History

Chapter 4

"Well, here we are." Spencer pushed open the door to his apartment, revealing the interior to Julie. He held the door open, allowing Julie to pass by first, and she smiled softly up at him before passing through into his home. He entered next, setting down next to him the suitcase of clothes that crime scene responders had eventually recovered for Julie from the cabin in the woods where she had been kept. Closing the door behind him, Spencer stood next to her in the living room, a moment of silence and stillness settling between them.

"It's very nice." Julie said, finally. She began to walk towards the large bookcases that lined his walls. She smiled at the sight of them, although hints of sadness and pain were woven within her expression as well. "I think I'll fit right in here."

Spencer lifted a corner of his mouth up into a half-smile at her attempt at a joke, although he honestly found it more dismal than humorous. "I can give you a tour of the rest of the apartment, if you'd like."

Julie turned her attention back to him, and nodded in agreement. "Absolutely."

Spencer showed the girl around, past the living area and through the kitchen, and came to stop at the bedroom that was his. He quickly brushed by her, apologetically, grabbing some of his clothes that he had left laying carelessly around the floor, and flinging them into the hamper across the room. "Sorry about that." He brushed his hair out of his face. "This is obviously my room, but I don't have a guest bedroom, so you can sleep here until…. I mean, for as long as you…. Um, I mean, until we figure out—"

Julie cut off Spencer's ramble as he fumbled with his word choice, much to his relief. "Dr. Reid, thank you so much, but really, that won't be necessary." She went on, almost sheepishly. "I already feel as though you've gone out of your way to do so much for me, I really don't want to burden you anymore by taking over your bedroom."

"Julie," Spencer replied, genuinely. "I offered to do this. I want to help you. Seriously, the least that I can do is let you stay in my bedroom for a while." His smile brightened. "Anyway, it's a proven fact that I can sleep under practically any condition. Sleeping on the couch won't be troublesome to me at all."

"Well, in that case," Julie brushed by the young doctor and hopped up onto his bed. "Thank you." She laid down, eyes closed, sprawled out against the light beige sheets, inhaling deeply, and Spencer could practically feel the weight of the world being taken off her shoulders himself as she sunk down into the mattress.

Spencer leaned slightly against the doorframe, observing Julie, his mind plunging deep into thought. He couldn't help but wonder what it had to be like to finally, after ten long years, be able to lay down and rest on a bed that wasn't being provided by a captor. He nearly shuddered at the thought, and quickly brushed the idea out of his mind and Julie sat up once again, her gaze meeting his again.

"So, Dr. Reid," She hopped off the bed, and Spencer could have sworn that there was a bit more bounce in her step than before. "It's a Thursday evening. What do you do when you're not so busy chasing monsters?"

Spencer scoffed slightly, his hand resting on the back of his neck. "Well, I mean, I read a lot." He looked at Julie, almost apologetically, with a small shrug. "I don't do a whole lot else. If you were looking for an agent with a more eventful social life, I would have sent you home with Agent Morgan."

Julie chuckled at his joke, which he greatly appreciated. "Reading sounds perfectly fine by me." She said, a soft smile on her lips. "I've had enough excitement for a lifetime, anyway."

Suddenly, an idea popped into Spencer's mind. "Oh! Do you know how to play chess?"

Julie raised an eyebrow at him, her smirk still on her face. "It's been years, but sure, I've played before."

Spencer beamed at her before turning on his heal and rushing back into the living room of his apartment. Julie laughed lightly under her breath at his excitement before following after him, only to find that he had already begun to fumble over the pieces and set up the game.

"I used to have a friend at the B.A.U. named Jason who I played chess with consistently." Spencer began to ramble, his words going a mile a minute. "Not even as much of a friend, really, as a mentor. He was brilliant. I learned almost everything I know from him."

"He must have been brilliant then." Julie sat down on the floor opposite Spencer, the chess set on the coffee table between them. "And one hell of a teacher, too."

Spencer looked up at Julie, whose green eyes were shining back at him. Quickly, he looked back down at the pieces on the chess board and continued arranging them. "The best." He managed to croak out, but his throat had gone unusually dry, and he could feel his cheeks burning, although he couldn't figure out why. In his flustered state, he knocked over a few of the pieces, only causing him to flush more.

If Julie noticed his reaction, she didn't show it, and instead, she reset the pieces herself, unfazed. "You'll have to give me a refresher course on this. I haven't played in ages."

Spencer snuck a hurried glimpse up at the blonde across from him, who was looking down at the chess board, hoping to jog her memory. He cleared his throat. "I'm sure once we start playing it'll all come back to you. It's all stored in your long term memory somewhere, and as long as the specific encoding cues are all present, your neurons will transfer it into your working memory without a problem."

Julie nodded at his statement, her gaze meeting his, as she moved one of her pawns up two spaces on the board. She shot him a smile. "Whatever you say, Doctor."

Spencer swallowed harshly before breaking off eye contact with her, and made his own move carefully, although his mind was racing faster than it had in quite some time. It didn't take him long to force Julie into check mate, but, in her defense, it honestly didn't take him long to force anyone into check mate.

"That wasn't a dreadful first attempt for not having played in ten years." Spencer exclaimed, having taken down Julie's king.

She let out a laugh, and Spencer couldn't help but smile brightly himself at the sound of something so genuinely pleasant coming from the girl, whom he knew probably hadn't sincerely laughed at anything in such a ridiculously long time.

"'Not a dreadful first attempt'." Julie repeated, chuckling to herself. "That a nice way of saying that you completely destroyed me."

Spencer laughed at her in return, surprised at how long it had also been since he had genuinely made that sound as well. "Okay, okay, maybe I was trying to spare your feelings."

Julie rolled her eyes, still beaming all the while. "Well played, Dr. Reid."

Spencer hopped up from the floor, stretching his arms above his head. "You still have a chance to redeem yourself." He quipped.

Julie raised an eyebrow as she peered up at him. "Oh really? How so?"

Spencer pointed at the clock. "Jeopardy comes on TV in an hour."

"Oh, good." Julie laughed, rolling her eyes yet again. "Another chance for you to show me up with your intellect." She jumped up as well, standing within inches of Spencer. She gently poked her finger against his chest, one eyebrow still cocked. "Bring it on, Dr. Reid."

In that moment, Spencer couldn't think of a single thing to say, his lips slightly parted as his gaze focused, unbroken, on the emerald irises across from him. They couldn't have stood that way for more than a few seconds before Julie turned away, a slight smile hinted upon her lips, but to Spencer, at least, it felt like an eternity. It wasn't until the young woman had broken their stare that he realized that he had been holding in his breath.

Spencer cleared his throat and inhaled deeply, rubbing a hand across his eyes as though it would clear his mind of whatever it was trying to tell him. He hadn't felt so frazzled in such a long time, but he refused to allow his mind to wander and deal with it. If Spencer Reid had one negative quality, it was that he was superb at avoidance.

"Do you like pizza?" Spencer inquired, trying to focus on the task at hand. Julie nodded up at him with a small smile. I wonder if she feels just as flustered, Reid thought to himself quickly, observing her calm and composed posture, before going on. "Okay, good. I can order us some."

"You order a lot of take out, don't you?" Julie asked him with a smirk. "You just don't strike me as the cooking type."

Spencer pulled out his cell phone, beginning to type in a number from memory. "Actually, I'll have you know that I can make an excellent lasagna." Julie giggled at him, nonetheless impressed, as he began to put in their order for the night.

…

Everyone at the B.A.U had always teased Spencer for his ability to eat so much and stay so thin – even going so far as to tell him that he was a bottomless pit, much to Spencer's dismay about how anatomically absurd that theory was – but he surely had met his match with the young woman sitting next to him. As they sat an hour later, watching Jeopardy, they both had already managed to finish off the large pizza, just the two of them. "I haven't had pizza in years," Julie had exclaimed, and surely, she had proven it – he'd never seen someone so thin eat so much so quickly, and for the first time, he understood the amazement of his friends when they wondered the same thing about him.

As they sat now, side by side on his sofa, watching Jeopardy, Spencer couldn't help but be impressed by not only Julie's similar "bottomless pit" attribute, but also, by the fact that she really was a learned and literate person, as she was doing quite well at Jeopardy – almost as good as him, although, of course he was still holding a definite lead over her. Nonetheless, he was fascinated, and certainly impressed by her knowledge, and he had to admit that it simply felt nice to spend his evening watching a show in the company of another intelligent being, rather than by himself in solitude with the exception of the company of his own intellect.

As Jeopardy ended (with both Spencer and Julie winning the Final Jeopardy round), they let the TV play mindlessly in the background. Julie lifted her feet up on the sofa, her knees pulled into her chest so that she was facing Spencer, as he faced her in return, sitting cross-legged from his end of the couch.

"Thank you so much for letting me stay here, Dr. Reid." Julie said, letting the frivolity in the atmosphere of the room slowly fade away. "It means more to me than you'll ever know that I don't have to spend my first night back by myself." She let out a deep breath. "It would have been a lot to take in by myself."

Spencer adjusted himself into the couch. "Of course, Julie. I wasn't going to just let you walk out of the B.A.U. by yourself today. That would have been ridiculous." He shrugged slightly. "It's a natural, instinctual human desire to crave physical contact. It's truly in our nature to want friendship."

Julie smiled slightly, nodding her head faintly in agreement. "Well, I'm glad I've found that in you."

Spencer felt his cheeks flush softly, but this time, it was because of contentment, not because he was flustered. He was grateful that the low lighting in the room kept the girl at the other end of the sofa from noticing.

"I had friends, of course, before I…was gone. It's just…" Julie trailed off. "Ten years is too long. I wouldn't even know where to begin with them. I might as well just completely start over, because, regardless, I'd have to do that with old friends as well, too."

"That makes sense." Spencer agreed. "Sometimes all you can do is give yourself a fresh start and move on from there."

Julie paused for a moment before continuing. "I…I had a fiancé. Before… you know." She cleared her throat and shook her head, looking down at her hands as she picked at one of her fingernails. "It was about two months before I was taken, and I called off the wedding. I told him I just couldn't see myself having a life with him, you know? I told him I needed to start over." She laughed emptily. "I wasn't expecting to get it like this."

Spencer looked at her, unsure of what to say.

After a moment, Julie went on. "But, I'm one of those advocates of everything happening for a reason. It'll make sense at some point, I hope." She looked back up at Spencer with a small smile. "I mean, I've already met you because of it. That's got to be one of the reasons."

Spencer flushed deeper, returning the smile.

"I think that it's good for people to have other people." Julie said softly.

Spencer nodded slowly. "Me, too." His agreement sounded sadder than he had intended it to be, and Julie's expression softened slightly, as though she was indeed profiling the profiler, and could see each and every one of his hopes and insecurities and fears, engraved against his skin as though he were the black pages of a book and his mind had inscribed upon his flesh, just for her to read.

"Her name was Maeve." Spencer said. Julie nodded, instantly understanding. "I loved her."

Julie sat still, silently and patiently, waiting for him to go on, genuinely wanting him to tell her in his own words, although he felt as though she already knew the story. He felt compelled to reveal to her everything about himself, despite hardly even knowing her; he felt as though he had finally found someone to confide in, someone to rely on, just as so many people had requested of him throughout the years, knowing that he had no one else to whom he could tell their secrets.

"She died." As he said the words, they stung, just as they had when he had retold them to his therapist, to his mom, to his team; but for the first time, they did not feel foreign, and although it still pained him, it felt real this time, as though he could finally accept the truth, and deal with it, allowing for it to disintegrate into oblivion at last.

He didn't need to say anything more to Julie; he felt as though she understood, and what little information he had told was good enough for the both of them. It wasn't until Julie leaned forward, placing one hand gently on his lower thigh, and using the other hand to wipe away a trail of water from his cheek, that he realized he had been crying at all.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back, both of them sad, and both of them tired, and both of them broken, but still smiling, nonetheless.

…

It was the earliest hours of the morning when Spencer awoke, darkness all around him. It took him a second to realize why he was on the sofa rather than his bed, gradually remembering that he had offered his room up to Julie, and that he had taken over the living room as his own. He blinked a few times, slowly recognizing why he had woken up. He vaguely made out Julie's thin frame and her blonde hair standing a couple feet away from him, her arms crossed in front of her chest, her breathing ragged.

"Julie?" He sat up quickly, attempting to rub the sleep from his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"I-" She cut herself off, as though she wasn't sure what to say. She stood with her shoulders sagging, as though all of the exhaustion in the world once again rested upon her back. She began again. "I can't sleep in there alone." She couldn't look at him, even in the dark, and he could practically sense her embarrassment.

"You had a nightmare, didn't you?" Spencer didn't need to hear her reply to know the answer.

"Every time I close my eyes, I see.." Julie whispered, more to herself than to him, and almost let out a soft whimper.

"Shh, it's okay." Spencer stood up, wrapping an arm around Julie, and guiding her down to the sofa. "You sleep here, and I'll sleep on the floor tonight. Okay?"

"No, no, I don't want to make you do that." Julie argued half-heartedly.

Spencer tucked the blanket in around her, not listening to her argument. "You're not making me do anything. I'm doing this because I want to." He grabbed an extra blanket that he had brought out earlier, and pulled it onto the floor with him. "If you need anything else at all, I'm right here, okay?"

"Okay," Julie sniffled softly. She reached down and grabbed Spencer's hand, much to his surprise. She squeezed it tightly once before pulling away, and, once her hand was gone, Spencer immediately missed her touch. "Thank you so much, Dr. Reid."

"Julie," He replied. "It's Spencer. You can call me Spencer."

"Spencer." She replied softly. Spencer couldn't tell for certain, but he was almost positive that if it weren't so dark in the room, he would have seen her smiling.

To Be Continued

A/N: Yo I'm so proud of this chapter, hahaha. Tell me what you thought! I really enjoyed writing it. :)