COVERT : Spencer Reid (II)

26

If I weren't already useless in the field, I would be now. Not just because I slip out every two hours to check on my brother. Magically, he's free of a concussion. It is my head that hurts. My glasses are sitting in a desk drawer back in Quantico. Although, that doesn't make me useless either.

I sit in on an interview with Emily that ends with a girl screaming. She was taken, held in a closet. Her parents left dead in their beds. My fingernails leave marks on my thighs. I hadn't noticed at the time, since it felt like the lights were buzzing so loudly it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. Still, I listened. My body stayed and I kept working that afternoon. So, more proof that I'm over it.

It's not Him or Basiten who poses a distraction. It's Reid. Not Spencer, I decide. The case isn't dangerous, and I'm not worried about any of the terrible events which plagued him previously. Reid works with precision, slicing cleanly between witnesses and crime scenes, between the other agents and me. You'd think he was a surgeon and not a man with a ridiculous number of PhDs. But when he comes in the room, I don't see a doctor. I see Spencer. That is the distraction.

At the rare meal we all eat together, I ask the people around him questions as best as I can. My eyes scrape over his face. Then when I do actually let myself spare a glance, he is sharp. I expect him to be dusty or hazy, left untouched. It is like how precise he is. The scoop of his jaw, the pitch of his cheekbones, the valley of his nose. It carves through the space between us and it feels so close. Even when I want Spencer to feel far. There he is.

I don't dare let him in my hotel room. One night, when everyone else is sleeping, he calls me. I swear I hear his voice vibrating in the halls, carving through insulation and concrete and steel. I hold my breath, whisper back, certain he could hear me just as well if my lips were pressed to his ear. During the day, I text him updates, and we both hate sending texts.

Outside the interrogation room, I stand with the team. Reid is among them, and I try to focus on the list of names in Rossi's hand. Or Taylor, and the ways her eyes look somewhere. Or maybe Morgan is kind of tall. Nothing though. It's not Reid here, it's Spencer. It's Spencer and I am painfully acutely aware. A sharp angle.

Whenever change they see in the woman as Hotch reads out names, is oblivious to me. She gave something important away. I feel it in Spencer though, watch him shift his weight to the other leg, already about to throw himself into action.

We ger the guy, of course. I've seen the stats, our clearance rate is high.

They bring me along for the arrest, since this is expected to be an easier trip. Rossi and Taylor get the children. It's been a long day, and I trust myself more with a gun in my hand than I do with a child in my backseat. I was older than she was. They are leaving the children unharmed. Better than I can say for myself.

"You okay, Bouchard?" Morgan asks.

We drive back. My gun is holstered, and already my hands miss the feeling of something cold in my hand. The air isn't cold, and neither is the window. I've tried pressing my hand to the metal doorhandle to no avail.

"Fine," I huff out. "Just tired."

"You handle yourself well, you know," he offers. "A lot of agents with desk jobs are shakier."

I shrug, "well then why'd you ask if I was okay?"

Morgan grins. I see it in the rearview mirror. He is all a dazzling smile and sparkling teeth, "last time you saw a dead body, you lost your lunch."

"No dead bodies are there?" I force myself not to smile. His charm makes it damn near impossible. "I can't stomach the sight of brutal violence as well as you."