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Dr. Spencer Ried tugged at the bag that hung across his body. Lucy clenched her jaw. She wasn't in the mood for this. Neither was Spencer.
"Sir, we understand your frustration, but w-" Lucy was hastily cut off. She rolled her eyes. She and Spencer had been trying to talk their way into setting up and taking over the case for the past ten minutes now, and the chief of police was not budging. Lucy thought he was insecure. Probably because he was always such a bad cop. The rain pounded against the one lone window illuminating the conference room. Lucy felt at home already.
"Go back to Virginia. Nobody called you here. The NYPD seriously doesn't have time to waste looking for a bunch of girls who ran away and for you to just invite yourself her-"
"Chief Gonzalez, with all due respect, if you don't have time then what's the big deal with a bunch of FBI agents stepping in and taking over?" Spencer asked. Lucy glanced at him quickly but he kept his eyes on the police chief. "We can take this off your hands."
"No, I don't need to freak out half the city with you morons running around and making a mess. We have more important things to deal with." The man put his hands on his hips right above his belt. His holster shifted underneath the weight of his fat hands. His gun seemed ready to fall out onto the ground. How stupid.
"Oh, like what?" Lucy asked. "People sneaking onto the subway without paying? Teenagers smoking weed? What? Homeless people doing nothing but sitting there?" Lucy fumed. She knew this part of the city in and out. She knew this police chief in and out. He was just a lazy, fat man. He wasn't actually busy. "Or, you know what, probably the fact that this entire city smells like vomit."
"Fine." He caved. Lucy smirked. "Fine, interfere. When this blows up in your face, I'm not taking the blame." Lucy smiled at her very first victory. The chief walked forward and embraced the girl. Spencer gawked in confused at the strange gesture. Weren't they about to kill each other? "I missed you, kid. You're just like that dad of yours." Lucy smiled at the compliment. She rested her cheek on the man's shoulder and hugged him even tighter, his foul breath registering in her nose.
"What? Stubborn?" She laughed. "So are you. I mean," she-thankfully- let go of their hug and stepped back to check her watch. "Ten full minutes, really?" She laughed as Spencer stood awkwardly watching.
"You thought I was going to give up that easily?" He laughed as he leaned down and lifted his coffee thermos up off the table along with a stack of papers he had brought in the room with him. He smiled at Lucy and Spencer one last time before leaving the room, knowing he'd see Lucy a lot the next few days. Thankful to have her back, he left the room and went back to his work.
"Okay," Spencer began. He leaned over his spread of papers and Manila file folders laying on the table and wrapped his fingers around the top of the wood. There was a whiteboard in the front of the room along with coffee machines off to the side and finally an off TV screen in the corner of the room. And of course, that one singular large-ish window above the counter with the coffee machines."You really shouldn't talk to people like that. It's not professional." Lucy turned around to face the doctor with raised eyebrows.
"Look, I get it's my first day as an FBI agent, but I know how to talk to people." She stared at the man with an open mouth as he stared back. "And not for nothing, but I've known that man since I was eight."
Spencer finally closed his mouth. He looked down, very embarrassed. He shuffled the papers in front of him and looked back up. She met his gaze. Lucy and Spencer held their eye contact as he licked his lips and squinted. "S-sorry," he stammered.
Lucy blinked in astonishment.
"It's fine." She took a seat across from him. Instantly, she decided she was going to put whatever that just was right behind her. "Alright," she began. "Let's go over this again."
Just as the words had managed to escape Lucy's mouth, Emily Prentiss took out her phone and dialed Spencer Ried's number. She could've just scrolled through her list of recently called numbers and picked his out since they were in fact on the phone last night discussing the arrival of the new agent, but she had long since memorized the number of the other agent and found this high-tech process lucrative. God forbid she ever needed to know someone's number by heart.
Spencer hastily picked his phone out of his pocket on the third ring and slowly answered.
"Hello?" The man licked his lips and squinted up at the corner of the ceiling as he spoke. Lucy watched as the man listened intently. How he hung on to every word and absorbed the information thoroughly. His facial expressions stayed steady as the person on the other line talked, but Lucy could tell that it definitely as something to do with the case.
"Okay, thanks, Emily." Lucy looked up. "Bye." Spencer flipped his flip phone closed again and returned the device to his pocket. Lucy watched as he folded his hands and placed them onto the table again. She noted that his posture was very unlike Hotch's. It was terrible.
