Work Text:
No one in the BAU said it aloud, but they all had the same unspoken thought:
Reid should be over it by now.
It had been almost a year since Emily had returned from the dead, since the lie unraveled and shattered Spencer’s careful world. He hadn’t screamed. He hadn’t cried. But the silence was louder than grief. He’d shown up to work, files in hand, statistics memorized, eyes guarded. The jokes faded. The coffee runs stopped. And slowly, Spencer Reid pulled himself back—step by step—out of their lives.
They thought time would heal.
They were wrong.
It was Garcia who finally said what they’d all been thinking, around a quiet conference table after a case closed.
“He’s still mad.”
Morgan folded his arms. “You think?”
Rossi didn’t lift his gaze. “He has every right.”
Hotch stared out the jet window. “But that doesn’t mean he can keep shutting us out forever.”
“I think he’s scared,” JJ whispered.
The word made Rossi glance at her. “Scared of what?”
“Of trusting us again.”
No one argued. Because no one could.
But it wasn’t until a week later—when Penelope Garcia, curious and desperate to reconnect, wandered into a quiet D.C. café—that things shifted.
She wasn’t trying to spy. Not really.
She just wanted an almond croissant and maybe a sign that Reid was still reachable.
What she found was Spencer Reid sitting in a corner booth, not reading, not sketching, not hiding.
He was smiling.
Smiling at someone.
A young man, maybe mid-twenties. Short curls, dark brown eyes, soft hands that gestured when he laughed. He was beautiful in a quiet way, dressed like someone from a poetry magazine. And he was holding Reid’s hand across the table, thumb stroking the back of it. Like he belonged there.
And Reid—Spencer, her Spencer—looked calm. Soft. Content in a way Penelope hadn’t seen since before Emily died.
Or didn’t die.
Penelope left without being seen.
But she brought the story back with her.
To the bullpen.
“He was with someone,” she said softly. “Someone young. And… happy.”
JJ blinked. “Like a date?”
Garcia nodded. “Like a relationship.”
Morgan raised a brow. “Reid’s dating?”
“I don’t know if it’s dating or whatever, but he looked—he looked like someone who isn’t broken anymore.”
Rossi said nothing.
But Hotch leaned back in his chair and murmured, “Then maybe it’s time we accept that we don’t get to tell him how to heal.”
Still, Garcia couldn’t help herself.
The next day, when Spencer walked into the break room, she greeted him with a bright smile.
“Morning, sunshine.”
Reid gave her a polite nod, pouring himself coffee.
“So,” she said, like it was nothing, “that café on Dupont is cute. Almond croissants are divine.”
He stilled. Just slightly.
She pressed on. “Saw you there. You looked… happy.”
He turned slowly, face unreadable.
“Were you following me?”
“No!” she said quickly. “I was just… passing by.”
Reid stared for a moment. Long enough to make her squirm.
“You don’t have to worry,” she added. “He looked nice. Gentle. You deserve that.”
Silence.
And then, a quiet voice. Flat. Calm.
“You all decided I was the problem,” Reid said.
Garcia blinked. “What?”
“When Prentiss came back. You all looked at me like I was the one who needed to fix something. Like I was overreacting. JJ lied. Hotch lied. Emily lied. Morgan knew and didn’t say a thing. And no one apologized. You just expected me to fall in line. To understand.”
He stepped closer.
“I did. I understood perfectly.”
Garcia’s throat went dry. “Spence…”
“I needed time. Not lectures. Not pity. And definitely not pressure to ‘move on’ just because it made everyone else more comfortable.”
She lowered her eyes. “I just thought—maybe it meant you were healing.”
“I am healing,” Reid said softly. “But not because of any of you.”
And then, with a hint of something colder—
“Let me live my life, Penelope. Don’t follow me again.”
He left the break room.
That day, he requested remote case access for the next two weeks.
And when the team gathered for briefing the next morning, his chair was empty, replaced by a tablet screen and a clipped, formal voice from Spencer’s apartment.
The young man from the café passed behind him once—barefoot, carrying a mug, hair tousled.
JJ caught it.
So did Morgan.
No one said a word.
But Hotch?
He looked down.
Because he had been the one to order Prentiss into hiding. To let JJ lie. To ask for silence. For sacrifice. All in the name of protection.
But who had protected Spencer?
Outside, life moved on.
Inside the BAU, the cracks remained.
And Spencer Reid?
He finally belonged to something that didn’t ask him to break in return.