Author's Note: I wrote this right after the episode where Gideon left the BAU (3x2). I'm currently on 4x12. So I don't know anything that happens afterwards, so I'm sorry if there is anything that contradicts with whatever does/might happen later on.
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds... *sigh* If I did, I would have changed a couple of things and made the characters' lives way more difficult *grins evilly*
Spoilers! If you have not watched up to at least 3x3, do not read beyond this point!
"Faith is moving forward even when things don't make sense, trusting that in hindsight… everything will become clear." –Sandy Hale
-o0o-
Even though I left the BAU team behind, I still think about them every day.
I think about the cases they must be working on, about the murderers they are trying to catch and the people they are trying to save.
But worst of all, I imagine all of the horrible ways that they could have, could be, or might, have died, die, or be dying. I can't help it. Whenever I stop for the night to get some shut-eye, images haunt me in my sleep
I imagine them all being shot, stabbed, burned, tortured, raped, buried, and a number of other horrifying things that I know could happen to them.
But it is not just the physical hurt that I am concerned about them facing.
Elle had left after being cleared from shooting William Lee. I think I understand why she left now that I, too, am gone from the FBI. The mental toll that that sort of life style has on a person is unbelievable. You stay up late some nights, wondering who you could have saved, who you should be saving while you are not on the job. Every day, you get up and go to work; the whole time, you wonder if it will be your last day on earth. You always feel terrified. Not just for yourself, but for the victims and your team, too. I couldn't have made it as an SSA for much longer, anyway, had I not already left.
Hotch is going to be left to take care of the group, but I have confidence in him. He'll be able to hold the team together. But for him, I am more-so worried about him also being able to hold his family together. There is a reason why I was so hesitant to get too close to anyone outside of the FBI, like many other of the agents there: it is simply too difficult to hold onto a home life when you are always being called into work to save a different person, from a different family. But, knowing Hotchner, he will find a way to figure it out.
JJ feels guilty for a lot of things on a daily basis: choosing one case over another, leaving Reid behind to suffer horrors at the hands of an unsub. But knowing how strong she is and how strong the people around her are, she will be just fine.
Garcia will be alright without me. We had never established a very deep bond and I now believe that to be a good thing; it will allow her to be strong for the others, someone for them to lean on.
Morgan was recovering from the trip back to his hometown and from his dark past being uncovered. I know that he wasn't too obvious about it, but the experience had left him shaken.
But worst of all, I think of Reid.
Poor Spencer, abandoned by his father and left to care for a mentally-ill mother as a young child must now be reliving that abandonment.
"How could I have been so stupid?" I ask myself every time I think of him. "How could I have left him right after what he went through during the Hankel case?" I know he is going through a lot of really tough things right now and that he needs as much support as he can get. The entire team suspects that he might be on dilauded, especially ever since we learned that the cabin Tobias Hankel took him used to be the place where he did drugs.
So how could I have left him like this when I knew that?
But I always look around myself, force myself to wake up to the reality: I already left them. Returning would be just as painful as the leaving, for them and for me. There is no turning back when the current of life begins to sweep you in a certain way. However, some currents do manage to bring you back to the place where you began. So perhaps one day, I will return. Maybe I will see them again, work with them once more on the cases that haunt me when I shut my eyes, even to this day.
Perhaps one day, I will stop in to the headquarters at Quantico and say hello to them before they have to rush off to another case.
That would be nice.
But in the meantime, I will still worry about them.