SOMETIMES FAMILY IS
WHAT YOU MAKE, NOT
WHAT YOU WERE BORN
INTO.

People thirst for knowledge, they always have and they always will — one of the simple facts of life, a reason behind how cultures have evolved into the society we share today. Without knowledge, human kind would have never evolved past the people who feared fire and had rudimentary use of their hands. But, knowledge is not everything it appears to be. People strive to be intelligent (however, some scientists will argue that no matter what, intelligence is something a person is born with), to understand and know a lot about the world around them. To see things for what they are, no matter what time of the year it was. But, intelligence was not knowledge, so many people are misguided when it comes to their thirst for knowledge. Plenty of intelligent people are not knowledgeable — perhaps in one or two things, but overall they may lack an entire worlds worth of ideas. Some people have knowledge that can take them far, farther than most, but wouldn't be considered the most intelligent person in the room. Yet, both kinds of people are burdened with one thing. A mind that understands too much about the world. A mind full of thoughts that can never be shut off — like a toddler who's stringing together their sentences for the first time.

Knowledge came with insight into how the world works, what must be done to make something happen. It's exhausting, knowing something about the world around you. Being forced into understanding the little intricate details that people often overlooked.

Spencer Reid was no stranger to those intricate details — he found solace in them more often than not, he needed and relied on these details. The patterns in nature that never changed unless something bad was about to happen or maybe his reliance on the repetitive nature of mathematics — Spencer Reid knew the ins and outs of most things in this world. He was the most knowledgeable person most people knew (and he was one of the ones that ticked off the box for the most intelligent too) (a two for one special, it appeared). Yet, even the most knowledgeable of people lose bits and pieces of themselves on their quest for more knowledge. See, Spencer Reid would argue to say he was never fully whole to begin with. Not until he met her. The one who opened his eyes to everything poetry and books had ever said — the one who made him realize that knowledge and intelligence were great, but there were other things more important to life. Things like love, something you can't just fill a void with knowledge and hope that wanting will go away. No, once you get a taste of it, you only begin to want more and more.

He had it right there in his hands and he lost it — there was no other way for him to describe it, he had her and he let her fall right from his fingers. Spencer Reid was a man of many mistakes, one full of regret for things he couldn't begin to explain. But his biggest one was letting Ryder Hotchner (the only woman who ever understood him in the way he wished people would) go.

And he burned that bridge to the ground.

Ryder Hotchner had a similar search for knowledge, with a heightened intelligence it seemed like the next step. As if there was no other choice than to fight for more knowledge — she didn't have much else to fight for. Having to carve her own way through the world, masked by the shadows of her four older brothers and a father who placed too heavy a weight on all of their shoulders, Ryder bore a crown too heavy for her head. Or maybe she was the one who placed that crown upon her own head, hellbent on making herself a better name than what her father had created (she didn't know much about him, she was young when he died, but she knew he was a man of very few words and thought more with his hands). She wanted the Hotchner name to mean something, she needed it to mean something — and she needed it to be separate from her brothers. The very same brothers who ran as fast as they could once they got out, hiding away from the rest of the family, she never got to know her brothers (not in the same way they had gotten to know each other). Instead, she was stuck with her mother (up until she died), and the books that showed her the world.

Of course, it helped a little when she got to escape the world by skipping a few grades (re: graduating high school at thirteen).

She was nineteen when she met Spencer, both of them wrapped up in their doctorates at MIT, realizing that they understood each other more than anyone had ever been able to read them. It didn't surprise her when they fell, when her heart became wrapped around his and her thoughts were consumed with him. How could she not? He was everything fiction wrote about, everything she had ever wished for in a man. Someone who understood her — someone who wanted her for her (not just to say they had an accomplished girlfriend and put her up on a pedestal) (not to mention it was hard to date while she was a teenager in college and medical school, now barely an adult in a doctorate program).  But they were young, unsure of how to love despite knowing they both needed and wanted it.

And in the end it left them both missing something, two halves that are waiting to be reconnected.

Life has a funny way of bringing people back together, at least that's what Ryder found out. The lines will all connect themselves back together over time — reconnecting people that she thought were long gone. Then again, it would be just her luck that one of her friends (and a co-worker) is murdered by a serial killer that her brothers (seriously, she could understand just one of them but three out of the four being involved seemed ridiculous) were all investigating. And it just so had to be her luck that under her oldest brothers team was the very same man who broke her heart. The very one who shattered it and left it on the ground of Boston, never looking back.

It seemed life had it out for Ryder Hotchner (or maybe it was all an elaborate scheme to get back at Spencer for breaking her heart) (after all, the Hotchner family may not be that close but they are her protective older brothers).

RYDER HOTCHNER, MD, PhD
portrayed by camilla luddington

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ADDITIONAL CAST
Bryce Dallas Howard ... Violet Lancaster
Charlie Cox ... Elliot "Eli" Hotchner
Abby Ryder Fortson ... Isabella Hotchner
Brenton Thwaites ... Declan "Dec" Hotchner
Chloe Grace Moretz ... Augustine Jareau-Watson
Deborah Ann Woll ... Harlow Jareau-Watson
Christian Bale ... Theodore "Blake" Watson
Calie Flemming ... Emerson Lancaster-Scott
John Boyega ... Calum Motta, MD
Ana De Armas ... Elina Rayne, MD
Brie Larson ... Dalia Rosenfeld, MD
Andrew Garfield ... Spencer Reid, PhD

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AUTHORS NOTE

Me: I have no inspiration for writing anymore
Also me, on FaceTime with haley: wow I have this idea for a fic and like I have a plot and everything!!!

Anyways I just absolutely love Ryder she's been here since I was first watching criminal minds, her story has been changing ever since but !! I love this plot to death and I can't wait to get into writing for it, especially with letting you all know more about her backstory with Spencer & her brother. Ryder Hotchner is just someone I connected to when creating her and I hope everyone else has the chance to connect to her the same way as I have!! Also please let me apologize about how bad the summary is, I wrote it very late at night and I'm not sure if the intended purpose was even met. We're just going to pretend that it did and move along. 🤠🤩. Anyways, I give y'all permission to yell at me if I never end up updating this or dropping the Aaron Hotchner fic connected to it.

DISCLAIMERS

1. I do not own any of the plot lines and or characters created for the Criminal Minds tv show. All of my own characters & plot points are owned by me, otherwise everything else is theirs!!

2. This story will talk about medical things (ie surgery, blood, trauma), as well as common topics in criminal minds such as murder, sa, etc.

3. The fancast for Spencer Reid was inspired by & given to me by fxllmoons!!

DEDICATIONS
to the hogwarts founders: ownthelight, angeIeyes,
findtheforce
to the milfs: halosnite, foxgIoves, fxllmoons, awfulmoons, Iexihoward, bananapopsicIes
and to my many other friends whom I love and appreciate: pulcherrius, spacemania, silksenses, sombersuns, arsvenal, aethrastic_dreamxx, bayports, luckyvirgo, elfaouly, antigalactic, bokuroos, xonceuponatimex, dunbonnet, protectremus.

THANKS FOR READING
BEGIN AGAIN