One Year Later

Profiling was one of those jobs that took over your entire life, leaving little time for sleep or other unnecessary activities like that. I had found that out within the first two weeks of working at the BAU, but it still annoyed me when I was rudely awakened mere hours after I had arrived home from a case. The repetitive sound of my ringtone playing in my ear was more than likely what had woken me, I finally picked up on "drop a heart, break a name."

"Lo," I mumbled sitting up, stretching.

"Spence, it's JJ. I'm sorry to wake you this early-"

"But we have a case. What time is it anyway?" I interrupt, stifling a yawn as I swing my legs over the edge of the bed.

"It's half past four. We're all meeting up in an hour, we'll debrief on the plane." JJ tells me.

"M'kay," I say as I begin to stumble into the bathroom, hoping a shower will wake me up.

"Oh and pack for Vegas weather," she tells me before hanging up with a click.

It takes me a moment to process what she had said. The new case is in Las Vegas, Nevada. My hometown, where I had spent the first twelve years of my life. This is it, this is the perfect opportunity for me ditch the false persona that Jason had created for me. Afterall Jason had left a few months ago and everybody knew he wasn't coming back. I had no idea how the team would react to knowing that the Dr. Spencer Reid they had grown to love was actually a complete stranger to them. I'm honestly terrified to how they might react, because if I plan to tell them everything Gideon had made me hold back, I still didn't plan on telling them everything I had held back from Gideon. In the past year it had been proven to me that not all secrets were safe, especially ones that involved others. The Fischer King had proved it to me using my mother. That's why I didn't want to tell them everything, they didn't need to know everything.

In my experience, a team did not need to know absolutely everything about one another, we all had secrets, things that no one knew. Whether it was buried deep in our past or carefully concealed in our present, we all had things that we did not want the others to find out about. Derek didn't want us to find out about his abuse or his commitment issues, JJ hid her insecurities behind a false smile, Emily hid her loneliness with cats, Garcia hid sadness with bright colors and Hotch hid his failing marriage behind numerous phone calls to Jack. Everyone had something to hide and I was no different. I may be hiding more than the others but that was only because I had more to lose than everyone else. Everyone had a secret life, mine was just a bit more developed than most.

Author's Note

I have had a great day, Fall Out Boy's back. Their new song is fantastic and I just had a good day! I hope you like this chapter!

hauntingmeforever