Game
a/n: continuation from Baby Snatcher and the Princess.
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one. -H. L. Mencken
An Introduction of Players
Dr Spencer Reid.
The first few days I think I could still think straight. I think my brain was still functioning up until my second night. If I was going to put an actual time on it, you know an incident which caused me to fall apart it was most likely that second night. I'd managed to clean my burned hand. I'd managed to find some small berries which I thought were probably not poisonous; and luckily they weren't, and I seemed to be able to drink the river water in small quantities. Too much gave me severe reminders why I should be careful with the water. I did everything I said I was going to do on my second day out here alone. I slept for a short while as I'd spent the night before watching the shadows and then I continued to follow the river. Eventually it will come to a bigger river and then I'll have more hope of finding someone or something. More hope of escaping this nightmare I was stuck in. I pulled dead branches from trees into a huddle and made room so I could crawl under them. I had collected what looked to be some nuts of some kind which I would investigate later but I was still being followed by a humming black cloud of insects which were just waiting for me to stay still long enough for them to land on me and start feasting on my sweaty skin. So as the light began to fail I felt secure in the knowledge that the monster in the dark would be there again but I would be safe. It would just watch. It would wait and really when it finally would come for me I would be beyond caring anyway. There I held a small bit of comfort. As long as I could see those red eyes watching me I knew I was still alive.
Who are you trying to kid Spencer?
Are you sure it's not just waiting for you to sleep?
'Yes I'm sure.'
I had to be sure because if not then I would eventually die simply because I'd not slept. I'd pass out with exhaustion and it would come and take me anyway. I know that I had a few hours sleep earlier and it didn't take me then. It could have done: if it really wanted to. My hand will probably be the thing which kills me though, I'm pretty sure of that. The infection has got worse. The burn is wet and I can hardly move my fingers on my right hand now. I've been washing it in the self same water which makes me vacate my bowels at an alarming speed if I drink too much. God only knows what bugs and eggs I've got stuck to my skin now; little things feeding on the puss and digging their tiny bodies into my hand. It's strange though because it doesn't hurt as much now.
Anyway, I was going to tell you what made me slip from my logical way of planning and thinking to a dark place I've been hiding in ever since. I curled up and I looked around and searched with bleary eyes in the dark for the eyes. I didn't see them at first, but I heard it. I could hear the snorting and shuffling away under the trees away from the moon light. I wanted it to come closer so I could see it better. I needed to see it for my own security, but I still couldn't. I thought maybe if I moved slightly, maybe it was just out of my line of sight behind a tree or bush or rocky outcropping and so I rolled over so I was on my back and prepared to move to my side and then it happened and it happened in slow motion which was the strangest thing. One by one the branches lying across me were pulled away. At first I thought and hoped that I'd just dislodged them, but my hope faded pretty fast when another branch was pulled away and I could see those eyes.
Told you it would come for you.
Count to five, while you're still alive.
Take your last breath, cos here comes death.
I pulled my knees up close to my chest and kicked out at the eyes as hard as I could. 'Stay away from me! I'm not dead!'
Yet.
I then scrabbled backwards on my butt and once out of the tangle of branches I got to my feet and ran. I didn't care if it was dark. It really didn't matter anymore because I knew that the monsters were real now, and I knew there was one snorting and lumbering behind me. Playing with its catch. Chasing supper as it ran blindly into the forest.
It wasn't this though which unhinged me. It wasn't the brambles scraping along my arms trying to hold me back for the thing. It wasn't the branches whipping across my chest and face. That I could have handled if that's all it was. I stumbled a few times and was sure I could feel its hot breath on the back of my neck. 'Take a bite.' I told it, but as I got back to my feet again it hadn't. It wanted to watch me run and I obliged. When the undergrowth I was wading through suddenly stopped and my left foot discovered that there was a reason for that as for a fleeting second it hung there in midair wondering where the ground had gone I knew and it wasn't even a deep down knowledge, it was right there on the surface screaming, that there was nothing I could do. I was already falling. Not a shear drop, but a steep enough slope for my forward momentum to pull my head over and down cracking on the stony slope I'd run or more stumbled to. At first I rolled. My head hitting the ground and then spinning me and my back scraping across it and then my butt in the air as my head overtook my body again. I rolled like this making odd howls as I felt rocks and stones digging into my head and back, until I hit something. Maybe a rock, maybe it was a tree stump, I'm not sure but it changed the way I was falling and put me onto my side. I felt the pain of whatever I hit spreading over my lower back and then I was on my side with my eyes closed in the darkness not wanting even a tiny glimpse of what I was falling towards. I rolled now from my back to my front and onto my back again and I did try to protect my head from as much as I could and I tried to dig in my feet and slow myself down, but I was failing on both accounts. It was the small stubby bushes I rolled into which finally slowed me. I reached out to grab something to stop myself and realised before it was too late that it was my right hand. My howls of distress turned into a scream as I felt the damaged flesh being ripped from my hand and I carried on for about another twenty foot or so bouncing painfully off the brambles and small bushes until it suddenly stopped and I realised I'd stopped moving. I wanted to curl up and hold my hand against me tightly but all I could do was lie there on my ripped up back with my arms splayed above my head and stare at the moon shining down on me. I wondered if I'd broken my neck. I deserved to have.
'It's not just monsters in the dark I have to be careful of.' I think I said that aloud but I'm not really sure of it.
When I awaken from either the sleep or the pain I was feeling I could see the sun shining above me. It didn't come and get me then. I'm not sure if I'm pleased or not. I would have really liked it to get it over with. I don't think that there was any part of my I'd not injured and though I thought I might have ripped my hand right off at the wrist when I fell, right then I felt nothing but a dull ache coming from the very centre of my palm. I moved my arms slowly to my sides. I didn't want to look at the damage I did yet. I move slowly next pulling my knees up towards me and keeping my feet on the rough ground and then using my elbow as leverage I pushed up and sat and had a look around me. The silence at first was eerie, there was nothing; not even the sound of my breathing and I wondered if the smacks to my head had damaged my hearing. I could feel the pulse of my heart in my brain and behind my eyes and as I looked down at myself I could see the smears of blood and bits of leaves and other things stuck to me. The mosquitoes were back too; piercing at my skin and sucking at my blood. I slapped a few off with my good hand but there were far more worrying things to think about. Getting to my feet and moving was one of them, but I managed it slowly and I stood for a while bent forwards and my feet slightly splayed with my left hand resting on my left knee and I just waited for the dizziness to pass so that I could carry on my journey following the river. It was at this point that I realised that I couldn't actually hear the river anymore. The little trickling bubbling sounds I'd heard so clearly the day before were gone. Then again so had everything. It was like someone had muted the landscape during the commercials ready for the show to start again.
I found it though. I did find the river. It was tumbling down the side of the slope I'd fallen down the previous night in a great waterfall. A great silent waterfall. I slapped at my left ear with my hand trying to make it hear something, but there was nothing. At least I had the river to follow now even if I couldn't hear it. It also meant that I wouldn't be able to hear the monster in the dark either and that thought caused a twisting in the pit of my stomach. I survived it though. I got away. I'm still alive. It didn't kill me. Moreover I didn't kill myself.
Yet.
After washing in the river, still not having the courage to look at my right hand, I carried on following it. Eventually it would join another river, a bigger river or maybe a lake. Maybe a lake with powerboats and little holiday homes nestled along the edges. Maybe.
Keep dreaming Spencer. You know that's not going to happen.
It will happen! Why is it that the only thing I could hear was the little voice living inside of my head?
It was a long day. I remember how that day seemed to take far too long to reach an end. Again time seemed to be messing with me. I managed to find some edible things on the way. Some late fiddleheads which were probably not at their best but I carefully pulled at the fern and slipped the little twisted plants into my mouth. Not the most wonderful thing I'd ever eaten that's for certain, but the most wonderful thing I'd eaten in a few days. I wasn't sure at that point exactly how many days it had been. Had it been two or three? Or had it been weeks? Dandelion was another thing I was able to recognise and know I could eat; though boiling it in salt water would have been better. I popped the smaller of the bright green leaves in my mouth and chewed slowly. I wanted coffee. I needed sugar. I needed my own bed and my apartment and my books. And I needed to hear again.
I had been hoping for a miracle. I had been hoping for that lake and the powerboats, but as the small river took a big turn to the right and I followed slowly along the bank looking out for things to eat I saw it. For a while I just stood and stared. It wasn't a lake. It wasn't a road. It wasn't even a bigger river. It was a small wooden hut covered in creepers and vines. I know a smile crept over my face for the first time in what seemed forever. I could feel that my face was surprised that I was using those muscles after such a long time, but it let me do a big toothy happy smile. I found somewhere. I found a miracle. It was probably a rangers hut. There ground around it hadn't been cultivated in any way. It was a temporary place for some one to rest, not a home, but it stood there with the plants growing over it pretending to be Eden. I think I let out a small 'Ha!' as I walked towards it, but I don't know if I actually said it nor not. I meant to, but I didn't hear it. There was a trail in the forest leading from the hut to the river and so I made my way to this and walked along it as though coming home from a long tiring day at work. The place looked to be about fifteen foot square and it even had a tall metal chimney poking through the roof. 'Ha!' I said again, maybe, and walked to the much over grown door. No one had been here in a long time, which was alright. I didn't mind that; though the thought that someone wouldn't arrive and save me from my torturous trip niggled slightly, really it didn't matter. I was saved. I could survive now.
Pulling back the vines and creepers from the door didn't take long, or maybe it took hours, again time seemed to be confusing me. I was careful to use only my left hand and was beginning to notice that my right elbow and shoulder hurt. I would have to check out my hand, but for now I was going to get into my new home. The door opened silently but I could feel it scraping and feel that it really didn't want to be pushed inwards the way I did. I suspect it in actuality made a dreadful noise. The inside was dark and cool. There was a smell of age and dirt about it, but my smile came back as I looked at the small rough made bench and stall and I felt like laughing when I spied the small dirty camp bed pushed into the corner. In one wall was a log burning stove which made me draw in a quick deep breath of panic as I could almost smell the fish hearts and livers burning away on it. There was even a pile of logs and a big old cooking pan. Wonderful, except I had no idea how to make fire out here alone. On one wall was a window with shutters closed across it. I didn't bother opening them. I just wanted to lie down on that bed and sleep and after a quick check for snakes and bugs I went back and pushed the door closed and flopped down on the dirty blanket and closed my eyes and feel asleep without another thought.
As soon as I opened my eyes again I knew something was wrong. The light had dimmed but it had a strange reddish look about it. The shadows where pushed right back into the corners and there was a strong smell of wood burning. I moved my head probably too quickly and looked at the stove. Someone had been here. Someone had come in as I slumbered and lit the fire. There was also a small metal bowl and a mug on the table which I was sure hadn't been there when I arrived. Still that eerie silence though. I thought about calling out, but then decided not to. Instead I got up and limped to the table. The mug had a milky liquid in it and the bowl had what looked to be a broth of some kind and under the mug was a bit of paper. I slid the bit of paper out from under it and looked at the writing scrawled across it.
"Don't let the fire go out."
Was all it said so I put it down again and sat on the wobbly stall and peered at the food and drink. Still I'd not looked at my hand and still I didn't feel ready to do that, but the thought that someone had been here and left me something felt good. I should maybe have been wondering who it was who did it and why they didn't wake me up, but I didn't. What I did was pick up the bowl of liquid and tipped it back down my throat without so much as a thought of what it could be. The taste was revolting and I could feel my stomach resenting this flood of liquid almost immediately. I picked up the mug and drank swiftly from that too trying to get the vile bitter taste out of my mouth and trying to stop the burning in the back of my throat I could now feel. How I could have been so stupid twice in such close succession I don't know, but I managed it anyhow. My rush from the small hut to the warm evening air was a lunging stagger and I emptied what I had just consumed in a hot burning blast into the undergrowth. I then walked slowly to the river and had a cool drink and wondered why someone would go to the bother of lighting the stove for me if only to poison me afterwards.
I did remember to put more wood on the fire. I know that much and then I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes and tired to ignore the feeling that my throat was closing and I tried to pretend that the cramps in my stomach weren't there and I thought of Hotch and all the things I could have done to avoid the situation I was in.
The next time I woke up I knew again that someone had been in the hut with me. I could smell cooking for a start; the smell of meat. And when I went to turn over I thought initially that my right arm had become stiff and paralyzed but then when I looked down I saw that someone had bandaged it. Someone had been here with me and had cleaned my damaged hand. The pulsing ache deep down in my palm had stopped and I also realized that the funny smell I'd had following me around had gone too. On the table now was a slab of bread and sitting on the stove bubbling gently was the big pot of something which this time really did look like something good to eat. It occurred to me then that maybe I'd drank something meant to clean my had up with.
It was around now that things slipped and changed for me. Someone came to the hut every day and left me food. My hand slowly healed and someone changed the dressings when I was sleeping. The only thing I really did was to make sure that the fire didn't go out. When the woodpile looked like it was going out I went and collected more bits to add to it. I felt strangely settled and at home. My urge to go and find my way out of the forest had dissipated to a low gnawing occasionally at the back of my mind and they red eyes were gone. At least I didn't see them in my hut. I think for the first time in my life I felt free. Free of expectations and free of pressure. I practiced what I'd seen Floyd do and eventually managed to catch fish. The first time shocked me and I threw it back as it looked at me with dark unblinking eyes. The only thing really I wished would change was that I still couldn't hear anything.
Nothing lasts forever though and my stay in the hut in the forest did eventually end and now I'm here. I'm not sure what this place is, but the corridors are dim and people stop and look at me huddled on the floor and they talk to me but I don't hear them. I seem to get chunks of my days which just go missing and I look for the bits which have gone and I can never find them. My room here is small and white and my bed is small and white and the window has bars on it and at night they allow the shadows to come back and they lock the door and I lie awake for as long as I can just staring at the ceiling because I know….
………right there……over in the corner…..there is a pair of red eyes watching me.
Hotchner.
I've tried to distance myself from it. I think in the beginning I did a damned good job of it too. I listened to Dave's advice and I stopped all communication with Sam. They found him a place in a secure unit. I didn't go to visit him. I didn't call them and ask how he was, but that was at first. I couldn't sleep and when I did I had nightmares about what had happened to him and so eventually I did contact the unit and they told me he had settled in reasonably well and was a lot calmer since the new lot of medications had been given to him. He was refusing to talk to anyone about his experiences, but it made me feel better about things. I knew he was safe. No one had come after him. All was good.
As for life in general things have been sliding back into place. There is a new guy now filling the space that Spencer once filled. Rory is a good bloke. He's the same age as Morgan and they seem to get on alright, but it's not the same. It will never be the same. We do however have a job to do and I have pulled myself together sufficiently for the looks from Dave to stop and for the job to get done properly. We've had changes of staff before. We lost Gideon and Elle from the team and we survived, but I know what happened to them. They didn't just disappear off the face of the earth. They are still alive and well and happy. Spencer though, there is still a raw painful hole where his life had once been. We talked about a memorial for him. There really seems to be no hope of finding him alive. We all know Flanders did something to him, we just don't know what it is. Rossi suggested that he keeps going for his chats with him. He thinks a memorial is too soon. I hope to god he's right.
The months have passed so fast and yet they've dragged. I used to think every time my phone rang that it would be Reid…it never was and now that feeling is dying away with the hope I had of seeing him alive again. I see Jack regularly though. I am insistent with Strauss that I have enough time off to see Jack. I've lost too much recently. I'm not going to lose him too.
David Rossi
They say "time heals" and I'm still waiting for that time. The team works well together. We have a new media liaison who struggled at first and I thought there would be a repeat of the problems we had with Agent Todd, but I gave time to talk to her. To invite her around for dinner and to go out for a drink with her. She confided her worries and we sorted through them. She's a nice person; tall with mousey brown hair always pulled back into a pony tail. She has one of those faces that you immediately smile at. I'm not saying at all that this is going to lead to a romance because I am a long way past all that, but I like her and she's good at her job.
Aaron I am more worried about. He puts on his typical stoic look and hides behind the costume of a suit and tie but I know that beneath the surface he's not as calm as he'd like to make us all think. I know he thinks constantly about Reid. I know he worries about Prentiss. I know he is in contact with Sam, even if he does deny it; well not actually deny it, but he side steps any conversations about it very deftly. I watch him carefully; more carefully than at first. When this all kicked off it was obvious how he was feeling. His emotions were there plain to see, but now he's hiding them and that bothers me and though I'm watching him carefully I do it less obviously. So far he's not compromised himself.
I visit Flanders. I'm waiting for him to talk to me again and I know he will say more than a couple of words in Latin to me eventually and when he does we will know what happened to Spencer and we will have some closure on it. Until then for a lot of us his absence is an open raw wound and I need him to tell me what happened out there. I have to get him to tell me what he did to Reid.
Agent Emily Prentiss
Time for a change. I had my hair cut and changed my image slightly.
I always feel so tired. It's like something is draining my soul and I don't know how to stop it happening. We tried to get Rosa back. I thought we'd succeed. We knew where she was. We knew what to expect, but when we arrived the place was vacated. We tried to find out where they'd gone, but they seemed to have just disappeared. They route they had been taking across the country was abandoned and it seemed they split up and went different ways to avoid easy detection of them. It broke my heart again. How many times can my heart be smashed like this? I don't know if it can take another battering like that one. I've had to accept that at least for the time being Rosa is lost to us.
Lost to me.
Again.
I failed her.
Again.
I've taken up smoking quite heavily. It helps at night when I'm alone in the apartment standing at my damned window with the phone unplugged – waiting. Always waiting, but I know he won't come to me. I know he's locked up and strapped down somewhere unable to ease the pain I feel constantly inside me….in that place where my soul is being sucked dry.
I can do my job though. When at work I am meticulous to the point of being obsessive that I get my job done with no hick ups. I look around me and I see everyone else coping and I wonder if they too are dying inside a little bit more each day.
Today it's been raining. I love rainy evenings. They make me feel a bit better inside. I don't know why. Maybe it's the way the lights below me twist or maybe it's the almost hypnotic way the rain runs down the window pane; it doesn't really matter why though. All that matters is that tonight I feel a bit better. This evening with one palm pressed to the glass and the other hand holding a hand rolled smoke between the fingers and looking at the strange patterns the lights make causes a sort of soothing inside.
Everything will be alright.
As for Reid…this is a difficult one. I feel nothing. I just have this strange empty place where he used to be. There's no sorrow and no grief; there's just a big nothing. I did talk to someone every night after work (when I could) about this. I felt I should feel something, but no amount of talking about the loss of Reid could force me to feel anything at all. Eventually I gave up. I was wasting my money talking to someone when I could talk to myself for free and still get no results from it. Maybe I should have given it more time, or maybe, just maybe I don't want to feel anything. Maybe I am too angry with him. Maybe I don't care what happened to him and though that's not like me to think that way, I really do think that I've compartmentalised him out of existence and right now that's the best place for him to be.
Apart from that everything is good. I like the new guy and I like the new media liaison. They had big shoes to fill, but I think because they came to us at around the same time it was a bit easier for them. I remember being the new girl. It's not easy. It's damned hard in fact and I'm not always sure it's worth the struggle. Not if that struggle means I chain smoking and being sucked dry inside by some unknown force.
Derek
I'm angry. I won't deny that. Everyone knows it too. I don't keep feeling like that hidden too well. I'm so damned angry sometimes that I want to scream, but I don't. What am I angry about? I'm furious that the son of a bitch Flanders is safe and well and warm and alive and that my little bro isn't. I asked Rossi once if I could go with him to talk to Flanders. I'd get the guy talking, even if I had to smack it out of him, I'd get the information we need, but he said "no". He didn't think it was a good idea and maybe he's right. I just know that creature killed my little buddy and I want revenge. I want him to feel the pain we are all feeling. Yes we are all feeling it even if we try to hide it. We look at each other and we know that we are all feeling the same grief. All except Emily. I'm not sure what's going on with her. I've been reprimanded a couple of times by Hotch for going a bit to far when apprehending someone. Maybe I was a bit rough. Maybe I didn't have to hit him so hard, but it felt good.
I'm spending a lot of time working out. I've started up the self defence classes again. I just feel this enormous amount of something inside of me that I can only release when I've got that full adrenaline rush going. I don't think since I was a kid I've hated someone as much as I hate myself right now. Where was I when Spencer was in trouble? Where the hell was I?! No damned where! That's where I was and that hurts me a lot more than I've hurt the occasional UnSub when my fist meets his jaw.
Penelope
I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. My head can't cope with those thoughts. I want to curl up and hide somewhere dark and hug my teddy and pretend that the world is a nice place after all and I just made a mistake and these dreadful things didn't happen.
I want to walk into work and see Reid at his desk and JJ running past with an arm full of folders.
I want it all back as it was!
I demand it!
No amount of pink twinkly things around my monitors makes this better. No amount of talking to Morgan satisfies me. He can't fix it. No one can fix it. Not even ice cream makes it better, not when I know I have to come here to work again and see the wrong people here.
I've stopped crying all the time now and I don't like that either. My head is trying to tell me that it's not as important anymore. That it doesn't deserve my grief anymore but it does! I want that twisting painful feeling even though I don't want to talk about it I still need that feeling inside and I'm so scared I'll stop feeling it.
'We need closure.'
I've been told it will help. Help what though. Help us forget Spencer? Help us forget JJ? What exactly will "closure" do? I'm not ready for that. I don't think I will ever be ready to accept that Spencer and JJ are both gone.
I sneak around inside the hospital computers. I have a look to see exactly what is going on with Flanders. "Unresponsive." One will say. "Violent and out of control" another will say. Something happened. Something bad happened, I know that much. Something so bad that even a murdering kidnapping cannibal serial killer can't face it.
What the hell happened?!
The Extras.
Sam
I don't like it here!
I fucking well hate this place! I don't want to be here and I demand they let me go. What did I do wrong? I saved baby – I did the right thing and for that I'm put here in this place I can't get out of. I did once. Once I got out and I was halfway down the drive at a run before they caught up and tackled me to the ground and hauled me screaming back to the ward.
They send me to a bloke to talk to every day and he asks me a lot of questions and I sit and stare at the wall behind him and refuse to talk. I said when I first came here that I'd only talk to Hotchner and I mean it. I'd behave for him. I'd do what ever he asked me to do, but he has to get me out of this shit hole before I do something really bad….
Something really bad again…
I was pretending to take my meds and then spitting them down the toilet, but they caught me and so now I have daily injections in my butt and thighs. They told me that I'm not to let other "guests" fuck me and I'm not to have them either. It's a bloody load of bullshit! I'm sixteen for fucks sake! I can do what I want! I didn't know he was only fourteen! How the hell was I to know? We don't walk around with our ages pinned to our shirts you know.
I've been told that I'm a violent sexual offender and I've been told a lot of other shit too and you don't want to believe it. I don't know why I'm even talking to you.
Where the fuck is Hotchner?!
Flanders.
Oh where to start. Firstly I didn't kill Spencer. I killed me. Well I didn't even do that myself they snatched me away. I wouldn't have hurt Spence. I would never hurt him. You know that don't you? They removed me from the game and tried to get me to play some other crap, but I saw through it. I saw right through their tricks and fuckups. I needed to get back to Spence. I knew he'd fall apart on his own out there. I can live for years in the forests but Spence? Not a chance in hell and he proved that rather well don't you think.
So I'm here now. I'm locked inside my head. For a while I was free to roam, but they stopped that too. For a while I visited Spence. I didn't talk to him but I kept him alive. They didn't like that. They didn't like that we'd formed a strange disjointed alliance again them. They arranged that he was found. They took him away from me and left me here empty with just Rossi's voice going around in my head. His voice demanding to know what I did to Spence and I want to tell him, but I can't. He wants to know where Spencer is and I don't know. That final thing thread which held us together and gave us a bond has finally gone. I tried calling out to him – to Spence…I tried and only got static.
I guess it's over.
I guess I've lost him.
OK…enough of that bullshit. I'm not going to accept that I've lost him. I'm going to wait and I'm going to watch. I'm going to bide my time and when that time comes I'm going to reclaim what is mine and I'm going to – well…comfort him. I just need to wait until I can figure out how to metabolise this crap they are giving me and they won't know what fucking hit them!
Please bear with me. It might take a while.
a/n do I continue????
