Note - I should point out that I don't own any of the major characters, or even a couple of the minor ones, except for Gwen. And I need to thank REIDFANATIC for beta reading.

This chapter comes with a warning for suggestion of abuse. Thanks for reading!

The Music – Six months ago

Another nondescript hotel room, another night alone; they all looked the same. Reid knew that one chain had given the FBI the best government rate, and so that was where the team stayed, whenever they could which meant that all the rooms tended to look the same.

Sometime around 1am he had finally read the entire file. He made his maps, sorted his notes, scrawled reminders on copies of photos, forms. He was quite done in and ready to sleep. As if sleep ever came that easily.

He could imagine her there, brushing her hair, smiling in the mirror, pointing out the one connection that was eluding him, that would break this case that much sooner, perhaps save one more life. iPod then, set to random. Some sound to fill the empty spaces in the room, where she ought to be. He put the buds in his ears, and lay back, turning off the light. The strum of the lute brought back the memory.

The Music – Then.

The sound of glass breaking was the first thing that pulled Gwen from her studies. It was quickly followed by curses in a male voice, and a laugh that could only belong to her mother. Great, her mom had brought her work home again.

Gwen quickly pulled on one of her bulky sweaters, then the orange-tinted glasses she habitually wore, followed by a coat of zinc oxide on her lips. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a dumpy, ugly, androgynous thing, surely nothing the men now making more and more noise in the living room would even consider bothering with. Not that she had any intention of leaving her bedroom until everyone out there had obviously passed out, but one couldn't be too careful.

She turned back to her studies, ignoring the roaring laughter, the ever louder music as best she could. Eventually groans and squeals could be heard over the music, and then the whole trailer began a rhythmic bouncing motion. After a while it stopped and started again, and again, as a pungent smell of musk and body odor filtered in under the door, along with the scent of smoke, nicotine and otherwise. She stuffed a towel under the door and went to bed fully clothed, even though sleep was impossible. Gwen lay in her bed, and calmly hated herself for being female, and vulnerable like this.

Around 2 am there was a knock on the door. "Lynnie girl? You up?" It was her mother, clearly drunk. "Lynnie girl?"

"Yes, Momma, I'm up." She'd been expecting this.

"Lynnie girl, come on out. The boys want you to join the party."

"No, Momma. I'm not coming out." It had been like this nearly every weekend, ever since her mother had sold their grandparent's place to pay her debts, and moved to this trailer in this neighborhood. But only recently had her mother begun suggesting that her daughter turn prostitute herself.

"Come on Lynnie girl, you'll love it." Her mother went on to describe, in slurring, graphic detail exactly what she thought her daughter would love. The very thought of the things her mother was describing made her stomach turn. How could anyone ever think she would love something so disgusting, so degrading, so painful? Intellectually she understood, but emotionally, the thought of what was happening on the other side of the door just sickened her. She just knew she could never do anything like that, ever.

"Come on baby, I need the money."

"No, Momma". Her mother was being far more insistent than usual. This was getting flat out scary. And there wasn't anyone she could call.

Wait, yes there was. Spencer. They had been spending more and more time together over the past few months, had exchanged e-mail and phone numbers. She knew he was staying with Professor Fleinhardt, maybe Spencer could talk the professor in to coming out to get her. It was worth a try.

As she heard her mother head back down the hall to talk to "the boys" she grabbed her phone and punched in Spencer's number. It didn't take long for him to understand the gravity of the situation, nor for him to explain it to Professor Fleinhardt. They told her to pack what she would need for a few days and sit tight. They were on their way.

Knight in singing armor, she thought, as she set to packing.

- -

It was a good thirty minutes before Spencer and the professor got to the far side of town, the one with trailers and tumble down shacks tucked in between liquor stores and empty businesses. It was clear that the main sources of income in the area were prostitution and dealing in drugs, and that the police risked their own lives in the area as seldom as possible.

Professor Fleinhardt was an older gentleman, arthritic, never athletic, who had spent his life in academia. He had wanted to call the police, to send them after Gwendolyn, but Spencer had rattled off statistics about abuse in the foster care system until the professor relented and agreed to drive. Looking at the state of the neighborhood, and hearing the sounds coming from that trailer, Spencer knew the professor would be useless. "Just keep the engine running, Professor. I'll go get her."

Spencer knocked on the door, which was answered by an emaciated, filthy woman who's body was clearly visible through the cheap, cotton robe she wore, and who was clearly intoxicated. "Hey baby, you hear for the party too?'

"I'm here for Gw…Lynnie, actually."

"Heh, I should have known that girlie was picking up her own boys at that fancy assed college of hers. Hey Lynnie! Your boy's here!' Gwen's mother stepped back as she hollered for her daughter, to allow Spencer to step in to the trailer.

"Um, if it's all right with you, she's going to stay with me for a few days, on campus." It just seemed the responsible thing to do, to tell her mother, even though the woman was clearly not functioning in reality. Spencer surveyed the scene around the room, from the drug paraphernalia, to the haze of smoke in the room, to the figures in the corners. Some of them were couples, he noted, and in the act of copulation. His stomach flopped.

"Come on, let's go." Gwen was right behind him all of a sudden, bags in hand, encouraging him to get out the door as quickly as possible. She was afraid, he realized, and hiding behind him for safety.

"No, you ain't goin' nowhere." From out of the shadows a hulk of a man stepped in front of the doorway. Bombed out of his mind like the rest of them, clearly unsteady on his feet, and completely, obscenely naked. But still, he was bigger than Spencer, in nearly every direction. "I paid good money for that little bitch, and I intend to get what I paid for."

Spencer could feel Gwen pressing up against him, trembling with fear. It was understandable; the thought of what the man was suggesting made him want to vomit and attack at the same time. So he did something he had seen every bully in his high school do more times than he could count, he wound up and hit the larger man twice, once in the stomach, the next in the head.

It would never have worked had the man not been intoxicated. But as it was he went down with a crash, right in front of the door. Spencer took advantage of the sudden confusion, grabbed Gwen's hand, and ran out, vaulting the fallen man. The room erupted in chaos behind them as the young couple piled into the back seat of the waiting car. "Drive, Professor. Drive!"

Spencer and Gwen watched out the back window to be sure they weren't being followed. The professor, in an effort to calm himself, started some music. As the strains of the lute filled the small space, Gwen turned to Spencer with a look that clearly read "my hero."

He'd never been anyone's hero before. He decided he liked it. He liked it a lot.

The Music – Six months ago

In darkness let me dwell; the ground shall sorrow be,
The roof despair, to bar all cheerful light from me;
The walls of marble black, that moist'ned still shall weep;
My music, hellish jarring sounds, to banish friendly sleep.
Thus, wedded to my woes, and bedded in my tomb,
O let me dying live, till death doth come, till death doth come.

In darkness let me dwell

Spencer lay back and listened to the mournful ballad. The lyrics were anonymous, but dated from the same time as John Dowland's, sometime around 1610. It suited his mood, as he lay there and remembered that night, wondering if he would ever again be her hero.