Paris peeked his head out the door, listening intently to the conversation. Agent Gideon had lowered his voice when he was speaking, but Eric was never good at that so Paris had heard every word…though he wasn't sure if Eric really intended for him to.

He had the utmost respect for Eric…he had been a father figure to Paris for as long as Paris could remember, but even with that, he'd never feel comfortable calling Lori and Eric anything other than his aunt and uncle.

But what really surprised him was Eric's state of denial, Leslie had known exactly why Paris had done what he had with the test and for the most part she knew how he did it, nothing really detailed, but she had a general idea of how the eight year old had outsmarted a test designed to test intelligence.

Paris sighed and turned to Eric's desk, where he had spread out his homework, none of it would take him very long to do, but the energy to even start it wasn't there…but the more Paris thought it over, he realized that he could easily free up his unplanned four day weekend by getting the assignments over and done with.

This was what he was doing, when he heard the sound of feet scuffing from the doorway. Looking up, he tried to focus his eyesight on the figure, his glasses were in a case, shoved deep in a pocket of his bag, he was determined to leave them there, but this made seeing difficult, but squinting, Paris was able to see it was Dr. Reid, he looked nervous and unsure how to start the conversation.

Paris knew how he felt he hated talking to people too, especially new people. His talking to the FBI earlier had been completely out of character for him, but then again…so was getting into a fight with the school bully and running away from school. But now that he had started to calm down, he was also slipping back into his usual quiet routine.

A couple of seconds of silence passed between them and Paris wondered if Dr. Reid had volunteered to talk to him or if because he was the youngest of the team and therefore closer to Paris's age, he had been asked. Judging by his mannerism and body language, the latter was more probable.

Paris took a deep breath, eventually one of them would have to start talking, and as much as he didn't want to, Paris figured he might as well.

"Hi," he said softly giving Reid a half smile. That one word seemed to be the icebreaker, as Reid started to relax a bit.

"Hi," he replied giving Paris a quick wave, his other hand grasping his messenger bag tightly; he walked into the office slowly and looked around for a vacant chair.

Paris, who was normally very neat and tidy, had kind of taken over Eric's office with his stuff. His backpack was in one chair, his binder for reading, science, and world culture was in the other, while his world culture and reading workbooks were all over the desk, in front of him was his math workbook. He looked up at Reid and kind of shrugged and he was surprised to see Reid chuckle and even gave him a grin.

"Um…sorry, lemme move my stuff," Paris said jumping up, he grabbed his books and shoved them all in his backpack, and tossed the bag to the floor behind the desk. His math workbook remained open. It was the last of his homework, meant to keep him occupied for his two day plus weekend suspension, all he had was five word problems to solve and he would be completely done.

"Thanks," Reid replied, sitting down in the chair that Paris's backpack had occupied. He leaned forward and looked over Paris's workbook. "Fractions huh?" he asked,

Paris gave a short laugh, to show his dislike he liked math, but most of it was so easy that it became more of an annoyance than anything. Especially when he had to write things out, he could figure the answers out pretty easily in his head, skipping a lot of steps that his peers had to do to come to the same answer, but trying to explain this on paper was not an easy task

"Worse, fraction word problems" Reid returned Paris's grin, nodding in agreement, before he spoke again.

"Are you ok with taking a break from them?"

"Well…lets see, I had homework for science, reading, world culture, AND math… designed to punish/keep me busy for the entire weekend and once I complete those five word problems and show my work. I'll be free to enjoy whatever punishment my aunt and uncle have in mind for me." Reid gave a half grin and raised his eyebrow, obviously amused "er… yeah… I'm happy to take a break."

"Well, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions,"

Paris nodded and closed the workbook.

"'bout Grant?" Reid nodded and Paris sighed, "I'm not sure how much help I'm gonna be though. I do have one question though,"

"Shoot,"

"Can I go grab a drink please?"

Reid looked surprised

"Do you promise to come back?"

Paris grinned

"Dr. Reid, I may not like talking to people 'bout my friends, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna take off to avoid something that I know is inevitable." His grin widened "plus if I leave, you've got my favorite book to hold hostage, so eventually I gotta come back."

Reid's surprised face changed to one of amused inquisitiveness

"Just out of curiosity," Paris nodded towards his backpack; silently giving Reid permission to go through his bag, Reid reached into the boy's backpack and extracted an obviously worn hardcover copy of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories and poems. He held it up and looked through the old book, checking the copyright, "1901?" he breathed

"It was my mom's, she got it from my…" Paris paused, he wasn't sure how to continue, "she got it from I guess you can call her my grandmother, and I think she got it from her father, it's kinda a tradition" Despite the age of the book and it's obvious constant usage, it was in decent shape, it was well taken care of, but definitely well used. "I don't go anywhere without it, though I know I should leave it home 'cause it's so old. Uncle Eric's been tellin' me that for months now."

Reid gently opened the cover, where, written in neat delicate handwriting, was a message to Leslie Smith from her mother, and directly below that was another message written in similar handwriting:

'Paris' it read 'beneath these pages lies the work of a great story teller and poet, and I can only hope you allow your mind to take you to the places of your imagination and with Poe's help, find your own literary voice that I know is there inside you. Never forget how proud of you I am and how much I love you. Quoth the Raven: Nevermore- mom.'

Reid looked up at Paris who looked away from him; Paris had read and reread Leslie's message to him each time he opened the book. She had given him the book on his eighth birthday and he had kept it carefully positioned on his nightstand, so he could read it before going to sleep.

After she sent him to live with the Williamsons, he slept with it under his pillow…and when he found out that she had passed away, it went nearly everywhere with him; because when he read the stories and the poems, he could hear Leslie reading them to him, and he liked the feeling of her being with him, even if she really wasn't.

Looking at the binding of the book it was easy to see which section the book was most opened to, the Raven.

"The Raven?" Reid asked, Paris nodded

"It's my favorite. Mom used to read it to me 'fore I went to sleep." Reid raised an eyebrow "I know it's kinda weird, but it helped me go to sleep, mom said when she first started reading it to me I was usually out by the time she got to 'Distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December' part, but even then I had the whole thing memorized 'fore I could read. Most kids get lullabies and regular bedtime stories, I got the Raven and Shakespeare. Mom used to read me the witches scene from Macbeth and she would change her voice to sound cackling and spooky." Quickly Paris shook his head, as if he was shaking away the memories "anyways, do you want some coffee? If Lieutenant Brown made it then it'll be safe but if Gage made it, it could be deadly Uncle Eric says he has a bad habit of not changing the filters." Paris made a face which Reid returned, "but I think it's safe today, he's been banned from the coffee maker."

"Sure, coffee sounds good,"

Paris nodded

"Uh…how do you take it?"

"Two teaspoons of sugar is good," again Paris nodded

"K, be right back," and with that Paris darted out of the office, Reid watched him leave and saw Gideon watching him as well, before looking back into the office. He walked over and poked his head inside

"How's it going?"

"He's starting to open up," Reid replied "slowly." Gideon nodded

"It may be a slow process, from what Williamson has told me, he's a pretty closed up kid, trust is in short supply with him, but the fact that he's willingly talking to you is a good sign, means he's starting to trust you, which is what is most important right now."

Reid looked Paris's belongings over, still fascinated by the Poe book, before looking back up at Gideon

"You really think he's a target?"

Gideon sighed and nodded

"He's a potential target, Paris was friends with the latest victim and also fits the criteria that the unsub is putting on these kids, a loner and bullied." He looked out towards the bullpen, Williamson and Morgan were heading out to the dumpsite of the first victim, Phillip Carson, Reid followed Gideon's gaze and looked back at him "but Williamson is in complete denial that Paris could be in danger, I believe Paris lucked out today, but his uncle doesn't seem to see that." Gideon reached into his pocket and extracted a plastic evidence bag, a ripped piece of notebook paper lay inside. "They found this stuffed in Grant Dennerson's sock, his prints are all over it." He handed it to Reid who stared at what was written the name 'Paris Smi-' with the last two letters left on the original paper. "We just found out about it," Gideon took a deep breath, withholding his frustration with the Las Vegas Detective. "What can you tell me about it?" Reid stared at the ripped paper for a few seconds; he could practically see the author of it writing in the original notebook, writing down each name.

"Well, it was written by an adult…at least forty-five, but I would guess older, just judging by the jagged marks on some of the letters, I'd have to say he's either developing or already has rheumatoid arthritis. Most likely spends a lot of time on a keyboard and handwriting notes, possible onset of carpel tunnel." Reid looked up at Gideon "why didn't Williamson mention this before?"

"He is convinced that it is all coincidental and that the note proves nothing. He's made it very clear to mention that Grant Dennerson and Paris were good friends and constantly had notes going back and forth."

"He really thinks a 13 year old wrote this? Despite the obvious jagged marks, the handwriting is too precise to be a child, it is to neat. What do you think?"

"What do I think? I think that Grant saw a list of names while he was with the UnSub and upon seeing his friend's name on the list, tried to protect him by ripping his name off the list."

Reid nodded slowly and pushed the bag back to Gideon

"That's why you wanted me to talk to Paris?"

"I want him to trust someone other than his family, and I want that someone to be relatable to a ten year old who has an extremely high intelligence that he is not willing to show."

Reid looked doubtful

"I'll do what I can," he replied

"You're already getting somewhere with him, he's starting to tell you bits and pieces of his life." Reid nodded, still doubtful that he was the best person to get Paris out of his shell. "Morgan has Garcia comparing records of each victim, hopefully there is some commonality between them." again Reid nodded, if Penelope Garcia couldn't find some record linking all the kids together, no one could. "Just keep up what you're doing, you're doing fine."