Spencer Reid | Oneshots

Baggage Claim ☁️ (G)

Summary: Autistic!Reader has a hard time at the airport. Spencer notices.

Rating: G

Content Warning: Autistic!Reader, (mild) public meltdown, flying, airports

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"Attention passengers on United Airlines Flight 247 to Washington, D.C.: The departure gate has been changed. The flight will now be leaving from Gate 26."

The bustling people of the airport had barely quieted for one of many announcements. The constant barrage of information inundating their senses meant that the warning would be mostly moot.

Luckily for me, I was one of the few for whom numbers were easy to recognize. Patterns came so naturally to me that my feet had stopped the very second that I'd heard my flight number, before I'd even understood why.

It wasn't all easy, though. A place like this was like a labyrinth filled with landmines. There were millions of potential patterns and connections that could occupy me for hours if I let them. The attempts to silence what should have been background noise were mostly working, however. I figured the decades spent riding the BAU jet had finally gotten the better of my hearing.

But then I heard it. A hushed, panicked voice that broke through all the noise.

"No... no, no, no..."

It was neither a number nor a meaningful pattern, but my mind clung to it all the same. It sounded so desperate and scared that the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention until I found the source.

Until I saw her — a young woman clearly on her own in a place where manners were the last thing on late travelers' minds. Her elbows were tucked in tight to her chest so her hands could squeeze over her ears. The suitcase sitting next to her remained open for the taking, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone saw the open duck flailing in deep waters.

As I got closer, I was able to make out each grimace when someone brushed against her. The non-stop swiveling of her feet became more and more disjointed. Her words did, too.

"This isn't what it's supposed to be," she whined, "This isn't right, I'm not..."

She still hadn't noticed me. I feared that the second she opened her eyes, she would bolt. Like a dazed hummingbird beating with broken wings.

"No, no, no..."

"Hey," I tried to say gently.

It hadn't worked. Her hand closest to me left her ear, swinging aimlessly in my direction with a shout and an ever-so-firm, "No!"

My heart broke at the sight of red rimmed eyes and quivering lips. I wondered how long she'd prepared for this trip just to be caught off guard at the very last second.

I saw myself in her, too. I vividly remembered that first flight from Las Vegas to Virginia. I remembered watching the only home I'd ever really know fade off in the distance. Haunted by the knowledge that I was hurtling through the air in a box filled with strangers on something that we'd only just discovered, really.

"Hey, it's alright," I reassured her with a hand close enough to draw her attention to it, but not daring to touch her. She watched as it hovered, and then turned her attention back to the ticket she held in trembling hands.

"Are you lost?" I asked. She was eager to give an answer.

"No, no I'm where I'm supposed to be," she started with the frustration quickly filling her eyes in the form of tears. Each syllable off her tongue made the lip beneath it tremble until she was a blubbering mess. "But they're— they changed it, and it's not my fault, and I don't know where I'm supposed to be now, and no one told me how I'm supposed to—"