"And you're sure your unassailable virtue is still intact?" Garcia teased, over the phone, still in the office as Reid made his way up the stairs to his apartment. "Not pining for some pretty face? I mean, that's the fastest I've ever seen you leave, after a case. You're usually still here with me, writing reports until they make us go home in the morning."

"I'm fine, Garcia." Reid knew a date was the last thing Garcia was actually worried about. A relapse, maybe, but not a date. "I promise you. I just wanted to get back t... Huh." He reached out and pulled a delivery slip off his door, balancing the phone against his shoulder as he let himself in. "Hey, can you look something up for me? It looks like I missed a package, but I didn't order anything. If I give you the tracking number, can you figure out where it came from, at least?"

"Are you sure you don't have someone waiting for you?" Garcia laughed nervously. "Give me the number and let's see what I can do."

Reid provided the number, leaning against the door to close it behind him. "Call me back when you've got it? I don't have enough hands."

"Call me back in ten minutes. If I don't hear from you in fifteen, I'm sending the locals." Garcia sounded completely serious.

A chill ran down Reid's spine as he dropped his go bag and locked the door. "Deal."

He dropped the phone into a pocket and drew his gun. The apartment didn't provide many places to hide, and frankly, he should have had his gun in hand the minute he saw the slip on the door, but better late than never, considering he hadn't gotten shot yet. Not his home. Never his home. He wasn't Hotch -- he wasn't important enough ... But, that was stupid. He and JJ had always been the obvious targets. He looked young and distracted in most of the photos that made the paper, and JJ was the face of the unit -- always on screen.

Stupid, stupid, stupid... he should've been paying more attention. But, as he made his way back to the kitchen, checking everything along the way, he had to admit no one had been there, since he'd left. Still, as he went to splash water on his face and put on another pot of coffee, he seriously considered sleeping with his gun in easy reach. Something was not right, here, and the last thing he wanted was to wake up -- he wasn't going to think about that.

Put the coffee on and call Garcia. Don't think about the way the cloth cuts after a few hours, the stench of -- No. Stop. Make coffee.

He called Garcia as he listened to the coffee maker burble. "It's clear. Nobody's been here at all."

"You're sure?" Garcia asked. "I mean, not that nobody's there now. Obviously you'd notice. That place is tiny! But...?"

"Trust me. I'd know. I keep things a certain way." Reid gave the coffee maker a pleading look, but it remained unmoved. "Everything's where I left it and nothing's new. Did you find anything?"

"Did I find anything," Garcia scoffed. "Well, first off, it's a very large box and it was shipped overnight. Someone knew you'd be home some time today. Still working on who, but the package shipped from an Amazon warehouse, so it's not going to be body parts or something. I'm pretty sure whatever this is, it's not going to be anything too horrible, unless someone bought you an entire pallet of furbies."

Reid choked on a laugh. "I ... I can't imagine why anyone would send me furbies."

"As a form of torture, obviously. Did you flunk anyone, last semester? It would be the ultimate revenge. Or something." Garcia's voice faded out into the clatter of keys.

"If one of my students sent me a pallet of furbies, I hope they're prepared for the war this is going to start." Reid slid down the cupboards until his feet touched the other side, letting the drawer behind him support his back as he continued to stare balefully at the coffee maker.

"Okay, it's not furbies. It's... a chair?" Garcia paused, the double taps of the keyboard suggesting she was tabbing through multiple documents. "And the gift notes on it read: 'No obligations. Your partner pays well. Instructions to follow.' What am I looking at, Reid?"

"I'm sorry, did you say a chair?" Reid was back on his feet in less time than it took to finish the sentence. "Is it, by chance, an extremely fancy chair? Maybe a microfiber recliner? A vibrating one?"

"And you got it in one. Something you want to tell me?"

"We have a mutual ... contact. The Vanity case. You're the partner in that note. He's telling me I don't owe him for the chair because his fees for the case paid for it." Reid barked out a laugh and grabbed his coffee mug as the machine began to make the sounds that suggested it might finish soon.

"Wait, wait. What?" Garcia filled verbal space as she tried to make sense out of what Reid was saying. "No, no, no. Why would he buy you a chair? What...? Did I miss something?"

"You could say I fell in love, while I was there..." Reid managed to sound wistful, watching his own smile in the reflection on the inside of the kitchen windows as he tried not to laugh.

"You what."

"With his chair. I fell in love with his chair." Reid gave in to the laugh. "I was joking about paying him to make one like it for me. So, I think he's taken it upon himself to send me the parts to do it myself. 'Instructions to follow.'"

"That's a pretty serious gift. These chairs aren't anything like cheap." Garcia sounded doubtful.

"What's the name of the purchaser?" Reid found himself suddenly curious. "Because I know what it's not."

"François-Marie Arouet? Sounds very Fre--"

But, Reid was already laughing so hard he leaned on the edge of the sink to hold himself up. "Yeah. Yeah, that's him. There is no question."

"I'm so confused. It takes a lot to make me admit that, you know." Garcia paused, waiting for Reid to pull himself together. "You're not going to tell me anything, are you?"

"Not over the phone. Ask me about it in a crowded bar. Assuming you can get me into a crowded bar. I might make an exception for this conversation, just because I need another pair of eyes on a few things, and you're the only person who can know about any of this, because you already do."

"Reid, this is crazy. I'm the one who's supposed to say things like that, not you!" Garcia protested. "And even I stopped saying things like that years ago!"

"Well, to be entirely fair, it is entirely your fault." Reid finally poured his coffee. "You found him. You sent me out there. You kept him out of the final reports."

"And somehow you're the one who gets a chair out of this. I see how it is." The sound of Garcia taking a swig of whatever was on her desk followed, then, "Mmm, no. Actually, I don't."

"It's fine. I just fixed his coffee maker. Kind of. I made coffee with it, after being warned it was impossible, because I wanted a cup of coffee. I will never understand why people drink Jolt. What is the purpose of drinking something disgusting that could just as easily be just as caffeinated and actually taste good?" Reid took a sip of coffee and remembered, almost too late, to swallow before starting the next sentence. "It's a return on the coffee maker, if it's anything more than just showing off."

"This is much more expensive than even a really nice coffee maker. This chair costs more than Rossi's coffee maker."

"It actually was Rossi's coffee maker. Not Rossi's, but the same kind." Reid shook his head. "I'm pretty sure he's just showing off, considering I didn't give him any of my contact information."

"That doesn't concern me less. If anything that concerns me more."

"Look at his record. He's a notorious show-off. You knew him when he was still active. How much of his work was just because he could? He got pretty seriously  burned on his last job, right? You just handed him the confidence to start pulling stunts again, so he's starting small. With me, because if he screws up, I'm not going to be dangerous. We parted on friendly terms. I think you scare the shit out of him. He's pretty shaken that you managed to find him."

"Pretty sure you're not supposed to be profiling people we work with," Garcia teased.

"Pretty sure people we work with aren't supposed to be using fake names to send me chairs, so I think we're even," Reid retorted. "Besides, you're the one who thinks he might be dangerous."

"He knows where you live. He is dangerous."

"I know where he lives. I'm much more dangerous." Reid took a long swallow of coffee. "Listen, we'll talk about this later. Safer."

"I like exactly nothing about this, but I trust you. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"I'm on leave. A hundred days, remember?" Reid rubbed his eye with the hand holding the coffee cup. "And I took an extra day, so I get a weekend on both ends. I start teaching not Monday, but the one after, so I can make sure I've got everything together before I walk in."

"I know you; you had everything together three weeks ago. This weekend, we're going to a bar. Write that on your calendar. Spencer Reid is going to get drunk and tell all." Garcia laughed. "While you're on leave, because I have mercy."

"Your mercy is greatly appreciated, as always. As is your assistance. Call me at home when you know where and when." Reid figured he owed her at least this much. He wasn't going to get that drunk. He wasn't going to tell her everything.

"Will do. Sleep well!"

"Same, when you get there." Reid hung up the phone and dropped it back into a pocket.