DISCLAIMER

Anything that you recognise is from the brilliant authors of Criminal Minds, particularly Jeff Davis, and the magnificent JK Rowling's universe.

CHAPTER 2: AS USUAL?

Anyone who would describe Spencer Reid would use al least one of the words: weird, lonely, know-it-all, genius, detached… And maybe some other expletives that aren't so nice to hear.

But to Diana Reid Spencer would always be one thing first : lovely. She may not understand exactly all that she and her son have been through, her schizophrenia saw to the constant state of confusion, but she was by no mean ignorant about her son's character. And to her Spencer was lovely. Yes, she acknowledges that Spencer could be aloof and in his own world, but she new that his spontaneous exclamations about random facts were the way he thought he should present himself to the world. because Spencer was fragile in the inside, and he relied on what he thought to be his only attribute: his seemingly endless source of knowledge.

That version of him was indeed the only one people saw, at first. But to Diana Reid this was a shame: because her boy had so much to offer to the world. And it did not all involve facts: it also involved his incredible, yet oh so hidden, heart!

That is what Diana reflected upon when reading the daily letters Spencer sent her. She new his letters were the only way he could reconcile himself with being so far away from her all the time, but she did not begrudge him his time-consuming career, on the contrary she accepted that Spencer was a boy that had a lot to offer to the word.

One problem remains though: to almost everyone Spencer appears as a BOY, not a MAN….

To deter this perception Spencer encouraged people to call him Doctor, because his degrees where something he was proud of, without boasting about it, and because it reminded him of Doctor Who - which was alway a plus!

The distinction made by his age difference from the team, his reserved exterior, his avoidance of physical contact and especially his ability to tell people in a second the number of inhabitants in any given town of the US, made the people around Spencer see him as a person who did not have a lot of emotions to divulge.

But Spencer had a lot of emotions inside of him, storms of them, that he could not - or would not - allow to see the light of day. And that is why when the twenty-four-year-old man faced an emotional problem he tried to resolve it all on his own.

And on this Friday night Spencer was conflicted! Since this horrible case last year where he had been hold captive by a schizophrenic Dilaudid addict, Spencer had struggled with his need for a fix. And while Spencer had managed to substitute the need for the drug with the need for less dangerous substances such as caffeine he still had a problem! A problem his team was seeing, or acknowledging…

And Spencer often laughed, although without humour, that a team of profilers should be able to realise his state of sleep depravation! "Of course!" he thought, he always has been more on the pale side, and the dark circles under his eyes from the night mares that came with the horrific images his job brought could explain his mine. But lately his pallor was associated with one thing: an obsession with moving on!

Moving on from the instinctive need to check inside the left interior pocket of his tweed jacket to grasp at what had been there a month ago: this little phial of substance that made him forget, that made him happy for a while. Unburdened with the realities of his professional and personal life this little phial provided an escape. But what a bitter-sweet escape!

Spencer was not delusional: he knew, from the realities of his profession and his studies that addiction was a real issue. But battling it alone seemed to be the only way he would allow the fight to even exist. Spencer did not want to make others acknowledge his problems. He thought about it: but telling Hotch or Morgan would be problematic. Hotch because the man would feel compelled to bench him from some time and Spencer could not afford to be left out… Morgan because the man would feel guilty about knowing this huge secret about his friend: firstly because he did not realise sooner that his "Pretty Boy" was in trouble, secondly because not telling the rest of the team would put too much pressure on the man. Garcia was a definite no: the women loved gossip but she would feel compelled by her moral compass and by her need to help, to tell someone! The only person that he could talk to would be Prentiss: but she was still to new to the team to fully ascertain her reaction to the problem. And she was already the one who had seen that he had a problem in the first place, no reason to add to the pile.

On this Friday night Spencer was therefore conflicted, he thought that he understood how obsessions worked. He studied them for a living for heaven's sake! But he could not get a train of thought out of his head: he needed coffee! Well, more importantly he needed coffee so that he would not need something stronger.

But what Spencer really needed was a distraction: something good to keep his mind of the bad! Something that would consume him enough that, from time to time, he could forget about his troubles. Something that was new and fresh and all his…

But before Spencer could let his mind wonder as to what that thing would be his cellphone vibrated on the coffee table.

Pushing the books that where haphazardly open face down on his long legs he sat up and reached for the offending device. A simple text from Hotch : "Got a Case. Meeting in the conference room ASAP!".

"Here goes my quite Friday night !" Thought Spencer. But a voice in his head reminded him that maybe the distraction wasn't such a bad thing after all… Anything to get him out of the house would be appreciated.

As he stepped out of the elevator doors Spencer ran right into Garcia, who was rushing past him, very likely coming from her office, he thought. She reminded him of characters from Alice in Wonderland, the rabbit because she often seemed frazzled and overwhelmed, Alice because she had that juvenile naiveté that he himself never had - a quality that usually disappeared in their line of work. But her naivety, her innocence, seemed to exist in spite of all the horrors they saw. It was like she shielded herself so well that she protected her mind by actively seeking out the good. And Spencer thought, though he never really said anything, that it was a wonderful quality.

As he ran into her Garcia let out a startled scream and all the papers that were in her arms dispersed on the floor in a complete disarray. Apologetic Spencer tried to bend down and help her recover all her files, but Garcia decided to just take it all in a completely messy way. He tried to help her but Garcia stopped him :

- "Oh my wonderfully spaced out Good Doctor ! It's not a problem! Just ask Chocolate Thunder to come help me, will you? I would very much like to see that men bend !"

Spencer just watched her as she spewed her habitual unethical language and hid a smile that threatened to come out. Considering it was rude of him not to help he started to do so, but Garcia yanked him out of the way and told him:

"NO! I am not mad about this mess, but you WILL go ask the Statuesque God over there to come move is oh so perfect ass and help me!" She then took a lower tone of voice, realising that she had screamed somewhat: " And do not try to apologise Little Genius, just bring the manpower out, will you?".

Spencer decided not to argue with her - as the risk of being manhandled seemed to increase exponentially- and walked into the bullpen to ask Morgan to help the damsel in distress.

But as soon as Derek saw him he backtracked. The man just had this look in his eyes: the one that promised one of those conversations about Spencer's lack of social interactions, particularly the kind that ended horizontally! While Spencer had no problem with Derek's lifestyle he just did not want to participate. But the man was persistent in his quest for a mentee, Spencer would give him that.

As he backtracked he felt JJ arrive through the doors behind him and considered that striking a conversation with the blond was the safest bet so far, as Emily was not around yet. JJ started talking about his godson, Henry, which always put Spencer in a good mood. As the discussed his sleeping habits - or lack of thereof as it was more the case- they made their way to the conference room, where Garcia, still very much frazzled, was sorting out her papers.

Sitting down at the round table Spencer felt the familiar sense of dread and excitement at the prospect of discovering a new depraved side of humanity. A lot of people would never get why their job was so fascinated, but for Spencer it was familiar in the way Proust describes his madeleine. It was remembering every hour spent learning all those paraphilia that the human mind created. And as it was often the case, Spencer spent the next minute waiting for the team to arrive, by thinking of one of his technical books describing a particular aspect of the human mind.

While he let his mind wonder the others had arrived and Hotch had instructed Garcia and JJ to start presenting the case to the team. Focusing on the paper file - because Garcia new his mistrust technology - Spencer opened the pages showing gruesome pictures of people bend in half, in post-mortem expressions that could only come from extensive amounts of torturous acts, but he did not stop at those particular images. No, what intrigued Spencer was the fact that each victim seemed to have a symbol tattooed into their left wrist, a symbol that meant absolutely nothing to him in terms of gangs.

"As you can see these are five female and male victims varying in age from 12 to 69, and coming from multiple ethical backgrounds? He is all over the place! The authorities in Boston are having trouble keeping the press from publishing daily reports on the case at this point. Daisy Williams, the latest victim was a waitress at a popular bar and people are getting anxious. Especially since the bodies are so horrific when found. I mean i will have to watch at least two hours of bunny pictures to conjure away all this evilness…"

- "Garcia what did you find about the tattoos?" He asked the women who was moaning about the state of the bodies while keeping her professionalism, as only she could do.

- "Well, Doctor, from what I have gathered they just represent the animal, there is no gang or any other type of group or prison symbol that is specifically like this."

- "The animal is quite specific though…" Hotch started to say before Spencer interrupted to divulge what he felt to be important.

- "Yes a phoenix represents rebirth and reincarnation, eternal life if you will. It is the opposite of what happened to those victims. Do you think he wanted to kill them in a horrific way because of it somehow?"

- "I think for now we should focus on finding a link between the victims, other then the tattoo. We might discover its meaning there?" asked Emily.

- "Yes i think that is the best solution. But guys did you see what else he did to them? He took their eyes off! Enucleators are very rare!" Interjected Morgan.

- "Yes they represent less then one percent of our cases!" Said Spencer. "Maybe taking their eyes off has something to do with the tattoo, not allowing to move on to the other life? The Egyptians used to put coins of money on the eyes of their dead to ensure a safe passage. Maybe by removing the eyes he forces them to continue to endure the torture in their death?

- I think it is a theory worse looking into but for now we need to go, the authorities in Boston are waiting for us." Hotch reminded the team.

As they all gathered their files and stood up to go search their go-bags Spencer felt as weird: like this case was somehow defining for the team, or was it just for him?

But he dismissed the feeling: it was absurd, they had worked hundreds of cases, and while enucleators were rare, they were cases they had seen before. Thought Spencer, only realising after he thought it that he just made a pun. This little bit of unexpected humour made him forget about the strange feeling that surrounded him.

He took his go-bag from his locker and followed the team to the plane.

AN:

I plan to make them meet around chapter 4. I want to set up a bit more of background for Hermione first.

I know this idea of her working with the team as already been done before so i will try to find a different approach, and I also like the idea a lot (sue me ;) )

Reviews are appreciated.