Chapter Text
It was Valentine’s Day. A day of love and a day of massacre. Thankfully, the massacre was less literal than sometimes found in the BAU and only included a single info dump from Spencer Reid about the 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The team was sitting together and chatting, most of their paperwork being ignored on the quiet day. JJ, Garcia, and Morgan all had dates set up for the night and a discussion began about the gifts they planned on bringing.
“Chocolates and flowers.” Morgan stated. “Timeless, classic, can’t go wrong.” He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair.
Emily rolled her eyes. “In this case classic is just another word for boring.”
JJ snickered and Morgan shot them both a look. “Oh, and what would you suggest?”
“Well, my date is getting catnip, but I don’t think that applies here.” Emily informed him.
Garcia cooed over the mention of Sergio and JJ took the opportunity to share her opinions. “Traditions aren’t always bad. I’m getting Will flowers and a nice bottle of wine.”
At that, Morgan raised an eyebrow. “You’re getting your boyfriend flowers?” His skepticism was clear.
“Yes. Men like getting flowers too.” Garcia stated.
Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never been given flowers, but I don’t see it.”
Emily turned to Spencer, as the only other male present to give his opinion. “Reid, have you ever been gifted flowers?”
Spencer blinked and looked up from the book he was casually reading, having only been half-listening. “Uh, well, not in the traditional sense.” He answered.
The group waited for him to elaborate on the vague statement. Emily gave a small roll of her hand to prompt him to continue.
Spencer slowly closed his book with a finger to hold his place as he thought about how to answer. “One year on Valentine’s Day, I was gifted a book about the symbolism behind specific flower species. The next year it was a scrapbook of hand pressed and labeled flowers from around Caltech.” A wistful smile danced across Spencer’s face; his mind distracted so that he didn’t notice the gaping looks he was receiving from his friends.
“Damn,” Emily whistled. “Your girlfriend was a romantic.”
That comment sobered Spencer a bit. “It’s been years since I’ve thought about—” He mumbled, cutting himself off with a shake of his head.
“What happened?” JJ prompted gently. At Spencer’s furrowed brow of confusion, she elaborated. “Between you two?”
Even Garcia, without any profiling needed, could tell that whatever relationship that Spencer had had, it hadn’t ended badly if the memories were so happy.
Spencer swallowed, a small smile appearing on his face. “I joined the FBI and moved across the country.”
That brought a sad sort of silence to the group as they collectively lamented for the relationship that might have worked if not for poor timing.
Eventually Spencer wandered off to refill his coffee and Garcia immediately turned to the resulting group. “He’s still got feelings for her.” She stated firmly.
JJ nodded. “I don’t blame him. Those are very romantic gifts and he implied that she pressed the flowers herself for him. That’s not only incredibly thoughtful but sentimental as well.”
Morgan leaned forward in his chair, frowning. “I didn’t even know he had any exes. He hasn’t told me about her.”
“He hasn’t told any of us.” Emily pointed out.
“So, we’re in agreement?” Garcia asked. “We’re going to track this girl down and see if she’s still single so we can get them back together?”
The three profilers blinked owlishly at her. That had not been what any of them had been thinking.
“Well,” JJ said. “I’m not saying we fully track her down, but maybe just to find out who this girl was that stole the heart of our genius.”
“She has to be something; the only other person I’ve ever seen turn his head was Lila.” Morgan said.
The group nodded and a game plan began to form.
Garcia, of course, was on the hunt online. She compiled a list of female students at Caltech during the years Spencer was attending and narrowed the list to anyone within five years of age. It wasn’t a surefire method, but she doubted he would have met anyone off of the campus and he likely wouldn’t have dated someone significantly older than he was. At the very least, it gave them a starting point for their search.
They discussed various methods of narrowing the list further but nothing was concrete and the search idled for a week as they attempted to subtly gain more information from Reid himself without him noticing what they were doing.
JJ had a hunch that she didn’t share with the group right away. She could tell them when she was proven right—if she was proven right. Spencer had said he was given books; she had never known him to give away a book he really liked, especially if it had sentimental value. She highly doubted he had given away the books he was gifted by someone he really liked or may have even loved.
It took a few days to find an excuse to visit Spencer’s apartment while he wasn’t there. She convinced him to have a movie night with her at his apartment. She then purposefully left the BAU early to beat him there and let herself in with the spare key. There wasn’t much time for snooping before he would inevitably show up, but she had about twenty minutes to find what she was searching for.
JJ knew Spencer had an organization to his books. She knew it wasn’t a traditional method like alphabetical and that he definitely had a shelf that was reserved for books that were given to him, she just had to remember which shelf it was.
After a moment, JJ spotted a book she had gifted him for his last birthday. She followed the shelf to the end and began looking closely to each title. Many of them were poetry books and classics gifted to him by his mother, but at the very end of the same shelf, she found two books. One was labeled as an encyclopedia for flowers and the other was unlabeled on the outside.
JJ carefully pulled the encyclopedia off the shelf and flipped open the cover. Inside was a small inscription that read I figured you’d appreciate this more than physical flowers. DB.
There was a tiny drawing of a flower and one of an anatomically accurate heart next to the note and JJ found herself smiling at the inscription. She took a moment to take a photo of the page and then swiftly switched the book out for the scrapbook.
There was another inscription in the front of the scrapbook that made it clear that the year between when they were gifted only brought the two closer together. This time I did get you physical flowers. I’m sure you recognize them from around campus, there’s one for every date we’ve been on in the past year. With all my love, DB.
JJ could feel her throat close a bit. The scrapbook was incredible; the book itself was a nice leatherbound hardbacked book and each page had a different flower, dried and pressed, masterfully attached to the page with a description of the day and location of the date in neat calligraphy. JJ forced herself to take a photo of the second inscription and return the book to Spencer’s shelf before she could start crying over it. Whoever DB was, she had put hours into the gift and the amount of love put into it could be felt.
JJ blinked back the tears and composed herself, ignoring the emotions and the small fission of guilt going through her for snooping and instead focusing on the movie night she and Spencer were going to have.
The next day, JJ shared her findings with Garcia over coffee. “The mystery date has the initials DB.”
Garcia lit up. “That’ll help immensely. I can narrow the search parameters.”
JJ stalled, biting the inside of her cheek as she considered something else. “I think—I think you should widen you search to include male students.”
Garcia froze, blinking at JJ in surprise. “You think—?” The tech analyst stuttered in surprise.
JJ nodded, explaining her hunch and what she had found. “The whole thing felt very, well, masculine. That might be because it was gifted to a man, but the inscriptions and writing in the scrapbooks all looked masculine too. I think it might have been a man, which would also explain some of his secrecy surrounding the guy.”
“He has to know we would never judge him!” Garcia whisper yelled.
JJ looked her in the eye. “Of course he does. But sometimes, that sort of thing is hard to share, and he is a very private person.”
Garcia nodded vigorously, accepting the reasoning, and promised to update her search.
The group crowded into Garcia’s office. Rossi and Hotch had left at a decent time for once and the rest of the team stayed behind with the excuse of leaving together to go out drinking. Spencer begged off with his normal plans of spending a quiet evening at home.
“So, let me just—” Garcia was typing away on her computer, adding the information that JJ had found.
Emily and Morgan raised their eyebrows at seeing some of the search terms Garcia was using but didn’t comment until she was finished.
“Where did this new information come from?” Emily questioned.
JJ gingerly leaned he hip against the desk. “I did some snooping at Reid’s apartment.” She pulled up the photos on her phone and passed it to Emily and Morgan. “I’m not big on handwriting analysis, but that looks masculine to me. We’ve never directly talked about it and I wouldn’t be surprised if he liked men.”
Morgan was more shocked than Emily, but he didn’t disagree with the assumptions made.
Garcia spoke up from her office chair. “I have something. There was a Danny Brooks, a year or so older, lived in the same off-campus apartment as Reid when he was completing his doctorates.”
The three profilers crowded in to look over her shoulder at the screen.
“Danny was an undergraduate art history major, but it looks like he dropped out.” Garcia frowned. “Let me see if I can find anything more on him.”
They all waited patiently for the next ten minutes as the tech-goddess attempted to gain more information.
“I can’t find anything on him. It’s like he disappeared after his twenty-first birthday.” Garcia grumbled. The comment intrigued the agents, this mystery man was becoming an actual mystery.
“Do we know what he looked like?” JJ asked. Emily and Morgan turned to give her a look. “What? Don’t pretend you aren’t curious.” She replied defensively.
Garcia snickered. “Well, I can’t find anything on him currently, but I was a Caltech student too; I should be able to search him within the student database, no hacking required.” She pulled up the Caltech student and alumni website and searched for Danny Brooks. It didn’t take too long to find the correct one and pull up a copy of his ID photo.
“Holy shit.” Emily said. The others glanced at her, confused at the details of the epiphany she had clearly had. “Well, I know why you can’t find anything on him now. It’s because that is Neal Caffrey, international art thief and conman.”