The Keeping of Words | Spencer Reid

7 |I and Love and You

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." – Maya Angelou

Love was weird. When had that word finally felt right to him? Reid could flip through the pages of perfectly intact memories and let the conversations play out like a film only he could see.

It began in New York, but it wasn't at all like the movies made it out to be. There was no "love-at-first-sight." There was an introduction flanked by work and research. Then there was intrigue and easy conversations, and conversation was rarely so easy for him. There was something about her that stayed in his brain, much more so than could be attributed to an eidetic memory.

If he considered it, it was more the recognition of a kindred soul. Someone who loved books and words and learning, someone who had taken a job that meant dealing with dark things in order to make a difference. He just liked talking to her and he liked feeling understood by her.

But there was also the memory of her arms around him at the shipyard, a touch that stemmed from some great relief she saw at the sight of him. At the time he had attributed it to gratefulness that he'd helped to capture Wilson Okello, but he couldn't explain why he was haunted by that touch.

Was this how it had been for JJ and Will? Interest evolved into friendship and somewhere along the way that friendship shifted, and when he saw her all his feelings were tilted. Suddenly, that short girl with brown hair looked so very different from every other short girl with brown hair, so different from any girl. If he had to pinpoint a moment, he thought it was probably just after he went to visit her in NYC, when on the way home he realized that talking to her over the phone wasn't going to feel like enough anymore.

There had been crushes before, a curious longing for JJ or for Lila Archer. Now, his heart felt a pull, an instinctive need that wouldn't leave him alone. Reid didn't want to be alone. He wanted to be by her side. And for some inexplicable reason, she wanted to be by his.

They spent lazy afternoons on benches in the park, with books in their own hands and knees touching to make sure the other was still there. He made her plain coffee the way he did at work, straight espresso to keep him going. She made him "good" coffee, with milk and flavor the way she'd learned to in college. He took her on the subway so she could see his favorite places. It didn't matter what they did or where they were, as long as they were together.

She accepted the parts of him he still wasn't sure how to accept; he returned the favor. When she laid with him on the couch, her fingers resting on his arm, he didn't worry about the scars there. Maybe that was love: the way someone else could make you feel safe, the way you wanted them to feel safe.

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"Family" was a word with many definitions, the sort of word where diction became important for it had as many meanings as there were people on the planet. In Hindi, for brother-in-law alone there were words that separated the wife's younger brother and the wife's elder brother and the husband's younger brother and the husband's elder brother. In Arabic, there were eight different words for cousin. And in Japanese, honorifics used to identify siblings could be used for friends or acquaintances who were like siblings.

For the members of the BAU, the word was full of meanings. There were the people who had raised them, living across the country. There were the people who loved them- children, spouses, significant others. And there were the people who saw them at their very best and their very worst, who had grown in to the term over the years. In every way that mattered, their team was their family.

It was at that sort of family gathering that Bianca met Spencer's team once more. They were having dinner together, a rare occasion where they had the time and comfort to include their "extended" family; Will and Henry, Jack, Kevin, and now she was a part of the equation. The words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" still felt strange to use, but she and Spencer had decided that's what they were. Whatever the terminology, she was his and he was hers and therefore she was a connected to that family. She was the newest member, and though she'd grown to understand and appreciate them through Reid's stories, she was still nervous to greet them in person.