BAU Life I
"Don't worry, Pretty Boy. You'll get there. In the meantime, here!" A silver whistle on a blue nylon cord flew towards Spencer. He bats it out of the air and glares at his friend.
"that's enough. We have a case, an LDSK" Hotch said as he takes a step towards the two agents.
A final glare from Spencer ends any discussion on the topic and everyone moves to focus on the case at hand, a long distance serial killer who wasn't taking the kill shot.
The day after the closing of the LDSK case, Spencer found himself in Garcia's office.
"Ok, Junior G-Man, talk to me. You have been playing with that whistle and thinking so hard I swear I smell smoke. What's going through your head?" Garcia breaks the tense silence in her office
With a heavy sigh, Spencer replies "It's nothing."
"Nothing doesn't cause my little genius to sit there quietly while looking like someone just kicked his puppy."
It's just, well, even after making the shot in the last case and passing my re-qual, I just feel like I still haven't convinced the team that I'm competent in the field. Morgan left the whistle on my desk again this morning." After realizing what he had said, Spencer looked down to his hands where he was weaving the nylon cord through his fingers, playing a solitary game of cat's cradle.
"Oh sweetie, you are competent and they know it! They just worry about you. You are still so young. It is hard for them to see you in dangerous situations. No one likes seeing someone they care for in danger!"
"I'm not that young anymore though! I'm 24 now, I've been living on my own for what amounts of half of my life. I can handle myself. Heck, it isn't as though I don't have the same training as everyone else in the office," he blurts out as he stands and begins pacing.
"Well, I think we need to take this discussion out of the office." Garcia says after a moment of watching Spencer pacing like a caged animal.
"What?"
"You, my sweet man need some pizza, ice cream, and a dr who marathon. Let's go," she says as she locks down her system, grabs her purse and begins to usher Spencer out of the office.
"Why do I need all that? I'm not turning it down, it sounds like a great plan but I don't understand."
"You don't need to understand. Just know that this is how we are going to brainstorm how you can show to the team that you are as badass as you actually are. Now, what are your thoughts on pineapple on pizza?" Reid's shudder at that left Garcia laughing for the rest of their trek to the parking garage.
After making their way to Garcia's apartment, they settled down with their pineapple-less pizza and beverages. It wasn't long after polishing off the meal and Garcia went to get the ice cream that Reid finally broke the silence on the topic which prompted the dinner.
"I still have can I show the team that I'm not just a walking brain? I mean, I pass my gun shoots, I pass the PT tests, what else can I do? After this last fiasco I'll always just be the brain that may or may not be authorized a weapon. I'm really not as out of shape or clumsy as everyone thinks. Just because I'm not a muscle bound blockhead doesn't mean I don't care and that I'm only good for sitting behind a desk! I made it through the same agent training that he did! And this commercial break is taking forever."
A quick look at the tv from her position in the kitchen had Garcia formulating a plan. "Would joining the military be enough to show that you have brawn to your brain?"
"What? No, I'm not quitting the FBI to join the Army. Are you nuts? I want to show people that I can do physical tasks, not lose my job."
"You don't have to leave the FBI. You could join the reserves! Come on, you saw that commercial, one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year? You can do that! Showing up in the bullpen in uniform, dripping in ribbons and medals might just be the ticket," Garcia was getting more and more excited about this idea.
The idea of a part time commitment gave Spencer pause. "I still don't want to join the Army though. It's an interesting idea but I'm not Army material"
"What about another service? I'm sure that we can find some sort of reserve thing you can do. Easy!"
A thoughtful look came over Spencer's face as he sat back to watch the next episode of Dr Who.
"You might have something there Garcia, you might have something there."
"I'll see what I can dig up" Garcia said as she curled onto the couch next to spencer with her laptop.
Before the end of the episode, she had a list of possibilities. Over ice cream, they worked together on the plan.
"What about this one? You could do the Navy, right? Ships and stuff are cool."
"No, bow ties are cool"
"Spencer, focus! This is the rest of your life here! Look, you could be an Intelligence officer. You are intelligent, you can totally do this!"
"You know Garcia, I think you are right. I can do this. Do you see an application anywhere?"
"Right here. Oh, and I found a number for a recruiter. You need a recruiter, right?"
BAU Life II
Spencer heaved a sigh of relief as he slumped down in his chair. The conversation with Gideon and Hotch went far better than he had anticipated but it had left him feeling emotionally drained. Luckily, Morgan was over at the academy teaching a self defense course and Elle was ensconced in JJ's office talking about who knows what, but it was highly unlikely that it was work related. The relative quiet of the bullpen gave him the chance to sort through the meeting that he had just had.
When Garcia had come up with the utterly insane idea of joining the military, Spencer didn't think anything would come of it. After all, there were a lot of points along the way that could easily see his application rejected for one reason or another. Meeting with a recruiter was the first rejection point and somehow, Spencer still wasn't sure HOW, but somehow he had impressed the recruiter enough that he had actually worked with him to put together an application package.
The memory of that initial meeting brought forth a snort of amusement. Spencer had been so naive walking into the recruiting office. Having seen far too many movies and commercials, he thought it would be as easy as walking in and signing on the dotted line before getting on a bus to boot camp. As it turns out, to become an officer, even in the reserves, meant a lengthy application process, interviews, a medical exam, and selection board. Considering that the application itself required letters of recommendation or acknowledgement from his employer, he was forced to go to Hotch and Gideon long before it was fait accompli. It wasn't just the how to join that he didn't understand, it was also all the options for what to do once he had joined. He learned that there were a lot of options, more than he expected, for joining the military as a reservist. When he told the recruiter that he had multiple PhDs in hard sciences, the recruiter had gotten a strange look in his eyes and started rattling off potential career paths for him. Eventually the recruiter had steered him away from the intelligence field that Garcia had originally proposed. As it turns out, his degree in engineering was going to be his key to join the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps. Building bridges and base camps was wildly different than what he did with the BAU but he looked on that as a good thing. After all, wasn't the point of his joining to show that he was more than a weak nerd? Besides, he often felt that his engineering degree was gathering dust compared to the times he used knowledge gained from his other academic pursuits.
Getting the approval from Hotch and Gideon was the final piece of his application. Everything else from transcripts, essays, interviews, and medical reviews had been submitted to his recruiter. Once these forms were signed, it would turn into a waiting game. It was obvious, he mused, that neither one of the older profilers had actually believed him when he said that he was going to join the military. Without going into detail about the why he was applying, he had to show that he was serious about it. Gideon was the hardest to convince as he had gotten Spencer all sorts of waivers for the physical portion of the FBI Academy. It took Spencer reminding him that the waivers were only temporary and that since then he had been passing all of the physical tests to show that the Gideon's argument wouldn't hold water.
Hotch had been quiet, letting Gideon take the lead and just watching Spencer stutter out his request and information about the Navy, the Reserves, the Civil Engineer Corps (CEC), the Seabees, and even the current political climate. It had been almost unnerving how quiet he had been which is what had prompted the unsolicited rambles from Spencer. Even now he wasn't sure what it was that he had seen in Hotch's eyes but it was not something he had seen before. He would definitely be thinking on this again when he had more time.
A small alert from his computer showed that Gideon had emailed the completed form directly to the recruiter per his earlier request. "Hurry up and wait is right," he mumbled to himself as he started to shift the files around his desk and focus on work again.
BT
With application submitted to the board, there was nothing more for Spencer to do other than wait to hear back from the recruiter. So he tucked this adventure into the back of his mind and focused on the cases as they came and went. He had all but pushed the application out of his mind when he opened his email at work on a unimportant Thursday morning that happened to have the team in the office. As they had all been out in Tennessee for the past 4 days, everyone was taking the time to sort through emails and paperwork covering the desks. With most of the emails either answered or deleted, Spencer pulled up one and was surprised to see the brief message:
"Good morning Dr. Reid,
I have some fantastic news for you. You were "Professionally Recommended" for CEC DCO! Congratulations!
I am now looking for a billet for you.
Congratulations again!"
He wasn't sure if it was shock, excitement, or fear that had him rereading that message again and again despite it having already been burned into his eidetic memory. In a daze, he closed his email program locked his computer, stood, and made his way towards Garcia's office. Standing just outside of her door, he was still trying to work out his feelings when the door opened and he was knocked over by the figure rushing from her office.
"Reid! Why were you standing there? Are you ok?" Garcia rushed to ask as she checked herself over for injury and saw that Spencer was still sitting there with a dazed look on his face.
"I'm in," was all he could muster in response.
"You're in? What are you in? Are you in trouble? What's going on?" Worry was starting to creep into her voice.
"The Navy. I'm in the Navy. Well, I will be in the Navy reserve. I was selected by the board, I just saw the email this morning from my recruiter."
Garcia gasped. She had completely forgotten that she had talked Spencer into joining the military. Given how long ago it was and how he had not mentioned it to her or the rest of the team, to her knowledge he had dropped the idea completely. "You actually applied? Really? I didn't think you would go through with it." she trailed off as the actual ramifications of Spencer's application started to run through her head. Her sweet young genius, her Junior G-man was joining the Navy. "Have you told anyone else yet?"
With a shake of his head, Spencer replied "No, well, Hotch and Gideon know I applied but I didn't tell anyone else that I was even applying. I don't think I'm ready to tell them yet. Maybe after I'm actually in the Navy and have done something worth mentioning. Until then, I'll let Hotch and Gideon know since they are going to have to sign off on my military leave and so forth. Please, don't tell anyone else. I, I'm just not ready. What if I don't make it through the training? What if this was just a really bad idea?"