Tia Carmichael was an honest girl. It was a quality that had caused her sister not to tell her about the several times she'd snuck out as a teenager. Her sister, Brooke, had been the social butterfly of the three Carmichael children. Tia had been shy, quiet, and expressive only in her songs. Their older brother, Cameron, on the other hand, was the responsible one. What with their father walking out after the girls' birth and their mother's drinking, he had to be. So it was extremely hard on the girls when he died.
Cameron Carmichael's funeral was held on a sunny morning, not that there were many other kinds in Phoenix. It was December 5th. He had died only three days prior. Tia was twenty six at the time of the accident. She'd been at home after an exhausting day at the small office where she worked. She'd been messing around with the guitar Brooke had bought for her birthday about a month before that. Then the phone rang. She sighed and set down the acoustic, crawling across the bed to grab the receiver and answer. "Hello?"
"Hello, I'm looking for a Miss Cynthia Carmichael?"
Tia frowned. "This is her."
There was a rustling, then a deep breath before the woman on the line spoke again. "Miss Carmichael, I'm sorry you have to find out this way, but...your brother, Cameron, was just in a severe car accident. He...um..." Slowly, the truth dawned on her.
"No...no, no you have it wrong, Cam can't be...he-he can't be dead...there has to be a mistake."
"I wish there was, ma'am. I'm sorry." Tears blurred her vision, and the phone slipped from her grasp. She didn't remember falling asleep, but when she woke it was to Brooke shaking her as she cried. That morning, they traveled together to the funeral home to see his body and make arrangements for the funeral. Their mom never even bothered to show up. The day after the funeral, Tia packed her bags to move. She randomly selected a place called Quantico in Virginia and rented an apartment in the city. Brooke tried to talk her out of it, but Tia was determined. She was going to start over in Quantico, and nothing was going to keep her in the place where her brother had died.
Once she had settled into the town and knew her way around, she scanned newspapers for job openings in some sort of music industry. She found one working as a high school choir teacher, and applied immediately. By her third week living there, the job was hers. The night before she started working, Brooke called to ask how she was doing. She told her that their mom had shown up at Brooke's apartment, demanding to know why her son was dead. She said she'd been in police custody overnight. It didn't exactly help Tia's mental stage. A whole month passed before she decided to sign up for a support group. The pain hadn't gotten any better, and all she wanted was for it to go away. She was tired of hurting.
It was there that she met him. She was sitting in the back of the room. The group leader called up random people to speak and share their stories with the group. He pointed to a scrawny guy a few seats away from where she sat. He took a deep breath before heading up to the front. He was actually very handsome, if a little disheveled, but Tia wasn't exactly one to judge by appearance.
"My name's Spencer...Spencer Reid." He said quietly, then cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. "I work with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. Um, a while ago, my girlfriend...Maeve...she-she was killed right in front of me. I'm still having trouble getting the images out of my head."
The group called out the usual support things. The leader congratulated him on the courage it took to go up and share such a personal experience. Then he pointed randomly again, this time at Tia. Tia stood slowly and made her way to the front.
"I'm Cynthia Carmichael, but everyone calls me Tia. Um...a couple months ago my older brother, Cameron, was killed in a severe car accident. He was the parent figure to me and my sister. He was always there when my mother wasn't, and it hurts a lot to have lost him." The same support was offered to Tia as she moved back to her chair. Spencer, now seated beside her, looked over and gave a tiny smile. Tia returned it graciously.
After the meeting was over, he found her in the parking lot as she was walking to her car. She took the opportunity to look more closely at him. He had long chestnut brown hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a sweater vest and jeans with a crooked tie, but the crookedness looked sort of endearing on him.
"Hey," he greeted when he stopped. Tia smiled slightly in return.
"Hey...that was really brave, what you did back there. If I'd seen Cameron die the way you did Maeve...I'm not sure how I'd handle it."
He nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "Well...my-my team is helping me too. A friend suggested I come here, to one of these groups. She said they helped her a lot after her parents died. They were killed in a car crash too. Drunk driver."
"That's horrible." Tia sighed, leaning up against the door. "How many people die because of people like that?"
"Statistically, each day 28 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. That's one death every 51 minutes...so, yeah...too many." He looked a little sheepish after saying that. He laughed nervously and put a hand on the back of his neck.
Tia smiled. "Maeve was a lucky woman, you know."
He looked up, still looking apprehensive. "You think?"
"I know."
From then on, the two of them kept talking. Tia never told Brooke about him, not even when they first kissed a month later. And Spencer never told anyone, either. Not his mother, not his team. Their relationship was a complete secret.