Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Quantico buzzed quietly after hours—the kind of hum born from servers, late-night keyboards, and the distant rhythm of a coffee maker that hadn’t been cleaned since the Clinton administration.
Dr. Ruby Rosewood sat tucked into her corner of the tech office, dual monitors casting a soft glow over her features. Her hair was clipped back in a loose twist, red curls escaping to frame her face as she typed. Her eyes flicked between code, comm logs, and a live map glowing in green-blue hues across her screen. Somewhere out there, the BAU was closing in on another suspect. And as usual, Ruby was the quiet heartbeat behind the curtain—calm, calculating, and unheard by most.
Garcia sat across from her, humming softly to herself while sipping from a pink, glitter-covered coffee thermos that said “Digital Goddess”. They shared the space like two mismatched planets orbiting the same star. Garcia’s desk was a kaleidoscope of stuffed animals and rainbow lights. Ruby’s? More understated—books stacked by color, a small TARDIS statue, and a candle she never actually lit because the fire code made her nervous.
Despite their differences, Garcia and Ruby had grown close. Between their shared love of obscure memes and midnight caffeine binges, they were a perfect storm of brains, banter, and brutal efficiency.
But there was one person Ruby hadn’t met.
Dr. Spencer Reid.
They worked in the same building, passed each other unknowingly in elevators and parking lots, their orbits never quite syncing. Yet, she knew his voice by heart. She'd been in his ear during dozens of field operations, offering insight, strategy, and calm in the chaos. Reid never questioned her analysis. He trusted her instincts. But to him, she was just a voice—Red, as he called her. A codename that had started as a joke and somehow stuck.
He didn’t know she had a nervous habit of twirling her ring finger when she was focused. Or that she sang to herself softly when decoding malware. Or that she’d once memorized an entire case file just to help him through a standoff in Colorado.
And Ruby? She didn’t expect anything from him. He was brilliant, far away, and probably too preoccupied to notice the girl behind the glass.
Until one night… the phone rang.
She was halfway through a bite of cold takeout noodles when her personal cell buzzed. Not her work line. Not a comm alert. Her actual phone.
Unknown number.
She almost let it ring out. Almost. “Hello?” she said cautiously, swallowing her bite.
“…Oh. Uh. Sorry—this isn’t Garcia, is it?” His voice.
Ruby blinked. “No,” she said, straightening in her chair, “But I sit next to her most days.”
There was a pause on the line. A faint chuckle. “This is awkward. I—uh—I meant to call Penelope. This number must be similar to hers in my recent logs.”
“It happens.” She smiled faintly, unsure if he could hear it, but hoping he could feel it anyway. “This is Dr. Ruby Rosewood. We’ve spoken before. On comms.”
“…Red?” he asked, and her heart did something ridiculous in her chest.
“That’s me.”
The line went quiet for a moment. Then: “Well, Red. Since I have you… how’s your night?”
And just like that, something shifted. They talked for forty minutes that night. The next night? Two hours. And then it became routine.
He called at midnight, or she did. They talked about work, about vintage science fiction novels, about why he refused to eat plain yellow mustard. They joked together, they comforted and they let the quiet hang when it needed to.
But they still hadn’t met. Not face-to-face. Not yet.