Fair warning for language. I do not own criminal minds but Sydney is all mine.

I reworked the whole first chapter so now the previous first chapter will be the new second chapter.

It had been a really good day, and believe me when I say I haven't had one of those in a really long time.

For one thing Aunt Ruth was in town. Maybe it was because there was only a ten year age difference between us, or maybe it was because she had seen more of the world at twenty six than I could ever hope to see, but Aunt Ruth was my favorite aunt.

Which is why I didn't get that angry when she pulled me and my little sister, Nico, out of school, before calling me out of work without telling us.

Nico, of course, was ecstatic. At age ten, having a free day off school when you aren't sick is like winning the prepubescent lottery, especially when nobody else gets the day off.

All I could think about while munching my way through Nonna's required toast breakfast was the fifty dollars that I wasn't going to be paid today and what UPenn would think about me skipping.

"What if the school finds out and tells UPenn? They could take away my scholarship."

Aunt Ruth rolled her eyes with a smile. "For someone with a detention record worth bragging about, you sure are worried about breaking the rules."

Nico laughed into her Lucky Charms and I, being the mature older sister I am, stuck my tongue out at her.

"Lucky Charms are a terrible breakfast choice." I said

"You're a terrible breakfast choice." She muttered, pulling the bowl closer to her person.

I wrinkled my nose at her before turning my attention back to Aunt Ruth.

"But really-" I began

"But really," she mimicked "Even if we were doing something wrong, which we aren't because I called the school, they wouldn't rat you out. They want you to have that scholarship almost as much as you do. It makes them look good."

I snorted. It was impossible to make Truman look good. Nevada has the highest dropout rate in the country and when you step into Truman you can see why. Four kids had been stabbed in the last three years, the textbooks are falling apart, and whatever laptops we do have are missing most of the keys. The janitors smoke pot under the stage, and the security guards feel girls up, patting us down when they didn't need to, hands hovering on our hips and asses. I made sure that Nico got that scholarship to McAllister for a reason.

We do have a decent debate team, cross country team, and a really good volleyball team, though.

I mulled it over while Georgia, my boston terrier sniffed around my socked toes.

She was right that Truman wouldn't report it, but not because I made them look good, but because they just don't care.

"Please Syd," Nico begged "please can we have some fun?"

How could I say no to that?

I sigh quietly and roll my eyes.

"Fine," I snap "Fine, whatever, let's do it."

"Girl's day!" Aunt Ruth crows.

"Yes!" Nico whoops loudly, startling Georgia and Nico's bulldog Naaz.

I roll my eyes once more and swallow the last of my toast.

When the police come we are all in our pajamas piled on Nonna's couch, watching a movie that came out last month, 'Now You See Me.'

There was a mostly empty pizza box sitting on the coffee table and the new polish on our toes reflects the lights from the tv.

All of the windows were open because according to Nonna and Gramps' italian beliefs air conditioning is bad luck. It smelled like fresh air and it was just the right temperature.

Georgia was twelve pounds of snuggly warmth burrowed into my stomach. She holds me down and keeps me from floating away while Jack throws cards on screen.

"He's like you," Nico mumbled sleepily, head resting on my shoulder.

"He is way better than I am." I responded commenting on my card throwing abilities, not really paying attention to the movie.

I was warm, and full, and happy. I was completely calm. Almost floaty.

I stared at the black mocking bird tattoo on my wrist for a moment. The tattoo almost never sees the light of day, usually covered by bracelets, or my watch, or even heavy duty concealer in extreme situations.

I was tracing my fingers over it when the doorbell rings.

The peaceful feeling was sucked out of my body and suddenly the real world was back.

The police are never on our side.

I wound up in an emergency foster care home for the first three days with a woman who constantly looked deeply afraid. She wrung her hands and fluttered around the house like a squeaky moth. She occasionally appeared in the doorway to a bedroom that was mine for the time being and asked me questions like 'are you okay?' in her squeaky mouse voice before fluttering off to pester her porta potty of a husband. Emergency placements like those don't usually last very long, the longest they can really keep someone in a place like that is about a month, but the longest I've ever been is twelve days.

My mother's trial was insanely quick, by the time I was out of the emergency home and into a group home, my mother was sentenced to four years for possession and distribution, but her boyfriend, who's main hobby was cooking crank in our kitchen, was off happily living his pathetic life as a free man.

Go figure.

The only silver lining was that Nico would now be living with her dad full time instead of just the weekends. My stepfather, Michael, is actually a genuinely decent guy who owned a really cool music store up town. He has a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, with a nice yard. He gave Nico anything she wanted or needed without being a pushover or an asshole. And he's nice to me, which is not a high priority on most of my mom's old boyfriend's lists.

He loves Nico just as much as I do and because of that Nico will never have to play russian roulette, foster care style like me and my friend, Hollis, have had too.

Thank God for small miracles.

By the end of the week I have the group homes routine down. I was not allowed to go to Nonna's for the weekend because I hadn't been allowed a pass yet but Nonna and Nico came to visit. Gramps didn't because my being there made him angry. He explained over the phone and I told him I understood. I did. I do.

We all hung out in my room, Nico and I hung up my favorite posters on the white cinderblock walls while Nonna smoothed out my sheets, staring at my roommates bed.

"It's fine Nonna," I said "she's really nice."

I didn't actually know if my roommate was nice, we had never really talked but she was hardly Satan. And she did vacate our room so I could have time with my family without her.

It only took a week and I was resigned to this knew life.

I would only be here about eight months any way. It honestly wasn't worth the fight that Nonna and Gramps would lose, just like they did last time. The problem is that without Maria, we weren't allowed to call her mom, I had nowhere to go that was allowed by social services.

Aunt Ruth doesn't have a house, Uncle Tony is a convicted felon, and Nonna and Gramps don't have the room, the car, or the time.

So all that was left was foster care, and not for the first time, either.

"It's really not bad here." I promise.

Nonna nodded and smooth out my sheets again, murmuring something in italian that I couldn't quite catch.

On Monday, I am back in school, where the whispers follow me around. The drug dealer's daughter is this week's hottest gossip, but I ignore it and go about my life. I go to open gym in the mornings for an hour, I eat lunch with the same people I always do, and then I go to debate practice where I talk to the walls for at least thirty minutes as though they are a rapt audience. After school I go to work at the bakery or the bookstore for at least four hours. I go about my life as though nothing has changed. I do this the until the second Thursday after I return to my classes. Thursday is my day off because I have to meet with my social worker, Brenda, about what my life is going to be like until I can blow this popsicle stand.

After debate I skate home slowly, enjoying the ride and the feeling of the wind as it pushes against my face. I show up four minutes and twenty nine seconds late, but it's worth it because sitting in that room with only Brenda and Carl, who owns the home, makes me feel like I'm suffocating.

The social worker coming to visit it never ends well for me.

When I get inside the main building, Becca, my house parent, directs me right to Carl's office, with a worried sort of smile.

Damn. This place wasn't the worst.

It's a good thing I didn't really unpack.

I tap tentatively on Carl's door before pushing it open. Brenda smiles like this is going to be the best day of my life but also like she's trying to placate me, like coaxing a wild animal out of it's corner. Carl just grimaces at me like he's trying to smile but it's just too hard.

What a comfort you are, Carl.

"Sydney!" Brenda says "Please sit down. We need to talk." She points to a chair next to her and my heart rate soars.

This is going to be a really bad day.

I sigh and sink into the chair clutching my backpack in a hug, skateboard at my feet. I haven't taken my helmet off yet, so I probably look ridiculous.

Brenda folds her hands in her lap.

"Sydney, we have found your father."

Have you ever been sucker punched in the stomach so hard that your rib cage splinters and you can't breath and you may have ruptured your spleen?

Yeah.

This is kind of like that.

"What?" I hiss sharply, beginning to understand her cornered animal approach.

"We've found your father," she says again, like it's nothing, like she's talking about the weather.

"His name is Spencer," she continues, like that helps me somehow.

"How do you know?" I cut her off. She glances across the desk at carl who looks deeply uncomfortable.

"Well," she says "Well your mother gave us his name-"

"So?" I interrupt "Do you have any idea how many spencer's there are in the United States alone at any given time?" 48,932. That's how many Spencers there are, that's twice as many Sydney's as there are in the United States. Then there are also 125,772 Reids. I twist at the dinosaur fidget ring on my finger while repeating the numbers in my head.

She shoots me a look like she is finally getting sick about my attitude and lack of thankfulness for this immense favor she has done me. She pulls a file out of her bag and hands it to me.I open it up notice that it's the results for a DNA test.

Jesus.

"Sydney, we compared your DNA. He is a paternal match."

My shoulders slump and, for once, I sit quietly. My knee taps faster.

DNA. Finally a language I can understand. I stare at the numbers for a while, taking them in and letting the information process for a moment. Social Workers lie. Mother's lie. Bodies don't lie. DNA doesn't lie.

I push my face into the cool canvas of my backpack and wonder if this is how Nina From Group feels during each of her never ending existential crises.

Poor Nina.

I calmly raise me face out of my bag, hand still clutching the file, as though this is just a normal day in Sydneyland.

"What happens now?"

Brenda explains to me that I would be moving to Virginia and that I had a week to inform my teachers, quit my jobs, and just generally pack away my whole life eight months before I was supposed to. It's longer than most kids get, she reminds me. That's a thing adults do to make you feel bad for feeling bad. Someone out there has it worse, so what right do you have to complain?

There are starving children in Africa, don't you know?

I hate this suffering contest that I didn't willingly enter. I look over at Brenda and wonder how she thinks that she has the right to say that to me. Brenda has probably never missed a meal in her life, or ran home to see if there was an eviction notice on the door, Brenda never had to build her sister a man proof closet that locks from the inside, fifteen year old Brenda didn't sob over bills at the kitchen table. Brenda has never had to take care of her strung out mother, never had to throw away the syringes.

She probably doesn't even know the child abuse hotline number.

In this moment I hate Brenda and her perfect life and her smug adult smirk, thinking she knows everything.

White, suburban, soccer mom Brenda doesn't know anything.

"Sydney," Carl says, speaking for the first time "We understand that this is a lot. "

I'm sure you do Carl, you emotional radar, you.

"Maybe you'd like to speak to your therapist-"

Jesus Christ. The last thing I need to do is talk to my prison appointed head shrink.

I stand up and pull my backpack onto my shoulders.

"No. I'm going to my room now."

I pick up my skateboard and leave.

They don't call me back.

When I get to my room I send Hollis a quick SOS text telling her to come over immediately.

I wait a second before typing 'EMERGENCY.'

'OMW' she types back two seconds later. On My Way. '10 minutes.'

'Bring your laptop' I reply quickly and set my phone, a gift from Aunt Ruth, down on the comforter. I push my skateboard under the bed and set my helmet on the dresser before pulling my noise cancelling headphones out of my backpack and slipping them on and firing up my laptop. My laptop, whom Hollis and I have affectionately named 'Milo,' isn't hightech, but he does what I want him to. That mostly includes working when I need to type an essay, take my online classes, or search something up.

A little slow, but he does what I need.

And, right now, I need to research.

I open google tab and type in his name, the first things that pop up are Facebook pages.

Surprise, surprise.

I don't have a Facebook account, or any social media outside of Tumblr for that matter, for two reasons:

One; I don't trust the privacy settings. At all. Like, I am creeping on all of these Facebook pages and they will probably never know.

Two; I just don't see the point. I don't really want everyone to know what I'm doing all the time. You do you other people, but I like flying under the radar.

I scroll through all of the Spencer Reids. A fourteen year old stoner from Canada? No. Twenty something waitress? No. Fifty four year old retired Marine? No, thank God. That would be a pervy twenty two year old age difference from Maria.

There are a couple others that I know for a fact are No's. I sigh and pull off my headphones, rubbing my ears.

"Knock, Knock." Hollis announces, strutting into my room as if were her own. She throws her backpack onto my floor, sighing dramatically.

"So sorry I'm late," she said "my damn Porsche wouldn't start, the piece of crap."

"Oh, God," I groan "I hate when that happens, you buy the island yet?"

"Um, of course!" She says in a whiny voice "The deed is right next to my unicorn permit. Did MIT call you about the Fields Medal yet?"

I nod. "I won of course, the ceremony is in Boston on Friday. We're flying first class, they tried to put us in second class, but I told them that that just won't do."

"The Nerve of them. Don't they know we're royalty?"

"I know, but I happen to have even bigger news!"

"Ohhh, do tell!" she said with a laugh pulling her laptop out of her bag and flopping next to me on my bed.

"Social Services tracked down my dad."

She laughs. "You're funny Syd, that's probably the most unrealistic thing you've said all day. So what was the big emergency?"

I stay quiet and turn to look at her. Hollis looks like an ice princess, pale skin, white blonde, long hair, crystal blue eyes. We're opposites. I have the natural Italian tan of the rest of my family that only got darker in the summer, shoulder length, brown hair, hazel eyes. She was built like my sister, like a dancer. I am built to run. I have a good four inches on her, even though she is almost two years older. I like darker colors, she has an affinity for pastels and flower crowns.

I doubt that we would be friends if we hadn't grown up in the same neighborhood.

When she finally looks over at me we are nearly nose to nose.

"What?" she asks with a smile. I just keeps staring at her and raise an eyebrow. Her face falls.

"Oh." she says sitting bolt upright. "Oh, oh my God, you're serious. You're serious right now."

"Yeah." I say.

"Fuck." she declared before demanding that I tell her every detail of what had happened in the last hour.

After I tell her She pulls two monster energy drinks out of her bag.

"I was going to save these for later, but you're moving away and there is simply no time to waste."

I take the green one and she cracks open the blue.

"We have research to do."

We clink our cans and start typing.

"I have finally discovered where you have gotten your over achieving habits." she informs me "This guy is everywhere!"

It's true. I have found at least five papers that he has written and about twenty articles where he is mentioned. Hollis has about ten more.

"Three PhD's before the age of twenty three, joins the FBI, winds up in the BAU, who are highly prestigious, in his early twenties. This guy's goldfish is probably smarter than I am." I stated. If my math is correct, he would have had to graduate high school at around twelve. That is a six grade skip. I did two.

She punches me on the arm. "Shut up. You are a literal genius."

"No I'm not."

"Syd, you have an IQ of 173 and you can quote a conversation we had five years ago, word for word. You are the definition of a genius."

"No I'm not. And I hate that word." I hate that word so much, along with 'gifted' and 'prodigy.' I hate that word.

I can feel her roll her eyes at me.

"I don't understand you." I ignore her and continue researching.

When I was little I asked my mom why I was the only kid in my family without a dad. Maria, not one to sugarcoat things, told me the truth. He was a good guy with a bright future. Kids suck the life out of you. She may or may not have loved him but she knew that he deserved better. He honestly deserved that glowing bright future. Having a baby pulls you down into poverty quicksand. He didn't deserve to get stuck.

For once in my life I have to agree with my mother, Dr. Spencer Reid had gone on to do great things. I can't help but wonder if he would have stayed in Vegas if he knew about me. He seems like a decent guy. He probably would have.

I would have crushed his future just like I did my mother's.

I shiver and swear to myself that I will try to take up as little of his time and space as possible. I will try to make this poor guy's next eight months fly by. He will hardly notice I'm there.

I spend the next week saying goodbye.

I hate saying goodbye.

Brenda and I go to the airport at six in the morning where I am passed off to an attendant who leads me through TSA and onto the plane. She makes sure that I find my proper seat before going up to join the other attendants. I plug my headphones into my phone and start playing my most calming and upbeat playlist. I try not to focus on the fact that the lady next to me is too far into my personally space or how hard Nico cried the night before when I left her. All of the promises I made that seem like nothing. I'll call you everyday, we can skype and we can still read with each other. I promise IpromiseIpromise. There is a loud beep noise and I pull one headphone out of my ear.

They make an announcement telling everyone to put their phone on airplane mode and buckle their seatbelts and stow away our bags. My stomach drops to my toes.

I don't want to go.

I breath in and out and pull my tangle out of my backpack before zipping it back up and pushing it under the chair in front of me. I twist at it nervously and keep breathing. My attendant comes down the line checking to make sure everyone did as told.

"Everything okay, Sweetie?" She asks me smiling sympathetically at my furiously twisting hands.

"Yeah." I say "Yeah, I'm good."

The woman next to me speaks up when she leaves.

"Is this your first time flying?"

I nod my head.

"Don't worry," she reassures "It's safer than riding in a car."

I almost tell her that if she is talking odds of crashing then, yes, it is safer, but if we do crash your odds of survival are exceedingly slim especially compared to a car crash.

And that's not what I'm worried about.

I don't though. I just smile and thank her.

Pretending like I always am.

My flight attendant leads me over to a perky but tired looking blonde woman who says her name is Susan when we exit the plane.

This is it. There is no going back.

Okay, so, I was just going to split this up and put chunks of it at the beginning of each chapter so my OC alone doesn't just take up the whole story but it is kind of confusing so I'm just going to put them all together and hope for the best. It's kind of choppy so I'm sorry about that. I guess this is a kind of preface? Any way I'm working on the next chapter now.

Blink Vinyl