A/N: I don't own any of the "Criminal Minds" characters and I am not making any money from writing this.
Please forgive any minor spelling or grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.
Please read this for a clarification. This is an alternate ending to the episode 12x14 "Collision Course". Some info. I've felt really sorry for Reid lately. It seems like the writers just don't write good storylines for him. It was never even shown has he ever dated someone or had a friend outside of the BAU, other than his friend Ethan (who only appeared in one episode) and his relationship with Maeve (and we all know how that ended). So, I've been thinking, playing with various theories in my head. It occurred to me: what if Spencer actually dated someone in the past, but was just very private about it? And what if his ex-girlfriends were actually detectives/protagonists from other modern crime-mystery TV shows? And how would they react to the news of his arrest? Would they show up at the court hearing too? Hence, this story.
But, to make the story a bit more... intriguing, and fun, I decided not to reveal their names, but give the readers a chance to figure out who they are on their own, based on the information that they reveal about themselves in the story. So, if you have any idea who Spencer's ex-girlfriends are, and what TV shows they appear in, put your suggestions in a review, or pm them to me. Don't be shy, take a guess. This is technically a crossover, but since revealing the other fandom(s) would give away the twist, and it includes more than two fandoms anyway, I put it in the ordinary "Criminal Minds" category. I hope you dom't mind. Maybe I will eventually reveal who they are exactly; maybe not. I could eventually write a sequel where all three women have a talk together, or a multi-chapter crossover story detailing Spencer's relationships with them, but for now, this is just a oneshot. I hope you'll like it. If that doesn't sound like your type of a story, you better stop reading now, because you probably won't enjoy it. But this story definitely isn't meant to be taken totally seriously.
The hearing was nearing its end. All the members of the BAU were sitting on the gallery, listening attentively as Fiona and the DA presented their arguments to the judge, with Reid sitting at the bench, looking scared and lost.
"The defendant is uniquelly situated to evade law enforcement should he flee the jurisdiction," the DA argued.
"Your honor, he wants to stay here and clear his good name," Fiona maintained.
"He should have thought of his good name before sneaking across the border," the DA replied, annoyance evident in his voice.
Emily looked around, like she hoped to suddenly spot something, or someone, that could suddenly help her resolve this mess. But there was no solution in sight. In fact, she and the rest of the BAU were the only ones on the gallery, other than a few people in the back; obviously reporters, judging by their demeanor.
Emily frowned, suddenly spotting three other individuals, sitting a few seats away. Three women; two blondes and a brunette. She didn't recognize them, and she didn't remember seeing them when she first entered the courtroom. They must have came in later, or right after her, and she was too distracted to notice. None of them looked like journalist or reporters. And they all seemed genuinely... concerned. Worried. As well as interested.
However, Emily didn't have the time to observe the trio for long. She quicky turned towards the stand again, listening attentively, her heart thundering against her chest. It sounded like Fiona was about to mention them. The BAU.
"I'm prepared to present multiple law enforcement character witnesses on his behalf right now," Fiona revealed, turning towards the gallery. "The witnesses are here in the courtroom, all highly respected FBI agents," she said, gesturing at the BAU, and several other FBI agents sitting there.
"Simmer down, ms. Duncan," the judge replied. "It's almost six o'clock and I'm not inclined to hear from character witnesses. Actions speak louder than words, I always say."
"We'd be willing to obey by a curfew and strict monitoring of his whereabouts at all times," Fiona tried.
"Too little too late, counselor. If past behavior is the best indicator of future conduct, and I believe that it is, then your client presents a flight risk."
That declaration felt like a bomb blast going off. Emily, JJ, David, Luke, Stephen, Tara and Penelope all stared blankly at the judge, hoping that she would chahge her mind in a last minute. But she didn't.
"Bail is denied. Defendant will be remanded to federal custody pending trial."
Spencer stood up as two court officers approached him. Emily stood up and walked over to Fiona.
For a moment, Spencer glanced at the gallery. His friends gave him a comforting look. Briefly, his gaze trailed off, and he almost appeared startled; and then, all of a sudden, calmer.
"How long before the case goes to trial?" she asked, sounding genuinely scared, her eyes wide and her face pale.
"It's a complicated case," Fiona informed them, appearing almost as worried as them. "Three months," she said before turning to face Reid again. "Spencer, I'm sorry. I will come to see you as soon as I can," she promised.
They all had no choice but to stand there and watch as Spencer Reid was being led away in handcuffs. Off to prison. Where he was going to stay for the remaining three months, at the very least.
A long, tense, nauseating silence ensued, fear and desperation hanging in the air. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, like they all felt that speaking would mean fully acknowledging the current situation, and they simply weren't ready for that.
"This is clearly a work of someone targeting either Spencer specifically, or even the BAU in general," Emily finally spoke up, trying to get the others to focus on resolving that mess, despite this unfortunate turn of events. "Most likely Scratch, maybe someone else. People have targeted us before, but none of them won. All criminals make mistakes. We will resolve this."
"I sure hope so," Garcia said, letting out a heavy sigh.
Rossi frowned, observing the gallery. "Guys, look..." he whispered, gesturing others to turn in that direction. "Those three women..."
"What about them?" Luke wondered, frowning as he looked in the same direction.
"I mean, they aren't supposed to be here," Rossi explained. "They are not a part of our team, obviously, they aren't his family... at least I think..."
"Yeah, I've never seen them before," Emily agreed. "I just noticed them a minute ago. I don't recognize them either."
"They could be reporters," JJ suggested.
"His friends, maybe?" Stephen chimmed in.
"Spencer doesn't have..." Emily started, but then stopped and quickly came up with a better phrasing. "He doesn't have many close friends outside the workplace."
"Three isn't that many, though," Tara pointed out. "How much do we know about his personal life, anyway?"
"Well, ever since this broke out, none of them have showed up," Emily informed them, watching intently as all three women, as in union, stood up and started walking out of the courtroom.
"Until now," JJ commented, sighing.
"Maybe I can pull out the visitor logs," Penelope suggested. "They must have shown their IDs and signed in before entering the courtroom."
"Or we could simply go and ask them," Rossi suggested, glancing at the courtroom door. "What's the worst that could happen?"
They all exchanged looks and, after a moment of hesitation, rushed out of the courtroom and into the hall.
They spotted all three women heading down the hallway, towards the exit. They soon caught up with them.
"Excuse me," Emily spoke up. All three women stopped, seemingly hesitating for a moment before they turned to face the BAU. She had a long blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
"Yes?" the oldest one spoke up, looking Emily in the eyes.
Emily remained silent for a moment, as if she was unsure how to proceed. "We... we are friends... and coworkers... of Spencer Reid. The man who just had a court hearing there. We saw the three of you in the courtroom. Other than us, there weren't many other people there. Mostly just the press. You don't appear to be reporters or journalists, and we know you're not family. So, if you don't mind me asking... who are you? And what is your relation to Spencer Reid?"
All three women exchanged glances, pacing in place. Eventually, the oldest one took a deep breath and spoke up. "Oh, I am just here to show my support," she said, clearly understanding that didn't really answer the question.
"Me too," the second woman said, forcing a small smile.
"Same," the brunette chimmed in, looking around for a moment.
"Why?" Rossi exclaimed. "No offense," he quickly added.
The blonde sighed, looking down at the floor for a moment, feeling blush creep up her cheeks. "I happen to know doctor Reid," she said under her breath, like it was some kind of a secret. "Professionally. Mostly."
"Show me your credentials, please," Emily demanded. She considered asking all three women to produce their IDs at once, but eventually figured that it would be easier to question them one by one.
The blonde seemed to hesitate for a moment, but she eventually pulled out her credentials and showed them to Emily. "Like you can see, I work in law enforcement," she clarified as Emily checked her ID, her teammates peeking over her shoulder.
"But Spencer never mentioned you to us," Penelope blurted out, confused. "No offense," she quickly said, blushing slightly.
"How do you know him, exactly?" Emily asked directly, looking the blonde woman in the eyes.
"We... we worked together," the woman explained, trying to sound as calm as possible. It didn't work. "Once. On a case."
"With all due respect, that is something we ought to know," Emily pointed out. "He is a part of our team, we work... worked on all the cases together."
"Well, Spencer didn't officially work on that case," the detective explained, a bit calmer now. "It was during his time-off. He was giving one of his lectures at my city. I was one of the attendants. After the lesson, I approached him and asked for his help. And he agreed to help me. And he did."
"That must have been quite the case," Stephen commented, eying her suspiciously.
The blonde nodded her head, recollection flashing over her face. "Two brutal murders. One took place in 2001, the other in 2003. Both victims were young women from the same neighborhood. Both bound, beaten, raped, and stabbed to death by a hunting knife. No witnesses, no strong suspects, little to no forensic evidence... it all went unsolved. But the cases became active again in 2008, when the body of a young woman was found buried in the woods, a few miles away from the locations where the first two victims had been found. Autopsy showed that she had been murdered sometime in 2005. Anyway, I suspected that the murders were a work of a serial killer. But I couldn't find any conclusive evidence supporting that theory, and there was no strong leads. When I attended that lecture, heard him speak, I saw an opportunity. And I was right. Sp... dr. Reid's... input helped me prove that all three victims had been murdered by the same perpetrator. And, eventually, I managed to catch the killer. With the help of the behavioral evidence that dr. Reid had uncovered."
"And now you've come here to support him," Luke noted. "Almost nine years later. That must have been quite a... cooperation the two of you had back then."
The detective nodded her head, a slight smile appearing on her lips, something between sadness and fondness sparkling in her bright blue eyes. "He is... smart. Insightful. Generous. Charming, I daresay," she admitted, chuckling silently. "He left quite an impression on me, I admit. Even now, years later, we'd hear from each other via phone, email..." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Well, until a week ago, when... when he got arrested and... charged with murder. I saw it on the news."
David frowned, observing the blonde carefully. "Well, since Reid immensely enjoys talking about his work, but he is quite a private person when it comes to almost everything else, and you're not a part of his family, that leads me to conclude..." He stopped talking for a moment, noticing the blonde glare at him. He glanced at Emily and Luke before speaking up again. "That some things are better left unsaid," he whispered, looking away.
The blonde looked down at the floor, clasping her hands. The younger blonde smirked. Emily fought an urge to roll her eyes.
"Stop blushing now... both of you," Emily ordered, glaring at them both.
"Why should we believe you?" JJ argued, glaring at the woman to the left.
The blonde scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "What, you think that I made it all up? That I am somehow... involved in this? Go ahead and check, I've got nothing to hide."
"Maybe I will," Garcia shot back.
The blonde sighed, looking down at the floor for a moment. "If I were lying, would I know that dr. Reid didn't even have an email adress until 2011?" she argued, lowering her voice. "Or that he has a friend, Ethan, living in New Orleans? That one of his favorite authors is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? That he always wears mismatched socks? Or that he had to commit his mother to a mental institution when he was eighteen?"
A short silence ensued, both sides feeling kind of ashamed that they went into those details. But at least the BAU was starting to get a pretty clear idea of what they were dealing with.
"Two blondes," Rossi couldn't help but comment, taking a step closer as he carefully observed the woman in the middle. "That must be some sort of a thing." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "No offen-ah, screw it, I'm too nervous to be on my best behavior."
"My hair was also shorter when we first met, much like the previous one's back in the day, so yes, it's probably a thing," the younger blonde admitted, smiling slightly.
"What's your story?" Emily inquired, taking a step closer to her. "Show me your credentials, please."
Younger woman rolled her eyes, but complied. "A private investigator," she exclaimed, as Emily carefully observed her identification.
"I notice a real pattern here," Rossi muttered.
The younger blonde sighed heavily, pocketing her ID. "Look, if you want a story, here it is," she said, glaring at the BAU. "I've worked on plenty of intriguing and complex cases, solved most of them. Very few serial-killer related ones, but still. In 2010, I started a crime blog, detailing certain cases from my hometown. Lots of interestinf cases for such a small place. There must be something in the water. Anyway, dr. Reid came across my blog in the summer of 2011. He contacted me. He admitted that he was... fascinated, even somewhat... thrilled by my abilities, my experience, even my writing style. We spent months writing to each other. Mostly through emails, but letters too. He told me he preferred that over... more modern means of communication. He barely even used Internet. I guess finding my blog was a fluke. A very lucky fluke. Eventually, we decided to meet in person. And we did. And we soon learned that we really enjoyed... each other's company. And so, we would meet again, and again, and again... What exactly we did, where, and how often, is none of your damn business. We stopped doing that sometime in summer of 2012, but we remained on good terms, and we still keep in touch. Well, we did up until a week ago, for obvious reasons. I still care about him. As soon as I heard about the case on the news, I took a flight to Virginia, in order to to support him. Well, show up. Yes, there's nothing I can really do at the moment, but I figured that merely seeing me in the courtroom would make him feel better. And that's all I'm saying about the matter," she concluded with a big sigh, shooting a glare at Emily before taking a step back.
"Man, the evidence is really piling up," Rossi said under his breath. He looked around, his gaze soon landing on the last woman in a row. "We have a brunette here too," he remarked.
"Oh God," the brunette exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
"Show your credentials too, please", Emily ordered, taking a step closer to her.
"Is that really necessary?" the brunette tried, giving Emily a pleading look.
Emily sighed, feeling herself grow impatient. "Look, we can do this the easy way or the awkward way," she explained, looking her opponent in the eyes.
The third woman sighed, then pulled out her credentials and showed them to the unit chief.
"New York City!" Emily exclaimed, reading the info on the woman's card and badge. "That's good. Only three hours of train ride from Quantico," she remarked, all the pieces finally falling together in her mind. "One hour by plane."
"The last one," JJ commented.
"The first one," the brunette shot back. "I met Spencer back in 2006. At night, on July 24th, at a bar in Brooklyn. He told me he had worked on a case in New York City a few months prior, and finally decided to "bite into Big Apple" during his well deserved albeit short summer vacation, which he would usually spend at home with his enormous book collection. Whatever we... had, ended in the fall of 2007, but I have nothing but good memories of him, and we kept in touch, and after learning of this mess, I had to do something."
"I'm not sure I understand anything anymore," David admitted, grimacing.
"After Spencer got arrested, I checked his phone records, emails... and none of you showed up," Garcia pointed out, her eyes widening.
"I think you just answered your own question," the younger blonde commented, smirking.
"Spencer had a burner phone that he used for our... communication," the brunette explained, feeling herself blush. "More than one, actually. Once he learned how... efficient your tech analyst was-is, and how FBI likes to keep tabs on their agents, he wanted to keep at least... one part of his life as private as possible."
"Authorities searched his apartment, and there was no mention of any burner phones," Tara said.
"Maybe they should have searched harder," the first woman countered.
"I am married now, OK?" the brunette said, annoyance evident in her voice. "I have a child. I don't want to make a big deal out of this, I've got no ulterior motives. I came here... as a friend. Just that. Because I know, I feel..."
"What?" Emily asked, glaring at her.
"The same thing you do," the brunette admitted, letting out a heavy sigh. "Spencer... doctor Reid would have never done such a thing. Ever. I just know."
"And so do you," the first detective said, observing Spencer's teammates carefully. "All of you. I can see it in your eyes, your movements... you don't just want to believe that he is innocent. You know that he is. I've met people... they were in prison for years, decades, convicted of the crimes they didn't commit..." She groaned, tears sparkling in her eyes. "But this case is not mine. I can not even try to help this time. The only thing I can really do is... be here. I keep thinking, when he sees me, maybe he will know that there is one more person who will never believe in those accusations against him."
The second blonde looked at the two other women standing next to her, sorrow evident on her face, before looking back at Emily and the others, who gave her a sympathetic look. She took a deep breath. "We were... together, yes," she admitted, feeling herself shiver. "We did plenty of things. Probably pretty much anything you can imagine, as well as some things you can't. And shouldn't." She smiled slightly, glancing at the two women standing next to her. "Same for her, and her," she said, gesturing at her companions. "We ran into each other here, started talking. And they told me. They told me everything. It eventually didn't work out. With any of us. But I still don't regret it. I never could." She swallowed a lump in her throat, shuddering. "And when I heard the news, it was... it was like hitting a brick wall. Just... how, why, and what now, and... it is like a part of me is being tortured right now. I'm sure you understand. Just don't tell him what I told you. Like you said, he's a very... private person."
"I heard about the evidence," the brunette said, tremors evident in her voice, a pained look on her face. "It is just surreal. Forensic evidence is my enemy in this case. I can't believe it! And it looks like my enemy is winning."
Thex all just stood there for a few moments, in complete silence, letting all that new info sink in, feeling sadness and some sort of relief at the same time. It was all true; everything they said.
"We will solve this," Emily said determinently. "We will get him out. I promise."
"Please do," all three women whispered in union.
Emily and the rest of the team exchanged looks with them before turning around and walking away, back to the headquarters, back on the quest to solve this case, prove Spencer Reid's innocence, and free him.
Leaving the three woman standing in the hallway, looking after them, until the whole team exited the courthouse and left. It took almost a minute for one of them to break the silence.
"So... maybe the three of us could go get a cup of coffee and talk some more? As long as we travelled all the way here..."
There was no reason to refuse.