Disclaimer: See chapter 1

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Reid set his coffee down on his end table. It was good to be home at last. He took a sip of the sweet steaming brew and set to reading the stack of medical journals he had on the coffee table in front of him. He'd been lucky that the library had carried them all. Once he'd gotten home from the hospital, put all his things away and had something to eat, not forgetting to take his medication, of course, he'd then found himself on his computer delving into Dr. Linda Kimura. He found she'd graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and was highly respected among her peers and widely published in medical journals, all of which he had sitting in front of him after a quick trip to the library.

He picked up The Lancet and turned to her newest article, H1N1, The New Pandemic. The article was interesting and informative at the same time. The New England Journal of Medicine contained an article called Preventing Nosocomial Infections. He flipped to the page and there she was; her beautiful brown eyes seemed to look right at him. He found himself running his fingers over the image. He read the article and worked his way through the pile quickly until he found himself at the last one, The American Journal of Medicine. He leafed through the pages until he found the article on Managing Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus and Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. This article featured her photo as well. She smiled at him from the page, her long black hair surrounding her face like a mane.

He stood and began pacing the room. He had to stop this. He couldn't keep thinking of Linda Kimura in that way. Was he nuts? She was his doctor; they'd been colleagues; she'd seen him… JJ or Emily would likely kick his ass if he'd thought of them that way. Why hadn't she allowed him to go back to work even if he wasn't in the field? Perhaps looking at crime scenes and getting into the minds of serial killers would keep Linda off his mind. He grabbed his keys off the small table just inside the door and took off.

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Linda Kimura put the magazine on her desk. She'd never read a criminal journal before but when she'd scoured the net in search of everything involving Dr. Spencer Reid, she'd found a plethora of articles published in criminal justice periodicals. She'd only managed to get her hands on a few so far; she'd read them all in time. Spencer was an excellent writer. The article she'd just read in American Behavioral Scientist, Schizophrenia and the Criminal Mind, had been very interesting. She hadn't wanted to put it down and do her rounds. She picked up the June, 2008 edition of Journal of Criminal Justice; she read the title and leafed through the pages until she found the article she was looking for, The Evolution of a Serial Killer- Signs to Watch for in Children, by Dr. Spencer Reid. She kicked her shoes off, leaned back in her chair, putting her feet on her desk and began to read.

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There was a quick rap on the door and Reid popped his head in, "Hi Garcia."

"Sweet cheeks, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be on sick leave." Garcia's fingers traveled at lightning speed over her keyboard.

"I'm going crazy at home. I've read everything there is to read. I've listened to more music than I ever want to. I've made about two million dollars on Jeopardy and I came this close," he held his fingers mere millimeters apart, "to watching a soap opera." Although it was all true, he hoped Garcia would accept it and he wouldn't have to admit to the real reason he'd had to get out of his apartment.

"Oh, you poor thing," she said facetiously.

"They still in Cleveland?" he asked, nodding toward the Plexiglas map that stood prominently in her office.

"Yep," she replied.

"And," Reid added, "what's the case?"

"Oh no you don't, you're not supposed to be here. You're still on sick leave. You're still recovering from anthrax for crying out loud!"

"I'm recovered. I'm fine, it's just Lin…Dr. Kimura, she won't sign off on me going back for two weeks. So, I just had to get out of my apartment. I was so bored."

"Reid," Garcia said sternly looking at him over the top of her glasses. "Who are you trying to kid? Your mind works twenty-four seven, even when you're sleeping. You're never bored. You're always learning something, reading something, writing some kind of article for a magazine or a paper for your next degree. So, if boredom isn't the case, I have to ask myself what else is going on with you? You want to lose yourself in work baby cakes, why?"

"N…no, I wouldn't say I want to lose myself. I just want something to occupy my mind." Reid attempted to convince his friend.

Garcia appeared unpersuaded, "When a guy wants to lose himself in his job, it usually has something to do with a woman."

"A woman," Reid squeaked, laughing unconvincingly, "what woman?"

"Um hmm," Garcia turned back to her computer. "Listen, I have to get back to this search for Hotch. You know what he's like. You also know you can't be here when you're on sick leave. If you trip and break your leg, and knowing you that's not that bizarre, you're not covered. Now out," she pointed to the door, "and let me do my work."

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Dr. Kimura wrote some notes in the charts of the four remaining anthrax patients. "I think we may be able to send Abby home tomorrow," she said.

"Tomorrow?" Sandy asked.

"Yes, I'm discontinuing her IV and putting her on oral meds so she should be able to go home."

"But…" Shirley smirked at Sandy deciding to play devil's advocate, "you wouldn't let Dr. Reid go home until he'd been on oral meds for a couple of days, why Abby?"

"I've assessed her and I'm sure she'll be alright. I've made my decision," Linda Kimura said curtly and stalked off.

"My my," Beth proclaimed, "someone's not in a very good mood today."

"I think it has something to do with that empty room down the hall," Shirley suggested.

"We hear ya sister," Beth said as the three nurses high fived each other.

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"Hi sweet girl," Garcia said into her mouthpiece, "don't put me on speaker."

"Why, what's up Garcia? You usually call Morgan," JJ said into her cell as Morgan came into the conference room to fill his coffee cup.

"Reid was here looking for work. He said he was bored at home."

JJ laughed, "Reid bored! Did you show him to my office?" Morgan listened to JJ's side of the conversation while he doctored his coffee.

"Very funny JJ. I think he came because he was trying to get something or, more likely, someone off his mind. When I mentioned the possibility of a woman, he squeaked, turned red and back pedaled in a hurry to deny it."

"So, you really think there's something between the two of them?"

"Oh JJ, you didn't see the way he looked at her that day in the hospital. Imagine Reid staring longingly at a woman's butt."

JJ began to laugh again only harder, "Garcia, I just can't picture Reid doing that."

Reid doing what? Morgan mouthed silently, his coffee forgotten.

"Believe it, I think our sweet boy has been bitten by the love bug."

"I'll tell Emily," JJ told Garcia, "keep me in the loop."

JJ closed her phone just as Morgan said, "What's this about Reid? What are you going to tell Emily? And keep you in the loop about what?"

JJ opened her mouth to respond when Rossi stuck his head in the door, "We've got another body."