Title: Wishing on A Star
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Spencer Reid
Fandom: Doctor Who/Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, letter100
Prompt: 43, Shooting Star
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.

***

Dear Doctor,

It's weird to sit here and write you a letter when I know that I don't have to mail it. How am I supposed to send it -- stick a few stamps on it and politely ask you to take me to the nearest interstellar post office? I don't think it works like that.

But sometimes I feel like I can get things down in letters better than I can when I'm trying to talk. I've always been like that. I could talk about cases and statistics really well when I worked with the BAU, but on my own, I'm kind of hopeless.

At least most of the time I am. I think I've gotten better at putting my feelings into words since I met you. It sounds kind of lame, but you've brought out the best part of me, a part that I think I kept hidden for a really long time.

Maybe that part of me is still hiding away, because I know it's still hard for me to get it to come out front and center all the time. Sometimes I get tongue-tied when I'm trying to talk to you, or tell you how I feel. Maybe I'll always be like that.

I've always been an awkward kind of guy. But I hope that I can express my feelings more with a letter to you than I'd be able to if I was just sitting here talking to you, looking into those beautiful brown eyes and trying to put my emotions into coherent words.

Why can't I do things like that? I don't know; maybe it's because I've always been the brain guy who was more than a little scared of his emotions.

You're teaching me not to be so scared. Yeah, I'd slept with people before I met you -- both men and women. I'd even been in love, even though when I think back on that, it might have been more of an infatuation in pretty much every case.

I don't think I knew what real love was until I met you. And I don't think I really knew how to dream. I'd look up at the sky and wish on the stars, but I never believed those wishes would come true. And I always thought dreams were just something to have when I was sleeping.

But since I've been with you, my whole attitude about dreams and the stars and magic and everything else has changed. Oh, I know you don't believe in magic. You're kind of like me in that way -- you want to see proof before you let yourself believe in anything.

I've always been like that. My mind has always been really analytical, and it's easier for me to focus on cold hard facts and what I can see right in front of my eyes and have proof for than it is for me to let myself fly away on fairy wings.

I used to try to make myself think like that when I was younger. I wanted to be accepted by all the other kids. I wanted to be able to believe in the things that were so important to them, mainly because it always seemed like I was missing out on something if I didn't believe.

Sometimes I could. There were nights when I'd stand at the window of my bedroom and look up at all the stars sprinkled in the night sky, and I'd make wishes on them. Then I'd start counting them, and I'd get all caught up in that and forget about the magic of the stars.

That's me, always going back to analyzing things too much. Trying to make myself just see the facts, and not the whimsical side of the world around me.

That worked really well for a while. It gave me the reputation of not being very imaginative, and people thought I was boring and a "brainiac" and they avoided me. That's a big part of what's made me the person I am -- not being able to see the possibilities in those stars.

And then there were those few times when I did. When I'd see a shooting star -- and I'd wish so hard on it that I was absolutely positive any wish I made would come true, just because I wanted it to so bad and because I believed it would.

None of those dreams ever came true. And after a few years of disappointments in that direction, I gave up on shooting stars. I gave up on looking out of my window at the night sky. When I did, I didn't see anything but cumulus clouds and constellations.

I forgot how to look for the magic. I forgot that there's more to what's in front of my eyes than just cold hard facts -- that if I let my mind go to all the places it could possibly go, there was so much more out there for me to find than what I could physically see.

You gave me back that belief, Doctor. Being out here with you has made me believe in the magic of the stars again. It's made me believe that wishes can come true, and that I can fly away on fairy wings if I want to do it bad enough.

Okay, so you might not look much like a fairy. But you're an angel -- at least in my eyes. You're the angel who saved me from the downward spiral I was letting myself get lost in. You took me away from the mundane world and opened my eyes to so much.

And you know something? I've been thinking lately about all those nights when I was a kid and I'd look out of my window at the shooting stars, and wish on them with all my might.

One of those shooting stars might have been you, moving through the sky in your Tardis. You might have been a part of my life long before either one of us ever knew it; you might have been the wish I wanted so badly to come true.

I didn't know it at the time, didn't even think about it. But you could have always been my destiny. That little kid looking out of his window and starting to count all the stars out there in the sky could have been unconsciously searching for you in those stars.

The more I think about it, the more I think that's true. I used to believe so hard in those wishes I made on shooting stars. It was almost like something connected me to those stars, like there was some power trying to draw me out into them.

Maybe that's why I turned away from them -- because I was too scared to accept that possibility. And I was too young at the time to know what it meant. But now I'm not too young -- and I'm not scared any more. Only excited over the possibilities that the stars hold.

I want to share every shooting star with you, Doctor. Now that I'm out here in those stars with you, I want us to take each one of those shooting stars and wish on them, to hold those wishes in our hands and make them come true. Together.

You've made so many wishes that I have come true. And you've not only given me those wishes, but you've given me the stars to wish on. I couldn't ask for any more than that, not even the moon. I don't need to go wishing on a star. Not while I'm by your side.

I don't need to wish for the moon. I have the stars.

Love,

Spencer

***