I don't own Criminal Minds, nor will I make a galleon off of writing this fic. /disclaimer obligation.
Gabrielle Stohnam was excited to be excused half an hour earlier than usual from her Calculus class that day. The Senior at Governor Mifflin High had never been either particular fond of math in general, or especially great at Calculus itself, so even if this morning's auditorium assembly was going to be about some boring police folk coming in and running their collective gab off about things she overheard while she played World of Warcraft as her parents watched those criminal investigation shows, she welcomed it. Any and everything in the world beat mathematics.
As she filed down the stairs with her fellow classmates, the tanned skin seventeen year old made sure to smooth down the front of her light blue sweater, not wanting it to bunch up as she tromped down the steep steps. Her slightly coiled curls of dark brown hair bounced slightly with each step, the cascading mane down her back ending in little curley-q's that were tinged with red; a dyeing experiment gone serendipitously right.
"What do you think they're going to talk about?" a fellow senior asked her, as they neared the last of the steps; it was Gabrielle's best friend, Seph Evans. "I hear they might not just be cops, but federal investigators. That'd be kind of cool."
"Yeah, maybe," the brown-eyed girl replied, glancing over to her dark-haired, pale-complected peer. "That'd be better than just plain old, from around here cops, who have nothing better to do than periodically stop every car they see that's driven by a teenager, solely because it's being driven by a teenager."
"Hey, my Dad's just doing his duty, doing that," the grey-eyed young man replied defensively. "You know that, Gabe."
"Yes, I know. I'm sorry, Seph. I'm just still a little peeved about getting that ticket. I was going literally two miles over the speed limit."
Rolling his eyes and not wanting to get into this particular conversation again, the teenager called Seph remained quiet the rest of the way down the stairs and on into the first floor auditorium. Choosing seats next to each other somewhere in the middle of all the rows, Gabrielle and Seph waited to see exactly who was going to speak down on the stage, front and center.
"I hear it's criminal profilers that are going to be speaking," another student, called Kaci said to Seph.
"Who knows?" he replied, before leaning forward slightly in his seat to peer downward as a lone person came through a side door into the auditorium, before stepping up onto the stage and preparing his self before a mic and podium once there. "Who's this guy?"
Amidst much murmuring throughout the auditorium, the person at the mic, whoever he was, didn't say anything right away. Also peering down at him from her seat was Gabrielle, who immediately felt a bit of a heat rise to her face. From his slightly shaggy haircut, to his sweater vest, to his all over geeky appearance, she found him to be quite appealing; yes, he was quite cute, indeed. She smiled slightly as she continued to observe him.
"What's with you?" Seph asked her, before rolling his eyes as he made the connection. "Oh, right, you like unnaturally thin, gangly guys, don't you?"
"Yes, just as much as you like freckle-pocked, bug-eyed girls, Seph."
At this, a rather stung looking Kaci turned around to face the speaker down below, leaving the pair of friends to exchange scathing looks, before returning their attention to the man at the podium as he tapped on the mic, causing a loud, unpleasant sound to filter through the auditorium's speaker system.
"Sorry about the bug-eyed girls comment," Gabe said in a lowered sort of voice as she covered her ears.
"No problem at all," Seph replied, also covering his ears; at any rate, the two of them had been insulting each other for half their lives, why stop now? It was just the way their friendship seemed to work best. Or, at least, Gabe liked to insult him quite often, so he tried to reciprocate. It seemed the natural, yet also strange at the same time, way of things.
"Hello, uhm, hi, yeah. Sorry about that weird microphone noise. I'm your speaker this morning. My name is Spencer Reid, and I am a criminal profiler for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit. I, along with others as a group, basically try to break down what makes a killer a killer - what makes a criminal tick. We break it down, and use the information to try and solve cases, and on numerous occasions it has worked quite well, indeed, for us."
Pausing briefly at this, the small-statured young man cleared his throat and arranged some index cards before him, before continuing on. "As I understand it, this high school, Governor Mifflin High, is intending to possibly add an elective class that would serve as a precursor to specialized training one would need to eventually pursue a career such as the one I have."
Mumbles and murmurs met this little announcement, and then Reid continued on once again.
"But I expect that I can't really explain this all too well without giving you a demonstration, so, without further ado, I cordially invite any one of you who wishes to volunteer to come right here onto the stage. I will then proceed to tell you any and every little detail about you I can gather, just by asking you a few brief and simple questions. So… who's up for volunteering?"
A few hands scattered throughout the crowded auditorium shot up at once, but it was Gabrielle Stohnam who simply couldn't resist the chance to be on the same stage as the geeky (and, apparently, highly intelligent) man that was going to tell her who she was, detail by detail. "I volunteer! Please pick me!" she called out, and being the only student to vocalize her voluntary state, the man behind the mic and podium bowed his head, before calling back to her, "Come on down here, then. You can be the volunteer."
Grunts and groans of disappointment (as well as a few jeers thrown Gabe's way) could be heard as the girl in blue jeans made her way quickly down the aisle and toward the stage. Soon she was at this Reid guy's side, and her adoration of him was quite apparent to Seph, even from where he remained sat, further back. Smiling at her inability to hide her crush, he shook his head. She was a silly girl sometimes.
"So, may I have your name?" Reid asked the young woman, who stepped forward closer to the mic and answered him in as much of a collected voice as possible, "It's Gabrielle, but, I'm generally just called 'Gabe' by people."
"Right, Gabe, nice to meet you, first and foremost. I'm sure we'll be friends, as long as you don't end up being the next unsub I have to search out."
When no real reaction was received to saying this, Reid turned to the mic to explain exactly what an unsub was, however Gabe beat him to it, quickly addressing the microphone herself as she said, "In case you all weren't aware, an unsub is simply an unknown subject of any given investigation."
Raising his eyebrows, Reid gave a nod of his head, saying to Gabe, "Impressive." Then addressing the school as a whole he added, "She's correct. An unsub - unknown subject - is the criminal we're trying to figure out, in order to find and stop him or her before he or she strikes again. And so I'll begin now with the questions, Gabe, if you're ready."
"I'm ready," she replied, though she still had traces of a blush on her face; his voice, his mannerisms, his praise of her knowledge regarding the term he'd used… it had all made him seem even more attractive to Gabe.
"So tell me, Gabe," Reid began then, his eyes falling upon her as he turned to the side, presumably so that the auditorium audience could watch the impending investigation of their fellow peer. "What do you typically do on say, a weekend?"
"A weekend?" the girl repeated back, mulling it over for a few seconds before answering, "Well, I finish up any extra homework; sometimes I go see a film with my friend Seph. But most of my time is spent playing video games or writing poetry."
"What kind of poetry?" Reid then asked, sounding genuinely interested.
"Er, mostly things that don't make much sense to anyone but me. Personal things, 'bout my emotions and such." Gabe was beginning to think that the cuteness of this cop wasn't worth the potential embarrassment she could bring to herself in front of the whole school.
"And what kind of video games?" he asked next, not commenting on the poetry elaboration.
"Mostly World of Warcraft," Gabe answered at once, eliciting a few laughs and calls of acknowledgement from fellow players in the auditorium. "Sometimes other MMORPGs. Sometimes just simple strategy games. But my favorite game isn't really a video game, it's a normal game - Chess."
"Eh, I'm not so great at Chess, personally. Not always, anyway," Reid said to this, before asking, "So, finally, what's your family like? Big? Small? Lots of siblings? Only child? What?"
"I'm an only child," Gabe replied. "It's just me and my parents. We had a pet bird, too, but we lost it a few months ago."
When she said this, the girl noticed that Reid looked at her in kind of a funny way, and she wasn't sure how to take it, but seeing as she didn't say anything odd or bad, maybe he was just feeling sorry that she'd lost her pet. Maybe he felt bad, maybe he was thinking to himself something along the lines of 'I'm so sorry for that girl's loss… I should try to cheer her up.' Maybe, just maybe, but even if she never knew really, it didn't matter. He didn't have to say it, after all. She could just read it in his eyes - read the pity he felt for her. Poor Gabe, losing her bird like that. Etcetera.
"Well, are you ready to hear my little evaluation?" Reid said to her, breaking her momentary reverie and bringing her back to reality as he spoke.
"Oh, sure," she said with a bit of a shrug. "Go ahead. Analyze me, heh."
Smiling back at her, Reid said, "Certainly. For starters, you're pretty much a loner, seeing as you spend a majority of your time online playing your games; many, if not most, of your closest friends are either Online or were met Online, as also evidenced by you saying you only went to movies with one other friend."
Nodding her head in somewhat of a noncommittal fashion, Gabe figured so far it sounded about right.
"Furthermore," Reid continued on then, giving a curt nod of his own head as he did so. "Being an only child means that you're basically used to either doing everything on your own, being completely independent, or else having most everything done for you, for generally it's either one way or the other for only children in upper-class neighborhoods such as the one you live in."
"Well…" Gabe began in reply, pausing to think about it; she certainly didn't have to do everything herself, seeing as her mother did the cooking and laundry, and things like that, but then again, she didn't want to come off as a spoiled, rich kid who got everything handed to her on a platter whenever she snapped her fingers and asked for it. "I'd say it's a mix of both. My mother does some things, like all moms, am I right? But for the most part, I'm independent. I hold a part time job with a local newspaper office. I'm a proof reader for them. And that's how I get my money to pay for my World of Warcraft, and other subscriptions, too, you know."
"Alright, so you're a self-sufficient, yet comfortable to be at home girl who is voluntarily secluded much of the time, spending your free moments with a computer and the Internet, only daring to go to the cinema with a single friend of yours. I'd say you're afraid of something, Gabe."
"Afraid of what?" she replied, somewhat anxiously. "What is there to be afraid of?"
Mulling this over, Reid said to her in a lower, more private tone of voice, "I'm afraid I'm not sure of what exactly yet. So for now…" He then stepped back to the microphone, saying, "Let's just leave it to this old, but still relevant and good answer: There is nothing to fear but fear itself. So there you go."
"No," Gabe insisted, not caring that Reid had taken care to speak more lowly to her about it, insinuating he might speak with her about it later on or something; knowing from his body language alone that it was clearly something he felt too private to speak of in front of a crowed, Gabrielle pressed the issue. "I want to know, if you're such a good profiler, what exactly, precisely - to the point - I am so afraid of."
Closing his eyes for a few brief seconds, Reid finally relented, sticking his hands down into his trousers pockets as he said, "I think you are afraid of being abandoned, of not being accepted, of just, all-around not being liked."
Looking a bit embarrassed now for having harassed him for an answer in the first place, Gabe stuttered to try and give an explanation, but Reid himself came to the rescue, adding, "But just because you fear those things does not mean that your fear has any grounds or anchorage in truth. I can also tell by your demeanor and appearance and overall confident smile that you aren't amongst those that shy away from the limelight. You are clearly quite well liked and probably have more acquaintances-ready-to-become-friends than you really realize."
Blushing a bit again, Gabe couldn't conceal her smile as she looked back at Reid. "Do you really mean that?"
Before the B.A.U. member could properly respond, a loud, annoying, whirring sound went off throughout the whole building.
"What is that?" Reid asked Gabe, who replied, "School fire drill."
"Nice timing, right?" he replied back to the student, before moving to arrange and pick up his note cards and various other papers. "I guess I'll have to come back and lecture on a different day to say the rest."
"Oh, please do," Gabe answered him, before adding, as a remedy for her overly eager manner, "Er, it was just all so interesting, you know?"
"I'm kind of a busy guy with my job, but I will definitely try to find some more time in my schedule to elaborate to this school about the addition of the new class with a second speaking here," Reid said to her, before watching as the students murmured and lined up and filed out of the auditorium; standard fire drill procedure. "I'll be going now. Nice to have met you, Gabrielle."
"Nice to have met you, too, Spence," the girl replied, recalling his briefly mentioned first name.
Glancing back at her, the profiler gave her a small smile. He wasn't used to be called that. He found he rather liked it. Nodding his head at her, he finally turned and left completely from the building. Glancing down to the ground, Gabe noticed that he'd dropped one of his cards. Kneeling behind the podium and looking at it, she saw it simply outlined a plausible curriculum for such a class as he'd been speaking about. Looking at the card's back, she found a tiny set of initials in the bottom right corner. SR, followed by four digits, 1966.
"Weird," she murmured to herself, figuring at once that this couldn't possibly be Spencer Reid's year of birth, due to his younger appearance. "Wonder what it means."
Slowly rising to her feet, Gabrielle stared on toward the side door of the auditorium, which Reid had long since gone through. She had to know more about him. He had been rather accurate during his profiling of her… up until the very, very end. Why on Earth he'd lied and called her, more or less, quite popular, was beyond her. It didn't seem befitting of his personality to lie like that. She had a feeling that if there hadn't been an audience full of others to mock her for it, then Reid wouldn't have added the nice things there at the end at all.
She really liked him, but she didn't like liars, and so Gabe felt that she had to amend this paradox in her mind, before it could trouble her any further.