We all have scars and do our best to hide those scars from those around us. But some cuts run too deep to hide, especially from those who have the same pale twists across their souls. Episode tag for Mayhem on the Cross. As usual, Fox owns everything.
The odd girl no one wanted, not for a very long time. She was always smarter, and she clung to that as her shield. It made the day her parents left bearable. It made her see her brother's departure before it ever happened. It made the list on the bottom of a shoe - empirical proof of the families who didn't want her. The scars on her wrists were faint, but they were still there. The rope burns the visible memory of that awful day. The night her clumsiness and carelessness meant she had to endure darkness, heat, thirst, and hunger; all in a cramped, stuffy trunk. The feeling of helplessness, being left alone with chafing ropes and the knowledge that they rarely acknowledged her even when she was in the room, so how would they ever remember to get her out?
The real man of the family, ever since he understood the bruises on his mother's face. He was always intuitive, always knew just how other people felt. It let him know when to duck his father's fists. It let him watch his mother's pill consumption. It let him stand in the way of the worst of his father's fury, taking blows meant for his brother and mother. His years in the Army, then the Rangers, and now the FBI had been kind to him. There were many scars now, scars that he could talk about, scars that covered up the worst of what his father had done, scars to be proud of. But all the extra scars in the world couldn't erase how he felt that day, the first day he'd ever held a gun, and stared into the eyes of the first person he tried to kill – the boy who's brown eyes stared right back from the bathroom mirror.
The man who tried so hard to create a childhood for himself that was happy. Another man whose intuition was spot on, such a great gift for his profession, but coming at such a very steep cost. He studied and worked, did his best to understand and heal. Because perhaps, some day, he could learn the answer he needed so much. It whispered at him when he tried to sleep, in his Star Wars-themed bed. It plagued him through his adolescent years. It eluded him even now, despite all his schooling. The scars on his back were still there. The scars from the beatings. Irreparable damage done to such a frail little boy. And even deeper than the scars was the question he could never answer, "Why are you so worthless?"