Valentía (Spencer Reid Slow Burn)

Prologue: April 2005 (Six Months Before Jason Gideon's Return)

Summary: Zoe's interview for the BAU with Aaron Hotchner, somehow not a robot and she meets Spencer Reid.

Warning: Mentions of serial killers and child victims of serial killers.

"A little nepotism never hurt nobody, honey. If you got it, use it. Press on with it. Remind them of it."— Lena Horne

April 13, 2005

Nineteen-and-a-half-year-old Xiomara Alexandra Noble-Valdez, or simply "Zoe" bounced nervously as she and her father Alexander Noble, Senior Supervisory Special Agent and one of the co-founders of the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Quantico, Virginia stood next to her.

"Zoe, calm down, you're going to do great."

"Well, you're not hiring me, now are you? You're just the Senior Supervisory Special Agent."

"Well, Stauss thinks I'm too neurotic to handle Unit Chief." Alexander said, defensively.

Zoe continued, still looking at her father. "Hotch is going to the one interviewing me and the guy's like a stone statue... Hey, Agent Hotchner!" She hadn't noticed the elevator doors opening in her anxiety.

Nothing. No reaction. Newly appointed Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner, but everyone called him Hotch was standing there, waiting for them. He just held up a clipboard and scribbled something down, turned and walked off without another word. She was right about that—dude was a stone statue.

"Am I supposed to follow, what the hell..." She mumbled.

"Go." Alexander pushed his daughter and she clumsily staggered out of the elevator after Hotch.

Halfway across the bullpen, she stumbled after Hotch before tripping over absolutely nothing at all as opposed to her untied high tops and falling to the floor, her notebooks went flying, her rave-colored idea journal skidding across the floor.

"Today, please!" Hotch somehow shouted in his near emotionless voice as he walked up the steps.

She gathered up her more essential notebooks and papers and tried to hurry after him but instead she bumped into a very handsome (in a nerdy kind of way but handsome all the same), tall, lean man with brown hair that seemed to be greased back to look professional but Zoe couldn't help but think that it may be curly naturally, she also noted it may project his lack of social awareness and fashion, possibly a lack of caring what others thought of him (or at least perhaps that's what he told himself), holding coffee with too much sugar in it in a thermos as he read a book faster than any average human could. He was no average human. Far from it.

"OOF!" He exclaimed from the impact due to her walking so fast and he dropped his thermos.

"Oh!" Zoe gasped, jutting her foot out and catching it, balancing it perfectly on the top of her high top, now suddenly with impressive balance as opposed to her extreme clumsiness just moment prior.

"Wow." The handsome bookworm said. "Uh, nice one." He awkwardly picked up the thermos.

"Yeah, sorry, I have to go." She said and spun around him, expertly and ran to Hotch's office where he was waiting impatiently.

Twenty-three-year-old Spencer Reid looked down, noting a rather colorful notebook near his desk on the floor.

"Wait, miss! You forgot your..." Hotch's office door slammed shut and the blinds closed. "Notebook." He looked at the cover, "'Zoe's Crime Profile Book'." He read and muttered to himself, "Huh. Her name must be Zoe. Of Greek origin, meaning 'life'." It was just a nickname as she didn't particularly love her real first name.