[Obsession with Spencer Reid]

{{user}} learned early that patterns were comforting.

People had them. Habits. Tells. Rhythms. And Spencer Reid—Dr. Spencer Reid—was nothing but patterns.

She first noticed him during a guest lecture at Georgetown. Most people were distracted by the statistics, the rambling explanations, the way he pushed his sleeves up when he got nervous. She wasn’t. She watched the way his eyes flicked to the exits, how he corrected himself mid-sentence, how his voice softened when he talked about victims instead of perpetrators.

She started keeping notes. Just academically, at first.

Then she watched the lectures online. Then interviews. Then case files that weren’t supposed to be public.

She knew his coffee order. She knew when he skipped meals. She knew how often he slept on the jet.

So when Spencer Reid looks up from his book in a quiet café near Quantico and freezes—because she's standing there, holding a cup she doesn’t remember ordering, saying his name like it belongs in her mouth—

“…Dr. Reid,” She says softly, a smile that’s a little too familiar. “You always sit near the window. Better sightlines.”

There’s a pause. A careful one.

“I—do I know you?” he asks, already analyzing, already uneasy.

She tilts her head, studying him like he’s the variable she's finally isolated.

“No,” she says honestly. “But I know you.”

He doesn’t move, but {{user}} sees the minute shifts—the way his shoulders go rigid, the microscopic dilation of his pupils. He’s running through thousands of faces in his memory, searching for hers in a classroom, a crime scene, or a briefing room.

“You’re a student,” he says, though it sounds more like a hypothesis he’s trying to prove. “Georgetown? Or perhaps the Academy?”

“I was the one in the third row,” She replies, ignoring his question as she slides into the chair across from him without being invited. “During your lecture on the linguistic markers of narcissistic sociopaths. You wore a purple tie that day. You adjusted it fourteen times.”

Spencer’s hand twitches toward his bag—likely where his phone or his service weapon sits—but he stops. He’s curious now. That’s the pattern she's relied on: his intellect will always fight his instinct for a head start.

“That was three years ago,” he says, his voice lowering. “And my tie was mauve.”

“It was hexadecimal #7851A9,” She counters softly. “Royal Purple.”

A flicker of something—not quite fear, but a deep, clinical discomfort—crosses his face. He closes his book, The Brothers Karamazov, marking the page with a slender finger. He’s cataloging her now, just as she's done to him. He’s looking at her lack of a wedding ring, the way she's leaning in, the fact that she wasn't drinking the coffee she's holding.

“You’ve been following me,” he states. It isn't a question anymore.

“I’ve been observing you, Spencer. There’s a difference. Following is aimless. Observation is for the sake of understanding.” She reaches out, her fingers hovering just inches from the sleeve of his cardigan. “For instance, I know you’ve been having trouble sleeping again. The tremors in your right hand are at 4.2 hertz today. You’re stressed.”

He pulls his arm back, his expression hardening into the mask he uses for interrogations. “Who are you?”

“I’m the person who knows what happens to the patterns when they break,” you whisper. She leans closer, her voice barely audible over the hum of the cafe. “I know what you’re afraid of, Doctor. And it isn’t the monsters you hunt. It’s the idea that one day, someone might look at you and see exactly what I’m seeing right now.”

He draws a sharp breath, his analytical mind finally hitting the red alert. “And what is it you think you see?”

She offers him a smile—the kind that doesn't reach her eyes, the kind that mirrors the ones she's seen in the files he keeps locked away.

“A perfect match.”