Hey, well its Spencer's first day and time to meet some more of the team. It's a bit of a longish chapter, I think. I don't known Criminal Minds.

Please enjoy :)

Chapter 3 – New Friends?

5th September 2013

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Opening his eyes groggily and shaking his head, he looked around the unfamiliar room before remembering he was at the BAU.

"Hello?" It was a cross between a mumble and a shout, but evidently he'd been loud enough.

He yelped when JJ's head came through the door, reminding him of the ghost of Jacob Marley in Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol', before he remembered again of his and the teens he had befriended the night before.

"Oh! Spence I'm sorry to wake you! I thought you might want a tour before the school reopens tomorrow and to meet a few people, there friends of mine don't worry." Glancing at the clock he was surprised when he saw it was 11.21am and his eyes widened, he hadn't slept that long in…put briefly, years.

Giving her own of his shy smiles, realising he was still in bed, he blushed slightly. "That would be really sweet JJ, thanks. Give me quarter of an hour to get up?". The face in, on, through – he wasn't sure what the correct term would be – flashed a smile back.

Agreeing to meet in twenty instead at the front steps JJ disappeared and as soon as she was gone Spencer practically flew into the ensuite. Ten minutes later he emerged showered and his hair washed with a cleaned, moisturised face and brushed teeth. Patting his hair down hastily and grabbed some clothes quickly changing before dashing out of the room.

"I'm not late am I, JJ?" He panted reaching the group of five, three of whom he had no clue about.

"Hey Spence! No, you're on time, in fact I think you might be early. I grabbed these for you, I figured you might want them." As if on cue his stomach grumbled as he accepted the breakfast bar and bottle of water off the 'phaser' and flushed embarrassedly. "Sounds like you needed it. Alright guys, this is Spencer Reid. Be nice. There are normally more of us but they're at a mentor meeting, we'll meet them later when we pass the conference room."

Spencer knew exactly what a mentor was. On the fifth day, Gideon had explained the mentor system/what a mentor was. Everyone under 18 at the school had oneand if you wanted you could ask to still have one once you were over 18. They were essentially a shoulder to cry on, a friend, helped with studies and training – basically an extra hand if you needed it. It was optional to volunteer to be a mentor from 16 but at 18 it was compulsory till either you aged out at 21 if you stayed at the school or till you left the school/ when you finished studying.

"Okay y'all, now Spencer has eaten, I think you oughta introduce yourselves." Stuffing the wrapper in his pocket of his black cords, he looked up at the trio of new people standing before him.

"Wait! What the hell does the do?" The aggressive tone in the voice of the young black man gained him all the eyes present, JJ's, especially glared at the unabashed teen. Spencer stared at the aggressive stancing teen, his coal eyes held the same aggression and anger, although Spencer didn't know why and didn't want to find out. The aggressor would certainly be able to take him down with no problems if his muscles and physique were anything to go by, plus he was almost another head taller than JJ. He scared Spencer, he reminded him of the jocks back at his old school, not something he wanted to remember, at all.

"I – erm – I – ". The aggressive teen rolled his eyes and folded his arms.

"Jesus Christ! Fine I'll go first kid. Derek Morgan," Without warning he seized Spencer hand into a handshake, gripping bone crunchingly tight, almost made the frightened boy cry out. "As you can see, I'm a mutant who's got strength, real. Super. Strength… Also, I've got inhuman stamina and agility; basically in a nutshell I can kick your ass."

"Morgan!" JJ had gone like a tomato, not out of embarrassment but anger at her friend's behaviour. Spencer didn't want another repeat of high school and for the first time ever he actually decided to stop anything happening before it did.

"It's okay JJ. You already know my name. I'm a mutant who has super intelligence. In a nutshell, I'm a genius." Spencer had said it so innocently and sweetly, it would make you think he was totally naïve at how he was getting his own back. The black teen's eyes narrowed into slits but everyone else didn't seem bothered, infact they'd all erupted into laughter at a boy half Morgan's size beating him.

"Oh god! Thank you for that Reid, it was about time someone put Morgan in his place," Morgan frowned at the laughing gothic black haired girl. "Don't look at me like that, it's true. I'm Emily but a lot of people call me Prentiss, that's my surname before you ask. And like the AA or NA meetings now I've said who I am, the reason I'm here is because I can make it kinda windy." Before Spencer could pick her brain, mentally or verbally, she stood up off the steps.

"See that huge plant pot down there?" He looked to where she was looking, the pot was about 15m or so away, he nodded to the girl.

"Watch this." Watching in fascination, she inhaled deeply and blew the air out of her mouth, focusing on the plant pot. His mouth opened slightly as the pot practically flew down the gravel path till the wind Prentiss had blown dropped and the pot crashed onto the path. She turned grinning like the Cheshire Cat, her white teeth contrasting with her black lipstick.

"That was… cool." In the corner of his eye he saw Morgan sneer at the comment, lucky before JJ could say anything, the last boy with glasses stepped in.

"Hi Reid, I'm Kevin Lynch, nice to meet you." The boy offered out a gloved hand to Spencer, who in return stood back a step and waved instead. Seeing the puzzled expression Spencer hastily tried to explain.

"I prefer not shake hands, its –"

"Figures, a genius who thinks because he's smart that he's better than everyone else." A chorus of angry 'Morgan' were made and JJ ordered him to apologise which he refused to do.

"It's not that I'm high and mighty Morgan, I prefer not to shake hands because that's how 80% of diseases and infections are passed through handshakes, in fact research shows its safer to kiss than shake hands." Accidently reading what JJ was about to ask he answered her question before she asked. "The reason I shook hands with you and Will, JJ is because you two were the first people I'd met and I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with you. I wanted to make friends and I thought reputing your efforts might not be the best thing to do."

He offered a small apologetic smile to her and she smiled back, obviously unoffended and made a comment about him being so sweet. He also could tell he had won them over, except for Morgan 'He's going to take a lot of work.'

"Anyway, before I was… interrupted." The nervous hitch in Kevin's voice made Spencer think he wasn't the only one there slightly intimidated by Morgan. "I my super smart friend can secrete to types of poison, one that when kissed on the lips I can comatose you and when under stress one through my fingertips that can kill. I guess learnt both the hard way, the comatose one when I was born when my mom kissed me I put her in a three month coma after she gave birth and my dad for a few days when he kissed her and the traces of the poison entered his body. After that my parents barely touched me, then when I was five, my mom and I were held up in a bank heist. It was the scared I'd ever been, she'd been holding my hand… I killed her. First time she'd ever really held me out of love and I killed her. Then, to make things even better, I killed one of the hostages when she grabbed me as my mom died and one of the heisters as he took me off her. My dad called me a freak and a couple of months after I ran away, I was so afraid of him and why he hated me. Jess, one of the mutants who lived near me found me; she recognised me and had already guessed what I was. She brought me here and this has been my home ever since. It took a few years but I learnt to control both the secretions of the poison, but I still wear gloves just in case, better safe than sorry."

Spencer absorbed the information, the pictures that went with it were heart breaking to him and he saw how much of an unloving beginning to his childhood Kevin had had. 'Shoot, I need to stop this, Professor Strauss will kill me. Focus Spencer, focus, block them out.'

"I'm… I'm glad you've found a home here." He didn't want to say he was sorry because it would never do Kevin justice, for a minute there was an awkward silence, till Emily came to the rescue. Again.

"So, Reid, where are you from?"

"Oh, Las Vegas."

"Ooohhh, lots of casinos, make any money? Joke, you're far too young, what are you Reid? Eleven?"

"Erm, actually I was banned from all the underground casinos because I'd clean them out when me and my mom needed the money. Over the past three years, seven months and nineteen days since I first entered a underground casino, I've won fifty four thousand, two hundred and sixty four dollars and 45 cents."

All the groups eyes went like saucers and their jaws dropped, even Morgan's.

"You were eight when you went to a casino?" Emily asked incredulously.

"No, I was ten years, three months and six days old when I went into my first casino, I'm fourteen in thirty four days.". Emily looked embarrassed at having thought he was so young. "Emily, don't be embarrassed. Gideon thought the same when he first met me." He saw JJ and Will share another one of those glances. Morgan raised his eyebrows, half smug about Gideon, half surprised that the…kid knew Emily was embarrassed, it wasn't something she showed and it took him three months to recognise the signs on her. This kid has figured out the signs in less than five minutes. 'Oh, way to go Spencer, stupid! He already hates you, and he already he hates telepaths.'

"So JJ where do we start?" That brought the group alive and they followed JJ as she began the tour of the grounds outside, explaining the different parts of it as they went, making small talk in between.

As they went on, he found that Will and JJ were the youngest as they were both fifteen, followed by Morgan and Prentiss with a girl called Garcia (but she was in the mentor meeting) were sixteen and Kevin was seventeen, but wasn't the oldest of the group. There were two people older than him, one nineteen and one eighteen, who were both also in the mentor meeting. Also while JJ, Will and Morgan went home in the holidays but Kevin and Prentiss were all year rounder's'. Prentiss could go home if she wanted but the relationship she had with her mom after some incident the year before made her prefer to stay. Spencer didn't want to find out what and he didn't ask or look.

The grounds of the school were treated like a nature preserve, which meant no littering, graffiti or destruction to anything (Emily had broken that rule earlier though) and looking at the grounds Spencer could see why. They'd be a perfect setting to a wedding or for filming especially now with all the flowers in bloom making the flowerbeds like dotted rainbows with the trimmed grass and well-kept trees, the large stream and small area of rocks huddled on one side aswell just added even more beauty to the grounds. It was one of the most beautiful sights he's seen and he decided he'd probably end up spending his time on the benches just off the gravelled path or on the grass.

He was pulled from his thoughts upon realising the rest of the group where headed up another set of steps and he'd fallen behind. 'Oops.' . When he caught up he saw Morgan smile smugly having been the only to notice Spencer had fallen behind and not said anything.

"Alright Spence, this is the west entrance to the school. Come on, the rest of the grounds are pretty much the same." JJ walked through the door and chuckling Will opened it for the rest of them. " This is the West Wing of the school, that door there is for the computer su - Garcia! Rossi! Over here!"

A brightly dressed blonde with as bright blue glasses practically skipped down the corridor with an older man in a more refined outfit and manner and a black goatee with a complexion that almost European, maybe Italian or Greek, walking right behind her.

"JJ, my beautiful babe, come here!" The bubbly girl grabbed JJ into a tight embrace, doing the same with Prentiss and flirtatiously winking at Morgan before giving Kevin a peck on the lips.

"He's adorable! And very cute, is this our new resident?" The girl smiled widely at Spencer who waved back. "Aw! I love him!"

"Calm down Penelope, this Spencer Reid or Spencer, yep Gideon brought him in last night. He's super smart."

The girl squealed and grabbed him into a similar bear hug as the others, squeezing the air out of him and gleefully crying out as she did. "At last... My own baby genius! And an adorable at that one, move over my chocolate adonis, there's a new boy in the house."

"It's… good… to… meet you Penelope." Spencer managed to stutter as she realised him from the embrace.

"Aw, thank you baby boy, welcome to the team! Now call Penelope or Garcia or PG or goddess of infinite knowledge or –"

"Baby, I think Spencer gets it." Garcia paused at Kevin's comment, receiving a thankfully glance from the overloaded boy. He looked over to the new man, boy, whatever the remembered his name, who put his hands up.

"Sorry, no hugs here, it's not very or very… me." With that he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and began flicking the flame on and off.

"But cooking and playing with your lighter is?"

"Shut up Prentiss. One – I am the best cook at the place, so be careful I don't refuse to cook for you. Two – I like to make sure if I need to I have a power source handy, you know that, I can't conjure my gift like you can."

The playful banter went on a bit longer until Morgan asked where someone called Hotch was and Garcia had explained that their 'wise leader' hade been held back by Gideon and that Hotch had said he'd meet them later instead and not to wait for him. The team after a few more minutes of messing had continued the tour of the building.

The rest of the tour took another hour or so but eventually it was done and they had just settled in one of the living rooms. The school was split into four wings – North, East, South, and West. The West Wing was where Spencer had met Garcia and Rossi, there was the computer suite, the main hall, conference room and the indoor swimming pool (he thought it slightly odd to have a major source of water near a large supply of electronical hardware, but it wasn't his school). The East Wing where they were now had two living rooms, a games room and also three classrooms (well two classrooms and a science lab). The main entrance where he arrived last night was defined as being in the North Wing but was actually half way between the North and East Wing, and was the location of the school's kitchen and dining hall as well as the gym, which Spencer guessed was where Morgan spent most of his time. The kitchen and dining hall had a rota of week of who/which people were cooking, serving and washing up. There was also an office for Professor Strauss's use that she used probably not as often as one would think, but then again she was the schools language teacher. Finally the South Wing had the other two classrooms, a staffroom for want of a better word, the library (which Spencer was looking forward to spending time in) and the infirmary. Each wing also had a collection of a small number of toilets seeing of how big the school was (although it didn't seen that many rooms for a building occupying over hundred people it was infact huge and was very spacious) but mainly students preferred to use their own bathrooms. On the first floor was just the school's hundred and forty bedrooms – it seemed a large number but infact eight of them could fit in the games room, which was the ground floor's smallest room –, a few more public toilets (again because of the size) and a large store room with clothes, supplies, bedding etc. for those who arrived without it because of where they had come from or had simply come back but forgotten.

"So Spence, what do you think of the school?"

"It's very impressive, thanks guys for showing me round, I probably would have gotten lost otherwise." He knew he wouldn't though, from what Gideon had shown him and his eidetic memory but he didn't want to hurt their feelings. Garcia pulled him into another bear hug and Will ruffled his hair.

"Oh my junior g-man you are so welcome! Come, we should go to the computer suite."

"Garcia, you should just call that place your lair with the amount of time you spend there." Garcia pulled her tongue at Emily, who pulled her own tongue back at them.

"Aren't you both a bit old for that?"

"Whatever grandpa, just because you're old –"

Anger slightly flared in the bearded boy, "I'm nineteen!"

"Exactly – old." Reid giggled and Rossi shot Morgan a glare at his statement and he flicked the lighter open, twitching his fingers ever so slightly so that the flame grew bigger and danced more towards Morgan in a threatening manner.

"Don't push it Morgan, I might just burn you…"

The others quickly diffused the situation and soon all of them were joking, Prentiss was in the middle of a story of a recount of a prank she and a friend Matthew had pulled in Rome, when a voice had interrupted the story.

"Excuse me." The group turned to face the blonde haired boy, Prentiss and Rossi tensed, while Morgan went full-fledged aggressive alpha male.

"What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want?" Spencer's mouth dropped at the language, it wasn't that he hadn't heard it before, it was just the way Morgan had said it to the innocent newcomer.

"Erm-"

"Well, I – I mean we are waiting."

"Morgan, how many times do I have to say 'I'm sorry'?" The defeated look on the blonde said he'd obviously had this conversation many times over with the group, especially Morgan. Morgan scoffed at the other teen's statement.

"It'll never be enough."

"Then in that case I'm, sorry because you can't forgive and that's your problem because you aren't going to change anything. But I'm not here for you contrary to your belief it's all about you Morgan, Gideon sent or was going to send me to get him but seeing that it was so likely he would ask, I decided to save time and get him before he asked. ". The boy had stared at Spencer the entire time nearly, making it obvious who Gideon had wanted.

"It's a pity you couldn't be that decisive when it counted!" The group was silent, no one liked remembering that day but it wasn't a day that anyone could forget, seeing Morgan was going to blow and not wanting to ruin Spencer's first day, Penelope attempted to intervene and help defuse the situation, however the boy – who Garcia called Anderson, told her it wasn't necessary but thank you. Informing Spencer where Gideon was and claiming to need to research something anything, the two left the rest of the group after Spencer had assured a sisterly JJ he could remember the way.

They'd been walking for about five minutes and were passing the wing's toilets when Anderson stopped, and stopped Spencer too. Spencer had been blocking the other minds around out, however when he felt a hand on his shoulder stopping him, he panicked and tried to read who it was only to find they had a shield. When he saw it was Anderson, he relaxed but couldn't help be nervous at not knowing what was about to happen.

"W-wh-h-at are you doing?"

Anderson looked up and down the corridor, checking the coast was clear before stepping closer to the smaller boy. "Some advice Reid, be careful. Only because after Elle's death the team doesn't exactly trust telepaths to say the least, you seem nice despite the fact I don't really know you but you look like a sweet kid, so be careful there are a few scenarios out of the thousands that surround us were things may not be the happiest ending for you."

Taking an unconscious step back his lower lip trembled before being able to ask how Anderson knew… knew his secret; which at first he hadn't understood why Gideon had wanted to keep it secret but after the first night it was something he was ending up guarding with his life, or at least that's how it felt.

"I just do, among I know you can do other things. Don't worry I won't tell, I'm not like that, I wouldn't sell another one of us out; especially since out there those who know about us hate us. We need and should have each other's backs, supposedly. But how do I know? Because I can see the future, well different scenarios of it, different variations because nothing is ever concrete... That day I was one of the hostages, hundreds of scenarios were running through my head. It hurt, it physically hurt my mind was screaming and unfortunately I couldn't – I didn't see the outcome till he pulled the trigger. Afterwards they, mainly Morgan, Hotchner and Prentiss blamed me for not seeing something; I blamed me too for not seeing the outcome sooner. They didn't realise though how bad I already felt and pretty much vented their entire anger out on me, I even considered not coming back when the school started but I'd have nowhere else to go. Elle was my friend, as well.". Tears welled up in his eyes and his shield dropped, looking into his mind Spencer saw everything – Anderson's guilt, his regret, the self-hatred, how Morgan and the others had treated him. All the emotions that mad Anderson feel though it really was he fault, the others didn't have to add their feelings to the emotional wreck that was Anderson given the state he was in, inside his mind.

Just as Spencer when to say something, the distressed the teen dived into the toilets. Deciding to let Anderson calm down, he turned away and continued to walk down the corridor. A hand on his shoulder made Spencer think Anderson had something else to say; however the hand through him into the wall and he sensed more than one mind surrounding him…

The end of the chapter, so what do you think might happen? Who will save him?

Reviews are welcome, hope you liked it and meeting the team. :)