The Ghost of Princeton ||Spencer Reid||

temporary

SPENCER
five years later

The last few days had been absolute hell. To say I was glad it was over was an understatement.

Morgan had been kidnapped, and we had only just made it in time to stop him from being killed. I think I was still processing all of what happened in my head, still thinking about the pain he must have gone through. And then finding out Savannah was pregnant as well...

It was just a lot to take in.

And on top of that, we already had a case. In New York women were turning up dead via drug overdoses, but the women were low-risk. They were all successful business women, while each had a different speciality, they were most definitely surrogates for someone specific.

"Okay, since Morgan is going to be out for six months, I asked for approval to get a temporary fill-in." Hotch said as we sat around the round table. "I got word this morning that my request has been approved. Again, she will just be filling in for the next six months but if she works well with everyone, at the end of the six months there can be discussion about making her position permanent."

Okay, another change. That's okay. I can do that. It's only temporary, so it will be fine. Everything will be fine. Morgan is fine, so everything will be fine.

"Because it was short notice, she will be meeting us on the jet. She already has the file and should be looking at it right now."

"Who is it?" JJ asked, looking up from her tablet and the file that the mysterious new member would also be looking at.

"She can introduce herself when we get onto the jet." Hotch responded before he took a deep breath. "I know that this is hard for everyone, but I'm hoping we can focus on the fact that Morgan is now safe and in recovery. While it doesn't do much to help us accept what has happened, we need to turn our focus to our new cases. Finding out who was after Morgan in the first place is not our main priority. For today it's finding out who's killing these women."

I started packing up my things so we could get moving.

"Wheels up in fifteen." Hotch dismissed us, so I picked up my things before going to my desk to grab my go-bag.

There was a mixture of excitement and anxiety as we made out way to the plane. It was exciting to be meeting a new person and be part of welcoming them to the team, but at the same time the amount of change happening all at once didn't help my anxiety. But it didn't stop me from getting onto the plane first—my height giving me an advantage to get to the stairs first.

But I almost wished I had shown some restraint once I boarded and saw her hair.

Her white hair.

"Cressida..." I whispered to myself as she looked up from the tablet sitting on the table in front of her. A soft smile was on her face, even though it looked forced. Her cheeks were no longer shallow, she looked healthy. She was wearing a pair of jeans, along with a grey t-shirt, and her muscle tone on her arms was clear with the sunlight pouring through the window.

I didn't know what I was feeling, or what I should have been feeling. All I was truly aware of was my heart pounding in my chest and thundering in my ears. Was I angry or excited? There wasn't time for me to work it out as the rest of the team made their way onto the jet as well, and I watched each of them either have a reunion with her or introduce themselves.

Rossi gave her a hug and asked how she had been, how she was holding up. Hotch shook her hand and thanked her for joining on such short notice. Tara introduced herself and welcomed her to the team. JJ gave her a hug and spoke as if they knew each other.

"It's nice to finally meet you in person!" JJ said, excitement in her tone as she hugged Cressida.

"It's nice to meet you too! I'm so sorry that coffee never really worked out." Cressida replied as they let go of each other.

"No problems, we'll have plenty of time to talk now. Welcome to the team." JJ replied, and I was still stuck at the beginning of the aisle. Cressida had talked to JJ but not to me?

"Good to see you again." I said, as bluntly as I could manage through my surprise. And then I shook her hand.

Shook her damned fucking hand.

"Good to see you too, Spencer." She replied, her smile faltering. Shit. Spencer. She had gone back to my name. Okay, that gives me a good idea of my standing.

"Did you look at the file?" Hotch asked as I let go of Cressida's hand and we all took our seats.

"Yeah, I did." She replied as she sat down and looked at her tablet again. The plane began to move along the runway.

"What do you think?" Rossi asked, she smiled briefly at the encouragement.

"I think the victims are surrogates for the unsub. They all have similar features and jobs, the last two victims work in the same field so I also think the unsub is closing in on their real target." She said, and it was an adjustment to be hearing her voice again. Her British accent.

There was a pause in the conversation as the jet took off, but resumed as soon as we were level in the air.

"Anything else you noticed?" JJ asked. What Cressida said before was what we had already come up with during our discussion in the round table room, so it wasn't new information.

"The method of killing, inflicting a drug overdose... it implies that the unsub either doesn't have the physical strength to overcome their victims or it's not their intention to hurt them so visibly. It could be to make it quick, and painless. It's an overdose of ketamine so it puts the victims to sleep before it kills them." She added, which was also something we had talked about.

With that out of the way, there wasn't much else we could discuss about it until we were on the ground and had more to work with.

And I couldn't wait for us to land so I could breathe some fresh air. My eyes landed on Cressida's pale irises, and it made it hard to breathe.

Yep, I could not wait to land.