Flight Risk | Spencer Reid

II

In which a profiler says something he shouldn't have and a pilot seeks the refuge of the sky.

.

He sees her a handful of times after that. Almost always brief meetings, a few minutes to talk before she's running off to prep the plane or he's being called away to a meeting. They pass each other in hangars, and she always gives him that same bright smile. He arrives, she leaves, they never can seem to catch each other for very long. Still, Reid always enjoys getting to see her, and she's happy to listen to him ramble on about whatever he's reading that day. He discovers small things about her each time. She has a cat named Amelia. Her favorite color is whatever shade the sky is that day. She loves Antonie de Saint-Exupery best. No matter the hour, she always seems to have a smile for him, and that's something he appreciates.

"War and Peace?" she asks, nodding at the antique tome of a book in his hands. "In Russian? That's impressive."

"Have you read it?"

To his disappointment, she shakes her head. "I considered it once, after being stranded in an airport in Moscow for a three-hour layover. But they only sold copies in Russian, and I never learned to speak it. I recognize the cover though."

She's far more well-traveled than him. It occurs to him that for all his knowledge of the world, he has seen very little of it. Only once has he traveled out of the country, and only for a case, and only to Canada. He has a passport, but has no use for it. Books about places he'll never visit, language skills he places he's never been. On the other hand, Y/N has been all over the world. She knows a few handy phrases in various languages, but speaks only French well enough to get by on. Cities and continents have passed beneath her, and in strange places she has made herself many homes. To travel like that takes a courage he finds himself admiring.

They're beginning to be friends. Reid begins to wonder about her, and about Arthur, while they're away on cases. Where do the pilots stay when they're traveling? How do they pass the time? Do they like their jobs?

Since it's her he mostly thinks of, it's her he asks.

"Sometimes we stay in same hotel, when it's a small town," she tells him. "But Arthur usually finds it's best for us to stay out of the way. We're never far though. We find local places to eat, see movies, play card games. Arthur keeps in touch with his mother and his boyfriend. I usually wander around a bit, check out the bookstores. We stay busy."

Busy as his own schedule is, Reid continues to go to the plane early when they have a flight, in the hopes that he'll get to see her. There's something in her smile that makes him forget whatever horrors they're headed off to face, and she makes him feel hopeful. He's not sure why, but when he's talking to her, he feels like a plane at takeoff, something lifted, something lighter.

More and more often, he finds himself thinking of these two pilots as the eighth and ninth members of their team, something he never did before.

He starts to notice them in small ways. In a restocked bar when they're leaving a particularly tough case. In new bags of coffee sitting out on the little counter, or extra blankets set out when it's late at night. He realizes that no matter how early or late it is when they decide to return back to Quantico, the pilots are there and ask no questions. How many 3 AM flights have they flown? There's a new appreciation for the two of them, for the care they take of the team, and of the jet – of Geff, as she calls it.

And for a while, it's good. Until a new case comes, and everything is as far from good as it could possibly be. Four days are packed with stress, frustration, questions that have no answers and efforts that always come up short. The unsub is one step ahead of them the entire way, and when they finally catch him, it's too late. The child he's been keeping is already dead, and judging by the pairs of children's shoes in the closet, the number of victims is far higher than they originally estimated. It's devastating for all of them.