Disclaimer: I own nothing, the character of Eve is mine, because she is entirely in my own head. Tiny oneshot from a really old story of mine just to see if there's any interest. AU just Reid and my OC in this one. May expand if I get any love, but it won't be done quickly.
Back on the mountain
Spencer Reid didn't even know what he was doing here. It had been so long since he'd last entered this tiny mountain community. They had been hunting for an unsub known as 'The Sculptor' who carved designs into the skin of his still living victims before killing them and skinning them to create pages for a satanic book.
There he met Eve Allison, a survivor from the original spree, a cop, and the unsub's major target. She and Reid had grown close, but his awkwardness had combined with her survivors guilt had made things impossible. And yet, here he was, using his limited downtime not to read, or visit his mom, but to come back here. In the years since Eve he had moved on, but as seemed usual for him, things hadn't ended well. Now though, he felt ready to move on.
He had loved it here, they had bunked in Eve's family home and in spite of everything they had been able to relax there. Things with Garcia and Morgan had moved on here. Everything had moved on here and that was what he wanted again. Needed.
He rationalised with himself that it had been three years. They'd called, emailed, skyped, even written. Reid had liked the snail mail. The pen on paper and little sketches that showed that she'd put real time into it. But then things had got busy and the contact had gone to nothing. He still felt bad for that. It wasn't like him, but even though she'd always been willing to listen, he'd felt bad weighing her down with the endless bad things he'd seen, especially when he considered that officially speaking she was a very bad thing in the beginning.
But she had become such a good thing, and through stress he had let her go. He knew she could be married with kids by now. She might have moved away. She might hate him for letting their relationship fade, but he knew they were both responsible for that. Worse she might have forgotten him entirely.
Trudging through the snow towards the house, he hoped she hadn't moved, or wasn't at work. In fact if Spencer Reid was the type to pray, he'd have done that right now. It was damn cold out here. Pretty but cold.
He reached up with a gloved hand to knock on the door, once he'd ducked under the canopy to get out of the falling snow. He had obviously been paying too much attention to his own thoughts and the scenery because he hadn't noticed a shape in the glass of the door.
He stumbled as the door was opened by a scarred hand. "Well hey. I'm liking your hair like that." Reid smiled up into the face of his target. Eve Allison, still with the same sad eyes. She held out her hand to him. "Best come in then, your knees are all wet." It felt to him like they'd last spoken yesterday. He could only hope she felt the same.