The next day, after the awkwardness of waking up on Rossi's shoulder had washed off, the two FBI agents busied themselves getting ready for the day ahead before setting out to the diner across the road to meet the others for breakfast.
Because of the early hour the diner was all but empty with only two old truckers sat round the counter mumbling over slices of apple pie. Being served by a tired looking waitress whose hair was escaping from a messy bun clearly nearing the end of a long shift as her eyes travelled back to the large clock over the door every few minutes.
Taking a seat in an oversized, worn booth at the far corner of the room, a conscious decision on Rossi's part to stop from being overheard. The last thing they wanted to do was scare the locals with talk of gruesome murders over bacon and eggs.
The two placed their drinks orders and within minutes a cup of espresso was silently placed in front of Dave and a plain mug of coffee in front of Spencer. Before the waitress scuttled back to watching the clock. Rossi and Reid settled into light convocation waiting on their co-workers to arrive.
It was at this point that Reid's hand crept across the table reaching for the sugar pot that sat at the centre, only to immediately drop to the sweeteners next to it with a look and a raised eyebrow from Rossi.
After a couple of sips of coffee David decided to take the opportunity of catching the young doctor alone.
"So how are you feeling today?" He tried to make the inquiry lightly.
"A lot better, thank you." Spencer smiled, only a little forced.
"Good, glad to know your heads back in the game. You up for another round of Doctor Who tonight?" He asked jokingly.
"You bet" Spencer responded laughing.
The conversation was stopped there as the rest of the team started to enter the diner. Shuffling up to sit in the booth besides them, the team had clearly not slept well from their dishevelled appearance. Hotch and Morgan were the last to join them and from the conversation they were having they too had not slept well.
"I'm just saying we need better digs how can the FBI expect us to be sharp if we're running on three hours sleep because our hotel is shocking"
"Take it up with Strauss she's in charge of budget that dictates where we stay" Hotch responded still half asleep himself. Looking around at his team Spencer almost felt guilty for having such a good nights sleep.
"That explains it then, she's probably punishing us for some unknown reason, the ice queen strikes again" Morgan exclaimed causing Rossi and Spencer to scour into their mugs and the others to laugh drowsily.
The first round of coffee was downed before the menus had even hit the table and with that the team were able to start to process. It only took 10 minutes for the group to decide on their meals JJ, Emily and Morgan had gone for bacon and eggs, a staple diner breakfast in their line of work. Hotch had stuck with a round of toast and Rossi went with a bowl of porridge with honey and fruit. Not surprisingly Spencer had ordered the most sugar filled thing on the menu, being a stack of pancakes with syrup and a side of candied bacon. David laughed to himself when the food arrived, this taught him the valuable lesson to never go to the toilet before Spencer had ordered. Even the waitress looked sceptical as she placed the overflowing plate of food in front of the scrawny pipe cleaner of a lad.
The site of Reid sat in the shadow of his monstrous breakfast started a lively round of joking at the table. In which Rossi had the opportunity to snap a candid picture of Spencer laughing at something Morgan had said while attempting to cut into his pancake skyscraper for his first bite. Smiling to himself he sent the picture off to Erin before shutting his phone and starting his own breakfast.
After the normality of a family styled breakfast the FBI team reluctantly made their way back to the police station to start another day in the pursuit of the Las Vegas ripper as the media had dubbed them.
"Not very original is it?" Prentiss had scoffed when reading the name in the headline of her newspaper.
"Where are we on the geographic profile Reid?" Hotch asked.
"Nearly done just adding the new information from yesterday."
"Good, call me when you're done." Hotch ordered before matching out of the room with Prentiss.
JJ was already busy putting together a press conference to work damage control.
Rossi and Morgan had been sent out to interview a potential witness to the last body dump, and with Emily and Hotch off to go to the coroner's office. The usually cramped station was eerily quiet. With Sheriff Moore and most of the force out on the streets trying to keep the peace in the panicked community. Only a few uniformed officers were left quietly filling in paperwork and manning the tip line.
After putting the last pin in his map Reid sat back to take in his work. Once he had made a quick call to Hotch he set about going over the case files that littered the table, to ensure they didn't miss anything.
So busy in his work Spencer didn't notice the lack of interruptions until the silence was broken by his phone ringing.
"Alright my lovable boy wonder, boss man says you have some info for me, so hit me with that big old profiler brain of yours and let's see if we can pull a rabbit out of the hat." Garcia's voice sang happily.
Spencer smiled at his college's bubbly statements before reeling off the information from his geographic profile.
By the time all the new data was added they had narrowed their list of possible UNSUBs down to ten. By the point Reid said goodbye to Garcia he was filled with a newfound confidence of a speedy end to the case. Garcia seemed to have an infectious ability to make anyone smile, Spencer thought thinking about his friend.
He had just sat down after nipping to the coffee machine down the corridor to refill his mug when he was caught off guard by his phone was ringing again. For a moment he held it in his hand looking at it questioningly knowing the team were busy and not expecting Garcia to call back, it left very few options for who could be calling him.
"Hello?" He answered tentatively hoping to not be greeted by a doctor caring for his mother calling to inform him of yet another incident as was happening all too often.
"Spencer" The relieved and very familiar voice of Erin Strauss sighed. "I just wanted to call to find out how the case is going" It was a solid excuse she told herself regaining her commanding boss voice.
"I think Garcia and I might have just made a break though in the case; the others are out at the morgue or interviewing a witness, want to hear what we did?" Erin could hear the excitement in his voice, which had her saying yes to hearing all sorts of statistical data she struggled to wrap her head around before Spencer was done.
"And that's how we narrowed the suspected down from 200 to 10" She didn't have to be in the room to see the smile on his face.
"Well done, that's very impressive. You're making fast work of this case. Hopefully you'll get a speedy outcome to this whole afire. The office is dreadfully boring without the lot of you here." She admitted looking out of her office to the empty desks of the bullpen not an agent in sight.
"I have an idea, as soon as we're back, we could have another movie night, I could invite Rossi, did you know that he likes Doctor Who?"
"He may of mentioned it" She smiled glad to hear that Dave was indeed looking looking out for Spencer. Taking a moment to process the rest of what Spencer had just asked an internal debate was triggered, opening up to Spencer was something she was truly glad she had done but did she dare to take the chance again? David had always treated her like a person unafraid to address the woman behind the mask. This fact had her on edge, a criminal or disrespectful co-worker she could deal with but an actual human interaction she had far less experience in that lately. Taking a deep breath, she relented after reminding herself how her last leap of faith in that department had turned out "Why not invite him" she found herself saying before it was too late to change her mind.
"Great this is going to be amazing I might even dig out my old Doctor Who scarf." Reid babbled.
"On one condition" She added, stopping the young doctor in his tracks.
"While you're in Las Vegas make time to visit your mother. Before you but in, I know you're nervous and I know that she's had more bad days than good recently, but you'll regret it the minute you get back if you don't do this. She's your mother she deserves it and if it goes terribly then I'll be right here ready with a hug and a big bowl of popcorn on your return. Just give it a chance for your mother and for me, some people are worth getting hurt for." She knew she had him with that last line. Spencer loved his mother dearly however she was not always in complete control and for the last few months her illness seemed to be getting worse every other day Reid would get calls from her doctors to report a new outburst. Erin just hoped that she had done the right thing pushing Reid to visit. The idea that a visit from her son might just break Diana out of this downwards spiral came from a good place, but she was also well aware that this could back fire terribly and could hurt the young man she had come to care about, so she waited with baited breath for his response.
"You're right" He whispered, "I'll go visit her as soon as we have the UNSUB behind bars."
Letting out the breath she'd been holding she responded, "You know if I was there with you there would be nothing stopping me from going with you."
"I know" He admitted.
"Maybe think about taking Rossi in my place, helps put things in perspective if you have someone there looking out for you." She suggested.
"I'll think about it, still got to finish the case first." He stated seeing the team returning from their respective jobs.
"That's all I ask. Now I best let you get on. Call me when you have your UNSUB."
"Will do, see you when I get back for movie night." He added before putting the phone down. This last sentence did not go unnoticed by JJ, Emily and Morgan the first three agents to enter the room who all shared a look.
"Who was on the phone Spence?" JJ asked for the three of them.
"Ow no one" Spencer replied ducking his head to hide the slight red shade he was turning. He'd never been good at keeping secretes especially from his team and as such had developed a nasty habit of turning red whenever he tried to keep them. Unfortunately for him his three co-workers misunderstood this action completely.
"OOOW my man's got game." Morgan called.
"Who is she?" Prentiss asked while JJ congratulated him.
"No no its really not like that at all" Spencer stammered out.
"Then what is it like Pretty Boy?" Morgan asked wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Just then Hotch and Rossi entered the office halting the interrogation of Reid's love life for the time being.
Rossi pulled up a seat next to Reid easing himself into the chair while moaning about his back, catching the sentences "I'm getting too old for this job" and "curse cheap hotel beds" muttered only half seriously, had all of the younger agents laughing under their breaths.
"Glad to see you youngsters find it funny" Dave called whilst ruffling Reid's hair in mock annoyance and still glaring at the others who stood on the other side of the room far away from his reach.
"Right back to the case" Hotch brought everyone back on task after only indulging in a sly smile at the antics round him. Spencer eagerly spread the news about their considerably smaller suspect field.
"Ow you and baby girl make one hell of a team" Morgan stated. "Any of the people on your short list match our witness's description, caucasian, male, late 30s, wavy black hair and about 6'2 in height."
"Hang on" Reid pulled open the files in front of him.
"Three, Ethan Willis, Collin Richards and Sam Anders"
"Okay now check to see if any of them are left handed" Emily added "The coroner thinks the wounds indicate a left handed individual using a downwards motion."
"Just one, Ethan Willis."
"Good job team lets call the sheriff and get our man" Hotch instructed.