"Memories"

April 2008

Reid sat down on the foot of his bed, having just come home from a meeting. He went straight there after the team landed, listening to Hotch's advice. The cravings had been growing during the case, but catching Owen alive had helped some. It still didn't erase the fact he was angry with that whole town – they had failed that young boy. If they had paid more attention – any one of them – they could have prevented all of this. Just like if people had paid attention to him in high school.

He flopped back, lying down with his feet hanging off the edge. He appreciated Morgan's support, but the man he saw as an older brother just didn't get it. He was smart, but not the smartest kid in the room. Not so smart that you move through the grades years ahead of your peers, making you a perfect target. Very few knew what that was like. And he happened to know one.

"Hey Spencer, what's up?" Charlie answered a few seconds later.

"Memories."

Charlie sighed. That tone could only mean something bad. But which memories? He wasn't sure if he was talking about things in the recent years, college years, or… He took a seat on the garage's couch. He had just entered the garage to work on some emergence work. "How far back are we talking about?"

"When I was eleven," Reid grumbled. He told Morgan he hadn't told anyone, but the truth was he had told one other person, albeit not exactly on purpose.

Charlie shook his head, rubbing his forehead. The answer took him back to when he was twenty, Spencer fourteen. It was CalSci's homecoming – Seminar Day.

+ - x / Flashback - 1994 / x - +

A group of students were hanging out in the lounge area in the front of the math building as they were waiting for family to come meet them. As such a young teacher, he often found himself mingling with several of the students since most were just a few years younger than him. Spencer was by far the youngest, although there were a few 16-17 year olds as well.

"God this is so much better than homecoming at my high school," stated Jeremy.

"Agreed," added Sarah. "So glad we don't have a football team roaming around here. Those jocks were so annoying and mean." A few more grumbled in agreement and then a few shared some stories of their torment of being shoved into lockers, being picked on in gym class or similar. Charlie sighed as he heard the stories.

"What about you, Professor Eppes?" Luke asked. "Were you picked on in high school? It couldn't have been easy being so much younger than everyone else."

Charlie frowned. "Sometimes. Most of the teasing was by my own brother," he semi-joked. The group chuckled. "He's five years older than me, but we were in the same grades during high school. He is a great baseball player, easily one of the most popular guys in our school. That protected me from any severe torture. Didn't help with making a lot of friends, though." He remembered his friendship paper from junior year. The group nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, I could see that," stated Caitlyn. "What about you, Spencer? You graduated about the same age as Professor, right?"

Charlie watched as Spencer shrugged, reaching for textbook to read from his bag. "Yeah. It was okay, I guess." Charlie squinted at him, but kept quiet. The group quickly got distracted with another topic for the next few minutes before they scattered as family and other friends arrived. All but Spencer and himself; he had already known that no family was coming for his young student.

"Come on Spencer, let's get something to eat and hang out in my office before that presentation I have to go to. I bet Larry will be stopping in as well." He stood and helped the teen pack up his books.

"You sure, Professor? You don't have to hang out with me," Spencer mumbled. Secretly, he was beyond excited to hang out with his role model. Particularly since he knew his mom wasn't going to be well enough to visit. He stood as well, slinging his bag onto his shoulder.

"Maybe I want to Spencer. You have to get used to the idea that I want to hang out with you. And for the millionth time, it's Charlie." Spencer smiled softly at Charlie as they headed off to get food and take it back to his office. Charlie waited until after they had just a few fries left before he dived in. "You seemed awfully quiet during that high school bully talk."

Spencer looked down while finishing up a fry and shrugged. Charlie continued, "I'm not going to push you to talk, but I want to you know that you can tell me about anything you want. I know I got lucky having Don there to keep any extreme bullying away from me, but I'm not naïve to think that you likely went through hell."

"Well if it isn't my favorite student and his favorite student," Larry greeted from the door, effectively shutting down the conversation. Charlie watched the change on Spencer's face and sighed. He hoped he'd get him to unburden himself somewhat, he saw such sadness in his student's eyes. He had already told Charlie during last year's Seminar Day why his mom and dad wouldn't be attending, which was one of the reasons the teacher was keeping a protective eye on him.

"Hi Professor Fleinhardt!" Spencer greeted. "You know I just read…" Charlie smiled as the two went off into some discussion about black holes. Pretty soon it was time for Charlie to head off to his last required presentation for the day, one that was already full from alumni so Spencer couldn't attend.

"Spencer, if you want to stay here and study, you're more than welcome to. I'll be back in about an hour and a half and then I'm meeting my parents for dinner, I'd love for you to join us."

Spencer smiled, "Okay. Thanks Pro-" He noted the glare. "Charlie."

Charlie returned about two hours later to his office. He noted the lights were dim in the office (although still on) as he approached the door. He soon found Spencer asleep on his couch, one of his chemistry books on top of him. He smiled to himself and stayed quiet. His folks weren't coming by for another 45 minutes so he'd just let him sleep a little longer. He set about organizing some of his papers to finish grading.

"Please…" Charlie stilled his red marker and glanced at the couch.

"Let me go, please…" What should he do? This was definitely not his strong suit. Why wasn't his mom here yet?

"Just stop…" Charlie couldn't take it anymore. He stood and quietly made his way over, hearing another whimper as he made it there.

"Spencer," he shook the teen gently.

"Please…"

"Spencer…" he stated a little more firmly and shaking him a little harder. He watched as the eyes blinked open and the pain that registered in them before they could connect where they were. "Are you okay? You fell asleep on my couch and were having a nightmare." Spencer rubbed his eyes and shrunk away from Charlie's touch. Charlie removed his hands and leaned back but stayed seated.

"I'm…I'm okay," he sniffed. Charlie didn't speak but held eye contact. Spencer stared at him for a minute, weighing his options. He'd had over four years of raising himself. He didn't always talk to his dad about things before he left and he couldn't talk to his mom about these things. Maybe it would be good to finally tell someone something. He watched Charlie nod, encouragingly. Closing his eyes, he sighed.

"I was in the library…"

+ - x / End Flashback / x - +

Charlie blinked, shaking that memory off to focus on the present. "What triggered that?"

Reid sighed, "We had this case. A teenage boy that had so many things go wrong as he grew up. He started to kill everyone that caused his torment growing up. I saw so much of myself in his profile. I couldn't help but think that if I had been older, I might have…"

Charlie's eyes widened. "No, Spencer, no. I obviously can't deny that you had a pretty rough childhood, but violence has never been your solution to anything."

Reid ran a hand through his long hair. "True. I did talk him down in the end so that he didn't have to die." He paused. "Granted I blocked anyone else's shot and didn't have on my vest, but…"

Charlie rubbed his eyes. "Why do you tell me these things?" he joked. "You and Don are going to be the death of me, I swear." The pair chuckled. "What was your logic for doing that exactly?"

"I just couldn't bare the thought of him dying. He just couldn't cope with how everyone had treated him his whole life; he didn't deserve that fate. And I didn't need to see another kid killed in front of me." Charlie didn't comment, knowing his friend well enough to sense more was coming. "He had difficult reading and issues with spatial relations, but was probably the smartest kid in school. We know what that's like. He was video taped and humiliated on the school's social media page. His dad neglected him, his mom died when he was young. He just wanted to forget it all…I can relate that, Charlie."

Charlie nodded. "Yeah, I could see how you could. But that doesn't make you him."

"I know. It just sucks. Why do these things keep happening to kids with bright minds?"

"I wish I knew." This wasn't the first time that Charlie was grateful that as challenging as his youth had been, it wasn't anything as compared to Spencer's or others that he knew of had been. "At least you can now use your memories for good, you saved his life because you got through to him."

"I guess. Hotch said that too, that it made me good at the job. I just wish I could do more to prevent it in the first place."

"Well, I'm trying with my book," Charlie commented, joking, at least somewhat. "You could always come to recruitment things for CalSci and show what the future could be like for brilliant young minds like us."

Reid snorted. "Please no. The FBI keeps sending me to those things and I suck at them."

"Oh really? You have numbers to support that?"

Reid rolled his eyes as he smiled. So he may still have cravings, but talking about things was keeping them at bay. Whether it was at meetings, with the team, or with his favorite teacher.