Disclaimer: See chapter 1
A/N: The site will not let me upload chapter 9 for some reason so I'm trying this. It's chapter 9 but labeled chapter 10 which is probably going to be confusing for people but if it lets me download the chapter I'll try anything. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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"No woman huh, would you like to explain this?"
Reid grabbed the paper out of Morgan's grasp and scrunched it tightly into a ball. His face went scarlet and he refused to meet Morgan's eyes, "It's nothing."
"It didn't look like nothing to me. It looked like you were planning to ask the good doctor out for dinner."
Reid looked at the floor, taking his anxiety out on the paper, squeezing it in his hand. "I…uh…reconsidered and decided against it."
"Why?" Morgan asked.
"If you have to ask Morgan," Reid turned and walked back into the room, "then you're not the profiler I thought you were. You know me and women."
"But this is different Reid." Morgan followed his friend to the couch. "You already know this woman. You've communicated. You know what she's like. She knows what you're like, so what's the problem? Is it because she's older than you?"
"No, that has nothing to do with it. Look, she's beautiful, smart and really nice so she's probably got a guy or tons of guys after her."
"Okay, say I accept your premise," Morgan tented his fingers together. "What if some woman liked you? She'd probably think the same thing. I mean you're a good looking guy, a little on the skinny side but if you'd come to the gym with me we could fix that. You're also smart, well that's an understatement. You're relatively nice," Morgan laughed when Reid's head whipped up. "I knew that would get a rise out of you. Anyway, who says this woman who might be attracted to you might not think the same thing, that because you're good looking, smart and nice you must have a girlfriend or women fawning all over you and she'd be wrong wouldn't she? So maybe you're wrong too. You'll never know until you try."
"No Morgan, I'm not doing it and that's the end of it so quit bugging me about it."
"Okay, but are you never going to ask a woman out because she might say no?"
"Morgan, I'm not like you. I'm not this macho man that women flock to give their numbers to in a bar." Reid said, getting up to pace the room.
"You seemed to do alright with Austin. She wanted to call you."
"Yeah, well she lives in Atlanta so there's not much chance of that. The last time I asked a woman out it… Look, let's just quit debating this. It's not happening." He took his note to his desk, opened it up and put it in his shredder. "Case closed."
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Good morning mama," Morgan said as he walked into Garcia's office.
"I'll show you a good morning stud muffin. What's up?"
"I went to see Reid last night. It's like you guys thought. He's got it bad for the doc."
"Do you think he's going to ask her out?" Garcia asked excitedly.
"I thought so at first." Morgan thought it better not to tell Garcia about Reid's notes. "But then he said no. His self esteem is in the toilet when it comes to women. He just seems to think nobody could ever want him."
"What can we do?" Garcia asked.
"I don't think there's anything we can do. I mean he has to make up his mind if Linda Kimura is worth the risk of possible rejection," Morgan responded.
"Oh, come on Morgan, that's easy for you to say. You don't often get rejected. Reid's had so much of it in his life. It's sometimes like he's been given too much to bear."
"A priest I talked to a while back told me God never gives us more than we can handle."
"Yeah, well then God must think a lot of Reid."
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The plane taxied down the runway at Dulles. Dr. Linda Kimura was glad she was heading to Minnesota to investigate an outbreak of salmonella. There had been one death so far, an elderly woman. They had to track this down before the death toll grew. They thought at first they had narrowed it down to one restaurant but then a new batch of cases had emerged and the victims had been nowhere near that restaurant. So the mystery began, first treat the patients then find where her patients had come into contact with the bacterial agent. She smiled to herself. Maybe her job wasn't so different from Spencer's. He searched for the identity of the unsub and, once identified, hunted him down. They had identified the pathogen, now she had to hunt it down. At least with this on her mind she wouldn't spend all her time thinking about Spencer. She opened the magazine she had brought for the flight, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and turned to the article, Graphology- A Functional and Analytic Approach to Interpreting Psychopathy and Personality Through Handwriting by Dr. Spencer Reid.
"Is that Dr. Reid?" Shirley, who sat beside Linda, asked as she glanced at the small picture in the left hand corner of the article.
"Uh yes," Linda replied. "I…uh just happened to pick this up and what do you know, there was an article in here by Dr. Reid."
Shirley looked unconvinced. "Uh…huh," she read the title, "Sounds too intense for me."
"Oh no, it's not. You would think that but he's a very good writer and he's able to explain things in such a way that they're easily…" She saw the look on Shirley's face, "Uh…I think the stewardess wants to give her spiel."
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The intercom in Reid's apartment buzzed loudly interrupting the silence as he sat at his computer and attempted to work on a paper for his Metaphysics course for his philosophy degree. "Who now?" he said as he got up from his desk and headed toward the door. "Hello, who's there?" he addressed the microphone.
"It's me sweet cheeks. Let me in." Garcia's perky voice came through the microphone.
Reid's mouth turned down into a frown, not that he didn't want to see Garcia, he loved her. But, he had a feeling what this visit was about. Morgan had probably told her about his note. He'd likely never live that one down he thought as he pushed the button to admit Garcia to the building.
"Hi sweet cheeks," she said as he opened the door. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine Garcia, good as new. What brings you to my humble abode as if I don't already know? I suppose you've been talking to Morgan."
"He did confirm that you had a thing for Dr. Kimura. It wasn't earth shattering news honey bunch. We girls have known for a while."
"What do you mean you've known for a while?" Reid asked suspiciously, positive he hadn't said anything to give his feelings away.
"We saw you at the hospital when Dr. Kimura came into your room and the way you were checking out her legs and her butt. It was almost like you held up a sign saying you liked what you saw."
Reid's face turned a bright crimson. He'd been caught ogling a woman. He felt like some kind of pervert. He closed his eyes praying the floor would open and swallow him up. He knew, of course, that it wouldn't and when he opened his eyes Garcia was still standing before him, her smile as bright as the yellow dress she wore. "Don't be embarrassed baby cakes, you're a man; she's a beautiful woman. It's perfectly normal that you would be interested."
The girls knew; Morgan knew. Who else was speculating on his feelings for Linda? He was sure the nurses were and now this. "I suppose I'm the laughing stock of the whole BAU?"
"No sweet cheeks, nobody's laughing. We love you. We want you to be happy and if you can be happy with Linda we're rooting for you." She turned Reid towards the living room and they sat beside each other on the couch, "How can I help?"
"Help, well I…I don't think you can really help," he replied.
"Okay, Morgan said you were thinking of asking her out but then you changed your mind, why?"
"I'm sure she's probably already got a boyfriend. You know, she's so beautiful and smart and she has this great personality." His voice sped up with each word and had risen to a squeak by the end of his declaration.
"Aargh!" Garcia uttered in frustration. "Alright, let's do it this way; you're a profiler, you study human behavior, right?" Reid nodded. "What does Dr. Kimura's behavior tell you?"
"You want me to profile Linda?" he looked astonished.
"Tell me this," Garcia asked, "who stays latest at our office."
"Hotch," Reid answered without hesitation, not quite sure where this was going.
"Did he always?" Garcia probed.
"No, he used to try to get a lot of his reports and administrative paperwork done on the plane so he could spend as much time as possible with Haley and Jack, but since the divorce he's been staying later.
"Exactly," Garcia agreed. "A person with someone to go home to will try to finish up their work and skedaddle as soon as possible to be with the person they love. JJ doesn't stay as late as she used to either."
"No," Reid conceded, "that's true."
"So look at Dr. Kimura. Did she rush home every day?"
"No, she stayed late at night." He recalled her sitting by his bedside while he entertained her with magic tricks and their late night talk in the day room.
"I rest my case;" Garcia said smugly, "Linda Kimura does not have someone to go home to."
An hour later Garcia had convinced Reid to call Linda and he had tried his lines out on her. "That's great sweet cheeks. Try not to stammer although it really doesn't matter that much because on you it's adorable."
"Should I do it now?" he asked.
"No time like the present, do you want me to go or stay for moral support?"
"You can stay," he told his friend as he dialed the number on the card Linda had given him in case of emergency. After identifying himself to the woman who answered the phone Garcia heard him ask to speak to Dr. Kimura. He listened and said, "I see," and then after a pause, "yes I am and no, it's not that important, thank you. I'll call again." He ended the call and turned to Garcia. "She's in Minnesota, some kind of outbreak." He was silent for a moment. "It's probably for the best. That woman just reminded me that, technically, I'm still her patient until I see her for my two week appointment and she signs my okay to return to duty." Two weeks and he could ask her out. Why did he get the feeling those two weeks would seem like forever?