AN: I had this idea rattling around in my head, and the prologue part just begged to be written down.
Not beta read, or, really, fit for human consumption.
I could continue this at a later date, explain who this character is and what happened to her, and I probably will. I just don't have the time right now. If you want to see more please drop me a line, I'll do my best to deliver.

December 8th, 2003

Dear Agent Gideon,

It's been two and a half years since you and your team left Missoula, but I still can't sleep through the night without a dose of Valium. You did all you could, I know you did, especially with the forensic countermeasures the Slayer used. I shudder when people get too close to me, though, and while I can handle short platonic contact I don't think I'll ever stop tensing up when I'm hugged.

I'm supposed to call him William McCobb. 'Shakespeare Slayer' just makes him sound important, I know how the psychology works. The smaller he appears in my perception the less he's able to hurt me. McCobb is locked up and on death row, so he couldn't be any weaker, but I don't like his name.

I don't like how it looks, or how it feels in my mouth when I have to say it in group.

When I turned seventeen I had some sort of breakdown. That's why I spent a year in an inpatient facility, dealing with my trauma. This letter, though, it's my last project before I'm let out of the outpatient group program. You know, resolve all my emotions, say all the stuff I never got to say the first time around.

I was supposed to write four. I've already written one for my dad, and then I did one to deal with the betrayal I felt towards Sean Whitchurch. The first one was to him, the Slayer, and it was nearly fourteen pages long. I got to burn it, afterwords.

We don't send the letters. I mean, I guess we could, I could, but we don't have to. If I wouldn't feel stupid I'd probably send this one to you. You and your team, I think you're the only ones who can really understand what this feels like. It's your job, you went to school for it, you deal with it every day and see it behind your eyes.

At least I think you do. I do.

Before everything happened, I wanted to be you. Not you, exactly, but I wanted to be a profiler. I picked all my school courses with that career in mind, I studied so hard to get top marks, I got a job part time at the station with my dad just to see how the police functioned as a workplace unit. I idolized you, Agent Gideon, you and SSAs Hotchner and Rossi. You created an entire new branch of the FBI.

But I couldn't do it now. I couldn't handle it, I can't handle it. Everything triggers me, everything will trigger me until the day I die. All that torture and death, the brutality, there's no way in hell I'd be able to distance myself from those situations.

I hate that. That bastard ruined my life, all that I worked for and it's garbage now. He fucked it up, he fucked up the rest of my life. I'll never get a second chance, I'll never get the life I could've had if he'd just died with his fucking girlfriend.

See, look, look how vindictive I am. I just blamed an innocent woman for her abusive boyfriend's behaviour. That's why I've been in therapy for so long. It didn't really work. I mean, I've worked past my self destructive habits, but I'll never work in law enforcement. For more than one reason, apparently.

I'm eighteen now. The rest of the world seems to have forgotten the Slayer of Missoula, Montana, and his spree in the summer of 2001. I'm eighteen and I haven't graduated high school and I have no goals and I'm stuck.

You and your team saved my life, but I won't be able to make a difference. You left on your jet before I woke up in the hospital, you never got to see how ruined I was.

This is the thank you I never got to say. It's also a condemnation, I guess. I can't blame you for how empty my life is now. But I think it might've been better if you'd let me die. I wouldn't have to hate myself. I wouldn't feel like a failure, for not being able to get that criminology degree and catch motherfuckers like William McCobb.

That was my passion, would have been my passion. I wanted so badly to improve the world.

I'm going to finish school, eventually. I'll get a college education. I'll do something that makes me happy, once I remember what makes me happy, but right now I'm just surviving.

Agent Gideon, one day I'll write a letter and I'll send it to you, and I'll show you that you didn't save me for nothing.

I just have to find something I can do as well as striving for the FBI.

I was good, for a stupid sixteen year old. You wouldn't have taken me seriously if I wasn't.

I doubt you'll see me again, but I'll probably see you. No matter how hard I try, I can't keep my head out of the news. If there's another sicko out there, one you deal with, you can believe I'll know about it one way or another.

Thank you, Agent Gideon. I don't think I'll ever say it enough. Thank you for finding me, for giving me your jacket, for holding my hand as the EMS came down into that pit and wrapped me onto a stretcher.

I'll try not to waste this second chance.

Sincerely,

Hailey Courtier