Chapter 3

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Spencer didn't end up catching the metro home that night, he didn't even leave the building, he went back in the rear entrance then darted down the stairs to avoid meeting people leaving, and ended up locking himself in the basement where the paper files were stored. He knew that he was too distracted to be safe walking to the station in the dark and he couldn't bear to be among people at the moment, or to have to make polite conversation with a cab or rideshare driver. Gideon had encouraged him to read through their past cases and especially to work on the cold unsolved files to see if he could find something the investigating team might have missed and this had become a favourite retreat for him when the interaction in the office became overwhelming. He sunk to the floor in the darkest corner of the room, hugging his knees trying to make himself as small as possible in the hope he could disappear altogether.

He knew he wasn't in love with Hotch, or at least he thought that he'd known he wasn't before Hotch had told him he was his soul mate and he didn't think that had changed. He'd been attracted to the man and liked and admired him. Perhaps he'd even had a bit of a crush but he knew it wasn't real love. He didn't know Hotch well enough for that did he and while he had been happier when the older man was around and pleased when he paid attention to him he didn't crave his presence or his attention. In fact, when he'd thought Hotch was hitting on him he'd been perfectly prepared to turn the man down. No, Spencer decided, he wasn't in love. If his heart was breaking it was from a loss of hope for love and happiness in the future not for the man himself. It still hurt unbearably though.

"I can't be his soul mate. I just can't be," Spencer pleaded to an unfeeling fate through the night. "Maybe it's a coincidence, coincidences do happen even though lot's of people say they don't believe in them, Hotch must be wrong and it's a different Spencer Reid, there are more than 346,000 people with the surname Reid in the US alone, and probably just as many in the UK and approximately 18,500 Spencers the right age in America it isn't impossible that it isn't my name. Maybe I'm not his soul mate and that's why he doesn't feel drawn to want to be with me," Spencer whispered trying to comfort himself even though he knew that the addition of his middle name Tristan made it statistically extremely unlikely and he could feel from the physical reaction that he had been rejected by his soul mate. By the time he felt that his brain was working properly again and that he was at least ready to handle being in the presence of other people even if they were strangers, the metro had long stopped running for the night and he pulled out a file to keep himself occupied til the trains started up again in the morning, silently thanking Hotch for waiting for a Friday night to dump this on him so unless they were called out tonight he would be able to go home in the morning and try to sleep and have the weekend to find a way to come to terms with having been rejected before he had to face his soul mate again. It still didn't seem enough, Spencer wondered whether it was possible to keep working with someone who had shattered your heart and all your dreams of the future.

Aaron managed to exit the car park, but within minutes of pulling into traffic he realised that he wasn't able to concentrate well enough to guarantee he'd get home safely, let alone in a state of mind that would allow him to put on an acceptable front for Haley. She'd know immediately that something was wrong and while she'd been a lot better about the risk of him meeting his soulmate one day lately he knew that she still worried about it especially when he came home distracted or upset about something, he didn't want to make her suspicious now after successfully hiding it all these weeks. He pulled over and buried his head in his arms and waited for the pain in his chest to subside. He hadn't realised how hard it would be to tell Reid that he didn't want to build a relationship beyond that of colleagues but saying it to him had hurt like a knife through the heart even before he saw Spencer's reaction. Eventually he felt composed enough to face Haley and eased back into the road and continued home, wincing when he saw the time. Haley would be furious with him for not calling and warning her he wouldn't be home in time for dinner. Still at least her anger at him would give him an excuse for looking miserable and hopefully distract her from asking him what was wrong.

He spent a miserable weekend doing chores and trying to keep busy in ways that wouldn't annoy Haley, part of him was convinced that he'd never see his soul mate again. That Reid would take personal leave and send in his application for a transfer He knew that if Reid explained why he no longer felt he could work with him, the younger agent would be immediately transferred as far away from the BAU as he desired and he couldn't blame the young man after he'd been so insistent he didn't want any form of personal relationship with him. He knew he was being selfish and hypocritical, he'd been the one to deny them a chance to build a relationship and Spencer had every right to do whatever he needed to cope with the rejection by his soul mate, and if he was feeling depressed at the idea of no longer being able to see his soul mate regularly, he knew Spencer would be feeling much worse after being rejected and denied any possibility of a relationship deeper than that of work colleagues or superficial friendship.

He arrived at the BAU early Monday morning, unable to wait any longer. He soon realised his mistake, Reid and the rest of the team weren't due in for another hour and he felt even worse standing looking over the bullpen at Reid's unattended desk than he would anywhere else. It was empty of files as was normal for this time of day and neat and tidy as usual without any personal items on display. There was no way to tell if anything had been removed without going through the drawers and Hotch wasn't willing to invade Reid's privacy like that. There was no letter waiting for him on his desk, there wasn't one on Gideon's desk either when he checked, though that didn't mean that Spencer hadn't contacted his mentor over the weekend or gone straight above their heads to ask chief Strauss for an immediate transfer, which he would be granted if he explained the personal reason for it. Hotch sat at his desk glaring at his paperwork, refusing to be caught pacing agitatedly around the bullpen as his instincts urged him to do. Hotch heard Brannon arrive, then Gideon, JJ and Garcia came in laughing together then just before the official start to the workday Morgan arrived, cheerfully greeting everyone. Still no Reid, and no email or call why he was absent or announcing his resignation from the unit.

Reid still wasn't at his desk when JJ brought him a new case, three dead young women just outside Denver Colorado. He called the team to the conference room and began the briefing.

"Where's Reid?" Morgan asked.

"He was called back to Caltech for a few weeks, something about a project he'd worked on now being completed and having to tweak something to fit in with the changes made to someone else's part of the project so it could be signed off on," Gideon said slightly irritated. At least Gideon didn't seem to be blaming Reid's absence on Hotch or concerned about the possibility of the young agent not returning, so it seemed that the young man hadn't told his mentor and by some miracle had done a decent job of lying to him though it was possible that Gideon knew more than he was sharing and was prepared to wait and see how the situation developed.

Hotch continued to pretend everything was fine as his heart ached for the missing member of his team. He wanted to call Reid and check that he was doing okay but severely reminded himself that he was trying not to build a personal relationship with the younger man and that it would be cruel to raise his hopes by contacting him during his personal leave if he wasn't prepared to change the restrictions he'd put on their interactions going forth, and that Reid deserved the chance to come to terms with the knowledge that his soul mate didn't want a personal relationship with him, and that it was someone he worked with everyday, however he saw fit, without being interrupted by unfair demands from the man.

-o0o-

Spencer realised Saturday morning that he didn't think he was going to be ready to face Hotch again by Monday. In fact, he wasn't sure he'd be able to see Hotch without breaking down ever again but he knew it was going to take more than a weekend before the thought of seeing his soul mate again without any hope of building a relationship didn't make his chest hurt too much to do anything.

He'd received the email from the development team he'd worked with during his engineering PhD requesting that he come and help them work out the last few kinks in their submission to NASA now that all the components of the project were completed but not working together as well as they should be. Spencer had been tempted but hadn't thought that he'd be able to take the time away since he wasn't due to take annual leave yet and he knew it took longer than that to get leave for this sort of thing approved and had reluctantly decided to decline and hand over his share of the project to another engineer. But now he welcomed the opportunity to be away from the BAU and he emailed Gideon and section chief Strauss to see if he could be approved any sort of leave. He didn't want to tell anyone that Hotch was his soul mate but he would if that was the only way the leave would be approved.

Thankfully once he explained the project and that the robot they'd made had passed the first round approval by NASA Strauss was keen to let him have the time to work on it. Spencer realised that she was hoping that it would bring positive attention to the Bureau and the BAU that one of their profilers was working on projects for NASA but Spencer also realised that becoming that well known for other things might also make his job at the BAU more difficult, even though it was highly unlikely that he would ever be asked to go undercover as anything but a geek or academic. Gideon grumbled but there was nothing he could do once Strauss had approved the leave. He told Spencer that he really should have approached he and Hotch before going to Strauss but Spencer told him that he was sorry but he had put far too much work into the project to abandon it now so near to completion and that even if he had spoken to the team first and they'd been reluctant for him to accept the project he would have requested the leave regardless of Gideon's opinion.

Reid was still heartbroken at the rejection of his soul mate but the time spent with his colleagues on the project, many of whom he'd never met in person before, did him a lot of good, the camaraderie and unqualified respect they had for his work boosted his confidence and reminded him that he did have good options if he found that he couldn't handle working with Hotch now that he knew he was his soul mate. He didn't share what had happened with anyone, it was just too raw to talk about, not to mention humiliating that even his soul mate didn't want to be in a romantic or domestic relationship with him, but his friends were aware that something was going on with him and offered what support they could.

Spencer slowly came to the realisation what while he had lost the opportunity for a soul mate bond he hadn't actually lost a relationship, in fact, if Hotch hadn't told him about being his soul mate he never would have expected anything romantic to develop between them, in spite of admitting to himself that he had a crush on the older agent. Spencer had realised over the last few months that the unit chief also kept himself a little separate from the rest of the team socially as well so he hadn't expected or hoped to be more than friendly colleagues. It was only knowing that older agent was his soul mate that made him unhappy with their current relationship but he couldn't blame the man for being in love with his wife and not wanting to leave her, particularly with a baby on the way. A small part of his mind pointed out that Hotch was already over thirty and there hadn't been a baby on the way when Hotch first met him, and the fact that Hotch had continued trying to conceive a child with his wife even after meeting his soul mate drove home the fact that there really was no hope of him ever changing his mind and wanting a relationship with Spencer. Strangely enough that helped Spencer try to put this behind him and by the time they'd sorted out all the glitches in the robot and its programming so it all worked the way it was intended he was able to go out and celebrate the success with the team, and he thought he'd be able to return to the BAU and be in the same room as Hotch without breaking down or being unable to do his job.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.

Stay safe everyone.