A long time ago, Spencer's mother had told him, "Sweetie, the first times are always going to be the hardest. But after that, it gets better." That had been before she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and before Spencer's life was uprooted by the injustice of their modern world. Before he was locked away from crimes that had not, and never would be, committed. Those words were the old Diana Reid, the wickedly smart college professor who always made her students laugh whilst still teaching them all about fifteenth century literature, and old English. Those were the words of the most wonderful woman Spencer had ever met.

A firm hand rested on his shoulder, and Spencer looked over to see JJ, his grinning and blonde haired best friend. The steely-eyed young woman sat down next to Spencer, her hand kneading warmly into his shoulder like a kitten's warm paw. The motion was soothing, her hand firm enough to feel natural but not hard enough to feel restraining. Her eyes glittered with concern.

"You okay, Pence?" She asked, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and, gently but firmly, pulling him against her. Spencer sighed contentedly, enjoying the comfort his friend offered up. Despite being a tiny bit taller than JJ, she called him Pence, like the tiny coins that were only 18 millimetres in diameter (and that were twenty-three millimetres in diameter a hundred years ago).

He nodded. "Just thinking."

The grin he received was teasing and affectionate. "You're always thinking, short stuff. Brain always running a hundred miles a minute."

Large, doe-like eyes blinked at JJ. "Actually the brain can process twenty million billion bits of information each second. By all means, a hundred miles is quite slow in comparison." The woman laughed in response, squeezing Spencer's shoulder and hugging him closer; soon he was cocooned in her arms, safe from the outside world. He hummed contentedly, then spoke again. "I was thinking about my mom. They don't tell us anything about the outside world so I never heard anything about her."

JJ cuddled him closer and Spencer sighed. "Well we can find her, Pence. Believe me, with Penelope Garcia on your side you can do anything."

In the few months since Spencer Reid had arrived at the BAU, he had come to know Jennifer Jareau, JJ as everyone called her, quite well. She'd graduated as one of the youngest kids in her year and as valedictorian, starting college at the University of Pittsburgh at seventeen. Two years later she'd transferred to Georgetown and graduated with two BAs, one in psychology and the other in journalism at twenty-one. In her senior year, David Rossi, a renowned author and FBI agent, had given a talk that inspired the blonde to join the FBI. Coincidentally, she'd been assigned to the Behavioural Analysis Unit shortly after Rossi had left the FBI for an early retirement. She was four years older than Spencer, and his closest friend.

Even as a kid growing up in Las Vegas, Spencer hadn't gotten out much. He'd gone from home to school to the library, where his mom would pick him up after work and then drive the pair of them home. He'd had no friends, being a (loser, freak, spaz) socially awkward, short genius. At ten, he'd been in the Freshman class of the local high school and scheduled to graduate in two year's time.

"I know," he agreed. "I don't know how she can deal with all of those... things... They're unnatural."

JJ laughed in response. "I don't know how you can read twenty thousand words a minute," she teased with a gentle grin, squeezing Spencer's shoulder. "But I'm glad you can just the same way I'm glad Garcia can type five hundred characters in a minute."

He let out a huff, blowing a long strand of hair out of his face. Their friend was, quite frankly, Spencer's exact opposite. She was friendly and tactile with everyone rather than just a select few and loved computers and hated hard copies of anything. Garcia was also comfortable with computers- beyond so. She lived in a little den/office in the back of the Hoover Building and in that den had a mixture of figurines, stuffed toys and computers. Especially the latter most option; she was constantly surrounded by at least five of the strange devices.

Whilst he could blame his lack of techy-ness on having been locked in a cell for eleven years while the outside world progressed, Spencer was quite sure that, even if he had lived a relatively normal life, he still would refuse the use of computers. His mother, oh how he adored the former professor, had never had a computer in the house and rather insisted on hard copy books and papers, making all of her student's essays by hand with little comments written in her careful red print. He'd often been told that apple didn't fall far from the tree in their case, and whilst it had once been comforting it had become a recurring nightmare of his. If he was so like Diana Reid, then would he, too, develop schizophrenia?

"No deep thoughts," JJ teased as she gave Spencer's shoulder another squeeze. "You think so much that you lose track of reality."

He blinked at her. "Lost in my mind is better that curled up in agony in the real world," he said softly. "What you don't feel can't hurt you, right?"

A second later he was being held even closer, both of JJ's long arms wrapped firmly around him and his face against her shoulder. It was wonderful for a long minute, Spencer's breath slightly raspy from the tight hug. Then JJ released him, but kept him cradled against her chest. "Pence, don't ever say that again." Her voice was slightly muffled by his newly conditioner-softened hair and soft clothes. "We want you to be safe and happy. We want you to feel safe with us and we want you to know that we're always here to help you. If you're ever hurting, I want you to come to us and let us talk you through your feelings so that you can feel better, not feel nothing."

Whilst there were no obvious downsides to the agreement - given the offered comfort and safety and friendship - but he still found himself hesitant. Spencer sighed deeply, a harrumph. "I don't want to bother you," he managed to muffle out. "You guys have lives and I don't. I'm okay with that."

He couldn't breathe again, JJ's arms tight and constricting but all the same gentle and loving. "I don't care who locked you up or why they did it or what they said to you and made you believe. You are just as important as any one of us and nothing you can say will change my mind. When you're hurting, I want you to come to us and let us help. There's always going to be something we can do, even if it's just making a glass of hot chocolate. You're part of our lives now, and I don't think I could deal without you in it."

"Thanks JJ," he mumbled against JJ's shoulder, pliant and relaxed as he could be.

When Diana Reid had said that firsts were the worst, she hadn't been lying. But she also hadn't been lying about things getting easier.