Spoilers for 1x18, "Somebody's Watching."

April 2, 2006

Spencer Reid was feeling restless. Not quite a week had passed since the case with Lila Archer in LA, and yet he still couldn't get her off of his mind. In an effort to distract himself, he was doing something that he rarely did – flipping through the channels on his television. As would be his luck of late, there wasn't even anything on worth watching.

But as he was flipping through, he heard these words: "Next up: Rising actress Lila Archer opens up to East Gate's own Hilary Johansson about her recent ordeal with a murderess stalker. How is she coping?"

And suddenly there was something on that Spencer wanted to watch. He sat on the edge of his seat for the next five minutes while commercials that he didn't even see rolled by. And then there she was: Lila Archer. The Lila Archer. The Lila Archer that had kissed him in her pool in LA. The Lila Archer that he had kissed in return.

He listened with rapt attention as the airbrushed interviewer spoke with Lila about how after not even a week – the thought crossed his mind that this had to have been shot even earlier than that – Lila was oh so much better, already so very healed from what had happened surrounding Maggie.

Spencer's first thought was, put plainly and simply, That's bull.

He didn't know about the rest of America, but he, for one, could see straight through the layers of makeup that Lila had on. Not to mention the absolute falseness of the smile that she wore for the cameras' sake.

When Lila expressed once again how much far removed from the incident she felt, Spencer couldn't help but turn the television off. On second thought, though, he turned it back on but left it on mute. Just because he didn't want to hear her words, that didn't mean that he didn't enjoy seeing her face once again, even if it was just on the TV.

Biting his lip, he watched her carefully, noticing all of the signs that most people probably wouldn't. She was miserable, still scared at best, and at worst, her mental state had gotten worse once the team had left LA.

He had to find a way to check on her. For a split second the obvious answer evaded him, and then it was there, slapping him in the forehead with its simplicity. Lila had put her number in his cell phone before he had left the City of Angels. He only had to pick up his phone and call her.

So he did.

"Hello?" Lila's voice filtered over the phone, music to his ears even though she sounded surprised. "Spencer?"

"Hey," he said softly. "I'm watching the East Gate clip."

"Oh," Lila whispered.

"How are you, really?" he asked, true caring lacing every syllable he said.

"Honestly?" Lila said, and he could already hear the tears gathering in her voice, even over the phone. "That was an awful day. Today has been a bad day. Every day this week has been a bad day… Everyone wants to know what happened, and I just want it all to go away! I want to forget that it ever happened but I can't. It's in my nightmares when I'm asleep every night, and it's there when I wake up because people just keep calling, and they won't stop! And even when they're not calling, I can't stop thinking about what happened, or about Maggie. Every person I see – even randomly on the street – will come up to me and start asking about it! I can barely even leave my stupid house because of it!"

Spencer flinched involuntarily and swallowed as he heard her start to sob. "Lila, don't cry… I know. I know what you mean, about it being there even in your sleep, in your mind. I'm sorry… I don't know of anything that I can do to help you besides just listening whenever you need someone to talk to… but, Lila?"

"Yeah?" she sniffled.

"I promise, it does get better. The memories might not even fade, but they will go to the back of your mind, I know that."

Her laugh sounded brittle as she said, "You know everything."

"Well, not quite, but this is the voice of actual experience talking. And I meant what I said; if things are ever rough for you, if you ever have a bad day and you need to talk to someone, you can call me whenever – day or night. I don't know how much help I can be, but know that I'll always make time to listen if you need an ear to bend."

Lila didn't say anything for a minute and then, "Spencer?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He smiled softly. "You're welcome."

It was one in the morning when she called the next night. Spencer fought waking up while already flinging his hand towards his phone, assuming that he was being called in to a case.

"Garcia?" he mumbled, answering his cell.

"Spencer?" She already sounded watery, like she was near tears.

His eyes widened, and he was suddenly very awake. "Lila!"

"Spencer?" And then she paused, realizing. "Oh. Oh my gosh! It's one in the morning over there, isn't it? I'm so sorry! I can… I'll call back later. I…"

"No!" Spencer sat up and flung the covers back, knowing that she must need something if she had actually resorted to calling him. "It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course. What's going on?" he asked softly.

"I… I keep seeing her face. Maggie… the way she looked at me. I can't close my eyes without seeing her face."

Spencer sighed internally, knowing full well what was going on. It was ten o'clock her time, which meant it was time for her to start thinking about going to bed, time for the nightmares to start looming over her.

"Well, you options of either taking some sleeping pills – which I do not suggest if you have to do anything tomorrow – or talking to me for awhile."

"About what?"

He shrugged. "Anything you want."

She paused before informing him dryly, "The segment that I did with 60 Minutes will be premiering tomorrow night."

"I think I'll go program my DVR to record it right now," he declared, making his way into his living room.

"Right now?" Lila repeated. "But it's one in the morning over there! Which I still feel really bad about, by the way."

"Don't," he ordered. "Really, I wasn't even sleeping very well anyway."

"How come?" Lila asked innocently.

Spencer paused, then decided to give her the honest answer. "Work."

"Are you guys out on a case or something?"

"No, but sometimes… sometimes the pictures that are in the case files that we do at the office are as bad as seeing things in real life."

There was a pause over the line, and then Lila told him, "You know… if you ever need to talk to call me to talk, that's fine too. I'd be more than willing to listen."

"All right," Spencer said, already knowing that he would be doing no such thing.

Lila didn't need the negativity and darkness that practically defined his life to seep into her life anymore than what it already had.

Hopefully you guys liked this first chapter, because the whole story should be a six-shot or larger. Reviews make my day!:)