Notes: takes place during season three of both shows, shortly before Elephant's Memory and shortly after Burn Rate. This is very much a character study and therefore basically plotless. Tell me what you think!
Warnings: extremely vague references to murder, torture, and mental illness. Explicit OC suicide in the context of the case. Basically nothing worse than in Numb3rs itself, much less nasty than Criminal Minds.
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"He's like Charlie in hyper drive," Colby said.
"No," said Megan. "I don't think he's like Charlie at all."
"Are you kidding?" Colby asked, dragging his eyes away from the wildly gesticulating geniuses in the conference room to stare incredulously at his coworker. "He's exactly like Charlie. He's got what, like five PhDs? Graduated high school when he was twelve, really needs a haircut . . ."
"Brains don't make the man, Colby."
Colby raised his eyebrows questioningly. Megan shook her head.
"Watch a little more closely," she said. "Maybe you'll see what I mean."
Colby sighed and turned back to the scene on the other side of the glass. They made an interesting visual, in any case – Dr. Reid stood tall and sharp in front of the whiteboard, slender hands waving as he explained some thought process that Colby probably wouldn't have been able to follow in a million years. Charlie sat at the desk in front of him, tapping his pencil against his notebook as he listened with a furrowed brow. Sure, they looked different. Dr. Reid was taller, thinner, paler, definitely more awkward (Colby couldn't picture him challenging Don at basketball anytime soon), but really, two crime-fighting math prodigies – how different could they be?
He felt someone come up behind him a moment before they spoke.
"Enjoying the show?"
Colby turned. It was Agent Morgan, smiling as he hung over the side of his cubicle.
"It's a hell of a thing, watching their minds work," Colby replied. "Can't say I understand any of it."
Morgan barked a laugh.
"You and me both. Scary thing is, he's even better in a crisis."
It was the perfect opening, and Colby jumped on it.
"Gotta say, I'm having trouble picturing a guy like him in the field every day. I mean, Charlie's gotten in and out of a few scrapes, but – I dunno, I just can't wrap my head around it."
Morgan shook his head, grin falling away.
"Look, man, no offense to your Dr. Eppes, but Reid isn't him. I've been doing this job long enough to realize that genetics is just one card in the hand you're dealt."
"I get that," said Colby, nodding his understanding. "Just because they both got aces in the smarts department doesn't mean their games are gonna play out the same way."
"Right," Morgan said, his eyes on Dr. Reid. Colby had the disconcerting feeling that there was an entire level of communication at play that he was missing.
"Still," he hazarded. "They seem to be getting along alright. Probably the first time anyone in this office has understood Charlie's entire sentence on the first go."
Morgan grinned again, and the strange heaviness evaporated.
"Definitely the first time anyone's laughed at Reid's statistical probability knock-knock jokes."
Colby laughed, but it didn't quite chase away the feeling that he was overlooking something right in front of his face.
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"So that was Spencer Reid, huh?" David asked, glancing over his shoulder as the visiting genius followed his team into a separate conference room with his odd, newborn-colt gait. Colby couldn't believe they let that guy carry a gun.
"Dr. Spencer Reid, yes," said the local genius, glancing up from the maps he and Dr. Reid had been pouring over for the past few hours. "He went to CalSci, you know. Some of his professors still talk about him. Why, how have you heard of him?"
"Just rumors; office gossip," said David with a shrug. "I have a buddy down at Quantico, he's worked with the BAU a couple times. Told me a few horror stories." He lowered his voice, and Colby leaned in. They had all noticed that the whole BAU team seemed protective of Dr. Reid – another similarity with Charlie. In any case, none of them wanted to be overheard gossiping about the young doctor behind his back.
"Apparently there was this serial killer a few years back, and Reid got captured. Guy had him for a couple days, and –" David's eyes flickered to Charlie, who was listening with wide-eyed horror. "— without getting into the details, it wasn't good. But he saved himself, in the end. Managed to communicate his whereabouts to the team, ended up killing the guy himself."
"Damn," said Colby. He wouldn't have imagined anything close to that, to look at the kid. The capture, the torture – because he knew exactly what 'not good' meant when it involved imprisonment by an unfriendly – that, maybe he could have guessed, given time. The kid had victim written all over him.
But he never would have thought that twenty-something boy genius had tasted blood.
"I'm just kind of surprised, I guess," said David, raising his voice to a more normal level and breaking some of the tension which had filled the room during his story. "After hearing all that, you know, I figured he'd be – well –"
"More like Don and less like me," Charlie offered with a wry smile.
"Yeah," said David with an apologetic shrug. "No offense."
"None taken," said Charlie. "But you know, he's really not as similar to me as you seem to think."
"You're the third person to say that to me today," Colby said.
"That's probably because it's true," said Charlie, pointing his pencil at Colby. "I mean, just the way that he works – his math was solid, but that wasn't his real contribution. He can get inside these guy's heads. Not like Don, or Megan – it's like he understands them. Not like a textbook but like . . . a friend. It's, uh." Charlie gave a nervous chuckle. "It's kind of creepy, actually. I mean, he seems like a decent guy and all, but . . . "
"If you stare for long into the abyss," said Colby.
"Friedrich Nietzsche. Exactly." Charlie nodded.
"Those BAU agents have done a lot of abyss-gazing," said David, shaking his head. "Bet they all get like that after a while."
"Yeah," Colby agreed, but it felt like a lie.
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Colby watched the two men scribble on Charlie's blackboard. Dr. Reid looked strange in the California sunlight which poured through the windows of the CalSci building; out of place, almost unreal, like he didn't quite exist outside of the cold grey FBI offices.
Colby sighed and rubbed his eyes. Damn, he really needed sleep. He would say that they all did, except he wasn't sure whether mathematicians actually needed sleep or if they just subsisted on coffee and obsession.
More information from the coroner meant reworking the equation they were using to pinpoint the killer's secondary location. "New variables," Charlie had said, an anxious waver in his voice. "He's keeping them alive," Dr. Reid had said, looking haunted.
"I see the young Dr. Reid has captured your attention," said a familiar voice from beside him, and he didn't quite jump, but it was a near thing. He really needed sleep.
"Hi, Larry. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure him out. You were here when he was a student, right? Did you know him?"
"I knew of him, certainly," said Larry, nodding. "It would have been rather difficult not to. IQ off the charts, eidetic memory – and a thirteen-year-old alone on campus, of course. I believe he attended one of my lecture classes, but I can't say that we ever spoke one-on-one, no."
"Alone?" asked Colby, turning all of his attention to the professor. "His parents weren't with him?"
"No," said Larry slowly. "I got the impression there was some kind of illness in the family? But this is straying dangerously near the territory of gossip, and personally that is not something I feel comfortable partaking in when the subject of our discussion is so unfamiliar to me."
"Sure," said Colby, shaking himself. "My bad. It's just weird. Everyone keeps saying he's not like Charlie, and I'm kinda starting to get it, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Hmm." Larry tapped his chin contemplatively. "If you don't mind me saying so, perhaps you're too preoccupied with their heads, rather than their hearts."
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Dr. Reid was not like Charlie.
Colby didn't know how he had ever thought that he was, except that maybe Reid didn't quite exist in the FBI offices, either; maybe it was only here, in the staggering normalcy of a murderer's home, that he became solid, a shattered mess of jagged edges in the moonlight which filtered through the drawn curtains. It was so obvious.
Reid was a thirteen-year-old boy alone on a college campus, a twenty-two-year-old man in the hands of a sadistic serial killer, and Colby knew better than anyone that those kinds of things never really stopped happening somewhere inside of you even when you didn't have a perfect memory.
Reid was a walking disaster zone. Reid was unarmed and standing between Colby and a man who had killed seven people. A man who currently had a gun to the head of a girl who would have brought the count up to eight, and might still, if they couldn't do something about it.
"I just want it to stop," the killer said, sweat and tears streaming down his face, and Colby cursed silently. Negotiation was one thing, but this guy was operating on an entirely different plane of reality. There was no way to get out of this one, except for stalling another two minutes until backup arrived.
Except –
"I know," Reid said, and god help them all, he meant it. "The killing made it stop, didn't it? Made it all go quiet?"
The killer hesitated, nodded. The girl whimpered. There were sirens in the distance.
"Reid," said Colby warningly. Reid ignored him.
"But it's not working anymore, is it?"
"It – it's wrong," the killer said. "I'm – I'm doing it wrong – if I can get it right –"
"You're never going to be able to get it right, Richard," Reid said sharply. "It's never going to be like the first time and you know it."
"No . . . no," the killer said, shaking his head in denial, but there was doubt in his eyes, a tremor in his hands.
"It won't help," Reid said, and his voice was gentle, compassionate. Colby would have thought he was the best actor in the world except that he didn't think he was acting at all, and that terrified him. "Richard. She can't help you. We can. Let her go."
Slowly, slowly, the killer relinquished his hold.
The girl ran for the door, sobbing.
Reid stepped forward just as the killer turned the gun on himself.
"No one can help me."
"No!"
Reid's anguished shout mingled with the crack of the gunshot, and Don burst through the door in time to catch the edge of the spatter as blood and brains and bone sprayed the wall.
"Jesus," he cursed, lowering his gun. He glanced reflexively at the body, then back up to Colby. "We've got the girl. You two alright?"
"Yeah," said Colby, belatedly holstering his own weapon. "Yeah, I'm fine." His eyes found Reid, still standing frozen above the killer's body. Agent Hotchner had materialized at his side, speaking too lowly for Colby to make out.
Don followed his gaze.
"Dr. Reid."
Reid shuddered back to some semblance of animation. He turned his head wordlessly.
"You alright?"
Reid gave a small, unconvincing nod. Don caught Hotchner's eyes, and they had some silent exchange which Colby was way too shaken to even try to follow. Hotchner said Reid's name, quietly and firmly, and the two departed as techs and other agents began to swarm the room.
"That guy," said Colby, shaking his head. "He is not like Charlie."
Don laughed dryly.
"You got that, huh?"
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"Killed a guy just by talking to him," said Agent Jacobs in an awed tone, watching the BAU pack up. "Damn. Remind me never to piss off a shrink."
"I dunno," said Colby. "Weird thing is, I think he was trying to save him."
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Colby sat at his desk, staring blankly at the conference room which was still littered with the remnants of the case. The adrenaline crash was hitting him hard, and it took a moment for him to register that Charlie was standing frozen in the middle of the room, eyes on the table in front of him. He might have been shaking; Colby was too far away to tell. He had almost worked up the resolve to haul himself to his feet and see what was wrong when Don strode over, a concerned crease between his eyebrows.
Don left the door open, and their conversation drifted over to Colby.
"Charlie, hey. What're you doing? You don't need to be looking at this stuff."
"Yeah, I – I know, I just –" It took Charlie two tries to drag his gaze away from the table – crime scene photos, probably. "I don't understand."
"Yeah," said Don, frown deepening as he swept the photos back into their file. "You know what, I hope you never do."
Charlie was silent, and Don gripped his arm, ducking his head to try to catch his eyes.
"Hey. You okay?"
Charlie gave a tiny shake of his head. Colby couldn't see Don's expression, but he could imagine it: brows drawn together, serious and worried but not scared, a silent guarantee. We'll deal with it. We'll fix it. We'll make it okay again.
"Charlie, buddy, it's over. Your equation, the BAU profile, it worked. We got the guy. He's not going to hurt anyone else. You know that, right, Charlie? You hearing me?"
Charlie nodded, swallowed.
"Alright. Come on, let's get you home. Dad said he was making lasagna tonight."
Colby watched Don steer his brother out of the room, hand firm and protective on his shoulder.
"Do you get it now?"
Colby jumped.
"Dammit, Megan, don't sneak up on me like that."
"You should go home, too," Megan said, smiling at him. "You're off your game. But you do get now, don't you? How Dr. Reid isn't like Charlie?"
"Yeah."
Colby glanced over at the elevator. Don tried to ruffle Charlie's hair. Charlie batted his hand away, a smile breaking through. Teasing and lasagna. Don's form of damage control.
"Yeah, I get it."