Y/N
You can't say how long you sat on the floor of your apartment, trying to figure out if any of this was real. You would've concluded that your night with Spencer Reid was a dream if it wasn't for his shirt that you still wore. Your tears had stopped long ago and now you just stared; you watched the television, you watched the tv-Spencer solve crimes. There was no way, you knew, no way for you to get back. You weren't sure how you got to his reality in the first place.
Your mind cruelly replayed the last moments you remembered spending with him.
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"Tonight was perfect, Spencer," you whispered against his chest.
"It was." He agreed, playing with your hair.
"How am I supposed to keep my hands to myself at work tomorrow when I know what you're capable of?" You happily traced his skin.
Spencer laughed, his chest rumbling under you.
"Hey, at least you don't have an eidetic memory. I can picture every second, clear as day." He mumbled, brushing his fingers along your neck.
"Mmm, as long as I'm not the only one that has to suffer tomorrow." You yawned, growing tired.
"No, I promise you, we'll both have to suffer tomorrow."
———————————-
You had the pleasure of knowing and loving Spencer for 4 whole weeks, but you didn't have his eidetic memory. Today, it was fresh in your mind, the sun was just rising. By tonight, you would remember him a little less. By tomorrow, less. You would always have his physical image in the show, but the details; the way he looked at you, the way he whispered he loved you. You would forget it all.
The magnetic pull in your chest was back, it buzzed and ached for something that it could no longer have.
Your mind tried and tried, but it just couldn't process the reality of losing Spencer Reid, forever.
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Spencer
Spencer woke up cold.
He groaned. His limbs were sore, not used to the exercise.
He reached out, wanting to pull you close, but you weren't there. Had you already woken up?
This wasn't like you, he was the one to wake you up every morning. And not to boost his ego or anything, but he did properly exhaust you last night.
He stretched out, yawning. He rested his head on his arms and listened for your usual morning noises. He had them memorized, of course. Shower, appearance, breakfast. Without fail, that was your routine.
Silence.
His apartment was dead silent, he frowned. Did you break your routine? Did you leave to buy breakfast? You weren't supposed to be alone with that stalker still on the loose.
Growing worried, Spencer pulled himself out of bed. He first checked the main living room and kitchen. Your discarded clothes from last night were still scattered around his apartment, as well as the little things you had started scattering as you grew more settled with living with him.
"Y/N?" he called out.
Silence.
He circled back to the bathroom, nothing was out of place.
Now very worried, he jogged to the couch and fished his phone out of his jacket. He dialed your contact and listened for the ring; tapping his fingers on the cell.
His hand fell to his side as he heard a ringing coming from your purse just next to him. He opened it, finding your cell, keys, and wallet. You wouldn't have gone anywhere without these things, you knew you were under his protection. You wouldn't have left Spencer's side.
Sirens went off in his head. This couldn't be happening, not again. Another girl he loved and he couldn't protect her. He promised he would protect her.
He started to hyperventilate, his hands shaking as he phoned the only people that could help.
"Reid."
"Hotch, I-I need help." Spencer's voice cracked. His back slid down the nearest wall.
"What's wrong?"
"It's Y/N. She's been taken. I-It must have happened at night when we were asleep."
"You're sure she hasn't gone anywhere of her own accord?"
"I'm positive. She was taken. All of her things are here; her phone, her wallet, her keys." Spencer let out a sob, covering it with his free hand. When Hotch heard it, he knew this was serious.
"We'll be there in 20." He stated before hanging up.
Spencer dropped the phone and grasped his hair in his hands; pushing it back. He tried to still his breathing, but his throat felt constricted. His tears slowly fell.
A buzzing, magnetic pull, ached in his chest.
JJ was the first to find him.
"Spence, what happened?" She tried to comfort him, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"We were sleeping in the bedroom and, in the middle of the night, he took her." Spencer mumbled.
Hotch and Morgan scoped out the apartment. The activities Spencer and Y/N had gotten up to that night were obvious, with clothes strewn all about; they decided not to bring that up. Derek, biting back an especially long list of quips.
The position of the bed sheets is what gave them the most information.
"Spencer, honey, which side of the bed do you sleep on?" JJ asked for them. Her kind, motherly voice was the only thing keeping him calm right now.
"The right side."
JJ turned and nodded at Morgan. He returned to the bedroom to look over the left side of the room.
"No sign of a struggle." Morgan observed.
"No, Spencer would have heard." Hotch narrowed his eyes. He pointed to the bed. "Look at his side, see the way the sheets are turned over? He got out of bed normally, flipping the sheets off. Now look at Y/N's side. Her sheets are pooled in a near-perfect pile. She was lifted up without a struggle."
Morgan nodded. "Do you think she was drugged?"
"No, but judging from the clothes around us, she and Spencer were exhausted. She may have thought it was Spencer and just gone back to sleep." Hotch made a point to speak softly.
"Shit. The kid's a wreck." Morgan whispered. He knew how attached Spencer was to you; they all did. He was asleep just next to you when it happened. You were under his care; he was bound to feel guilty.
Morgan returned to see Spencer spaced out, his knees pulled up to his chest. He knelt in front of him, placing his hand on Spencer's other shoulder.
"Hey Kid, we need to go back to the station so we can start trying to find her. The local police have been informed to keep a look out. You need to get dressed and bring her wallet and cell phone with you. This is the first 48 hours, you know how important this first 48 are. We need your big brain alert for this one. She needs you."
Morgan's words got through to him. He lifted his head, finally clearly seeing his friends and co-workers. He took a deep breath and nodded. Morgan helped him stand, pulling him in for a quick hug. "We're going to find her." He pat his back.
Spencer left to his room to get dressed, avoiding looking at where he had last seen her in his bed. He tunnel visioned, grabbing her things and leaving with his BAU family.
———-
That was 1 month, 3 days, 5 hours, 2 minutes, and 34 seconds ago.
There was still no sign of you, it was as if you had just vanished off the face of the planet. Only Spencer knew just how true that saying was. You were gone, he knew. The probability of you ending up back in his reality was one of the least probable things he could thing of.
Every night he stayed at his desk late and stared at your desk, willing you to show up as you did the first time.
He cleaned his apartment, packing your things away in his closet; on his most desperate nights he would open your suitcase and feel the fabric of your clothes between his fingers. You were officially presumed dead, your huge apartment, assets, and money were all signed away. There was a will that he was sure you didn't write; it was here when you arrived. That will gave everything to charity. You wouldn't have minded.
Spencer knew that everything after you woke up at the BAU was real, but the rest of the BAU didn't. They had 2 years worth of memories with you.
Some nights he couldn't bring himself to sleep in his bed. He spent many nights on the couch.
Of course, he blamed himself. Why didn't he hear something? Did he forget to lock the entry door? How did he not feel you move out of his arms? These questions ate away at his mind. The team filed your case. Whenever they weren't working on another case, they were working on yours.
The problem was, he knew you were never coming back and he wasn't even sure if they could physically catch the unsub that caused it. It was hopeless.
Then, one day, 2 months, 4 hours, 32 minutes, and 14 seconds after you disappeared, they found something.
"Reid we have an update on Y/N's case." Hotch stood next to Spencer's desk.
Spencer sat a bit straighter, his eyes going wide.
"What is it?"
"A lead based on the description of the man she saw behind the warehouse. He was spotted about a week ago near an abandoned house. I'm giving you permission to put the Missouri case on hold so you can go scope this place out with Morgan today. The rest of us will stay here and continue working on the Missouri case." Hotch gave him the location.
Spencer stood almost too quickly, bumping the pile of books in front of him over.
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The house didn't look like much on the outside. It was unowned and abandoned, so Morgan and Spencer were able to walk in without a warrant. They cleared the 1 story home within minutes seeing nothing but a crumbling frame and missing appliances.
Spencer's heart dropped until Morgan opened the basement door. Spencer followed him down, guns and flashlights drawn.He found a light switch, but he knew the long-abandoned house wouldn't have electricity.
Spencer's flashlight illuminated a table full of science lab equipment, some of it, Spencer knew, you had to know the right people to get. Papers were scattered about, some illegible from stains or burns. Spencer looked them over, recognizing the content as equations. One page, he recognized, was Schrödinger's equation. These were quantum equations.
The unsub was messing with the very science that brought you here.
"Kid, get a load of this." Morgan called. Spencer turned around, following Morgan's beam of light. He illuminated a generator and a dark impression next to it on the floor, as if a large object had once sat there.
The shape of it made a circle in the middle with a square border. Like a platform with a cylinder in the center. There was no way the unsub could have brought you here, it was too far from Spencer's home. You would've put up enough of a fight to get noticed by someone, or even escaped, yourself, knowing how headstrong you were.
"The dust hasn't settled yet, all of this is recent." Spencer observed, directing his light all around the dingy basement.
"What the hell was this guy up to?" Morgan wondered out loud.
Spencer had a vague idea.
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Pictures and evidence were collected and brought back to the BAU.
Spencer hung all of it up and Hotch called everyone into the roundtable room. Spencer, as usual, tried his best not to look for you sitting in your usual chair every time he turned around.
"So let me get this straight, this guy is some mad-scientist who has somehow managed to run a scientific lab under an abandoned house without anyone's knowledge, for months?" JJ asked.
"Correct," Spencer answered.
"These papers we found, they're all full of equations?" Morgan flipped through the photocopies.
"Actually, it's technically all one big equation. I've been able to single out a few sections that are well-known quantum equations. Our unsub is an advanced physicist, probably someone who has studied it his entire life. Judging by this equation, he was testing something. I'm talking Nobel prize-winning mechanic knowledge here," Spencer explained.
"I'll have Garcia check the university databases for anyone with the unsub's description who has studied or taught advanced quantum mechanics classes," Hotch stated.
"So he does science experiments in dingy houses. What I don't get is why would he want to kidnap Y/N?" Rossi asked.
"Maybe our initial profile still checks out. Maybe he has an unhealthy obsession and he acted out through stalking and kidnapping," Morgan remarked.
"What we need to find," Spencer pointed to the photo of the mark on the floor. "Is where this machine is located."
"Probably wherever Y/N and our unsub are," JJ suggested.
"Is this machine dangerous?" Hotch asked.
"We don't know yet." Spencer fiddled with his pencil.
"And we still have no sign of Y/N," JJ held up the last picture they had of you, it was all of you in the bullpen; a group photo.
"No. We don't," Spencer sighed.
Hotch dialed Garcia, she picked up right away. He recited the unsub's profile and asked her to check the university databases. She agreed, getting right to work on it.
Spencer stared at the floor, looking defeated.
"Don't worry, pretty boy, we'll find her." Morgan tried to give him hope.
"It's been 2 months, 8 hours, 3 minutes, and 25 seconds since I last saw her. I've worked on enough cases to know that, if we do find her, she won't be found alive," Spencer mumbled.
"Don't think that kid, she wouldn't want you shutting down like this." Rossi tried.
"We don't know that. We wouldn't know what she'd want because she's not here. She's not here and it's all my fault." Spencer gathered the case file papers, holding them to his chest. "I'll get started on solving the missing parts of the equation."
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Y/N (1 week after the BAU's new lead on your case)
"Thank you Jim, always nice seeing you." You smiled, though it never quite reached your eyes nowadays.
You marked Jim's order on a coffee cup and handed it over to your co-worker. You were on the cash register today, and that meant putting on a smiling face and pleasing customers.
You still didn't feel ready to be working again.
Somehow, in the weeks you had been gone, no one noticed your absence. It was as if you just never existed in those 4 weeks. When you came back, suddenly, it was as if you never left. Everyday you felt that aching in your chest. You knew eventually, Spencer would want you to move on, but you were sure that would take a millennia.
Your life had returned to its normal routine. You knew without a routine, you would fall into some form of depression and shut yourself in. Spencer wouldn't want that.
You wondered if he was going through something similar. It pained you to think of how he reacted to Maeve's death; did he blame himself? When he woke up from your perfect night together, did he call out for you to an empty apartment? Did he think about you as much as you still thought about him?
At least he had Morgan and the rest of his team to help him get through it. You had no one. Your co-workers were too young for you to get along with and you never had time to go out and meet new people when you were booking auditions.
Your Criminal Minds audition had long since passed. You still couldn't bring yourself to watch the show since that first day back. The memories with Spencer were still too fresh, too painful; even after 2 months. You wondered when it would get easier. You wondered when you would stop seeing him in every similar-looking man that walked into the coffee shop.
"Hello?" A hand waved in front of your face, bringing you back to reality, or at least partly.
You blinked. You were staring at someone who looked exactly like Spencer, although his hair was slightly longer.
"Spencer?" You breathed, wide eyed. It couldn't be, how did he find you?
"Umm yeah. Are you a fan of Criminal Minds?" He smiled.
Your jaw dropped.
Holy shit.
It couldn't be-
It wasn't-
"I-I am, yeah. I missed out on my audition nearly 3 months ago. It-It's nice to meet you Matthew." You held out your hand. He shook it politely. It was almost too much like your Spencer's.
"It's nice to meet you too. That's too bad! I'm sorry that happened. You have a very distinct look. I think it'd be awesome to have you on the show." He replied, politely.
"I haven't heard about any casting calls, unfortunately."
"I can take your number and give it to casting if you'd like. I honestly think you'd be perfect for this upcoming part."
"Yeah! That would be great actually, thank you." You answered without thinking.
"No problem."
You wrote your number down on a sticky note and handed it to him. He folded it and put it in his pocket.
"So, what kind of coffee would you like Mr. Gubler?" You smiled, this time a little more genuine because he had your Spencer's face.
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Spencer (2 weeks later)
Spencer found himself ignoring his friends, his BAU family. He shut himself off. His desk was filled with papers of scribbled down equations. Piles of physics books were stacked on his desk. He was constantly drinking coffee for his drooping eyes and headaches.
He was able to organize the papers they found at the scene; to determine which part of the equation went where. He just couldn't decipher the missing pieces, the burnt and stained pages.
Sometimes he would stay at work late into the night and his body would force him to sleep for 1 or 2 hours at a time.
Hotch would order him to take a break and work on another case soon. He couldn't let this precious work time go to waste. A thought repeated in his mind, that if he solved this equation he would be one step closer to finding out what happened to you. Even if it couldn't possibly bring you back, he had to know that you were safe.
Plenty of families never get that closure when a loved one goes missing. Sometimes they say they wish their loved one had passed on by now because that eases their pain of not knowing.
But it was Spencer's job to catch these unsubs and find these missing people. It was his job and still he couldn't do shit all to help you, like he should have.
Spencer stood up from the desk and harshly knocked over the pile of books he had just read. Luckily no one was in the bullpen to see his major depressive episode.
He was known as a genius he had the IQ and degrees to prove it. Yet he couldn't solve this equation. He was letting you down all over again.