate program, and therefore all the other professors were obliged to report to him if they noticed any issues with students.

“Professor, I –” Reid tried to reply.

“I am not interested in your sob story, Mister Reid.”

Reid licked his lips and looked down at his shoes trying to avoid Holden’s accusing gaze.

"You,” he paused with an accusing stare, “have been absent twice in the past month. The syllabus clearly states that you will be dropped by the third absence and I’m afraid we are barely four weeks into the semester.”

“My daughter was sick last—”

“You also failed to turn in your latest draft of your methodology chapter for your dissertation and have failed to schedule a meeting with your thesis advisor, which was due two days ago.”

“I had to take her to the hospital last week because of her fever. I was absent twice last week because she had to stay overnight until her infection went down.” He could already feel the tears burning up behind his eyes. “Please, I am doing this on my own.”

“Mr. Reid, I do not care much for your childcare situation. I heard from other professors you have shown up with an infant to at least three of your classes in the past month, but I didn’t think you would be bold enough to pull that stunt here.” He had no idea what to reply to that. In front of him was the man who had the power to kick him out of the program.

“I am truly sorry, Professor. I promise it won’t happen again.” The professor didn’t seem to hear him, too busy gathering his things to leave for the day. Reid stood there not sure of what to do next, so he waited for the professor to dismiss him. After he had gathered his things, Holden gave him a discerning glance and opened his mouth.

“A word of advice, Doctor Reid,” he paused. “Don’t trade your future for playing house.”

With that, Professor Holden exited the room, leaving him alone in the lecture hall with Cecilia. He stumbled on the way to the nearest chair, leaving her carrier next to him, and tried to breathe. A single glance at his hands informed him that he was shaking. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.  And all at once, the insecurities he pushed away for all these months flooded his senses. Her first weeks with him were during winter break, where tutoring and writing essays were his only activities besides caring for her, almost as if living in an idyllic bubble. But now he had to be a student again. He had to pretend he was the same student he was four months ago when everything was so different from now. He had to be the same student again and try to ignore all these complicated feelings that the pressure of a highly competitive program brought. He felt guilty for the thoughts that would come next, but at this point it became inevitable.

He missed his old life. He missed reading all the extra materials for his classes, writing down thousands of ideas and references for his thesis at every new concept absorbed. He missed being able to go out on research trips and conferences. He hadn’t bought a book in months because a book was equal to half the price of the brand of formula he gave her. He hadn't attended any guest lectures to learn for the sake of learning because it didn’t justify the cost of a babysitter. He lost his chance at having friends. He lost his professor’s respect. He was twenty. He was twenty and he was a father. Somehow those were two statements that he never believed would occur simultaneously. One more thing to isolate him from his peers. He had always been different from them; IQ points and age were something he possibly couldn’t control. But then he went ahead and got a girl pregnant. And then he went ahead and let her go away without putting up a fight. And then he went ahead and became the worst student in his class.

He had lost himself. He was losing himself in the process of taking care of someone else, just like when he was eleven and spent his nights making sure his mother ate and pretending the bruises were because he was clumsy. At some point during the past few months, the role of fatherhood had landed in his hands and pushed away all the things that made Spencer Reid be Spencer Reid.

God, he wanted to be selfish again.

He loved her so much. But he wished so badly their fates intertwined together at another point in his life. He wasn’t ready to be a dad, he had so many things he wanted to learn, so much he wanted to grow as a person. His professor was not that off. He was playing house. He had been trying to pretend he wasn't an immature person, pretend he was capable of raising a child, just to avoid being like his own father. He had been so selfish in wanting to keep her that he didn't pause and think of how this would affect her. How could he set a good example for her when he was this wreck of a person? Was he ruining her life by raising her? Would she grow up to resent him and hate him? He wasn’t sure at what point the tears came, but once he realized he was crying, he started to sob and feel a familiar pressure in his chest.

His tears didn’t last long without disrupting the sleeping girl in front of him. She had started to whimper, likely agitated and scared at hearing her dad cry. He picked her up from her carrier and wiped her tears away with the sleeve of his sweater. He kissed her forehead and took a deep breath. He did not have the right to do this. He had to be stronger than this. For her, he had to be. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am sorry. He repeated in his mind as he rocked her back to sleep. When he felt her soft breath on the crook of his neck he was finally able to calm down.

Slowly, he gathered his things while holding her in his arms and left the room. The only proof of his breakdown was a crushed flyer with the words HOW TO BECOME AN INTELLIGENCE ANALYST AT THE NSA printed on it.

Chapter Text

“So, can anyone tell me how we knew he was our unsub?”

Silence scattered across the lecture hall. For such a large class in an elite school, it was quite the sight to witness no student attempt to answer. It made sense for the agent presenting the case. This case stumped even the best criminal psychology experts. MIT held an assortment of the brightest minds, but so did the FBI. Surely, no college student would be able to catch–

“The profile was wrong, you noticed that the second you saw the final victim.” A voice spoke from the back of the hall. “You were wrong. Yes, there was a copy of a compilation of the works of Sophocles, the Greek playwright, at the murder scene. The agents assumed wrong, they thought the murder was in reference to some sort of Oedipal complex by the unsub.”

Without prompting, a young man continued. “Sure, Oedipus Rex was a part of the compilation, but well, there were no signs of sexual abuse in any of the victims. And, an impotent unsub would not have killed these women in such a quick manner.”

“How would this affect the profile?” Jason Gideon tried to hide his surprise but failed. He had not expected any of the members of the audience to give him the answer. It was also impossible the young man had read about it before, since the case details had not been published by the Bureau yet.

“The profession was right, but you were looking for a woman, not a man. Electra, the play, there are several versions, but Sophocles has one of the most acclaimed. It's the first play in this book. It was a recreation, scene by scene. In the play, Queen Clytemnestra, is killed by her daughter in an attempt to avenge her mother’s involvement with her fathers death. The Electra complex comes from here, it was proposed by Carl Jung. A girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. ”

Gideon took off his glasses and gave Spencer a look that meant for him to continue.

“It would fit perfectly. All of the victims had one thing in common, they were in some sort of litigation process to increase their child support allowance, all of them were using this as a way to prevent their children from interacting with the father. The unsub, she was likely in a situation like this in her childhood, and killed proxies of her mother to rectify the way her father had been wronged.”

“That’s right. Once we came across the last victim, we realized what we had in our hands.” Gideon, to his credit, kept explaining how this detail had led them to the unsub. He finished the rest of the lecture, occasionally glancing towards the mysterious young man in the audience. 

Across the room, one young Spencer Reid absorbed every word coming out of the agent’s mouth. He couldn't believe he was finally meeting the Jason Gideon. He had to skip the last part of the lecture he was a TA for, but it was definitely worth it. No, this beat teaching the Bohr-Oppenheimer approximation to undergrads by a thousand. He just had to talk to Agent Gideon. He knew he had at least not embarrassed himself in front of the whole psych department, he only hoped things would go well once he talked to the man face to face. 

As the lecture ended he approached the front, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind. He waited until the five or so people left the front and tried to dry the sweat off his palms on his slacks. Finally, he had the undivided attention of the man.

“Agent Gideon, its a pleasure to meet you. I followed your work on the Andrew Crawford case a few years back and–.” Spencer caught himself before he went on another tangent, he couldn’t mess this up.

“Ah, yes. That was an interesting case, we couldn't have solved it without the help from Dr. Darren–”

“I know, I was doing my undergrad in Caltech at the time and took her class.” He replied. 

“Undergrad?” Gideon frowned slightly. Right, Spencer often forgot, despite the weight he carried in his shoulders and the years since a proper night of sleep, he still looked too young for his age. And at his age, he was still too young for the absurd amount of degrees he had amassed. 

“Yes. I double majored at Caltech. I am on my third PhD at the moment. Chemistry, I was doing Civil Engineering before this but well, I got into toxicology and um– yeah.” Was that too much? Spencer cringed internally. He tried not to meet the eye of the other. 

“I am sorry. I forget myself, what is your name?” The older man asked, with a look of intrigue. “Maybe we could continue this chat–”

 Spencer took one look at the clock and his heart dropped. He was late. Very, very late.

“Oh, yes– right… Spencer Reid. Sorry, I, um , I just have to-” He stuttered. “ I have to go. Thank you Agent Gideon.” 

With that he left without glancing back. 

Well, that was a bust, Spencer thought bitterly. He tried not to be too harsh on himself, but well, life was getting to him and another moment like the one earlier was just another blow. 

The years were creeping up on him. In just a few months, he was meant to complete his thesis and graduate. Unlike the last three times he had graduated, there was no more school for him now. He couldn’t apply for another program.

He was burnt out.

Spencer Reid, child prodigy, was burnt out. He hated academia. He hated being stuck in rooms full of old men dealing with silent politics and falsified experiment results. He couldn’t put up with it anymore. So, he had decided to look for something else. There had to be something else.

The NSA, the CIA, the DEA, consulting, start-ups, he even considered a cushy finance job at one point. He had gone through all of the options. None of them really appealed to him except for one. 

And, of course, it had been a bust. For a glorious second, he imagined a life of an FBI agent, solving crimes and finally using all his esoteric knowledge for something other than a cool party trick despite the fact he had no parties to attend to. He pictured himself in his childhood dream job. His childhood dream job, which he had let slip right out of his hands. 

At least he hadn’t been late. Losing another baby sitter would have been quite the killer blow.

For now, it was back to the old routine. He tried to find any excuse possible to keep them out of their apartment, their old dingy apartment and the broken heater he probably couldn't afford to pay even if it worked. The South Boston Public Library and Wednesday Afternoon Storytime was the family’s source of comfort for the moment.

The group was aimed towards three to five year-olds, but the old head librarian knew his story  and allowed her to join as long as he was present and supervising her. It was a good arrangement that allowed him to work on the final details of his dissertation while also ensuring she was learning how to socialize with her peers. Not to mention it was free which was relieving  considering how tight money had been for the small family in the past year or so.

He absentmindedly glanced at the group every now and then, smiling back at his daughter every time he caught her eyes. He typed away in his old laptop and included the latest results from the lab into the findings of the paper. Getting his busy work out of the way was for the best. As he began to work, he fell into a steady rhythm, grading papers and correcting essays.

“Do you mind if I take a seat?” Spencer jumped at the sound of a man’s voice, interrupted from his stupor.

“Agent Gideon, yes– of course, here.” He hurriedly moved his stuff from the chair next to him and gracelessly moved the unorganized papers to the empty space next to him. 

Gideon sat down and stared serenely at the group of kids playing ahead of them. Spencer swallowed saliva, there was no script or book as to how to deal with an FBI agent finding you in the middle of a public library. Should he say something? 

“Which one’s yours?” Gideon asked with a gentle tone. Alright then , Spencer decided to go along with that.

“Pigtails and purple sweater,” Reid responded, his furrowed brow smoothing over once his eyes found her in the crowd of children. 

Almost as if she sensed them talking about them, Cecilia turned around and waved at them with her chubby hand and a toothy grin on her face. Awkwardly, she blew a kiss in Spencer’s direction, which he dramatically caught and placed close to his heart.

“She looks like a happy kid.” Gideon said.

A ghost of a smile graced his lips as he thought about those words. A warm fuzzy feeling crept up his chest because he knew with all his heart this was true. She was a very happy little girl.  She lived in a good world full of make-believe and fairy tales and princesses. Unaware of evil Dr. Holden. Unaware of the mold that crept up their walls or the growing stack of unpaid bills.

“She is.” He said. “I mean– I try.”

“I know our earlier conversation was interrupted,” Gideon stated. “I wanted to ask you earlier if you wanted to chat.”

“How did you find me?” He replied in confusion.

“I asked Miss Ross and she mentioned you usually run straight to the library after class.” Gideon said. 

“Parents of young children tend to stick to a routine.” Spencer said as he glanced at the table, his hands fiddling with the paper in his hand. “Research shows that routines support healthy social emotional development in early childhood. Children with regular routines at home have self-regulation skills, they are able to identify their feelings and have skills to manage those feelings so that they don’t feel overwhelmed.”

“You have dedicated quite a lot of yourself to your daughter. Many parents love their children, but not that many are willing to sacrifice their own desires for them. In my years in the bureau, I have seen too many innocent souls ruined by careless parenting.” 

It was not a question, it was a fact. Spencer felt naked at this declaration. It was quite the rare occasion to feel so seen by another person. 

“She’s everything to me,” He said, as he dared to look Agent Gideon in the eye. “I don’t know how any parent could not look at a child and not want to protect them from the monsters out in the world.”

“Have you ever thought about catching them?”