Chapter Text
Thursday morning at work sees you opening a box of file folders freshly received from Winchester and immediately regretting it. “Tina!” You yell, slamming the cardboard cover back in place in disgust. “Central sent us another rat!”
Your coworker Tina (in her fifties, heavily myopic and a literal angel) pops her head around the corner and tuts. “Wish they would check. That’s twice this month.”
The FBI Central Records Office in Winchester, Virginia is a state-of-the-art facility, housing billions upon billions of the FBI’s documents, going back a hundred years to the Agency’s inception. It’s cavernous, climate-controlled, and largely operated by robots – but unfortunately not completely immune to small pests.
When you left the military two years ago and took this role as Information Management Specialist with the FBI, you knew it wasn’t going to be glamorous, exactly – Certainly far removed from your X-Files-inspired teenage fantasies. You had not anticipated dealing with mummified rodents on a semi-regular basis.
Still – you couldn’t complain. After eight years with the Army and two deployments, you’d needed a change. The FBI recruited veterans, and the job was interesting enough, came with a stable government salary, and had you working right in the center of your favorite city.
And there were certain other advantages.
Walking back to your desk in the corner of the room, the landline rings. Reading the caller ID, your face lights up, and you grab the receiver. “Agent Reid, how may I help you today?”
Across the walkway between your desks, you see Tina roll her eyes, and pointedly ignore her.
“Hi!” says Spencer (you almost always address him as Agent Reid, but in your head, you call him Spencer). “How are you? I have a little bit of a strange request, I’m afraid.”
You love to hear him say those words. “I’ve had better mornings. Haven’t even had coffee yet and I’ve already got a rat corpse to dispose of. How about you? What are you looking for?”
You hear him suppress a laugh. “My condolences. I’m alright, we’re headed to Nebraska later today, actually. Could you pull anything you can find from the archives about murders or attempted murders occurring in or near crop circles?”
You raise your eyebrows, though of course he can’t see you. “You’re going alien hunting? I work in the wrong department.”
“Unfortunately, I think the person we’re looking for is very much human.”
Writing down his request on a notepad, you ask “Alright, got a timeframe in mind?”
He pauses to think for a second. “I think we can safely exclude anything pre-1990.”
“Cool, shouldn’t take too long then. I should have most of it heading your way by tomorrow. Do you want copies shipped to Quantico or do you want me to digitize them for Penelope?”
“Send them to Penelope, please. And thanks.”
You smile. “Anytime. Stay safe, Spooky.”
Spencer laughs, and you hang up.
* * *
Collecting information from the FBI’s hundred-year store of files is an art form.
While the agency went digital in the late eighties, and has since been slowly digitizing its vast amounts of pre-computer age data; those records are often rudimentary. As an Information Management Specialist assigned to support active cases, your main task is to identify and pull up physical case files requested by Agents to aid in ongoing investigations.
You open the portal for the Central Recordkeeping System and start trying out different combinations of keywords. More often than not, you have to cast a pretty broad net, since the case files aren’t tagged exhaustively (you note with some disappointment that “crop circles” is not an existing tag).
You spend a few hours poring over the summary records of homicide files in rural areas of Nebraska, until you find a few that look promising and send in a request for them to be unearthed from the vast depths of the Virginia facility. When they arrive tomorrow morning, you’ll take a quick look and discard anything irrelevant to your search parameters before having them scanned for Penelope.
Hopefully, none of them come with stowaways.
* * *
You have never met Spencer Reid, though he’s been your favorite Agent since the day you started.
“Pardon me,” you’d said (who says “Pardon me”? You, anxious as hell on your first day, apparently morphing from 28-year-old combat veteran right into British grandmother.) “Can you repeat that? I think I misheard you.”
“I would like for you,” Spencer had repeated patiently, “to please pull any files you can find involving ritual sacrifice specifically involving Beanie Babies.”
You’d held the receiver away from your ear for a second, looking at it like it could confirm your suspicions that you were being put through some kind of hazing ritual. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he’d said, unfazed. “It’s for a seminar I’m teaching. These would have occurred between 1994 and 1996.”
You’d shrugged, still not entirely convinced. “Alright then. I’ll get back to you, Agent…?”
“Reid. And thanks.”
* * *
You’d quickly learn that, out of all the units you were assigned to, you could always count on the BAU to make the strangest requests. Spencer, specifically, took the cake – if there wasn’t an active case, he was always researching a pet project or preparing a class to teach. You’d work on these requests in between more urgent demands made for ongoing investigations, and before you knew it, you were talking to him almost every day the BAU wasn’t on location.
* * *
It took you time to reacclimate to the DC area, having left it at nineteen to enlist. You’d found yourself a small but airy one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria, with hardwood floors and a distant view over the Potomac River. You reconnected with a couple of friends from the high school you’d attended for a few years. You joined a gym. You went out for happy hours with coworkers.
You missed your grandmother, her grounding presence irrevocably connected with the better years of your childhood: Alexandria had been her town, where she’d lived and worked as a prosecutor her entire career, taking you in on the many occasions your mom could not take care of you.
But she was gone now, and you were determined to make a life for yourself here, finally.
* * *
He’d called one day in November of your first year to request some case files, but you could tell as he was listing off search parameters that he was on a wild goose chase – not truly believing the search would yield anything useful, but trying anyway because they’d exhausted all other options.
“Agent Reid,” you tried carefully, “It’s not my place, but… Maybe you should contact the military police. Their records are kept separate from local law enforcement and the FBI’s. It’s just, the specific torture markers you’re looking for… I would bet money your guy served in Afghanistan.”
A moment of silence stretched on the other end of the line, and you’d feared you’d overstepped. You were not a profiler, or an Agent, after all.
Then you’d heard him curse under his breath. “Fuck.” Then, “Okay. I have to go. Thank you, I’ll talk to you later, alright?” He’d hung up abruptly.
Three days after this, a standard FBI inter-office envelope had shown up, addressed to you. You’d opened it, expecting a rejected copy of your expense report, but instead it was a postcard of exotic Quantico, VA, with unfamiliar handwriting, reading: Thank you – I can’t share details, but you made all the difference. Spencer Reid.
You’d tucked the postcard into the corner of your cubicle and smiled whenever it caught your eye.
* * *
You’d started dating someone, and then you’d split up. You’d repainted your apartment.
After a few solid months of civilian life, something crept up on you and you joined the Virginia Army National Guard, committing to spend a weekend every month training in Fredericksburg. It was hard, but it settled something in you that had been set adrift when you left the Army, however necessary that had been. Pulling on your boots every month felt like staying connected to something that had been your home and your family for the majority of your adult life.
* * *
One Friday night about a year ago, you had been putting on your coat to head out when your desk phone rang. You were just about getting over your stubborn imposter syndrome: you’d spent your first year coming in early, staying late, volunteering for assignments – desperate to prove you merited your place at the Bureau despite not having the upscale education some of your coworkers had. So you unzipped your coat again and reached around the desk to pick up the phone.
“Office of Record Management and Retrieval, how may I help you?”
“Hey. It’s me, it’s, um, Agent Reid.”
“Oh, hey.” You usually greeted him by that name, but being in front of the desk, you hadn’t seen the caller ID. Something about his voice took you aback. “Is everything okay?” Then, remembering you were at work: “Do you need me to run a search?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Sorry, no, I don’t need any files.” He paused. “I don’t know why I called, I just…”
Oh. You clenched the receiver between your ear and shoulder for a moment, shrugged off your coat, and sat down. “Are you okay?”
You heard him sigh. “I’m fine, it’s… things haven’t been good here.” Another pause, then fast: “My Unit Chief’s ex-wife was killed by someone we were supposed to be tracking down.”
You’d lifted your hand to your mouth. “Oh, Spencer. I’m so sorry.”
“I just don’t know what’s going to happen.” He’d cleared his throat, seeming to want to find control of his voice again. “Sometimes I don’t know if I even want to do this job anymore.”
“Spencer.” You’d folded your legs under you, plans forgotten. “Tell me what happened, please.”
You’d stayed there late into the night, long after the fluorescent ceiling lighting had been switched off and the building cleared of its occupants; Quantico feeling close yet far away at the same time.
* * *
Instant message from REID, S., SSA [ Accept | Ignore ]
RS: Hey! I had to give a statement at HQ yesterday and I stopped by Records to say hi, but your coworker said you were out.
“God damn it!” You’d exclaimed, prompting Tina to look at you over her glasses and comment mildly: “Language, please.”
Hey! You typed back. I was in a training. Sad I missed you! This is a bit of an understatement. You had been dying to meet Spencer, probably not entirely appropriate where a coworker is concerned.
A couple of days after he’d poured his heart out a few months back, you’d tentatively suggested having coffee sometime that week, which he’d accepted. Then two days later, he’d called to say they’d been asked to fly to Wyoming, and asked for a rain check.
He’d never rescheduled, and you didn’t push it.
“Tina!” You could not believe she did not tell you about this. “What did he look like.”
Tina flipped a page in the report she was reading, intensely bored of your infatuation. “I don’t know. Lanky. Looked like he couldn’t shoot his way out of a paper bag.”
RS: At least I finally got to see your office. You know, where the magic happens.
You groaned, and replied: The magic of me copying 50 years’ worth of dusty complaint letters to J. Edgar Hoover while being yelled at by guys in Sex Crimes. It’s truly Disneyland over here.
The reason you never pushed for a meetup, beyond your tentative attempt at coffee, was that you were smart enough to know you were being kept at arm’s length. You and Spencer talked, a lot. But he seemed content not to take your friendship (could you call it that?) beyond that, and you respected that, not in the least because he was your coworker.
Still, it stung having missed this one opportunity to come face-to-face with him.
RS: :oD
Spencer Reid did not know how to use emojis in this decade.
RS: Maybe next time.
* * *
Crop circle cases triaged and scans sent off to Penelope, you close the last box for their return to Winchester. You’re staying late to finish this, but you don’t mind – It’s Friday, you’re meeting your friend to go see a movie downtown and get dumplings.
Your cell phone vibrates in your jacket pocket, and thinking Desiree might have changed her mind about the restaurant, you pull it out. It is not Desi – you see the number, and your blood runs cold for a second. There is only one reason this number could be calling you right now, and you straighten your back without thinking about it, bracing yourself.