Natalie

Chapter 11

Natalie woke up in her bed, confused as to how she got there. Someone must have brought her home. Last night, she was with Garcia when she found out who their unsub was. Then, it became a waiting game. She wasn't sure what time she fell asleep, but it must have been late because now, it was one o'clock in the afternoon. Jesus.

Spencer, of course, was up and reading a book in the living room. There was no doubt that he was an early riser, even when he didn't get that much sleep. On average, he slept about four hours a night, and he knew that was unhealthy. It was just too much of a habit at this point. He glanced up from his book as Natalie finally left her bedroom.

Last night as Spencer greeted Garcia, he found Natalie sleeping in the technical analyst's office. His first thought was to apologize to Garcia, but not surprisingly Natalie was good company. Even though she woke up for a short amount of time to get back to the apartment, he knew that she wouldn't exactly remember. It was quite late at night, and he didn't want to bother her too much.

"Morning," she said as she put a kettle on the stove for tea. 

Spencer closed his book, and stood up. Although he had no reason to be, he was already wearing a tie. This wasn't abnormal for Spencer though, he basically lived his life waiting for a new case to arrive. He shuffled over to the counter and poured another cup of coffee.

"Please don't tell me you drink a whole pot of coffee a day, no wonder you're bouncing off the walls with facts all the time," Natalie laughed. Everyone made fun of how much coffee Spencer drank. At this point, it seemed like he drank it just to get those types of responses out of everyone. 

He shook his head, "I couldn't remember if you drank coffee or not,"

Natalie smiled, "No, I've tried it a few times, and I just don't like the taste. Tea, on the other hand, is where I get my caffeine from," She realized how much coffee was in the pot, and didn't want it to go to waste. So, she turned off the tea kettle. After all, he did make extra. "For future reference, I don't really drink it," she said. 

Coffee was Natalie's worst nightmare. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but drinking coffee genuinely made Natalie want to throw up. It was fine at the moment though. She really just didn't want to offend Spencer, they weren't close enough yet for her to deny something he made for her.

"So, I was looking into a few options for school, and although I could easily get you into CalTech, I figured that's a bit far for you. I did, however, find a few really good colleges that are more local," Spencer began. 

It was nice of Spencer to do this for her, but she really didn't think she wanted to go to college. Natalie just had no clue how to tell him this. It was scary enough making this move, and she just wanted her life to be as normal as possible.

"Great, I'll look into them... later," Natalie gave an awkward smile.

"Hey I may not be that great socially, but I'm a profiler, and I can pick-up a few social cues. What's wrong?" Spencer frowned. 

Natalie sighed, and dumped the coffee in her mug down the drain. No matter how polite she wanted to be, coffee just wasn't the way she was going to do it. Realizing that might have been a little harsh, she pretended to flinch, put the mug in the sink, and cleared her throat. "I just don't think I want to go to college quite yet,"

Spencer shook his head. "I thought...,"

"Look, I'm not saying that I don't want to go at all. I think maybe if I took a few online classes or something that would be fine. I just kinda want to go back to high school," Natalie admitted.

There was something about Spencer's face that made Natalie want to completely retract her statement, and start looking at places to go to college. It was like he suddenly didn't know how to speak. This probably had to do with his lack of parenting skills, not that he was her parent. Though, he was technically supposed to be the parent.

This whole situation was new for Spencer. Maybe he jumped the gun just a little bit with fostering a fifteen year old girl. He definitely couldn't go back at this point, and he obviously didn't want to go back. This was just one of those moments when he realized this would be much harder than he thought.

"I think you're too smart for high school. It would be a disservice to you," Spencer said.

Natalie nodded, "I know that trust me, it's just... I want to be a teenager okay? Not some prodigy, or some golden genius child, or whatever you think I should be,"

Spencer glared at her, "I don't want you to be anything you don't want to be," he sighed and put his coffee down. They were still in the kitchen, making this conversation that much more difficult. Not that kitchens were terrible, there was just no where to sit, and Natalie had just woken up. He pondered for another moment, and cleared his throat, "You can go back to high school, but we're signing you up for online college classes as well,"

"And I'll take all the AP classes possible," Natalie smiled. 

"So, I'll make a couple calls and get you registered for school. You've been out for a while so they might make you do some catching up," Spencer said.

"That's fine, and Spencer?" Natalie looked up at him for a minute.

Spencer looked back at her, wondering what she would say.

"Thank you for everything. I think I really needed to be away from that place," admitted Natalie.

"You're welcome," Spencer began. "I know my job can be... demanding, but I promise it will not get in the way of your life," 

That was definitely a promise that Spencer should never had made...