Open Hearts Are Broken Hearts [ S.R ]

2. By 25

After you met the team, you felt like you would settle in well. You felt your anxieties melt away as you listened to your new team laugh in the conference room. At least this time you were laughing with them. You spent some time in the conference room getting to know a bit about everyone before you were sent back to work on case files.

While you were in the conference room, you managed to forget all the anxieties you had felt that morning. Listening to the laughter of your new family was like an antidote.

But you felt all those anxieties rush back when you sat down at your new desk.

For your first day at work, you already had a stack of files ready for you to dive into.

You plopped down onto your chair and dropped your bag to the floor. You pushed the stack to one corner and pulled the top one off and flicked it open. Hotch had explained to you that you would help with the case reports when you weren't working a case with the team but he would continue to pick the cases, at least til you settled in. So you continued to fill out reports, setting each finished on the corner of the desk.

As you read through yet another one, you felt your hands run through your hair and your foot begin to shake. To anyone watching, you were showing every sign of frustration and anxiety, and you could sense those feelings beginning to boil through your veins.

But those feelings were halted when you heard a coffee cup set down on your desk. You quickly flicked your head up to meet the same hazel eyes from earlier and you felt the same familiar smile pulling at your cheeks.

"Sorry to interrupt you, I just wanted to bring you something. You seem really, well- stressed," he was trying to calm your anxieties, and in a weird way he did. "I left some room for cream and sugar, i'm not sure how you take it," he motioned towards the cup he set in front of you. "and..." he began digging through his pockets, "i brought some of the sugar and cream packs." He set them on your desk beside the cup.

"Thank you, I actually take quiet a bit of cream and sugar. I love the caffeine of it but can't stand the taste," you replied as you poured in several sugar packets followed by a couple creams. You couldn't help but smile around him, he just had a weird way of causing it.

"I actually didn't like the taste of it either when I started but it's something you learn to love in this line of work I guess." He paused and began rocking on his feet. You noticed cause you do it too. He continued to fill the silence, "I started with 7 or more packs of sugar, we're down to 5 now."

You couldn't help but giggle at him. You watched him continue to shift in his weight, as you found comfort in the silence.

He decided to fill it himself, "Well, uh, if you need my help, my desk is actually just right..." he took a step sideways and set his coffee cup down on the desk directly connected to yours. "-here." He looked up and smiled at you.

The desks were only divided by the physical break, it was just a small crack. Other then the physical crack, they're was nothing to divide it.

"I'll make sure to do that Dr. Reid," you said through the smile pulling on your cheeks.

"Oh please, just call me Reid, or even Spencer," he said as he walked around his desk to sit down.

You realized you hadn't seen him sit down yet or anyone sitting at the desk across from you so it made sense it was his. Everyone else from the conference room had sat down already, so Spencer was the only possible canadite. Plus that was the only desk that looked lived.

The desk was quite organized. He has his books in specific stacks and his files alphabetically ordered. It was quiet the difference from your desk. It was your first day so there wasn't much on it but what was on it was just strung about. That physical break also broke his organization from my mess.

"Okay, Spencer," you strung out the way you said his name. "What are you a doctor in anyways?"

You saw his face light up when you asked the question. "Well, I have a PhD in Mathematics, Chemistry," you felt your eyebrows raise in suprise when he didn't stop after just one, "and Engineering. but I have BAs in Psychology, Sociology, and I just finished my Philosophy one."

You felt your mouth begin to fall open. "And I thought my double major was impressive," you shook your head as you broke your eye contact. You looked back to your case file. No wonder you just now got into the FBI, there's people like that running around.

"That is impressive, especially for how young you are!" he said making desperate hand motions trying to recover the conversation. "What- what were they?" he quietly spit out hoping you would look up from your file.

When you did look up, you met his eyes and watched as smile form on his face. He really did like talking to you. "Well you see its not that impressive cause i'm not that young but criminology, obviously, and psychology but I minored in a few things too."

"Oh come on, thats impressive for what, a 24 year old?"

"29, actually. I wanted to be in the Bureao by 24 but here we are," you watched the smile fade off his face.

"Its still amazing that you made it! It's not easy!" Spencer was trying to keep your focus as he watched your eyes switch between his and the file below you. You were drifting from the conversation and back into your dangerous mind.

You finally spit out as you refocused on him, "yeah and how old are you? 30? And you have all of those?" You motioned to the framed PhDs setting on his desk behind him.

"32, actually," he smiled hoping it would help you knowing he had taken longer than you assumed, but it didn't. He was 32 with just about every degree you could get. You were just 3 years younger and you just got a job that used your 2 degrees.

You caught his eyes quickly as you looked from his 3 papers sitting behind him back to your file. "I guess we all grow up differently so we all have different opportunities, right?" You shrugged and went back to your report.

He read the somberness in your voice, "I guess, I grew up in Las Vegas and I thought i'd cure schizophrenia by the time I was 25. my mo-, she, uh... actually forget it. We all just have it different."

You looked up from your case file to see him focused back on his. He didn't look back up from his file or say anything else. You didn't know what to say back so you just went back to your file.

He didn't say anything else until later in the day when you heard him close his last file. He still sounded somber, "I'm going to go check in with Garcia, do you need anything? More coffee?"

"I'm good," it was practically a whisper. You were surprised he even heard. He just dropped his head and walked away.

When you looked around the room you saw Derek was missing as well, but Emily caught your gaze and struck up conversation that changed the focus on your mind.

——

Reid walked into Garcia's office to see Derek already leaning against a table.

"Oh, well isn't it lover boy!" he said walking up to playfully punch Reid in the arm.

"Stop it, Derek," Reid wasn't having any of it.

"Uh oh. What happened Reid?" Garcia could hear how upset he was just from his voice.

"I was just trying to talk to her, not flirt," Reid glared at Derek, "but I think I already messed it up."