A.N. Tangential post-ep to The Night Watch, written before the episode aired. Any spoilers are serendipitous.
The Night(mare) Watch
One of the burdens of a powerful memory was the inability to forget. And Spencer Reid's memory was as powerful as they came. For as long as he could remember, he'd had nightmares. And he remembered every single one of them.
Growing up in a household with delusional schizophrenia bred its own type of nightmare. The earliest ones he could remember were about the very demons he'd constantly assured his mother didn't exist.
"I'll hold them in my head for you, Mom. They can't get you that way."
So many years later, one thing he couldn't remember was whether he'd ever actually said that aloud to her. But he was certain he'd been completely sincere, and determined to protect her. Her frights had been so powerful, so emotionally heart-wrenching, that he'd gladly have done nightly battle with her demons, no matter how often it brought on the cold sweats and shaking limbs that would wake him from his sleep.
And then there had been those other dreams. The ones of abandonment. Ironically, they'd started even before William had left them. Years later, Reid would wonder if his child self had picked up on his father's emotional departure, which had long preceded his physical one.
But the real abandonment brought to life in his dreams had been the threatened loss of his mother. Not that she would ever have chosen to leave him. But she might have been forced to. For all of his precocious intelligence, the young Spencer had been nightly bombarded with images of his pre-teen self, left to wander the world on his own. He'd rejected outright the idea of foster care. He knew that both he and his mother were unique. They'd adapted to one another in a way that he knew could never quite be replicated. He needed her as much as she needed him. And so, he'd worked, and tended, and hidden, and covered, in every way that he needed to, to keep them together.
Until the 'thing' happened. The unforgivable thing. That day when he'd become his mother's nightmare. When he'd effected her confinement. The day she was torn from all that was familiar to her, and placed at Bennington. She'd since told him, many times, that she understood. In her moments of clarity, she knew he'd only done what he'd thought was best for her. Whether she agreed that it was best was something she kept to herself. What mattered was that she loved her son, and she wouldn't have him burdened with guilt because of her. Not if she could help it.
But her waking nightmare had become his nightly one, and he'd spent many, many restless hours watching as he played the villain, taking on the role of Diana's demons, in his dreams. Those were the dreams he'd never shared with anyone. Because, for Reid, they were real.
In a bizarre way, he'd been almost relieved when his new job had begun to give him the substrate for a new set of dreams. They'd been strange, at first, alien. They'd been a new kind of nightmare for him, with an unfamiliar focus. For the first time, he wasn't the center of his dream. He wasn't the victim. He was the failure.
It was what had rattled him enough to admit their existence to Morgan. But he hadn't admitted their substance to anyone but Gideon.
"In my dream, there's a baby, in the middle of a circle, and there's someone on the other side, and I can't get to her before…." **
For ten years now, that's what his dreams had been about. Children in danger…. infants….little boys, like Riley Jenkins….even the unborn Henry, crawling around at a crime scene. And he'd been unable to save them, each and every time. Unable to prevent the next one from being taken.
There had been only the one, brief interruption to the pattern of his nightly visions. That brief, blissful respite, even if he'd run away from it at the beginning. When he'd begun to see Maeve in his dreams, he'd been sure his mind would lead him to relive her murder, over and over again. But he'd been wrong.
Because the actual experience of it was so much worse than any nightmare could ever be.
And so, with the encouragement of David Rossi, he'd given in. And, for the first time in a very long time, his dreams had brought him peace. Fullness. Fulfillment.
But, in the past year, the nightmares had resumed. And they were, once again, full of children. Full of little boys and babies, and a particular genius profiler who was unable to save any of them.
He knew why they'd come back. He'd repaired his friendship with JJ. The distance between them had closed once again, and his cardiac armor had been penetrated by the two blonde LaMontagnes already in his life, and the soon-to-be new one. He had, after all, recognized Henry in his dream even before his first godson had been born. It stood to reason….after a fashion….that he would have recognized Michael as well.
Like most profilers, he'd learned to get by on what little sleep was not pervaded by his dreams. And, like most, he'd prayed not to meet the stuff of his nightmares during a case. Better to relegate them to the world of dreams. Dreams could be avoided. If one never slept.
But this case….in this case, his nightmare had threatened to fully intrude on his waking life. A baby had been taken by a murderous unsub, and they'd been in a race against time to save him. He'd done his best to distance himself from the facts while simultaneously digesting them, a feat performed only through long practice. It was the only way he had found that would allow him to function, the dispassionate genius objectively dissecting information to move the case forward.
He'd perfected it to the level of art. But he'd also come to realize the price of that art. Objectivizing the victim, and the violence, only served to heighten the fright of the nightmare. Which was what he was expecting this night.
He'd become resigned to it, and no longer tried to fight it. So it hadn't even been intentional when he'd sent that text an hour ago. It had just happened. Hadn't it?
He couldn't very well take it back, after the fact, so now he was just waiting for his phone to ring. And waiting... And waiting...
He tried to get back into the book in his lap, but it seemed as though this would be one of those nights when his great author friends would fail in distracting him. Reid was about to give up and see if he could do better by replaying one of the classic games of chess, when he felt the buzz in his pocket. He grabbed the phone, quickly scanning the caller ID before answering.
"Hi."
"Hi, Spence. Sorry it took me so long. Michael's sleep schedule seems to be changing, thank God. But it means he's up a little later before I put him down."
"No worries. I'm sorry I bothered you. I guess the good news is that I learned to text first."
The last time, he'd called, and inadvertently awakened the newly-sleeping baby. And his mother.
"Oh. Yeah, sorry if I was a little cranky that day. Just sleep-deprived, I guess. I think most parents forget what it's like to have a newborn. If we remembered, we'd never have another one."
He chuckled. "A world full of only children."
"Right. Well, as you know, there's one little guy who's ecstatic not to be an only child."
Reid smiled. "I know. He talked my ear off about Michael the whole way to the movie and back last week."
"He's not as big a fan of his brother in the middle of the night, but he's always right in the poor little guy's face the rest of the time."
"Michael doesn't mind. Isn't Henry the one who can always get him to smile?"
The image made the two boys' mother smile. "Yes, he is. Michael is very much enamored of his brother….and his godfather."
The line was quiet for just a beat longer than expected, prompting JJ to ask, "Spence? You there?"
A hurried, "I'm here."
"Oh, good. I thought we'd lost the connection."
"No. Just… I didn't even mean to text you. I shouldn't have. It's just…."
She didn't wait for him to say it. The fact that he'd reached out to her was telling enough.
"Garcia told me about the case."
"She did?"
"Yeah. I'm back in two more weeks, so I asked her to keep me posted on what was going on."
"Oh."
"Oh." quoting him. "Was it that tough?"
"There was a baby." And I was afraid I couldn't save him. I was living my nightmare.
"I know. To tell you the truth, when I heard that, I was glad not to be back yet. It must have been awful."
His response was so quiet that she almost couldn't hear it. "It was."
Suddenly, JJ wished they weren't having this conversation from miles apart.
"Spence, do you want to come over?"
Immediately, he felt guilty. Here he was, interrupting one of her few hours of rest, and making her feel like she needed to take care of him.
"No….no, thanks anyway. I should let you go. You're probably exhausted."
"Well, that's a given. But what's an hour more or less? Seriously, Spence, you called me. What did you want to talk about?" Pretty certain she already knew.
"I don't even know. I guess...I was thinking about the boys." I was thinking that this world isn't safe enough for them.
He shrugged, as though she could see. "I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to hear a familiar voice."
The owner of that familiar voice thanked her sleep-deprived brain for finally putting it together.
"It got to you, didn't it? Because it was a baby. Because you were thinking about Michael. That it could have been him." Shuddering, herself.
No hesitation from Reid this time. She'd pulled his finger out of the dike, and the thoughts and words flooded through.
"I couldn't think about anything else, practically. I mean, I did my job. I was able to think, and analyze, and help with the profile. That wasn't the problem."
"Okay, so what was?"
"I don't know. I guess I've been so used to relating to the unsub, and this time I couldn't get past how much I related to the victim. It was…."
"Unsettling?"
"Yes!"
Sensing more to come, she waited him out.
"I mean, think of it, JJ. Think of what might have happened if he'd killed this baby. This little human who would have come and gone from the world in just a matter of months. Think of the potential that might have been lost! What if he was the person who was supposed to solve global warming? The one to finally figure out cold fusion? What if he was meant to discover how to move us through time and space? What would have happened to all of us, if we hadn't saved him?"
JJ was taken aback, not quite prepared for the vehemence seeping through the phone. And then, suddenly, she understood.
"That's how you see Michael."
"And Henry. They amaze me every time I see them. Watching Henry learn, and the look on his face when he figures something out. And Michael and that big grin. He always looks like he knows more than the rest of us. And I think...what if he does? What if it means something? What if my godsons are supposed to change the world?"
"They kind of already have, Spence, haven't they?"
She could hear the smile in his voice. "Well, if you're talking about my world, yes. But I'm serious about this. What if they're meant to do something significant? We have a responsibility to make sure they get the chance, don't we?"
"Of course we do." That's why you're their godfather. "Spence, you did save that baby. And he will be able to be whatever he was meant to be. This was a win."
He could only sigh. She was right. "I know. I know it was. I don't…..I don't even know why I called."
She did.
"It's harder to let it go now, isn't it? With the boys in your life, it's harder to let it go, after the case is over."
He confessed. "It's been my nightmare for as long as I've been with the BAU, JJ. That there would be a baby in danger, and I couldn't save him."
"And now you think you know the baby's name...it's Henry, or Michael, right? I know the feeling."
"It has to be so much worse for you. I love them more than I ever thought I could, but of course, I could never love them as much as a parent does." Pause. "Could I?"
As though asking for permission.
The tears caught her by surprise. Her best friend had survived a childhood that had socially marooned him with his psychically ill mother. His deepest, most substantial, relationship had been with Diana. And, JJ knew, that as much as she might have wished it otherwise, Diana had been incapable of using that relationship to help her son find his place in the world.
Imagine Henry, or Michael, trying to fend for themselves, while you were relegated to some delusion. Imagine them surviving, in spite of it. Imagine them becoming the man Spence has become.
That Reid had come as far as he had….that he and she had formed their friendship, and that he'd come to love her children….that he'd even had his own, deep, emotional connection with the doomed Maeve….was, in its own way, miraculous. Once beyond the need to accommodate to the constraints of schizophrenia, Reid's heart had proven to be huge, empathetic, and complex.
"You love them how you love them, Spence. Far be it from me to tell you that you have to love them less than I do. If anything, I feel blessed that they have you in their lives."
She could picture the shy smile on his face as he responded. "Thanks."
Weariness ambushed her as JJ tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a yawn. Hearing it, Reid apologized once again.
"I really am sorry I bothered you. You really should sleep when Michael does. Although, that should get better soon. Babies his age…."
She could tell he was about to launch into one of his pregnancy/postpartum/early childhood informational rambles, and cut him off as quickly as she could.
"I know. They're ready to give up that nighttime feeding. Well, this one isn't quite into acknowledging that yet. But, thank God, Will is up for duty next."
"Will? But I thought you were bre…" Cutting himself off even as he felt the unseen blush rising on his neck.
She laughed to herself, able to picture him as clearly as if he was in the room with her.
"I was. And I still am. But I've been pumping, so he'll learn to take it from the bottle. Which, blissfully, means that Will can share the middle-of-the-night duty."
He'd actually researched breast pumps, God help him, but he wasn't about to tell her that. Something about discussing breast feeding with his female colleague, even if she was his best friend, was unnerving.
"Uh, okay. Well, I'd better let you get your rest. Two weeks will fly by before you know it." I hope.
"You could still come over,if you want. The guys are sleeping, but you could look in on them." Intuiting that it was what he needed.
He smiled his gratitude, though she couldn't see. "Thanks, but I've taken enough of your time.
"Sure you're okay?"
"Fine."
"Well, I'm not sure I believe that. But I just sent you something that I hope will make it better."
"Huh?"
"Good night, Spence. And remember, you're always welcome here. You're one of the family."
Considering his ruminations of earlier this evening, the designation touched him deeply. He cleared his throat so he could respond to her.
"Thanks. Take care, okay?"
"You, too, my friend. Sweet dreams."
Just as he closed the call, he heard the promised text sound. As he opened it, and took in its contents, he felt his lips turning up. '
There, in an obviously candid photo, were the two little male loves of his life, Michael in an infant seat, staring at an animated Henry pointing to his little replica of the solar system….the one Reid had helped him put together. The solar system that he'd proudly declared he would explore, one day.
If his godfather had anything to say about it, he most definitely would.
Reid leaned his head back in his chair and closed his eyes, bringing the image of his two godsons with him into his nightly oblivion.
Sweet dreams, indeed.
** Dialogue taken from 'The Popular Kids'