Disclaimer: Not mine.

Notes: I know, I know! I'm the actual worst for not updating this XD I'm so sorry! Muse has been severely lacking with the odd twists and turns the show started taking, and then real life, and whatnot… but I'm thinking of trying to get back here, so hopefully my muse will let me see this baby through to the end!

Hope you guys enjoy the update!

~::~::~::~

"Sometimes, I don't know what haunts me more. The memories of you… or the happy person I used to be." – Ranata Suzuki

~::~::~::~

Reid POV

"Yo SPENCE!" Knock knock knock. "WAKE UP!"

Spencer groaned into his pillow, throwing his hands over his ears habitually. "Go AWAY, Ray!"

It took him a whole minute to remember everything – a first for the eidetic genius – and when he did, he abruptly sat up in bed, mortified. Laughter could be heard outside the door, which should have annoyed him, but instead made him smile slightly, despite how crappy he felt.

Reid had manfully swallowed his tears after phoning JJ, but the pain and regret stayed with him well into the night. He had finally dozed off around 4am, sleeping fitfully until the banging on his door started, waking him up. A glance at his phone told him that it was 6:02am; his mouth twisted into a pout and he forced his eyes open, wincing at the harsh burning sensation, and dragged himself out of bed.

Throwing the door open, he squinted at Ray in a weak imitation of a glare. "Did you have to, Santos? Really have to? I've had two hours of sleep," he added testily, "so answer carefully."

"Uh…" Ray grinned impishly, "I'm very sorry."

"Sure you are," Reid snorted derisively, standing aside to let the other agent in. They had dated long enough that Spencer wasn't even remotely chagrined at being seen in his low-riding sleeping sweats and a Caltech tee that was beginning to get a little form-fitting.

Ray had seen him in decidedly less clothing before, in any event.

His ex-boyfriend threw him a grin over his shoulder, but there was some genuine pity in his eyes. "No, really, Spence. I'm sorry. How'd you end up getting so little sleep?"

"Was distracted," Reid mumbled, another wave of hurt creeping over him as he thought about the team and the last goodbye he had given them. "Are we leaving to the new HQ now?"

If Ray saw the question for what it was – namely, a distraction – then he graciously kept it to himself. "We leave in 20, Rookie," he answered, staring pointedly at Reid's sleeping attire, "and while I'm enjoying the view right now, I somehow don't think you wanna go out like that."

"You're hilarious," Reid deadpanned, rubbing his eyes and padding towards the bathroom. "Truly. Just hysterical. I can hardly contain my laughter."

Ray sniggered and in that moment, it was easy to forget the year that had separated them. It was easy to forget the pain of the past, and the rift between them, because it was just like none of it had happened. Laughing, in that instance, bantering back and forth the way they used to…it was easy to slip back into, like a favorite pair of jeans.

Or a bad habit.

He swallowed against the thought and discarded it before Santos could read it on his face, before he grabbed his clothes and shut himself in the bathroom. Splashing water onto his face, the young genius abruptly decided to put his demons in an airtight lockdown in his head, until they closed the Cordona case for good. Like it or not, him and Ray were both involved, and they would both end this mess together, the same way they had started it. Reid needed to be on top of his game, and that meant putting everything aside, and becoming partners again. Although, he couldn't help but remember that things had never stayed professional between them…

Pull yourself together, Spencer! He snapped internally, gritting his teeth. Come on, don't you go falling back into him.

###

Ray POV

Damn if I haven't fallen right back into Spencer Reid.

The thought made Special Agent Ray Santos smile almost goofily to himself. He knew that there was a lot of bad blood to get rid of – a lot more water, still, to put under the proverbial bridge – but just looking at Spence was enough for him to remember what he was fighting for.

And all of a sudden, it didn't really seem like an impossible task.

Because, quite frankly, there was almost nothing he wouldn't do for the lean, nerdy genius. Since day one, Reid had always surprised him, and it was one of the long list of things he loved about the man. It had been a very long time since anyone had made him feel like Spencer made him feel, and Ray wasn't stupid or arrogant enough to think that he would meet anyone else like Reid anytime in this lifetime.

It was why he was ready to jump through a few hoops. The genius was more than worth it.

Gluing his eyes to the bathroom door, Ray mentally congratulated himself for not drooling or making a stupid comment about the sinful sleepwear.

"Hey, Rookie, can I ask you somethin'?" he shouted out through the closed door, taking unabashed advantage of the barrier between them, and Spencer being unarmed.

"I'm hardly a betting man," Spencer answered back dryly, "but I would wager you're going to ask me anyway."

Ray grinned, even though his Rookie couldn't see it. "Ten points to the Vegas Kid."

He considered it a victory when a muted chuckle was heard through the door, but it was damn near monumental when Spencer added, "You don't have to check back, Ray. We're working the same case, and that means we're partners. Again, I guess. I'm sure we can both be civil, and that includes asking questions without having to ask if you can ask questions."

"Well, um…" Ray stumbled for a moment, caught unawares. What had happened last night to make Spencer have such a change of heart?

In the spirit of not dead-eyeing gift horses, the older man quickly recovered his voice. "This life that you're so eager to get back to…"

He honestly wasn't sure how to take all the thousands of questions he had about Reid's new life, and condense it into one perfectly formulated inquiry.

Like he always could, though, Spencer caught on easily to what he was trying to ask.

It took a moment for the genius to respond, but when he did, his voice was tired and hurt. "Can we not talk about it?" There was another brief, loaded pause, before Spencer added, "I don't really feel like discussing the job I left behind."

The job he had left behind. Not the friends, not the team, not the man he had left behind. Just the job.

On the one hand, Ray wanted to be furious. Enraged at this FBI unit he knew Spence had entered into, for obviously not welcoming him enough to make him feel like family, the way their team did. For not giving the kid the family he needed, the foundation, the safety net. Everything Reid had had to give up when he left them, when they let him leave.

On the other hand? The older agent was so profusely grateful. If Reid had those things with his new team, then it would have been so much harder to convince him to stay once this mess was cleared up, but if there was a chance that the team didn't mean much to Spence… then their hopes of getting the kid to stick around were exponentially increased.

And if there was anything their team wanted, it was their favourite genius back.

Remembering that he still had an obligation to respond, Ray returned his attention to the conversation at hand. "Sure thing, Rookie," he answered easily, soft understanding in his tone. "Let's talk breakfast instead. You still like waffles?"

###

Morgan POV

It felt like someone had punched him in the gut.

No. No, it felt so much worse than that.

JJ hadn't been among them as Reid's goodbye voice message played out a second time in the PR girl's office; she hadn't been able to handle it without breaking down the first time, and for every gory, heart-wrenching job they'd done, this was the first time Morgan had seen the tough blonde crying too hard to regain composure.

Instead, Jennifer had left her own office, presumably seeking sanctuary in the women's bathrooms, as soon as the message began to play. Now, as Reid cut himself off from a subtle sob and the mechanical voice informed them that the message was complete, Garcia was the one to gasp out a small sob and flee the office that was made all the more tiny by the presence of so many agents.

Elle, without a visible tear but with her hard mask in full force, was next to exit, clenching her jaw and avoiding eye contact with everyone. That left him with Hotch and Gideon, both of whom were quiet, gazes trained on the floor instead of each other.

And Morgan… he just felt ill. And also a little like all the colour had been leeched from the HD world as he knew it.

I've got some things that I've gotta take care of.

What things? What was so important that it drove Pretty Boy out of his job, out of his home, hell, out of his family, to go take care of? Morgan knew it had something to do with that mysterious phone call, and he hated himself all of a sudden for not listening to his instincts and asking Reid what was up the moment the genius paled.

I'm not even sure that I will come back.

And what the hell was that supposed to mean?! Where was Reid planning on going? Why was he even thinking about not returning? Surely he knew that Hotch would do everything in his power to keep Reid's job, and they were a family, they would ha-…

Was that it? Was Reid not sure that they were family, is that why he didn't explain what was going on, and didn't want to come back?

Please tell the team I said thanks for everything. Especially Morgan, for…well, everything.

That more or less killed the older agent. The way Spence had said his name… like it pained him to even do so. The way his Pretty Boy thought that Morgan expected any sort of gratitude for taking care of what was his to take care of. The way Reid had settled for not saying much at all when it came his turn, because apparently not naming things to be grateful for, said a lot more about the stead in which the younger agent held him, than saying anything at all.

The way he had been singled out. In a show of adoration, of respect, and not condemnation for letting all of this happen. Not for failing to be there when it mattered to Reid the most.

As the silence stretched out between his two older bosses, Derek found that he, too, could no longer stand the heavy tension that had settled over them.

Could no longer stand the oppressive silence, especially while knowing that Reid would have managed to break it with an obscure fact and that flippant, cheerful tone.

Turning on his heel, the muscular agent strode out, anger filling at himself and, irrationally, at his bosses for not having anything to say about their next move. His feet chartered a course that his mind wasn't fully aware of and before he really registered it, he was standing on the roof of the FBI building.

He and Reid had come here plenty a night to get away from their paperwork. Well, that wasn't really true… Morgan had been getting away from his paperwork, and Pretty Boy had usually been taking a breather after finishing his.

Still. It was theirs, a place of quiet moments under blankets of darkness where they would only sometimes speak more freely than either of them ever had, and other times where they would simply relish in existing, together, in the same place and breathing the same air.

It felt so empty and big without his Pretty Boy there.

Morgan shuddered a sigh, his throat tight with repressed emotion as Reid's voice echoed in his thoughts. The older agent cursed his short-term memory, but even as a part of him wished that he had never heard that heart-wrenching goodbye, there was another part of him – a much smaller, much quieter and much darker part – that couldn't fail to acknowledge that, if the worst came to it, and they couldn't find Reid before he got into more trouble, or worse, then…

…then at least he'd heard his Pretty Boy's voice one more time.

Morgan wanted to curse at himself for even allowing such thoughts to cross his mind. Their team had faced odds far more insurmountable than this before; why on earth was failure even a thought, when it had never been before?

Because this time, you don't have Pretty Boy with you.

There were times when Morgan hated the little voice of reason in his head.

He knew though, irrefutably, that the voice was right. Sure, they'd done their jobs before Reid and plenty others did it without him, but the kid had brought something special on to the team with his arrival. He brought a brand new element of understanding, of empathy, to their line of work, in a way that showed them all a whole other dimension to the UNSUBs that they profiled and hunted down. Reid had somehow made them all a little better with his presence, but this time… this time they were practically profiling the genius himself.

And how on earth could they even begin to understand someone so complex?

A kid with such a huge heart that he could empathize with a killer. A kid with such a sharp mind that he could understand the abstract. A kid with such a purity of soul that he could understand the monsters that lived inside ordinary men.

There was no profiling Spencer Reid.

But you know him, the little voice persisted, this time sounding gentle. Sounding almost like Pretty Boy himself. You don't need to profile someone that you know. You just need to ask yourself, and then be brave enough to face the answers.

"So where did you go, then, Pretty Boy?" he asked aloud, voice sounding frustrated and lost even to his own ears. "Where did you go and why didn't you let me come with you? Why didn't you let me have your back?"

"Guess that's the question we're all asking, huh?"

Morgan tossed Elle a weary glance, unsurprised that his partner had followed him up here but slightly annoyed to have had his thought process interrupted.

Maybe she sensed that, because she added semi-apologetically, "I saw you hit the stairwell and I didn't think you needed to be left alone with your thoughts."

Well, she wasn't wrong. He'd been talking to himself, after all.

"What I need," he replied archly, "is to find Reid and ask him what the hell he was thinking putting us through this."

It shouldn't have surprised him, but it did, when Elle visibly bristled. "This isn't about us, Morgan," she shot back testily. "Reid wouldn't just bail and leave a message like that to hit us where it hurts. He only would have done it if he was genuinely afraid that he wasn't going to come back."

Morgan raised his palms in a universal gesture of backing off, but before he could say anything to affirm that, he was hit with the truth behind Elle's words.

This wasn't about them.

They'd been approaching this entire thing along the lines of why their boy genius had left them, and why he hadn't told them that he was in trouble, and why they hadn't known who the people in the picture with Reid was.

But it wasn't about them.

"Why would Reid leave at all?" he asked, mostly himself since Elle seemed a little nonplussed at his digression. "You're right, it's not about us, so let's think Reid. What could possibly be so bad that Reid would feel the need to leave with subterfuge and not leave a trace behind?"

Catching on quickly, Elle's face turned contemplative. "It's not pride," she ruled out easily. "Reid wouldn't jeopardize whatever it is for the sake of his ego, I'm not even completely sure that he has one."

"Right," Morgan nodded, getting into the familiar vibe with his partner. "It's not vanity either. Reid is about as far from narcissistic as a person can get, and he's never done the job for the recognition or the glory. He does it to make a difference, he does it because he wants to do the right thing."

Elle nodded in wordless agreement. "So where does that leave us?"

"He's protecting someone." Morgan chewed on his own words for a moment before realizing that it fit. Fit even better than any of the other theories they'd been floating around. "He's protecting us, or someone he cares about. Maybe both."

"Reid isn't the one in trouble," the brunette finished slowly, realization dawning the same way it had on Morgan. "He's trying to fix things for someone else."

Tapping his nose in a silent affirmation, Derek started back for the stairwell. They needed to take this to Hotch and Gideon and JJ.

###

Reid POV

The silence between him and Ray was a comfortable one, against all odds, as they made the drive to the new HQ. Reid was pretty sure that the reason for it was in part his newfound resolve to work as civilly and amicably with his ex-boyfriend as possible, but also in part Ray's own ability to slide into the easy space. The other agent had always been remarkably good at that; at sweeping the problem effortlessly under the carpet until all that remained was the good times and a repressed issue that would never get solved.

But it didn't matter because Reid wasn't going down that road with him again. Really.

"You should get some sleep, Rookie," Ray interrupted his thoughts, voice gentle in a way that instantly catapulted Reid a few years into the past, back to the time when he'd allowed himself to be wrapped up in that low drawl like a comforting blanket. Ray'd always had a way of soothing him even when he was the most frazzled, and for all the annoying traits the man possessed, his knack at that was not one of them. In fact, for Spencer, it was one of the favoured ones, mostly because he could rarely quieten his own mind. But with Ray? Blissful peace.

Shaking his head a little as though it would help dispel the thoughts and the good memories, Reid licked his bottom lip reflexively. "No, thanks, I'm good," he tried to reassure, not wanting to point out that he wanted to know exactly where they were going. He wasn't keen on being in the dark any longer than he already had been. "So, how's everyone been?" Though he didn't specify 'since I left', Reid thought the words hung in the air already for the almost imperceptible flinch that Ray gave.

"Alright, mostly," he answered after a moment, and to his credit, Reid didn't detect any dishonesty in his tone. "Donny's still a big grouch," he grinned briefly, and the genius was helpless not to return it. Ray just had that kind of charming smile. "Charlie's still a mama bear who'll kick our asses if she heard us call her that, and Mysty is still a complete smartass." Ray hesitated and owing to an instinct that came from any amount of time spent in a committed relationship with someone, Reid knew not to push it. If he waited the other man out, he usually said what was on his mind, and sure enough, Santos softly added in the next moment, "We haven't filled our team since you left."

Unable to help himself, Reid raised his eyebrow and blurted out, "You mean you've all been working out one agent?" Ray nodded once and Spencer could only blink in surprise. He would've thought that they'd have replaced him at their earliest convenience with someone a lot more experienced for the job… with someone that they would trust in the field again. Why keep his place open?

"You really think we could have replaced you, Rook?" Ray asked softly, as though he'd heard Reid's thoughts. "We didn't even entertain the thought," he continued without waiting for a response. Because he didn't need one, or because he didn't want one, the younger agent wasn't sure. "Donny made it very clear that your spot wasn't anyone else's to just slip into."

The information bowled him over, not only because the team had apparently kept his old job open, but because Don had been the one to do it. Of the entire team, it had been Haynes who'd been the hardest won over, and there had been times when Reid hadn't even been sure he'd managed it, but apparently… Apparently he had.

It still didn't explain why they displayed any loyalty to a person they'd all but thrown out and turned their back on.

The reminder, of them and that last day he'd seen them, washed over him like ice water. Reid couldn't just forget all that because of one or two flowery compliments.

Clearing his throat slightly, he changed tack to safer grounds. "I read about that trafficking stint in Illinois. That was you guys, right?"

"Thought that you might recognize it if you saw it," he chuckled, as much of an affirmation as he was going to give. "We used your play, after all."

Reid gave into the urge to grin again, indulging that small part of him that still beamed at the acknowledgement. That small part of him that thrived on the knowledge that he could be a part of something that intricate and still make a difference to the world. Make it a better place to be in.

It was a heady feeling, he knew. Addictive, even.

Clearing his throat slightly, Reid tried for an even tone. "Glad to know it still works," was all he offered.

"Do you remember," Ray laughed, eyes twinkling as he glanced periodically back at Reid, "that job we did in North Carolina? With the, uh… with the…"

"Jefferson's," Reid supplied around a laugh of his own, shaking his head and covering his eyes with one hand as Ray laughed loudly, likely remembering the chain of events that had all subsequently led to Reid washing condensed milk out of his hair. Like it was back then, the event was equally mortifying and amusing for the brunet to recall, but Reid couldn't deny that it had been one of the crazier stunts him and the team had pulled. "God, I don't think Asheville's ever been the same since then," he grinned ruefully, moving the hand away from his eyes and through his hair in a sheepish ruffle that he usually did when he was flustered. And like Ray always had, the older agent unthinkingly tousled his hair back to the windswept look Reid used to sport back when they'd shared a team.

Apparently, Ray hadn't noticed his own unconscious gesture, because he was still chuckling to himself, eyes on the road. "I swear, Donny must have had at least three aneurysms yelling at us that day."

"More," Reid refuted cheekily, smile lingering as Ray started laughing all over again.

Heady feeling, Spencer thought to himself again, slight foreboding weighting his stomach down. Addictive, even.

###

Notes: Short, I know, but I hope it was enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!