Hey guys! D'Artagnan here with a new story!

For those of you who follow my Flash stories, Feeling Good, please don't worry, I'm still working on them. I go through obsessions - a book, a show, a game - and after a time begin to lose...not interest, but inspiration for original content. I'll probably roll back around to it, but it might take a while. Please be patient, and hopefully this is something that may be up your alley.

I read The Magicians shortly after it came out in 2009 and was blown away. I'm currently re-reading it so I can get to The Magician King and The Magician's Land. I LOVE the new Syfy adaptation, they're doing an incredible job with cinematography, special effects, and the acting is impeccable. That said, this is canon from the TV SHOW. NOT THE BOOK. I have to list it in the book category because FFN doesn't have a category for TV yet. Please don't leave me a shitty review about how this doesn't follow the books - I know it doesn't. It's not supposed to. I will be pulling from the book here and there, as the show is only four episodes in and I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to go with this. But I kept getting these ideas and seeing scenes in my head, and I wanted to give this a try. I'm interested in seeing how this will be received.


PROLOGUE

Spencer Reid had always been, at his core, a very private man.

He had friends, certainly - his FBI coworkers, his university colleagues, old faces from school years past. He had been married when he started with the Bureau, though in the near decade he'd been a member of the BAU the members of his team had never met his wife, or even seen a photo. They knew she went by Del, and that she was the security director for a private university in upstate New York. She had never once come to D.C. to visit, apparently living full time on campus, married as much to her job as to Spencer, similarly to Sam and Alex Blake. The doctor refused to even name the school, citing security measures, but disappeared for an extended weekend every month to see her.

It had become a point of contention shortly after Henry had been born - his friends, especially Jennifer Jareau and Derek Morgan, were both hurt and angry when they realized he had no intention of ensuring a meeting ever took place. Spencer was her son's godfather, JJ had argued, she had a right to know who would be in his life. Spencer had calmly and firmly assured her that the chances of Del ever being a part of Henry's life were slim to none, and even if such an occurrence did take place he would trust the young boys life in Del's hands sooner than in his own. Penelope Garcia had tried, and failed, to find information about her online - Adelaide Reid was on file as the wife of Spencer Reid, but for some reason the technical goddess couldn't find a picture or even her maiden name. When begging for his privacy to be respected hadn't worked, Spencer had been forced to threaten to leave the team, and it was only after a drawn out conversation, with Hotch acting as mediator, that the group reached a truce and agreed to let the matter drop.

That had been four years ago, and while there was still the occasional grumble no one truly gave Spencer grief. The addition of Alex to the team this year had given him a kindred spirit of sorts, and seeing another healthy person in a long-term long-distance relationship had helped to quell the team's concerns for their youngest member. Without the prying, Spencer had felt comfortable enough to divulge a few more details - they met and married in graduate school, they went to the same tiny cabin in the Adirondacks for their wedding anniversary every year, he had proposed on the same bench where they first met.

But all in all, they still knew very little about her, because Spencer Reid was a very private man. Keeping his life neatly compartmentalized was a point of pride for the man, a skill he had mastered and wielded effortlessly.

Until the afternoon it blew up in his face.