The Path We Take
Reid still remembered how she died. Sometimes he could still hear the gunshot ringing and see the blood seep onto the cold hard ground. It had taken him months to not see Maeve's death when he closed his eyes, and to not hear the desperation in his voice again and again after the nightmares ended. "Wait!" There were times at night when Reid simply could not sleep, and the memories of Maeve echoed in his mind, hearing her gentle voice in his head. It was only because of her voice that Reid was able to sleep peacefully for a time. His team had been worried about him. They were right to be worried. The genius did not eat or sleep for two days, causing his mind to drift around listlessly. There were times when he thought he heard Maeve speaking to him or holding him. Sometimes he actually thought that he saw her. The visits and knocks on the door rendered his dreams into ashes and caused reality to grip him again. Maeve was dead, and she wasn't coming back.
The hellish time was over now. Reid had been able to function normally even as the ache from his girlfriend's death six months past persisted. He was able to read and laugh at times, and it was only when he came home to his empty apartment and wrote letters in a black journal did the agony of her death come back. Reid had convinced himself that he was fine and that he was healed. How wrong he was. The BAU was working on a case where an Unsub stalked his victims for four months, kidnapped them, and then subsequently shot them in the head in an abandoned warehouse. Reid had frozen when the pictures of the victims were shown. The victims were brunette, in their early thirties, and all looked like Maeve. Reid could only stare at the photos and at the blood that leaked from the fatal wounds in their heads. For a moment, he thought he couldn't breathe. Maeve's dark blood and the peaceful expression she had when she died echoed in his mind. She looked like she was sleeping, and would wake up anytime soon. A hand on his shoulder caused him to break from his thoughts, and it was then that he realized that he was crying and that the team was staring at him.
Hotch had wanted Reid to remain with Garcia as the team traveled to Albany, but Reid refused. "I can do this, Hotch." The paralyzing grief did not return again until the team met the Unsub face to face. A young mother named Simone Locke had been missing for five days, and the team had finally found her in an abandoned warehouse with an Unsub. Reid remembered of how his voice had shaken as the Unsub had put a gun to Simone Locke's head. "Don't…" he had pleaded. He was aware of the woman's eyes on him, frightened. Her hair was in a ponytail like Maeve's. Reid had tried to talk the Unsub down by putting his gun away in his holster. It had almost worked. The Unsub seemed to accept his fate, and Simone Locke's fear abated from her eyes. Just like when Diane knelt down and kissed me. But then the Unsub grabbed the thirty year old woman and shot himself and his victim in the head.
"Wait!"
Six months disappeared in an instant. Simone Locke had looked as Maeve and looked upon her death. The blood leaked from the bullet wound in her head and yet she looked so beautiful. Reid remembered falling to his knees, feeling the blood soaking his pants, and thought about what had occurred half a year before. A sob rose to his throat, and it seemed to Reid that everything else had disappeared. He saw Diane kill Maeve and herself again, and it seemed to Reid that the memory was sharper now that it ever had been in real life. Then he saw her.
Her hair was dark as it had been when she was alive, and she was wearing the same clothes that she had been wearing when she died. Her smile was sweet, and no blood coated her beautiful form. It seemed to Reid as if her mouth was moving, and a later second later he realized that Maeve was calling his name. A rush of grief and sorrow overwhelmed Reid, and his mouth opened in a soundless cry. "Oh, Maeve…" he whispered. Tears were streaming down his cheeks as he fainted.
Reid was given a psych evaluation soon after the case. He passed, but the youngest member of the tem knew that Hotch was watching over him, doubting him. He was told to stay behind during the most recent case, and Reid found himself staring at his hands. The team had been able to calm and console him after Simone Locke's death. Tears were shed, and embraces were exchanged. The young doctor saw how easily fear slipped into their eyes after he had told them he had seen Maeve before he blacked out. They treated him as his he was fragile as glass then, and avoided his eyes from time to time. They're starting to doubt me. In their fear, the team had forgotten about his
eidetic memory, and forgotten that he too remembered of how Gideon had left the BAU. Like Reid, it had started when Gideon had started seeing his girlfriend after she had been killed by an Unsub. They're afraid I'll leave just as Gideon did. The team had successfully caught the Unsub who had been raping and castrating men in their early twenties before killing them. A sudden thought framed his mind. Hotch said I needed someone to talk to…but now that I think about it, he's the only one who knows what I'm going through.
"Garcia?" he stepped into the tech's room and stood behind the blonde woman typing at the keyboard.
"Yes, baby genius?" Out of all the members, Garcia was the one who treated him most normally. She had given him comforting words and not pitying stares. "Your wounds will heal in time. You just take more time than others, sweetheart."
"I need you to find Jason Gideon."
Garcia looked at him for a moment with concern in her eyes. "Gideon?" she repeated. When Reid nodded his head, Garcia bit her lip and sighed. "Reid, we haven't seen him in years. He may even be off the grid. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," said Reid. He was aware of the doubts in Garcia's head. "When I was addicted to dilaudid, Gideon was the only one who I could talk about it with." He saw Garcia flinch at the mention of the dreaded drug that had caused him to distance from the team. "Gideon was the only one who didn't judge me on what I had done or what I had been doing." Reid sighed and subconsciously ran his thin hand through his hair. "And I think he will be able to understand what I'm going through now because he's been through the same experience. We've seen our girlfriends even though common knowledge says that ghosts do not exist. I want to talk to him and figure some things out, Garcia."
Garcia had been able to find Gideon's address. It said that Gideon now lived in California for the past two years. His phone number was still the same. Reid held his breath as he dialed the number. I never thought I would do this again.
"This is Jason Gideon. I am not at the phone right now, but leave a message, and I will contact you as soon as I can."
"Gideon, this is Reid. Spencer Reid. I know we haven't spoken in years…actually six years and two hundred eighty two days…but I need to speak to you." Reid sucked in his breath and continued. "Something's happened, and I need to hear your voice. You're the only one who had understand." Reid eased his breath out of his lungs, but it still took more effort than required. He felt his heart pound against his chest. "You're the only one who can understand. Meet me at your cabin at nine at night, okay? I'll be there."
The cabin was how it looked six years ago; clean and organized with pictures and paintings of birds on the walls. There were several books missing from the bookshelf, but Reid didn't focus on the fact. He was sitting down in a wooden chair near a dinner table. Over the years, he had thought about calling Gideon; now that had happened, but completely different from what he had envisioned. When the doorknob turned, Reid stood. Gideon hadn't changed much over the years. He had become completely bald and was thinner around the waist; but his eyes were still intense, and his years of profiling hadn't diminished because the first words out of his mouth once he sat down across from Reid were, "What's wrong, Reid?"
It felt good to hear his voice again after so many years. But something stuck in the younger man's throat as he looked at his former mentor. Slowly, Reid calmed and began to speak.
"I remember when you told me about Sarah. About when you kept seeing her. I thought I could understand what you went through, Gideon. I really thought I did." Unbidden tears rose in Reid's eyes, and he brushed them angrily away. Gideon was expressionless. "I found…I found a woman that I loved, but she was taken away from me."
"What happened?" asked Gideon.
"Her name was Maeve," Reid whispered. His eyes were glassy, and he didn't seem to realize that Gideon was there. "I didn't even know her last name or even meet her face to face, but I fell in love with her. We…were in contact for ten months." Reid's hands shook and he felt the coldness of his tears as they pelted down like rain across his fingers. "I can't begin to tell you how happy she made me feel. Gideon, I felt as if she was world." Reid had to stop. The conversations he and Maeve had were threatening to crush whatever emotional sanity he had left. He took a deep breath to steady his breathing. "She died on January sixteenth this year. I still see the blood and hear the gunshot ringing in my ears. I can still feel the fear coming from her eyes just before she died. Sometimes when I lie awake at night I still remember the dream I had soon after she died."
"Can you describe the dream for me?" Gideon was patient with him. He didn't try to speak to the young man. He listened, and that is what Reid needed most now.
"I…was wearing a tuxedo. I looked around me and realized I was in a church. It was so white. The team was behind men, giving me huge smiles. They seemed happy for me for some reason. I looked in front of me and there was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen." It was hard to speak of the dream. Reid had told no one about this dream when it had occurred, and it had caused many sleepless nights. "Maeve was alive and wearing a wedding dress. Pure silk covered her, and she had flowers in her hair. Her eyes were bright and seemed to sparkle when she saw me. She said my name. That…was when I woke up."
Reid wasn't crying anymore. His chest heaved with sobs and he couldn't stop the tears that kept flowing down his cheeks. The memory of him and Maeve getting married still hurt like bullet that had killed her. Reid still remembered writing the letter in his journal, telling her about his dream. I saw you in my dream. It makes me think of what could have been. The six months since Maeve's death had not dulled the dream's clarity, and Reid still remembered thinking about it during the two weeks he had locked himself away.
Warm arms suddenly embraced him, and Reid lowered his head on Gideon's chest and cried. It seemed that hours had gone by when Reid's tears finally ceased. His breathing and heartbeat slowed as he listened to the steady rhythm of Gideon's heart. He was able to calm himself to see empathy in Gideon's expression.
"I know what you're going through, Spencer. I know what this pain does to you." He sighed as he looked at Reid's swollen hazel eyes. "You saw Maeve after a case, the same way I saw Sarah years ago. I don't know how else to say this. It well get better, Spencer. When you think about Maeve, you'll smile instead of cry. Every breath you take won't always be an effort. And soon you'll live again." Reid slowly lifted his head and heard the wisdom in Gideon's words. It seemed that those words, uttered by every member of his team, finally reached him somehow. And hearing his name didn't cause him to go back into the abyss of darkness.
"I write letters to her every day," Reid muttered. He felt embarrassed for confessing this to Gideon. Even with his intellect, writing letters to a loved one seemed stupid and foolish.
"So did Toyofumi Ogura," Gideon replied. "He wrote letters to his wife every day after she died from the radiation sickness from the atomic bombs in Hiroshima. Everyone has different ways to understand and deal with grief, Spencer. Just like everyone has a different healing time." He fell silent for a moment, and Reid took this time to stand.
"I never thanked you for helping me with my addiction," Reid said.
"There's no need to, son." Gideon's words caused Reid to take a breath and say something that he had always wanted to tell him.
"You're like a father to me in so many ways." Reid managed a smile. "When I needed help understanding anything social, it was you who helped me. You were also one of the few people who could accept my quirkiness. And…" Again, the tears. This time he was crying for a different reason. "And when Tobias kidnapped me, I know it was your words that helped me survive. I missed you when you were gone, and I don't think anyone would be able to take your place in my heart. I just…want to thank you for guiding me and listening to me when I needed it, especially now."
Gideon didn't say anything for a moment. His eyes betrayed the emotion he felt when Reid had said those words. He didn't think that he had meant so much to the young man. Memories of meeting the young Dr. Reid made Gideon smile. You are stronger than me, Spencer. I know you are. You and I had the same experience, and yet you're still with the team. The fire still burns within you…and I'm proud of you.
Gideon's last words to him was burned in Reid's mind. "We don't dictate the path we are given. We don't get to choose what we experience or who we lose when their time comes. The path we have is the path we take, Spencer, and I understand that you understand this more than I ever will." I'll remember, Gideon. I promise.