Tequila || Spencer Reid

Matty

Derek Morgan had already made the call to Penelope Garcia, the number from the 911 hotline still fresh in his mind and heavy in the room. It was the kind of detail that could turn a case, the kind of thin thread the BAU lived for. "Hey baby girl, I got a number for you; we need a name." Morgan then gave her the number.

"On it, chocolate thunder... Garcia out." Then she hung up the phone. Matty snorted to himself despite the tension pressing against the walls. Morgan and Garcia's banter had always entertained him, even now, even with a missing woman and a frightened child somewhere on the other end of a dead line.

Five minutes later, Morgan's phone rang again. The sound cut through the briefing room, and every conversation stopped. He answered and put it on speaker, setting the phone in the center of the table so everyone could hear. "I've run a trace on that number you gave me, and records show it belongs to a guy named Mason Harrington... he's got a record and is all kinds of skeevy," came the voice of Penelope Garcia as she called back with the information that Morgan had asked for.

The name hit the room like a gunshot, only Matty Montgomery seemed to hear. His face drained of color first. Then something colder replaced it—anger, recognition, and the sickening click of a piece finally sliding into place. Spencer saw the change immediately. Derek saw it too. The rest of the team stayed focused on Garcia as she began listing Mason Harrington's record, charge after charge turning the name into a profile.

Matty rarely lost control. That was what made the moment so visible. He had built himself out of discipline, sarcasm, and the kind of restraint agents learned when emotions could get people killed. But Mason's name cracked something open. Before anyone could question him, Matty pushed back from the table and walked out. Spencer followed without hesitation. He had seen that look before, and every instinct told him it belonged to Skye.

Derek moved after them a beat later, quiet enough that neither man noticed. Behind him, the others exchanged confused looks, but no one stopped him. The case had just crossed some invisible line, and Morgan intended to find out why.

"FUCK!" Matty snapped, hands balled into fists at his side as he resisted the urge to punch the wall in front of him, his anger rising more so at himself than anything else for not realizing it sooner.

"Matty?" Spencer said in a questioning tone, catching his attention, and the blonde man turned and looked at him, as Spencer continued, "What the hell was that back there? You rarely ever lose your composure like that... I've seen it maybe twice in the entire time that I've known you."

Derek stopped just outside the doorway, close enough to hear but far enough to stay unseen. His brow furrowed. He could only remember one time Montgomery had lost his temper like that, and it had been on a case. Spencer's number was two. That meant there was history the rest of the team did not have, and Morgan suddenly wanted every missing page.

Matty swallowed hard, forcing the anger down long enough for the pattern to become words. The missing piece from the night before had a name now. Mason Harrington. "I knew I was missing something and It's all making sense now... the victimology I mean, they all share an uncanny resemblance to HER... and you saw it too, you said it yourself, oh but that name means that this IS all about her..."

Spencer caught the look in Matty's eyes, but the connection still sat just out of reach. Mason Harrington was a name now, a record, a suspect—but Skye belonged to another part of Spencer's life, one he had kept sealed away for years. He searched Matty's face for the missing link. "okay but how does this have anything to do with her?"

Just outside the doorway, Derek stayed perfectly still. Confusion tightened across his face as he listened, trying to assemble pieces he did not yet have. Spencer and Matty knew something the rest of the team did not, something old enough and personal enough to make both of them guarded. If Morgan stepped in now, the conversation would end. So he swallowed the question and kept listening.