Disclaimer: The usual; I don't own 'Criminal Minds', and I don't own any of the characters unless it's one I created.
Spoilers for 'Elephant's Memory' (Season Three), 'Ashes and Dust' (Season Two), and Chapter Seven of 'A Force of Nature', a multi-chapter fanfic I have been working on in my head and am currently posting on this site.
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'I Just Can't Lose That Coin…'
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I have been looking for that coin everywhere, and I just cannot find it. It's the most important possession I have in my life, so how can I possibly have lost it? I have been looking for it frantically all over the house, but I still cannot find it. Morgan asked me what I was looking for and I mumbled something in reply. As much as he knows about my trauma and my drug use I have not told him about Beltway Clean Cops or how proud I am of the coin that indicates I have been clean for a year. I have had this coin for more than two years now; however, for some reason I have held back on explaining I was really at my first meeting when I told the team I had gone to a movie in explanation of why I was late to a case briefing. At the time I had been clean for ten months and was worried about relapsing. My team members know, Hotch especially; but I have never actually admitted to any of them I was a drug addict. I have only admitted it to this group of people who understand because of their own issues. Maybe I had simply wanted to do this by myself, as proof I was not longer the lost little boy/young man who needed protection. I remember comparing an arsonist's inability to stop setting fires to the needs of an addict who craved more and more of a drug to get the same high and stated the arsonist, like the addict, could probably not stop without help. Every member of my team had looked at me, but I had never asked for their help. I had done it on my own, I had quit on my own; and am proud of myself for having done so.
I have the night shift tonight, as I have had most nights. Morgan and Prentiss leave after dinner and I take over. It has been this way for the last few nights of guarding a potential victim from an unknown killer. We are at his house because he refuses to go to a safe house. I like talking to him; partly because he doesn't roll his eyes when I ramble on, and he actually listens to what I have to say. He calls everyone by their first names and has even been flirting with Garcia. It's funny, but Hotch intimidates him, even though I have told him Hotch is really okay. Tonight he waits until Morgan and Prentiss have left and then pulls something out of his pocket. He hands me my coin and explains he found it on his living room floor and believes I dropped it. I accept my prized possession and realize it must have fallen out of my pocket at some point. I look at him and he looks steadily back at me before turning to walk away. I realize he is not going to ask me about it, so I ask him why. He turns around and replies he knows what the coin represents; and it's none of his business and if I want to tell him about it I will. After a few moments I tell him it happened after a case. He sits down in a chair and tells me he is listening.
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