#spencelle

“Greenaway?” a voice calls, clipped and neutral. You turn and see your new boss, Aaron Hotchner, standing outside his office. “You’re early.”

There’s a flicker of something on his face — not quite amusement, though. You get the sense already that Aaron Hotchner is not a man who shows signs of amusement often. He steps forward, eyes skimming over you like he’s trying to x-ray your secrets.

One by one, the rest of the team trickle in as you get acquainted with your new boss. You discreetly observe them over his shoulder as they settle into their desks before Hotch clears his throat to gather their attention.

“This is our newest team member, SSA Greenaway,” he says, and now everyone’s watching. “She’s just transferred in from the New York City field office. Specializes in victimology and interrogation tactics.”

“Greenaway?” another voice cuts in, laced with surprise and confusion. You follow the sound and land on a solid wall of muscle with a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth and a whole lot of swagger behind it. “Like… Greenaway Greenaway?”

You could lie. You could laugh. You could throat-punch him. But you don’t.

Instead, you slide your hands into your pockets and tilt your head just enough to make it look like you might bite. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

The man blinks.

“Elle’s my sister,” you clarify sharply. Your tone makes it clear that that’s all you have to say on the matter.

“Easy tiger, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says, raising his hands. “Elle was a friend. It’s just been a while since I heard that name aloud in this room.”

You nod once. “Yeah. I’m sure it has.”

That shuts everyone up for a beat, and you know what they’re thinking — Elle Greenaway ghosted this team and let the door slam behind her. You wonder if they expect you to do the same.

Hotch clears his throat. “We’re reviewing a case soon. Everyone, meet in the roundtable room in thirty.”

You take a seat at your new desk like a throne and cross your legs like a warning. Better to look like a threat than a question no one wants to answer.

You can feel it already, the way they’re watching you with the wrong kind of curiosity. Spencer Reid — you clocked his name from the nameplate on his desk — keeps sneaking glances over the top of whatever file he’s pretending to read. There’s something hesitant in the way he looks at you, like he’s trying to work out a complicated equation and keeps forgetting the variables. You can’t tell if it bothers you or not — being so clearly seen by someone who doesn’t even know what he’s looking at yet.

You don’t know much about him, but you know enough. Elle mentioned his name a few times in those rare late-night calls back when she still picked up the phone. Said he was smart, sweet, young. Said he sometimes reminded her of a cat who didn’t know whether or not to run from thunder.

But you’re not thunder — you’re lightning.

And this office? This whole team? They’re about to find out just how fast you strike.

—

They don’t give you long to settle in.

And that's fine. You’ve never liked the quiet that comes with waiting — too much room for doubt, too much space for ghosts. The bullpen is already humming with life, papers rustling and phones chirping and chairs squeaking under the weight of people trying not to stare. You keep your head down and rifle through the folder Hotch left on your desk.

And then he calls for the briefing, ten minutes earlier than he’d originally stated.

The roundtable room is glass-walled on one side — ironic, considering no one here seems particularly transparent. You take a seat at the end of the table furthest from the door and resist the urge to cross your arms. It would look defensive, like you’re bracing for a hit.

They don’t know you yet. Not really. But you know how this goes. There’s always a script, even if no one admits to writing it:

1. they doubt you,

2. they test you,

3. they pretend like they always believed in you.

You’ve seen it before. You’re not falling for it again. Still, a small, buried part of you hopes they see you for what you are before they decide who you’re supposed to be.

“Three missing women, all under the age of twenty-five, taken from their homes along the I-81 corridor in Pennsylvania,” Hotch begins. “Two confirmed dead. The third’s been missing for forty-eight hours.”

He clicks the remote. Crime scene photos flicker across the screen like a grim slideshow.

You tilt your head. “No forced entry?”

“Correct,” JJ answers. “No signs of struggle. No witnesses.”

Rossi glances at you. “You see something, Greenaway?”

You lean forward, tap the edge of the first photo with your fingernail. “He watches. Long enough to know the routines. Long enough to know when they’re alone.”

Morgan shifts in his chair. “You think he knew them?”

“Not personally,” you say. “But intimately. They weren’t random. The unsub spent time studying their routines so he could anticipate their windows of vulnerability.”

There’s a pause, and you know that silence: it's what people do when they’re adjusting their expectations.

Prentiss chimes in: “Could be someone with casual access. Delivery. Maintenance. Landlord.”

Spencer opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, then closes it again.

You glance at him, just for a second.

Hotch continues assigning roles: JJ will handle the press and family outreach. Morgan and Rossi will check out the crime scenes. Prentiss and Reid are on geographic profiling.

Then Hotch turns to you.

“Greenaway: Victimology. Coordinate with Garcia to gather intel, and if the third victim’s family agrees to talk—”

“I’ll lead the interview,” you finish.

He nods once. “Good.”

When the chairs scrape and everyone rises, Reid lingers by the table. You catch him looking again — not quite at your face, but at your hands, like maybe they’re saying something your mouth won’t.

“You’re right about it not being random,” he says. “And about the timeline. This took planning.”

You glance back at him. He’s fidgeting with the corner of a folder, eyes darting but not nervous — just observant. You wonder how long it’ll take before he stops looking at you like he’s seen a ghost.

As you turn to leave, you catch the edge of your own reflection in the glass. For a second, the angle’s just wrong enough for you to look like her.

You blink, and the ghost vanishes.

—

You hit the ground in Pennsylvania before noon. The sky above is low and gray, the kind of color that makes everything feel depressing.

You drive with JJ to the home of the third victim’s sister. The woman is pale, clenched, shrunken in on herself in the way only grief and panic can collapse a person. Her kitchen smells like burnt toast and antibacterial wipes. You lead the interview, voice even, eyes sharp. You know when to press and when to pull back.

Halfway through, the woman says, “She told me she thought someone was watching her, but I didn’t believe her. I thought she was just being overly paranoid and anxious like always was.”

You nod. “Most people are, when they’ve got a reason to be.”

—

Back at the precinct, JJ murmurs something to Hotch about how well you handled the sister. You don’t linger to hear the rest.

Instead, you duck into the breakroom to rinse your hands, and that’s when you feel it — a presence behind you, quiet and unassuming, but distinctly there.

Reid.

You finally turn. He’s standing near the doorway, lanky and uncomfortable, like he hasn’t quite grown into his own limbs — which is absurd, considering how tall he is. His tie is slightly crooked. He’s holding a file he’s not reading.

“You’re really observant,” he says. “And I meant what I said earlier — you were right.”

You arch an eyebrow. “You say that like you’re surprised.”

“I’m not,” he replies quickly. “I just—” He hesitates. “I hadn’t really… considered what it would be like to work with someone who knows her.”

You stiffen. “Elle?”

He nods.

“I don’t talk about her,” you mutter.

“I didn’t ask you to. And honestly, no one really ever does,” Spencer says after a beat. “Not anymore. It’s like… if we don’t say her name, what happened never has to make sense.”

There’s a beat.

Then you say, “You were staring earlier.”

He looks mortified. “I—I wasn’t trying to.”

You shrug, tilting your head. “You just do that with everyone, or just people who look like ghosts?”

That lands harder than you meant it to. He takes a slow breath.

“Elle was my friend,” he confesses.

You nod. “You were her friend, too, Reid,” you tell him quietly.

You leave before he can reply.

—

In the end, you were the one who found her.

You saw the pattern — the quiet overlaps in building permits, the odd timing of maintenance requests, the proximity to each victim’s home. One man, always lingering at the edges. Never close enough to stand out, but not far enough to be clean, either.

The missing woman was discovered bound and barely conscious in a crawlspace behind a water heater — dazed, dehydrated, but alive. You rode with her in the back of the ambulance, silent except for the sound of her shaky breathing as it steadied. When her eyes finally met yours — wide, grateful, terrified — you held her gaze and nodded in soft reassurance. You’re safe now. It’s over.

No one congratulates you on the jet ride home for making the connection, but the silence feels different now. Less loaded with suspicion. More… earned.

—

Back at Quantico, the team scatters — paperwork, debriefs, whatever’s next. Eventually everyone heads home, but you stay in the bullpen, light from your desk lamp haloing the clutter you haven’t sorted yet. Your case notes are open, but you haven’t written anything in twenty minutes.

You don’t hear him approach, but suddenly there’s a paper cup sliding into view beside your keyboard. You glance up to find Spencer Reid standing there, hands tucked in the pockets of his cardigan, expression unreadable.

“You’re still here.”

“Wow, look at all those PhDs at work,” you deadpan.

He offers the smallest quirk of a smile and nods to the cup he slid in front of you. “Black. No sugar,” he says. “I remembered.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I don’t recall telling you.”

“You didn’t. But you left the sugar packets untouched at the precinct.”

You blink at him, then at the cup, then back at him again. “Watching me? Creepy.”

His smile falters, just slightly.

You sigh. “I’m kidding, Reid. Relax.”

There’s a beat of silence. He doesn’t sit, but he doesn’t leave either.

“Elle used to stay late, too. After cases. Especially the bad ones.”

You tilt your head. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

“No,” he says quickly. “But I thought you might want to know.”

That throws you off more than it should. You sit back in your chair, legs still crossed, fingers tightening around the coffee cup like it’s suddenly fragile.

You don’t do this — the soft thing. The human thing. You are, for lack of a better way to say it, bad at it.

“I’m not her, Reid.”

“I know,” he says without missing a beat. “You’re not.”

You study him for a long moment — the way he’s just standing there, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, like he’s waiting for you to pull a knife or a truth from under your sleeve.

“I, uh—” he starts, then falters. “I just didn’t know if maybe you’d want to talk about her.”

You don’t flinch, but something behind your ribs pulls taut.

“What makes you think I’d want to talk about anything?”

He considers this. “I don’t. Not really. But sometimes people say they don’t and… mean the opposite.”

You snort softly. “Let me guess. You read that in a book?”

“Actually, it’s an observation based on years of empirical experience—” He stops himself. Smiles, sheepish. “But yes. Also a book.”

There’s a long pause.

Then he says, quieter, “When it started getting bad for her, I tried to help. I went to her room the night before…” he trails off, clearing his throat before finishing, “The night before it happened. I thought… I don’t know, maybe if I gave her the opportunity, she’d start talking.”

You sip the coffee. It’s strong and bitter, just how you like it. It’s obvious he made a fresh pot for you, and you refuse to let yourself linger on that thought for longer than a second.

“She didn’t,” he adds quietly. “Talk, I mean.”

You swirl your cup. “She isn’t really the kind of person who lets herself be helped.”

He nods. “And you?”

You give him a crooked smile. “Oh, I’m so much worse.”

It’s meant to deflect. He knows that. You know he knows that. But he doesn’t flinch. Instead, the corners of his lips quirk up in the tiniest whisper of a smile, and he holds your gaze a little longer than expected, like he’s collecting data. He’s watching you the way people watch thunderstorms — from a distance, half in awe, half afraid. You should tell him to leave.

Instead, you say, “You’re not really what I expected, Dr. Reid.”

He blinks. “Is that… a good thing?”

You shrug. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“You were great out there,” he tells you quietly. “If it weren’t for that detail you noticed with the maintenance requests… we might not have found her in time.”

You hate compliments — especially the true ones. So you shrug it off again, sharp and practiced. “Guess I’m good for something, then.”

You glance over at him, study the slope of his jaw, the twitch in his left hand where his fingers tap a rhythm against his. You could cut him down with another quip. That would be easier. You’re good at sharpness — good at being unreadable, untouchable. But instead, you tilt your head.

“Thanks for the coffee,” you say, quieter than before. “It doesn’t suck.”

He smiles at that. “I’ll add pouring coffee from the pot into a cup to my list of core competencies.”

You take another sip and go back to staring at the same line in your report. Spencer calls your name as he walks out a few minutes later, hand held up in an awkward wave before he disappears through the bullpen doors.

Great. You really shouldn’t have said anything nice. Now he’s going to try to talk to you again tomorrow.

And you really shouldn’t want him to. But for some unknown, inexplicable reason… you do.

God help you, you do.

ᝰ.ᐟ

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