1 out of 150//Spencer Reid

26. Fear

When children are young, they fear the simple things, for example, the monster that hides under the bed or in the closet.

But, what do adults fear? Well, it's different for everyone. Some fear that they'll go to sleep and never wake up. Some fear the idea of loosing their child or children. For Y/N? She feared the idea of loosing her family.

Sure, her job came with risks - e.g. getting hurt/injured, or even death - but that wasn't what she feared. To her, the BAU were her family. Rossi and Hotch were her fathers. JJ was her mother. Prentiss and Garcia were her sisters. Derek was her bother. And Spencer, well, he is the love of her life...the man she'd hope to one day spend the rest of her life with.

The moment she felt threatened by the mystery person, she felt like her entire family was threatened. Sure, the mystery person had only really threatened her and Spencer, but when they mentioned not caring about the BAU's involvement, she knew that they'd become unintentional targets.

———

When she and Spencer walked into the BAU at 7:45 AM on Monday morning, the first thing she thought about doing was showing Spencer the original letter, and she did. She opened the drawer of her desk and pulled out the envelope, handing it to her boyfriend, who cautiously opened it. He had read the entire letter within 50 seconds. She wasn't surprised. It was known that Spencer could read 20,000 words per minute, so seeing him start to read before putting the letter down shortly after, she tried to read him.

Y/N wasn't a profiler yet. She was halfway done with her studying. Only 2 more months to go before she could take the profilers exam. Even still, she had spent a lot of time with Spencer since she first started Spencer's classes, so she was starting to identify signs that he was happy, and signs that he was sad.

He wasn't sad. The letter was clearly intended to make the reader worse than sad.

"S- Spencer. What are you thinking?" Y/N asked, trying to identify the feelings or emotions that Spencer was feeling.

"I'm thinking that we should tell Hotch about these letters." Spencer looked down at Y/N, seeing the relief on her face.

"Yeah. I think that too. But there's an issue. Whoever this person is, they don't care about the fact that we might involve the BAU. That tells me one thing. The mystery person will eventually target our family the moment I tell them about the letters." Y/N exhaled.

"We." Spencer cleared his throat, confusing Y/N.

"What?" Y/N asked, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

"It's not you who's going to tell the team about the letters. We will tell the team about the letters. You're my girlfriend, Y/N. Even before the mystery person started to target me, those threats against you became threats against me. I love you, Y/N, and I'm not going to let you go through this alone." Spencer held her hands and looked down at her, a look of seriousness on his face.

"I- I love you too, Spencer." Y/N smiled, almost beginning to cry. Without hesitation, she pulled his head down slightly and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. The kiss was passionate, yet quick. After every single kiss, Spencer swore he missed the taste of her sweet lips that always smelled like strawberries.

By the time 8 AM rolled around, the romantic behaviour between Y/N and Spencer had become limited again, as they had still not yet told the team about their relationship. They were only 2 months away from Y/N keeping her promise to let Spencer reveal that she was his girlfriend.

They sat in Hotch's office, anxiously waiting for him to return from whatever meeting or errand had kept him occupied since 7 AM. Soon enough, he was greeted to the sight of Spencer and Y/N sitting in the chairs that rested opposite his.

"Spencer, Y/N. What's this about? Surely there's a case to be preparing for." Hotch asked.

"We need your help. Someone is threatening me and Y/N. They sent Y/N a letter, threatening her. Then, the next letter threatened me as well." Spencer explained, Y/N handing the two known letters over to Hotch, who read them. He read them significantly slower than Spencer, probably intending to soak in every word that was written on the page.

"What do you want me to do?" Hotch asked, looking up at his friends.

"This mystery person has made it clear that they don't care if we involve you and the team or not. I have no idea what we need to do, to be honest. All I know is that there will be a target on yours and the team's backs if you do decide to help us." Y/N insisted, watching as Hotch smiled.

"If one person in our team is targeted, we all are. We protect our family, no matter the cost. You two head to the conference room. I'll rally up the team so that we can really understand the situation we're in." Hotch instructed, watching as Y/N and Spencer nodded. They hastily walked out of Hotch's office and toward the conference room, feeling bittersweet.

On one hand, they were glad that the team was willing to help them stop whoever was trying to hurt them. But on the other hand, they were sad, knowing that the team would risk getting hurt in order to stop whoever was threatening them.