puzzles of a heart | spencer reid ✓

nine

Spencer rotated silently in his spinning chair, left, right, left, right, left until one of the screws popped off from the bottom of the seat and made both of them look up in alarm. The office's hushed atmosphere was startled by the sudden noise.

"What was that?"

"Uh, don't question it." He stood up and got on his knees to pick up the screw, his mind a million galaxies away from the task at hand. Spencer struggled to fix the partly broken chair, but it was no success and he gave up, grabbing the nearest one from the table and resuming his fidgeting.

The phone was on the edge of the table, easily within reach from where he was sitting. Spencer was always on edge when the team was set out to narrow in on the unsub. He wished more than anything to be there and help them, but they were running out of time and he wasn't urgently needed. The waiting was always excruciating, the outcome terrifies him more.

"Why haven't we heard from any of them yet?" he asked himself out loud and began burrowing through the loose papers on the desk again, searching for perhaps something he had missed. "It's been half an hour, what if I got it all wrong? I have to check everything again-"

Valeria glanced up at him from where she was sitting, earphones plugged into her ears. "Are you always like this?'

"No," he babbled but corrected himself, "I mean yes."

Spencer gathered a collection of files in front of him and set out to check everything for the third time, his hand already reaching for his phone to call Garica when Valeria interrupted.

"I have an idea," she proposed and brushed her palms together as if she was nervous of what she was going to say. "How about we ... draw?"

"Draw?" Spencer paused.

"Yeah, just put the files back and stay away from that phone." Valeria nodded towards the black slab of technology only centimetres from his hand, seeing that he hadn't moved, she urged him. "Come on."

Spencer slid the phone towards the middle of the table, out of reach. "There, boss."

Valeria was already making her way around the room, gathering spare pieces of paper and grabbed two pens from the jar by the door. She dumped the objects down in front of him in triumph. "So, doctor, let's do some art and show me your creative side. Art - as in, you know when people draw on a piece of paper with a pen? It's surprisingly very therapeutic."

"I'm not stupid, you know?" Spencer protested but wheeled his chair so that he was right by the table. Valeria bought her chair beside him and prompted him to take a pen and a piece of paper.

"Are we seriously doing this?"

Valeria knitted her eyebrows and glared at him airily. "What's your objection?"

He threw up his hands in defeat and uncapped the pen lid. "Okay, fine, um, what are we drawing?"

"Whatever you want, Spencer."

His name sounded nice on her tongue. "Okay, I'm just letting you know I'm terrible at this."

Valeria spun her chair so that she was facing him, her eyes trained upon his hazel ones. "Hey, what's the worst I can do? Tear up your drawing and tell you it's shit then burn it?"

"Exactly what I'm afraid of. In fact, you just perfectly described my worst nightmare."

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The Washington Post

The end of the Belmont University spree killer

7:03 pm October 11th, 2020