A/N: Hello, my dear readers. I have to apologize, first and foremost, to my sweet Castle fandom readers who so patiently wait for me all the time and always welcome me back joyfully when I do get to my Castle stories. You know that Castle is always going to be my home, no matter how tumultuous it gets, and I do intend to return to The Dance Into His Heart.

However, I have begun a new chapter (like my writing metaphors?) with the Criminal Minds fandom, who have been a delight on Tumblr with my ReidxReader fics. Recently, I chose one of my followers to be an OC in a fic I wanted to do, and this is chapter one of that fic. Her name is Katie, her url is katiekatskorner, and she's a total doll! So here we are, and I'm now multi-fandom, and this is the first CM fic I've ever posted here, so please give me some feedback.

Love, Cassie

Katie Parker browsed the shelves in a fashion that appeared almost mindless to the average person who passed by her. They would've said that she walked aimlessly through the aisles and some may have even called her disinterested.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Katie may have appeared disinterested in the books that lined the shelves, but in fact, she was quite the opposite. She'd scanned their titles so often that she didn't really need to stop and read each one. She sought out more than what the average patron of a bookstore needed. For Katie, it was more about the books themselves, the stories they told, and the history that lie between their pages. That was why she chose to come here instead of the larger and more well-known Barnes and Noble that was housed not far from here.

No, she much preferred this place, a used bookstore that was housed within an old Victorian-era home, with tall ceilings and rickety stairs and piles of unshelved books lying haphazardly everywhere. It had no name, just a sign on the door that proclaimed, "Used Books". There were few patrons here, but Katie came in at least once a week. She loved it here, loved the solitude and quiet of it, the way the books spoke to her. That particular day, as usual, she wasn't really looking for anything specific, just browsing and decompressing. She took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of ink and pages. The smell was calming and she smiled slightly.

There was something about these books that she was drawn to. Maybe it was their history, the fact that they'd all been owned before, loved and read and traveled with. These books had lived lives before they ended up here on these shelves. That was comforting to her. They may not have been able to speak the way that people could, but their stories were told in other ways.

Katie picked up a Russian copy of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, running her finger along the words that she couldn't read, and wondered about the person who'd owned and then discarded this treasure. She was lost in her own world, flipping through the pages in the hard-bound book, and she didn't notice the young man who was watching her. She didn't hear him approach, and she jumped when he spoke.

"All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," he recited. The first line in Anna Karenina. Katie glanced back at the sound of his voice, and met hazel eyes, flecked with gold. He was tall and lanky, a little awkward, with unruly golden curls and oddly long fingers. He wore a button-down with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows with tight jeans and Converse high-tops and a messenger bag over his shoulder. Katie saw something in him right away. She'd always been incredibly perceptive. It was an attribute that had served her well, one that she was grateful for. As a young woman living independently in a city like this one, the ability to instinctively and with relative accuracy know who she should steer clear of was useful.

This man didn't seem to her like the kind of guy she should stay away from. Quite the opposite, actually. She felt drawn to him somehow, and she couldn't explain it, but she knew it. She found herself smiling at him, closing the book and turning to face him.

"Do you read Russian?" he asked, gesturing toward the book. Katie shook her head.

"No. I wish I could, but I've never learned," she answered. "I've read it a thousand times in English though."

"It's a good book," he replied. Katie found that she liked the sound of his voice; lightly scratchy, but warm as well, with a lilt to it that made it easy to listen to.

"It is," she agreed. "It's sad, though."

"A lot of good stories are," he replied, and Katie smiled slightly.

"So you like Poe, then?" she asked. He smiled and ducked his head for a moment before he looked back up at her.

"I do, yeah," he said.

"So do I," she replied. "Annabelle Lee and The Cask of Amontillado are my favorites."

"I like The Tell-Tale Heart," he told her, and then cleared his throat. "Um, I'm Spencer Reid," he said. She smiled.

"Katherine Parker," she replied. "Katie," she amended.

"Katie," he repeated. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," she replied.

"Do you come here often?" Spencer asked. Katie nodded her head.

"Yeah, usually about once a week, sometimes more if I need to decompress," she told him. She glanced around and he saw the light in her green eyes. There was a passion there that Spencer felt he didn't see enough of, and he found himself desperate to spend more time with this Katie, with her golden blonde curls and bright green eyes, the way she moved and talked with her hands.

"I love it here," she told him. "It's my haven." She was quiet for a moment, and then met his eyes.

"Would you like to see upstairs?" she asked, and he nodded. He wondered if there was much she could suggest that he wouldn't agree to at this point. There was just something about her.

As for Katie, she was questioning her own sanity as she led Spencer through the shelves and around piles of books. It was a public place, but most people didn't go upstairs, and Katie had never taken anyone up there with her before. She went there when she needed the peace and solitude that came with the company of books written in languages she didn't understand, but whose stories called out to her, spoke to her in a language she did know. Spencer followed close behind her, and he caught a whiff of her apple shampoo, which made him want to stop and inhale deeply, but he didn't. He just followed behind Katie, waiting to see what she was going to to show him. At the top of the stairs, Spencer let his hand linger on the antique wooden banister, and looked around. There were books everywhere, but there were also chairs and windows that exposed the misty fall rain that was blanketing the city. The tiny droplets became rivulets of water as they ran down the glass panes, gray light filling the space.

"This is my favorite place to come," Katie told him quietly.

"I can see why," Spencer replied, looking around, taking in the books. He wandered over to a shelf and ran his finger along the spines of the books. Katie watched, feeling very odd. Not in a bad way. It was actually a very nice feeling, it was just odd. Normally, she only wanted to be alone here, but for some reason, Spencer Reid made her want his company. He wasn't pressing, he was actually being quite shy about it, but there was something in those hazel eyes that made her want him to stay. So, with a glance outside at the rain, and knowing that she had all afternoon, she smiled at him.

"Would you like to stay for a while?" she asked. "I'll show you the rest of the store, and I think the owner has cookies."

"Cookies?" Spencer repeated, and Katie smiled.

"An elderly lady runs the place, and she likes to take care of me," Katie explained.

"By giving you unhealthy snacks?" Spencer asked. It could've come off as offensive, but he seemed genuine, and it somehow seemed endearing to her. She laughed.

"She's my surrogate grandmother," Katie answered. "And grandmothers aren't supposed to be healthy." Spencer smiled slightly.

"In that case, yes, I would love to stay for a while," he replied. He watched as Katie smiled that bright smile at him before she turned away to look for the cookies, chattering as she did so about chocolate chips and cinnamon. Spencer found that he didn't hear everything she said, because he was so distracted by the melodic tone of her voice, and he could feel the flush creep along his skin.

Katie Parker was really something else.