When the doorbell rang, Reid had been sitting peacefully on his living room couch, thumbing through a novel that he had picked up at the local library. Despite his shelves being full of rich material, he had an insatiable desire for literature, one that no amount of novels would ever cease. The shrill sound of the bell cut through his intense concentration on the yellowed pages, and he couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at the intrusion. Although he knew that this inconvenience would detract from his overall experience in reading his novel, he was slightly curious what had come to his door at this hour of the day. If it were any of the team members, they would have surely called or texted first, and his phone had remained in disturbed through the duration of the quiet morning.
Setting the book aside, pages turned to the ceiling as they awaited a promised return, Reid trotted to the door without any particular urgency. As he went, he quickly tucked his hair behind his ears in an attempt to compose himself by just a fraction before exposing himself to what lay beyond that door, whether it a neighbor or an unexpected delivery. Grasping the handle with a steady hand, Reid opened the door without any unnecessary gusto, trying to pull a half smile onto his lips. The movement was without hesitation, for Reid was assured of himself, as he always was.
The pathetic attempt at a cheerful visage dropped nearly immediately, and the breath expelled itself from Reid's lungs in a sudden rush. His hand, still gripping the door handle, started trembling uncontrollably, quivering against the cool metal until it was rattling. He was held captive, painfully so, by the horrendous sight that lay before him.
There, right in front of his own two eyes, stood Gideon, the legend itself. It was as though it was a painting, merely a portrait with a pained expression on his face, oil dripping across the canvas to form canyons in the pale skin. Though it had been quite some time since Reid had seen the man, the first thing that came to mind was a stray thought on the general appearance of his mentor. Reid figured that Gideon was looking quite well, considering the circumstances. Those circumstances were grim indeed; the last time that Reid had seen Gideon, the former agent was being lowered into the ground, his body enclosed in a heavy casket. This magnificent piece of wood was one that Reid had carried, laboring through the tears, his hand clasped around the shining handle. He had been trying to bear the weight just as stoically at the other team members of the BAU, but still those silver diamonds fell down his cheeks in silent mourning.
Reid choked as he tried to formulate something to say, his eyesight wavering as he tried to focus in on this living, breathing, manifestation of his most beloved mentor. It was as though a switch had flipped in his mind, and his whole world had suddenly dissolved into unreality. He was spared the agony of trying to speak, as Gideon's gentle tone filled his ears with the dripping sweetness of honey.
"Reid, I'm sorry." The first words that left Gideon's mouth may have been sweet, but they were dripping with bitter sorrow, nearly toxic as they fell. As well as their intent may have been, they fell on nearly deaf ears. Reid took a step back, heart racing as he slowly retreated towards the interior of his apartment, unable to bring himself to embrace that voice which he had thought he would never hear again. It had been months, nearly a year now since Gideon had died, and his heart had just finally began to accept the void in his life. The days were no longer as painful as they once had been, and he was finally allowing himself to smile again, push past that nagging thought that something, someone, was missing. But now, Gideon was here, in his most sacred space, his very own home. This appearance was sacrilege, and Reid could feel his world slowly beginning to burn away, lucidity melting as the wax on a candle. The words still couldn't escape his mouth, his mind, the one and only thing he knew to be true at that moment flying free from his lips ever so reluctantly.
"You're not Gideon" Reid spit, shaking his head as though to clear his vision. What else could he say? He had seen the body in the cabin, blood staining the weathered rugs that so many feet had tread silently across. He had seen the white sheet in the morgue, the pathetic attempt to preserve his fractured psyche. He had seen the body, clean and covered, lying in the casket before it was closed. He had stained that body with his tears before it was buried, but now a lie stood before him, trying to tell him that all had known, all he had mourned, was false. Reid was swearing to himself. He had seen it happen once, he had seen the lie that JJ and Emily had crafted for their own foolish desires.
"You're not Gideon" he repeated furiously, anger boiling up in his gut as those thoughts flew through his mind. "Gideon wouldn't do that to me. Gideon would have known what I've been through. Gideon would not die, he wouldn't escape and fail to tell me his plan. The Gideon that I knew loved me, and Gideon is dead. He's dead and I helped bury him. Go away!" He shouted, as though it would make the man, this apparition, disappear from his sight. Yet the command failed, not so much as cracking the surface of this living, breathing, mere model of a man.
"Reid, I'm sorry, I never wanted to do this to you" Gideon whispered, his head lowered in shame. "I had to. I wasn't safe. Nobody else knows. The team doesn't know, not even Aaron. You're the very first. I had to come back, to let you know that I'm alright."
If these words had been meant to soothe, the effort went painfully unnoticed by the young agent. Backing further into his house, Reid hunted over his table for somethings to defend himself with, defend himself from this liar, this intruder. It felt as though his once resolute mind was fragmenting, as though slit by a bullet of frustration and utter disbelief. There was not a single part of him with an inkling of belief that what he saw was indeed some sick reality.
All Reid could do was curse again, the words flying free beneath his breath in a break of character. He had thought that he had escaped it, that he had surpassed the usual age for schizophrenia to emerge, by just a few years. But now here he was, seeing things, a man who should be dead, coming into his home and trying to soothe him. Desperate to cleanse himself of the artificial images, sweat dripping down his temples from the stress, Reid dove for the coffee table on the far side of the couch where his service weapon lay. The metal hit his hand with a small degree of familiar comfort, and he brought it up to bear, leveling the muzzle with 'Gideon's' face.
"I need you to please, please, please get out of my head" he pleaded, his voice rising in pitch. "Or else I'm going to have to shoot you, I really am. You see, I can't do this. If I'm seeing things, I can't do my job, and I really like my job" he rasped, trying to force his hands to steady the revolver, for it was bucking wildly in his trembling grip. Gideon's hands had gone up in a motion of surrender at the instant that the weapon had been drawn, and there was no fear etched on his face, just lines of age.
The hair was whiter than Reid had remembered, and there were more wrinkles creating crevices in the man's aging face. For a moment, Reid almost lapsed into complacency, into desperation, at this recognition. The wave of familiarity was almost enough to make his arms weak, to force him to lower the revolver that he clutched so tightly. But then he cursed himself for ignoring the flawed logic of his predicament, for thinking for even a moment that what he saw held any truth. Perhaps it was the bitter sentiment of those many years spent with Gideon that he never abandoned, maybe it was the ghost of memory that made him pray that this was reality.
When Gideon spoke, the voice was just as Reid remembered, but now, it was tainted with something that Spencer wanted to identify as concern, almost as a father has for his child.
"Listen, kid, it's really me. I know, I know this is hard. But you have to believe me. There was a case, one that I was working on my own, one that I had to go away for. And the only way that I could protect myself was by dying. I should have told you, and I regret not telling you, but-"
"Stop talking!" Reid screamed, closing his eyes as agony consumed him. He didn't want to hear the words, the fake apologizes, from this figure he was certain was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. He just wanted it to disappear. "Go away" he pleaded once more, begging himself with every fiber of his being to regain even the briefest glimpse of sanity.
"I can't do this again" he justified, more to himself now, than to what he saw as Gideon. "First Emily, and now you. I can't do this. You wouldn't do that to me. You can't be real. You aren't real!"
"Spencer!" Gideon shouted, but Reid was too far gone. His vision was darkening at the edges, and all he could see what Gideon's face, wide eyes filled with terror. At the sound of his name in a voice that he knew all too well, Reid squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. As gunshots resounded like a dark symphony, three red blossoms spread across Gideon's torso in an explosion of color.
Without so much as a word, Reid lowered the gun, and the body before him dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"Garcia, what is it?" Hotch answered the phone rather impatiently, frustrated that the resident tech genius had failed to keep herself busy for the last few days. The BAU had been taking a well-deserved three days away from any cases, with the intent to crunch through paperwork and take some personal time. Unfortunately, for the agent in charge, it had been much more of the former. The whole team had managed to keep well enough to themselves, savoring the time to themselves and their solace, but Garcia had been calling every few hours 'just to check on him.' While he appreciated the well-meaning gesture, he would have preferred to been left completely undisturbed.
"Sir, there's a problem. I'm not calling to check on you this time, sir. I think that Reid's in trouble." The pitch of her voice was high, a quiver in it that Hotch recognized as acute distress. The pen dropped from his hand, and worry lines etched themselves into his forehead, his attention suddenly directed strictly towards the phone pressed against his ear.
"What's wrong? Has he called you?" Hotch questioned, noticing that his own phone had failed to alert him of any potential distress. There was a pause over the line, and Garcia continued, and it was audible that she was fighting to hold back tears.
"That's not quite it, sir. I, I set up my computer to monitor all 911 calls and dispatch activity automatically, and if anything came up within a two block radius of your homes, I'm automatically alerted. Just two minutes ago they dispatched two squad cars to Spencer's house, his exact address. The call came from a neighbor claiming they heard gunshots. I tried calling him and can't get a hold of him. I'm worried" she exclaimed, but Hotch was already on the move without the prompt. As Garcia had been explaining, he had abandoned his paperwork and snatched his jacket from the back of his chair. What Garcia had said was not lost on him, and he was surely going to reprimand her later on exactly where to draw the boundaries of privacy, but that was the least of his current concerns. Stalking out of his office, he spoke back to her, keeping his voice level and calm, as it always was.
"I'm on my way there now. Call me if any more activity comes up. And Garcia?"
"What is it, sir?" She replied in a breathy voice, obviously regaining control of her emotions.
"Don't tell the rest of the team" Hotch demanded, already slamming his finger against the button to the elevator, checking that his weapon was holstered comfortably on his belt. "I don't want them worked up if this turns out to be nothing. Tell me if you have any more news. I'll keep you updated." The doors to the elevator opened, and Hotch stepped inside, ready to hang up the phone. Garcia chimed in one last time, her voice soft, yet just as equally concerned as it had been before.
"Please tell me that he's safe, sir. They just dispatched an ambulance. Please go make sure our baby boy is okay. Please."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Ignoring his better judgement and concerns of the law, Hotch took one of the SUVs from the lower garage and tore down the highway with lights and sirens blaring, his hands gripping the wheel with white knuckles. His heart was racing, yet his phone lay dark, no incoming calls from either Reid or Garcia with any information. Reid lived close enough to the office that the usually busy commute could be cut down to minutes with the emergency sirens on, a painfully prolonged ten minutes of suspenseful agony.
Pulling into the street that he had only been down twice before, Hotch was able to recognize the building that Reid called home, along with the frenzy of other flashing lights that congregated outside the doors of the apartment complex. Skidding to a halt, Hotch had hardly put the vehicle in park before he was jumping out the door, pushing past the crowd of people that had predictably assembled outside the premises, and bounding up the stairs that would lead to the apartment. Although the arms of uniformed officers pushed at him, all he had to do was flash his badge before he was granted access. But just as his foot hit the top of the staircase, a gurney rolled down the hall with its ominous rattling, the door to Reid's apartment wide open as it emerged.
Hotch lunged forward like a frenzied animal, trying to get a glimpse of the body before it tore past in a frenzy. He could hear his blood thundering in his ears as he tried to glean any piece of information, see if the mop of caramel hair was lying prone against white, if the familiar face was contorted in agony. But the sight he saw made him fall back, nearly unable to catch his breath as the EMTs rushed past.
"Gideon!" he cried out after a moment, darting back the direction that he had come, chasing the man lying on the stretcher, knowing the familiar face all too well. The last time he had seen it, it had been beneath a sheet in the morgue, and the last time he had been so close it was to lower a coffin into the ground. The last time he had been with what was left of Gideon, Reid had been crying, sobbing, absolutely beside himself in sorrow. Yet right here before his eyes was the very same man that had abandoned the team, and Reid, so many years earlier.
The more he chased after him, the more certain he was that it was Gideon, there in the flesh, living, and breathing, right before his eyes. This was no look-alike. The body that lay before him was the real deal. The weathered face, the eyes flickering as men pressed on his bleeding abdomen, it all added together to make up what was undoubtedly Gideon. The eyes opened just long enough for Gideon to gasp, rasping out one word.
"Spencer."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Reid was nearly hyperventilating, sweat pouring down his face, his car swerving between lanes as he pressed frantically on the gas, urging the vehicle to go faster. His revolver lay on the passenger seat, still slicked with the sweat from his dripping palms. There was blood staining the cuffs of his shirt, a deep red that was fading from cherry into crimson.
His head was spinning, and it was a miracle that he still had control of the car with his vision cutting in and out, flashing between the present and the past with startling clarity. All that he could see were flashbacks of his time with Gideon, up to the present flashing of the muzzle that put the imposter on the ground. It was impossible for him to fathom the horrors of losing his sanity, his heart beating out of his chest, the world quickly becoming something ethereal and surreal.
He was returning to the one place he knew, the one place he could be sure that things were real. He was going to the place that he always turned when he had to cry, when he had to show that weak, boyish side that he loathed so fiercely. It was the place that he retreated when each of his friends had died, and it would be the place that he would go now to bring conclusion to the terrible storm plaguing his mind.
Even though his phone was ringing with a shrill, nearly evil pitch, Reid ignored it. He didn't want to hear what any of his false friends had to say. He knew it was the team, he knew that it had to be, because he should have been at work, crunching away at case files. But he had taken the day off, and now he was too deep in his mind, too far to ever truly come back. And the last fading shreds of sanity told him that he had made a mistake, one that he couldn't come back from.
As the cell phone rang yet again, Spencer let out a scream, hair flying wildly as he took a hand off the wheel to clutch the small device. Without so much as a second thought he opened the window and threw his phone out, the vehicle travelling so fast that he couldn't even hear it hit the ground and shatter into a thousand pieces.
Other cars honked as he tore past them, cutting them off as he sped across the asphalt, handling the vehicle more roughly than he ever had before. But he was desperate, more desperate than he had ever been before. And at the rate he was going, completely oblivious to traffic signs and any lights that stood in his way, he was at JJ's house in a matter of minutes.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Just minutes prior, JJ had kissed Will as he went off to work, and had been cleaning up the aftermath of breakfast ever since. The boys had demanded pancakes, and now JJ was left scrubbing up the syrupy mess that had been left behind on the table. Henry was smiling and laughing, and JJ knew that she was only a few minutes behind from the same carefree celebration of a beautiful Saturday. As soon as she got the table cleaned off, she would be treated to a lovely morning with her baby boy.
Her phone was safely tucked out of sight and out of mind in the bedroom, and while she had been anxious for the first hour of the morning, now she was nothing but content. It was easy to push work out of her mind as she cleaned, keeping a side-glance on her boy as he fussed with the Legos that lay just in the threshold of the door. She noted silently that they were there, and knew that if she failed to remember, she would pay for it later with pained toes.
Just as she slid the last dish into the sink, the doorbell rang, and she looked up. On a peaceful morning such as this, she had no suspicions, just curiosity. It was likely a neighbor wondering if they needed to take Henry for the day, or perhaps one of the boys wanting Henry over for a playdate. Putting on her most cheerful mom-smile, she strode to the door and opened it, peeking her head out. The smile dropped as soon as she saw who was waiting.
Reid stood outside of her door, a combination of tears and sweat dripping down his face, causing his skin to glisten with a sickly pallor. His trademark clothing was utterly forgone, and he was standing, shaking, in jeans and a wrinkled button-up. His hair was disorderly, and he had a wild, frenzied look in his eyes.
"Spence?" She questioned, concern coming over her in a cold wave. She noted his heavy breathing, and the sweat that stained the collar of his shirt, and then the red that stained the cuffs. That was when her eyes noticed that he was holding a gun, and his finger was hovering over the trigger.
-0-0-0-0-0-
The EMTs had pushed him out of the ambulance with deft hands, and Hotch had been left standing in the street as the red vehicle tore away, sirens blaring, tires screaming against the asphalt. He grabbed his phone from his hip, and called Garcia, pressing it to his ear as he sprinted back up the stairs.
"Is he alright?" She breathed out, but Hotch didn't bother to reply. There were more pressing matters at hand, such as the fact that a living ghost had just passed him.
"Garcia, don't question this, just work. Gideon is still alive. I need you to find out how, where he's been, and why. Anyone associated with him at the time of his supposed death, any strange payments, anything at all. I also need you to track Reid's cell. I haven't seen him here, and his car is gone. Call me back as soon as you have any information."
He hung up without so much as giving her a chance to reply, sliding the phone back to its respective pocket, and shoving his way back to the crime scene. The cops were already swarming over it, but with the slightest glimpse of his badge they backed away, exposing Reid's apartment to Hotch's questioning eyes. There were bloodstains across an ornate rug, but aside from that, the room was pristine.
Hotch had never been in Spencer's apartment, and wholeheartedly believed in giving his team their personal space, a healthy separation from work and down-time. What met his eyes was far from a surprise. There were dark bookshelves that seemed to lean under the weight of hundreds of books, and despite their obvious worth, the apartment itself appeared incredibly humble and warm. It was just the heavy bloodstains that were terribly misplaced. From the amount of blood, he was surprised if Gideon was really going to live this one through. The taste of bile filled his mouth at the coppery scent rising to hit his nose, but thankfully the ringing of his phone distracted him for just a moment.
"Hotchner"
"Sir, Gideon is still in transport to the hospital, and I don't have a coordinate on Reid's phone. I had been calling him, and the calls had been going through up until about five minutes ago. It went dead, and I don't know why. He was on the highway heading east, and I don't have any idea where he could be going" Garcia responded, and Hotch could hear her fingers clicking on the keyboard at lightning speed. "He's just gone now. I can't find him at all-"
"Garcia" Hotch cut in, his mind only focused on a few of the words she had said, a map of the city flickering in his mind as he pictured Reid's haphazard route, plotting his mind just like he would any other unsub. "He's going east. He ditched his phone because he's going to JJ's house."
-0-0-0-0-0-
"Spence" JJ whispered, her voice low, panic beginning to stir in her gut. "What are you doing here? What happened?"
"Gideon's dead" he lamented, shouldering into the door with more strength than he had ever shown openly. JJ hadn't braced herself, so she stumbled back, and Reid made his way into the apartment, gun still dangling at his side, as though he were unaware of it.
"We know that, Spence" she tried to reason, glancing over her shoulder to see if Henry was still in close proximity, maternal instinct overwhelming her. Thankfully, he had disappeared from her view, his body no longer in the threshold between rooms. "I know losing him has been hard on you. What happened? Did you get hurt?" She asked this with genuine concern, willing herself to suppress the urgency and panic that was consuming her senses. As a trained agent, it was hard to eye an unstable man holding a gun and feel content, especially if this man was stained with blood. Reid's form was shaking like a weak limb in a breeze, swaying back and forth, his hair hanging in front of his eyes, stumbling as though he were drunk. Yet at the same time he was obviously in control of some functions, his eyes wide, processing everything that he was seeing in a distorted manner, his eyes blinking rapidly as he spoke, speech clear.
"Gideon's dead because I shot him" Reid groaned, stumbling another step forward, driving JJ further back into her apartment. "But he's already been dead. The Gideon that I saw, I was just seeing him. He wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't pretend to die on me like-" his voice cracked and he shook his head before he continued. "Not like you did to me. Not like you and Emily. He wouldn't do it, and neither would you. Emily's dead. Gideon's dead."
"Emily's fine!" JJ pleaded, watching as another liquid diamond rolled down Reid's cheek. "And Gideon really is dead. We buried him together, remember, Spence? Do you remember that? We were at his funeral together."
"We buried Emily too!" he roared, shaking the revolver, edging it up towards JJ as he spoke, nearly catatonic. "And then Gideon comes to my door and I have to shoot him because I know it's not real. Then I think, how much had been real? Emily, she died, didn't she? That's why Alex replaced her. She didn't go away, she died, and I just had to fill in the gaps somehow. You wouldn't do that to me. A real friend would never help someone fake a death like that. A real friend wouldn't do that. So you aren't a real friend. You're fake too, JJ. I don't know what really happened to you, but you aren't real either."
"I can call Emily for you!" JJ pleaded, feeling her eyes burn suddenly as Spencer held the pistol up, pointing the silver barrel at her. She held no weapon of her own, for it was locked up along with her cell phone, tucked away in the bedroom far from Henry's eager hands. Her heart was pounding, and the adrenaline was making her nauseous. She didn't know what to do, because Reid didn't even respond to her words. He had lapsed into muttering, his words below his breath and only to himself.
"I have to get rid of her too" he whispered, seemingly fighting with himself as the pistol wavered in his sweat-slicked grip. "I have to get rid of the imposters."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Derek Morgan had been halfway to the office when his cell phone rang, and he couldn't help but roll his eyes. By the shrill tone he had set, he knew it was Hotch, pestering him again about something or another, perhaps another case, despite what they had promised. He had promised Savannah a wonderful Saturday evening together, and he was only praying that he could follow through on that promise.
"Morgan" he answered the phone in the style that he had picked up from the team supervisor, the curt greeting now mere reflex. Hotch's voice came to him in the usual crisp tone, but it was much more sharp than usual, immediately drawing Morgan's complete attention.
"Morgan, wherever you are, you need to turn around. JJ is in trouble, and so is Reid. You're going to have questions, but just listen. Gideon is alive, and Spencer shot him. Now he's going to JJ's house, and we don't know what he's going to do. Garcia said you're closer than I am, so you need to get there as soon as possible. We don't have any time to waste."
"What?" Morgan uttered, unable to fathom the words that he was hearing. He couldn't picture Reid shooting his mentor in cold blood, a mentor that he himself had helped in burying. But what put him into true concern was the thought of either of his friends being in danger. Without so much as replying, he hung up the phone, and sought for the nearest point to turn around, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind, a hundred questions that would remain unanswered. But the one thing that he never questioned was Hotch's integrity, and so he went on, pressing his foot down on the gas, urging his car forwards and onwards.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"Uncle Spencer!"
The voice came through to Reid as though it were a cold wave of water, something so terribly lucid that it cut through the haze of all things surreal. All that he had been able to see before that pitiful cry was JJ's face, tears streaking it, her narrow form shaking in fear. He didn't know why she was scared, or why she was looking at his hands as though they were aflame.
Then he saw. He was holding his gun, and he was pointing it at her, the barrel level with her chest, his finger wrapped securely around the trigger. From the weight he was using, he knew that he was just a twitch from putting a bullet through her body, but as soon as he heard the voice of that little boy, he relaxed just a bit, just enough to pull away from that narrow veil between life and death.
"Henry?" He rasped, vision clearing, trying to seek the boy out. Of all the things that he both knew and did not know in that moment, Reid knew that he had a godchild, a wonderful, wonderful child that he loved with all of his heart. Despite the psychosis that caused him to see foes instead of friends, to create apparitions and lies from thin air, he knew that this boy was real.
When he looked past the kitchen table, which JJ was nearly pressed against, he could see the mop of blonde hair that he knew so well, and the large, curious eyes staring up at him.
"Uncle Spencer, why're here? Why do you have a gun? What did mommy do?" He whined this in a low, pitiful keen, as though he were a wounded animal. It was obvious that the child could see the weight of the situation, and that jarred Reid for a moment. If JJ wasn't real, then how could her son be real? How could the betrayal of the mother lend itself to the appearance of a child?
It couldn't. Amongst all of the pain that he had felt, he knew that this child he was seeing, this representation of Henry, was nothing more than his imagination.
In response, he turned, pointing the gun at the boy, tears spilling from his eyes as he did so.
-0-0-0-0-0-
JJ saw the gun swing from her to her child, and a guttural scream tore itself from her mouth, pure maternal instinct overwhelming her.
"Spencer! Look at me! Look! At! Me!" She screamed, trying to force the young genius to look at her for just a moment, turn that gun back to her, away from her baby, her precious child. This tactic worked by some miracle of fate, and suddenly the black muzzle was facing her again, Reid's crazed eyes alight with confusion. But by now, JJ knew what was happening, the light of truth illuminating a terrifying situation.
From Reid's babbling, and her skills as a profiler, the conclusion was easy to make. Reid believed that all he was seeing was a hallucination, brought on by some sort of reappearance of Gideon, or a likeness of him. The betrayal of two close friends faking their death had been too much, and he had lapsed into what appeared to be a psychotic break, all under the threat of possibly succumbing to schizophrenia like his mother. Swallowing her nerves for the sake of her son, she gave a shaking smile to her colleague, and tried to ease his worries by playing along with the fantasy.
"Even if you're just seeing this, could you ever shoot a child? What would that make you, Spencer? Even if it was just in your head, you wouldn't do that, would you? It's my fault, not his, that this has happened to you. It's all my fault. Not Henry's fault. Mine, all mine." It took all of her willpower to force those words from her mouth, and it seemed to give Spencer the necessary pause to contemplate her statement. She stole those precious few seconds to look back at her son, who was staring at her with a look very much akin to a deer caught in the headlights.
"Remember what mommy told you?" She whispered, but the blank expression didn't change. "If there's ever trouble, you run to mommy and daddy's room, and call Mr. Hotchner. You can go ahead and do that now, sweetheart" she urged, and it took a moment, but her precious son nodded, and trotted off out of sight. To JJ's relief, Spencer's attention was now diverted, this time internally. The gun was pointing at his own head as he pulled as his hair and grunted, animalistic sounds escaping from his mouth. He was like a ticking bomb, and JJ wondered how much longer before he exploded, and she was dead as a result.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Hotch grabbed for his phone as it rang, dodging traffic at incredible speeds in an attempt to get to JJ's house as quickly as possible. He didn't bother to look at the number, just picked it up, hoping that it was one of the team members with some sort of news on the situation. Instead of Garcia's coo, or Morgan's rasp, he was met with a terrified whisper.
"Mr. Hotchner?" A small voice came over the phone, and although the speaker did not provide identification, there was only one child that Hotch knew that insisted on calling him that.
"Henry? Are you safe?" Hotch asked, trying to keep from shouting. The child sounded terrified, and the sound of a scared child was enough to make Hotch's blood run cold. The child was not hesitant in his response, but the tremor of fear was still audible.
"Mom said to call if there was ever trouble, and she said there's trouble. Uncle Spencer is here, and he has a gun, He's scaring Mommy. Please come quick, Mr. Hotchner, I'm scared."
"Don't worry Henry, I'll be right there" he soothed as much as possible, wishing with every bone in his body that he was going fast enough, that he was urging the SUV on with enough speed to make it there before tragedy struck. The sound of Henry's whimpers was just too much to bear. "Uncle Morgan will be there for you soon, okay Henry? And I will too. Don't worry, we won't let anyone hurt your mom. I promise. Just stay on the phone, alright? I'm almost there."
As he made this solemn promise, he pushed his foot down just a bit harder on the gas, until his foot was pressed flat against the floor, and the world around him became a blur of color.
-0-0-0-0-0-
From what Garcia had told him on the phone moments ago, Hotch was still about one minute away, but that didn't stop Morgan from securing his service weapon in his hand and rocketing up the stairs towards JJ's apartment. He got to the top of the stairs, ran down the hall, and saw her door already cracked.
Kicking it open, he looked down the open sights of his weapon, and saw a sickening sight. Reid, his beloved teammate, was leveling his weapon with JJ's face. And it seemed that both of them were crying.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Seeing Morgan burst through the door was one of the most intense moments of relief that JJ had ever had the luxury of feeling. She was tempted to close her eyes, just bask in the safety that the large man brought with him. His dark weapon shone like a sword of promise in the bright light of the house, and she sent a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens that Henry had remembered what he was to do in an emergency.
"JJ, are you alright?" Morgan asked, warily walking in. Spencer had just turned around, and now had his gun pointed at Morgan, fear in his eyes. She nodded, eyeing Reid and his shaky movements, trying to judge whether or not she could overpower him. She spotted his gun once more, how close his finger was over the trigger, and decided against it. Morgan's chest was clearly bare, having forgone any form of bulletproof protection for the sake of urgency.
"Morgan" Reid rasped, his grip on the gun seeming to falter. "You're here. Why are you here? How did you know I would be here?" From where she stood, JJ could see Morgan's eyebrows pinch together, and she wished with all of her heart that she could somehow explain what she had been able to figure out from those painfully long moments with her broken partner. What words could not convey, she hoped that Morgan was able to catch her plea for wariness, and tread lightly. But when Morgan spoke, she knew that her silent cries had been heard, for his voice was soft, his wording ever so careful.
"I just came to see if JJ was doing alright, and to see you too, kid. I heard you weren't feeling well. What's going on? What happened here with JJ?"
"This isn't JJ" Reid justified, his voice cracking as he did so, taking one hand up to wipe at his brow and his cheeks, wicking away the moisture. There was conviction, and it was strong, his voice dripping with pain while he spoke. "You see, JJ couldn't do what she did to me. She couldn't steal Emily away from me. I knew because I saw Gideon this morning, I saw him, just like he was real. I knew that he wouldn't do that to me, and I knew that my mind had been betraying me. That's when I knew that JJ couldn't have been real all this time either, and neither could Emily. They wouldn't hurt me. They wouldn't do that. This is all my mind, Morgan, my mind is playing tricks on me. Tell me what you see. Tell me what's real" the genius begged, reduced in this way. JJ could see the pain clearly on Morgan's face. He brought his gun down by just a fraction of an inch, and JJ could feel the doubt radiating from him across the room. It was clear that no one knew what to say. But it was just at that moment that Hotch stepped from around the open door, his pistol drawn as well.
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Having been just outside the door for long enough to hear what Reid had to say, Hotch decided to make his entrance, service weapon drawn and at the ready. That was when he saw Reid, obviously in a fractured mental state, blood and sweat staining his disheveled clothes. All eyes in the room were on the revolver that Reid had clutched in shaking hands. As soon as the agent caught his eye, Hotch spoke, his words sure and steady as they always were.
"I'm real, Reid. You can see me, can't you? Derek and I wouldn't let you down, you know that we wouldn't. JJ wouldn't either." Hotch understood just how carefully he had to speak, just how well he had to pace himself. The kid was a minefield, and one misstep could lead to someone they all cared for dying that day. With his words, Hotch was hoping to diffuse the situation delicately. It seemed that this initial effort had little effect, for all Reid did was shaking his trembling head back and forth, curls flicking sweat across the room.
"Hotch, she did. You all did. You all knew, and you left me in the dark. And you wouldn't really do that if you loved me. I thought you all loved me. When did this begin? When did the real start to disappear? Emily's dead, Gideon's dead, and my team loves me. JJ doesn't lie, Derek doesn't ignore me, Garcia doesn't ever treat me like a child and you, and Hotch, you trust me. That's what's real, and I don't see that. I haven't seen that in a long time. Everyone's lying, everyone's left me, and that can't be real. Please, tell me what I've been seeing that's real. Please" Reid whimpered, changing the aim on the gun between Morgan and Hotch. With a solemn grimace on his face, Hotch shook his head.
"Spencer, you are not your mother. Everything around you is real. I'm here for you, aren't I? I trust you enough to know that you won't shoot me, even though you're pointing that gun at me. And Derek is here, he's not ignoring you at all. We're here for you, Reid, you're part of our team, our family. Now please, just put the gun now, and we can make sure you know how everything is supposed to be" he stated, setting his words as the foundation for a negotiation. But he should have known better than to attempt to bargain with a man nearly succumbed to catatonia.
"Whatever is real, and whatever isn't, I can't be on the team any longer. You know that's how it's going to be. I can never be a member of the BAU after this, a part of whatever reality pretended as though I was a part of something wonderful. I'm wasted genius, I'm insane, oh god I'm insane" Reid cackled, bringing the gun up into the air and swinging it wildly. Before Derek had the chance to dart in, Spencer brought it back down, his arm steady this time, the muzzle leveled straight between Derek's eyes.
"I might be crazy, but I'm not stupid" Reid spit in the most clear lucidity that Hotch had been able to observe so far. Reid's eyes were dark, his body eerily still. "I might not know what's real and know what's just a figment of my fucked up imagination, but I know how to take down an unsub. First, you profile, but I'm sure that's no trouble for any of you. You have a personal channel of access right into my brain because I had the audacity to trust you. Next, you negotiate, try to sympathize with them, get them to put down the gun, even if it means lying to them. So do me the favor and spare me the lies, Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner. Don't treat me like one of your criminals. I'm gone now, as good as gone to all of you. I'm done with the lies. My own mind has betrayed me. My family betrayed me, all of you, and now my mind. My own fucking mind, the last place I had left."
"Reid, don't do it!" Hotch yelled, seeing already the dangerous turn that this was taking. He put his weapon down and darted forward just as Reid shifted the focus of the weapon from Morgan's face and to his own temple. Barreling forward, Hotch slammed the whole of his body weight into the younger man, and heard a shot ring out.
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Reid screamed as pain filled his head, and the sound disappeared from his left side. He felt warmth engulfed him, and screams echoed in the distance. Voices shouted, voices that he knew, calling his name. His body faded away, as he went towards the sound of the voices that he knew all too well. I'm going home now, I can be happy. I'm free.
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All Morgan had seen was a blur and a flash of light. Now Hotch's body was on top of Reid's and there was blood, so much blood. Holstering his own weapon, Morgan rushed forward, pushing Hotch's weight off of Reid, checking them both simultaneously.
"I'm alright" Hotch muttered as all three agents knelt hurriedly to look at Reid's body. He was unconscious, but his chest was still rising and falling at an unsteady staccato. It was the blood that was most alarming of. Flesh and blood were scattered across the carpet, and Morgan was able to see that Reid's ear was missing, and part of his skull was exposed from the bullet, white bone protruding from a small crater of missing flesh. Where the projectile had gone, he couldn't see. At this point, it didn't matter. All that he could do was tear off his shirt and press it to the side of Reid's head, soaking up as much blood as he could while JJ called for an ambulance and backup.
Amidst the chaos and the blood staining his hand, Morgan was able to hear Hotch say two words beneath his breath as the senior agent held Reid's hand, checking the body cautiously for other wounds.
"I'm sorry" Hotch whispered, his confession subtle and weak, but Morgan still heard it. The wail of sirens was already close by, and Henry's wailing was growing closer as he struggled to run into the room, calling out Spencer's name. The only thing warmer than the blood rushing over Morgan's hands from Reid's wounds was something that the older agent had a hard time identifying at first.
Then when the first tear rolled down his cheek, he knew that he was crying, and that awful pain that he felt was sorrow.
Thank you all so much for reading! I sincerely hoped that you enjoyed, and if you have any questions, comments, or critique, feel free to drop a review or shoot me a PM! This was really fun for me to write, and I hope you felt the same reading it. Thank you all again!