Author's Note: Criminal Minds belongs to CBS, not me.

I've learned to slam on the brake before I even turn the key

Intellectually, Spencer Reid understood he was going to grow up at some point. He was very smart for his age, after all. But he didn't think he needed to grow up quite so quickly.

He was five, and he was playing outside his house in his sleepy Las Vegas suburb, the sun beating down on the back of his neck as he drew swoopy lines with sidewalk chalk across the driveway. They were parabolas, not swoopy lines, he already knew about parabolas and he thought they were pretty cool.

A bunch of neighborhood kids zipped by on bicycles and scooters, shrieking and shouting. He clambered to his feet, brushing chalk dust off onto his shorts.

"Hey!" he called. "Hey, can I play?"

The kids skidded to stops, dirt and gravel blooming in clouds behind them. "You have a bike?" one of them called.

Spencer hesitated. "No," he said. "But I'll be six in October and my parents said I can have one then."

That wasn't exactly true. His mother said he could have one. His father said he didn't have time to teach Spencer how to ride. They didn't know he was listening.

"You're too little, Spencer," one of the older kids said, not unkindly. "You can play with us when you're older."

"I can keep up!" he protested. "I can! I'd like to play, please."

"You need to stay here," another kid chimed in. "Remember what happened to Riley Jenkins?"

"No one will tell me what happened to Riley," he said, frowning. "Come on, Jeff, tell them I can play!"

His friend Jeff, only six months older but six inches taller, made a little bit of a face. He had a new shiny bicycle, electric blue and neon green, decked with a silver bell on the handlebars. "You don't have a bike," he said. "Sorry, Spencer."

"But I can-"

But the older kids were already back on the move; he was already forgotten. Spencer took off running behind them. He wasn't a very good runner; he had no athletic skill and less coordination. But he wanted to try.

"Wait for me!" he called. "Wait!"

He ran as fast as he could, his skinny arms pumping to propel him faster. Hot, dry summer air bit at his lungs and he gasped for breath. And then toe of his sneaker hit a rock and he went flying, skidding across the blistering pavement.

All the wind knocked right out of his chest. He laid there for a second, gasping, until the blacktop burned too much and he pushed himself back up.

"Ow," he whispered. "Ow..."

The bigger kids were long gone. No one had any idea that he'd fallen. Spencer swallowed back a sob. The shock was beginning to wear off, and now his palms and knees were beginning to sting.

He pushed himself up to his feet and turned back towards his house. Slowly he trudged back, hot tears burning at his eyes. His sidewalk chalk was left on the concrete driveway and he stepped around it; he made his way up the screen front door. The hinges creaked and the thin metal clanked against the frame as he stepped into the house.

"Mom?" he called. "Mom, I fell."

The house was cool and quiet. Spencer knuckled his wet eyes and wandered into the kitchen. "Mom?" he called.

No answer. He wandered into the kitchen, no sight of her. He sidestepped a pile of library books and headed into her office, still nothing. His heart began to beat a little bit faster as he circled the house.

"Mommy?" he called.

He opened the garage door and looked inside. His mother's car was gone. She'd left him home alone without saying a word.

Spencer sank down on the step, a hot tear running down his cheek. His parents never left him home alone. They said he was too little, and especially after what happened to Riley Jenkins (he still wasn't sure what happened). And yet here he was.

His scrapes were beginning to sting. He pushed himself up to his feet and rubbed at his eyes. Usually his mother took care of him when he got hurt, but she wasn't here, so he would just have to do it himself.

He padded down the hall to his parents' room and let himself into the bathroom. The walls were painted a faded seafoam green and pale light filtered through the frosted glass of the window over the bathtub. He tugged off his dusty shoes and left them at the door. The medicine cabinet was high above his head. For a moment he pondered his options, then he climbed carefully onto the counter and opened it up.

His mother always got the brown bottle, the green and white tube, and the roll of gauze when he hurt himself, so he carefully picked up each item and set it down on the counter. He'd watched his mother patch him up a million times (he was clumsy and he knew it; she called him Crash for a reason) so it couldn't be too hard.

He lined up his supplies in order on the floor, then rummaged through the linen closet for a washcloth. There wasn't one- his mother must be behind on laundry again- so he settled for a hand towel. He stood on tiptoes to run cold water over the towel, splashing himself liberally in the process, and sat down on the floor with the wet towel in hand.

He grimaced as he patted the towel at his injuries. His palms were a little bloody but not too bad, and a long scrape ran from his wrist to his elbow. His knees had the most damage, gravel embedded in the raw wounds and blood running all the way down to his socks. He pulled his socks off, the tile cold under his little bare feet, and he did his best to clean himself up.

When he removed the worst of the damage, he set the tile aside and picked up the brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide. This was going to be the worst part. He poured a little bit onto a cotton ball, trying not to spill any on himself, and touched it gingerly to his palm.

It hurt. It burned worse than any other scrape he'd had before. Spencer gritted his teeth and pressed his forehead to his knees. More tears ran down his cheeks but the salt made the wounds sting more, so he sat up, dried his tears, and dabbed more hydrogen peroxide on his scrapes. Foam bubbled up and he watched in slightly morbid fascination until the pain began to subside.

He cleaned up all of his cuts from gravel, grime, and blood, a slow and painful process. Once he screwed the cap back on the bottle he picked up the tube of antiseptic cream and smeared it liberally over his skinned knees and scraped elbows. His little fingers were still coated when he was done; he wiped the cream off on the towel as best as he could. The gauze was harder to manage, the roll slipping and sliding and bunching up on his arms and legs, but he tied the gauze off in neat knots and stopped to survey his handiwork. It wasn't very tidy, but it would do.

He climbed back up on the counter to put his supplies away and slid down to the floor, careful not to bump his scrapes. Once the bathroom was put back in order he picked up his shoes and went back to his own bedroom. His latest book was propped up on his nightstand; he crawled into his neatly made bed and found his place again.

He was drawn out of the story only by the sound of the front door opening, followed by a gentle, absentminded humming. He slid down from his bed and tucked his book under his arm. "Mom?" he called.

He rounded the corner into the kitchen and Diana jumped, nearly dropping the box of cereal in her hands. Brown paper grocery sacks lined the counter- she must have run some errands while she was gone. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed. "Spencer? What are you doing here? Why aren't you at school?"

"I didn't have school today," he said, bewildered. "It was teacher inservice. Remember?"

Diana hunched her shoulders and stared at a water stain on the wall behind his head, as if running mental calculations that he couldn't see. Spencer pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and waited. "That's right," she mumbled to herself at last. The tension eased from her shoulders and she smiled at him. "I can't believe I forgot. Mommy's sorry, honey. I thought you were at school, otherwise I never would have left you here."

"It's okay, Mom," he said. He wrapped his arms around her hips in a tight hug and she smoothed his hair. Her fingers paused.

"Spencer, what on earth did you do to yourself?" she demanded. She took him by the wrist and scrutinized his arm. "Spencer Reid, what did you do?"

"I fell," he said. "I was running and I tripped on a rock." He left out the part about the older kids ditching him. "But I took care of it. See? And I put everything away."

She held him at arm's length, surveying him up and down. "You look like a mummy," she laughed. "Are you feeling okay? Nothing hurts?"

"No, Mommy, I'm fine," he reassured her. "Just some scrapes."

"Did you cry?"

He hesitated. "Just a little," he admitted. "You won't tell Daddy?"

"Not at all," she promised. She swooped him up in her arms and peppered his face with kisses. He wrapped his legs around her waist and his arms tightly around her neck, breathing in her comforting mom smell- patchouli and cigarettes and drugstore shampoo. "Mommy's sorry, baby," she said. "But I'm so proud of you for being so responsible. What a smart little man." She kissed his cheek and leaned back to look him in the eyes. "I think you've earned a treat before dinner."

"What will Dad say?" he asked skeptically.

Diana sat him down on the counter. "Daddy doesn't need to know," she said. She pulled a blue and white box out of a paper grocery sack. "How about a fudgesicle? It'll be our little secret."

He brightened and sat up straighter. "Yes, please!" he said. "Did you know it's actually better to eat dessert first? It's the glucose; it helps you think you're full faster."

Diana unwrapped the popsicle and pressed it into his hands. "I think that was made up by a little boy who could live off Jello and cupcakes if I let him," she laughed. "Eat it quick, honey, before it melts."

He obeyed, licking the popsicle in equals lengths all the way around so it would dissolve evenly. Diana hummed to herself as she put the rest of the groceries away. It was a little weird, now that he thought about it- she had already done their weekly grocery shopping two days ago. But the worry faded away as he ate his popsicle and turned a page in his book. Everything was fine. It was just once, and he could trust his mother. That's what mothers were for, right?

Right.

Author's Notes:

Welp. This is a thing that's happening.

This is my first Criminal Minds fic, but as you can see I used to be super, super prolific in a lot of different fandoms. I haven't done much writing in the past couple of years- I've basically emerged every once in a while to post and then vanish again. But like a lot of other people I'm sure, I'm sitting at home during self-isolation for the coronavirus, bored out of my mind. I started rewatching Criminal Minds, which reminded me that I had started a couple of fics but never posted (the story of my life) and one thing turned to another and...well, I've written over a hundred pages. Currently I'm writing a chapter based on the LDSK episode in season 1, and I plan on writing till about season 9.

So yeah! I hope you liked this. I hope you'll stick around and read more. Leave a review if you have thoughts!

I have another Spencer-centric fic outlined so I'll probably write that when I'm finished with this. But if you like my writing in other fandoms, let me know! I may end up working on other stories that I haven't finished. Top of my list are the fics Goodnight and Someday You Will Be Loved from my Glee days. I may even post my Glee works on AO3 if I can get them all organized. If there's something you'd like me to work on, for Criminal Minds or Glee or another fandom I write for, leave a review or visit my tumblr (themetaphorgirl) and leave an ask!

Thank you so much for reading. My writing skills are rusty and I appreciate any feedback you might have.

Up next in part 2: Diana disassociates, and Spencer is a victim.