It was eight in the morning and the coffeehouse was just starting it's midmorning rush. There was a long line, but Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan couldn't take one more morning of the black bile that the FBI called coffee. A drink from his favorite coffeehouse was exactly what he needed to make it through another long day of paperwork and bureaucratic politics and it was most definitely worth the small wait. When the tall, lanky man in line in front of him finally finished ordering and Derek was about to make his way to the register his phone buzzed with a text message from the communications liaison for the BAU, the special team of FBI agents Derek worked for.
Need you at the office ASAP.
We have a new case. Hope you
didn't eat yet. This one isn't
pretty.
-JJDerek sighed and moved to the counter. When he looked up and saw the cute new barista waiting patiently for his order he turned on his most charming smile instinctively. Her smile was friendly and her curves were tempting. She had icy blue eyes that sparkled in the florescent lighting. Her chuckle was light hearted and reminded him that he hadn't bothered ordering yet. She took the pen from the register and used it to hold her black hair with the purple tips in a knot on the nape of her neck. "You feel like ordering or are you planning on just smiling at me all day?" she asked him playfully, her southern accent catching him off-guard. It wasn't every day that a southern girl found her way to the Virginia/DC area.
"Sorry Sweetheart," he apologized smoothly. "I came in here thinking I wanted a latte, but now I'm thinking I might want your number instead." He knew it was a corny line, but it wasn't as if the line hadn't worked in the past, even if it was usually in a bar full of drunk FBI cadets looking to make a name for themselves in the bureau.
"One latte, coming up," she told him, wrinkling her nose in an attempt not to laugh at his pick-up attempt. "Small or large?"
"Large, I guess," he sighed. He hadn't been shot down so quickly in years. She hadn't even checked him out. He looked at her ring finger to make sure she wasn't married. There wasn't a ring there. So why wasn't she interested at all? He worked hard on his physique and most girls—married or not—at least admired it for a second or two. This girl wouldn't even look at him.
Derek waited at the other end of the counter for his drink to be made and took it with him to the office. Once inside, he noticed the rest of the BAU team gathered in the conference room at the end of the hall. He joined them and tried to pay attention to the case that JJ was presenting. Girls were disappearing in Florida and turning up four days later wearing clown costumes and lying face-down in ditches on the side of I-4. People were getting crazier and crazier every day, especially people in Florida.
The entire team focused their attention on a receptionist who had stuck her head in the doorway of the room. "Agent Reid," she asked.
"Yeah, that's me," Derek's teammate Spencer said holding up a long, thin finger to distinguish himself from the other agents in the room.
"You have a visitor," the girl told him before exiting as quickly as she'd entered.
Spencer stood up and walked to the hallway to greet his visitor. The rest of the team watched intently, wondering who would be there to see the youngest agent. His family lived in Nevada, and he hadn't ever mentioned having too many friends outside of the bureau, especially any who would need to speak to him while he was at work.
It was hard to see who had come to see him, but JJ, who was standing at the end of the conference table and therefore had a better vantage point than the rest of the team, leaned over to her colleagues and whispered, "It's a girl. And he's giving her his keys. And...oh my God! He's kissing her goodbye!" Her eyebrows were raised in astonishment. No one had ever heard Spencer mention a girlfriend. He certainly wasn't the ladies' man his best friend Derek was. Spencer was still blushing when he came back to the room and took his seat.
"So, what was that all about Casanova?" Penelope Garcia, the team's quirky technical analyst teased him. His blush deepened.
"Nothing," he played it off. "My friend's just borrowing my car while we're out of town."
The team finished the briefing and their leader, Aaron Hotchner, told them to be ready to go in twenty minutes. Derek, Spencer, and one of their teammates, David Rossi, were riding together to the airport hanger where the team's private jet was housed. In the car, they couldn't help but question Spencer about his visitor.
"Who was your friend this morning, kid?" Derek asked him, chuckling. "And why is she borrowing your car?"
"She's just this girl I met a while back," he answered generically. He looked out the window distractedly.
"How long ago?" Rossi wanted to know. It was obvious that the girl was more than "just some girl" and he wanted to know how long Spencer had been hiding this secret romance from his friends.
Spencer blushed again, embarrassed. "Six months," he answered finally.
"You might as well go ahead and tell us the whole story, kid," Derek chided. "We're profilers. You know we'll get the info out of you eventually."
Spencer sighed. He debated for a minute whether or not to tell his friends about Kris and finally decided that he wanted to keep his relationship private for a while longer. Kris was like his own secret treasure. He wasn't ready to share her yet. "What story?" he shrugged. "Nothing to tell. She's a friend that I met a few months ago. Her car is in the shop, so I've been giving her a ride to and from work the last few days. Since we'll be out of town and I can't drive her, she's borrowing my car until we get back."
David and Derek didn't buy the story, but they could tell Spencer didn't want to talk about the girl, so they let the subject drop and started talking about the case they were working on.
XXX
The case was becoming stranger and stranger the more the team learned about the unsub. As horrible as it seemed, Spencer could tell that it would take a new body before they could get any information that would lead them to the detailed profile they needed to catch the killer. When Aaron suggested the team go back to the hotel and get some rest at two that morning, Spencer was thankful for the break.
As soon as he reached his room and had the door locked, he pulled his phone from his pocket and climbed onto the bed. She answered on the second ring. "Hey Baby," she greeted him, sleep still evident in her voice. "Are you back already?"
"No, no. We're still in Florida. I just wanted to talk to you. Sorry if I woke you up," Spencer apologized.
"I'm glad you did. I was dreaming about you, but I don't think my dreams were doing you justice. Hearing your voice is so much better."
"I miss you," Spencer admitted. He wasn't one of those boys who hid his feelings in fear of sounding needy. He did need Kris. She made him feel...normal. Being the twelve-year-old senior in high school, normal was a feeling Spencer had never experienced until six months earlier.
"You'll be home soon. And I'll be there waiting when you land," Kris reminded him.
"You promised you'd tell me why you don't want to stay at your apartment if I called you tonight," Spencer blurted out. He'd been worried about it all day. It wasn't unusual for Kris to stay at his apartment anymore, but she'd never stayed there while he was away on business before. She really was using his car while hers was in the shop, just as he'd told his teammates earlier that morning, but he hadn't expected her to come to the BAU office and ask for the key to his apartment.
Kris sighed. "I just don't feel like being there right now," she whispered.
"I don't believe you." Kris was always very honest with Spencer. He couldn't imagine any reason she would lie to him about something so trivial, but he could tell in her voice that there was something she wasn't telling him.
"I don't know, Stat," she told him sincerely. Stat was the nickname she'd given him, short for Statistic. When she'd first met Spencer, she hadn't known his name and had just called him "statistic boy" when she and her co-workers spoke of him. He was always rattling off statistics when he tried to talk to her and she'd thought it was cute. "Honest. It's just this weird feeling."
"What kind of feeling?"
"Like someone's watching me." She was whispering again, embarrassed to be telling him something that made her feel so crazy. "I know I sound like some paranoid crazy person, but I just have this weird feeling like someone's been watching me the last few days. It's worse when I'm home. I didn't want to be there alone for however long you're away."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Spencer choked out. Parts of her story reminded him of the crazy ramblings of his paranoid schizophrenic mother but there was so much sincerity in her voice that he couldn't help but believe her. His mother had never been completely in her right mind and he could tell when she was having one of her paranoid episodes. With Kris, the only uncertainty in her voice was her questioning her own sanity for believing someone was watching her without her knowledge. "How long has this been going on?"
"A few days. Not long. And I was afraid...I don't know...that you'd think I was nuts or something. Maybe I am."
"You're not. Trust me," Spencer assured her. "Well, not for this anyway," he added with a small chuckle.
"I love you."
"Tell me about the last few days. Don't leave anything out," he responded. His trust in her story was his own form of telling her he loved her, though he'd said the words a hundred times already.
"It started on my way to work the other day. It was the day after my car died, when I'd decided to walk because it was so pretty out. When I left your apartment, I was fine. It wasn't until about a block away from the shop that I got this chill down my spine. I looked around, but I was the only one on the street. Even that park on the corner of 16th Street was empty. But I could have sworn someone was watching me. The next day I was at the shop when I felt it again. There were at least fifteen customers there, plus about four of us working. I couldn't see anyone out of the ordinary. Since then, it feels like someone's there most of the day. No one stands out from the crowd. And when I walk around my apartment, I can still feel it. Especially when I'm there."
"Do you have enough clothes at my place to last a few days, just in case?" Spencer wanted to know.
"Yes."
"Then don't go back to your apartment until I get home. I'm probably being overly-cautious, but I have a small handgun in the top of my closet, in a green shoe box. I think you should put it in your purse while I'm here. And don't walk to work; take my car." Spencer was worried. He knew that something must be spooking Kris. He would be sure to find out what as soon as he got back to Virginia. "I'll be home in a few days."
"How's your case going?" she asked, glad to take the focus of their conversation off of her for once.
"Not great. It's disturbing. And we don't have enough evidence for a profile yet," he told her. He wouldn't mention the need for another body, another victim. Kris was extremely sensitive about things like that. Especially with her current worries, he didn't want to bring up upsetting topics.
With the serious conversation out of the way, Spencer and Kris caught one another up on current topics in their lives. Spencer hung up just over an hour later when Kris had fallen asleep.
XXX
The next morning brought with it a new victim in the BAU case. It provided the missing elements for the profile and the unsub confessed under Emily Prentiss' interrogation early in the evening. Spencer was glad to be going home earlier than expected. He was anxious to look into whatever was scaring his girlfriend. He had a stack of paperwork to finish before he could leave the office, which would give Kris just enough time to pick him up after her shift at work that night.
The team was playful as they made their way up to their offices on the sixth floor of the building. Everyone was excited that the case had been solved so quickly. Penelope met them at the entrance to the bull pen area and asked to talk to Spencer alone for a second.
"What is it, Garcia?" he asked. She looked worried which was unusual for the happy, free spirited woman.
"Reid, your, um, friend—the one from the briefing yesterday—came by. She was crying and saying someone had sent her a note and she was freaked out and didn't want to go home. I had just heard from JJ that you were on your way back, so I told her she could wait for you here. She's in the conference room. She seemed really freaked out. I tried to convince her to talk to one of the other agents or the police or someone, but she said she wanted to talk to you about it first. I did finally talk her into letting me put the note in an evidence bag, just in case," Penelope rambled.
"Kris is here?" Spencer immediately looked in the direction of the conference room, but the door was shut. "Thanks Garcia," he mumbled as he headed to the small room.
Kris was sitting on a sofa in the corner of the room, curled up in a ball. It was obvious she'd been crying; her eyes were puffy and red and there were mascara stains running down her face. Spencer sat next to her and she threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him so hard that he had to pry her loose so that he could breathe again. She had started crying again, silent sobs that stole her breath and broke his heart.
"What happened, Kris?" he asked her, frantic to find answers. "Is this about the...feeling? The person you felt watching you?"
Kris nodded into Spencer's chest. "He was there, I'm sure of it."
"Who?"
"I don't know." Kris pointed at the table in the center of the room where Spencer could see the evidence bag containing the note Penelope had mentioned. "But that was sitting in the front seat of your car when I opened the door to go to work tonight. Whoever left it was in the car."
