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Chapter 2: Introduction

Late November

"Hey kid, what has been eating you these last few days?"

"I'm fine Morgan, I don't know what you're talking about."

The older man leans back in his seat, tilts his head to the side, and chuckles. "Dude, you suck at lying. Really. You've been a little off the last couple of days. A little angry, I think. What's eating at you?"

"Fine Morgan, you really want to know? Reese and I traded addresses. You and Hotch shoved me forward and I stuck my neck out and made myself vulnerable and I have nothing to show for it! It's been two months! Is my luck just that bad that the post office lost her letter or something completely random happened to it? I've sent her three letters and nothing! Nothing! I'm just doomed. I'm resigned to my fate and its fine. Just leave me alone, alright? I'm fine." He sagged against his desk chair, beaten.

"Ah… Well, they were just starting midterms while we were there and she is working through a trauma. Maybe she just hasn't had the time yet? I really hope that's the case. I'm sorry this one seems to have bombed man. But trust me. Don't let it get you down. You put yourself out there. You took a huge step. Hopefully next time it will be easier for you and it will work out better."

"Morgan, there is no 'next time.' That's fine. I'm fine with that. I'll be fine.'

His friend came over and leaned against his desk. "No man. If you want someone, eventually, you have to keep working at it. Yeah we have as stressful job that keeps us away from home. Yeah you're a genius with terrible social skills. But you found two someones before. Almost four, if you want to count it that way. If you really want it, it will happen."

Reid turns away from his friend, digs around in a drawer for nothing or whatever fells best to pull out, and announces, "I really don't want to talk about this anymore."

The black man claps his hands together once. "Fine. When you're ready, you know where to find me."

Two days later, Reid receives a letter. The handwriting of his address is unrecognizable to him. He never gets any mail other than bills and spam. He knows all of his teammates' handwriting easily. (Why would they send him anything through the mail anyway?) His eyes sweep to the corner to see if there's a return address –

He drops the letter like it was burning hot.

Reese Wellings.

The postmark is from a few days ago.

Immediately scrabbling down for it, he has it half torn open when he stops himself. Does he really want to do this to himself? Open his heart up again? What if she just politely wants to tell him she's not interested?

Morgan's voice in his head tells him if she wasn't interested, she wouldn't have taken the time to write him.

His fingers register that the envelope is more than one page thick. Reid's fingers know the feel of printer paper and the feel of non-printer paper. This is probably notebook paper; definitely not printer paper.

A hand-written letter longer than one page would take time. Reese had put actual effort in sending him a letter. It was an investment on her part. This really was his chance and he'd be an idiot if he let it pass by.

(If it really was hand-written. Writing anything longer than a sticky Post-It was unheard of these days. Everything was done by computer now. Reid intensely disliked most of advanced technology these days.)

"Ok fine Morgan, you win. Now get out of my head."

Right there in the threshold of his apartment he finishes opening the envelope, lets it fall to the floor, and reads the letter.

Spencer Reid,

I'm sorry it took me this long to write to you. I'll be completely honest and tell you that I frankly don't know what to write about. At first I was a little busy and a bit scared; but those are more like excuses than actual reasons. Then when I actually sat down and began to write a letter, my note-taking kicked in and the words were all in shorthand. I'm a little ashamed to say that I had written almost three paragraphs before I realized this. I was all 'Ugh no' and threw that one away.

I was also a little sick for a few days. Nothing big; something I go through all the time. The psychologist said this trauma affected it.

The psychologist that I have been seeing says I am doing well; making good progress. The first few weeks were rough – I'd wake up with nightmares several times at night. It was terrible and I looked terrible. Poor Sasha – my roommate – slept with our suitmates for those two weeks. After that I woke up less and less. I still jump a little whenever I see a dark blue car and I shudder a little when I'm at work, but it is slowly going away.

But being extremely tired from all of that is a valid reason for why this letter is late…

I am happy to say that I passed my midterms with flying colors in most of my classes! :) Math is not my strong suite but this is the last class that I have to take in math. Science is also low on the totem pole but I got a "C"! Ha.

And now I'm struggling for what to say…

I'm going to apologize – ha, but not – that you're just going to get a bunch of rambling, stream-of-consciousness thoughts from me and I'll probably jump all over the place.

I guess if you don't want to read it you'll just never respond! :P

I did receive your three letters. I did not know that so much information could be stored and remembered with such clarity in one human brain. Fascinating things you've got saved in your head.

Your job sounds very interesting. Not that I want to know all of the gory details – and maybe you can't even tell me some of it? And that's fine, too. But the idea that you can catch someone based on their behavior and upbringing is very intriguing.

I'm going to take this opportunity to say 'Thank you' and ask that you pass this on to your team. I'm sure people say this to you sometimes, but truly. Thank you for sacrificing your time, energy, mind, and soul to such a… an exhausting job. None of you receive the credit you should.

I suppose I should tell you about myself. I'm an only child and my parents are still together. They live in Michigan as well, just a few cities away. Haha, if I get really homesick I get in my car and drive the two hour trip to see them. Though I told them I wanted to be independent while I'm at school.

(Which is a bit of a joke as they're paying for most of it!)

The first few weeks of college were interesting for me in this regard. Hehe I told Mom I'd be home to see them every week and do laundry. Not! I came home the first two weekends and then just kind of decided I was going to be just fine on my own. Plus… that's a lot of gas money… And while I know that Mom and Dad miss me, they are happy that I'm growing up. (And moving toward moving out eventually! :))

Not that I'm not working; as you know. I work in the school's mailroom sorting campus mail. I got this job during the second semester of my freshman year. I'm currently in my junior year. I also help out in the gym with keeping score for the volleyball games and assisting with tournaments. I'm studying English as my major and Religion as my minor.

The only reason I'm even going to college is because my parents really wanted me to and it supposedly looks good on a resume when I get a 'real' job after graduation. Crossing my fingers on that one. Plus Sasha and I have been best friends since kindergarten and she got in and begged me to be her roommate.

I'm studying English and Religion because there really isn't anything else for me to study and they are both interests of mine. As previously stated science and math are not my strong suite. English and Religion are basically the only things left when everything has been boiled down to the basics, ha.

When I get to pretend that I have free time, I also waitress in a retirement home. I've managed to memorize the names of about ninety-five percent of the people that eat in the main dining room. The residents love that I know their names; they try to get me to sit at their tables with them and tell me their life's stories and all about their families. While I'm trying to work! The management there wants me to work more hours but honestly I enjoy the mailroom and the volleyball stuff too much to leave. Well, during school anyway. During summer break I'm totally up for having more work hours!

So I guess here's some random facts about me. My favorite color is purple, I'm five foot and one inch – just barely – and I hate Greek food. My family doesn't really eat out at varying restaurants but I have had Indian and I enjoyed it that one time. I don't have a lot of friends because I think most people my age are just too loud and they can't seem to make up their minds about things. "Let's try this, let's try that; what does this do?" Sasha has made friends and they've basically let me hang out with them; sort of adopted me but not really.

Sometimes I let them drag me to a club; but not usually. Too loud and too many people. Too many strangers. The lights sometimes go all wonky too. I'm not a big fan.

Well, I think that's enough for one day. I'm beat and going to bed. I look forward to your next letter.

I hope you have a great day and solve another case. :)

Reese Wellings

He had it memorized after the first read through, of course. Still, he read it twice more, picking out nuances here and there. Reid interpreted her 'sickness' as her menstrual cycle starting early and agreed with her psychologist that the trauma being the reason. She gripped her pencil too tightly; the lead being thick and the impressions in the paper deep. The second and third papers had indentations from the previous paper's writing. He could tell that she'd had to sharpen it towards the end. Even without seeing her baseline handwriting, he could tell she had written it while tired. The letters sloped just a touch too much to the right. Her letters were large but not huge, a little larger than average, meaning that her paragraphs appeared long on the pages.

She'd written to him.

Reid left his things at the door, went to his table and wrote her back; he held on to the letter for three days before mailing it – he didn't want to seem too eager.

Mid December

Two letters each later and Reid was worried if he should get Reese something for Christmas and what. His head wasn't one hundred percent in the case and Hotch and then Morgan asked him why. He half-lied to Hotch and said 'nothing' in that way that informed Hotch he didn't want to talk about it. Hotch had laid down the law and said Reid had to handle it and soon.

It was late and he was at the end of his rope. He was alone in the police's conference room and took the moment for himself. He put his head on the table and crossed his arms around his head. A few minutes later he heard Morgan enter, concern in his step. "Reid? He man, you ok?"

Half mumbling, his response hardly escaped his cocoon. "What do I get her for Christmas?"

"What? I can't hear you Reid. Speak up."

Raising his head a little from his nest and his eyes a little bleary, he repeated himself.

"A Christmas gift? For Reese? Don't worry about it man. You've traded a handful of letters. That means you're acquaintances bordering on friends. You're not lovers. Don't sweat it. It is good of you to think of it but you don't need to get her anything. Maybe a card, but not a gift. If she hasn't hinted at fussing over what to get you or dropped any sort of hints as to what you could get her, you've got nothing to worry about. Like I said, you're hardly lovers."

Reid squinted at the black man. "Really?"

"Really really, lover boy." Morgan winked at him.

Well that was a weight off his shoulders.

The week of Christmas he received a hand-made card. There was no extravagance to it; just a piece of regular printer paper with colored marker accents. Reese had free-handed silver swirls, red holly berries, gold bells, and the generic shape of leaves in green. Purple must be her favorite color as she'd signed her name in it. That was the only color that didn't fit in. Reid noted that she hadn't included her last name this time. (The art wasn't extravagant by any means; clearly she had no talent for drawing but did find enough pleasure in it for a card.)

Hastily he added 'Merry Christmas' to the end of his outgoing letter and added a swirly line under it.

The last week of the year her letter said 'I hope you have a Happy New Year!' and Reid jolted upon the realization that they'd been writing each other for roughly three months. (He hadn't even realized the year was that close to ending…) 'Are you ready to make some resolutions that you'll never think about again like the rest of us? Ha! I stopped making them a long time ago. :P'

His resolution was to put effort into this budding relationship and not run away from it.

Late January

"Hey Reid; tell me you're not going to fuss about Valentine's Day like you did last year with Christmas."

"Last year" tasted funny in his mouth, rang funny in his ears, looked funny in the random chance he wrote it. It was hardly a month ago and yet here they all are saying 'last year.' Morgan knew this tickled Reid and he was saying it to lighten the mood of the topic he'd just brought up.

"Nope, not planning on it."

A short pause. "That's good man. You mind telling me how you came to this conclusion, playa?"

"Last year you said we weren't lovers. That was a correct assessment. It still holds true today. Why worry about it?" The connection was so easy to make!

Morgan has his thinking face on. "Will one of you ever initiate that next step?"

Reid chewed on that question for a moment. "Maybe someday but not any day real soon."

The older man's face widens with a smile. "Good for you Reid; I'm proud of you man." Morgan smacks him on the shoulder with his handful of folders and he smiles back at his friend.