I've seen that smile on too many faces not to know what lies behind it and where it leads.
Orson Scott Card
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He sometimes stops and looks back at his life, idly wondering whether it's ironic or just hands down depressing that someone as concerned as he is about his mental health ended with the professional, self-inflicted version of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Of course, given that the different personalities he puts on and off like ever-changing clothes do not come from a fractured psyche, he's never been caught unaware and there are not blanks in his recollections, no wondering where he is or where did the last two hours go to or where does this bruise come from.
Instead, he knows all about each of the personas he's ever inhabited and there's not a thing about who they are and where they've been that he doesn't remember. Most importantly, they haven't been born to protect neither him nor the core bit of his awareness that would've had the need to be protected. Instead what these false versions do is put him in danger's way and lead him to the murkiest places, all this while doing nothing to hide what's happening from the little boy he was, once upon a time.
He never dwells much on it. Not in his free time, which he uses to clean his mind and to maintain it in the blankest state possible depending on the circumstances - and not while he's working, because the distraction it would provide would be counterproductive to keeping himself alive. But he's aware of the danger, oh how aware of the danger he is, so he puts self-knowledge among his top priorities, and he schedules regular visits to psychiatrists and psychologists under the Agency's payroll.
And even if he could run circles around them he never does. Even when he goes and gets his own MBA he keeps loyal to his self-made timetable. Because his specialty is in Criminal Psychology, and while there might be times he wonders about his own sanity, at least he is sure there are not criminal elements in the twisted labyrinth of his mind that need an eye to be kept on.
Hopefully there will never be.
But then he goes and gets himself out of his mental safety net, and while there are times when the CIA royally screwed up, Hankel and Gideon being prime examples, at least they knew the kind of messes he's been through.
The FBI? Not so much.
It's all your fault, his minds provides, but he doesn't even bother to acknowledge the accusation. Yes, he was the one who asked for most of his past in the CIA to remain hidden, but hadn't he done it the Agency would have forcefully required the same measures to be taken.
So he asks nicely and the Agency allows him monthly visits to one of his former psychologists. They win, because it wouldn't look nice to have a former Special Ops going into murderous rampage, especially one with his specific talents. And he wins too, as not even doctor-patient confidentiality can be trusted with the kind of knowledge he possesses, thus meaning any conversation he could possibly have with a new doctor would end thoughtfully edited and remarkably unhelpful.
He also has the NA meetings, which he goes to remind himself he could be worst, and then yoga and meditation and philosophy, which have been always useful but not enough. For a while he studies Buddhism, although that ends when he stupidly decides it'd be interesting to do a comparative study of every major religion. It is fascinating, he has to concede that, but there's too much blood and misunderstanding in their past history to help him achieve any clarity of mind.
He turns to sports, not that he has much to choose from. Running is something he can't handle well anymore due to the knee injury, so he ends jogging once a week and wearing a light knee brace the day after. Swimming works better, although he has to wake up early to find solitude; even with their crazy work schedule he tries for twice a week at a private gym pool whenever they are not in the road. Tai Chi is easier as it requires no special place and no special equipment, so he ends turning to it most.
He also writes and writes, and writes some more. Dana Williamson's articles, which Dave is trying to convince him to turn into a book. The factual recollections he's been putting down on white and black that Dave is also trying to convince him to turn into a fiction series. The revisions he does for Rossmo and ECRI and CGPATC. The revisions he does of Dave's next manuscript. His own paperwork and a bit of Prentiss' as well, and sheet after sheet of notes on every consult he does.
Then there are the letters to his mom, the ones he scans and sends by email because she wants proof he hasn't been replaced by a stranger, and the ones he never sends. Those in the second bunch are more trustworthy than the rest, even if he never outright lies except to say he is okay (he never is but there's always hope one day he will be, so in truth it is only a matter of time). It doesn't matter, though, as he burns them both.
And he reads and reads and reads. Whatever new and slightly interesting article that's published on crime mapping and environmental criminology, on criminal psychology and geographic profiling. Both of the BAU's past cases archives, the solved ones and the cold files. The stack of books he lends from the library, the stack of secondhand books he usually keeps for a week at most, the small but growing book collection he's been rebuilding and where most of his FBI's salary is going to. And then there was that week when he spent every second of his free time link-chaining and absorbing random information from the internet.
It still is not enough.
By the end of his third month he's barely sleeping, deep bone weary and fast approaching his breaking point quicker than he ever did. But more than that, he is surprised that the rest of the team hasn't noticed how close he is to losing it. But they don't know you, he tells to himself, and it scares the shit out of him because that is it, that's what has been bothering him.
Welcome to the rest of your life.
For years and years he has always looked forward: to the end of the day, the end of the mission, the end of his CIA career. To the moment when he could finally be himself, and himself, and himself and no-one else; no more lies to remember, no more reactions to fake.
And now that the time has come, he realizes that it also means no more looking forward.
He is who he is and no-one else, but this persona he's been playing for the last weeks is not the one he wants to be for the rest of his life. It is the one he could have been had things been different, the one that the once upon a time little boy could have grown to become. But he can't change who he is no matter how hard he tries, so by the end of the day he's still lying to most, if not all, of the FBI.
It shouldn't bother him so much: his life has always been made of lies. Years before the Agency, years before his father left. But when even those few that have glimpsed the real him, when those who supposedly know seem to forget what he's hiding, his blood freezes. And he has to wonder when his sense of self became so damaged, that it only seems to exist when related to others.
Who is going to remember this indefinite silhouette, when he truly dies?
Why, he asks himself, why is this important now when it was never before?
And then he kills a man.
He doesn't push to accompany the team, because Spencer Reid from the FBI is no field agent. He barely passes his physicals, and utterly fails his first firearms test before scarcely accomplishing the minimal score the second time. He's supposed to come from years behind a desk as a data analyst, after all.
But Hotch knows he's not truly as defenseless as he is making it look like, and as soon as he's allowed to carry he finds himself reviewing a case on the plane instead of over long distance communication. Still, he spends most of the time at the police station, and when they go after the primary suspect he gets paired with JJ and sent to the least probable location.
He could have explained how probability works, had Hotch asked.
He doesn't think, simply reacts as he's trained to. For years, wielding a weapon accurately has been a sure way to blow his cover, and thus the only response expected from him was deathly force. His finger is still in the trigger when he realizes he's not being consistent with the part he's playing now.
It wouldn't have been unexpected for Spencer Reid to jump in front of his teammate had he been in a position to notice the danger first, at least he knows he did that right. But Spencer Reid would have taken the shot without shooting back, or would have fumbled with his weapon and emptied his chamber while miserably missing his target.
Three perfect shots, your cover is blown. Bam, you're dead …
Except he's not.
Overkill, Rossi calls his reaction. Hotch names it a reasonable mistake when it's just the two of them, and sends him back to the shooting range with orders to (at a reasonable pace) improve his certified marksmanship. The FBI mandated psychologist agrees, although for different reasons. Hotch wants to be able to use his skills without raising further questions; the psychologist thinks there's a mental block he can overcome, as his actions during distress prove.
I find I do some of my best work under intense terror, Spencer Reid writes on the official report. It is well crafted document, if utterly dry and dense, with not a single hole or redundancy to be found. It logically explains, using mathematics and trajectories, friction, speed and force formulae backed up by psychological theories Dr. Malone eagerly supports, how a years-behind-a-desk data analyst could go from barely being able to use a firearm to scoring three perfect shots while scared and utterly out of his element.
It takes him half a day to make himself sign the text. There is a fair amount of deception in it; none of it blatant, merely stretches of the truth. But that particular line describes him to the spot, and is exceptionally accurate to the situation he currently is in. All of his names were always disposable, no matter how much he devoted to fleshing them up. Spencer Reid was the only one he never involved in trickery.
(Will the real Spencer Reid please stand up?)
In the end, it is the BAU kids who give him an answer. Not The answer, pray tell, but a solution he can live with. He always keeps little children at a safe distance, aware of the many triggers their presence elicits, and in exchange they leave him alone most of the time. It is usually not different with Jack Hotchner and Henry LaMontagne, but the first weekend after the incident he finds himself alone with JJ's son. The child's face is scrunched up and a bit flustered, and Spencer's first panicked response after turning around and finding the boy close to crying is to freeze in the spot and think oh no, not JJ's son, please no, not JJ's son.
But Henry mumbles thanks for saving my mommy, and gives him a hurried hug that is more a tackle than a real embrace, before running away.
And it turns out they were not as alone as he first imagined, because Jack is standing by the kitchen's door, looking at the retreating Henry with a small frown and a level of concentration that marks him as his father's son, and it doesn't take a certified psychologist to know he's thinking about his mother.
And that is what makes it.
He's in no way as comfortable with the Team as he's made them believe. Oh yes, by the time he finally becomes part of the BAU he already knows enough about each of them to find them familiar, to make himself somewhat at ease while orbiting around. But he is who he is, and he does what he does, and before anybody notices what is happening, himself included, he's won them over.
The only one who compares notes, eventually, is himself. And he's also the only one that notices the different versions, the elements of fiction on every iteration of the multiple beings summarily known as Spencer Reid. It is not that he lies; he has never feed them open faced falsehoods.
It is just that he never lets any of them see the whole truth.
And it is the inability to know if he ever will.
But there is something he can do, if he can't be the Spencer Reid they expect: he can be the Spencer Reid he is. The one that knows bad things will happen, and accordingly prepares for the worst case scenario. The one that can read his teammates with ease, rules notwithstanding, and that knows problems don't always respect the boundaries between work and personal life. The one that knows the past has a tendency to come back and cause havoc, whether you are expecting it or not. The one with connections and allies, with CIA experience and personal resources.
He can be that one.