No Apologies
A Spencer Reid Oneshot
"How can I help you sir?" A woman asked as she put some files back in a drawer. Then she looked up, smiled at the man in front of her and waited patiently for his answer.
"Ah, yes, uhm, I am here to visit Diana Reid…" The young man answered and smiled awkwardly, like he wasn't really comfortable being here. Weird for someone who was going to visit a friend or loved one.
"But of course. She is sitting on her usual spot. Please, follow me." The woman smiled and calmly walked to a room where patients were playing cards, writing letters, drawing and some even build things with colorful cubes.
In the middle of the room, a woman was sitting, staring into the distance. She was obviously lost in thought and the emotions that showed in her eyes, were either fear or plain confusion. There was no chance she would have noticed anyone walking in. Especially not him.
"Diana…? Someone is here for you." The other woman said, softly tapping the older woman on her shoulder. Diana Reid looked up, the same look on her face as she had a few seconds ago. She did, however, seem to notice the person that came to see her, was familiar. It took her a few seconds to place who exactly it was.
The fear in her eyes disappeared, but the confusion obviously remained, and the young woman left the room for their privacy.
"Spencer…" The small and rather awkward silence was broken, and the way she spoke his name held many different feelings.
He looked at her, feeling the same guilt as he always felt when he was here, when he saw her, heard her talk or even thought of her. He felt terrible for forcing her to live here instead of with him, like she wanted to. Even though many people had told him he had done the right thing, he didn't feel it that way. He felt like he had betrayed her, and he knew he would never truly be able to forgive himself.
Quickly he sat down on a chair across from her.
"Hello, mother. I don't have much time, Hotchner asked me to come with them to a new crime scene but I told them to pick me up from here. Because I wanted to visit you." He started. This was followed by a small silence. To break the awkward quietness that passed by, he continued with: "How have you been?" There was no answer, Diana turned her head away and stared into the distance. She tended to do this quite a lot. "Did you get my letters?" He tried again. This time, she responded. It was just a few blinks but it was obvious she was trying really hard to remember the letters he had written her.
"Letters…? Yes… I remember letters." A feeling of relieve – but also sadness – joined his guilt.
"I will send you more letters this week." He took out a book that he had been reading to her for quite some time now. They were almost half way.
As he began reading to his mother, who listened carefully while she stared at the wall, Spencer felt slightly more comfortable. But after about five pages, he noticed a big black car driving by, and he knew that was Morgan. He closed the book after he finished the last sentence of the page. "I'm sorry, but they're here now… I will send you letters tomorrow, and I will visit you again…" He knew that the visit wouldn't take place very soon. His guilt would haunt him and push him away. But eventually, the guilt would push him towards the institution and he'd visit anyways. But it took him time and courage to get that far.
Slowly, Spencer got up and apologized to his mother again and when he was entirely sure she stopped noticing he was still in the room, he walked away.
More guilt and pain overwhelmed him as he thought of how terrible his behavior towards his mother actually was. In fact, he was so worried about this and so lost in thought, he didn't notice where he was going and this caused him to bump into someone.
Immediately he came back to reality and apologized to the person he had just bumped into. "I deeply apologize." He said. "I was thinking about something and I didn't notice anyone was here." He looked at the person in front of him.
It was a young woman with long blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. She smiled at him and shook her head, laughing a little.
"Trust me, I know that problem." She said. "Don't worry, I wasn't looking where I was going either. I was too busy thinking of what to say to my dad, so please don't apologize. It will make me feel guilty as well."
"Oh, uh… well, I'm sorry that I made you feel bad.." The woman laughed.
"No apologizing!" She repeated. "My name is Scarlet. My dad is David Winters" Spencer thought for a second. That was pretty random of her to say. But it'd be rude not to say his name.
"I'm Spencer." The woman tilted her head. "Oh! Uhm, yes, I'm sorry. My mother is Diana Reid." The woman pointed at his mother, who was still staring at the wall.
"I think I talked to her once." She said, smiling. "Your mother is a nice woman. Anyways, I gotta go! Maybe I'll run into you another time, hm?" And she walked off. Spencer watched her go inside the room he had just left and blinked a few times. No one, aside from his team, had ever talked to him for so long. It surprised him. Spencer then realized that his team was still waiting for him outside. He rushed to the exit and ran towards Morgan, who was waiting for him outside of his big black car.
"Sorry, I'm late." He said, only to get chuckled at by Morgan.
"Hey, what took you so long?"
"I bumped into someone… So I apologized to her for doing that."
"That's it?"
"Yes… why?" Morgan shrugged.
"I was kinda hoping you were hiding a girlfriend from us." He teased. "She's cute."
"Oh…" Morgan laughed and opened the door to his car. "Wait, you could see me?" The man nodded and leaned against his car.
"Oh yeah! There's a very big window there, y'know. But never mind! Let's go, Hotch is waiting for us."
After they had visited the crime scene, they had all worked hard to work on a profile with the tiny bit of information they had on the suspect by looking at the victims and their house. Everyone worked until very late to think of useful information they could use to profile this killer, and finally Hotch had ordered everyone to go home and get some sleep. They would continue their work tomorrow morning, early.
It had been a week and finally the killer had been caught by the FBI. Relieved as everyone was, they got the rest of the day off to relax and do as they pleased. But unlike every other of his colleagues, Spencer didn't go home. Instead, he decided to visit his mother again. It had been a week and he promised her he would come back. So, in order to make her happy – even if she didn't realize he was there – and make his own feeling of guilt fade away for a couple of minutes or hours – depending on how long he would stay – he would visit her again.
When he arrived at the Mental Institute he walked into the main room and saw his mother sitting on her usual spot somewhere in the middle of the room. He figured that she had eaten already and wasn't up for anything he would bring her, so he took out his book again and placed it on the side table.
"Hey," He said, waiting for his mother to recognize him as her son instead of a stranger she wouldn't like. When she finally realized it was her son, she seemed to feel more comfortable. "How are you today?"
"I received your letters." She said, sounding a bit absent. Spencer sighed. This was his mother.
"I brought our book with me." He sat down on the chair across from her and took the book from the side table, opened it on the page he had left off last time and began reading to her again. A couple of minutes later, Spencer felt a tap on his shoulder. Not sure who it was, he looked up to see a smiling woman.
Scarlet Winters.
"Hey you! Spencer, right?" he nodded and looked back at his mom for a second. "Oh, I'm sorry I interrupted you. I'll go to my father now, bye!" And then she ran off again.
Really strange, but in some way it was nice that someone took the time to greet him instead of just walking past him like they didn't care. Which a lot of people did.
"All right, let's see. Oh right, Lucian opened the door to his apartment…" he continued, reading the book out loud.
Scarlet kissed her father on his cheek and walked out of the main room into the hallway. She sighed, running her hand through her long blonde hair as she made her way to the exit of the mental institution. The hall was empty so far, and just as the blonde touched the door to open it and leave the building she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She turned around and saw a man in a white coat. "Are you…" he looked at, what seemed to be a file. "Scarlet Winters?" She nodded, he was probably a doctor working here.
"IS there something wrong with my father?" The man shook his head.
"No, ma'am, this is about someone else. You know him though, but that's none of your concern." She raised an eyebrow.
"Well, uhm.. okay? I was just about to leave so uhm.. good day to you, sir." Just as Scarlet turned around she felt something wet being pushed against her mouth and someone's arm preventing her from leaving. As she tried to break free, she breathed in some of the stuff on the wet piece of cloth and soon she felt dizzy.
Then everything went black.
Spencer closed the book again after finishing the whole book. Finally, after many, many hours of reading to his mother, he had finished the book. He would bring a new one the next time he would visit. He said his good bye, even though he knew that his mother wouldn't truly notice him coming or leaving, and left the mental institution.
Slowly he walked towards the bus station when his phone rang.
"Hey, Reid. Hotch wants me and Prentiss to pick you up." It was Morgan. "He says it's important, so where can we pick you up?"
"Uhm.. well I'm at my mother's institution…" He said, obviously feeling guilty again for putting her there in the first place.
"Stay there, we'll be there in a couple of minutes." He hung up the phone and walked back to the institution where he sat down on a bench outside, waiting for his team to arrive and pick him up.
When Morgan and Prentiss arrived, they told him that they had no idea yet what this whole thing was about, but that Hotchner had told them that it was very important for him to be there and help them with this new case.
Finally, after a little while they arrived and once they got inside, everyone else was already waiting for them. Hotchner had his usual strict and rather freaky serious expression again, and this made Spencer even more curious on what was going on.
"What happened that I had to come to quickly?" He asked, sitting down on one of the chairs. Hotchner threw a case file in front of him but Spencer didn't open it yet.
"Do you still remember Jackson lennings?" He asked, and Spencer nodded.
"The man who stalked and killed over fifty people for religious reasons such as being an atheist or not having the same religion as him?"
"Yes, him indeed."
"Ah, well I also remember that Gideon and I went after him and I tried to buy you some extra time so you guy could catch him." Hotchner nodded and sighed. Morgan shrugged.
"You ended up shooting him in the leg though."
"That was an accident!"
"I know, you can't shoot anything straight, not even when it's right in front of you." The bigger man said, laughing a little. Hotchner coughed to get some attention again.
"It appears that Jackson Lennings has a younger brother, Max. And it seems that Max doesn't agree with the way we treated his brother," There was a small silence. "especially you." Spencer looked at him in confusion. "Probably because you shot his brother in the leg." Hotchner explained. "But either way, he kidnapped someone. I think her name is Scarlet Winters. You will find a picture in the case file I just gave you." This time, Spencer did open the case file and looked at the picture of the blonde woman that was no visible. "Is this her?" Hotch asked, and he nodded. "Where do you know her from?"
Spencer sighed. "Her father is locked in the same mental institution as my mother. I have only met her a few times though."
"Well, if that man thought the same as me, he believes she's your girl." Morgan said, chuckling.
"Wait, you thought Reid had a girlfriend?" Prentiss asked, laughing too. "That would be interesting." Hotchner sighed. Sometimes, his team had the concentration level of zero.
"Either way," he said, brining all the attention back to himself. "we need to find this woman and bring her home safely. Now, is there anything you know of her that might be useful?" Spencer thought back but the only thing he could remember was that she doesn't like apologies and her name.
"No, I haven't really spoken to her." He suddenly wished he had visited his mother more often so he could see her. If only he had talked to Scarlet once or twice more and visited his mother more often, he would have known more about her. But now he felt completely useless.
"Okay, well we'll have to follow his instructions."
"He called?"
"Yes. But he's not the smartest. Garcia did a voice scan and traced the phone call. That's how we found out his name. We also went to the place he made the call, but there was no one."
A phone rang and Hotchner told Garcia – who was on the phone too – to trace the call again. He then answered it.
"Listen, if you guys want the girl alive I want you to release my brother from jail and I want that kid." The man on the other side said.
"Max lennings, this is Hotchner of the FBI. I have a question: why did you wait so long to release your brother?"
Garcia worked hard to trace the phone call, all she needed was a few more seconds before she would have the address.
"No questions! I need my brother out of jail and that stupid kid that shot him."
"Calm down and we will make some arrangements." Hotch said.
"Shut up! No negotiating! If I don't get my brother back, and you don't bring that kid either, I will shoot this girl and hunt for more innocent people, get it!" And with those words he hung up.
"Garcia! Did you get the address?" Morgan asked.
"Yes, honeybun, 1325 Oakstreet."
"All right, thanks baby-girl."
"You know it." They hung up the phone and quickly got to their cars.
"But how will we get Max' brother out of jail?" Spencer asked, as he got into the car with Hotchner.
"We won't get him out of jail. We will not give him his brother. We will give him you."
"me?"
"Yes. You see, he wants two things. You and his brother. But he waited a couple of years before he finally made the threat. He could have done this right away. I don't think this is about his brother being in jail, I think it's about how we – mostly you – have damaged his family reputation by shooting his brother and then locking him up in jail." He paused for a little while. "If we give him you – the one he truly wants – we can 'trade' you for Scarlet. We will have back-up everywhere, surrounding the house. We will shoot him when necessary. You will be safe. It's just until we have Scarlet Winters safe outside." There was another short pause. "Reid, can you do this?"
Spencer took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, I can."
Over five big cars stopped in front of the house of which Garcia had given them the address to, and many FBI agents and snipers jumped out of the cars, taking their positions around the house and got ready to shoot if it was necessary.
Spender got out of the car as well, following Hotchner, Morgan, Gideon and Prentiss towards the house where they stood at close yet safe distance.
"Max Lennings. This is the FBI. Please release Scarlet Winters or else we are forced to go in and get her out safe by ourselves. We have Spencer Reid with us, just as you asked. Please do as we say. We give you exactly one minute to do this." Hotchner yelled and the lights inside the house were turned off. Morgan did one step forward.
"I doubt he's going to cooperate."
"I know," Hotchner said. "But we gave him one minute. Get in position, we're about to go in."
A few seconds later Gideon spoke up: "The minute is up." He said and Hotch nodded, taking out his gun. He gave everyone a stern look before giving the snipers the sign they were going in.
"Let's go in." Morgan smirked and kicked the door open. He, Prentiss and some others went upstairs, while Gideon took JJ and some more others to see what was on the first floor. Hotchner and Spencer, on the other hand, found a basement while checking out the hall. Slowly they walked down the unstable and dark stairs.
Because of the dark, both of them took out a flashlight and tried to find anything in the basement.
Scarlet looked up when she heard the door to the basement open. They really had come to find and rescue her! She had almost given up her hope on being found, but the second she heard the man from the FBI yell they were would give her kidnapper a minute to release her or else they'd come into his house, her hope came back. Unfortunately though, her kidnapper wasn't going to release her anytime soon. In fact, he had yelled at her about how it was her fault the FBI was here. He had turned off the lights – as if they would never find him in the dark – and dragged her into the basement, where she was now.
But now help had arrived, so this was her chance to do something. Seeing as the basement was really big and filled with many stuff, the chance of being seen was small. And because she couldn't scream – due to being gagged – Scarlet decided to do something else. She lifted her legs and kicked a small table as hard as she could, causing a box filled with stuff to fall on the floor.
Immediately, the dark figures that had come in with their flashlights turned towards Scarlet and Max Lennings, her kidnapper. Quickly, Scarlet closed her eyes. God, that light burned her eyes.
"Max Lennings," one of the figures called. "I am Aaron Hotchner of the FBI. We spoke on the phone, remember?" The man pulled Scarlet up by her hair, making her whimper in pain.
"Where is my brother?" He yelled, obviously angry.
"We have tried our best to get your brother out of prison," Hotchner lied. "But we couldn't get him out of jail for you." He did one step closer to Scarlet and Max Lennings.
"Go away! If you don't have my brother, you won't get her!" Max yelled at Hotch and grabbed a gun from the table in front of him and held the weapon against Scarlet's head. "And put your gun down!" Scarlet felt tears fill her eyes as she noticed that the FBI agent was pointing a gun into their direction.
If either of them would shoot now, she would die for sure.
"We might not have your brother with us," Hotch continued, remaining completely calm. "but we did bring the other man you wanted."
"Seriously, go away! I will kill her! No joke!"
"Spencer Reid." Hotchner finished.
Scarlet, who had been trying hard not to get caught while she tried to free her hands so she could smash her kidnapper's skull with some random object and escape, looked up again. How confusing was that! Why did the FBI bring Spencer Reid here, out of all the people in the world. And what did this nutjob need from someone innocent as him anyways? And why in the name of all that was Holy did she have a headache now. Damn it all.
There was a small silence – aside from Scarlet's hard breathing. "Isn't this the man you wanted to get revenge on?"
Seriously, what was there to get revenge on? That guy couldn't do anything to harm anyone!
Hotchner pushed Spencer forwards so Max Lennings – and Scarlet – could see it was really Reid and not someone else.
Lennings glared at the men in front of him and pointed his gun at Spencer now.
Suddenly fear took over her and without knowing what the hell she was doing, Scarlet leaned forward and then hit her head backwards, hitting Max Lennings' forehead. He screamed in pain and did one step back, releasing Scarlet from the tight grip on her arm. Quickly, she ran away from Lennings, almost falling.
"No, you won't!" Lennings yelled, about to grab her again.
A Shot was fired by Hotch and Max Lennings' lifeless body fell to the ground. Scarlet, still scared and confused, sat still for a while until Reid had freed her hands and removed the gag from her mouth.
"Are you all right?" He asked, taking distance from her again.
Scarlet didn't even hear the question anymore. Her body was shaking in fear and finally the tears came down. She moved a little closer to him and hugged him, while she continued crying.
Scarlet sat in a big car, owned by the FBI, still not speaking about what had happened to her today. She had stopped crying but wasn't sure what to do yet.
"Are you all right?" This time, Scarlet did hear and understand the question. She nodded slightly and smiled. "I deeply apologize." Reid continued, sitting down next to her in the car. Sighing to herself, Scarlet punched his arm playfully. "Au! What was that for? What did I say wrong?" He asked, rubbing his arm. She smiled which ended up in quiet giggling.
"You are so cu~te." She said, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck for a hug. "Just don't apologize. It's a pain."
"Uhm… Scarlet… what are you doing?"
"Nothi~ng…" She could just sense his discomfort, but she couldn't help doing this.
"I..I don't feel very c-comfortable anymore..."
"Aww, I know something that will make you feel more comfortable."
"I highly doubt that…" Spencer continued. One voice told him to move away and run, while the other voice told him to stay and see what would happen.
"No, no, you'll feel better, I promise!" She reached for his face with one of her hands and turned his face slightly before leaning her own face closer to his and made their lips touch.
Suddenly, someone opened one of the doors of the car.
"Ready to go home? Scarlet, where do you liv- eh?" Morgan blinked a few times and jumped out of the car again, taking out his cellphone.
"What's wrong?" Gideon asked.
"I think the world is … turning upside down." He dialed a phone number. "Garcia, you'll never believe this!"