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Chapter Twenty-Seven

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February 14, 2015

It turned out she was there for a three year study on pathogens related to H1N1, and Spencer Reid had spent the last twenty-two days wondering why that fact was causing him to be inordinately preoccupied and unable to focus.

He had first come to the conclusion that he might be attracted to Linda Kimura when he found beaches far more pleasant than he usually did after merely one evening walk with her. Startled and discomfited, his reaction to moonlight dancing on the water and a beautiful woman standing beside had been to blurt out, "The topography of this coast side land form is much more fascinating than the ones in California."

"Yes, it is," she had replied with a smile, showing neither surprise or confusion. What was better was that she also hadn't rolled her eyes or looked at him with an indulgent smirk.

It was as if his comment had been the most natural thing in the world.

The next day, when she had left Phuket (where he would be staying when not on a project) for the hospital in Kapong where she would be working, he felt a pang in his chest and realized that what he was feeling might possibly be more than simple attraction. Smitten, indeed, would have been closer to the mark.

He watched her car drive away until he could no longer see it, then he went inside and immediately calculated the distance between the two of them.

Fifty-nine point seven miles.

After that, mentally checking his figures three times, he had calculated the time it would take for her to get there, to settle in, and for him not to look like a desperate stalker before he called her.

Despite their erratic schedules - he jumping all over this corner of South East Asia with the Foundation's project co-ordinator and she doing the same to gather air and water samples and set up tests - over the next three weeks they managed to meet three times. Now, as he sat at a table at the Sala Rim Naam restaurant across the river from the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Bangkok, watching the intricate classical Thai slow dance being performed (and marvelling in an abstract way at the dancers managing to be so graceful while wearing such towering gold spire headdresses), Spencer Reid waited in equal parts anticipation, paranoia, and terror, while a bouquet of roses and a bundle of heart-shaped balloons rested at one elbow.

What if she thought we were just friends?

What if she didn't even think that much and was just grabbing at a fellow American to stave off culture shock? Culture shock is a very real thing after all, producing numerous physical as well as mental and emotional symptoms. The Japanese embassy in Paris has a 24-hour help line to help Japanese tourists suffering from Paris syndrome, where people can suffer everything from hallucinations to feelings of persecution and derealisation. It's a bit soon to be transitioning from the honeymoon phase of acclimating to a new location to the frustration phase, but if she were planning ahead, or simply spotted the convenience of maintaining the acquaintance of another Westerner -

If Linda didn't come in the next five minutes, Spencer considered it a very real possibility that he might be sick all over his Lon Poo Talay and Khanom Jeeb Thai.*

"Spencer?"

Looking up to see Linda, also with a pensive and nervous look and a Valentine's Day gift bag, Spencer slumped with relief. "Oh, thank you!" he exclaimed with a heartfelt sigh.

-x-

February 15, 2015

"So let me get this straight," Dave said, "You took her to a romantic dinner."

"Yes."

"And then you solved a murder?"

"Well, it's more like I gave the police in Columbus, Ohio a little hint of what to look for."

"And it involved dead dogs?"

"Dead old dogs."

"Yes, I remember that from the phone call yesterday. Why old dogs in particular?"

"Linda's last case before coming over here involved a family all suffering from elevated levels of Vitamin A. It took her team a while to figure that out, but that was as far as they got. But when she told me about it, it reminded me of a case in the U.K. back in 2006 where a man named James Farlow was killing old dogs and removing their livers - " +

"Which contain a lot of Vitamin A, I take it?"

"At levels detrimental, even fatal, to humans if ingested long enough. And the older the dog, the more its levels of Vitamin A."

"And so you had called me to ask Garcia to run a check of dog killings in the area and it panned out and so you solved the case for Linda."

"I guess it's not terribly romantic."

"I don't know - solving a murder might impress some women. The question is: was Linda happy?"

Spencer found it very hard to keep the smile out of his voice. "Yeah."

Dave chuckled on the other end. "Well, then I think you've got a chance, Kid."

-x-

March 25, 2015

In the thirty-nine days since their romantic dinner in Bangkok, Spencer and Linda had spent as much time together as possible. They had been to the Kaeng Krachan National Park (where they had seen an elephant in the wild for the first time), visited the ancient temples at Ayutthaya, spent a weekend at the beaches at Koh Samet and strolled along the Mae Nam Kwae Road running parallel to the river Kwai of bridge fame.

But that night was what Linda would later call "The Night". Not for the reason most people would assume, but because that was the night they laid in bed and did nothing but talk for hours, whispering soft secrets and laughing at silly confessions. The night they truly began the process of learning all about each other and realizing that the depth of their feelings went beyond just dating.

I tried my best to get past it, to live my life like Gideon told me to, but I couldn't help but be inhibited by it. I had lived with the burden of caring for someone with schizophrenia and knew the trauma and heartache better than anyone. How could I willingly inflict that on someone else? And worse, how could I willingly risk passing it down to my children? If there was anything more nightmarish to me than having them watch me go through it, it would be my watching them inflicted with it. And I never knew how much it oppressed me until suddenly the threat was lifted from my shoulders.

The first boy I dated in college couldn't get aroused until I put on a kimono. For a long time after that, I was overly-conscious of my race whenever I went out with someone who wasn't of Asian descent.

I've eaten peanut butter right out of the jar. For dinner.

I love to watch cartoons.

We were in the middle of a case - a very personal case - so I didn't think of it until later, but truthfully, it bothered me. And it made me feel a little annoyed. I knew Garcia was just joking, and I knew where it was coming from - most people hear that someone's mother has sent them love poetry and they think it's oedipal or even some sort of pedophilia, but there was nothing prurient about it. My mother and I both have an interest in literature and poetry, a significant amount of which is focussed on love and a half second thought would have told Penelope that. Sometimes I get tired by people's constant need to always make a joke or a quip, and more importantly, by their lack of imagination.

I know what you mean, Linda chuckled. I still remember the look Denise Leach gave me when she saw me reading "The Martian Chronicles" in seventh grade. I can't say she mocked me, or even teased me, but it was this sort of condescending confusion. She was a teenage girl, so I suppose everything had to be reaction and drama, but the look of genuine puzzlement on her face to see me reading that instead of the "Sweet Valley High" books being passed around I mean, it's not even a matter trying something outside the box, it's why is the box so damn small in the first place? Why in Heaven's name wouldn't reading Bradbury be normal? Things aren't weird until someone makes them weird.

I'm afraid I don't know what "Sweet Valley High" is.

Linda laughed. There's absolutely no reason why you should.

Spencer found it very refreshing to have his admittance of ignorance about pop culture not greeted with eye-rolling.

I don't always like to try new things, especially in front of others, because it's always a lose-lose situation for me. If I lose a game, people are gleeful: "I guess the genius doesn't know everything!" But if I win, then they're resentful, or at least dismissive. "Well, of course, what else could we expect?" or they say to the team, "Oh, I see you brought your own walking computer data base with you," as if my knowledge was merely genetically coded in my brain and not due to my hard work or purposely studying up on the subject.

I got the same reaction when I won a scholarship to Harvard in high school. The other kids, and even their parents, put it down to my being Asian rather than my putting the study hours in. I excelled not due to hard work, but to the unfair advantage of some bizarre Japanese DNA conspiracy.

I truly did think you were nice-looking in your bio-hazard suit.

I was the one who bought you the six-pack of Jello cups.

I could have got clean right there in the hospital. I could have admitted to what happen while the only drugs that were ever in my system were the ones forced on me by Tobias. But I didn't because if I'd told them, that meant the crisis was still ongoing and I really, really needed to tell myself it was over. After being a prisoner for three days I needed to be free. I needed to be in control and not to feel trapped by people keeping me somewhere against my will.

But then everything after I walked out that hospital entrance way was my fault and not Hankel's.

I nearly left medicine in my first year of residency because I couldn't face losing patients.

I find it very reassuring when I remember that you've already seen me naked.

I'm a little nervous when I think about you being six years younger than I am.

Don't tell my team, but I really can use chopsticks.

Don't tell my father, but I can't stand his sushi.

I couldn't save her.

I was married. His name was Stephen and he died of a brain aneurism in the kitchen of our new house two days after we returned from our honeymoon. We had gotten three wedding gifts in the mail just that morning. I I was ten feet away, hanging a picture in the living room. I was right there and I'm a doctor and I still couldn't save him.

Do you feel disloyal for moving on?

No. Do you?

Not anymore.

Reid glanced down at their hands as he twined his fingers amongst hers and, as the dawn light filtered through his bedroom window and outside the first chirpings and stirrings of morning's arrival began to sound from the trees beyond, two happy people blissfully drifted off to sleep.

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*According to the Sala Rim Naam menu, Lon Poo Talay is sea crab meat cooked in coconut milk and Khanom Jeeb Thai is steamed Thai chicken and peanut dumplings.

Also, at least according to the net, Valentine's Day is very big in Thailand, and for the most part its customs (and requisite merchandising) seem to be very similar to those in North America.

+ For any fans of the BBC series "New Tricks", you might recognize the series 3 episode "Old Dogs".