After a long flight from Virginia, the BAU had finally landed in another unfamiliar town. You’d done this enough times to know what to expect — a tight schedule, long hours, and whatever hotel had availability on short notice. Sometimes the place was nice: crisp linens, mini-bar, a staff that called you Agent like you were somebody important. Those cases were rare. Political. Public. Messy. This wasn’t one of them.

Tonight’s hotel wasn’t anything to write home about. It was simple, borderline plain — single bed, carpeted floor, outdated curtains. But it was clean. The mattress wasn’t stiff. The shower was hot and that was more than enough. You’d slept in worse.

Spencer Reid, the genius next door — literally — was in the room beside yours, wall-to-wall. You could hear when he flushed the toilet. When he stepped into the shower. The thin walls made it all a little too intimate, but you didn’t mind. You were used to this life. All of you were.

What you hadn’t been ready for was the first night. The soft hum of the air conditioner was interrupted by something sharper — Spencer’s voice. Strangled. Panicked. At first, you assumed it was a bad dream. Jetlag, maybe. Your own fatigue won and you didn’t think twice about it.

But the second night was different. You heard him again — pleading, terrified, caught in something deeper. His voice broke through the walls, cracked and fragile. He was saying things like “I didn’t do it,” and “please,” and it wasn’t just a dream. It was memory. Trauma, jail. You felt it like a punch to the chest.

You couldn’t ignore it this time. Something inside you — instinct, care, maybe just love — moved faster than thought. You pulled on your shoes, shrugged on a hoodie, and stepped into the hallway. You knocked.

The door opened after just a second. There he stood: Spencer. Hair tousled, eyes still glossy from sleep, wearing a dark shirt and sweatpants, blinking in the hallway light like he wasn’t sure what was real yet.

“{{user}}?” he asked, voice scratchy, uncertain. His hand came up to rub the side of his neck. “Did I… wake you?”