Reid was lying on the icy cold ground for longer then he would like to admit to himself. It was just so tempting to close his eyes and take a few hour long nap and forget the world and its troubles. Nightmares were back with a vengeance bringing with them four hours for sleep each night.
But he would rather bight off his own tongue then come running back to Morgan or Hotch. Perhaps if Gideon was still with the team, but even then it was a stretch. Reid was a man in his mid-twenties, not a five year old child to be coddled.
He rolled over to his stomach and slowly pushed his sore and aching body to a standing position. The young doctor swayed a little on his feet but otherwise remained steady.
A strong wind blew through the forest and Reid couldn't help but shudder. He had packed nearly all of his winter clothes for this trip –it was October after all- and he was even wearing a big parka borrowed from one of the police officers at the station, but still it wasn't enough.
Reid cursed Las Vegas and its desert climate. He suffered bitterly every winter in Quantico and when they had a case in a forsaken town far up in the cold north; he just wanted to scream in frustration.
Couldn't Unsubs kill in mild climates only? What was it with the cold that attracted dangerous murders?
The young profiler took a look around at his surroundings. He had briefly glanced at the map of the forest before leaving, but he had mostly focused on the sites where the bodies had been buried and not the rest of the 17 million acres. And a map wasn't going to help him after he had taken off running in a random direction.
The trees seemed closer together in his part of the woods. They were tall, thick and seemed to stare down at him with accusing eyes. Reid was vaguely reminded of his high school bullies and how they also surrounded him like giants just as these trees were.
Once again repressing his high school memories, Reid attempted to focus.
"I came from this direction," he said out loud. There was no one around to judge him for acting like a crazy person for talking to himself, and Reid always enjoyed thinking out loud. "But I wasn't really paying attention where I was going…so I took lots of turns. Still, it's better than nothing…"
With his mind made up, the young genius trudged back the way he had ran through. As he walked, he remembered the gunshot that had rang out through the forest and tried to not imagine Morgan's dead body sprawled out on the ground.
"He's not dead, he's Morgan," Reid tried to convince himself, but his words sounded hollow and unconvincing even to himself.
There was a rustle among the leaves and Reid turned to see a wide-eyed squirrel staring back at him. It had an acorn clutched between its tiny paws and seemed to be wondering why this lanky, awkward man was in its forest.
"Do you think Morgan is dead?" Reid couldn't help but ask the little creature. Reid had always wanted a pet when he was younger. He heard that dogs were extremely loyal to their owners and would never leave them or stop loving them. For an eleven year old genius just abandoned by his father, that sounded pretty good to him.
The squirrel simply stared on and then raced off deeper into the woods. Reid stopped and stared for a few seconds before continuing on his journey. "Could have at least given me an answer," he mumbled to himself.
Reid walked in silence, the only sounds being the crunch of leaves underneath his shoes and the soft muttering of "He's not dead," repeated over and over underneath his breath. It was this phrase that gave him a little glimmer of hope amongst this dark, cold place.
As he walked, the young profiler couldn't help but notice the drop in the temperature. He glanced up and saw that daylight was fading fast from the sky. Reid wasn't sure if his thin frame could survive a night out in the harsh Alaskan wilderness.
He had never been a camping man.
Reid rolled back the sleeve of his parka to check the time, but his watch had unfortunately gotten itself smashed when he had fallen earlier. The young genius grumbled to himself and placed the useless watch in his pocket.
He had really liked that watch.
"Well it was three-thirty when Morgan and I left with Ranger Marks. It was a twenty minute drive out here and then we hiked for about forty or so minutes. And I've probably been wandering around for about an hour…so it must be at least five thirty, if not later," Reid reasoned out with himself.
Pausing every now and then, Reid would make a random turn in what he hoped was the right direction. If the genius was honest with himself, he would admit that he had no idea where he was going, but he was pretty sure it was the wrong way. The forest seemed to be getting darker and thicker, not thinning out like it would at the edge of it.
Reid also couldn't shake the terrible feeling that he was being watched. He felt eyes watching him every step he made and Reid swore he heard something moving to his left. But when he had looked, there was nothing there.
Still, there was the feeling that he was not alone. And Reid had seen enough low-budget horror films to know that when you're being watched in the forest, it is never a nice person who's doing the watching.
Reid had already been at the mercy of several Unsubs before, and he did not feel like doing it again, especially out in the Alaskan wilderness with no one around to hear his screams for help. He was positive that he was captured that there would be no videotapes to send clues for his team to come save him.
That is, if his team even noticed his and Morgan's absence yet. They had only been gone for two hours or so which wasn't unusual for the BAU team to be gone. And Hotch never got worried unless there was true reason for him to.
The Chief leader was a very calm man, but for once Reid wished that he wasn't so Hotch would send someone out to come and save Reid from this nightmare.
Once again, he had no desire to spend his night on the cold forest ground. He had been locked out of his house plenty of times when he was younger and knew that even in Las Vegas, nights got cold.
Reid turned around a particularly large tree and froze to the spot from the sight before him. There standing not fifty yards in front of him stood a ginormous brown bear sniffing the pile of bushes next to it. Reid was sure if his mind had not stopped out of terror he could have identified several characteristics and gone on about its eating habits, but now was not the time.
Even he occasionally knew when to keep his mouth shut.
So far the brown bear had not been alerted of his presence and Reid intended to keep it like that. He inched back slowly, hoping to take shelter far away from the predator when his foot snapped a twig.
The bear's head was up instantly. It turned towards Reid and let out a menacing growl. Reid was sure his heart stopped for a brief second.
He raised his hands slowly, "It's okay…I was just leaving…" he said, attempting to reason with the predator despite logic telling him that it was pointless. Bears didn't understand English!
Reid took a cautious step backwards and the bear only advanced one more step.
The young doctor remembered reading about how when faced with a predator such as a bear that one should try to make their body as big as possible. Bears wouldn't want to attack a predator that posed a threat, they were more for weak and easy prey.
Reid slowly maneuvered his body out of the parka he was wearing. He waved it above his head, trying desperately to make his lanky body seem stronger and bigger than it actually was. Oh how he now wished that he had eaten more protein as a teenager.
The bear did not seem to care that the doctor was now waving a parka above his head like an idiot. It took a few steps forward and then rose to its hind legs and let out a terrifying roar.
The whole forest seemed to shake with the force of the bear's roar. Reid was sure his bones were shaken and once again his head skipped a beat. His eyes glanced around desperately, searching for something that could be used as a weapon against a six hundred pound bear.
Reid immediately gave up his search as the bear got back down on all fours and charged straight towards the profiler.
He let out a yelp and took off sprinting into the forest, thinking that this was the second time today he had to run from a dangerous situation. It was almost like the universe really did not want him to have a good day.
Reid's shoelace came untied and he tripped over it and landed face down in the dirt. He only had a few seconds to turn himself over on his stomach when the aggressive bear was on him.
It was like being in high school all over again. Here he was once again in the fetal position as something much stronger and crueler attacked his body mercilessly. Reid really hated being reminded of his years of torment and bullies.
Reid still had the parka in his hands and he tried desperately to push it against the bear's massive claws and sharp teeth. For the most part, it worked out well. Most of the bear's swipes missed his vital organs and sensitive skin.
Then the bear managed to tear through the jacket and clawed Reid's side. He let out a howl of pain as fire seemed to race from the wound and coursed through his entire body. The bear let out a roar that mimicked Reid's own.
The brown bear managed to claw Reid once again on his right bicep before it suddenly stopped with its assault on his small frame. The bear lifted its large head and let out a soft cry.
The cry was echoed in the forest and there was rustling in the bushes a few yards away. The bear moved away from Reid and towards the rustling.
Daring his luck, Reid looked up, biting his lip harshly to keep from screaming out in pain. He knew that any sudden sounds might send the vicious bear into another attack and he preferred all of his body parts to stay inside of him.
Out of the bushes came a much smaller, but identical brown bear. It bounced over to its mother and let out a soft cry. The mother nuzzled its cub and turned back to Reid with something deadly in its eye.
Reid laid his head back down on the ground and tried to pose as little as threat as possible. "I'm not going to hurt your cub," he whispered and hoped beyond all hope that the mother bear would hear him and understand him. He was just an FBI agent who so desperately wanted to find his friend and go home.
The mother bear continued looking at the injured agent, before it nudged its cub away from the doctor. The mother and cub duo stayed a few seconds longer, then they took off back into the deep bowels of the forest.
Reid waited several minutes after the bears had left before he dared to move. He slowly sat his aching body up, sore from falling multiple times and his new acquired bear scratches. Reid looked at the parka in his hands and saw that it had been ripped to shreds.
"Just perfect," Reid whispered and tried to hold back a sob. His side and bicep were pulsing with intense agony and blood was pooling out of both wounds. And now he lost his main source of warmth and night was quickly upon him. Not to mention he was sharing the forest with an Unsub and apparently malicious bears.
Reid used strips from the now useless parka to bandage his still bleeding wounds. They had soaked through his many layers which didn't make the new doctor too happy. He didn't particularly enjoy having his clothes ruined, for shopping was highly expensive.
The task of bandaging his wounds was fairly difficult to do one handed and he cried out in pain several times, but the job was done. He knew that the wounds had to be cleaned or else infection may set in, but he didn't have the tools or the energy to do such a thing.
The young doctor's body was completely spent of energy. He knew that standing, or doing anything really, was out of the question. Sitting up was enough of a struggle.
He saw a comfortable looking tree trunk a few feet away and Reid dragged his unwilling body over to it. He was close to tears now as his pain filled body was dragged across the ground. When he reached the trunk, a few tears had actually fallen.
Reid was freezing and knew that the temperatures would only drop further, but now, he did not care. Nobody would find him in this mess of a forest, and even if they were going to send out search parties, they would wait until the morning. Reid would actually welcome freezing while he slept, it might bring him some long sought after peace.
His eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he finally closed them and drifted off to sleep, his last thought being, I hope Morgan doesn't run into the bear.
Author's Note: Bears are actually terrifying, I've seen one up close…scariest moment of my life. Just to be clear, this is friendship only and no deaths will be occurring of major characters. I apologize if this is just full of awfulness, I feel like death currently. But otherwise, drop me a review. You can tell me what your favorite frozen yogurt flavor is! Mine is white chocolate mousse.
