The first thing I notice is the way she stands.

Not rigid. Not casual. Balanced. Weight distributed evenly like she’s accounting for variables no one else has calculated yet. Most people shift unconsciously when they’re thinking. She doesn’t. She goes still.

It’s statistically fascinating.

I try not to stare.

We’re on scene. Abandoned warehouse. Mid-level organized offender, controlled aggression, likely military-adjacent based on the precision of entry and exit points. I should be focused on trajectory angles and behavioral escalation patterns.

Instead, I’m cataloguing the way Dr. Cynthia Hale tilts her head when she’s processing.

It’s subtle. Five degrees at most.

Morgan leans in beside me. “You good, pretty boy?”

“Yes,” I answer immediately. Too immediately. “I’m analyzing.”

“Uh-huh.” He follows my line of sight. “You analyzing her posture again?”

“I was not—” I stop. I was.

This is deeply inconvenient.

She’s across the room studying blood spatter, sleeves pushed just high enough to reveal ink beneath the cuff. Not decorative. Structured. Intentional. Military, almost certainly. Her movements are economical. No wasted motion. When she crouches, it’s controlled. When she stands, it’s deliberate.

She reminds me of myself.

That is the problem.

Not in appearance. Obviously. But cognitively. She absorbs information rapidly, speaks only when necessary, and when she does, it’s concise and surgically accurate.

Earlier, she corrected my geographic timeline projection.

She was right.

I am rarely corrected in real time.

It was… exhilarating.

I try to focus on the unsub profile forming on the board in my mind. Organized. Likely prior training. Possibly former enlisted. Special Agent Hale had suggested hierarchy fixation within the crime scene layout. I had initially considered narcissistic patterning.

She reframed it in under thirty seconds.

I glance up again.

She’s speaking to Hotch now. Calm. Even. No rambling. No filler language. I use filler language when I’m nervous. She doesn’t appear nervous.

“She kind of scares you, doesn’t she?” Morgan says quietly.

“No.”

He waits.

I adjust my tie. “She does not scare me.”

Morgan grins. “You’re intimidated.”

“I am not intimidated.”

He raises a brow.

“…Statistically speaking, individuals are often unsettled when encountering cognitive parallels in unfamiliar forms.”

Morgan laughs under his breath. “Just ask her out.”

I nearly choke on air. “That would be inappropriate. We are on a case.”

“Not right now. Later.”

Later.

The concept causes an immediate spike in heart rate. Approximately twelve percent above baseline.

This is absurd.

I have interviewed serial killers without physiological fluctuation.

She turns slightly, scanning the perimeter. Her gaze passes over me, and for half a second, it lingers.

Direct eye contact.

Not shy. Calculated.

Assessing.

My brain, unhelpfully, supplies the fact that mutual prolonged eye contact increases oxytocin production and can create accelerated bonding responses.

This is not helpful.

“Reid.” Hotch’s voice cuts through my spiraling.

“Yes.”

“Timeline.”

Right.

Work.

I step forward, focusing on the facts. Time of death. Entry vectors. Behavioral consistency. My voice stabilizes as I explain the unsub’s likely next move.

When I finish, she nods once.

Approval.

It shouldn’t matter.

It does.

As the team disperses, Morgan claps a hand on my shoulder. “You’re overthinking it.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.” He lowers his voice. “She’s not judging you, man. She looks at you like you’re interesting.”

Interesting.

That word lands harder than it should.

Across the warehouse, she straightens, brushing dust from her hands. There’s a quiet confidence in the gesture. Not performative. Not aggressive.

Contained.

I realize, with mild horror, that I want to know how she thinks when she’s not profiling. What she reads before bed. Whether she annotates margins. If she memorizes poetry. If she prefers silence or background noise when she studies.

This is becoming counterproductive.