Profile // A Spencer Reid Love Story

Chapter 24 // Realization

Spencer's POV.

Statistically, if a child is kidnapped most of the time they aren't killed until twenty-four hours later after their kidnapping. This time it was different. This time we had more than seventy-two hours. Which should have been a major relief on all of us, however, when dealing with a child's life, it wasn't exactly easy to kick back and relax.

There was another factor that played in to that though, at least for me. Oh, I'm talking about the whole relaxing thing. There was Chloe. For some reason, I had found myself thinking about her more than the case. This wasn't the first time, actually, it started way before. I'd be thinking about one thing, and then all of a sudden, she would pop into my mind. 

It was annoying as hell. I could never focus on one thing without her invading my thoughts. Things like that never happen to me. Especially during a case. Why was I letting her disrupt me trying to save the life of this little girl who desperately needed our help? 

"Spence! Did you hear what I just said?" JJ shouted at me, snapping me out of my thoughts. 

"Oh, no. I'm sorry, what did you say?" I asked while turning towards her. She rolled her eyes, "Why are you acting like you don't even know who Chloe is?" Great, she probably has told the whole team by now. "Is that what she told you? That I've been treating her like that?" 

"No, but you're surrounded by a group of profilers." JJ replied, stating the obvious. "However, she did tell me that you never visited her during her week off. Now, I don't know much about what you do during your free time when we're not on a case, but I do know for a fact that you had enough time to pay her a visit." 

I looked down at the coffee cup that I had been holding in my hands, not wanting to answer her. She was right. I knew that I was treating Chloe like absolute shit, for lack of a better word, and that there was no reason to it. "Fine, don't answer me, but if you're not going to explain any of this to me, then I know who you should be explaining it to." She continued. "We work as a team, Spence. If two of us are against eachother for whatever reason, we aren't going to function. If you truly care about Chloe and you want to find that little girl alive, then you need to get yourself together." And with that, JJ walked away. 

It was obvious that, sooner or later, I needed to apologize to Chloe. What exactly was I supposed to say, though? She was looking for an explanation for my actions and honestly, I don't even know why I was treating her this way. 

There were some reasons, I suppose. I'd never actually admit to them though. Maybe it was because she was the only and first person that I had ever taken to that coffee shop, maybe it was because whenever I was around her, I felt the same feelings that I did when I would talk to Maeve on the phone. Either way, I should've wanted to get closer to her because of these feelings. However, they just made me want to push her away. My guess was because the only two people that I have ever deeply cared for and loved were people that either aren't in my life anymore, or barely in my life. Maeve, who was killed two years ago, and my mother, who I barely get to see because she's in Las Vegas, living in a mental hospital due to her schizophrenia. I send her post cards and whenever I have the time I visit her, but it's definitely not enough. 

Not to mention the fact that dating your co-workers in the BAU was looked extremely down upon. It would cause too many conflicts within the team and would interfere with our working potential, in the words of Strauss, before she passed. 

Looking over, I noticed Chloe as she joined me near the coffee station, grabbing a foam cup and filling it up with the steamy hot beverage. If there was one thing that I wanted more than anything in that moment, it would've been just to stare at her. To take in every detail of her eyes that naturally glistened, the crease in between her eyebrows which I had come to know that normally meant that she was either stressed or concentrating, and the small scar on the side of her forehead that she told me weeks earlier that it was permanent due to Adam and a huge fight that they had had once, which she told me that she hated it because it reminded her every day of how weak she was, but I always thought that it made her seem strong, because it showed that she was able to fight her battles and in the end, she won. Yeah, staring at her for too long would be considered extremely creepy, but it was hard to take your eyes off of someone as beautiful as her. 

It was in that moment that I realized something that I should have realized a while ago, because if I did, I wouldn't be in this mess.

                                                I was completely in love with her.