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They all knew why Hotch had been away for seven months. Now, they all even knew that Prentiss had been gone and not dead for that time. What none of them knew was why Spencer Reid had taken a three-month sabbatical during which he’d refused to even take phone calls. Their only hint that he was still alive was how, now and then throughout the trip, his voice mail message would change.
Now it was like the elephant in the room. Reid wasn’t saying a word about it and nobody was asking - but all of them had noticed the change. He wasn’t a pushover anymore. JJ had learned that firsthand. He’d given Morgan hell over his prank. But there were other signs. Now and then, he had phone conversations that nobody could place, and much like Hotch had started to leave earlier than midnight for Jack’s sake, Reid had started to leave earlier than eight for his own.
Morgan had declared that the kid finally had a social life outside of the BAU, but nobody ever saw him in the coffee shops or book cafes, and Garcia had gone looking. Once, she’d even broken protocol (along with a few laws) and had traced the GPS on his phone, only to find it at his house. Nowhere fun and interesting at all, much to her consternation.
The curiosity was eating them all from the inside out, though only some of them let it show. Garcia and Morgan were the most vocal, as always, but Rossi had a bad habit of dropping hints that he could be told. JJ didn’t dare bring up personal matters with him, and while Prentiss had tried to talk to him, he brushed it off like it was nothing unusual. But the degree of happiness he showed now and then? That was definitely unusual for the Spencer Reid everyone had known before those three long months.
It only got more unusual when they had a case that called them out to California and, despite the serious nature of the case, most everyone could’ve sworn they saw a spring in Reid’s step as he went to get his go bag, phone already in his hand by the time he reached the elevator.
“Is it just me,” Emily asked, “or is he a little too cheerful for someone heading to a crime scene?”
“Don’t tell me our boy’s finally snapped.” Morgan sighed. “Are we sure he’s not—”
Hotch silenced him with a look and Derek held up his hands in capitulation. Now was not the time to ask that question. And neither was the cross-country plane trip. It was no short ride but Reid had been focused, discussing the case and coming up with a few insightful ideas. At least whatever it was hadn’t clouded his judgement.
After their arrival, each evening that the rest of the team took to have a meal together, Reid was conspicuous by his absence.
“Is he avoiding us?” JJ mused aloud, looking around the table.
Rossi shrugged. “It’s his choice,” he reminded. “He can do whatever it is he’s doing. We don’t have the right to stop him unless it’s illegal.”
And while Reid had broken the law before, he hadn’t in a long time - something all of them were proud of him for. This didn’t have the earmarks of drug abuse. This was something else entirely, but there was absolutely nothing any of them could hang a theory on, or at least not a theory that would stick. It almost looked like he was dating, but that would require his phone to go somewhere besides his house each night, especially as he would’ve complained if he’d been interrupted in the middle of a date to come in for a case. So what the hell, they all wondered, was going on?
He stayed at the station when things got serious, taking a phone call here and there, but it didn’t distract him from the matters at hand. When things finally started coming together, he was there and focused every moment, but when the case was at last tied up, he was openly relieved even when it meant staying at the station even longer to put paperwork together.
The saying, however - two sayings, even - held true. One was that the best laid plans of mice and men often went awry. The other said that if anything could go wrong, it would.
They were all filing away their evidence when a voice, seeming slightly familiar, started to waft through the police station in a heartfelt but somewhat awkward rendition of Crazy Little Thing Called Love. What they saw when the singer came into view, though, was unbelievable. They stared as a man in a leather jacket pointed at Reid and sang, “There goes my baby. He knows how to rock and roll. He drives crazy. He gives me hot and cold fever, he leaves me in a cool, cool sweat.”
Reid, by then, was bright red but laughing as he walked across the room to wrap his arms around the man’s shoulder and kiss his cheek. The embrace he got in return was wholehearted and unashamed, leaving both of them laughing in the face of dumbstruck FBI agents. “I guess this is one way to tell them,” Spencer said, still not over his blush. He looked down the row of his friends, wondering if their jaws would ever stop gaping as he said, “Guys, this is my boyfriend, Greg Montgomery.”
The silence that followed was just waiting for the proverbial pin to drop. All of them looked from the newly-introduced Greg to Hotch, the latter of which was paler than bleached sheets. Now, there was a brand new elephant in the room - and it was yet another elephant that Reid seemed to have no plans to discuss.