Criminal Minds Fanfic

by spinner

Fix You, Fix Me

1  2  3  4  5 

"When you're too in love to let it go

But if you never try, you'll never know"

"Fix You" - Coldplay

 1

We had spent three silent days on the road.   It was late afternoon on the third day.  The storms that had plagued us yesterday had cleared away to bright sunshine this morning, but the horizon behind us was filling with rolling, boiling storms that were pursuing us as we headed towards home.

Reid reached across the space between us.  He put his hand on my sleeve, his thin fingers gripping my forearm.  He stared at me, waiting. 

His unexpected touch startled me out of a reverie about kissing the curve and line of his jaw and the mole on his cheek near to his ear, so small, so perfect, a tiny blemish that can keep my attention for hours.  I had spent the previous minutes watching a drop of sweat wind its way down from his temple, past his ear, down his smooth jaw, down his neck.    

Maybe he was getting too hot? He was sitting in full sun, but I was being shaded by the turn of the road and the roof of the car. 

I touched the controls under my fingers and lowered his window for him.  The moisture evaporated off his skin instantly.  His hair was lifted, twisted around, glowing like a sandy, honey halo.  I watched direct sunlight make his eyes clench painfully behind sunglasses purchased in Kansas City on the first day of our strange journey. 

The teasing breeze made him happy in spite of the pain. I was overjoyed to see a thin smile trace his lips.  His skin looked less ghastly the more time passed—the black and purple were giving way to blue and green and a sallow, sickly yellow.  It had been a struggle to get him to eat, and therefore his skin was stretched more tightly than ever over his thin frame. 

He leaned forward in his seat, arching his back.  The wind picked up his shirt – my shirt.  The wind moved around his thin waist, caressing his skin, pulling the sticky, damp material away from his back.  Sunlight poured through the fabric, leaving it transparent as it billowed around him.  I suddenly wanted to be in bed with him again, holding that body against mine.  He lifted his arms, let the playful wind curl all around his entire frame.  He was like a prophet commanding unseen spirits. 

It made my pulse race to think that a plain white teeshirt which had once touched my skin was now all he wanted against his skin.   I hadn’t been able to take it back from him, and what’s more, I never would.  Our smells had mingled on that material—musky, salty, dirty, and sweet with a hint of decay.   I might convince him to let me toss it in the washer tonight (if the hotel we stopped at had such services) but in the morning, I was sure he would be wearing it again.   

I couldn’t wait to stop for the night in another hotel, to hold him while he slept, to listen to him breathe, to feel him nestle against me as tight as he could get.  He found comfort in the routine.  I had accomplished this much at least—he no longer jolted in fear when I touched him. 

I guiltily resolved that I could become accustomed to a silent and dependent Spencer Reid, as long as I could have him near me the rest of my days.  Out here, it was only the two of us.  It was him and me and whatever direction I chose to drive.  As much as I wanted to get home, get back to my life with Jack, I never wanted to leave this road.  If this road could end with Spencer by my side, I thought I might be happy again. 

I could wish all I wanted, but the truth was I knew that at the end of this journey, I would have to give Spencer up, let the real world have him back.  Who knew what lay beyond the end?  I was terrified at the possibility of what would happen to him.  What if he had to leave the Bureau?   What if he wanted to leave because of what had happened?  Would Strauss force him out because of getting injured in the line of duty again?  This journey was a limbo that could end in either heaven or hell.  I couldn’t let myself think on it too long, because the fear of the unknown was the worst kind of pain for me. 

Here and now though, Spencer was clinging onto my arm, silently holding me hostage to any whim he might have.  He had strange whims.  Yesterday we had spent forty minutes wandering around a supermarket until we finally found something he wanted to eat—popsicles.  He devoured five of them before he was finally sated.  His lips were stained blue and green for the rest of the day.  I had watched that mouth, watched him sliding inches of frozen goodness in and out between those full lips and across that tongue.  Needless to say, I had taken a very long shower last night. 

I was watching his mouth again as Spencer licked his bottom lip and spoke with a rough, scratched voice.  

“Hotch, where are we?”

I stopped so dramatically that I damned near wrecked the SUV.  

The pillows and blankets in the backseat collided with the back of the front seats.  A paperback book flew between us and smacked the dash.  The remains of my morning coffee, long cold, splashed my pants leg as it sloshed out of the cup in the cup holder.   

The moment he spoke, it all made sense.  Mariner had tried to choke him to death—had half succeeded.  Of course his throat was sore, and his voice was hoarse.  Maybe he hadn’t been speaking because he couldn’t, not only because he was traumatized and didn’t want to speak.  I hoped foolishly that the issue was more one of mechanics than psychology.

I pulled the vehicle to the side of the winding road and put it in park, yanked the emergency brake up, ignoring the carload of kids who raced past shaking their fists and honking loudly.

“Hotch?” Spencer questioned. 

I have never heard a more beautiful sound than my name on Reid’s lips.   It had been seven long days of unbearable silence since he had been attacked, and except the terrified screams that woke him in the night, he had not uttered a single sound.   Those screams had been proof that he did have a voice but lacked the will to use it until now.   So it must have been psychological more than mechanical?  What had changed? 

“West Virginia,” I said.

I didn’t dare move.  Spencer processed the answer, bunched his mouth tight.  His brows tugged together. His fingers clenched around the material of my sleeve, fingers moving together, holding onto me. 

“Where’s West Virginia?” he asked.

Oh fuck me.  Three sentences in less than five minutes?  I was in heaven, grinning like an idiot, my eyes filling with happy tears.  I then realized what he had asked, and my heart fell to hell.   This was not good.

I fumbled for my phone and dialed with trembling fingers.

“Garcia?!” I wailed. 

“Hotch, what’s wrong?”

I turned the speaker on and held up the phone near Reid.  He cleared his throat and spoke again. 

“Garcia, where is West Virginia?”

“Um…I….Okay…..I’m putting you on speaker.  Can you repeat that?” she asked, happiness brimming over in her voice. 

“Where is West Virginia?”

The shout in the background was not from Garcia, that much was certain. 

“REID!?  IS THAT YOU!?”  Morgan exclaimed. 

“Could someone answer my goddamn question?” Reid demanded petulantly. 

I couldn’t stop smiling.  I reached into the backseat floorboard.     

“Amnesia?” I choked on the word, watching Spencer flip through the Rand McNally atlas that I dropped in his lap.  He devoured West Virginia, ate Washington, and went for a bite of Virginia, rolling backwards through the states with an insatiable hunger.  His mind was awake again, and he wanted to eat.  He stopped on the insert map of Washington DC and voraciously ripped information from the page like savage bites of flesh from small prey. 

“Obviously not total amnesia.  He knows who we are,” Morgan answered.  I could hear Garcia in the background, excitedly talking to someone else on another phone line. 

“YES!  I’M SERIOUS!” Penelope was shouting.  “JJ, get down here!”

I could imagine JJ flying through the office and the bullpen, grabbing Prentiss and Rossi on their way down to Garcia’s computer office.  I had to keep Reid talking long enough that they could all hear him.  I knew it would be expected of me.  I wanted to cry and laugh and hug Reid.  I took off my seatbelt, and did all three.  He stared at me, most unnerved.

“Anterograde amnesia is not uncommon after blows to the head that result in concussions.  Often retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia can happen in conjunction with mild traumatic brain injuries.  Patients will be unable to recall the specific event, and hours, even days before and/or after the event as well,” he said, carefully pushing me an arm’s length away. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked Reid. 

Spencer scratched at the stitches on the back of his head, eyes glazing with confusion.  He made a small, unhappy frown, sucking in his bottom lip.  When he whined in pain, I melted, and put a hand on his arm. 

“It’s okay.  You don’t have to remember if you don’t want to.”

“North Carolina.   I…..oh….”

Reid stopped talking and watched me move so close into his body space that he could not help but notice me.  

“I’m so glad to have you back, Reid,” I said. 

Rand McNally was like a shield against his chest, gouging us both in the ribs at odd angles.   I took his skull in my hands and pressed a kiss to his mouth.  He turned his chin, and I slid from his mouth, got part of one cheek.  He moaned a low rumble that excited my blood like heroin. 

I pulled away from the kiss, and his big brown eyes blinked at me in surprise. 

“Hotch, if that gets any more serious than a happy kiss, you need to put the car in park,” Morgan mused. 

My witty retort was lost when Reid pushed me violently out of his personal space.  

“Take me to a doctor,” Spencer demanded, his panic rising.

“Now?” I asked.  “We’re in the middle of West Virginia.  This is like Alabama with better tv reception.  Once we get back to Virginia, there are specialists at the Bureau who…”

“Are you kidding me?!  Take me to a hospital right this goddamn minute!  How long have I been like this??  Jesus Fucking Christ, Aaron Hotchner!  How many days were you going to wait, hoping I’d snap out it on my own!?”

I did have a certain weakness for Spencer with a dirty mouth, those moments when his temper spiked and he became all hot and spunky.  I had gained the deeper understanding that when he was being submissive and quiet, it was taking him a lot of effort to hold his temper down inside.  

“Anything you say,” I replied. 

“Hands on the wheel, Hotch.  I’ll give you directions,” Garcia interjected.   

Reid turned the pages of the atlas, giving me a hostile stare as I did what he asked. 

2

My temper was calm by the time we had been sitting in the hospital emergency room for an hour.  Spencer’s temper had fizzled away entirely.  He had finished the atlas, dropping it to the floor under his seat.  He had taken to shivering as close to my side as publicly-acceptable for an adult male.   I took his hand, and he clung tight to my fingers.   A metal tray clattered to the floor nearby, and he nearly passed out from terror.   

I needed help, didn’t I?  Was it wrong that I enjoyed him holding my hand, afraid of the world, trusting only in me?  When they called him back, he rose to his feet like he was facing certain execution.

“You want me to come with you?” I asked.

He shook his head no, silent again, afraid again.  I picked up the atlas and held it over my lap, for reasons that I didn’t want to be obvious to the hospital staff that milled around us up and down the hallway.   

It was another hour before the nurse finally directed me to the private examination room where Reid was crawling into his clothes.  He looked like he was in shock, pale and clammy.  I wanted to go inside and talk to him, be reassuring.  The doctor touched my arm and pulled me aside in the hallway near some blue plastic chairs, spoke to me in hushed tones.   

“Agent Hotchner?”

“Yes?”

“I want to talk to you about…”

“Should you tell me?” I stopped him quickly. 

“I’m at liberty to tell you about his condition.  He signed release papers with your name on them.”

“Good.”

“You aren’t about to tell me this happened as a result of a car crash or some bullshit like that, are you?”

“No.  Is that what he said?”

“No.  He didn’t know.  Can you tell me how he came by these injuries?”

“We were working on a case.  A suspect escaped police custody and attacked Dr. Reid.”

“A suspect with a vicious left hook and an ability to choke men to death with his bare hands?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Reid asked us to do a rape kit.  Was that necessary?”

“What did he tell you?”

“He said the bruises on his thighs and wrists and throat, the signs of confinement and restriction, were consistent with an attack by a sexual sadist with a bondage fetish.  Why….How….Should he even know about things like this?”

“It’s part of our job, his job.  The suspect attempted to rape him, but our team managed to get in the room and prevent any more harm.”  I could hardly say the words, my voice lost in my throat.  I shook my head to dissolve the horrid memories from my head. 

“You need to tell him that nothing happened.  You need to tell him everything.  The abrasions and contusions are healing.  I wouldn’t be overly concerned about any of those.  Make sure he gets rest and doesn’t exert himself.  Apply ice packs or heating pads.  It will help with the pain and swelling. 

“Okay,” I said, thinking he should be telling Reid this, unless he assumed that I would be taking care of Spencer once we got home as well.  If that was where the doctor’s mind was, he didn’t seem altogether phased at the idea.  I found that pretty refreshing. 

“The mild traumatic brain injury does concern me though.  It’s not a severe concussion, but then the consequences of these kinds of injuries are not easy to predict.  He’s experienced retrograde and anterograde amnesia, but appears to have “rebooted” if I may say it like that.  I wouldn’t expect the damage to be permanent.  His memories will return in time.  He appears to be regaining lucidity.”

“Just like in the soap operas?”

“I doubt that,” the doctor laughed quietly. 

“How much is he missing?”

The day prior to the incident, the incident itself, up until today in the car with you.”

“An entire week total then,” I answered.  “What jarred his memory?”

“You’ll have to ask him.  I have no idea.  Can I hope that you recaptured the man who did this to him?”

“Yes.” 

“Good.  Tell Dr. Reid.  He needs to know that man isn’t roaming around out there.”

“I’ll tell him.”   

“I saw on his x-rays older injuries that have healed.  His ribs in particular.  Does he get injured often in the line of work?”

“Not often,” I lied.  The doctor saw right through me. 

“Maybe he should consider a different line of work.”

“Maybe,” I worried, wondering how this stranger had managed to profile the darkest fear in my heart—that Spencer would want to leave the Bureau because of this incident.  The doctor handed me Reid’s file. 

“Please give this to him.  He said he wanted to read it for himself,” the doctor answered my unspoken question.  “The entire truth.”

“Perhaps it might be…..might be better….if….”

He tipped his head to the side.  “Might be better if he didn’t know how he was hurt?”

I nodded.  The doctor shook his head no.

“Do you know what I learned from soap operas?  If you’re married, never lie to your spouse, and if you’re a doctor, never lie to your patients.”

“Sound advice,” I agreed.

“Also, everyone has an evil twin, and most people can survive disfiguring, flaming car crashes, but they return with a different face,” he laughed softly, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.  “Sorry.  It’s been a twelve hour shift.  I’m getting punchy.”

“I understand.  I’ve been there,” I sympathized.  He put his glasses back on. 

“Agent Hotchner, don’t be concerned that telling Dr. Reid the truth will shock him.  I suspect he has a good idea what has happened even if he can’t remember the specifics.”

“Is he free to go?”

“He’s dehydrated.  He should drink more water.  And a sandwich or two wouldn’t kill him.  I wrote down the names of neurological specialists to see when you reach home.  I recommended two or three in your area.  One in particular is a sports medicine specialist.  This kind of injury isn’t uncommon in football and hockey.”

“Thank you, doctor,” I said, shaking his hand before he turned and strode away. 

I knew when it was better to do as directed and not cause more waves.  I carried the file inside the private examination room, and without a word, gave every last scrap of it to Reid.   I held the atlas against my chest, my shield against him this time. 

3

Reid picked his way around and through and near enough to half of a large Reuben sandwich with fries and a couple pickles.  He had been avoiding my gaze entirely, keeping his eyes low.  He was silent enough that I was afraid he was never going to speak again, that the trip to the hospital and reading the contents of his medical examination file had shocked him back into a profound fugue state that would last forever.

What bothered me most was the realization that he did not recall the attack by Mariner, but he was reacting as if he did remember it.  If he didn’t remember, he should not be this fearful.  His strange reaction to Morgan concerned me.  Derek had been quite stung by the terror his mere presence had inspired.  If Reid didn’t remember the events without having read them first in the medical file, then why the hell was he so afraid? 

My mind rolled over previous incidents in which Reid had been physically wounded, obviously nothing so serious as this, except Tobias Hankel in Georgia.  Even that had been more psychological torture than physical torture.   I waited, ate another fry, watched Reid’s long fingers move food around his plate.  He was dismantling the food with very little of it actually reaching his mouth.

I could not justify his reaction in my mind.  Either Spencer was lying, and he did remember what had happened with Mariner, or something like this had happened to him before, and the idea of it recurring had overwhelmed him, shut down his brain.  Learning the medical facts of what Mariner had done or tried to do had dredged up the terror of the previous incident in his mind.

Spencer must have been physically assaulted before.  There was no doubt in my mind.  I couldn’t lie and say the idea of that was totally a surprise either.  I supposed I could ask what had happened, but my voice stuck in my throat, and I couldn’t put the words out there. 

There wasn’t anything in his file.  But would it have been there?  If this happened before he came to the Bureau, unless he told someone, we would never know.  He had passed all the correct psychological exams for entrance into the FBI, but then he was an expert hustler, capable of lying his way through psychiatrist exams and fooling even me at times. 

The simple truth was, if he didn’t remember what happened with Mariner, he should have had no reaction whatsoever until reading the information in the medical file today.  So either Reid was lying about not having any memory of the Mariner attack, or he was reliving a previous attack compounded with the terror of knowing it had happened again even if he couldn’t remember. 

I felt ill in the pit of my stomach.  I watched Spencer take a drink of soda, and remembered the night I had driven him home, the night I had seduced him, taken advantage of someone who trusted me implicitly.  I cherished the memory of how he smelled and how he tasted, how wonderful his body felt beneath mine, how he had whispered in my ear, how he had screamed out when he came.  I remembered in reverse the entire experience, and stopped myself.

When I had first begun to undress him, Spencer had begged me to stop.  True fear had flooded his face.  He had tried to push me away.  He had almost burst into tears. 

He had been attacked before, hadn’t he?

I clenched my jaw, stared down at my food.   Had I unknowingly traumatized him?  Had my actions dredged up old memories too? 

‘It’s me.  It’s Hotch.’  I had told him, or something like.  Only when he knew it was me, that I wasn’t going to hurt him, only then had Spencer’s fear dissolved away.  Had I betrayed that trust with my actions?  Had I hurt him?

“I’m sorry for cursing at you,” Reid said finally, mindful of the crowded restaurant, keeping his voice low.  His bruised condition and ruffled appearance had attracted more than a small amount of attention from the local populace.

“You were upset,” I replied forgivingly.

“I was ungrateful.  You have been taking care of me all this time, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I apologize for yelling at you, for over-reacting.  It won’t happen again.”

My heart clenched and I felt the walls shoot up between us.  He was hiding again.  I was being pushed out.   I felt helpless.  I was so scared that I’d never get back in. 

“Can you give me the specifics about the case we were working?” Reid requested solicitously. 

“My notes are back at the hotel.  Are you sure you want to know?” I asked.

He leveled an icy look at me that sent chills down my spine. 

“Quite sure.”

“Hey, mister.  Hey, mister.  Hey, mister.  What happened to you?”

A small blond boy in the booth next to ours was poking Reid’s shoulder, would not be ignored.  Spencer winced and withdrew away from the touch.  The child, five or six years old, moved with him, poking him in the shoulder again.    

“Hey, mister.  What happened to you?”

Reid narrowed his eyes, his thin face full of cold, reptilian dislike. 

“Haven’t you ever been told how dangerous it is to talk to strangers?”

“What happened to you?” the child asked.

“None of your business.”

“What happened to you?” the child asked relentlessly. 

Reid glared at the child’s mother, an exceptionally-young woman who could have been twenty, maybe.  She smirked at Reid, amused by his testiness, somehow so proud that her child had been able to get under Spencer’s skin.  She made no attempt to curb the boy, who took another stab at Reid’s shoulder.   I knew before he even opened his mouth that Reid was about to get ugly and personal.   

“Do you know that ancient South American native tribes would sacrifice children to the gods of the Andes Mountains?  The priests would select very young children, five or six years old, force them to drink an hallucinogenic drug, bind them in ceremonial costumes, the weight of which would crush their bones and nearly suffocate them.  Then the priests would carry these children all the way up into the mountains, and leave them in special caves, alone, in the dark, leave them to die of exposure—to freeze to death in one of the most inhospitable environments on the entire planet.  It was considered a great honor to be selected for this ritual, an honor surely reserved for only the most annoying child available.”

The woman’s mocking smile fell.  She pulled her child across the booth away from Spencer, made the youngster sit down in his seat and be quiet.  The young boy was frowning, terrified, stuck surely on the words “alone” and “in the dark” which I was certain Reid had chosen for his benefit.  For my part, I was struggling not to break a smile or let the shocked laughter well up out of my chest. 

“Can we leave?” Spencer begged, facing me again.  Looking at his plate, I decided he had eaten about half of his food.  It would have to be enough.   What’s more, I didn’t want that child to make the mistake of annoying him any further.     

I also decided I should never let Jack annoy Reid. 

4

We had taken the precaution of checking into a hotel before finding a restaurant.  Once back in the room, I pulled Mariner’s case file from my brief and gave it to Reid, hanging my head in shame.  Spencer sat down on his bed and ignored me entirely, devouring the contents. 

I took a shower, and got dressed for bed. 

We crossed paths awkwardly when I emerged from the bathroom.  Reid wouldn’t look me in the face.  He hid in the bathroom for nearly an hour.  I heard him throwing up.  I heard him crying softly.   More than once, more than twice, I got up off my bed and went to the door, asked if he was okay.  There was no reply.  The shower came on at the half-hour mark. 

Ten minutes later, my phone rang.  I answered it.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Jack,” I smiled, warming up for him.

“Where are you?”

“West Virginia.”

“Oh, that’s close!”

“Very close.  I should be home tomorrow.”

“Did you get the bad guy?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to keep the bad guy?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Do you want me to read you a story?” I wondered, looking at my watch.  He should have been in bed half an hour ago. 

“No.  We’re watching movies.  Miss JJ said I should call you.”

“You’re with JJ?”

“Me and Henry.  We’re watching movies.”

“What are you watching?”

“Cars.”

“That’s good.  You like that one.”

“Henry likes it too.  I have to go now.”

“So soon?”

“The good part is coming,” Jack protested.  I laughed quietly. 

“Okay.  Put JJ on the phone,” I said.  “I love you.”

“I love you too.  Here she is.”

“Hotch?” JJ said.

“Thank you,” I smiled at the idea of her kindness. 

“You’re welcome.  How’s Spence?  How did it go at the hospital?”

“He’s angry.  Quiet.  Hiding in the bathroom.”

“Oh, Hotch,” JJ soothed.  “He needs time, that’s all.”

“I hope you’re right,” I whispered.   

“He needs some time,” she repeated.   “What did the doctor say?”

“To see a specialist when we get home.  Did you get the names of that I sent you by email?”

“Yes.  I made an appointment for late tomorrow in Ballston.  Didn’t Spence get my email?”

“I don’t know.  But thank you,” I said. 

The bathroom door unlocked.  Spencer emerged, bedraggled, his hair sodden down and straight, his entire body drooping.  He put his toiletry bag in his go-bag, and straightened back up stiffly, sitting down on the very end of my bed. 

“Is that Reid?  Can I talk to him?” JJ asked. 

I sat up, moved towards Reid, giving him the phone.

“JJ wants to talk to you.”

He shyly met my gaze, and took the phone, giving me the small silver scissors that he had been holding in his fingers.   I puzzled over the scissors as he clicked the speaker button on the phone.

“Go ahead, JJ.”

“I talked to your mom.”

Spencer cringed and made a face. 

“Is she okay?”

“She was frantic because she hadn’t heard from you, but I talked to her, told her what happened.”

“You told her…..?” Spencer winced.

“Not everything, obviously,” JJ corrected herself.  “She wants to see you.”

“She wants what?”

“I told her you were en route back home, but that Garcia would be happy to set up a video call between you.  She’s at the office late.”

Reid touched his face and shook his head.    

“Seeing me like this is only going to upset my mom,” he protested.

“Hotch, do you have your laptop with you?” JJ asked.

I sprang off the bed and grabbed it, opening and logging on before Reid could protest any more.  Seeing him and being upset would be better than not seeing him at all.

“Almost ready,” I replied.  I could feel Spencer glaring daggers at me. 

“Can you set it on a table or a flat surface?” JJ asked. 

I set the laptop on the desk at the end of my bed, approximately two feet from where Spencer was now hunched, hands folded between his knees, feet crossed tightly together.   Garcia’s face beamed back at us from the monitor screen. 

5

“Hello, my babies,” Penelope said happily.  I smiled at her, and Reid darted his eyes upwards for a second and quickly back down.  “Oh, honey,” Garcia soothed, concern flooding her face when she got a good look at him.  I was accustomed to the lumps and bumps by now, had grown to appreciate them even.  She hadn’t seen him and hadn’t been prepared for what a grisly sight he was. 

Spencer moved to scoot off the bed and out of range.  I sat behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Stay right there,” I scolded him. 

“Ground control to Major Tom.  Changing frequencies,” Garcia intoned.   

The monitor switched from Penelope’s round face to Diana Reid’s grim, haunted visage.  Her short blonde hair looked as if she had been tugging on the ends of it, pulling some of it out even.  She had been crying, but had pulled herself together for this.  It came to me at once, the resemblance between Spencer and his mother.  I could see where being around both of them together for any length of time would have been emotionally draining for any person.  Spencer handed me the phone, turning slightly away.  Diana clenched her mouth and put her fingertips to her lips, biting back more tears.  

“My god, Spencer, you look like hell.”

“Hi, Mom,” he replied, managing a thin, sickly smile.   

“Don’t you “Hi, Mom” me, sir.  I was worried.  I knew something was wrong.  You lost your phone again, didn’t you?”

“Yes.  Probably.  I’m sorry to worry you,” Spencer whispered, duly chastised, his smile ghosting away.     

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked softly, her voice cracking. 

Spencer nodded in reply. 

“Honey, are you absolutely sure you wouldn’t like a nice teaching job, one that doesn’t involve dangerous criminals and murderous psychopaths?” she asked, tremors in her voice echoed by the shaking in his shoulders. 

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said.  They had clearly had this conversation before.  Spencer’s dead eyes broke my heart.  She didn’t understand how much he loved what we did.  Few people could.   

“What went wrong?” she asked sharply. 

“Oh, only everything,” he decided tearfully after a moment of reflection.  He wouldn’t raise his eyes from his tightly-clenched hands in his lap.  Diana’s face filled with regret.  She hadn’t meant for her tone to be so biting.  She reached towards the screen, then drew the hand back.  It was in her face, how she was longing to put her arms around her son and soothe away his pain.

I wrapped an arm slowly around Spencer’s waist, scooting an inch or two closer on the bed.  He leaned into me, took a shaking breath, turned and hid his face in my chest, submissively curling fingers into the material of my shirt.  I put the other arm around him too, like embracing nitro glycerin and not knowing where the trigger to the bomb might be. 

Spencer took another shaking breath.  I knew he was crying, could feel him slowly collapsing down into me, falling into the same space as me as he fell apart emotionally.   I caressed his hair, not understanding how someone so tall could curl up so tight, watching his limbs wind inside each other.  

Spencer gave a muffled wail of misery that I heard and felt, and Diana’s face crumbled with sadness.   I wondered what must be on my face, no matter my attempt to keep control.  Our eyes met, and she mouthed at me.

‘Thank you.’

I nodded.  At least, I thought she had said thank you.  I hoped that’s what she was mouthing.  Diana’s face vanished. 

Garcia’s face returned, speechless, her eyes wet with emotion.  She was frowning down at her keyboard.   She picked up one of her small stuffed creatures and held it to her shoulder.  She patted her creature softly on the back, looked hopefully at me, and patted her creature again. 

I glared at her, hating the intrusion, wishing she would understand that it wasn’t that I didn’t know how to be comforting, it was that comforting Reid in front of her was making me feel incredibly conspicuous and wrong. 

“Garcia?  I’m calling you.  Stay by the phone.  Hotch?  I’m signing off,” the phone said.  I remembered too late that JJ was waiting.  The phone line went dead. 

Penelope waved a hand at me, petted the back of the green fluffy thing she was holding, and gave me another pointed stare.  Spencer was shaking with sobs.  I pulled him closer still. 

I ignored Garcia and concentrated on Reid instead, caressing up and down his spine, rocking him slowly.  I caressed his hair again, and realized why he had been carrying the small scissors.  My thumb went across the line of stitches on the back of his head. 

I reached over for the small scissors, guiding him to put his head down on my lap.   I parted his hair with careful fingers, smoothed the stitches down.  I slid the silver point under the thick black threads and snipped.  Another thread, another snip.  A gentle tug on each pulled them free from skin and scab.  It seemed a shame to undo such skilled handiwork, but the more stitches I removed, the more Spencer’s sobs calmed, the less he shivered.  His crying reduced to tiny, pitiful snuffles as he lay trustingly in my lap. I undid all the stitches on the back of his head, and angled his skull to be able to reach the smaller line above his right ear. 

Finally finished, I collected the tiny tags of black thread and set them aside on the table between the beds, stacking the small silver scissors on top.  I leaned back on the pillows and drew Spencer up into my arms.  He lay flat against my front, draping himself down my middle like a tired child devoid of energy, legs between mine, face hidden in my chest.  I wrapped both arms around his hips, pulled him up, rested his face against my neck, my cheek against his. 

Reid sniffed quietly once, twice, again.  I dried his face with one hand, tilted his head back, and pressed my lips to his.   Reid’s sniffs stopped abruptly, faded to a timid moan of pleasure.  He opened his mouth to mine.  I touched my tongue to his, sliding it tenderly into his willing mouth, stroking his back as I deepened our kiss.  He pined huskily as my hands slid down to his hips, cupping under his backside, pulling him up into our kiss even more intently. 

I pulled away when I heard him gasp. 

And then I realized he wasn’t the one who had gasped.

Garcia’s face filled the laptop screen, her eyes wide circles, her mouth wide open too.  She had covered her mouth with one hand when she gasped, and that movement had drawn my eye. 

Reid was panting against my neck, his wet nose tucked under my chin.  I put my mouth to his again, rolling him over, then pinning him flat under me towards the end of the bed.  His head tilted back over the edge.  He waited, eyes closed, gasping for each breath he drew.  I reached for the laptop and quietly closed it, effectively disconnecting Garcia’s feed. 

I would deal later with what she had seen.  I had more important things on my mind. 

I gently nosed Spencer’s neck, kissing over his clothed torso, moving downward as I unbuttoned and lowered the taut waist of his pajamas, exposing his midriff and his hips.  I undid a button or two low on his abdomen, licked across his stomach, glad to hear him shiver and shudder, draw in a shaking breath.  He shuddered again, drawing up one knee.  One hand caught my hair, held tight.  The other hand touched my mouth.  I sucked on his fingers, and he quivered in reply. 

I pulled the pajama bottoms down as far as he would let me, sucking kisses along bruised skin, soothing his pain away.  I teased kisses lower still, could feel him growing hard under my chin.  Each kiss dried away more tears, and that was my intent.  Surely it wasn’t my only intent, but it had been my initial intent.  I nosed sandy body hair, and he arched up, allowing me to pull the bottoms down further, until I could finally free his cock. 

Fingers clawed at my shoulder and my scalp.  He moaned out in delicious agony as I traced the tip of my tongue along silky, smooth, warm flesh, teased the edge with a testing stroke, then licked around the very top, mouthing gentle kisses before opening my lips, my mouth, swallowing as much of him as I could into inviting wet heat. 

I had time to decide he was closer than I thought to the edge of the bed and to the edge of release.  Reid’s hips arched erratically, as if he couldn’t decide whether to get closer to me or further away from me.  He called out a wordless exclamation of ecstasy. Luckily I recognized the sound for the warning it was, because it was all the warning I got. 

I swallowed, wincing, because that was the part I truly hated.  I never would get used to that, which seemed a stupid thing to be thinking at a time like that, because wasn’t that the entire point, but it was true.  Never liked it.  Would never get used to it. 

The dislike did not dull my sense of accomplishment though, my greedy ego gloating that it had taken less than two minutes to make him come.  I licked Spencer clean, kissed and licked my way over his body, slowly baring his chest so I could nuzzle and caress as much of his warm skin as I could reach.  I allowed him to squirm around in order to pull his pajama bottoms up to his hips.  I sucked his neck, nosed behind his ear, glad for the feeling of his arms around my shoulders.   He was holding on loosely now, not squeezing tight from fear.  I listened to his calm breathing and held him close. 

Epilogue

(twenty days later)

“I think Reid should return to field work on Monday.”

Startled out of my thoughts, I glanced up at Erin Strauss as she paused at the doorway to my office.  She was looking for an invitation to come inside and sit down.  I folded together the file under my touch and motioned to the chair in front of my desk.

“How has he been doing while we’ve been away?” I asked, knowing full well what an amazing pain in the ass Spencer had made of himself.  Garcia had kept me abreast.  We hadn’t had our talk yet about the kiss and embrace she had witnessed.  Not talking about it had been a better solution instead of an uncomfortable confrontation. 

Reid had been allowed back in the office one week ago, the same day the rest of the team had shipped out to New York State for a family annihilator case.  On his first day back, because he wasn’t allowed to work on our cases with the rest of the team, Reid had been hungry for something to occupy his mind.  He had managed to alienate all sixteen members of the Cold Case Division by diving into their backlog and solving three cases from his seat at his desk.  They kicked him out of their archives and told him to stay out. 

After being abruptly dismissed by the Cold Case Division, Spencer had characteristically withdrawn from human contact.  He came in Tuesday morning, took all the information from his vacation, the archeological dig in North Carolina, and spent Tuesday and Wednesday charting his thoughts up on the boards in the conference room, staying out of everyone’s way.  JJ and Garcia had left him to his own devices. 

Reid had spent Thursday lying on the conference room table, staring upside down at all the information from the previous two days, hardly uttering a word to anyone who bothered him. 

The rest of the BAU team had arrived back to the office today,  Friday morning.  Garcia had grabbed me when I stepped off the elevator, told me Reid had come to work this morning and went directly back to the conference room.  Only this time, he carrying a Spanish short sword and a noose and a musket.  He had locked the door and would not answer.   

We called up the video feed, found him lying on the conference table again.  One hand was holding the musket across his chest.  The other was spinning the short sword lazily around in a circle on top of the table.  The noose was draped over the chair at the head of the table. 

I had decided to leave Reid to his thoughts, as long as no one heard the musket go off.  I suppose I was a bit frightened of how hostile he could be if disturbed when in deep thought.  I had paperwork from the New York case on my desk to complete. 

Strauss had given no reply to my question.  I continued my enquiry as innocently as I could manage.

“Did Reid pass his psychological evaluation?”

“Doctor Myers is convinced he’s perfectly fine.  So surely, Dr. Reid profiled that fool and told him everything he wanted to hear.”

“Did Reid pass his physical evaluation?”

“I left copies of the reports in your inbox.  Eberhard threw him out, refused to retest him.”

“Retest?  That would seem to indicate he survived an initial test?”

“As you well know, Agent Eberhard doesn’t hold Dr. Reid in very high regard.  It was a mistake to ask him to do a physical evaluation.  I understand the error of my ways, and will not make the same mistake again.  As it stands, I’m sure you don’t keep Reid around for his physical prowess.”

“What did Reid do in the first test?” I worried.

“Agent Eberhard took Dr. Reid to the mat so fast I thought he had snapped him in half.  Then Eberhard let out this loud girlish scream and leapt up off of Reid, like he’d been set on fire or something.  I don’t know what Reid did.  All I do know is that Eberhard has refused to let him back in the physical training room.  Ever.”

I smiled.  Might have snickered even.  I couldn’t help it.  Strauss gave me a frosty, disparaging look, and my amusement wilted away. 

“Aaron, you are free to take your deranged, demented little minion back out into the field.  Keep a close eye on him.  Just get him out of here so he’s not annoying the living daylights out of everyone else in the office.  Thank you.”   

“No, ma’am.  Thank you.”

“And while you’re at it, make him get off the table in the conference center. He’s putting marks in the wood.”  

“I’ll see to it at once,” I promised, rising up from my desk. 

Strauss exited my office, and I followed.  We entered the railed walkway, and the conference room door burst open with a wild yank.  Reid came sprinting past us, waving the musket and short sword, screaming at the top of his lungs. 

“Where the hell is my phone!?” Spencer was shouting.  “They lured her to ground!  That’s what it was!  Where, where, where is a pirate most vulnerable?  On land!  ON LAND!!  They lured her to ground.  They shot her to subdue her.  They hanged her to kill her.  They buried her in darkness and….oh my god….it was her father.  HER FATHER!!”

Reid gracefully leapt the railing and pounced over several workstations, stopping with one foot in the middle of his own desk and one on Morgan’s desk.  Spencer stopped and took a loud, deep breath, glowing with excitement and shaking with pent-up energy.  Derek stared up at him, mouth hanging open.  Spencer was dialing the desk phone with the tip of the short sword.

Morgan was withdrawing carefully away.  Prentiss was getting up from her desk too.  Rossi came out of his office to stare.  JJ put the coffee pot back in the machine, sliding her mug onto the counter. 

“Hello?” Reid’s phone said in a unisex voice with British leanings.  

“LESLIE!”

“No, dear.  It’s Rebecca.  Hold on.  I’ll get him.”

“LESLIE!” Reid shouted again.  “I HAVE IT!  HOW FAST CAN YOU GET HERE?!  I’LL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING!” 

“Spencer?  Are you all right?” a new voice asked.   

“She’s left-handed!”

“Yes.  I know.”

“That’s the key.  Her arm.  You said she broke her arm.  But you were wrong.  HE broke her arm when she was a child, made her use her right arm.  He was trying to mask that she was left-leaning, left-dominant, a bad seed.   He was afraid she would fall to a life of sin if he didn’t make her right handed.  And he failed.  He tried so many years to control her, and finally, he snapped.  He must have felt he had no choice.  Don’t you see?”

“Who did?”

“Her father.  Don’t you see?”

“Spencer, get down from there,” Prentiss scolded as she pointed to the ground. 

“Oh.  Hi.  You’re back,” Reid said, finally focusing on all the people standing around the desks, staring up at him.   “How was New York?” he asked calmly. 

Strauss gave me a warning look before retreating to her office and closing the door. 

“Reid, get down,” I ordered.  He stared at me, sheathed the short sword in a belt loop, and jumped down to the floor.   He kept the musket across his lap as he sat on the edge of his desk. 

“Dr. Allison, get to Washington as fast as you can.  I will explain everything then.  Hurry,” Spencer urged, disconnecting the phone call with a bump from the butt of the musket. 

I climbed down the stairs and walked over to my team as the other agents milled around staring and other supervisory agents gave me disapproving glances. 

“How was New York?” Reid asked.  “Why is everyone staring at me?”

“Tell me about the dig, the in situ excavation site in North Carolina,” I said, taking the musket out of his grip.  His eyes lit up brilliantly.  He was so eager to tell me everything that words tumbled from his mouth. 

“Dr. Allison’s team uncovered skeletal remains under the barn of a homestead site in coastal North Carolina.  The victim had been buried in such a way that the foundation of the barn protected the make-shift grave from inclement weather which would have dragged the corpse out to sea because of the shifting sandy soil and normal coastal erosion which is reclaiming that part of the area.”

“And the remains?”

“Female, Caucasian, late teens or early twenties, dark hair, medium build.  She was wrapped in a shroud that one of the team members speculated could have been from a ship’s sails.  It was coarse-woven linen with inelegant stitching and no ornamentations.  Several places had been patched with lesser, coarser material yet.  Her grave contained a small Spanish sword, one that would have been the appropriate size and weight for a woman to wield easily.  It was under her body, not beside it.  No jewelry save a thin gold band on her right forefinger.  She had been shot with a musket at close range at least twice.  Her right cheek was fractured two inches below the orbital socket.  Her sternum was broken dead center.  Three ribs to the left were fractured as well.  She had been hanged.  The noose was left wrapped around her neck.  The rope was hemp woven from plant material native to the Caribbean.”

“A pirate then?” Prentiss speculated, amused.  “Cut down in a ship’s raid?  Or a mutiny?”

“IT WAS TREACHERY!” Reid shrieked.  Everyone took a step back.  I took a step forward.  “She was left-handed, judging from the size and length of the left radius and ulna in comparison to the slightly smaller right arm bones.  There were indications that she might have broken her left arm early in life.  Dr. Allison thought perhaps she had fallen from a horse.  But I suspect it makes more sense that her father would have broken her left arm  to keep her from using it.  He would have done the deed himself.   Someone wanted to train her to use her right arm instead.  It would have been more acceptable.  A left-hand dominant child would have been feared lost to the Devil from the start.  However, once her left arm had healed, she used it again, trained and retrained it to be stronger than before the break.  Perhaps she carried on the deceit that she was right-handed, while secretly using her left.  Oh.  Yes.  That.  That makes much more sense.  Yes.  Oh.  Yes,” he said, fingers dancing, body fluttering with thoughts that whirled around his mind, jarred up and down his nerves.  “Someone breaks your dominant arm, it will slow you down, but it won’t change your instinctual leanings.”

“Reid, calm down,” I cautioned.

“HOTCH!   Don’t you see?  She’s left handed!  He must have been afraid of her.   They all were.  It would have taken more than one person to subdue her.  She was shot through the heart and the face.  Why hang her then? She had not died immediately from the musket shots, of course.  They hanged her to be sure.  Her father.  Her father is to blame.  He was the one who lured her to ground.  Where is a pirate most vulnerable?”

“On land,” I agreed.

“Yes!” he shouted excitedly.  “They shot her to subdue her.  They hanged her to kill her.  They buried her in darkness, in unconsecrated ground.  Her father.”

“Why her father?” Morgan asked. 

“It must have been him.  Don’t you see?  She would have been an  embarrassment to him, likely an outlaw, surely a threat to his authority.  A mother would have let her go, let her wander freely and go where she willed, as long as she was happy.  Mothers.  They want you to be happy no matter what.  But a father would have expected discipline and propriety.  They killed her, and he made her vanish.  Communal deceit, we’ve seen it before in cover-ups.  They pretended she had gone away, lied to her mother most likely, when all the while, her father had conspired with others to kill her, and then he buried her in the corner of the entrance of the barn, where he could walk over her bones every day and prove his power over her.  Oh my god.  What a frightening and lonely death.”

“We don’t we adjourn to the conference room?” I asked the group as a whole, taking Reid carefully by one arm. He was shaking with excitement.   Morgan and Prentiss agreed at once.  JJ picked up her cup of coffee and climbed the stairs, her eyes never leaving Reid. 

“After you,” Rossi insisted with a patient amusement as he pointed to the stairs.  I guided Spencer along, letting him pick up the musket and carry it with. 

“It’s not loaded,” he whispered to me, playful eyes full of life and so merry with mischief.  “You can let go, Hotch.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.”

I clenched his elbow tighter, and pried the musket from his fingers.  I held it away from him down at my other side, giving him a gentle shove through the conference room doorway.

more to come

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