AN: SO I've finally gotten around to starting in on a rewrite of my Surprises series - welcome back Marianne, who, like the story, is undergoing some serious overhaul!

Set immediately post-Amplification.

She let herself in - it looked like all the lights were off, but as soon as she opened the door she could see the soft glow of Spencer's nightlight coming from the crack under his bedroom door - and locked and bolted the door behind her. It wasn't like him to not bolt the door, but at least he'd set the alarm, and she couldn't help but smile when the code was the same as it had been last time she visited.

It was good to see that some things didn't change, even when everything else had.

Marianne dropped her keys and her badge into the deep dish under the lamp by the couch, where Spencer kept his keys and badge, where they couldn't be fished from the tiny window by the door, or from the big window overlooking the tiny shared garden.

She kept her gun on her belt. She figured that Spencer would hang his on the headboard, so he wouldn't mind her doing the same.

He was curled up on his side, tiny and tangle-haired under his soft, thick comforter, something that always amazed her - he was so tall that it seemed ridiculous that he could appear so small, but he had a knack for it. Marianne had always wondered if maybe it was something to do with his high school experience, with having to try and make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible, but she'd never asked. He didn't like talking about high school, and she didn't like to push him when there was no reason to.

She tugged the comforter down just enough to expose his shoulder - no pyjamas. Good.

His gun was hanging over his head, just like she'd assumed it would be, so she hung her own on the opposite bed post, stripped down to her panties, and slid under the cover to curl against his back. He was warm - a little too warm, really - and there was a heavy bandage wrapped around one of his hands. He felt skinny, not in the normal way, but in the way he only got after he'd been sick, and his hair was too long. Way too long. She'd always preferred it a little shorter.

"You stupid bastard," she whispered, tucking her nose against the back of his neck and tugging the comforter up around them both. "How dare you get sick and not tell me."

For one bright, horrifying second, Spencer thought he was tied up somewhere.

Then he remembered just how strong Marianne's arms were, and he relaxed back into the warmth of her body.

"Morning, asshole," she said against his ear, pinching him in the ribs. "Good to see you've survived exposure to bioweapons."

He rolled over to look at her then, a little embarrassed and a little horrified, because he'd wanted to tell her why he was in hospital, but it was. Well, it was a matter of national security!

"You don't know that," he said, sitting up and trying very hard to not follow the falling comforter when she sat up, too. "You can't know that. I'll get fired if you know that."

"I may or may not have kind of broken into some locked files when I heard your name mentioned in connection with a domestic terror alert," Marianne said defensively, setting his glasses on his nose and working hard not to smile. "I do work in counter-terrorism, sweetheart, I know things."

With his glasses on, he could see her properly - see that she hadn't slept well, because her hair was in a ponytail and she only ever tied it up when she was having trouble getting to sleep, and because there were deep circles under her dark eyes. He could see that she'd had to use different washing detergent, because some of her scars were irritated, the skin scaled and flaking and sore looking. He could see-

"Stop profiling me, Spencer," she said, "and stop scratching at your hand."

He stopped, letting his hands rest in his lap for a minute - her foot was tucked under his thigh, and her gun was hanging off the bedpost, and the scars on her hand were smooth and uneven under his fingers when he reached over and traced his fingertips over her palm and up her wrist.

"I've missed you," she said. "I would have come sooner, but I was embedded in-"

"You could lose your job if I know that," he pointed out, nudging closer, letting his fingers trail up to the inside of her elbow, where a knot of scar tissue was deep purple against the reddish-brown of the rest. "Want to shower instead of talking about work?"

"Will you join me?" she teased, pushing up onto her knees and and leaning over him, arms around his shoulders. "You've got to be just as antsy as me-"

"And you want someone to wash your hair," he said, letting his hands settle on her waist, spreading his fingers wide to touch as much of her as he could. "You'll have to get started ahead of me so I can change to a waterproof bandage-"

"Wouldn't want to give your girlfriend Anthrax, right?"

There was music playing when Derek and Penelope arrived at Reid's.

"Is that what I think it is?" Derek asked, because even if Reid had somehow broke his radio so it was stuck on a top 40 station, Derek knew his boy, and Spencer Reid would rather turn off his radio than listen to this.

"That is indeed Lady GaGa, my love," Penelope said breezily, clicking up to the door in her sunflower-yellow heels and knocking loud and clear. "LoveGame, if I know my pop music, and I do."

The idea of Reid listening to Lady GaGa was one of the most uncomfortable things Derek had ever encountered, and he was more than a little relieved that Reid shut off the radio before coming to answer the door.

Wow.

"Hello, Doctor Love," Derek said, pushing his sunglasses up his forehead to take in Reid's... Everything. He'd never seen anyone who'd so clearly had a good night before, not unless they'd spent that night in his bed, and Reid looked a little dazed.

Man, that was a lot of hickies.

"Nice of you to drop by," he said, unusually cheerful - Derek knew Spencer wasn't usually this gracious this early without a lot of coffee, and with hair that wet and hickies that fresh, there was no way he'd had enough coffee. Then again, hickies meant sex, and sex meant endorphins, so...

He'd only been in Spencer's place a couple of times before, and had been struck every time by how neat it was - practically hospital clean, everything just so - but it wasn't like that this morning. This morning, there was what looked like egg all over the little kitchen, and a huge stack of French toast on the coffee table, and a lady with a whole lot of black hair on the couch.

"You want breakfast?" Reid asked. "We've got eggs, or French toast - and lots of coffee. And hazelnut milk. Marianne brought it back from her run."

"I'm guessing you are Marianne," Penelope said, moving towards the woman on the couch, who had half-turned to see them and was apparently going to town on all that French toast. "I'm-"

"Penelope Garcia," she said after a whole lot of swallowing. "And this is Derek Morgan, I assume - Spencer's told me so much, it's a pleasure to meet you both."

When she turned, she was smiling - she had a gap between her front teeth, eyes as big as Reid's but twice as dark, and one hell of a lot of burns scars down the left of her neck and arm, disappearing under her acid green tank top.

"I'd stand, but I left my leg in the bedroom," she said, holding out a hand. "Marianne Goodwin."

How Reid had managed to find himself a girl that good looking, who'd served overseas, judging on those burn scars and the missing leg, and the way her eyes were flicking between Derek's gun and the door, Derek had to know.

"How is it we know nothing about you, if you know all about us?"

"Oh, you know how it is," she said breezily, smiling again when Spencer sat beside her with a huge mug of coffee in his hands. "You sign up for some dangerous overseas work and half your life ends up redacted, so your boyfriend can't even talk about you to his friends."

Redacted overseas meant counter-terrorism, given that she didn't have the body type or the hypervigilance for a Marine, and that made her dating Reid even more interesting.