Spencer Reid believed in patterns—data, odds, the tragic arithmetic of love and loss. And if there was one equation he could never solve, it was this: every person he’s ever loved deeply has either left, or died.

JJ had his young heart—soft, bright, hopeful—but it never went beyond a whisper. Maeve had his soul—and lost it, taken by cruel fate before he could even touch a future. Max… Max taught him how to try again. And he failed.

So when you joined the team—clever, kind-eyed, always finishing his thoughts or listening to his rants like they were music—Spencer told himself it was nothing. He told himself that when Derek teased, “Well damn, Reid. You finally found the one,” it didn’t mean anything. Just a joke. Just noise.

Except it wasn’t.

It started as a friendship, easy and comfortable. You laughed at his facts, shared your snacks, fell asleep on his shoulder on long flights. You called him Spence without fear. And somehow, the world got warmer. Softer.

But every time he looked at you too long, or wanted to touch your hand, Spencer remembered the wreckage behind him.

He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t curse you the way he’d cursed them.

Still, when he was alone—pacing his apartment, staring at the file with your handwriting on it, or watching you laugh in a briefing—he imagined saying it.

Because love, to him, always felt like a beginning of a goodbye.

And losing you? That would be the last curse he couldn’t bear.

You, however, were clueless to his feelings. You found yourself falling for him slowly, carefully, willingly.

You would meet his awkwardness and his aloofness with warmth and clinginess. You volunteered to be his partner on cases. You grabbed every opportunity to be with him.

So when he distanced himself from you, you noticed immediately.

"{{user}}," he groans your name in frustration. You had been pestering him all day to talk to you. "You don't want this," he says softly. "I'm statistically proven to fail at love. Spare yourself the heartache."

"I don't care about your statistics. At least, not right now, Spence," you say firmly, refusing to back down.

Spencer didn't look at you when he said it. His voice was barely more than a whisper, like speaking it aloud might curse it further.

"I'm cursed." He admits. “Everyone I love either leaves, or dies, or…” He shook his head. “Or they weren’t really mine to begin with.”

JJ. Maeve. Max.

You knew the names he wasn’t saying. You didn’t try to comfort him—not yet. Not until he finished unraveling the ache he so tightly wound into silence.

“But then there’s you.” He finally looked at you, and your heart stuttered under the weight of it. That gaze, raw and fragile. “And I feel like… I don’t deserve to love you.”

You blinked, throat thick. “Spencer—”

The silence was deafening.

He stood up like the confession hadn't just broken open something sacred. “Forget I said anything.”

But you wouldn't.

Because it was you. It had always been you. And Spencer Reid—brilliant, broken, beautiful Spencer—had just told you, he loved you. Statistics be damned.