Title: New Horizons
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Spencer Reid
Fandom: Doctor Who/Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, letter100
Prompt: 48, Surprised
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Spencer Reid, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

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Dear Spencer,

You've been here on the Tardis for a while now, and I don't have to ask you if you enjoy being here. I can see that every time I look at you, and I can sense it. Contentment radiates from you every time you smile at me, whenever I look at you.

There were many times when you first became my companion that I worried you would want to go back to your life on Earth, to return to the BAU as though we'd never met. I couldn't help feeling that it was where you would always feel that you belonged.

I don't have that worry any more. I know that you've settled in comfortably here, and to be honest, a part of me is surprised that you have. I didn't expect you to be able to adapt to my way of life so easily -- and I thought that you might be bored.

It's not that I didn't think you would fit into my world. On the contrary -- you're the perfect person to be here on the Tardis. You have a scientific mind, and you're one of the few people I've ever met during the course of my life who can match me in intelligence.

Yes, of course I know that sounds vain. But it's also honest. I've never met anyone like you, Spencer -- you're on my level in so many ways, whereas most humans could never hope to be. But you .... you're the person I've always wanted to find.

I'm more than a little surprised that I've come to feel that way so quickly. You and I had a meeting of the minds from the very first -- and I'll admit that I wanted to be with you from that first conversation in the coffee shop. But I didn't think it would actually happen.

It wasn't until I found out about your problem, and knew that I had to help you get past it, that I began to think there was a chance for you and I to be more than just companions. Until then, I hadn't thought of anything past the short-term.

That is, I wasn't thinking of that until I realised that it might be hard for you to go back to the BAU after you'd just come through such a harrowing experience. That was when I started to let the barriers fall and opened myself up to possibilities.

It was hard for me not to scuttle back inside the shell that I'm used to hiding myself under when it comes to my emotions. I've never been the kind of man who gives my hearts easily; I think that's been obvious from the small steps our relationship has taken.

But I wanted you long before we became lovers. In fact, I wanted you from that first day, when you sat across the table from me in that coffee shop and smiled at me. Something in my hearts reached out to you, even though I forced myself to hold it back.

That first time we were together came as a complete surprise to me. I'd almost resigned myself to never being more to you than a close friend; I'd thought that it was impossible for us to ever be lovers. I was afraid to make the first move, you see.

I'd stopped trying to reach out to you with my emotions, and told myself over and over that I could content myself with only being companions and friends. I was sure that was the only thing we could ever be; I didn't think you could possibly have romantic feelings for me.

Even after the first time we made love, I still couldn't help wondering if that passion was going to last. I knew that it would for me -- but I couldn't help being worried that you wouldn't feel the same, that I wouldn't have lived up to your expectations.

I was surprised by the intensity of our lovemaking that first time. I put it down to the sexual tension that has been there between us since we first met, but it was more than that -- it was as though our hearts were reaching out to each other.

I've been surprised by so much about you, Spencer -- and they've all been pleasant surprises. The only bad one I've gotten is at the very beginning of our relationship, when I found out about your drug problem. And that was something that we put behind us rather quickly.

The biggest surprise, for me, is that you've decided to leave behind your life on Earth to be with me. I've hoped that you would do that from the very beginning, but I'd made myself believe that our love affair would only be for a brief time, and that you would choose to leave.

Every day when I wake up and realise that you're still here beside me, I can literally feel my hearts jump in my chest. I start each day feeling happy and contented, knowing that it's one more day I have with you, and reveling in the fact that you're here.

Sometimes I wonder if there are things about me that surprise you just as much, and I wonder what they are. Maybe writing you this letter is my way of asking that question on paper, because I don't really want to ask it of you point-blank. I'm a little afraid of what I might hear.

I know that you've gotten some surprises about the universe we travel in; that would be inevitable. But I can't help wondering if those surprises are always good ones, or if you're disappointed in the way that the rest of the universe exists.

But whenever I start to think like that, I remind myself that you would never have had the chance to see all of this if we had never met -- and then I have to feel that even if the universe doesn't run in the way that you'd most like to see it, at least you have the chance to see what it's like.

There's so much ahead of us, Spencer. We'll find out more about each other, and there's so much more of the world for you to see. I'm looking forward to every moment of our future together -- a future that I'm sure will take us to new horizons -- and bring us both a lot of new surprises.

Your

Doctor

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