out. i sometimes ponder reid's choices and influences, and wonder what he might have done if he'd decided to leave the bau back when he was considering it in nola? or if he'd left after gideon did, his string having been ( in some ways ) effectively cut, dropped-marionette style. nevermind that i think he stuck around at the bau partly out of sheer stubbornness -- because he loves his job and even gideon abandoning him/them out of sheer self-preservation ( the first sentinel of the bau; the old guard, played out ) doesn't change that; sheer stubborn love for his work, reid has -- and a fondness of security and routine. but ignoring that -- what if he had decided to leave the bau?
he could have gone back to school and gotten another degree / doctorate. or he could have taught, at that point, if he could stand to; we know he loves to educate, but i don't think he has the social impetus to put himself out there, even though we know he'd make a great 'hot professor', okay. reid surrounded by college-age girls who think he's the cutest / most off-beat awesome thing since hipsters; reid absolutely staring through them while not looking at them and/or rambling/stuttering, etc, because teaching's one thing, flirting's another, and how do.
mostly i like to think reid would have stayed with the fbi; i don't think he would have been able to move away from it entirely. he might have transferred to the white collar division; he loves a good paper trail, has an air for detail and discrepancy, and he'd make an amazing field or desk agent in that division -- and his profiling expertise would help at both. and maybe he'd be happy-ish there, but he'd miss the team, and maybe maybe miss the hunt? knowing that he's doing some good out in the world?? ( not that the white collar division doesn't do some good -- ponzi schemes are world ruiners, and genuinely damage the lives of thousands daily -- but it's not the same as what the bau does. ) and maybe he likes that at first, maybe he needed the change and the distraction, but then -- over time -- he starts to miss it? and i just? i dunno, the team reaching out to him? him reaching out to the team? can i have it maybe or -- gawsh.
i dunno man; white collar fbi ! specner reid. i could get behind an au of that. where my peter burke's and my neal caffrey's at? in fact -- all the other fbi shows, all of them. the mentalist, white collar, numb3rs, perception. let me do all the things. shit.