Playing with my Heart | A Spencer Reid story

Walking Alone

"Charley, how long?" Sophia whined. She looked at the time on her phone. She and Laurel had been waiting for Charley to finish getting ready for the party for 45 minutes. They knew that Charley loved to be fashionably late bit now this was just getting annoying. She was making them go. And the later they went the later they would end up coming back.

"Don't rush me." Charley ran around the apartment in a flurry, hair half done.

Sophia shoved the remainder of her doughnut in her mouth and wiped the corners of her mouth, licking her lips. "Well, I'm going to check inventory and make sure no one messed with my work over the summer. I'll meet you guys there." Sophia grabbed her claw clip from the table and clipped back half her hair. She slipped on her brown leather blazer over her black two-piece crop top and skirt.

"Are you serious?" Charley cried out.

Laurel shook her head at Charley then turned to Sophia. "You go Soph. I'll bring little miss Charlotte."

"Eww don't call me that." Charley screeched.

"Then hurry up." Laurel laughed, waving to Sophia as she sashayed out the door.

"Don't be too long," Charley demanded as Sophia waved her goodbyes.

Luckily their apartment was ten-minute walk from campus. But nevertheless, Sophia's legs were freezing.

She was glad when she stepped inside the building through the out of hours entrance and the warmth cloaked her skin.

It was nice to be back her. In a familiar environment. Being back at MIT felt right. She has spent so much time. The same place since she was sixteen. It felt more like home than anywhere else.

She was happy to see all her lab and desk exactly as she had left it. She sat down in her chair and spun around in it a few times, thinking of all the time she had fallen asleep at this desk and the many more times that it would likely happen again this year. She did this every year. Walk through the familiar halls on the weekend before the semester started and take in the tranquillity. Others might not find it peaceful here. But to Sophia this is where her head was quiet and she didn't have to hear all that noise. Of course, that would change in just a matter of days as the halls will fill up with anxious students. For now the halls were scarce.

She was deep in a tunnel of research papers that had slowly made her way to her desk. Probably dropped off by research fellows that stick around during the summer. When a knock on the glass startled her.

She looked up and saw Spencer, who she only knew as the guy from the grocery store wave through the window and point to the door. Sophia looked around, as if he was knocking for someone else even though she knew she was the only one in.

Sophia stepped out into the hallway, suddenly conscious of her outfit choice in the dimly lit corridor. She was extremely overdressed and most of her legs were on display.

Spencer made a deliberate effort not to look anywhere other than her face. He was already flustered not expecting it to be her again. And especially not dress like that.

"Hi?" Sophia waited for Spencer to reply.

"Um... Hi. Someone told me that this is the lab to come to if I want to see PCR and MALDI-TOF analysis linked to a 1 PFLOPS supercomputer. And that I was in luck because someone was in the lab?"

"You would be right. But you want to run something now?" She looked down at her wrist. She didn't really have time, but this was a solid excuse to be late and get out if all the shots that would be thrust towards her.

"Oh. No. Ummm... actually I was hoping that next time you did run it that I could see it. Or when you make modifications to your parameters." He wondered if he should bring up that obvious elephant in the room. But he didn't have to.