Work Text:
The first time it happens, Penelope’s showing you around for some reason that Spencer misses because he’s too caught up in the forensic journal article he’s reading on core short tandem repeat loci used in human identity testing to kill time before the morning briefing. But all of a sudden there you are, shaking hands with everyone and smiling like you couldn’t be happier to meet them.
“And last but not least, this is Doctor Reid,” Penelope says, bringing you to his desk with an arm around your back like you’re a kitten she’s trying to herd in the right direction.
You smile at him, holding out a hand for him to shake the same way you did with the rest of the team. Spencer doesn’t take it, holds up a hand and waves it just once as a greeting instead, sucking his lips into his mouth as an alternative to saying hello.
You hesitate for just a split second, your eyebrows doing a little dance, but then the smile settles back into place and you raise your hand to give him a high five.
Spencer freezes at the unexpected contact, doesn’t let his hand fall until after you turn away and walk off with Penelope.
“Oh, no. He’s like four,” he hears you say to Penelope and then Elle slaps a hand to her mouth, fighting to keep her laughter suppressed until you’re gone. The minute you’re out of sight, she bends over, wheezing with a fist pressed to her stomach like she’s in pain.
Spencer looks at his hand and then at Elle, who has by now gripped Morgan’s arm to keep her balance.
“Her nephew also really likes to high five,” Morgan explains, a look on his face like Christmas came early this year.
Behind him JJ is doing a slightly better job at looking like this isn’t hilarious to her. But only very slightly.
Spencer just shrugs and goes to the bathroom to wash his hands.
* * *
The second time, he’s in Penelope’s office waiting for her to finish compiling a list of possible future victims based on the parameters he fed her and you walk in like you belong there.
You’re carrying a smoothie the same colour that radioactive waste always seems to be in movies in one hand and a half-drunk bottle of coke in the other.
“Oh, hey,” Penelope says, looking away from her monitors for a second to acknowledge your arrival and smile when you set down the smoothie for her in her designated drink spot, far away from any tech it might mess with if it fell over. “You remember Dr. Reid, don’t you?”
To Spencer’s surprise, you nod, smiling at him. “Hey.”
He holds up his hand in a wave. “Hey.”
And then… You give him another high five, like you were expecting him to do that.
From where he’s standing he can see Penelope biting down on her lip to keep in a giggle, but you keep smiling at him like nothing weird just happened, so Spencer smiles back, the muscles in his cheeks a little too tense, clenching and unclenching his hand at his side as he struggles to resist the temptation to wipe it on his slacks.
“So you’re a doctor, but not a medical doctor, is that right? Like, you’re not the team pathologist or something?”
Penelope snorts and you shrug. “Sorry,” you say, sounding like you mean it. “I hope that wasn’t rude.”
Spencer shakes his head, way too vigorously. “Nono. Not a medical doctor.”
“Guess how many PhD’s he has,” Penelope suggests helpfully, still with her back to you both, still typing away.
Your eyes go wide. “Why would anyone have more than one PhD?”
“Good question.” Penelope presses ‘enter’ with a flourish and waits while her computer compiles the data she asked it for.
“I have three,” Spencer tells you, because the idea of you guessing too high and then he has to say a lower number makes sweat trickle down his neck.
“W—why?” You seem genuinely baffled, but not in a mean way, he decides.
“Why indeed?” Penelope presses ‘print’ and rolls her chair across the room to the printer, which whirrs as it swallows the first sheet of paper.
He shrugs. “Why not?”
He glances at Penelope, waiting for her to say something, and then realises that you did the same. When your eyes meet, you smile conspiratorially at him like you’re both in on a joke he didn’t realise anyone made. He smiles back and turns his eyes to the floor.
“Well, that’s very impressive,” you say, your tone light. “The only reason I even have my BA is that I hacked the university student data and fudged my attendance records.”
That makes Spencer look at you again, but you’re turning away, reaching out to take the stack of papers Penelope is pulling from the printer so you can hand them to him like you didn’t just confess to committing a crime.
“Honey, you’re not meant to tell people that,” Penelope says, rolling her eyes fondly. Then she looks at him. “She didn’t change her grades. For the record.”
Spencer just nods and decides it’s none of his business. He’s not the boss of anything. And you could have been joking.
He’s halfway back to the bullpen with his list of single, white women under 30, whose driver’s licences suggest they aren’t natural redheads, before it occurs to him that he still doesn’t know why you’re even here.
* * *
The third time, he’s prepared. Hears the sound of your voice from down the hall, animatedly explaining something to Penelope. As you get closer, he realises it’s the changes in the internal layout of the Tardis between Classic Who and New Who.
“I mean, the doors alone!” you say like they’re the craziest thing you ever saw.
“I know!” Penelope agrees, throwing Spencer a look and mouthing ‘save me.’ Which confuses him for a second because he knows she has opinions on this. But sure, so does he.
“At least they kept the console mostly the same,” he says, taking a step forward. “Otherwise people might not realise it was even the same Tardis.” That’s hyperbole, of course. Everyone would know. It’s the Tardis, after all.
You turn on him, your face lighting up. “Right?!”
He holds up his hand and you high five him immediately before you turn on Penelope. “You can leave, I’ll stay here with Dr. Reid. I prefer talking to someone who appreciates the original material.” You’re clearly joking, your tone light and teasing.
Still, Spencer feels his ears go pink at your words and rubs the back of the hand you just slapped with the fingers of his other hand. “Has she told you what her favourite episode is?” he asks, partly to distract himself.
“We do not speak of it,” you say, grinning at him.
Penelope rolls her eyes. “Be back in an hour,” she tells you sternly like you’re a kid who got permission to stay at the playground alone as long as you’re home in time for dinner.
“Yes, boss,” you say, mock-saluting. Spencer decides you definitely weren’t a girl scout.
“Favourite doctor?” he asks the minute Penelope has left.
You sit down on the corner of Morgan’s desk. It makes you even shorter than you already are compared to him and he scurries behind his own desk so he can sit down and not feel like he’s towering over you, his whole body in the way of your conversation. “Fourth,” you say, your eyebrows raised like you’re daring him to disagree.
Spencer smiles, relieved. “Correct.” He’s glad you agree on this, but he also thinks he would’ve heard you out if you said something else. He still hasn’t adjusted to the new doors, never mind the colours, but he could deal with you preferring the Fifth Doctor.
“How Tom Baker isn’t everyone’s favourite is a mystery to me. Probably something the BAU should be investigating, actually.”
“I’ll ask Hotch if we can do that as our next case,” Spencer says, then quickly looks away when you laugh, your whole body shaking. He smiles at the ground and decides he likes the sound of it, likes it even more that he got you to make it.
What feels like a few minutes but turns out to actually be an hour later, JJ interrupts your story about how you dressed as a Dalek for Halloween one year (made it yourself and everything!) and no-one knew what you were supposed to be until you got to this one house where a man made you wait on his porch for five whole minutes and then suddenly came back dressed as the Second Doctor and zapped you with his sonic screwdriver before laughing and emptying his whole bowl of candy into your bucket.
You’re grinning the entire time and Spencer thinks he might have met the first person ever who’s more excited about Halloween than him. He can’t wait for October, maybe you’ll be up for decorating the bullpen with him.
“Penelope is asking for you,” JJ says, looking at you and pointing back towards Penelope’s office. “Playdate’s over.”
Your face falls and you look at your watch, then grimace. “I guess we lost track of time.” You look at Spencer like you’re apologising to him for something, and he shakes his head.
“She mad?” You look at JJ, who shakes her head, too. Spencer wonders if anyone ever gets angry with you.
“Penelope doesn’t really get mad,” he says, trying to put you at ease. “Unless of course you touch her computer or change the setting on her monitors or adjust her chair or…” He trails off.
“I’ve done all of those things,” you say, joking, and stand up, turning to leave.
Spencer raises his hand, pretending that he’s just waving goodbye, but when you bend over his desk to give him a farewell high five, he smiles to himself as you walk away.
Once you’re gone, he turns to find JJ looking back at him, a knowing smile on her face. “Uh-huh,” she says, nodding at him before she leaves.
Spencer shakes his head and turns back to his report. The next time he sees you, he must remember to ask you if you used an actual plunger for the manipulator arm on your Dalek costume.
* * *
Spencer still doesn’t quite know why you’re here and by this point he can’t bring himself to ask, but he has worked out that Penelope seems to have adopted you in some professional fashion and you spend most of your time with her. You even have your own little computer setup, smaller than Penelope’s like it’s a toy and you’re just playing pretend but definitely functional.
He knows this because one time during a briefing you turn up in the conference room with Penelope, who gently nudges you forward, and then you start presenting a connection you found between apparently unrelated murder victims in Arizona. These men have nothing in common except they all checked out the same book at their local libraries in a geographical area you have already highlighted on a map, all ready for him to dig into.
Penelope looks like a proud mother, Hotch looks skeptical but like he’s biting his tongue, and Elle looks at Spencer with a smirk and he isn’t really sure if it’s because she caught him staring at you or because someone else found a literary connection instead of him.
It’s the first time he sees you that you don’t give him a high five. He feels like he should be giving you one.
The jet takes off for Arizona and he gets to spend half his time there in libraries that are quiet and cool and smell of books and he wants to high five you all over again except you’re back in DC with Penelope, of course.
* * *
After this, Spencer finds himself running a lot of errands. Primarily ones that take him past Penelope’s office.
He doesn’t always see you, but at least a few times a week there you are, coming or going, sometimes pushing a trolley with hardware from one place to another, sometimes lugging stacks of files.
He always holds up his hand in a wave when you’re about to pass, and you always high five him. By this point, he can’t even pretend it’s you misinterpreting anything because he’s the one who doesn’t wave when he sees you, he waits until you’re within a couple of feet, and then he just leaves his hand there, held out. For you.
Once, you lose your grip on the files you’re carrying as you stretch out your arm to make contact with his hand and the folders fall to the floor, pages scattering all around you.
“Oh,” you say, the smile you had aimed at him falling right off your face as you look around you in dismay.
Spencer bends down so quickly his knee hits the floor painfully as he hurries to start gathering the loose sheets of paper. “Sorry,” he says, trying not to wince too much from the pain. Somehow he feels responsible for the mess, since he’s the reason you didn’t have both hands on the folders.
You bend more slowly, managing not to injure yourself on your way down, but then you get him on the chin with the top of your head when you move to get back up.
Spencer lets out a small groan of pain as his teeth are knocked together.
“Sorrysorrysorry,” you say, immediately kneeling again, reaching for his chin but then letting your hand just hover a few inches from his face as if you aren’t quite sure you should be touching him.
To his surprise, Spencer finds himself wishing that you would, even briefly considers pretending to stumble so he has an excuse to move in that direction. You just had that hand on the floor and now he wants you to touch his face! “It’s okay,” he says, his eyes on the floor, which is clean but still a floor, and then he gets up quickly, grabs all the paperwork from your hands while you’re still moving to stand again, and then he walks off with it without another word.
Back at his desk, he sorts through all the loose sheets of paper quickly, matching them all up with the appropriate folders and putting them back in what he assumes is the correct order. Then he stacks the folders neatly and carries them to Penelope’s office, since that’s where it looked like you were headed.
When he knocks and then pushes the door open, you’re spinning around on an office chair while Penelope is saying something to you in a soothing tone. When she spots him, she throws out her arms and smiles. “Why Dr. Reid, how lovely to see you,” she says in that exaggeratedly cheerful tone she sometimes uses. “And your face in one piece and everything.”
“Um, yeah,” he says, frowning because why wouldn’t it be?
“I really am so sorry,” you say. The tone of your voice makes you sound like you just confessed to accidentally killing a puppy. He keeps his eyes on Penelope’s monitors, shifting from one to the other like they’re extremely interesting, because he can’t possibly look at you if you look as sad as you sound.
But: oh. “I’m fine, really,” he says quickly, remembering that his chin hurts. His mind has been so preoccupied by the fact that he wanted you to touch his face, he completely forgot why you were going to do it in the first place. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, just to show you that his jaw is still working. “See?”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” he says, risking a quick glance at you, just to reassure himself that you believe him. It’s a mistake and he can feel his ears start to burn. He dumps the files on the nearest flat surface and then gestures towards the door behind him. “Anyway, I should… I just wanted to return the files and… Goodbye.”
“‘Bye, Dr. Reid,” Penelope sing-songs, a smile on her face that he’s sure is significant in some way he wishes it wasn’t, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking about.
“Thank you for helping with—” is all he hears you say before he shuts the door behind him as he leaves.
* * *
He takes a break from stalking the hallways after that, not sure if he’s more worried about running into you or Penelope spotting him. But then he hasn’t seen you for almost two weeks what with the team going out of town on a case and you doing whatever it is you do, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that missing you is worse than the embarrassment of how he feels when he’s around you, how he can’t stop wishing that instead of just a high five, he could actually hold your hand.
So he decides he needs to get a file out of storage. Brings it back to his desk to read and then returns it, collecting another one. He repeats this six times, spends more time walking back and forth than actually reading, and he’s just about ready to give up, sure you’ve already left for the day, when you suddenly appear.
“Hey!” You smile as soon as you spot him, like you’re actually delighted to see him, and Spencer smiles back, his heart suddenly beating harder in his chest than it did before.
“Hi.” He holds up his hand, then realises he mistimed it, you’re too far away, and he has to just stand there for several seconds that feel like hours while you walk closer and then you can finally high five him.
Supremely embarrassing but worth it, he decides, the palm of his hand tingling a little as he puts the hand in his pocket.
“I haven’t seen you for a while,” you say. Your tone is friendly and he’s sure you’re just making small-talk, you aren’t saying you missed him or anything. But you noticed he wasn’t there, which feels significant to Spencer.
“Yeah, I’ve been busy.” That’s not a lie, exactly, but he’s always busy. They all are. It’s not why you haven’t seen him.
“Working on your fourth PhD?” you ask, grinning. You’re clearly just joking.
He shakes his head, pulling a face. “No, just another BA.”
You nod, mock-serious. “Of course.”
Spencer shrugs, but he can’t help smiling at you. Wishes he could think of something to say to keep you here, but for possibly the first time in his life, he’s drawing a complete blank.
“So what brings you to the coolest hallway in the FBI today?”
He looks at you, frowning, then realises that while he’s wondering why you’re still in this conversation, it probably looks to you like he’s trying to remember what he’s doing here. He holds up the folder he’s carrying. “I wanted Penelope to check something for me,” he says. Doesn’t add any follow-up information, because the trick to telling a convincing lie is to not overdo it and give too many details.
“She’s in a meeting,” you say, your mouth working as you think. Spencer tries very hard not to stare at your lips. “If it doesn’t involve looking into any government databases, maybe I can help? I mean, even if it does, I can still help. Just don’t tell anyone.” You grin conspiratorially at him and he feels his throat go dry.
If he agrees to let you help him, he’ll be alone in yours and Penelope’s office with you for who knows how long. It seems like both a fantastic and a terrible idea. “That would be great, thank you.”
You smile widely as you wave your arm grandly and open the door to the office. “Step inside the den of iniquity, Dr. Reid.”
His feet stay frozen in place just long enough for it to be noticeable as he ponders the kind of iniquity you’re referring to and how different it is to the first thing to cross his own mind, then he walks past you into the office.
Somehow he imagined that he’d spend an hour here while you worked, getting to watch you while your attention was focused on something else, and his main concern was that Penelope would come back before he left and read something into the situation.
But no, it takes just a few minutes for you to check the (public and completely legal to access) databases you need, pull out and collate the data for him and then you’re asking if he wants you to print it or he’d rather have an email.
He hasn’t even figured out the best way to ask you what you had for lunch yet and now it’s time to leave. “A printout would be preferable, thank you.”
“Cool beans,” you say, probably nothing to do with your lunch, and seconds later the printer hums as it wakes up.
Spencer gathers the sheets of paper himself, while you push yourself around on your chair, spinning as far to one side as you can without lifting your feet and then to the other and back again.
“Well, thank you. This was very helpful,” Spencer lies.
“No problem at all,” you assure him, and clearly it wasn’t. He wonders if the request was so simple you think he’s stupid for not looking it up himself.
“I don’t really do computers,” he says, trying to explain, or excuse, or something, then worries if the fact that he doesn’t will make you like him less.
“That makes sense,” you say lightly and he’s immediately comforted. “When would you find the time with all those degrees you had to get?”
“Did you know that more than 60,000 doctorates are awarded in the US every year? We’re the country that confers the most doctorates in the world.”
“Your nation thanks you for your service in this endeavour, I’m sure,” you say with a smirk.
“Yeah,” Spencer says, smiling slightly. “I’m sure my trophy’s in the mail.”
You laugh and maybe his trophy just arrived.
“I should get back to work.” He holds up the sheets of paper you printed for him as if there’s any correlation between him doing work and what he just got you to look up.
“Of course,” you agree, and Spencer is 17.6% sure you look a little disappointed. But you’re probably just bored here without Penelope.
“Anyway, bye,” he says, waving his free hand at you.
You’re too far away to reach him and for a panicked second he’s not sure if he wants you to get up and walk over to him or not, but then you hold up your own hand and push it forward, mimicking giving him a high five from across the room. “See you around, doctor.”
He backs out of the room, hitting the doorframe with his shoulder on his way out. The last thing he sees before he’s back in the hallway is you wincing with the pain you assume he’s in.
All in all, though, the bruise is worth it.
* * *
“You ready, Pretty Boy?”
Spencer looks up to find everyone else already standing, Morgan shrugging his jacket on, and in the background you’re talking to Penelope, shaking your head and rolling your eyes while you talk. You have your jacket on, too, so most likely you’re coming as well. You must sense him looking, because you turn your head in his direction, and when your eyes meet, you smile at him.
“Okay,” he agrees, closing the file he was reading and grabbing his jacket as he stands. But as everyone makes their way to the elevator he falls back with Gideon. “Um. Where are we going?”
Gideon huffs in response, a sound Spencer has learned mostly means indulgence, occasionally amusement. “Farewell drinks.”
“Farewell?” Spencer frowns, cogs turning uncomfortably in his mind, something he knows but doesn’t know floating to the surface. “Who’s leaving?”
Gideon indicates you with a tilt of his head, waiting with Penelope for the second elevator after the first one took Hotch, Morgan, JJ and Elle downstairs. “The little hacker. Internship’s over.”
The elevator dings and the doors open, but Spencer doesn’t move. You’re leaving?
Everyone else is already in the elevator when his feet finally start working again and he moves, stepping into the space that has been left next to you in the back. He holds up his hand, realising that this might be his last ever high five, unless he manages to say goodbye to you at the end of the night. When your hand hits his, his fingers twitch as if they want to grab hold of you, but they’re too slow and don’t really commit to the action.
Instead, he just smiles at you, feeling like he’s not quite managing it and it probably looks more like a grimace, but you just smile back, same as always. He rubs his high five hand against his cheek, then realises you’re still looking at him and shoves both hands in his pockets.
“I wasn’t sure you were going to come,” you say suddenly, your voice low. “Penelope said you don’t always join these things.”
“Uh.” Spencer hesitates, not really sure what to say. ‘I’m here because you’re here,’ doesn’t feel like an appropriate response. It’s not one he’s going to be able to say out loud, anyway. “Sometimes I do.”
“Well, I’m glad tonight is a ‘sometimes’,” you say, one shoulder shrugging.
Spencer looks around to see Gideon staring at the ceiling and Penelope fidgeting with an intensity that’s usually reserved for when facilities management insist on invading her office and testing all the wall sockets, crawling under tables and unplugging things.
He just nods and shrugs back.
* * *
“You know what would be really cool?” Elle appears next to him by the bar where he has parked himself, slapping him on the back so hard he coughs. Or at least that’s what he’ll say if anyone asks. She definitely did not scare him.
“Wh—What?”
“You, asking for her phone number.”
Spencer shakes his head. “That would not be cool, no.”
“It would if she gave it to you.” Elle is nursing her fourth martini, Spencer only just got his second tonic water: This doesn’t feel like a discussion he’ll get through using logic. If Elle were able to apply logic to anything, surely she’d know that’s not something you’d ever do. Why would you?
“But she won’t do that,” he says, very slowly, hoping that might help him get the obvious across.
“What makes you so sure?”
He looks at her, eyebrows raised, for several seconds. Then he turns his head and waves a hand in your direction, a gesture meant to indicate the entire scene unfolding across the room.
Across the room where you’re standing at a high table, your drink still untouched because you’ve been too busy talking to the two men who are entertaining you to even take a sip. They look about 30, both of them, tall (but not as tall as Spencer), wearing tailored suits and muted ties. Hair that’s cut just so, confident smiles, and not a hint of awkwardness or discomfort. They’re both completely up to the task of flirting with you and making you laugh.
“Whatever,” Elle says, dismissing the whole chain of irrefutable evidence he just presented with a shake of her head. “Just go over there.”
With that, she shoves his drink into his hand and launches him away from the bar with a push.
When he’s halfway across the room, it occurs to him that he could have just told Elle that he doesn’t want your phone number. Then maybe this whole situation could have been avoided.
It’s too late for that kind of lies, though, because you’ve already seen him approaching and everyone else is at the other end of the room, and so are the restrooms, so there’s really no other reason for him to be walking this way other than to talk to you.
At least you’re smiling at him, how mortifying would it be if you made it obvious that he’s interrupting? How humiliating if these men turned to him and told him to take a hike and stop bothering you.
“Spencer, hi!” you say enthusiastically when he gets close enough. Then you reach out a hand, wrapping it around his forearm and pulling him close, until his side is pressed into you. Even with your bodies connected from hip to shoulder you don’t let go, your fingers squeezing his arm. He’s so shocked it takes him a moment to realise that you know his first name.
“Hi,” he manages to say, looking at you and then at the two men who are staring at him and clearly a lot less thrilled by his appearance.
“So this is Gavin and this is Mark,” you say, indicating the two of them in turn with your free hand.
“The other way around,” says Gavin-whose-real-name-is-Mark.
“Oh, sorry,” you say, smiling sweetly. You squeeze Spencer’s forearm again and he clears his throat.
Mark-who’s-actually-Gavin holds out a hand to Spencer and he just looks at it. You’re gripping his right arm, what’s he supposed to do? It’s out of his control.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you smile.
“Are you a colleague?” Mark asks, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Uh, yeah,” Spencer says, not really sure how to reply. He isn’t, not anymore, but what else could he possibly say he is?
“Not anymore,” you cut in. “Today’s my last day so we no longer work together.” Then you tilt your head until it’s resting against Spencer’s arm and he thinks his heart might have just stopped, at least for a couple of beats.
He realises what you’re doing, of course, you’re not exactly being subtle about it, but it’s still throwing him for a loop that it’s something you’d entertain even as a fiction, the suggestive way you say it.
“Right,” Gavin says and then he picks up his beer and drains it in one long gulp. “Nice to meet you.”
The way he says it, you don’t need to be a profiler to know he’s lying, but Spencer still smiles politely at him, then turns the same bland smile on Mark before both men walk away, no doubt looking for someone else to hit on.
You breathe out a sigh of relief, giving his arm one last squeeze. “Thank you,” you say, your head still resting against him, and then you move away, let go of him, leaving him feeling cold and lonely and bereft.
He almost wishes Gavin and Mark would return.
Then you grab your drink, sniff it suspiciously, and pour it into a potted plant.
“What are you doing?”
“Gavin bought it. Who knows what he spiked it with.”
Spencer’s eyes go wide, his eyebrows shooting up. “What? Then why did you pour it out?” If that man put something in your drink, he should be arrested. Preferably rot in jail forever. “You should not be getting rid of the evidence.”
“Oh, come on,” you say. “What were you gonna do? Arrest him?”
“Well, yes!”
You stare at him, your expression changing from dismissive to confused to something else. “Wait, really?”
“Of course. If he spiked your drink, that’s a crime.”
“I mean, I don’t know that he did. He just had a drink spikey vibe.”
“Mmm,” Spencer agrees, nodding sagely. “Exactly the kind of terminology we use in our reports.”
That makes you laugh and he smiles, scratching his arm where he can still feel the ghost of your touch.
“Sorry for…” You wave a hand in the direction of the plant that may or may not be absorbing a dose of Rohypnol. “Does that mean you’re going to arrest me for destruction of evidence?”
Spencer has a sudden vision of you in handcuffs that has nothing to do with policework and he can feel his cheeks burn. “No, of course not.”
“Phew,” you say, wiping pretend sweat from your brow.
Spencer can feel real sweat running down his neck and he thinks his tie might be getting tighter somehow.
“So are you having a good night?” you ask.
“Yeah,” Spencer says, not sure it’s strictly true. The last few minutes have been pretty nice, and he’ll probably be thinking about them for the next few months, but he’s not sure that’s enough to put the night into the ‘good’ category. It’s the last time he’s going to see you, after all.
“I can’t believe it’s already over,” you say, echoing his thoughts, although you seem more surprised than depressed by the passage of time.
“Yeah,” Spencer repeats, marvelling at his own vocabulary.
“When I first started, six months felt like forever, but it’s like they just flew by.”
He nods, he can’t possibly say ‘yeah’ one more time and look at himself in the mirror ever again. “Did you—did you enjoy it?”
You lick your lips, considering the question. Spencer swallows. “Yeah.”
At first he thinks you’re mocking him, but you seem completely serious.
“I mean,” you look at him, your eyes locking with his. “Some days were better than others.”
Spencer pulls at his tie, wondering what’s suddenly wrong with the knot that’s been fine all day. “I guess it’s like that with any job,” he says, just to make it clear that he’s not reading anything into what you said. What does he know, anyway? It’s the only job he ever had.
“True,” you say, smiling a little lopsidedly.
“Oh, do you want another drink?” he offers, suddenly realising that since you threw yours away you no longer have one - and you weren’t ignoring it because you weren’t thirsty. “Or do you prefer to buy it yourself?”
You snort, amused. “I trust you not to spike my drink, Spencer.”
“So I don’t have a ‘drink spikey vibe’?”
“Not even a little bit.” You shake your head.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he says, then hesitates. “So do you want one?”
“Vodka and ginger ale,” you tell him, smiling. “Thank you.”
Spencer makes his way to the bar where Elle and JJ are now deep in conversation and orders your drink. When the bartender walks away to make it, they both look at him with their heads tilted.
“That’s not your usual order, is it, Spence?” JJ looks like she’s trying not to smile but not doing a very good job.
“It’s not for me,” he says, trying a lot harder to sound casual.
“Ooooooh,” Elle coos. “Did you ask for her number? Or are you gonna get her drunk first?”
“I am not going to get her drunk,” he says, appalled, turning to look at them both. “She… lost her other drink.”
“Did she throw it at those guys?” Elle nods like that makes sense to her.
“No.”
“Then they should probably be thanking you for saving them from having to dry clean their suits.”
JJ nods in agreement. “It was definitely going in that direction.”
The bartender returns with your drink and Spencer pays for it, then picks it up gingerly.
“Oh, relax, kid. She doesn’t look like that when she’s talking to you.” Elle rolls her eyes at him.
Spencer looks at JJ, not really sure he trusts Elle on this. She smiles and shakes her head. “You’re fine.”
“That’s incredibly encouraging, thank you,” he mutters under his breath as he turns away from them.
You’re standing by the same table in the corner, staring intently at your phone and typing out a text message. Spencer sees a man walking in your direction and speedwalks over to you to get there before the stranger.
You look up when he approaches. “Hi,” you say, smiling, and pocketing your phone immediately.
Out of the corner of his eye Spencer sees the other guy make a turn and walk in another direction. “Hi.” He smiles at you, pretty sure you haven’t even noticed the other man.
You take a sip of your drink through the straw and he stares at your lips puckered around it as you suck.
“You should alternate between alcoholic drinks and water,” he says, still not able to tear his eyes away. “To avoid consuming too much alcohol too quickly.”
You release the straw and your lips are slightly wet from the drink. “Is that what you’re doing?”
He shakes his head, swallowing. “I don’t really drink.”
“Isn’t that weird? Everyone around you getting drunk and you’re sober?”
“Are you drunk?”
You point at the potted plant behind you. It has had more alcohol tonight than you have. “Not really.”
“Then it’s not weird.”
You smile at that, then hold up your drink. “Cheers.”
He picks up his glass of tonic water from the table and clinks it with yours. “Cheers.”
To put off the moment when he has to actually ask if he can have your number and risk you saying no, he tells you that vodka is traditionally made from potatoes and the starch that makes them good for alcohol is also what makes it possible to power a light bulb with a potato. In a very general sense, they’re completely different processes, of course.
“I made a train levitate with magnets for my science fair project,” you say. Then, like you’re placating him: “But lightbulb potatoes are also very cool.”
Spencer balks. “I didn’t mean that I made a lightbulb potato,” he says, outraged. “Not since I was 5.”
He realises far too late that you’re joking, your shoulders shaking with laughter. “Oh,” he says, rubbing his neck and smiling.
You shake your head, still laughing. “Sorry. But that was very funny.”
He just looks at you, your cheeks flushed and your eyes warm. “Yeah,” he agrees, although funny maybe isn’t the exact word he’d use. But you don’t need to be sorry for anything.
You get your phone back out of your pocket and Spencer can see that you’ve received 7 new texts since you put it away. “Sorry,” you say again, wincing slightly as you read through the texts. You type out a brief message and put the phone back in your pocket.
“Everything okay?”
You nod, then seem to make an effort to shake off whatever those text messages made you feel and you smile at him. “I’m just not usually out this late, my brother worries too much.”
“You live with your brother?” Spencer remembers the comment about your nephew the first time you met. He feels unreasonably jealous of this preschooler who has near unlimited access to your high fives. Does that kid know how lucky he is?
“Yeah. Just for now, while I figure out what I’m going to do.”
“Right.” You could be planning anything, obviously. Backpack around Europe for a year, move to Florida. Your internship is over and there’s nothing keeping you here as far as Spencer knows.
Your phone rings. “Sorry,” you say again, and dig it back out of your pocket, check the display and then answer, covering your other ear with your hand so you can hear whoever’s at the other end of the line over the noise of the bar. “Hey.”
Spencer watches your face go through emotions that fly by before he can catalogue them, but he’s pretty sure he catches annoyance, disappointment and finally resignation while you listen.
Then you hang up and look at him, shrugging. “Gotta go.”
“Oh.” Spencer’s face is definitely projecting disappointment, he’s pretty sure. “Right.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around?” It’s the sort of vague thing people say and don’t really mean, but you’re smiling and looking at him and he wants you to mean it and he wants it to happen, but the words are stuck in his throat and they stay stuck as you put on your jacket and gulp down the rest of your drink.
He still hasn’t said anything when you pause and look at him, your brows furrowed. “So I guess, bye?” you say.
Spencer nods but doesn’t say the word. He can’t. Just holds up his hand instead.
You look at it, just for a beat, and then you high five him. It feels to him like the contact between your hands is longer than normal, not just the gentle slap but your hand actually resting against his just for a fragment of a second, but he’s sure it’s just his imagination, his mind so desperate for this moment not to end that it’s stretching it out in his mind.
Then you shrug and turn around, making your way to the booth where the rest of the team are seated.
You shake everyone’s hands, except Penelope who gets up and hugs you tightly, grabbing you by both cheeks and saying something to you that makes you smile and nod your head, still squished between her palms. Then she lets go and kisses your forehead, leaving a lipstick mark above your right eyebrow. Spencer wishes he could have said goodbye to you like that, maybe just minus the lipstick.
Then you wave at everyone at the table and walk out of the bar, glancing briefly back at him just before you head out the door.
And then you’re gone.
Spencer blinks, realising he missed his chance. You left. He turns to look at the table, your empty drink has left a circle of condensation on the coaster, slightly off centre.
Then, he picks up the glass and sets it down on the table, grabs the coaster and hurries across the bar to the team booth where his messenger back is tucked into a corner between Hotch and JJ.
“You’re still here?” Elle sounds confused and a little disappointed.
He ignores her, digging a pen out of his bag and scribbling on the coaster. Then he throws the pen at her without looking. “Be right back,” he tells them before taking off.
“Wait!” Spencer runs down the street to catch you before you’re swallowed up by the metro station on the corner.
Not that it’s busy, but his SmarTrip card is in his messenger bag which he left behind in the bar, so he can’t follow you through the barriers. If you cross those, he loses you forever.
You keep walking and he keeps running, shouting your name and finally catching up with you at the bottom of the stairs into the station. He’s not going to grab you from behind when you’re walking alone at night, so he runs past you instead, stopping and turning around when he’s next to you.
You freeze, turning to look, then realise it’s him and pull your headphones from your ears, holding the chords in your hand and letting them dangle in the air. “Spencer? Are you okay?”
He’s not, he’s so out of breath he can barely speak. If he hadn’t been, he might have told you how unsafe it is to listen to music when you’re walking alone. Instead, he holds up a hand to indicate that he needs a moment and you just stand there, waiting patiently. From down the tracks, you can both hear a train approaching and he wonders if it’s yours, but you don’t move, don’t even turn your head to check.
Then he holds out his other hand with the coaster and pushes it at you. “Here.”
You take it and look at it, frowning slightly. “Thanks?”
“My phone number,” he explains, his eyes on your shoes until he forces himself to look up and meet your eye.
“Oh.” You flip the piece of cardboard and see the numbers he scribbled on it. Then you smile, wide and clearly pleased, your eyes shining. “Right.”
Spencer feels like he ate something he shouldn’t have, his stomach doing strange flips. The chemicals in his brain are coming up with whole new combinations all on their own “Just if you wanted to…” he trails off, not sure what he should be suggesting you’d want to do with his phone number.
“I do,” you say, regardless. On the platform, the train has pulled to a stop and people are leaving the station. “But I gotta go.”
He nods and holds up his hand.
You grin and high five him, then you hesitate for a second before standing up on your tiptoes, one hand gripping his arm for balance, and then you kiss his cheek, your lips brushing softly against his jawline for just a moment because that’s as high as you’re able to reach. Then you turn around and run for the train.