"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed." – Carl Jung
Spencer walked over to a table in the café and settled down into the chair; setting down his cup and laptop. His long lanky legs crouched uncomfortably under the small round table. He had been wound tight with this latest Unsub and thought that a change of scenery and prospective would help nail a profile on this guy.
He opened his laptop and brought up what they already had. There had been a series of murders, right here in Virginia, a large male between the ages of twenty and forty who had been targeting women in their twenties. He looked over some of his notes.
"It doesn't make sense." He talked to himself, something he rarely did because his mind worked so well. But he was smart enough to know that sometimes hearing something out loud will often give you a different reaction than just thinking it; and often that talking to yourself helped string together thoughts, even if it was completely ridiculous.
"Same age and sex victims, but race and m.o. change…" Spencer scrolled through the victimology notes he had made, running his hand through his hair in deep thought. "No connection, just random murders… First stabbing, then shooting, then torture… Unsubs don't usually change their m.o.s unless they have to… So what is this guy doing?"
"Maybe he's just trying to find his niche." A female voice spoke to him. Spencer looked up from his computer and around the café filled with young adults. He turned in his chair to look behind him where in the nook in the corner, sat a woman in an arm chair.
His eyebrows crunched together as his mind raced to understand her. The young woman was close to his age, curvy, but not heavy. She wasn't as fit as the girls he worked with, toned with muscle, but soft skinned and curvy, average. But she wasn't average, she had colored hair and had a handful of tattoos scattered over her skin. "What makes you say that?" he asked her as he studied her.
She smiled, leaning her elbows forward on her crossed legs. "Why else would someone keep changing what they do? Unless it's not really the same guy?"
Spencer glanced back at his computer. It was definitely the same Unsub for each murder. They couldn't release the information but there was a signature left at each one of the crime scenes. A bloody print of the victim's hands on the walls, spayed out flat and thumbs pressed together, in the shape of a W.
"I know," he heard her voice speaking to him, "you're thinking, 'What's this weird girl doing talking to a normal guy like me?' Right?"
Spencer's eyes snapped over to her, and he found himself in a bit of surprise. "You think I'm normal?"
The girl suppressed a giggle, which made the corners of Spencer's lips tilt up slightly, "Have you seen you?"
Spencer looked down at himself; button up, sweater vest and tie, looking as he usually did. His eyes drifted over to the girl again. "You say that because of your outward appearance, which usually correlates to seeking attention. Most people get tattoos and color their hair because they want people to see them, to look at them."
Her eyebrows slowly rose as she listened to him dissect her and who he thought she was. "Is that so?" she asked. "You do that to everyone you meet?"
Spencer flushed a little and turned back to his computer, tearing away from her gaze.
"They aren't for other people." She said, drawing his attention back. His eyes followed as she gestured to her tattoos. "They mean things for me. Not for other people. They mean hope, destiny, belief; every one of them is personal to me. I actually get a bit of anxiety when people try to look at them or read them."
"Then why have them at all?" Spencer questioned again. She smiled and shook her head.
"Are you writing a book or something?" The girl asked.
"Something like that…" Spencer answered quietly and took an awkward glance back to his computer. When he turned back to her, he had another question. "How do you know about what the Unsub is thinking?"
"Unsub?" she asked, thoroughly confused.
Spencer cleared his throat and turned to face her. "Unknown Subject. The murderer. Do you read profiling books?"
The girl smiled and held up a book, "Crime fiction."
Spencer's eyes looked down at the book she had been holding in her lap. The spine was broken again and again and the pages were ruffled at the edges through years of wear.
"I read. A lot..." she said with a smile. "I write a bit too. Crime fiction, scary movies and documentaries, even stay up reading about serial killers on Wikipedia sometimes."
Spencer's eyebrow crooked up, "You're a serial killer groupie?"
She stifled another laugh, "Is that what you wanna call me? I feel like I should be offended."
Spencer blushed a light pink and turned his face away, "Sorry." He glanced up at her again, and she couldn't help but smile at his cute boyish looks. The way his hair fell around his face, or how he pulled his lips in his mouth when he was nervous, like he did now.
"That's okay," she said softly, "It doesn't matter what you think of me as, or if I tell you I like studying murders. Because after we leave this café ,I'm never going to see you again."
"I want to see you again." The words ran out of Spencer's mouth faster than he had even realized he had thought them, surprising himself as much as he did her. When he finally composed himself he looked up to meet her wide eyes.
A slow smile spread across her lips, and she reached a hand out to him. "I'm Harper."
Spencer looked down at her hand and back up to her. Sure, there were all sorts of germs and stuff from shaking a hand, and usually Spencer thought twice about it. But not right now. He stuck out his hand and grasped hers for a hand shake. His hand was warm, and his long slender fingers wrapped around her hand softly. "I'm Dr. Spencer Reid." He said, and then quickly stuttered over his words, "I mean, you don't have to call me Doctor, just, I'm just Spencer."
Harper smiled brightly at his light blush and cute fumbling of words. "It's nice to meet you, Spencer." She was a bit surprised by someone so young carrying the title of Doctor, but it didn't bother her. He was very smart, she could tell, and his professor-like dress style and the glasses that sat in a case on his table were nothing but appealing. There was always something attractive about nerdy guys, and she didn't even mind any of the judgements he made about her.
Harper pulled away from him and pulled up her backpack, shoving her book inside and looting around for a pen and paper.
Spencer watched as she scrambled in her bag and scribbled something down onto a pad before ripping the page over and folding it over. His eyes followed her as she stood up and took a few steps over to him. She held the paper out to him with a smile. His lips tilted upwards in a grin and she couldn't help but notice the warm feeling in her stomach.
His slender fingers hook around the paper and he took it from her grasp. She gave him one last smile, and he watched as she turned and walked away, out of the café. He looked down at the paper and flipped it open. He pulled his lips into his mouth nervously before breaking into a smile at the digits on the page.