Now originally this started out as a prompt for a one-shot and then it took on a life of its own. I don't know if the end result is what you were looking for, sugar bee, but I hope you like what you get! This should end up being about three chapters total, I think.

This is a major AU, guys. Spencer is young, his backstory is tweaked just a tiny bit, and he never went to the BAU. The BAU team is going to make a major appearance in here. There are no X-men that appear in this story, either, sorry. For the major part of the story Spencer's only fourteen years old and he is definitely a mutant.

All it took was one day to change eleven year old Spencer Reid's life. Well, just a few short hours, really. Just a few hours and everything that he knew, everything that made up his life, changed. It didn't seem right to him that something so monumental could happen in such a short time, and with so little effect on the rest of the world. As melodramatic as he knew it was, it didn't seem fair that the world around him kept moving or that people went happily about their lives while his world was ripped apart. Couldn't they see? Didn't they know?

There should have been some kind of warning. Something to tell him just what waited for him. But when Spencer woke up that morning, the sun was bright and the day was warming. He started his day out just as he had any other day. Being on winter break from school, he had fallen into a routine in his days. Each morning he woke, made his way to the bathroom and took the time to wake up with a shower. Once he'd showered, dressed, and brushed his teeth, he would head to the kitchen and start preparations for breakfast. By eight fifteen, never any later, he had a tray ready for her. He'd put his sunglasses on, because there was no telling what kind of mindset she'd be in and sometimes seeing the all black eyes that the young boy possessed scared her, and then he would carry the tray up to his mother's room to begin the process of trying to not only get her to eat, but to take her medication as well. That usually took an hour all on its own. From there, she would go back to sleep for a few hours and he'd take care of any household chores, any laundry that had built, and then back to his mother for lunch, after which he'd try to draw her out for a walk, or maybe to come and sit in the living room a while. But that fateful afternoon, none of it went right.

Instead of the usual walk they tried to take, Spencer's plans were interrupted by a knock on the door. He had no idea what opening that door would do to his life. When the preteen answered it, he was both surprised and instantly worried to find a woman and three officers on the other side. "Oh! Hello." Nerves had him biting the inside of his lip. With one hand he brushed his hair back from his face and checked to make sure that his sunglasses were still firmly in place, hiding the pure black orbs that gave away his mutant genetics, and he reminded himself to keep calm. The woman had the look of CPS to her and he'd dealt with plenty of CPS in his time. He knew how to handle them.

The woman took the lead, the officers standing quietly behind her. "Hello there. You must be Spencer. My name's Janice and I'm with DCFS. Do you think we could come in for a minute?"

Spencer gave a quick, grateful prayer that today was one of his mom's good days. Diana didn't seem to be having any hallucinations or bouts of paranoia today, thankfully. She'd actually been eager to go for their walk and had been talking about maybe making a trip to the library. Bracing a hand on the door, Spencer pulled it wide and stepped back. "Um, sure, come on in."

"Thank you." Janice led the way in, the officers following her. The group went straight to the living room and Spencer found himself once more pinned by their eyes. He noticed that Janice took a look around before settling on him, though. Let her look he thought to himself. I already did my cleaning. There's nothing out of place here. The look she gave him made him nervous, though. Those nerves got worse when she spoke in a syrupy sweet voice and asked him "Is your mother around?"

"Yes, ma'am." Spencer answered promptly. "She's upstairs getting ready to head out. We were going to take a walk and maybe go to the library this afternoon."

Before anyone else could say anything, Diana Reid strolled into the room, looking tired and wary, yet her eyes were clear in a way that had Spencer sighing in relief. At the same time, he wished vehemently that the officers and Janice would leave so that he could take advantage of this time with his mother. Not only was she clear minded, she was awake and up and he wanted to take every advantage of it. He didn't need the officers to trigger a paranoid episode in her. If that happened, she could spend the rest of the day locked in her room or the bathroom again, and it would take him forever to coax her out.

Diana moved to stand beside Spencer, one hand going to rest on his shoulder while her eyes stayed on the four adults in her living room. "Can I help you? Spencer and I were just preparing to leave."

What came next was, for Spencer, what felt like the beginning of the end. "Actually, Mrs. Reid, I'm terribly sorry to have to tell you this, but we're here because of allegations that have been made. Because of the amount and severity of these allegations, we're going to have to take Spencer with us, pending our investigation."

Everything went a little blank after those first words. Spencer knew people were still talking, but he couldn't understand them. All he could hear was this strange buzzing in his ears. One thought was clear in his head—they were going to take him away. After all these years, after countless times they'd fended off reports and visitors and anything that could separate them, the day had finally come. A small part of him knew, had always known, that this day would come. But the bigger part of him was gripped with absolute terror. They were going to take him away. They were going to take him away from his Mom.

Reality returned to Spencer with a snap when he heard his mother screaming. She was shouting at them all, demanding they leave her house, and screaming out insults that had him cringing. It only took a look to see the look on her face and to understand that she wasn't in her rational mind right now. He had time for a brief mental curse before he threw himself at her, trying to get between her and everyone else. He'd barely connected with her when hands were grabbing at him and yanking him backwards. One of the officers had Spencer's arm and was pulling him back and away from Diana. The man ignored Spencer's shouts and struggles and pulled him back, towards the door, while the other two officers were restraining Diana, who started to scream even louder. And Spencer realized then that the officers hadn't been here for his mother; they'd been here to restrain him, to hold back the young boy with the black eyes, the mutant whose powers hadn't manifested yet and who might trigger underneath the stress of this.

It ripped at Spencer's insides to see his mother screaming and sobbing, pinned against the wall. He began to struggle against the man holding him like his very life depended on it. "Mom!" he shouted over the noise. "Let her go! Please, let her go! You're going to hurt her! Let her go!" But an eleven year old, scrawny boy stood no chance against the strength of an adult male police officer. In no time, Spencer found himself inside the back of a cop car, the only place the cop could think of to put him that he wouldn't be able to escape and race back towards his mother. It was there that Spencer sat, screaming and banging against the window, as paramedics showed up, and he was still screaming when the social worker came out with a bag of his things which she took with her to her car. Then, without even the chance to hug his mother goodbye one last time, the officer came back and Spencer was taken away.

Spencer was taken to a home that was explained to him as an 'emergency placement'. Essentially, it was a place he wouldn't be at long. This was a home that was open for people who had to be removed quickly and needed somewhere to stay until more accommodations were found. Despite his eidetic memory, which didn't typically allow him to forget anything, Spencer had no true memory of the next week. It all seemed to run in a blur for him. He knew there were doctor appointments that he attended, and interviews where he was questioned about his home life. He didn't really remember if he answered them or not. All he knew was the thick cloud of grief that wrapped around him.

One thing that he did know, the only thing that truly came through clearly for him, was that he wasn't going home. They told him that his mother was hospitalized and undergoing evaluation. He remembered Janice talking to him, telling him they would speak to his father about going home with him. Then he remembered her next visit and she was telling him that they had a group home he could go to and he had snorted to himself, because he'd known his father would never take him. The man had left because he'd been unable to handle a sick wife and a mutant son. Why would he take that son now?

So it was that Spencer went from emergency placement into a group home. "Just until our evaluations are complete." He was told.

He knew better.

There would be no going back home for him. Not once they were done evaluating his mom. He knew her condition better than even her doctor had. With her doctor, Diana lied, covering the episodes she had and how bad they could be. Spencer had been there day in and day out. Since his father left when he was ten, walking away from his family with only a note and no backwards glance, Spencer had dealt with his mother's condition all on his own. A little over a year, and he'd been her primary caregiver. That part of him knew that she was far sicker than she'd ever admitted, and that part knew that they would put her into a home. She wasn't capable of living on her own. Sometimes, when he lay in his bed in the middle of the night in this strange home, Spencer could even admit to himself that it was better for her. In a care facility, she would be taken care of properly. She'd get what she truly needed from people who knew what they were doing. But mostly, he ached to go home. He ached to go back to a place where he was loved and accepted for who he was.

Despite horror stories he'd heard, the group home that Spencer was in wasn't that bad. There were only two other kids and they were both younger than him, so he had no worries about older bullies, and they avoided him anyways because of his eyes. He was used to that. The house parents were nice enough. They tried to draw the young genius out of the shell he'd pulled around himself. Spencer simply refused to open up to them. Ever since he'd been taken from his home, he'd pulled inside of himself, cutting off his emotions. There was no way he was going to let them be out in the open the way he had that afternoon. He wouldn't let them all see just how badly he was hurting. He'd show them just how okay he was, how capable, and maybe, just maybe, things would work out. He told himself that all the time, even though he knew it was a lie.

That lie got him through the first month away from his mother. It got him through learning a new routine of helping around this new house. It got him through the long nights where he wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and sob out his heartache. It got him through the meetings with Janice, who he was really growing to despise. That lie carried him straight through until, two months to the day after he'd first been taken, he was one again being moved. Only this time, he was going to a foster home.

"You'll be staying with the Walters." Janice had informed him. "They're nice people. They don't have any other kids at the moment, so you'll be the only one there, and they're very understanding about your condition. They're very happy to take you and I think you're going to like it there very much."

Spencer didn't argue with her. He didn't voice the thoughts he had about how he didn't care how 'understanding' they were and how he didn't have a condition. He didn't tell her that it didn't matter how nice these people were or how happy they were to have him—they weren't his Mom.

But he knew his part in this. When they pulled up outside of an average looking home in the suburbs of North Las Vegas, Spencer kept his opinion of the cookie cutter two story houses to himself. He just grabbed the single duffle bag he had out of the backseat and he followed Janice up to the front door of his new home.

*Two Years Later*

Time didn't pass easily for the young genius. In the two years since that day, Spencer's life had changed so drastically. The kid he'd been when he first showed up on that doorstep, quiet and grieving, had quickly been buried underneath the new him. The one that did anything necessary to survive. Because staying in that home became all about survival. For a while, he had an escape, though it wasn't much of one. He'd had his schooling. But he graduated and then he'd had nothing to keep him away from that home. At twelve years old, there was no way he'd be let out on his own, he wasn't old enough to get a job, and he'd just completed his high school education. There was nothing to save him from his home life. He was trapped here in a world that had become hell. A world that was all about pain.

Pain, bruises and blood, had all become far too commonplace since he'd come to the Walters household. It had taken a half a day here before he'd been slapped for the first time, and only twenty four hours before his first 'whipping'. It had taken a month before the other stuff had started. A month before he'd been taken to that ratty little mattress in the basement and he'd learned just what kind of horrors a grown man could inflict on a child.

He had tried to fight it. Oh, God, had he fought. With every bit of strength in his small body, he'd fought the man as his clothes were tugged at and as he was pushed down onto the bed. He'd read enough books, even ones that his mother hadn't seen him reading that were in the adult section of the library, that he knew just what was going on. He'd threatened Gil loudly, swearing that he'd tell. He'd tell his teachers, the cops, anyone and everyone who would listen. Gil hadn't even been bothered by his threats. No, he'd simply sat back on his heels and told Spencer quite simply that no one was going to believe a whining mutant kid. The stark truth of that had been undeniable. Spencer had lived with that truth his whole life. Why should it be any different then?

A month later was when he ran away for the first time. He'd managed to stay out for two whole weeks before they caught him and brought him back. He'd simply run away again. When he was brought back that time, Gil had locked him down in the basement for days, and Spencer had been so sure there was no way in hell he was ever going to get out again. He was sure his life was going to become nothing more than the pain that visited him here. But he played a good boy and bided his time and, eventually, they let him upstairs once more. He didn't waste the first chance that came along—he saw an opening and he ran. That time he stayed hidden for six months before they took him back. Six months of living on the street. So much had changed during that time, but none more important changes than one:

His powers kicked in.

The awakening of his powers had been a terrifying thing for him to experience at first. Especially since he hadn't had any idea what they were. He hadn't had a neat little title to put to it. All he'd known was that suddenly it seemed as if he was being bombarded by a thousand voices all around him. It was bad enough that he had to shut himself away in his little bolt hole that he'd found, as far away from people as possible, and yet still they didn't stop. Then he'd started seeing things. Or, not thing, not really. People. People that he knew weren't there. People that he could only describe as ghosts, though his logical mind rebelled at that. They'd tried to talk to him, to come to him, but like a child he'd close his eyes and cover his ears and block them out, wishing with everything in him that they were gone, and somehow, when he opened his eyes again, they'd be gone.

For a while, Spencer had been terrified that he was going crazy, that he was seeing and hearing things just like his mother. Only the hope that it was his powers manifesting kept him going. He became determined to find out just what they were. He was determined to find answers.

They hadn't come for days, not until he finally snuck into a library and managed to do a little research. It was there that he first came across the word that would later define what he could do—Necromancer.

Time and practice proved the title to be a good one. Spencer discovered that he didn't just see or hear spirits, he could speak with them and them with him. He could make them stronger, give them the ability to be seen by others, and he could grant them peace to go to their rest, though he didn't presume to know what that 'rest' was. He also found that he could see the spirits inside of people. Their souls. That was one area that he never looked further into. He didn't want to know why he felt the energy of those souls or why he was so sure, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he could actually reach out and touch them if he wanted.

It was actually because of those spirits that he learned all this about himself and just what he was capable of. They sensed the power in him and they taught him who he was and what he could do. In that six month gap that he spent on the streets, Spencer came into who he was, and the power of it showed when he was finally caught and brought back to the Walters. Even they could see it. They saw it and they feared him. And in that fear, they became only more cruel, though they no longer tried to stop Spencer running. No matter how many times he was caught and brought back, they never tried to stop him anymore. It was as if they were trying to drive him from their home. Spencer was only too happy to comply. He'd rather live on the streets then spend a single night in that house.