Author's Note: Hello Criminal Minds fans! :) This takes place right at the end and after episode 8x12, 'Zugzwang'. Spoilers for the end of the episode. I just wrote a quick introduction chapter for you, and the rest of the story will be the aftermath of this scene. Please review to let me know if I should continue! Beware. Lots of Reid!whump up ahead.
"Thomas Merton," Maeve said softly, her voice shaking with tears and fear.
"Who's Thomas Merton?" Diane asked, her gun trembling in her hands. She sounded insane with anger and confusion.
With every wave of Diane's gun, Spencer Reid felt his heart drop in to his stomach, just a little more. The pain from the gunshot wound in his arm helped him stay calm and focused, but it was nearly impossible as the woman he loved shook and cried with a gun pressed to her head.
"He knows," Maeve said. "He knows..."
"Who's Thomas Merton?" Diane asked again, jerking the gun as if to remind everyone that it was still there. "Who is he?!"
Suddenly, Maeve's face morphed in to one of a brave, determined woman as she spoke the words; "He's the one thing you can never take from us."
Reid almost smiled at Maeve's courage, but he couldn't. He just couldn't, because she was still in terrible danger and Reid stood there, helpless, knowing that his team stood behind him and could do nothing but stand and watch the scene unfold with him.
"No." Diane spoke firmly, her teeth gritted, one arm still holding Maeve against her. And she removed the gun from Maeve's head. For one, beautiful split second, Reid thought she would surrender and he could finally hug Maeve and really see her in the flesh.
But she moved the gun upwards towards her own skull. And Reid knew what would happen before it even did and with all his strength he yelled;
"WAIT!"
There was a bang.
Spencer Reid had heard the sound of gunfire many times before in his line of duty, but never this loud. Never so painfully loud and terrifying. Never so unreal.
The world swam around him as he saw the blood seep from Diane's head, and he didn't want to look, to know who lay down next to her. That wasn't Maeve. It couldn't be Maeve.
Not her. But his eyes forced themselves to look. To watch the crimson slowly make its way down her temple and pool on to the floor.
He fell to his knees as he wasn't able to stand anymore. He could hardly breathe as he felt the tears come from his eyes and he sobbed for the woman he'd only just met, yet he knew her like the back of his hand. He couldn't breathe. He wanted to die, to take her place on the bloody floor.
Anything. Anything but this.
His hands trembled. He cried until it was painful to do so anymore. He vaguely heard his team members come up behind him. He didn't feel them help him to his feet. He couldn't feel anything anymore. Some small part of him believed that she was still alive. That she would come back to life and smile and quote Thomas Merton and be perfectly okay.
But Reid was too intelligent. Too caught up with facts and statistics that he knew she was long gone and that the pain in his heart right now would go away. It would.
But it didn't feel possible.
And he deserved it.
Please. Please just kill me instead. He begged to anyone who would listen.
Not her.
Please not her.