Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.
They had found the boy.
Oh, good Lord, they had found the boy – alive and well.
YES.
This was one of the rare moments they all lived for, something they cherished and that would give them strength when the tables turned against them again.
Gideon had kept photos of rescued would-be victims in a journal, for that very reason.
Granted, in the end that had cost Rebecca Bryant her life, but let's not go there. Not on a day like this.
Seeing the parents reunite with their lost child… not even the most devious and cruel unsub in the world would ever be able take this deep feeling of relief, peace and happiness away from them.
They had saved a life. It was all worth it.
The press conference, Strauss' uncharacteristically elaborate praise, the short debriefing went past them in a blur. None of them really paid attention.
What mattered were the parents, who had basically camped out in the police station, waiting for news, and the older sister, who had turned her back on her sibling for a second while playing out in the yard. When she had turned back, the little one had been gone, taken away by a monster worse than anything that could live in the wardrobe or under the bed.
Imagine the horrendous feeling of guilt the poor child had had to endure…
They had done their best to tell the girl it hadn't been her fault, Morgan had had a heart-to-heart talk with her, Garcia had shown her stuff on the computer, Prentiss had attempted to play chess with her and in the end called Spencer for help – damn, the kid was a tactical thinker – all to put her mind at ease. But professional experience told them, had the unsub killed his victim, the sister's life would have been over, too. She would have kept on living, but with an unbearable load on her shoulder.
After all was said and done, the team went their separate ways. Morgan and Garcia mentioned a DVD marathon, Prentiss quality time with Sergio, Rossi probably had quality time with Strauss in mind, judging from the smile on his lips as he headed out the door… Hotch and JJ rushed home to their children, to give them an extra tight hug for the night.
Spencer Reid, however, stayed behind, at his desk, pondering. He went over the case files one more time, paced the bullpen… something was bothering him, something was not right… he didn't find much sleep that night and when he woke up it was so early, the newspaper hadn't even arrived on his doorstep.
He waited till six, then hoped remnants of his former puppy status with the team would save him from a certain computer analyst's wrath. Garcia was more worried than angry, though. "Everything okay, Reid?" He assured her that yes, everything was okay, he just wanted to tie up a few loose ends for the case report.
At eleven he visited the family, asked for a couple of minutes alone with the rescued boy. They went into the garden, kicked a small red ball back and forth between them. Spencer tried to calculate the rotation, collision speed and interfering wind velocity to hit it as correctly as possible, but of course the ball ended up in the garden's hedges more than once.
The boy, however, soon realized, that this was not about fun and games. He was young, but he understood that this stranger from the police (he hadn't fully grasped the meaning of "FBI involvement", let alone "BAU") was probably his last chance to get something off his chest.
"She saw the license plate. My sister. She saw how I was taken."
Case-wise it didn't matter much. The unsub had used a stolen car, they wouldn't have found him any faster had the sister told them the truth. But in a more general sense, this was highly alarming. She had seen her younger brother being taken away and lied about it. Over the course of days she had stuck to her story, had enjoyed being the center of their attempts to make her feel better…
This was not mere rivalry between siblings. This spoke of some deep-rooted problem of the sociopathic kind.
The mother came into the garden, carrying a tray with milk and cookies.
"It is so nice that you've come visiting, Dr. Reid."
Spencer decided he needed Hotch by his side for this.