Chapter Text
Spencer Reid never thought his life would end up like this. He, despite his difficult childhood and adolescence, had finally managed to become a mostly functional adult with an impressive stack of PHD’s and what he though was his dream job. The BAU was a place where he could use and stretch his intelligence whilst also helping people. He loved his colleagues too, they didn’t always get him and he found himself to be the butt of many jokes he didn’t always fully understand but he knew that they all cared for him which was something he had very little experience of in his life.
He had friends that were like family, a wonderful job, and despite what most people thought a very satisfying social life. Even with all that, Spencer still found himself sitting in the corner of his bedroom in a comforting ball very much regretting some of his life choices. The team had a long weekend whilst Prentiss and Hotch were interviewing a suspect set for execution. Spencer was supposed to be with Hotch but life had become too much for him all at once.
In the last year and a half he had been captured by Hankel and developed his subsequent addiction. Watched his mentor Gideon go through the loss of his girlfriend eventually leave the team. Rossi, who very much didn’t like Spencer, joined the BAU and make his life hell with all his inter team profiling and judgmental barbs. Also, Garcia had been shot and the usual caseload had seemed even more horrific than normal.
Spencer was overwhelmed in so many ways, he was craving, he felt guilty for that and for failing the team for all those months, he felt lonely because they all treated him like glass or in Rossi’s case like a criminal and he was very much not having a good time. Spencer needed something to change.
He decided that he would take a holiday, he hadn’t taken a proper holiday in his almost 5 years at the Bureau and had never been abroad for non work purposes. Perhaps he’d travel to Greece, the long and rich history of the country had always interested him.
Spencer pulled his laptop across the floor towards his where it had been abandoned next to his bed. Opening a new tab to look at flights. As he did so he got distracted by his already open Email and the many notifications he had.
Most of his emails were work related asking for consults or professional requests, however sometimes he got recruitment emails from other FBI units, universities, companies and other agencies. He mostly ignored these as he was quite happy with the BAU however his recent realization of his need for change made him look twice. One offer was extremely interesting, it came from the director of the CIA himself. The email detailed how he would like to talk to Spencer about establishing profiling protocols within the CIA. Spencer had, in addition to Gideon and Rossi’s earlier works, literally written many of the books and guides on profiling used by law enforcement and federal agencies, this offer however detailed researching and using profiling to prevent and find terrorists. The BAU had been called in to help with domestic terrorism threats before but as far as Spencer knew their was no in depth research about terrorist profiling.
The thought of a new field of study lit up Spencer’s brain in a way he hadn’t felt in a while, making him realize how stagnant life felt for him. His formative years had rushed along, always rearing to get to the nest step in his life, seeking knowledge and interest and excitement. He loved the BAU but decided before he even knew he would be leaving the FBI at least for a while.