Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds. I do however, own Grace and the rest of my OCs.

"Reid, Ash, you stay here with Hunter, Freelove, whatever it is." Hotch ordered. "Morgan and I will go to the dump site, Prentiss and Rossi will go to Arianna's apartment, then the gallery."

Reid nodded and Grace bit her lip. She knew shit was going to hit the fan when they were left alone with Len.

Sure enough, Leonard reached across the desk when everyone left and attempted to touch Grace's hand. Reid looked at his girlfriend and he high school friend suspiciously, but didn't say anything. Grace pulled her hand away from Leonard and glared at him. Reid's face lightened, but he was still curious about what kind of relationship Grace and Leonard really had.

"Len, don't." she said. "I'm an FBI agent, I can't fraternize with a suspect."

"I didn't think I was a suspect anymore." Leonard said.

"You haven't been cleared yet. You have no alibi. For all we know, you could have made up the story about Quade. I've seen you lie for less, Freelove."

Leonard was hurt when Grace used his fake name. She knew the real him, knew he couldn't have done this. Why would she be so cold? He was only trying to reconnect with the beautiful woman he had lost in the twelfth grade.

"Come on, Grace," he said, "You're going to be like this after all we've been through?"

Grace rolled her eyes. "Maybe I was wrong, maybe you are completely fucking delusional!" she screamed. "Len," she said, calming down, "We haven't been through anything! You rejected me when I asked you to prom. So you see now what you're missing out on and want to make it up to me? How 'bout you try not embarrassing me in front of my boyfriend?"

Leonard looked at Reid for the first time since he entered the police station. The cool, Don Juan personality of Leonard Freelove faded and Leonard Hunter returned.

"I'm sorry, Grace." Leonard apologized.

The three spent the rest of their time together in silence; Leonard sitting Indian style in his chair, meditating, Reid some book he had in his messenger bag, and Grace pacing the room nervously.

As the sun came up, Grace's pacing slowed and she eventually collapsed in the chair beside Reid. She laid her head on the desk and fell asleep. Her eyes hadn't been closed more than two minutes when Reid's phone rang on the desk, just inches from her head.

"This better be fucking important." Grace said into the phone. "You just interrupted my beauty sleep."

Morgan laughed on the other end of the phone. "Like you need beauty sleep, Blondie."

"Save it for Garcia." Grace said. "Now either you tell me what you called for, or I'm going back to sleep."

"Well, we were able to find someone who gave an alibi for Freelove. Garcia's got an address on Dylan Quade, we're headed there now." Morgan informed her.

"We'll meet you there."

"Actually," Morgan said, "You two should take Freelove to his hotel."

"Alright."

"Wow," Grace said as they pulled up to Leonard's hotel. "The Luxor."

Leonard smirked. "Yeah, I had drinks with Criss Angel and Carrot Top last night."

"I'm sure you did." Grace laughed sarcastically.

"You two should come in with me," Leonard invited. "I'll buy you some drinks."

Grace looked at Reid for his approval.

"It's 7 am." he said.

"And I'm Leonard fuckin' Freelove!" Leonard laughed like a maniac, getting out of the SUV.

"Just humour him." Grace said, following Leonard.

Reid sighed in defeat and followed Grace and Leonard halfheartedly. He was not entirely sure how relationships were supposed to work, but something was telling him that it wasn't normal for him to be having drinks at 7am with his girlfriend and her old flame. His thoughts were interrupted though when someone shouted at them outside the hotel doors.

"Leonard!" a suave looking brunette man yelled.

Grace and Reid pulled out their guns.

"Do you love me now, Leonard?" the man asked.

"Play along." Grace whispered the order to Leonard.

"Yeah," Leonard said nervously. "I... I love you, Dylan."

The man sneered. "Well, I don't love you anymore, Leonard."

Grace froze in fear. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! Don't shoot! Please don't shoot, I don't have my vest on, she thought.

"Yes, you do." Reid said.

"What?" Quade demanded.

"You do love him, Dylan." Reid repeated. "If you didn't love Leonard, you wouldn't have made those paintings for him, you wouldn't have killed for him."

Quade began to cry, but kept his gun pointed at the trio.

"I just wanted to show him how much I loved him." Quade begged.

"You killed his friends, you hurt him." Reid said. "The only way you can show him you love him now is if you put an end to the killing. How will Leonard know you love him if you kill him and us?"

Quade dropped his gun and got on his knees with his hands behind his head. Reid ran to him and cuffed him. Grace called Hotch to let him know they got him. Leonard thanked the agents and went inside the hotel, headed straight to the bar.

"I don't get it." Grace thought out loud.

"What don't you get, Blondie?" Morgan laughed.

Hotch was interrogating Quade, the rest of the team watching. Grace got about twenty minutes in and had to leave before she had a panic attack, overwhelmed by the stress and lack of sleep.

"Well, Quade was going to shoot Len," she said. "But our unsub was a stabber, not a shooter."

"He fits the profile, and he admitted to the murders." Morgan assured her.

Grace stood up and began to pace again. "No... no, that's not right. I don't think he actually said that he killed them, and he's giving Hotch a hard time in there. He just keeps saying that he loves Len."

Morgan called for Reid and asked him to recount everything that Quade had said during their stand-off.

"He didn't say he killed them." Reid realized. "He never admitted it, he just said that he loved Leonard."

"Then who the fuck killed these women?" Grace demanded.

No one had an answer for her.

"I'm going to see Len, see if he can think of anyone else it might be." Grace said. "Who's coming with me?"

Reid didn't say anything like Grace expected him to. She felt like she'd been stabbed in the heart.

"Sp-" she choked as he walked away.

"Looks like it's just you and me, Blondie." Morgan teased.

Grace was not in the mood for Morgan's teasing though. She walked sombrely to the vehicle.

"Morgan, what's wrong with Spencer?" she asked once they were on the road.

"We'll need more than a drive across Vegas for me to tell you that whole list." Morgan laughed.

"Is he mad about Len?" Grace whimpered, ignoring Morgan's joke.

"Probably." Morgan replied.

Grace sighed. "I don't understand. Len's just my friend from high school. Why is he jealous?"

"Any man would be jealous, Blondie." Morgan said. "Not just Reid."

"Well, how do I fix this?" Grace pleaded for his help.

"Just tell him." Morgan said.

They arrived at the hotel and went to the front desk to ask for Leonard's room. The receptionist refused them until they showed their badges.

"You know Reid's terrified of these things?" Morgan laughed as he pressed the button for the 16th floor in the elevator.

Grace laughed. "Really? Cuz I heard that you're the one who's scared of elevators."

A devious smile spread across her face.

"Don't you even-" Morgan tried to threaten.

Grace jumped up and down several times and Morgan tried to grasp the walls. She erupted in a fit of laughter.

"You're lucky you're a woman." Morgan said as they stepped out of the elevator.

"No, no! Please don't!" they heard a familiar voice screaming from a room down the hall.

The agents drew their guns and hurried to Leonard's room. The door was open a crack and Morgan entered first. Standing on a table in the corner of the room was a deranged looking red-headed woman. She had a knife at Leonard's throat.

"I can't get a shot." Morgan growled.

"Put the guns down or I'll kill him!" the woman ordered.

Grace and Morgan set their guns on the floor.

"Wh-why do you want to kill Leonard?" Grace said, getting between the woman and Morgan.

"He's just my puppet." she said. "All these years, I've been the painter! I sent my ideas to him and he painted them for me. But he's not listening to me anymore!" the woman snapped. She made some angry animal noises and ran the tip of the blade against Leonard's throat, drawing a speck of blood. "He's not listening to me anymore and I have to finally claim my paintings as my own! Leonard Freelove must die!"

Leonard was sobbing and begging for his life to be spared.

"Come here." Grace said to the red-head.

"Why?" she asked.

"I'd like to shake hands with my favourite artist, of course." Grace laughed.

The woman released Leonard and stepped off the table, toward Grace. She slipped the knife into her pocket and outstretched her right hand. Grace took her hand then overpowering her, she flipped her around, grabbed her other hand and cuffed her.

"What's your name?" she demanded.

"Clara... Clara Mayberry." the red-head whimpered.

"Clara Mayberry, you're under arrest for the murders of Samantha Black, Sarah Carter, Angela Wiser and Arianna Grossman, and the attempted murder of Leonard Freelove."

"So, you were wrong about the gender thing." Grace said to Reid on their way back to the hotel. After a long day of interrogation, Dylan Quade and Clara Mayberry were headed to prison and the BUA was headed back to their hotel to finally get some rest before their flight back to Quantico in the morning.

It was their first real conversation of the day. "Well, technically, yes, but when we saw the dump site, we weren't really profiling Mayberry, we were profiling Leonard. She was obsessed with and jealous of his art to the point that she claimed it to be her own. She made the dump sites look like something he would paint so she could ruin him and take the spotlight."

Grace nodded and was silent for a moment. "Spencer..." she said finally. "Are... are you mad at me?"

Reid shook his head.

"Well if you're not mad, what are you?" Grace persisted. "Because I'm sick of this silent treatment."

Reid looked at her from the passenger seat of the SUV. "OK, I'm a little mad, but I'm mostly just upset."

Grace sighed. "Spence-"

"Grace, every time I turn around, there's an ex of yours trying to kill you or rape you and now there's one who's trying to win you back and he's succeeding!" Reid yelled.

Grace never thought Reid could get angry like this. She bit her lip and tried not to cry.

"Spencer, I was never ever with Leonard. He rejected me years ago and it hurt like hell!" she defended herself. "He wasn't succeeding. I wouldn't even consider leaving you for him!"

"Then why were you flirting with him?"

"I wasn't flirting with him!" Grace screamed. "He was a witness who was almost killed twice in one day and I ended up having to protect him both times!"

"You over-stepped Morgan to protect him!" Reid argued.

"He was one of my best friends in high school! Do you know why I fell for him, Spencer?" Grace cried. "After his best friend cheated on me, left me for a girl who was pregnant with someone else's child and had his mother try to run me down in her car, Len was the only shoulder I had to cry on, he beat the shit out of Kris for me. Even Kass was on Kris's side."

Reid reached for Grace's hand. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." he said.

"I forgive you," Grace said, brushing his hand away. "But you know how bad I am with two hands on the wheel. You must have some kind of statistic to prove our chances of death are drastically increased if I only have one hand on here."

Reid smiled, happy to have resolved this issue with Grace. He should have seen her loyalty to her old friend, but this relationship thing was messing with his otherwise extraordinary mind. He was blind to logic when it came to her and his emotions took control.

"I love you." he said, leaning across the vehicle and kissing Grace's cheek.

She smiled. "I love you too, and I should apologize to you for even letting you think there was something between Len and I."

Reid shook his head. "You don't have to apologize, Grace."

She sighed in frustration at her overly-forgiving boyfriend. "Fine, I won't apologize if you agree to three things."

Reid nodded.

"Would you be my date to Kass and Macy's weddings?" Grace asked.

"Of course." Reid agreed.

Grace smiled at her accomplishment. "Do you want to go on vacation with me?"

"Vacation?" Reid asked in surprise.

Grace rolled her eyes. "I know you probably have no idea what a vacation is, but I would really love it if you spent a couple weeks at my cabin with me after the weddings."

Reid thought about what it would be like to take a vacation with Grace. No cases, no unsubs, no paperwork. Just him and Grace, all alone for two weeks. Maybe with all that free time he could make her understand Star Trek and basic physics.

He smiled. "I would love to go on vacation with you, Grace."

"Awesome." she said. "You're the best." Grace paused and bit her lip before asking her third question. "Spencer... when we get back to the hotel... could we um..."

"No."

"But-"

"Grace, you said you wanted to wait." Reid said. "I'm trying to respect that, but do you have any idea how hard it is for me to resist you?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it's real hard." Grace said sarcastically.

"You're only trying to do this because you're afraid of losing me." Reid said.

Grace was speechless. If she didn't know him better, she would have gotten angry at him for being so full of himself, but she knew he was only speaking the truth. She just wanted some way to make sure that the greatest man she ever met would be the first one willing to stick around.

Reid took Grace's right hand off the steering wheel and held it in his. He stared at her intensely, even though she could not take her eyes off the road for more than a second to make eye contact.

"I'm not going anywhere Grace." Reid said. "I promise."

"Really?" Grace asked, a tear trickling down her cheek. "You're not just lying like the rest of them?"

"No, I'm not lying." Reid said. "I know there's really no way for me to prove it to you, but I want you to trust me."

So he was playing the trust card now. Grace sighed, knowing that the only way for this relationship to go any farther was for her to trust him. Tear down all the walls and just let him in. Give him the chance to cheat on her, hit her, abuse her and leave her like all the men before him.

"You deal in statistics though." Grace said. "One hundred percent of men I have been with have hurt me in some way. Those statistics say that you will too."

"I wouldn't rely on statistics in this situation though, an accurate profile of myself is probably more helpful," Reid said, rambling in his usual way. "And you and I both know that I'm not capable of hurting you, or anyone."

Grace smiled, knowing that Reid really wasn't the type of guy that would hit her, make her feel worthless or cheat on her.

"I know, Spencer..." Grace said softly. "I'm... I'm going to try to trust you. I want you to know that even if I can't, I want to."

Reid nodded and kissed Grace's hand. "I love you." he said.

"I love you too."

A/N: Thanks for reading guys, please don't forget to review!

I hope you all enjoyed meeting Len. He's a colourful character when he's not about to be killed. He will be reappearing in following chapters.

I'm going to try to get the next chapter up this weekend, but I've got a law project and scholarship applications to do this weekend, so just bear with me.

Anyway, the Friday night Criminal Minds marathon is on A&E right now, so I must go. Au revoir.