Deafness. To most of the hearing world it was a disability. To (Y/n) it was an opportunity. She'd known from a young age that it would be harder for her to communicate with those who could hear. She knew that life in general would be made more difficult without the ability to communicate through speech, but when her parents had asked if she wanted hearing aids or a cochlear implant she denied. She liked being deaf. Sure there were moments of doubt where she wished that she had chosen to get the implant, but she persevered. That was her key. It wasn't until she'd met Doctor Spencer Reid that she was completely she'd wanted her life to continue on as it was.

Her first meeting with the genius was hectic as she was questioned about a triple homicide. Of course while they questioned the girl she just sat in that uncomfortable chair confused as to what they were saying. Lip reading wasn't something she was particularly good at so she sat there giving the two agents a confused stare until a blonde, who she'd later learn was called Garcia, pulled them out of the room. After a few minutes the two agents returned with two extra people, an interpreter whom she had met before when she'd been called for jury service, and a young man with shoulder length brown hair. The brunette sat at the end of the table and observed the questioning. After several minutes the agents let her go and live her life normally again.

Little did she know that she'd managed to spark an interest within the brunette. He had been intrigued by the emotion that the girl had displayed during the questioning even though it was a simple task that would cause most to reply in a somewhat monotonic voice. This caused him to research all that he could about the deaf culture and their language.

After that (Y/n) would somehow manage to run into the young agent time and time again. At one point she'd become so frustrated that she'd opted to teach the male how to sign, with several protests from said male. At first they started with letters and numbers which was made easy due to the male's research. After she knew he was ready they moved onto basic vocabulary. This took several trial and error attempts until they both settled on a flash card type system that (Y/n) would continue to use throughout her teaching. After vocab they moved on to sentence structure and phrasing which spencer caught on to quickly, much to (y/n)'s joy. After that (Y/n) had tested him with a simple conversation that he'd passed after two or three attempts.

Eventually it got to the point to where the two would be able to talk no matter the place. They had even had a few conversations where (Y/n) would just sit and watch Spencer sign away to his heart's content about whatever he wanted to talk about at that particular time, (Y/n) throwing her two cents in every so often. (Y/n) didn't mind those times. She loved watching him talk, signing along to his own words which seemed to become a subconscious habit when she was around, was enough to brighten her day.

(Y/n) knew her deafness was an opportunity. One that would allow her to teach those who wanted to learn more about asl and gain some long term friends along they way.