Finley Reid

Third Person P.O.V

“You - You took all my files,” Derek stares down in shock at the girl on the floor. Her hair is quite messy, and he notices with a small grin that it’s almost the same haircut Reid has. Her bandages hands don’t seem to be bothering her as she flies through paperwork that would have taken him hours in mere seconds. Leading Derek to nearly believe she has superpowers of some kind.

Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence in front of him, the stronger FBI agent still can’t quite believe Spencer Reid, his best friend, has had a kid all these years and never told him. How did they not know about Finn? They’re profilers, damnit, they should have seen the signs. Hindsight is always 20/20 and as Derek looks back through his memories of Spencer through the BAU, he curses himself for not realizing it sooner. Reid had always been on a hurry to go home after cases and never really went out with the team, he had dark circles under his eyes almost constantly in the beginning of his career, he never let any of them in his apartment but they know it’s a two-bedroom, and he’s never been interested in dating.

However, now that Derek really looks at Finn it’s obvious that Spencer’s her father. They have the same curly brown hair, startling blue eyes with matching shadows to Reid’s, and the same pale skin. On the other hand it’s also recognizable that they’re two very different people. For one thing, their fashion senses are almost polar opposites. Reid’s always dressed in sweater vests, sweaters, button up shirt, pants, and work shoes, while Finn has piercings, wears black makeup (at the talent show, though not today), has flannels, ripped jeans, and combat boots, and is obviously not straight.

Then again Derek was never very sure where Reid stood on the sexuality scale anyways.

A part of him is, admittedly, hurt Reid never told him. Derek doesn’t have any kids, but he’s older than Spencer by quite a few years and could have helped the kid. There’s also a part of him - the one that’s kicking him right now - that suddenly sees all the signs in Spencer. Reid’s always had nightmares, never likes physical contact (except with Finn it seems), never ate much, avoid the topic of sex at all costs….. The signs were right in front of him and Derek never saw it.

His best friend was sexually abused, had a kid dumped in him at the age of twelve, and has been raising her and himself all these years.

Finn doesn’t react to Morgan’s voice at all, leading Derek to believe she simply hadn’t heard him, but Spencer cuts him off when he goes to repeat himself.

“She can’t hear you,” he gives him a knowing look, blue eyes snapping to his brown ones, searching for something. Spencer looks at Derek for a moment, trying to gauge how he’s taking all of this. Of course, Derek was the one he was most nervous about telling. Now because he was worried his best friend wouldn’t be a good influence, no. He didn’t want to tell Derek because he of all people knows the signs of sexual abuse, and judging by the look in the taller man’s eyes, he just worked that out for himself.

Reid tenses, worried the other Agent is about to tall him out on it. “What do you mean she can’t hear me?” Derek asks instead, clearly not pleased with his lack of answers but respecting Spencer enough not to call him out in front of everybody. Spencer gives him a grateful look, and downs half his cup of coffee at the same time as Finn.

“Finn’s, well she…” he trails off turning in his swivel chair to face away from Finn and towards Derek who does the same. “She’s incredibly smart. Sure, we know her exact IQ number, and I’ve come close a couple of times, but we’ll never be able to understand what goes on inside her head, and she knows that. As far as she’s told me, she has a Mind Bridge--”

“A Mind Bridge? What’s that?” Derek asks.

His best friend huffs at the interruption. “It’s a place in her brain she can retreat to in order to remember things, solve problems, or even just meditate in a way.”

“Oh, like a Mind Palace?” Derek frowns. “Isn’t it supposed to be a palace?”

Reid shrugs. “It’s Finn,” is all he says as explanation, and Derek seems to accept that answer so he moves on. “Right now she’s really focused on the paperwork, and should be for the next minute, but she’s not fully on her Mind Bridge, more like at the entrance to it. When she’s fully inside her mind, she doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t move, doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink… doesn’t do anything, really.”

“That… does not sound healthy,” Derek says, brows furrowing.

Spencer looks exhausted as he shakes his head. “It’s not, but if she doesn’t do it she’ll end up doing something really dangerous like breaking into the Pentagon,” he holds up a hand to stop Derek from talking, shock evident on the older man’s face. “Don’t ask. The longest she’s ever been at her Mind Bridge is a week--”

“A week? Couldn’t she die from dehydration?” The two men jump as JJ’s voice sounds from in front of them, both whirling to face the woman who rolls her eyes at them and places her hands on her hips. “Guys, you’re talking pretty loudly in the middle of the office. We get invested.”

“She’s not wrong.” All three of them turn to see Rossi leaning on the other end of Derek’s desk. “Continue with your story, I’ve studied Mind Palaces and Finn’s sounds a lot more interesting than the ones I’ve read about.”

Spencer switches his gaze between all of his coworkers, and opens his mouth, right as Finn hops up from her spot on the floor and stretches her arms across her chest. The team winces at each pop from one of her joints before she bends down to grab the large stack of papers and hand them to Derek. “Or you could all ask me yourselves.”
Derek takes the stack, leaves through it, and is floored to find all the files not only completed, but completed perfectly. “You finished all my files without any error in, what, five minutes?”

Finn sighs with a small pout. “Damn, must be getting slow. My old record was three.” The team gapes at her, and she shrugs, doing her best to stifle a self-satisfied smirk.
However Spencer picks up on it and stands to noogie her, messing up her hair further.

“Show off,” he mutters.

“I learned from the best,” she grins back, hissing at him when he flicks her forehead. “Rude.”

“I learned from the best.”

“Wow. WOW. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to recover from that sheer emotional abuse,” Finn says and tries to repress a smile with Spencer doing the same.

“Oh no, someone call CPS.”

“I know, right?” The other agents smile at the pair’s banter before Finn turns to them with a shrug, draining the rest of her coffee. “My Mind Bridge is exactly like a Mind Palace
except it’s cooler because it’s mine and it’s a bridge.”

“But why a bridge?” David pipes up, raising a brow at the spunky girl he took an immediate liking to.

Finn shrugs. “I’m me.”

“Could you really not hear us talking?”

“I couldn’t till the end when I finished the paperwork, which now that I think about it I have no idea why I did all of that,” Finn frowns, tapping a black fingernail to her chin.

“Oh right!” Spencer’s face shines with realization as he glances between Finn and her backpack and skateboard she left on the floor. “That reminds me, why did you come here, Finnie?”

Her frown grows, and her brows furrow tightly. All memory of why she made the trip dripping through her fingers the more she reached for it. “I… hm, I don’t remember. That’s fucking annoying--”

“Language!” Reid scolds, flicking her shoulder.

“Swearing is a sign of higher intelligence according to a study by psychologists from Marist College.” Finn gives him a knowing look and he rolls his eyes as her frown comes back. “But I really can’t remember. I must have deleted it by accident.”

“Like that time you deleted the information that saltwater is undrinkable?”

“It isn’t necessary information. If you try to drink it you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Necessary information - that’s elementary school level science.”

“Exactly. 90% of what kids learn in school is completely useless in the real world according to--”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘delete’?” Derek asks, leaning forwards in his chair towards Finn.

She sighs loudly when the memory still won’t come to her and walks over to her bag to rummage through it, hoping there’s something in there that will give her answers. “My brain is kind of like a computer hard drive. I have a lot of space in it, but there’s no use keeping information I don’t need that just takes up space I need. So I usually delete the useless information, or it deletes itself.” She glances up right before she unzippers the bag, sees the agents’ confused faces, and sighs again. “I have ADHD?”
David, Derek, and JJ facepalm at the same time, a resounding thwack echoing through the office at the action.

“How did we not pick up on that, we’re profilers!” David exclaims.

“I was raised by the smartest profiler you have,” She grins up at him before finally rummaging through her bag. “It’s not really surprising I know how to fool all of you.”

“Finn!” Spencer exclaims, a bright flush over his cheeks as his coworkers have agreement written all over their faces.

Finn, however, doesn’t acknowledge him as she sees the neatly folded paper back and pulls it out of her backpack with a shout of victory. The memories from this morning before she burned her hand come floating back and she grabs onto them before tying them down. She then stands up to hand her dad the sack. “I brought you lunch.”

“Aw,” JJ coos. “That’s sweet.”

“Yeah,” Spencer agrees, giving Finn a suspicious look that the girl shrugs innocently at. “It is. Did you poison this?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. We both know if one of us is going to poison someone through cooking it’s going to be you.”

“Says the one who didn’t know saltwater was a thing--”

“That was one time!” Finn exclaims, causing the other agents to laugh. She grudgingly smiles and simply settles for pushing the lunch bag into Spencer’s hands and quickly grabbing her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder before he can hand it back. “Welp, I best be off.”

“Wait what? Where are you going?” The other agents can’t help but notice Spencer’s almost childlike pout before Finn pats him on the head and he bats her hand away.

Suddenly the song ‘Overdose’ by grandson starts blasting from Finn’s back pocket and she curses under her breath as she scrambles to grab it. She glances at the name on the screen, slides left to answer it, and holds the phone up to her ear. “Hey loser, what’s up?” A beat. “No, I haven’t seen him.” Another few beats. “Aw man, really? Well there’s always tomorrow.” A couple seconds of silence. “Yeah, yeah. Bye.” She hangs up, slipping the phone into her back pocket and sighing loudly as she drops her back back onto the floor next to Spencer’s desk. “Scratch that, guess I’m staying here.”

“Who was that?” Spencer asks, raising an eyebrow at his daughter.

Finn shrugs. “One of the guys I play basketball with. Apparently it’s going to rain today so we can’t play until tomorrow.”

“You play basketball?” Derek asks as the girl grabs a swivel chair from a nearby unoccupied desk and pulls it up to the group as the other agents do the same.

“Yeah, Dad used to coach it in high school so he taught me,” she says, then goes to talk again before anyone else can as she moves her chair closer to Reid’s. “Now I’m guessing my dad didn’t really tell you anything besides who and how old I am after the talent show. You’ve got questions, shoot.”

The adults freeze for a second and JJ shrugs, already knowing everything, and heads back to her office, leaving Favid and Derek who face the two geniuses with contemplative looks.

“Alright, hm.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “What was your childhood like?”

“From ages 0-5 I grew up on the campus of Caltech - some of dad’s professors would keep an eye on me and let me help them grade papers while he was in class - then we bounced around for a while with Dad running to a casino from time to time, then he signed up for the BAU at age 22, and here we are,” Finn explains.
Derek and David consider this, giving Reid an appraising look that he blushes at.

“I really didn’t have any other choice than to bring her to classes with me, and she seemed to like it, so--” the genius starts to explain.

“Reid, it sounds like you did a great job,” Rossi says with a grin directed towards the man, and their resident genius hesitantly smiles. He then turns to Finn. “So, I think you covered this at the… talent show,” Finn laughs, “But what grade are you in?”

“Senior year.”

Derek looks taken aback. “Really? Shouldn't you be graduating college by now?”

Finn gives Spencer a pointed look, gesturing flamboyantly to Derek before looking back at the older agent. “You’re my favorite person now.”

“Good Lord.” Spencer rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair as well before he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“But seriously, why aren’t you in college?” Morgan asks.

“Because I have the most overprotective dad in the world.” Finn sees the look on Spencer’s face and decides to correct herself. “Okay, fine, Dad wanted me to get some decent martial arts training before I went off to college.”

“That makes sense,” Spencer’s best friend nods, his mind flashing back to when Spencer told him about the field goal incident and--

Derek freezes as the realization that Finn somehow came from that incident fills his mind. He’s so caught up in the sudden stream of answers he doesn’t even realize Rossi asks a bit about Issie before going back to his office. The African American man looks up at Spencer and Finn after a while, and they both immediately understand what he’s thinking.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?” Finn blurts out, causing Derek and Reid’s heads to snap towards her.

“... What?” Derek blinks, not remembering a single time Reid had ever asked him over.

Finn nods, looking between the two men. “You obviously have more questions, and I can tell Dad wants to talk to you.” A sheepish grin appears. “Plus I want you to bring Clooney over.”

Derek blinks again, and whirls towards Reid. “Did you tell her about Clooney?”

He shakes his head, holding his hands up in surrender and rolling his eyes with a fond look at Finn’s self-satisfied grin. “No, but she’s right, you should come over.” He glances
at his daughter and sighs. “And you should bring Clooney.”

“Will you come?” Finn asks, such a childlike look of hope in her eyes that she almost seems to be her age for a second.

Derek immediately finds himself caving. “Yeah, sure.” He snaps out of it and turns to Reid. “As long as it’s okay with Spence.”

“I did just agree, didn’t I?” He smiles at his best friend and then looks at his daughter as she stands up.

“Dope, I’m gonna go to the skate park,” she says, hugging Reid quickly and fistbumping Derek before she runs and skateboards out of the office.

“You got a good kid, Spence.”

“I know.”
***