It was two forty-five in the morning, and Spencer Reid found himself in a predicament. The electricity had already went off once this night immersing the young doctor into a world of not so desired darkness, a storm had been producing increasingly loud thunder as well as buckets of rain down for the past fifty-seven minutes. And oh yeah-

A girl somehow broke through a wooden wall and tumbled out onto his living room.

And there she sat, her right hand now settling down into her cross legged lap to join the other, both her thumbs running over the rest of her fingers out of nerves. How could anyone react so calmly to what had just happened? If it was any other circumstance besides crashing through his wall of course Reid would have at least taken a step or two closer, visually assessing if she had received any immediate injuries. Always being prone to helping anyone who was hurt within his view had been a trademark of his since forever. You don't take care of a person for the majority of your pre-adolescent and adolescent stages of development without it being incorporated into your personality for good. That was often the reason why the best nurses and caretakers have been individuals with sickly family members at home.

Yet Reid ignored the call upon his being to see if the girl needed any help to try and rationalize exactly how said girl of no more than one-hundred and fifteen pounds managed to break through a wooden wall that, while easily over fifty years old was still a wall, and one that had to have given his apartment and the one next to his seven to ten inches of structural space.

"Many older buildings were often built with greater space in-between units as opposed to present-day models simply because construction methods before the latter half of the twentieth century didn't allow spaces to be built so close together. In order to try and avoid the common disasters that plagued tenement buildings in the early twentieth century such as the rampant spread of disease and fire builders thought having more space that usual would allow the building to be evenly spaced. It wasn't until the years following the 1950s where houses were often built with single layer walls of solid masonry and sometimes wooden planks that contractors decided to turn back to the method of closer units and closer walls, but this time filled with the popular material asbestos that was both fireproof as well as a cost-efficient thermal and electrical insulator-"

"The stuff that causes cancer right?"

As if broken from a trance Reid jerked up at the voice once again, his eyes refocusing on her briefly before darting behind her at the hole. Keeping eye contact away from strangers was a practice Reid picked up early in his childhood as a way to try and minimize ridicule and attention on him. While his legs were still pulled against his chest Reid lowered his crossed arms to his shins, the grey yarn bunched up under his palms nervously being pinched and pulled. "I… I didn't even realize I was saying that aloud. Sorry."

The girl known as Vera raised a thin eyebrow at the man currently treating himself as a nervous wreck on the couch. After he didn't return her wave or greeting (well within reason since she did kind of dropped into his apartment unannounced), Vera couldn't help but be a little amused at how easily the man in front of her seemed to "clock out" from the real world. He just kept staring at her then at the wall, her then the wall. Until he promptly broke his silent struggle and began to ramble off at an alarming speed about the history of house insulation? The night was getting stranger and stranger, Vera could tell.

"I'm the one who fell through your wall and you're apologizing to me?" Vera shifted once again, wincing as she tried to work the kinks out of her shoulders. She was covered with an obscene layer of dust and tiny woodchips, but thankfully no splinters or scrapes to be had. As she proceeded to brush off her shoulders she glanced back briefly to where she came from. Vera was able to pick out a solid panel of wood more or less cracked in a rough outline of her previously huddled form. Her lips pulled into a wry smile as she turned back to the mystery man. "Lucky part of your wall acted as my shield huh?"

Reid gave a start yet again as she turned back to him. Her words seemed to be the kick he needed as Reid finally got up from the couch and kneeled beside her form. Making sure to give her at least six inches of clearance of course. She was still covered in dust and wood and cobwebs and who knew what else. "Never mind that, are you okay? Statistically most household injuries involving wood give way to splinters of varying magnitudes. The average splinter that breaks though the epidermis can actually carry a wide number of infections, and in rare cases even tetanus if the wood was in contact with an already infected object?" Seeing her smile waver the longer and longer he talked, Reid had to conclude that something he was saying wasn't sitting right. He couldn't help it though. Spouting out the first thought that came into his mind at rapid pace during times of uncertainty was just default to him. Rambling on anything, even if he honestly found it interesting, was better than silence.

Silence meant the other party had more and more time to focus on him, more time to gather up scrutiny and realize he wasn't really normal.

"No I'm, I'm fine. No splinters to be had. See!" Vera thrust out her arms towards him, palms up. Reid inched back suddenly at her sudden action before giving her a brief, tight-lipped smile. He cautiously poked the skin presented with his right thumb and index finger. "That's good. Good. Guess you aren't in the majority of household injuries huh?"

Vera smiled as she shook her head no, and without thinking reached forward and slapped her left hand on his upper right arm. The grey yarn of his cardigan underneath felt itchy on contact, the limb under that tightening in her grasp. "I'm just happy I didn't end up crashing through into some psycho serial killer's bathroom to be honest. I mean outside already being the whole 'dark and stormy night' deal, a girl alone in a building over fifty years old, it doesn't really help my odds you know?"

Reid decided to ignore the very small and very feminine hand that had made contact with his person. "Did you know the phrase 'it was a dark and stormy night' was actually first written in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford? It's often considered in literature as the best archetypal example of fictional melodramatic style."

"Noo, I can't say I did," Vera replied as she dragged out the 'o', "I always thought it was just a make-believe phrase people picked up over time."

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents. Except at occasional intervals when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets for it is in London that our scene lies. Rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness…" Reid tried to move his right arm, successful when Vera let it drop silently to the floor beside her. He wanted to try and make sense of what happened. Having a girl in such close proximity wouldn't help his rambling or trying to make any more sense of the situation.

He watched as Vera stretched her legs out before pulling herself up to her five foot six inch height. She placed her hands on her hips, twisting her torso back and forth both ways to assess the full extent of her possible injuries. Satisfied, she brushed off the remaining residue, forcing Reid to back up and stand up as well, lest he be barraged with her mess.

"Hey, hey! I believed you when you told me it was real. Didn't need to recite the entire book there."

"I can if you want."

"Want what?" Vera looked around her surroundings for the first time, half in hopes of finding a broom and dustpan. It was rude to just rain rubble on a stranger's floor.

"Recite the entire book. Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and houses of a description correspondent with the appearance of the quartier in which they were situated -" "Okay! Yeah. Understood. You really like that book."

"Not particularly. I just know it all. Same with that and thousands of other books, articles, journals…" Reid felt a little bit more in his element now, given the chance to explain his particular set of talents. He backed back up on the couch and plopped down on the left side, pulling his left leg up and over so his foot rested atop his right thigh. It was a position Reid often settled into in order to help think and process information. "I have an eidetic memory, so virtually every word and image I have ever read or seen is stored in my brain and can later retrieved at any moment. Add that with my ability to read over 20,000 words a minute and you basically have the entire contents of the National Library on wheels. Legs."

Vera could only give a slow nod. This man only got more and more interesting the longer she stayed here.

Reid took her silence as usual, with a disheartened frown. People should at least say something. Anything. He could react to lexicon with words and thoughts of his own. Silence was just unbeatable.

"So they're not just clever phrases you made up and memorized-" Reid looked up as she replied, squalling the sudden need to respond to her statement. He wasn't making it up! Even as a kid after you got past the silence no one would believe him until they forced him to rattle off some trivial excerpt from a close-by newspaper article or mundane passages from the bible. "-That's good. I mean a part of me was saying how anyone could talk so fast on half a breath you know? You'd have to be a crazy good actor to do so." He gave her a quiet nod before looking away yet again. She wasn't all that bad like the others.

As Vera stood in front of the man she realized that maybe she should get the ball rolling. It was late at night and she had instead begun to strike up a form of conversation with a virtual stranger, all while still in her slightly dusty pajamas (black sweats and an oversized yellow tee shirt), rocks and wood fragments collected at her bare feet.

"Anyhow… Yeah. Sorry about the whole wall… crashing… thing." Vera waved her hand flippantly behind her at the hole, trying to gather the man's attention once again. "I could give you the short version of what happened, but it is like three in the morning. I can just crawl right back through that hole and move like a table or something in front of it. And I'll go to the Super tomorrow, this morning? It was all totally my bad, I'm really, really sorry."

Reid found himself shaking his head slowly at first, gathering speed as she made mentions of just going back through the other side of the wall. He wanted answers! "Hey it's okay!" He made a motion towards her with his arms, trying to show her it's okay to calm down. "Really it's fine. I can already piece together what probably happened." "You can?"

Feeling a tad more encouraged as the girl in front of him calmed down he nodded, gesturing again towards the hole. "The proximity of the thunder was causing the building to rattle with more and more force. I noticed my walls were shaking before you crashed in. Pun intended."

Vera gave him a grin at the pun, slowly making her way to the couch's right cushion. Sitting on soft surface sounded lovely right then to be honest. She sat down with a "thump" as she leaned back, her eyes closing to the sound of the man's continued explanations. Something about an equation and force versus brick exteriors and closets?

"Hey how did you know I was in my closet?" "I looked at the floor plan before moving in and saw how each of the units was built in identical pairs. Your closet is touching my closet, and I'm willing to bet your kitchen is sharing a wall with mine, and so on."

Vera acquiesced with another nod, stealing a look at the man as he barreled on with his explanation. His voice once again drew her in, this time on the subject of D.C. building codes and wood rot. It was funny, how the longer he rambled on the more she seemed to just lose focus on what was actually being said. His hands where adorably wrapped in an old grey grandma-cardigan, the material being pulled and twisted on with more intensity the longer he talked. The sweater also managed to get pulled aside, revealing to her a grey tee shirt with most of the letters obscured save for "ornia Insti" and "Al Tec" in periodic element squares. At once Vera's eyes lit up as she interrupted her couch partner mid-sentence.

She pointed at him with a confident index finger. "You went to Cal Tech!"

Reid furrowed his brow, yet without missing a beat and oddly enough without being his usual annoyed at someone interrupting him mid-explanation merely nodded. "I graduated from there last year."

"Ooo. A college man. The plot thickens!" Vera withdrew her hand, pulling up her sweatpants-clad legs up against her chest as she crossed them at her ankles. She tapped her cheek in thought. "You're a little far away from MIT aren't you though? For grad school?"

"Actually when I say graduated, I mean graduated with three doctorates. Mechanical engineering and applied mathematics were completed when I was twenty. Chemistry needed an extra year only because the school thought pursuing a triple doctorate would be unwise." Reid gave a "hmph" as he leaned back into the couch. "They were wrong of course. But yes I am far away from MIT but it's not necessary because I figured I would try and get some work experience now. I might pick up another doctorate in engineering or quantum physics though. Who knows?"

Again Vera was struck dumbfounded. This was not an ordinary guy whose apartment she stumbled into at all was it. "You're a genius."

"Mmm. I suppose. While I possess an IQ of 187 and have access to an eidetic memory and incredibly productive speed-reading skills these are all features that don't immediately point to 'genius'. In ancient Rome the word genius is actually related to the Latin verb genui meaning "to bring into being, create, produce". The term genius acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: genius, and ingenium, a related noun referring to our innate dispositions and talents. So you can argue in today's time that to be labeled as a genius one has to showcase their talents in pursuits and methods that exemplify their intellect, as well as already possessing higher-than average intellect. So yes, I suppose to most of the population I am in fact a genius."

As if noticing for the first time Vera's proximity Reid tilted away from her slightly, his gaze focused not on her but the hole in the wall.

"Back on topic, you crashed through as a result of all those reasons, which were all aggravated because you in fact were pressing yourself up against the wall on your side." His eyes widened, the final piece of the puzzle came together for Reid, as the need to hole yourself up in your closet with a flashlight wasn't necessary something someone did every night. "You were scared of the storm."

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner folks! Guess I didn't know my own strength though huh?" Vera smiled up at the man before following his gaze to the hole in the wall. "I've been scared of them since as long as I could remember. I guess this one just spooked me more than usual though. The power suddenly going out probably had something to do with it. That and built up stress to the wall. This wasn't the first storm that caused me to retreat to a closet with a flashlight." Vera crossed her arms, a wrinkle forming on her brow in thought. "First time I can say that I actually damaged something though."

"In times during an extremely stressful event or an adrenaline rush the human body often releases a form of 'super strength'." Vera nodded thoughtfully at him, her eyes focusing in on his face as he glanced quickly back to her in afterthought. It appeared he wasn't expecting Vera to have been focusing on his face with such rapt attention. It was like she was diving straight through his exterior onto his inner being. Her eyes narrowing the longer he kept her gaze. He was caught like a deer in the headlights. Her headlights. It was well past his pre-determined sleep time of three in the morning and the storm had somehow stopped during his conversation with the girl, if he could call it that. He had to report to the BAU office in less than six hours and here was a girl named Vera with a name he had never heard of in his life of someone having, to sitting down right next to her on his couch, slamming him with an unrelenting gaze in her quest to try and see something on him. Inside him. It gave Reid that horrible plop and drop feeling in his stomach that he felt before when she first introduced herself to him, and knew he had to break eye contact first. She was so close (less than four inches of space), and seemed to be staring at him not with contempt or anger or confusion or disgust. She was just looking at him, looking past him.

Reid ripped his eyes away to land anywhere but on the girl sitting next to him on the couch. With glossy, dark-brown hair that feathered out in layers which stopped at the nape of her neck. Or with the chocolate, almond-shaped eyes that were much too expressive for this late at night. Or with ivory skin that in the low light almost appeared to be tinged with an ethereal glow, long and slender fingers that cracked as she traveled her thumb down. That had to be an idle habit of hers. His eyes narrowed as he tried to find out what was so fascinating with one of the paint-peeled bricks that made up the foot of his fireplace.

"Soo, Mister Genius. Do you have a name?"

Reid continued to avoid looking at her, not really sure what to do at the moment. He heard her. He just didn't really want to keep paying attention to her. And to the terribly troublesome feelings she introduced into his digestive system. But his mother always taught him to never be rude, not to mention it wasn't in his character to be rude. He may not like the terror she inflicted on him being, but that didn't mean it was really all her fault. And she already gave her name. Vera. Vera.

"Doctor Spencer Reid. My mom calls me Spencer." He winced as that came out, hoping she didn't catch onto the slight squeak that trailed after him saying his first name. Or the fact that he concluded his seven-word introduction with a stupidly obviously statement. Reid never felt less socially-attuned than he did in this instant. But to his defense he couldn't remember the last time he was voluntarily less than six inches away from a girl. From anyone really.

Yet of course Vera (Vera) just nodded and if she found his sentences awkward or obvious chose to ignore it. Instead a wide smile breaking across her face. It was like a shining golden sunray bursting through a storm's grey cumulonimbus clouds.

Vera held her right hand out to shake. "Well Doctor Spencer Reid, it appears that we may have first met in an exceedingly unconventional fashion. But I feel confident in saying this is the start of a wonderful friendship filled with adventure!"

Reid knew he couldn't complete her shake. He chose to raise his right hand instead, his palm turned out and facing Vera (Vera) in his own form of the wave she gave him earlier.

She kept beaming at him until he finally responded with a weak one of his own.

The rain clouds outside started to part, the full moon's glow slowly lighting up the darkness.