The Weight of Secrets
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PAIRING: Spencer Reid x Genius!Reader
Summary: The reader is Gideon's daughter... and it's the scariest thing that has ever happened to them
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You stood in the elevator of the FBI building, watching the numbers climb. Twenty-three years old, and you'd already lived three lifetimes. The brass doors reflected a young woman in professional attire, a navy blazer, a crisp white shirt, and credentials clipped to your belt. No one would guess that two years ago, you'd been extracting intelligence from a weapons dealer in Budapest, or that your hands, now folded calmly in front of you, had done things you were still trying to forget.
The doors opened to the sixth floor. The Behavioral Analysis Unit.
Aaron Hotchner stood waiting, his expression unreadable as always. Your mentor. The man who'd found you eighteen months ago when you'd burned out of the intelligence community, guilt-ridden and searching for redemption. He'd seen something in you, maybe recognized the same carefully controlled trauma he carried.
"Ready?" he asked.
You nodded. You were always ready. Composure was your armor.
The bullpen was exactly as Hotch had described it. Organized chaos, the hum of focused energy. But your eyes went immediately to him. Jason Gideon sat at his desk, head bowed over a file, silver hair catching the fluorescent light. Your chest tightened, but your expression remained neutral. Years of training ensured that.
He looked older than in the photo your mother kept hidden in her jewelry box. The only photo you had of your father.
"Everyone," Hotch's voice cut through the ambient noise, "this is Special Agent Y/N L/N. She'll be joining the team."
Derek Morgan approached first, all charm and confidence. "Derek Morgan. Welcome to the team."
"Jennifer Jareau, but everyone calls me JJ." A warm smile from the blonde woman.
"Penelope Garcia, technical analyst and purveyor of all knowledge!" A woman with colorful glasses practically bounced over.
Then he approached. Tall, thin, younger than everyone else but with eyes that held encyclopedic knowledge. "Dr. Spencer Reid." He didn't offer his hand, and you didn't either. You'd read his file, the germaphobia, the three PhDs, the eidetic memory.
"The prodigy," you said, a slight smile playing at your lips. "Three doctorates by twenty-two. Impressive."
"You read my file." Not a question.
"I read everyone's file. You read mine, didn't you?"
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Twice. Your psychological evaluation was... interesting. Compartmentalization scores off the chart."
"Survival mechanism," you replied simply.
"Actually, it's a dissociative defense pattern that..." He paused, really looking at you. "You already know that."
"I do."
Something sparked in his eyes. Recognition of a kindred spirit, perhaps.
Finally, Gideon stood. He moved with deliberate calm, assessing you the way he probably assessed every new person he met. Profiling. You felt the weight of his gaze and kept your breathing steady, your micro-expressions controlled.
"Jason Gideon." His voice was exactly as you remembered from thirteen years ago. The only time you'd met, when you were ten years old, and a serial predator had taken you from your mother's apartment.
He'd saved your life then. He just didn't remember it.
Three days you'd been held. Three days of terror that had eventually forged you into steel. And when he'd found you, when he'd carried you out of that basement, he'd looked at your mother and asked, "Is she mine?"
Your mother had lied. "No. Just... thank you for bringing her home."
You'd never understood why she'd lied until years later. She'd been trying to protect him, she said. Protect you both. He'd just lost his family, was spiraling into darkness. She thought it would destroy him to know he had a daughter in danger because of what he did.
"Agent L/N," Gideon said, extending his hand.
You took it. His grip was firm, searching. "Sir. It's an honor. I've read your work, 'The Evolution of Criminal Profiling' is brilliant."
His eyebrows rose slightly. "You've read my monograph?"
"Twice. Your analysis of the disorganized offender's psychological deterioration was particularly insightful."
Reid glanced between you both, something curious in his expression.
"Well," Gideon said slowly, still studying you, "anyone who's read my monograph twice is either very dedicated or very bored."
You smiled, his smile, though neither of you knew it. "Dedicated. I don't do boredom well."
"Neither do I," he replied, then added with that characteristic wit, "It's why I hunt serial killers instead of teaching college courses."
"Teaching shapes minds. You save lives. There's no comparison."
Something flickered across his face. Approval, maybe. "Hotch says you came from intelligence work."
"I did."
"And you wanted to join the BAU because...?"
Because you're my father. Because I've spent thirteen years wondering what it would be like to know you. Because I carry your analytical mind and your burden of guilt, and maybe being near you will help me understand how to live with it.
"Because I'm tired of playing chess with governments," you said instead. "I want to save people, not manipulate them."
Gideon held your gaze a moment longer, then nodded. "Good answer." He returned to his desk, but you felt his attention still on you, that profiler's mind working.
Spencer appeared at your elbow, holding a cup of coffee. "You take it black, right? No sugar?"
You accepted it, surprised. "How did you..."
"You have a slight callus on your right index finger from writing, extensive note-taking, and probably journaling. There's faint scarring on your knuckles consistent with Krav Maga training. Your posture suggests hypervigilance, and you have the controlled breathing pattern of someone who's practiced meditation or tactical stress management. People with that level of discipline typically don't dilute their coffee."
You stared at him, then laughed, a genuine sound that surprised you both. "That's either brilliant or slightly terrifying."
"Both, usually," he said with an awkward smile. "I notice you're close to my age. Everyone else here is at least a decade older."
"Twenty-three," you confirmed.
"Twenty-four," he replied. "It's... nice. To not be the youngest anymore."
"Don't get used to it. I'm told I have an old soul."
"Trauma will do that."
You met his eyes. No judgment there, just understanding. "Yes," you said quietly. "It will."
Three months into the job, and you'd found your rhythm. Your first case had been difficult, a child abduction that hit too close to home, but you'd maintained composure, helped save the boy. Hotch had given you an approving nod. High praise, coming from him.
You'd also started keeping a new journal. Two, actually.
The first was small, leather-bound, and stayed in your desk. In it, you wrote about the people you saved. The boy from your first case. The woman in Phoenix. The teenager in Seattle. Their names, their faces, what they'd said when they realized they were safe. It was Gideon's habit, Hotch had mentioned it once, and you'd adopted it like you'd inherited his eyes.
The second journal stayed locked in your apartment. That one held names too, but different ones. The asset you'd burned in Prague. The target you'd neutralized in Caracas. The civilians caught in crossfire. You didn't write to remember, you couldn't forget, but to witness. To make sure their deaths weren't invisible.
Reid had found the first journal one afternoon when you'd left your desk.
"Sorry," he said immediately when you returned, but he'd already seen the open page. "I wasn't snooping, it was just... open."
"It's fine." You closed it gently, not defensively. "Just notes."
"They're beautiful," he said quietly. "The way you describe them. The details. It's like... you're preserving them."
"Someone should remember who they were before the worst thing happened to them."
His expression softened with understanding that went bone-deep. "Gideon does something similar. Did you know that?"
"I might have heard something about it," you said carefully.
"You remind me of him sometimes." Reid tilted his head, studying you with that penetrating intelligence. "The way you process crime scenes. You both go quiet, still, like you're listening to something the rest of us can't hear."
Your heart rate increased, but your training held. "He's brilliant. I'll take the comparison as a compliment."
"You should. But it's not just that." Spencer's eyes narrowed slightly, not suspicious, but curious. "You have similar speech patterns. Parallel phrasing. You both use teaching moments disguised as observations."
"Maybe I learned from reading his work."
"Maybe." But he didn't sound convinced.
Reid had become your closest friend on the team, which surprised you both. You'd bonded over books first; he'd found you reading a first edition of Dostoyevsky in the original Russian on the jet, and his eyes had lit up. Then over music, classical composers, philosophy, and the mathematics of probability. You played chess. You debated quantum mechanics. You understood his rambling tangents, and he understood your comfortable silences.
"You're good for Reid," Gideon had commented one evening, watching you both absorbed in a chess match during downtime. "He needs someone who can keep up with him intellectually."
"He's good for me too," you'd replied. "He reminds me that brilliance doesn't have to be weaponized."
Gideon had given you a long look then. "You speak like someone who's seen their gifts used for dark purposes."
"Don't we all, in this line of work?"
"Yes. But you're young to carry that particular weight."
You'd wanted to tell him then. Wanted to say, I'm your daughter, and I carry it because it's in my blood. Because you taught me, not directly, but through your work, your words, your way of seeing the world, that intelligence is both gift and curse.
Instead, you'd moved your knight. "Checkmate in four moves."
Reid had studied the board, then laughed in delight. "Three, if I sacrifice my queen."
"But you won't," you'd said with certainty.
"How do you know?"
"Because you assign value beyond utility. It's one of your best qualities."
Gideon had watched this exchange with an expression you couldn't quite read.
The case in Chicago changed everything.
A serial killer targeting young women, leaving them displayed with elaborate staging. The team had been working on it for three days, and tensions were high. On the fourth day, you'd profiled the unsub's next move, suggested a location.
You'd been right. But you'd also been first through the door, and the unsub had grabbed a hostage, a nineteen-year-old girl who looked terrified.
"FBI! Let her go!" Morgan had his weapon trained, but no clear shot.
The unsub pressed a knife to the girl's throat. "Stay back or she dies!"
You'd holstered your weapon slowly, hands visible. "Okay. Okay, we're not moving." Then you'd met the girl's eyes. "What's your name?"
"S-Sarah."
"Sarah, I'm Y/N. You're going to be fine." Your voice was calm, assured. The same voice your mother had used when you were ten and terrified. The same voice Gideon had used when he'd found you.
"Shut up!" The unsub was spiraling, knife hand shaking.
You'd taken a step forward. Hotch had made a sharp gesture, Stay back, but you'd ignored it.
"You don't want to hurt her," you said to the unsub. "This isn't about her. It's about control. Power. What you felt you lost."
Another step.
"I said, stay back!" But his grip on Sarah had loosened slightly.
"When you were seven," you continued, voice steady as a heartbeat, "something happened. Someone took control from you. A parent, maybe. An authority figure. And you've been trying to take it back ever since."
How did you know? Educated guess. Pattern recognition. Reading his micro-expressions, his defensive posture, the specific nature of his crimes.
And because you understood obsession intimately.
"You don't know anything about me!" But tears were forming in his eyes.
"I know you're tired," you said softly. "I know this feeling, this need, it never stops, does it? Even when you do what you think will make it better, the emptiness is still there."
You were three feet away now.
"It doesn't have to end like this. Let Sarah go. Let me help you."
For a moment, one crystalline moment, you thought you'd reached him.
Then his expression hardened. The knife moved toward Sarah's throat.
You'd moved without thinking, muscle memory from a different life. A disarm technique learned in a facility that didn't officially exist. You'd had the knife away and the unsub subdued in under three seconds.
Sarah had collapsed, sobbing. Morgan had secured the unsub. And the entire team had stared at you.
"Where did you learn that?" JJ had asked on the jet home.
"Intelligence training covers a lot of ground," you'd said vaguely.
But Gideon had been watching you with new intensity. "That wasn't standard FBI training."
"No, sir."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not particularly."
He'd nodded slowly. "The things we do before we find our way here... they don't disappear just because we're doing good now."
You'd looked at him sharply. He'd held your gaze, and something passed between you. Recognition. Not of blood, but of shared burden.
"I kept a different kind of journal, before," you'd found yourself saying. "Not for the people I saved. For the ones I couldn't. The ones I... sacrificed for the mission."
Gideon had been quiet for a long moment. "How many names?"
"Thirty-seven."
His expression had flickered, pain, understanding. "I have a hundred and six."
"Failed cases?"
"Cases where I made the choice. Where I decided one life was worth more than another, or where I was too late, or too slow, or just... wrong." He'd pulled out a worn journal from his bag. "I write them down. Remember them. It's the least I can do."
You'd felt tears threaten for the first time in years. "Doesn't it break you? Carrying them all?"
"Every day." He'd looked at you with something almost like tenderness. "But you carry them anyway, don't you?"
"I don't know how to put them down."
"You don't. You just learn to carry them alongside the ones you saved. The weight balances out eventually. Not equally, never equally, but enough to keep moving forward."
Spencer had been watching this exchange from across the aisle, his expression thoughtful.
It was Spencer who pieced it together.
Two months after Chicago, you'd all been working late on consults. You'd been at Gideon's desk, discussing a cold case, when you'd made an observation about the unsub's psychology. Gideon had built on it, and you'd added another layer, and suddenly you were both talking rapidly, ideas flowing, building a profile that was more complete than either of you could have created alone.
It had felt natural. Like breathing. Like coming home.
Reid had been watching from across the bullpen.
Later, as you'd been leaving, he'd stopped you in the parking garage.
"Can I ask you something?" His tone was careful. "And I need you to be honest with me."
Your stomach had tightened. "Of course."
"I've been noticing patterns. In your speech, your mannerisms, your methodology. They mirror Gideon's with statistical improbability." He'd paused. "I thought maybe you'd studied his work extensively, modeled yourself after him. But it's more than that. It's genetic."
Your heart had stopped. "Spencer..."
"The way you both tilt your head when you're processing information. The identical hand gesture when you're explaining complex ideas. You both have a slight tremor in your left hand when you're stressed, inherited essential tremor, probably. And your eyes..." He'd stepped closer, voice dropping. "You have the same eyes. Same color, same shape, same way of looking at people like you're reading their entire history."
You'd stood frozen, years of training warring with desperate need to tell someone, anyone, the truth.
"He's your father," Spencer had said softly. "Isn't he?"
The concrete walls of the parking garage had seemed to close in. "Yes."
"Does he know?"
"No." Your voice had broken on the word. "He saved me when I was ten. I was abducted, and he was on the case, and when he found me, he asked my mother if I was his. She said no. She thought she was protecting us both."
"But you've known?"
"My whole life. My mother told me when I was sixteen, made me promise not to tell him. She said he'd already lost so much that knowing he had a daughter he couldn't protect would destroy him." Tears had finally fallen, and you'd been too tired to stop them. "I joined the BAU to know him. To understand where I came from. To maybe save enough people that I'd deserve to be his daughter."
"Y/N..." Spencer had looked stricken. "You don't have to earn that."
"Don't I? Look at what I did before this. The people I hurt in the name of national security. The moral compromises. I'm trained to lie, to manipulate, to kill if necessary. That's not..." Your breath had hitched. "That's not someone he'd want as his daughter."
"That's not true. You're one of the best people I know. And he already cares about you, I've seen it. The way he mentors you, watches out for you."
"As a colleague. Not as..." You'd pressed your palms to your eyes. "I can't tell him, Spencer. It would change everything. He'd feel guilty about not being there, about not knowing. It would hurt him, and I can't, I won't do that to him."
Spencer had pulled you into an awkward but genuine hug. "Your secret's safe with me. But Y/N... he deserves to know. And you deserve to stop carrying this alone."
Her name was Ekaterina Volkov.
She walked into the BAU on a Tuesday morning, diplomatic credentials in hand, asking to speak with someone about a series of murders that matched a pattern from Eastern Europe.
You'd been at your desk when Garcia had brought her up. You'd looked up, seen her face on the security monitor, and your coffee cup had slipped from your fingers.
"Y/N?" Spencer had been beside you instantly. "What's wrong?"
You couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Ekaterina Volkov. The asset you'd run in Moscow. The woman you'd promised safety to, then burned when the operation went sideways. She'd barely escaped with her life.
She should hate you. She had every right to.
"I'll take this," Gideon had said, already moving toward the elevator. Something in your expression had caught his attention.
You'd found your voice. "No. I'll go."
"Y/N..." Hotch had started.
"I know her. From before." You'd stood, legs unsteady. "She asked for the BAU. She asked for me."
The meeting room had felt smaller than usual. Ekaterina had sat with perfect posture, her hands folded on the table. When you'd entered, her eyes had met yours without flinching.
"Agent L/N. Or should I call you Anastasia? That was the name you used in Moscow."
Behind you, you'd felt Gideon go still.
"Ekaterina. What are you doing here?"
"Three women have been murdered in DC. All former intelligence assets. All burned by their handlers." Her smile had been cold. "I thought the FBI should know there's someone killing people like me. People your government promised to protect, then abandoned."
Your hands had clenched beneath the table. "I'm sorry. For what happened in Moscow. I'm sorry I couldn't..."
"Couldn't save me? Or couldn't be bothered?" She'd leaned forward. "You promised me a new life. Instead, I got a target on my back and a fake passport. Do you know what I had to do to survive after you left?"
"I know." Your voice had been barely a whisper. "I know, and I'm sorry."
"Sorry." She'd laughed bitterly. "The great Anastasia is sorry. Tell me, do you sleep well at night? Or do you see our faces, all of us you used and discarded?"
"I see them." The words had torn out of you. "Every single one. I have a journal with your names. Thirty-seven people I failed. You're number fifteen."
Something had flickered in her expression.
Gideon had stepped forward then, his voice calm. "Ms. Volkov, we want to help. Tell us about these murders."
The meeting had lasted an hour. Ekaterina had provided information, and you'd helped build a preliminary profile, your voice mechanical, professional. When she'd left, she'd paused at the door.
"For what it's worth," she'd said quietly, "I'm still alive. That's more than some of us got." Then she'd looked at Gideon. "She has nightmares about us. The ones she couldn't save. I saw her file before everything went wrong. She tried to extract me five different ways. They all got shut down by someone above her pay grade. She didn't abandon me. They did."
Then she was gone.
You'd stood frozen in the empty meeting room.
"Anastasia," Gideon had said softly.
"It was my operational name. For seven years." You hadn't turned around. "Before that, I was Lydia. Before that, Claire. I've had so many names, I sometimes forget which one is real."
"Y/N is real."
"Is it?" You'd finally looked at him. "I've lied about everything. Who I am, what I've done, why I'm here."
"Why are you here?"
"To make up for it. To save enough people that maybe the scales balance."
"They never do," he'd said gently. "Believe me, I've tried."
Over the next three days, you'd worked the case. Five more former assets had been identified as potential targets. You'd protected three of them, but two had died before you'd reached them.
Two more names for your journal.
You'd started disappearing during the case, slipping away to empty rooms, sitting in the dark. Spencer had found you once, sitting on the floor of a supply closet, arms wrapped around your knees.
He hadn't said anything, just sat beside you.
"I was good at it," you'd finally whispered. "The intelligence work. I could lie, manipulate, become anyone. I could make assets trust me, make targets lower their guard. I was one of the best."
"That's why you left."
"I couldn't carry them anymore. The people I used. The ones who died because I wasn't fast enough or because someone decided they were acceptable losses." You'd looked at him. "Do you know what it's like to be good at something that destroys you?"
"Yes." His voice had been heavy with understanding. "Every time I can't save someone. Every time my memory shows me exactly where I failed."
The case had ended with four assets dead, three saved. The unsub had been a former handler, someone who'd lost his entire network and blamed the assets for talking.
After, in the quiet of the bullpen at two in the morning, Gideon had appeared beside your desk.
"Come with me," he'd said.
You'd followed him to his office. He'd closed the door, pulled out a chess set, and began arranging the pieces.
"Play with me," he'd said.
"Gideon..."
"Just play."
You'd sat. Moved your pawn. He'd countered. For several moves, there was only silence and the click of pieces on wood.
"Chicago," he'd finally said. "Thirteen years ago. A ten-year-old girl with your eyes."
Your hand had frozen over your knight.
"Her mother's name was Sarah. We'd been together briefly, years before. When I found that little girl in that basement, when I carried her out, I asked if she was mine." He'd moved his bishop. "Sarah said no. But I've thought about that girl every day since. Wondered what became of her. If she was all right. Your move."
You'd stared at the board without seeing it.
"I started noticing things," he'd continued, his voice quiet. "The way you tilt your head. The same gesture I make when I'm thinking. Your eyes. Your wit. The way you see patterns. The journal of names." He'd paused. "And then Ekaterina called you Anastasia, and I realized you were trained young. Recruited after something traumatic. After something that would make a child want to be someone, anyone else."
Tears had been falling silently down your face.
"I know, Y/N." His voice had been unbearably gentle. "I've known for weeks. I just kept thinking, if I'm right, why hasn't she told me? And then I realized. You were protecting me. The same way you tried to protect those assets. The same way you've been protecting everyone your whole life."
"I'm sorry," you'd whispered. "I wanted to tell you. Every day I wanted to tell you."
"I know." He'd reached across the board, covering your hand with his. "And I'm telling you now, I know. You're my daughter. And nothing you've done, no name you've carried, no mission you've run, changes that."
"I've done terrible things."
"So have I." His grip had tightened. "We both carry ghosts. But we're still here. Still trying. Still saving people when we can."
You'd looked up at him, really looked, and seen acceptance there. Love. Understanding.
"Can we..." Your voice had broken. "Can we keep this quiet? Just between us? I don't want the team to know, I don't want to change anything, I just..."
"Just want to know I know," he'd finished. "And that it matters."
"Yes."
He'd nodded slowly. "Our secret, then. But Y/N, let me be your father, even if it's only in the quiet moments. Let me know you, really know you. No more walls between us."
"Okay," you'd whispered.
He'd smiled, soft, private, meant only for you. "Good. Now, it's still your move. And don't even think about going easy on me just because we're family."
You'd laughed through your tears. "Never."
Over the following months, you and Gideon developed a language no one else could decode.
It started with chess. Every few nights, you'd find him in his office or at his desk, board already set up. You'd sit. You'd play. Sometimes you'd talk about cases, about philosophy, about the names in your journals. Sometimes you'd sit in complete silence, the only communication in the movement of pieces.
The team never asked. They assumed it was mentorship, maybe friendship. Only Spencer looked at you both sometimes with knowing in his eyes, but he never said anything.
"Knight to E5," you'd say.
"Protecting your queen," Gideon would observe. "You always protect your queen, even at the cost of position."
"She's valuable."
"Hmm. I tend to sacrifice pawns. Did you know that?"
"I've noticed."
A pause. Then: "I'm sorry. For every time I wasn't there. For every moment you needed a father and only had ghosts."
"Check." You'd move your rook. "And you were there. You saved my life. You just didn't know you were saving your daughter."
"Mate in six moves," he'd counter, eyes on the board. But his hand would brush yours as he moved his piece.
You'd started leaving things for each other. A book on his desk, one he'd mentioned wanting to read. An article about behavioral science was tucked into your case file, something he thought you'd find interesting. A cup of coffee, made exactly right, appears beside your computer. A note in familiar handwriting tucked into your journal: Proud of you.
Once, during a particularly brutal case involving children, you'd frozen. Couldn't enter the house, couldn't move. Gideon had appeared at your elbow.
"Breathe," he'd said quietly. "I've got you."
Just four words, but you'd heard what he really meant: I won't let anything happen to you. Not again. Not ever.
You'd steadied. Entered. Saved the child.
After, he'd squeezed your shoulder briefly, affection hidden in a gesture of professional support.
The team never noticed.
Morgan had commented once, "You two have the same poker face. It's actually kind of creepy."
"Learned from the best," you'd replied smoothly.
Gideon had hidden his smile behind his coffee cup.
You'd started spending time together outside of work, though you were careful to keep it professional-looking. Dinner at a quiet restaurant became "discussing case theories." A walk through the park became "clearing our heads after a difficult profile." A bookstore on Sunday afternoon became "I needed to pick something up, and she happened to be there."
Once, at a diner at midnight after a case, he'd looked at you across the table.
"Tell me about her. Your mother. What was she like as a parent?"
You'd stirred your coffee, considering. "Strong. Scared, but she never let me see it. She worked two jobs to keep us afloat, always made sure I had books, encouraged me to be curious. After... after what happened when I was ten, she never quite stopped looking over her shoulder."
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you both."
"She never blamed you. She blamed herself for not telling you." You'd met his eyes. "She died three years ago. Cancer. Before she went, she told me to find you. Said she'd been wrong to keep us apart. Made me promise I'd try to know you, even if I never told you the truth."
His expression had cracked, just for a moment. "I wish I could have thanked her. For raising someone so remarkable."
"You did. In a way. She kept every article about you, every case you solved. She'd tell me, 'That's who you come from. That brilliance, that drive to help people, that's in your blood.'"
He'd reached across the table, and you'd taken his hand. Just for a moment. Then you'd both pulled back, aware of the public space, the need for secrecy.
But it had been enough.
Spencer had cornered you one evening. "He knows, doesn't he?"
"Yes."
"And you're keeping it quiet."
"It's what we both need. The team would make it a thing, they'd watch us differently, treat us differently. This way, we can just... be. Father and daughter in the spaces between."
Spencer had nodded slowly. "It's kind of beautiful, actually. Like a secret language."
"It is," you'd agreed.
There were harder moments too. Times when Gideon would watch you work and you'd see the grief in his eyes, for all the years he'd missed. Times when you'd want to call him 'Dad' and have to swallow the word. Times when the weight of secrets felt crushing.
One night, working late and alone in the bullpen, you'd been writing in your journal, the one with the victims' names. Gideon had appeared silently, setting his own journal beside yours.
"Read it," he'd said softly.
You'd opened it. Page after page of names, dates, details. His failures, his ghosts. And then, near the end, a new section. It was titled simply: Found.
The first entry: Y/N. My daughter. Lost for twenty-three years, but never really gone. Every case I worked, every child I saved, I was looking for her. I just didn't know it.
You'd looked up at him, vision blurring.
"I started a new journal," he'd said. "For the things I find instead of lose. It's a short list so far. But you're at the top."
You'd stood, and he'd pulled you into a hug, brief, tight, everything words couldn't say.
"Thank you," you'd whispered against his shoulder. "For knowing. For letting me keep the secret. For understanding."
"Always," he'd murmured back. "That's what fathers do."
When you'd pulled apart, you'd both wiped your eyes quickly, professionally. If anyone had walked in, they'd have just seen two colleagues standing by a desk.
But you'd both known better.
"Come on," Gideon had said. "Let's go get something to eat. I know a place that makes the best apple pie. Your mother used to love apple pie."
"She did," you'd confirmed, smiling through tears. "And so do I."
"I know," he'd said simply. "I pay attention."
And that, more than anything, was the truth of it. He paid attention. To your coffee order, your tells when you were stressed, the way you chewed your lip while reading, the exact tilt of your head when you were profiling. He learned you, the way he'd never had the chance to when you were young.
And you learned him. The way he'd tap his pen three times before writing. His preference for tea over coffee late at night. The slight tremor in his hand when a case involved children. The way he'd look at you sometimes with such fierce, quiet pride that you had to look away or start crying.
It was a silent love. A secret love. But it was real, and deep, and enough.
More than enough.
The team never knew.
Even Reid, who'd figured it out, never said anything to anyone. It remained between the three of you, Spencer, the knowing observer, you, and Gideon, the quiet participants in this beautiful secret.
Morgan would joke about you being Gideon's protégé. JJ would comment on your similar analytical styles. Garcia would gush about how you'd softened Gideon's edges a bit.
None of them knew the truth.
And that was okay.
Because every chess game was a conversation. Every shared glance was a confirmation. Every "good work today" was "I love you" in disguise.
You kept your journals, victims and saved, and sometimes you'd find notes in Gideon's handwriting in the margins. Observations about the cases. Insights you'd missed. Occasionally, just: You did everything you could.
He kept his journals, and sometimes you'd see your name among the saved. Not as Agent L/N, but simply: Her. My daughter. Still saving people. Still brilliant. Still mine.
In another world, maybe you would have told everyone. Had a moment of big revelation, of team support and acknowledgment. But this wasn't that world, and you weren't those people.
You were the daughter of Jason Gideon, a man who understood secrets and silence, who carried ghosts and guilt, who saved people and lost pieces of himself doing it.
And he was your father, who'd found you twice, once in a basement when you were ten, once across a chessboard when you were twenty-three.
The second finding mattered more.
Because this time, you both chose it. This quiet, secret, sacred thing between you.
And in the end, that was everything.
One night, months later, working late together, Gideon had reached into his desk and pulled out a small box.
"This was going to be your mother's," he'd said quietly. "A ring. I bought it years ago, before things fell apart. I never got to give it to her."
Inside was a simple silver band with a small stone, nothing flashy, just elegant and understated.
"I want you to have it. Not as an engagement ring, obviously. But as... a promise. That I'm here. That I know. That you're not alone anymore."
You'd slipped it on your right hand. Perfect fit.
"Thank you," you'd whispered.
"Checkmate," he'd said, looking at the forgotten board between you.
You'd laughed. "I wasn't even paying attention to the game."
"Neither was I." He'd smiled. "I was paying attention to something far more important."
And there, in the quiet of the empty office, with only the chess pieces as witnesses, Jason Gideon had been simply what he'd never had the chance to be before:
Your father.
And you had been what you'd always been, even when he didn't know:
His daughter.
Some truths didn't need to be spoken aloud to be real.
Some loves didn't need witnesses to be whole.
And some families existed in the spaces between words, in the language of chess moves and shared journals and coffee made exactly right.
This was yours.
And it was perfect.
