A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy.

Three

Spencer walked in and began to lock his first dead-bolt when he felt another presence in the room with him. He wrinkled his brow as he realized it was another person, a human. He had come to discover that they all had their own smells. Garcia smelled a lot like bubble-gum. This smell? It actually smelled like an old, good book. Female.

He whirled around and engulfed his sister in under a second. "Haley, oh God, there you are."

"Spence, you're like a block of ice!" she exclaimed as she started to shiver. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the…" her voice trailed off as she got her first glimpse of her brother's face. "What happened?" she asked.

"Are you all right?" he asked first, letting her go and grabbing a blanket for her, which she promptly wrapped around herself. "Did you have any problems on the way up?" he prodded with genuine concern.

"No, Spencer, the ride here was fine. I'm fine. You aren't. What happened?" she brought the blanket around her more and gaped at Spencer, the dim light of the lamps making her angular face look a little more round. Spencer looked over her normally light brown hair now showed all the different color strands: brown, black, gold, even some reds. She had grown it out so it fell in waves down to the small of her back. Still, the Reid showed through in her slightly sunken-in eyes and her lanky height. Spencer could tell that her beautiful mind was plugging away at finding a solution; any logical thing would work for her. She, like her brother, refused to believe what first came to surface.

He sat down and indicated that she should too, to which she obliged. "Do you really want to hear?" he asked her, looking dead at her face.

"They're black," she whispered. "Your eyes are black."

"Do you?" he persisted quietly. The absolute last thing he wanted in the world was for his sister to be afraid of him. He could be afraid of himself; he would even let Penelope be afraid, but never Haley. He never ever wanted Haley to be afraid of him.

"Yes," she murmured, cuddling in the blanket with a pillow on the opposite side of the couch than he. "Tell me everything."

So he did, beginning with the walk home from the BAU to walking into the apartment and finding her there. "How did you get in?" he asked, wrinkling his brow at her.

"I have keys," she said, looking past Spencer at the wall. "Spence… I think that you, and this might sound really, really irrational, but you might be a-."

"Don't say it," he said through gritted teeth, not looking at her but ahead at the opposite wall. But that wasn't enough to keep his little sister from seeing his fangs turn his teeth into a ferocious snarl, to keep her from seeing the way his face twisted at the thought of his true being, his black eyes seeming to grow larger.

"Spencer," she said in a wavering voice.

He snapped to and looked at her, curled into the fetal position, pressing herself against the arm of the couch as hard as she could, almost trying to get away. Tears were dancing in her bright blue eyes, a trait from Diana's side of the family. He didn't have to ask; fear was written across her face.

"I'm sorry," he buried his head in his hands. "I don't know what to do," he moaned. "I really, truly don't know what to do."

Still recovering from the shock of seeing Spencer's beautiful features suddenly growing fierce and dangerous, she tried to speak. "Y-… You ne-ed to… to…"

He looked at her attentively. "Its okay, Haley, I won't do that again, I promise," he said, trying to reach his hand out to grab her knee reassuringly, but she shrank back involuntarily from his touch. He sighed in anger at himself.

"Don't be mad," she managed to sputter, shaking, but this time it wasn't because of the cold. "Don't degrade yourself." Her voice began to become a little more solid with each word. "You need to see what you can do."

"Meaning?" he genuinely asked.

"Can you be in the sun?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"Deterrence to garlic?" she managed to giggle a little.

Spencer couldn't help but smile at her little joke. "There's only one way to find out," he grinned. "You know where it is?" he asked as she stood and walked toward the kitchen.

She jumped with a little "Eep!" escaping her lips as she walked past the counter and saw the floors. "Oh, Spence… that's not a… that's not a person, is it?" she asked shutting her eyes tightly and plugging her nose, going back to the other side of the counter. She hated blood.

"I wouldn't ever," he muttered, going to the mess and running a hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh. "That's bloody hamburger meat. I've got this, Haley. You go get comfortable."

"Well, you can't say I'd really be completely comfortable," she said awkwardly. "No offence, but you kind of freak me out a little."

"I understand. I do that to a lot of people," he murmured, still looking at the mess rather than making an attempt to clean it.

"Okay," she said. She stopped and looked down at her feet, then looking where her brother was. "Spence?"

"Here," he said and she peered over the counter and watched him scrub for a minute.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I've actually been thinking," he said and stood up at the sink to rinse the sponge out, Haley unable to look at the bloody water that came out of it. She nearly blanched at the sight of it.

Noticing how pale she had become, Spencer put the bloody sponge out of her sight, watching as the color slowly returned to her face. "Anyway," he continued. "I'm going to see if I can go into work tomorrow."

"You don't even know if you can go into the sunlight," Haley reasoned, leaning against the counter, watching him go down again to scrub.

"And I won't know until I try," he raised his eyebrows at her. "Consider it an experiment."

"An experiment that could kill you!" she burst.

Spencer came up on the other side of the counter, resting his head on his hands, nearly nose to nose with Haley. "Hales, I think I might already be," he said softly, almost apologetically.

"You're still here, moving, talking… feeling, right? You feel?" she asked, almost in a peak of interest. Like he was a test subject as opposed to a brother. He didn't mind, he did the same thing with her when she was a teenager.

"I do," he said, pushing back from the counter and going back to his cleaning. He was almost done. "I feel… acutely, more so than I've ever felt before."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"That accredits the mood swings, I guess," he mumbled as he stood, done.

"I'm sorry," Haley said again.

"Don't be. I should be sorry. I've completely ruined this holiday for you, I apologize."

Haley smirked, "You're so weird, Spence. Stop saying you're sorry. None of this is your fault." She waited for him to respond: instead, he tensed and snapped his head to the door. "What is it?"

"Get in the closet, Hales," he said so quietly it wasn't even a whisper, but he never took his eyes from the door. "NOW!"

She saw his expression and ran to the coat closet, shutting the door quietly behind her as she took in the smell of wool all around her in the darkness. She struggled to control her breathing as she heard what sounded like a growl, a real, honest to God growl, rip from Spencer's chest.

The man from the night on the subway had come back, still clad in his filthy hood. He smiled, pulling it off to reveal his white, bald scalp. "Hello Spencer," he said in a deep bass, hushed; this greeting was exclusively for Spencer.

Spencer's eyes flashed. "What do you want?" he asked in a quick whisper. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"You know what I did," the man said, looking up at the young genius. Reid was used to it; most everyone was shorter than him. "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if you like it. Cold heifer meat? Honestly, I know you can do better than that."

"Who would?" from between gritted teeth.

"Well, I do," the man said. "Oh and Spencer, you're perfect. I was looking everywhere for someone just like you."

"Good, you've found me. Leave."

"But I want you to join me," he raised his eyebrows in earnest. "I could teach you the way to live like this! Answer your burning questions. You could learn so much, Spencer, live to see the end of time with me. Your genius could only grow."

Reid paused to think about it. It was tempting, all the knowledge he would want. But for how many human lives? What would be the cost? "Thank you for the offer, but you can get out now."

"I don't think you understand," the man's voice grew harsher. "You don't understand at all. This isn't an offer, this isn't a request. This is a mandate. You'll come with me."

"Get. Out."

"Why do you want me gone, hm?" he grinned at the younger vampire. "Could it be the girl in the closet?" The man raced to the coat closet and stopped, looking at Spencer and chuckling.

--

Haley could only hear muffled voices and shuffling of feet. That's all. A scuffle, and suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. They did that now when Spencer came near her, but this wasn't him. She knew what Spencer's presence felt like and this was definitely not it. The light under the crack of the door moved and she realized that the other person was just outside of it. He laughed.

As the stranger flung the door open and bared his fangs, a blur crashed into him with the sound of two boulders smashing each other. Haley managed to produce a squeaking noise as she stuck her head out. "Don't touch her!" Spencer shouted as he grabbed the man's neck and began to squeeze.

The man only laughed. "And what did you think that would do?" He grinned as he threw Spencer off and into the other room like a rag doll and approached Haley.

She saw him coming and had run into the kitchen to grab a knife out of the holder on the counter. He strolled in and walked right up to her. "Don't hurt Spencer," she said in a shaking voice, hating herself for it. She held up the knife. "Don't hurt Spencer!" she said a bit more strongly.

The man began to walk up to her confidently, grinning and exposing his fangs. He came within three feet of her, disregarding the long cutting knife in her trembling hand. Now within half a foot, he took the knife and pushing himself into it as he continued to move forward, all the while smiling. "I'm not going to hurt you," he smiled as he watched the horror on her face. Black blood was dripping down her arm and onto the floor from where she still held the handle of the knife.

"You smell so nice, though," he tilted her head up to his face.

"Get away from me!" she protested, trying to move her head from his iron touch. She saw Spencer stagger into the kitchen behind them. "Get out of here!" she shouted into his face.

He looked around at the damage he had done, the disarray of the apartment, and nodded, as if satisfied with his work. He let go of Haley, backed out of the knife and began to walk toward the door. Haley put a hand on her brother's shoulder to keep him there. He knew that if he moved then he might hurt her, and that was the last thing he wanted; Haley knew this.

The siblings coldly watched the man shuffle out and pause at the door, casting a look over his shoulder. "You will wind up joining me, Spencer," he snickered. "Even if it takes changing that pretty one there, you will join me."

Spencer literally hissed at him as the door slammed shut.

"Oh, God," he straightened up and cracked his back, which had been actually bent out of shape when he had been thrown. Haley winced as he fixed it and stood erect once more. "What have I done?"

"Nothing," Haley said. "None of this is your fault. I'll help clean this up, but then I'm sleeping. It's late and… well, I'm really, really tired and I need to sleep on this."

"I understand," Spencer nodded. "You go ahead and do what you need to. I'll think on it a little more."

Haley nodded and looked up at her brother's pale, beautiful face. She timidly approached and stood on her toes, boldly kissing him on the forehead. "`Night," she said.

He stared at her as she walked away, the closest he had let anyone get to him that day, a very bold and potentially idiotic move on her part. "Goodnight," he stammered, but she had already closed the door of her room.

He began to clean as silently as possible, trying to let her have her sleep, unable to have his own. After, he sat on the couch and could think of nothing else to do but wait for her to wake up.