Dr. Spencer Reid, Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D. did not usually go on dates. No, he never went on dates. But this time, he was early to the restaurant, pacing around in front of the door before walking in, sitting down at a table near the window. This is stupid. Just because she's nice doesn't mean she really likes you. She's just not as blunt about telling you to shut up as the others are. She's probably not even going to show. He checked his watch. 7:05. She's late. She's not going to show. Why would she? Why-
"Hey, sorry I'm late," Piper smiled, taking a seat across from him. "Traffic on the Wilson Bridge was awful."
"It's fine. Traffic patterns on the Wilson are - well, that's not interesting."
"No, tell me, it's okay."
"Traffic patterns on the Wilson are terrible after 4 and usually late into the night. In 1998, there was a standoff on the bridge that stopped traffic for seven hours."
"Well then, I'm glad I was only five minutes late," Piper smiled. "Have you tried the eggplant parm here? It's great."
"You know the first reference to eggplant parm was in the early 1400s in southern Italy? It's one of the few Italian foods they sell over here that are really Italian," he told her as a waiter came to greet them.
They spent the next hour talking over dinner, and decided to head out to "a really cool spot on the Potomac where you can see the stars. There are 5,000 visible stars on an average clear night, but we can only see a fraction of them because of the distortion of the atmosphere, local trends, and other ocular phenomenon."
"This is nice," Reid told her as they stood on the boardwalk of a small park, looking over at the forest surrounding them. "I could get used to this."
"Technically we're trespassing," Piper reminded him.
"We're federal agents," he countered. "We're on an investigation."
"We profile people," Piper laughed, taking his hand. "It can't really be an investigation if there's no one and no scene to profile." Reid looked down at their conjoined hands and then back up at Piper. "Sorry, should I-"
"No, it's fine. It's good. Do you want to sit down?" They took a seat on a bench at the end of the dock. "Look, I'm sorry if I… I don't do relationships, not usually. Not that I wouldn't want to with you, it's just that I'm not very good at them. Well, the chemicals involved are simple, but you already know I have a tendency to say too much, or the wrong thing, or… well, just something stupid. I don't 'get' people like you do."
"Reid, listen, it's fine - it's fine if you don't know what to say or if you don't do the right thing all of the time. But I just want to know what you want. Just be honest." She looked up at the stars, adding, "It's funny to think 90% of our bodies are made of the same things stars are."
He nodded. "I want… I want to be happy. I like you, and I trust you, and you make me very happy." He looked over to her, Piper who turned to him. "Dinner was nice. It's exceedingly rare that you find someone who you don't get bored talking to, someone who's actually interesting beyond a few sentences."
"Well thank you."
"We should do this again," Reid proposed. "Hey, um, you know what? More pathogens are passed through handshakes than through-"
Piper leaned over and kissed him, the profiler shutting up for once in his life. He pulled her closer, kissing her back chastely before putting an arm around her shoulders. Piper moved closer, leaning her head on his shoulder. She could feel him sigh, Reid smiling as he looked out over the water. Their brief moment of quiet was interrupted when Piper's phone rang. "What's going on, Gideon?"
"We've got a bomber. Get here as soon as you can."
Reid's phone buzzed a minute later, the two of them taking off for the FBI building. "Look at that, the two of them getting here at the same time," Morgan commented as they arrived, looking to JJ and Elle. "Pay up."
"What did we miss?" Reid took a seat next to Piper.
"Your date."
Piper started talking before Reid could object. "It wasn't a date. We ran into each other on our way in and took the same elevator. Where is our bomber striking?"
"Around Mobile, Alabama," Gideon told them, handing over a file. "Three law offices have been obliterated in the last few days."
"Law offices… we could be looking at someone who feels like they were wronged by the system or someone who resents it entirely," Reid spoke up.
"What kind of law offices?" Piper asked. "The file doesn't say."
"Lots of class-action suits, discrimination cases, things like that," Gideon told them. "I'm going to need the team split between the three - interviewing survivors, finding out if anyone or anything suspicious was seen around the offices the day before the bombings. I'm also going to need someone to profile the maker of the devices. If the things they're made of or how they were made points towards a specific type of bomber. We also need to figure out where our unsub is going to strike next."
"Wheels up in 20," Hotchner said, getting off of the phone with their transport coordination team. As they filed out of the door, he turned to Reid, measuring his words carefully. "I'm not insinuating anything here, but if anything is happening between people in the department, it's my… responsibility to know."
"Yes, Sir." He nodded, heading out of the door and running right into Morgan.
"Were you two really in the same elevator by chance?"
"'Course we were," Piper said, pulling Reid aside with a "take a look at this and tell me it isn't similar to our guy." As soon as Morgan walked away, she added, "Hotch onto you too?"
"They're criminal profilers. They pick out lies for a living," he shrugged. "I'm surprised he hasn't picked up on it earlier."
"What do you mean?"
"It's all the subtle clues we look for in unsubs, but in reverse," he explained as they walked. "All of the side conversations, how you smile at me differently from the others, how… how I talk to you differently. How the room brightens when you walk in, how you make me smile more, how you… ugh, they notice everything, how everything changes. They already knew, even before I did."
"Well we have a bomber to take care of right now," Piper said, changing the topic of conversation as Elle met them on the stairs. "We can talk about this later. On the plane or something. It's an interesting theory, Reid."
They spent the plane ride profiling their unsub as best they could, looking into the law offices that had been targeted and what details they knew about the bombs that had been planted. The four-hour flight gave them a lot of results, but they still had lots to do as soon as the plane touched down. "Elle, JJ, head over to the Gable office, see what you can do there. Hotch, Morgan, get over to Butler. I'm headed to Aaron & Massey myself - the latest bombing. Reid, Piper, I want you two to head down to the police station and inspect what they recovered of the bombs. Put them back together in your heads."
"Make sure you get some work done," Morgan joked, Hotch giving him a look from across the room.
"Do you think they really are together?" JJ asked as they left, Elle waiting until Reid and Piper were out of earshot to answer.
"Have you seen how she smiles at the stupid things he says? Or how she lets him babble on about physics or facts that only a handful of people would know? And how he follows her around like a puppy? They talk all the time, JJ," Elle pointed out as they got into their car. "And you know they got to Headquarters together."
"Hmm, hmm, hmm," JJ nodded. "Looks like our boy's finally found someone that doesn't tell him to shut up or get annoyed when he goes on and on about magic tricks or advanced mathematics."
"This part goes here, and I think this was part of the timer wiring," Piper said, bringing some pieces over to where Reid sat on the floor, reassembling everything. He had taken up a spot on a tarp and surrounded himself with what the police said were remnants of the last bomb. They had sorted some things out as parts of the building, and others were potential parts. "This is part of the detonation system, isn't it?" She brought over a few wires, Reid filling them in where they belonged.
"This looks like it was homemade, no real sophistication. Our guy knows the basics of bomb-making, but it looks like something you would make in your garage with spare parts and a couple of things from the hardware store." He took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes before continuing, "There's nothing that suggests he's got any special knowledge about explosives."
"I've been thinking, the places he targeted all do discrimination cases, right? Well, we're in the South. Plenty of old-fashioned ideas here. And we know most bombers are young men with an agenda. Where do you think that points?"
"You think this is a racially motivated bomber?"
"A bomber in the heart of the South targeting law firms that specialize in discrimination cases, plus the fact that bombers are usually young men who have been angered by something specific, there you go." Piper sat down next to him, adding a part to the bomb that they were rebuilding. She set her head on his shoulder, adding, "If they have any other physical evidence on him, or any security camera footage, we'll have our guy in a matter of hours."
"We have to tell Hotch."
"I already did. Called him a few minutes ago while you were rewiring some stuff."
"No, I mean about us. It's all I've been thinking about since we got on that plane. Everyone's already seen it, even if we think they haven't. We've got to follow protocol."
"When we get back home, we will," Piper promised. "Not telling you when exactly, but we'll find time for it. And you better not try to run to Hotch without letting me have a say in it."
"Fine, fine," Reid nodded. "Does this look like part of the detonator or part of the countdown device?"
"I'm thinking that's part of the lighting from the building. I recognize the type of wires," she told him. "In my professional opinion, I think we're looking for a young white man, one who works in unskilled labor. Probably a low-level construction job. He's not wiring like an electrician, but he does kind of know what he's doing. He's probably had problems in his past with people who are different from him. He could be involved with white supremacy organizations and could be carrying out a group vendetta, instead of a personal one. If it was personal, it would be one law firm, not three. He hasn't communicated with any of them, so he's probably either afraid he will be recognized or he doesn't know how to put what he feels into words. Probably didn't do well in school-"
"You should be telling JJ this," Reid interrupted, "so she can get that out to the press."
"I already have. We've got a tip line set up, and we're going to be hunting down some of these people after dinner."
"How long were you going to let me sit here and try to put a bomb back together?"
"A while. You're cute when you're thinking."
"So I'm always cute," he reasoned, standing before offering her a hand. She accepted, standing up and looking over the work they had done.
"Yes, yes you are," she laughed, the two of them heading out to meet the others and file through transcripts of calls.
"I think I've got one," Morgan said, looking up from the papers he was reading. "This one's describing a guy who works for a repair shop, has a limited education, a record for assault - he beat up two… two African American kids. There's your racial issue right there. I say we start with this one."
They picked out a few others, all splitting up after dinner. Piper and Elle were halfway to a scene when they were called back, given a different address, and told to be ready to make an arrest. By the time they got there, the unsub was already in the back of the local sheriff's car. Piper broke off and went into the house, finding a half-assembled bomb on the table. "Bomb Squad's on it's way," Gideon told her, walking up beside her. "The rest of the team is all outside."
"He was killing innocent people just because of hate. He would've kept killing until he took out every law firm in the city."
"I have a question for you," Gideon said, not making eye contact. Piper followed his lead, spending her time staring at the bomb and the rest of it's pieces scattered all over the room. "Is there anything more than a working relationship between you and Reid?"
Piper swallowed, still not meeting his eye. Slowly, she nodded, saying, "It hasn't been long. We were going to talk to you and Hotch about it when we got back to DC. We've… we've just gone on one date. It's not even official."
Gideon nodded, saying, "It's alright. Just remember he's not that good at social interaction. Or anything with girls. He never had that social education that the rest of us had."
She nodded. "We ought to go back outside."
"I'll talk to Reid about this later. There shouldn't be any problem with the Bureau, since neither of you is the other's superior, but thank you for letting me know."
"Not a problem, sir."
On the plane ride home, Gideon dropped into the seat next to Reid, which Piper had been taking up until she stood to find a snack. When she returned, she kept walking, sitting down with JJ, Elle, and Morgan, who were playing cards. "Just observing," she told them, tearing open a bag of trail mix. "Who's winning."
"I am," Elle said, setting down more cards.
When she saw Gideon get up, Piper went back to her old spot next to Reid, who was speeding through a book about astrophysics. "You know Saturn would float if you could find a big enough bathtub to put it in?"
"Did he talk to you about what I think he talked to you about?"
"If you were thinking it was about us, yeah, he did."
"And? He was talking to you for a long time."
Reid closed his book, saying, "He's fine with it. And he was giving me, well, advice, I guess. Hey, I've been wondering something. Well, I… do you want to be my girlfriend? Like, actual girlfriend?"
"That was part of his advice, wasn't it?" she smiled.
"That's not really an answer, but yeah."
"Well I was getting to my answer, but first I wanted to see how you got to the question. The answer's yes." Reid smiled, Piper leaning onto his shoulder. He took her hand despite the "ooh"s and "aww"s from the rest of the group.
"My man, good for you," Morgan called, Reid nodding awkwardly in response. Gideon nodded to him from a few rows down the plane. Reid smiled a bit, kissing Piper's forehead.