Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is the property of CBS ( I think). I do not own Criminal Minds nor do I seek to make any kind of profit from this story, I am merely borrowing their awesome characters for a little while.

Also, I was super scared to make the title of the story the same as the title of the yet-to-be-released episode...if anyone knows if I could get in trouble for this, please let me know and I shall change it at once.

Chapter 1: Out of Control

Reid rolled his bottom lip between his teeth again, vaguely noting in the back of his mind that it was the seventy-eighth time he'd done so since waking up this morning. The sting of pain that followed made him realize that perhaps seventy eight bites to his lip was perhaps a few too many.

His eyes roamed the file in front of him as if they were made of glass, rolling in his head but unable to see anything, yet still feeling dry when he went several moments without blinking.

Why hadn't she called him back yet? A text message. An email. A letter. Anything. It was driving him crazy and he couldn't help the worry that was slowly building in the pit of his stomach, he could feel it taking root like a poisonous vine, it's clinging creepers imbedding themselves in his gut like cold fingers. Sometimes he thought he could feel them in the back of his throat, around his windpipe, threatening to crush the air from his lungs.

He wasn't stupid, he knew what the feeling in his gut was. Panic, even in its beginning stages when it was still weak and could plant its seed, undetected, in your mind, was a feeling he was all too familiar with, and he was an expert at pushing it back, down into the bowls of his core where it belonged until there was a reason to let it break free.

He often did some of his best thinking under extreme duress.

"Reid!"

The young genius felt himself jolt back into awareness, tearing his eyes off the file before him and finally blinking away the burn in his eyes to stare, stupidly he was sure, over at Morgan.

The elder agent looked slightly annoyed and his eyes darted down to Reid's left hand. "Do you mind?"

He followed Morgan's gaze, his eyes flickering briefly over the pen in his hand, not understanding what he possibly could have been doing this time to annoy the man.

"What?"

"You were tapping that pen over and over on the desk so hard I was waiting for it to snap in half and spray ink everywhere."

Reid just blinked, slightly alarmed that he had not been aware of his hand moving of it's own accord. "Was I?" He asked, a little skeptical. "Sorry."

He let his eyes fall back to the file, which he hadn't even read yet, wondering what the hell it was he had meant to do with it in the first place. Though if he knew himself at all he had probably just pulled the one on the top of the stack over to stare at in order to avoid suspicion while he lost himself in thought. He sometimes found that he was one step ahead of himself like that.

"Reid, you alright man?"

He looked back over at Morgan, feeling confused again. He really should not let himself get lost in thought so often. "Fine."

Morgan didn't look convinced and gave him one of his 'why do you bother lying to me, Pretty Boy?' looks.

"Really? Cause you've spent the better part of the last hour staring at that same page in that same file, barely blinking, nervous fidgeting and I think if you bite your lip one more time it's going to start bleeding."

The genius' large brown eyes narrowed to mere slits. "Don't profile me, Morgan."

"I'm not profiling you, Reid, any person, profiler or not, would be able to tell something is up with you just by looking."

Reid sighed and checked his phone for the millionth time, biting back a growl when he saw the blank screen again. Nothing.

"Where are you going?" Morgan called after him as he rose and made his way to the kitchenette for some coffee.

He dumped the cold stuff down the sink and set about brewing a new pot, as it was only two in the afternoon and he was going to need at least three cups to get him through the rest of the day. As the grossly overworked percolator came to life, rumbling deeply and spewing coffee scented steam into his face, Spencer resisted the urge to call her again. He'd already tried twice and even that felt like too much. That creep could be watching and listening from a million different places and he wasn't going to risk her safety by freaking out for no reason.

For all he knew she could be out running errands. Or gone shopping. Or, god forbid, out with some friends. God knows she deserves a little fun after all she'd been through.

The thought of Maeve out enjoying a day with some of her friends brought a small smile to his face, but it faded quickly. He wished she would let him help her. He wished he could give her a better life. He wished that they could finally meet in person, though if it meant keeping her safe he would be happy to simply listen to her voice until she grew tired of speaking to him. He would listen to her genius ideas and deepest thoughts with rapture if it meant he could be secure in his protection of her.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind." he murmured as he poured himself a generous cup of coffee.

He dumped a bucket of sugar into the cup and was silently stirring it in when Morgan made him jump out of his skin a second time, this time because he decided to slap a large hand down on his shoulder.

"Jesus, Morgan!" He cursed angrily, smacking the smirking man's hand away.

"Did I just hear you quoting Shakespeare's views on love, Pretty Boy?"

"You know Shakespeare? That's suprising. I thought your head was filled to capacity with pickup lines and sports."

"Ouch." Morgan said, his grin faltering at the uncharacteristic jab from his coworker. "You sure everything is ok?"

Reid, already armed and ready to fire with another insult on the tip of his tongue, met Morgan's dark, concerned gaze and felt the fight leave him almost instantly. His shoulders slumped downwards and his gaze fell into his coffee. "Sorry." he mumbled, clutching the ceramic mug tightly.

"You're starting to worry me, Reid. Just tell me what's going on, I might be able to help. If nothing else, it you'll probably feel better." Morgan coaxed.

He looked up at his friend and coworker, feeling the pressure of his secrets pushing against his chest, the weight of his burden crushing his shoulders, and released a shaky breath.

"There's...this girl."

A slow smile stretched across Morgan's face, complete with a knowing twinkle in his eyes, but he waited patiently for Reid to continue.

Bracing himself, Reid really was about to tell Morgan everything. He'd wanted to tell someone, anyone, about this, but he'd been sworn to secrecy. But he felt, now more than ever, as if the situation was rapidly deteriorating, spiralling dangerously out of his and Maeve's control. If nothing else, he could count on Morgan to have some decent advice, he just had to be careful and word his story in a way that would not give away his fear and his growing sense of panic. If Morgan got a whiff of that, then there would be no stopping him in his hunt for the truth.

And that could prove to be deadly for Maeve.

He opened his mouth, prepared to launch into the story, when his phone rang shrilly into the silence of the kitchenette.

His heart leapt into his throat and he nearly threw his coffee mug back onto the counter to free up both his hands, sloshing the dark liquid over the sides and onto the counter top, in his mad grab for his cell phone.

He pulled it from his pants pocket, his eyes reading the number on the screen in a nanosecond and sending the message to his brain at lightning speed. He stopped breathing and jabbed the answer button with his thumb while simultaneously bringing the device up to his ear.

"Maeve!" he tried not to sound too relieved, clutching at the edge of the counter with a white knuckled grip.

But instead of her calm, gentle voice floating through the phone line, a man's voice slithered into his ear, tunneling into his brain like a drill and he felt those poisonous vines dig their icy thorns into his stomach as they clambered up into his throat, crowding it and cutting off his oxygen.

"Wrong, actually, Doctor. A word I'm sure you aren't used to hearing."

He had to swallow a few times before he thought it was safe to open his mouth without vomiting. "Who are you?" he asked.

Silence for a moment and then a contemplative tone, "She didn't tell you about me? I find that hard to believe."

His teeth were grinding together, the poisonous vines of panic being incinerated by an expanding ball of rage, burning white hot in his core. "Where is she?"

"She's here with me, of course!" The man cried, as if it were obvious. "We belong together, her and I." his voice sounded farther away, like he had his face turned away from the phone. Like he was talking to another person in the room. "Don't we, Love?"

"SPENCER!" Maeve screamed so loud that her voice carried through the phone and into the bullpen, her jarring voice a chain of lightning whose path of least resistance seemed to be through the heads of those in the office and they jolted at her cries as if they had been electrocuted. Their heads swiveled around jerkily, looking for the source of the shock to their senses.

Reid gasped, subconsciously pressing the phone closer to his ear as if it would somehow bring him closer to her. Anger bubbled like boiling water in his veins and he snarled viciously into the phone. "Let her go you piece of shit!"

People were gathering around him now and Hotch and Rossi had come out of their offices, but he barely noticed them, his heart pounding so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing but the voices from the phone. The edges of his vision grew dark in his fury and his skin tingled, his muscles shook.

"Now someone as intelligent as yourself should know better than that, Doctor. She isn't yours, Reid and we mustn't touch what isn't ours!"

"I swear to God, I will find you and when I do I'll blow your face off your fucking skull!" he snapped into the phone, now submerged well under the murky waters of hatred.

It was this sudden comprehension of his current mental state that scared his brain back into a semi stable state of clarity and he closed his eyes, breathing through his nose to calm down, pulling himself out of the depths of his anger and shaking the darkness from the edges of his vision.

"That's not very nice. You're no good for her anyway, not with that temper. She's a kind, gentle person."

Now that he was actually listening, Reid could detect a hint of immaturity in the way the man spoke. Short sentences, simple words, a whiny inflection. Almost childish.

"What kind of person are you?" He asked, sounding much more calm but still seething quietly.

There was a moment of silence on the line, in which Reid held his breath, nearly able to hear the creep smile on the other end.

"I'm exactly the kind of man she needs."

The line went dead.

Please do review, they motivate me to update faster...seriously.