"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love." – Lao Tzu

"Reid," said the voice on the other end of the phone, in what Bianca assumed was supposed to be a formal-sounding tone.

"Hi, um Dr. Reid? This is Bianca Brown. From New York?" Already she regretted calling him. He probably didn't even remember her. It was probably silly. Before she could panic and hang up, she heard him respond.

"Bianca, hi! I was actually uh, thinking about calling you. But I guess you beat me to it." He actually sounded happy to hear from her.

She fiddled the sleeve of her sweater, still unable to shake the nervous fluttering feeling in her chest. "Yeah, I… I really enjoyed talking to you when your team was helping out up here."

"How did that turn out by the way?" Reid asked eagerly.

"Pretty great! Kana- er, Judge Mogami and Dr. Baker escorted him to the Netherlands. His trial with the ICC is going to be starting soon, but after apprehending him and his accomplice, the UN has been able to track and arrest several more of his generals. That wouldn't have happened without the BAU."

"I just wish there was more we could do. Knowing that there's still so many groups like that, who get away with forcing children into armies like that so easily…" He trailed off, and Bianca thought that it must be so similar, the work he did. Catching one unsub, and knowing that there were more out there, doing the same thing, cases that were still waiting for the team to solve the next week.

She tried to push the thought away. Smiling to herself, she said, "It made a difference to that one."

"Huh?"

"That story, about the starfish. What you did, it made a difference to the kids that we saved this time. And… it made a difference to me."

There was a short pause on the other line, and Bianca worried she'd said something wrong. Then- "I think I might just need to put that up on my wall too." She couldn't help but laugh. "You know, I read your poems- the whole book," he went on, and it was her turn to fall quiet. "They were really beautiful."

She always felt unprepared when people brought that up. What was she supposed to say? She was always afraid of sounding proud, but that was exactly what she felt when he called her words beautiful. "Oh gosh. Um, thanks. It still feels weird to think that people want to buy my book, and read what I write. But I'm glad you liked it, Dr. Reid."

"Oh, call me Spencer. Please."

"Spencer," she repeated, trying out the sound of it. She liked the way it rolled off her lips. She liked it very much.

He'd never really seen the appeal of phone calls before. Sure, Reid had a cell phone for his job because it was convenient. He needed to be able to communicate with his team, and anyone else who might need to be notified during a case. They spent so much time together in person, it hardly seemed necessary to call when they weren't. The only other human being he communicated that often with was his mother, and he always wrote her letters. So maybe the reason he'd never seen the appeal was because he'd never really had anyone to call before.

He did now.

Phone calls were the fastest, easiest way to talk to Bianca. It was how they got to know each other, exchanging so many of the little things that most people typically did in person.

It was how she knew that he was from Nevada, he went to college at Caltech (where he got all of his degrees), he was close to his mom, and was afraid at the dark.

It was how he learned that she was from Ohio, she went to school at Loyola Chicago and then Stanford, she wasn't close with either of her parents, and she was scared of thunderstorms (and the dark).

They traded abridged childhood stories and favorite things (his: purple, Halloween, Beethoven, coffee with lots of sugar, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Edgar Allen Poe, and math; hers: blue, New Year's, Fleetwood Mac, tea with lots of vanilla, To Kill a Mockingbird, Billy Collins, and French).

He was always traveling for his job, she was always wanting to travel. To relax he did calculus and read long books, she read books and went for long runs (he couldn't fathom why people found exercise to be relaxing).

Sometimes on the weekend, Bianca would call him while she sat at a coffee shop in New York, and Reid would walk to the Starbucks down the block, wondering what it would be like to sit talking over coffee in the same place, and not the roughly 231 miles between his table and wherever she sat at Pennylane Coffee.

There were so many little things to discover, every time they talked it was like being handed different puzzle pieces and wondering where they came from and what they would turn out to mean. The fact that he hated horses and the beach or that she always took the stairs had never seemed important before. What once felt like trivia now felt like the Theory of Relativity, and like gravity there was some great force pulling him in, leaving him wanting to know more and more.

What made her laugh? What made her cry? And when had the simple act of making a phone call become so vital?

"Bianca," Dr. Baker repeated. Bianca looked up from her journal, startled out of her thoughts. "You seem distracted."

The young woman blushed, caught red-handed. She had been meeting with her mentor to review old cases, and discuss possibilities for Bianca's next career move now that the team tasked with finding Wilson Okello was no longer needed. Dr. Baker gestured at the journal. "Let me see," she said. With a sigh, Bianca pushed it across the table, as the older woman read the latest page she'd been working on.

And we stand on separate shores,

casting nets into the sea with the same hands,
searching for more and more
praying that we are ourselves enough.

And it would be enough
to fish for starlight beside you
turning mourning into morning
to matter to one
to you
would be enough.

Dr. Baker regarded Bianca, her dark eyes peering at her through rounded glasses. "You're writing more these days," she remarked. "I've missed reading your poems."

"It's nothing," Bianca shrugged. "I mean, I love writing. But I want to do more than just that. I want to keep working in this field."

"Even if it means traveling more?" Bianca smiled, and the doctor corrected herself. "Of course, you love to travel. But depending on what you want to do from here, you could find yourself living in places very far from those you're close to. Are you ready for that?"

"I've always been ready. You know I'm not particularly close to my family. I'm ready to go anywhere, as long as I'm doing something that matters." Bianca was adamant, willing Dr. Baker to understand.

"Well, I think that considering another book might be a good way to continue to finance future endeavors, or further studies if you want to go that route. But I think you should also look into pursing this particular poem." Bianca tilted her head, confused by the words, but Dr. Baker smiled kindly. "It's been nearly four months, yes? Since he was here? How often do you two talk?" She tapped the page of the journal with a dark finger.

Was she that easy to read? It had taken her almost a week to gather the courage to call him the first time. After that, he called her a week and a half later. Calls became emails, text messages, and even a letter or two. It was never consistent, and not always long, but it still made her heart jump to see a message with his name on it. "It kind of depends," Bianca told her. "But we're not seeing each other or anything."

The doctor pulled out a sheet of paper from her briefcase. "I suspected there was something there between you and that young man. You know, Quantico and DC are basically one and the same. And there's a lot of activist work to be done in the Capitol. It would be great for boosting your resume, and there's plenty of nearby law schools should you choose to go that route. And of course, you could see each other on… the same shore, as I believe you said."

That night Bianca sat on her bed, her laptop propped up on a pillow, the browser open to a list of openings in DC. Could she really move there? Outside her window, New York City twinkled as bright as usual. And yet, there was something she'd found comforting in those lights that had been dimming lately. Bianca used to watch them glow, imagining all of the people living all of their lives beneath those lights. But the person she most wanted to see was far away from any of them.

What would it mean to be that close to him? He had a job still, so they wouldn't see each other every day. But certainly that possibility wound be much more real if she didn't live so far away. And Dr. Baker was right, Washington DC was a perfect place to continue activist work, while pursuing a higher degree. She could study psychology, or human rights law. Maybe get her own PhD.

That thought took her mind right back to Spencer. Closing the miles between them meant an opportunity to study him. The few days they'd spent together were brief- once he'd flown up to New York for a weekend, staying in the hotel down the block and giving them chance to get to know each other better in person. On two other occasions, they had each made a trip to the other's respective city for the day, riding the train for nearly three hours both ways. Both of those days had been so packed with activity- talking for hours at a café, venturing through parks and libraries, taking a trip to a museum- that they reminded her of when families visited amusement parks and were determined to stay the whole day in order to get their money's worth.

Seeing him on a regular basis would be different. She'd get to see his apartment, visit his favorite places with him. She'd see him on good days and bad days. What did it look like when he was mad? Did he ever cry reading a book, or watching a movie? They'd never gone to a movie together before. She wanted to know what it was like to sit beside him without knowing he'd have to leave in a few hours. She wanted to know everything about him. There was something else that had crossed her mind. They'd held hands a number of times, and had said both hello and good-bye with a hug, but the only kiss she'd ever given him was on the cheek; the last time she'd seen him, when she was feeling particularly brave.

She wanted to be able to kiss him.

Smiling at the image on her phone, a picture of the two of them on the steps on the New York Public Library, she wondered if she could answer that question this weekend, when she next saw him. A chance for answers, and a chance for questions, she decided with one last glance at list of DC jobs.

"How do you feel about Georgia?" JJ asked, sliding on to the desks between Reid and Morgan.

"Actually, I was thinking about traveling north for the weekend," Reid said.

"Well, you'd better repack your bags. We've got a case in Atlanta. They want us there by this evening. Several sets of missing twins, always female, and we've got a body now." She tossed down file folders in front of them as Reid frowned.

Morgan raised an eyebrow. "What's this? Do you actually have plans for once, kid?" Prentiss and JJ both looked over their shoulders, intrigued.

He considered his options. 1: Lie to a group of FBI profilers, and pray they choose not to analyze his behavior too closely (that seemed unlikely, Morgan was too invested in this not to tease him); 2: Say nothing and attempt to change the subject by asking about the case (no, that would be an obvious tell); or 3: Tell the truth and play it off like it's no big deal.

"I- I was just thinking of going to New York. You know, I've really never had a chance to see the place, other than when we're working on a case." He was nervous, he was definitely too nervous. Maybe it would still work.

"Didn't you visit New York City two months ago?" JJ asked. Shoot, he'd forgotten about that conversation. How did she even remember that? Usually only he remembered things like that.

Before Reid had a chance to respond, Morgan was reaching across the desk to grab his phone. "Someone has a message from a miss Bianca Brown," he read aloud to the group. Smirks played on the lips of his fellow agents, and Reid wished he could just sink into the floor. They'd teased him for not talking to girls, and now they were about to tease him for talking one. Couldn't he catch a break?

"Bianca Brown," Morgan said again. "Isn't she that girl from the UN case? The short one?" Well, that was one way to describe her. Short, thoughtful, smart, generous. He struggled to come up with an adjective in the English language to describe exactly how he thought of her; none carried a connotation that seemed to fit just right. There wasn't even an English term for that search, he had to borrow from the French for le mot juste, the exact perfect word.

"I thought that's why you went to NYC," JJ said, a hint of triumph in her voice.

"An FBI profiler dating a human rights activist," Prentiss mused. "Are you two trying to save the world together or something?"

"I never said we were dating!" Reid argued. But what else was he supposed to call the time they spent together? With the exception of his mother and his coworkers, he'd never been around a girl so much. And the way he felt about her, well that was different too. At some point those feelings had moved from acquaintanceship to friendship, and eventually transcended that definition as well. Bianca stuck in his mind long after they'd parted ways. He could recall facts on cue, but she would pop up in his thoughts without reason, the memory of her laugh or of the way he felt lighter, more buoyant, around her stealing his focus from whatever he was doing at the moment. Not that he minded all that much.

The last time he saw her, she'd even kissed his cheek. It was just before she boarded her train back up north, when she stood on her toes and he suddenly found her lips pressed to the side of his face. Reid hardly had a chance to react before she hopped from the platform to the train, turning to wave at him before disappearing through the door with cheeks nearly as red as his own.

He liked her. He really liked her. She understood, on some level, the darkness his job demanded he deal with, and his time with her was a blessed spot of light between cases.

"You didn't have to say it," Morgan said. "It's not that hard to tell. You know, I never thought I'd see the day. I actually feel bad we're dragging you away on a case. Hope that ticket wasn't too expensive."

"At least you don't have fly coach," Prentiss offered, half-heartedly.

Reid sighed, taking his phone back from Morgan. He wasn't looking forward to calling Bianca and cancelling on such short notice. And he wasn't looking forward to waiting that much longer to be able to see her again. He missed the way she smiled at him, as if what he had just said was the smartest thing in the world; he missed searching a sidewalk to find her, knowing her arms would wrap around him once he did; the way he finally felt an eidetic memory was more good than bad because he could hold on to every single thing she said to him.

Hearing her voice, having a few more words from her to file away, was a small consolation.

Author's Note:

The time is the story will be more divided from this point forward. In New York, it was easy to write it like a case, jumping from one important point in the case to the next. With Spencer and Bianca in different cities, I've been playing around with time a little more in order avoid writing long one-day scenes that serve only as a filler.

I'm quite fond of words, especially those untranslatable words of foreign origin, and will jump at any chance to incorporate them when English fails me. "Le mot juste" is a term that was coined by French novelist Gustave Flaubert, a notoriously perfectionist writer. It refers to the word all authors will understand, that word that conveys exactly what you mean, not the close-enough-synonym we too often have to settle for.

I'm so thankful to everyone reading this fic. I would love to hear any feedback back you have- comments, questions, suggestions, constructive criticism, etc are all greatly appreciated!