A/N: Spoilers for 10x13 "Nelson's Sparrow", as well as references to season 3.
Reid stared dully at his reflection in the rear view mirror as he tighten his black tie up to his neck. He glanced at the dark puffy bags under his eyes. Not much he could do about that, but he guessed he wouldn't stand out today. He turned away from the mirror and looked out the windshield.
The drive was silent. The radio remained off, the buzz of the city traffic ignored. He drove absently, like he was on autopilot. His attention wasn't needed; he knew the way. He'd been there enough times. He turned in through the wrought iron gates, joining the procession of cars that followed the signs reading Jason Gideon.
He parked and got out of his car. Ironically, it was sunny. Reid thought that it should be an eternal gloom instead, a reflection of his endless misery.
He caught sight of JJ, who came walking up behind him. "Hey Spence." He nodded, acknowledging her. Nothing made him silent quite like grief.
She knew what would get him talking. "Emily flew in last night."
He looked at her instead of the ground. "She did?" Last night, he had ignored any phone calls, turned off his phone, preferring to grieve alone in the quiet of his empty apartment.
JJ nodded. "Yeah. She's over there next to Garcia." She gestured to the small crowd gathered ahead of them. Garcia was introducing Emily to Kate. Even though she hadn't know Gideon as long as the rest of them had, Reid was glad that she decided to come.
He and JJ joined their teammates. "Emily!" JJ called, and promptly wrapped her in a hug. "It was great of you to come," she said, letting go.
"It's nice to be back in D.C. for a couple of days," she replied simply. She turned to Reid and held out her arms. He gave her a small smile before returning her hug. "It's good to see you, Reid," she told him earnestly before letting him go.
"You, too," he spoke softly.
Small talk ensued and Reid nodded occasionally, feigning interest. He wasn't in a talking mood. He felt too detached from everyone else.
Soon the service started and Reid took a seat between Rossi and Emily. He tuned out the speakers giving eulogies and sharing stories and offering condolences. Tears were welling up in his eyes, and he knew if he listened to them talking about Gideon, he would lose it, and there was no place to escape to here. He clenched a wadded up tissue in his fist.
Reid glanced at Stephen, staring solemn-faced at his father's casket.
It wasn't often that Gideon mentioned his son, or any aspect of his personal life for that matter. Reid understood that: there are things you experience that you can't share with anyone, unless they shared that experience with you.
Until recently, Gideon had been estranged from his son. But the distance wasn't because he was a negligent father; he was trying to make the world a better place for his son by putting an end to its atrocities and the people responsible for them.
Reid looked up to Gideon. He was a mentor, a father figure. Reid admired his years at the BAU, and the passion and determination he brought to every case. His almost pedantic attention to victims was reflected in the pictures of them he kept, reminding him why he did this soul-sucking job.
Reid recalled looking through that notebook, pausing at Sarah's page and remembering what she had meant to Gideon. But, in the end, she was another victim added to the list.
How could he have been so wrong about him, someone he knew so well? Maybe his profiling skills weren't quite up to par, or grief manifesting in self-doubt. Gideon hadn't been in Roanoke because he found someone like Sarah who made him happy; it was because he was still chasing criminals. Forever married to the job. Even in his last dying moments, he was thinking about the case. Not with loved ones at his bedside, no last scribbled declarations so that those most important to him could know what they meant to him, but a clue left for the people who would solve the case after him.
Reid hadn't before considered the downfalls to complete devotion to the job. Because it wasn't a bad thing. He saved lives. He brought comfort and closure to families. He brought murderers to justice. But all that at what cost? Was he wasting his own life saving the lives of others? Gideon had said, "Save one life, we save the world." Yet he couldn't save himself. And, ultimately, no one else could either.
If they couldn't keep each other safe then what was the point of even doing it? Granted, Gideon wasn't technically a member of the team anymore-he hadn't been in nearly eight years-but nobody who was ever a member of the BAU simply left. They were a part of that family forever. And one of the godfathers of the BAU would always inseparably be linked to it. It didn't matter that they hadn't seen him since he left all those years ago; Reid thought that they should have been able to keep him safe.
But they couldn't. The best they could do was bring his killer to justice. And they did. They brought closure to the families of the victims from nearly forty years ago; they saved the latest victim. But Reid felt like that still wasn't enough. In his years as a profiler, he'd learned that sometimes, you did everything right, and you still didn't get the outcome you'd hoped for.
Would he have the same end as his mentor? Murdered by an old unsub because he was still clinging to the need to leave no case unsolved? Unable to let those cases go because he didn't know a life without them? There would always be cases, always be work. Maybe he was missing something rare and fleeting.
Much like Gideon, he no longer had someone who made him happy. Not like Sarah had for Gideon. Not like Maeve had for him. After losing her, he understood why Gideon left the BAU. He had contemplated doing the same. But rather than leave, he did the opposite: he threw himself into his work, much like Gideon had for most of his career.
Reid loved his job, couldn't imagine doing anything else. And there was something incredibly right about being with his team. But there was still something missing. An empty space.
When a case was over, he read books and watched Doctor Who until another one came up. His teammates had something else. Morgan had Savannah; Garcia had Sam; Kate had Chris and Meg; JJ had Will and Henry; Hotch had Jack; even Rossi had whichever flame he was chasing at the moment, and now a daughter and grandson. Who did he have? His mother, on the other side of the country. And she was getting better now-she didn't need him like she used to. Who really needed him?
Maybe that was why he spent so much of his free time in libraries. "A haven for the lonely" he'd called them. Well, that was him.
Why did so many people he care about keep leaving? His dad, Elle, Emily, Alex. Maeve. And now Gideon. Again. This time forever. There wouldn't be that 'one more time' that he saw him. He had been looking forward to that-learning what Gideon had been up to, telling him what had happened in the last several years. Now that was gone.
When Gideon left, Reid had briefly felt some resentment for his trusted mentor abandoning him, leaving only a letter, as his father had. He'd read and reread that letter many times, had the whole thing memorized, but there was still part of it that didn't make sense. He thought that maybe that was because nothing had made sense to Gideon anymore.
He glanced at Emily next to him, and remembered her advice from over seven years ago: "I think you need to read that letter again, and ask yourself why, out of all the people he walked away from, did he only explain himself to one person: you." He had, and at the time, he thought that it was because he was always the one looking for answers, and would be most troubled by Gideon's absence. And that was true, but now he thought maybe it was more.
Gideon saw himself in Reid, only a younger, more innocent version who hadn't yet been tainted by years of standing toe-to-toe with some of the sickest people on the planet. Like Gideon, Reid was especially adept at sympathizing with unsubs, getting inside their heads and understanding their minds. Maybe Gideon left that letter for Reid because he didn't want him to witness so much atrocity that he lost the belief in happy endings. Gideon explained in his letter that that was why he left the BAU. And he had to explain that to the person who was most likely to go down that same path.
A tear ran down his cheek as he realized that Gideon was right. For the past two years, he had wavered with his belief in happy endings. He wanted so badly to believe that they existed, and that someday he would get his own. He clung to that belief. But now, with Gideon dead, attending his funeral many years before he should have, his grip was slipping.
Maybe neither one of them would get their happy ending.