Author's Note: Thank you all so much for your sweet reviews! I would never have become a better writer without you guys. Here's another chapter for all of you, I hope it doesn't disappoint!

It was late. Really late. But Penelope Garcia didn't need caffeine to keep her awake as she knew that every single one of her babies were out there fighting for the greater good.

She prayed until she couldn't pray anymore, hoping that Maeve would be okay. Most of all, she hoped Reid would be okay. Garcia had never seen the young genius in love with anyone at all, but she had seen his outburst in the boardroom and knew that he would do absolutely anything to save this woman.

That's what scared her the most. As intelligent as Reid may be, he was still absolutely reckless when he set his mind to something.

She had left her small computer room to sit in the main room, knowing that she wouldn't be able to work under so much distress. She sat on the couch, her elbows on her knees and her hands pressed to her mouth, still praying silently. It was deathly quiet in the BAU office.

Penelope never liked quiet.

Her heart skipped a beat when she finally heard the familiar ding of an elevator. She jumped to her feet and fast-walked to the closest one.

At the sight of the three people who walked out, Garcia's eyes widened. Blake, who had tear tracks running down her greyish face. Rossi, who's face sagged more than Garcia thought possible. Lastly, there was Hotch, whose face was stonier than usual with two lines between his brow. He almost looked as if he were trying his hardest to mask the true emotion he felt inside.

"What? What is it?" Garcia asked as she followed them in to the main room. None of them answered at first, but finally, Blake stopped and turned around to look at her.

Blake put a comforting hand on Garcia's shoulder. Garcia felt her mouth hanging open and her eyes widened even further as Blake just stared at her solemnly.

"Who?" Garcia croaked, her heart pounding.

Blake squeezed her eyes shut for a couple of seconds before responding. "Maeve."

Penelope shrugged off Blake's hand on her shoulder and stepped back, placing both hands over her mouth. She felt sick as tears started to pool in her eyes.

"No," she whispered, muffled through her hands.

Blake's mouth was squeezed in a tight line. She bowed her head and Garcia still stood, staring at her. Incredulous. Disbelieving. She hoped that it was some sick prank her team was playing.

But no, they wouldn't do that. They couldn't do that to her.

Her thoughts wandered only to Reid and how he must've been feeling. The incredible, crippling grief that he must've been feeling. A question pounded in Garcia's mind. An awful, awful question.

"Did he...did he see it?" Her voice broke on the last word. With difficulty, she tried to rephrase the impossible question. "Did Reid see it happen?"

Blake looked up at the shaking Garcia and gave her one, short nod. But it was all she needed to realize the true horror of the situation.

The only person that Reid fought so hard to save and she was taken from him. Blake had left Garcia to be with the others, and Garcia stood alone and speechless by the elevators. The silence of the corridor had started to induce more tears, but before she could even begin to understand what was happening, Morgan and JJ stepped from the elevator.

There was no Reid in sight, but Garcia knew in her heart that it would be an awfully long time before she would ever see him again.

As Morgan stepped from the elevator, he saw a scene that made his heart break just a little more.

Garcia, alone in the corridor with her hands to her mouth, crying silently.

"Baby girl," Morgan said as he moved towards her and hugged her. She hugged back in a deathly tight grip. The gesture was so incredibly pitiful that Morgan almost wanted to cry himself.

But he didn't break easily, and he needed to stay strong for the woman that held on to him right then.

When they broke apart, Morgan looked down at Garcia and moved a stray strand of her hair from her forehead to her ear.

"Come on," Morgan said quietly.

He didn't need to elaborate as they walked towards the main room. Aside from Reid, the rest of the team needed each other more than they needed solitude.

Plus, Morgan had an itching concern that he needed desperately to share.

Alex Blake was having trouble concentrating on anything as she and five of her team members sat on various couches and chairs around the main room.

She had pushed Reid so hard to become closer with Maeve. As a result, the hurt he must've been feeling at that moment would be tremendously worse than it would have been without her help.

She helped kill a dead man walking.

Somewhere inside, she knew she wasn't responsible for any of it. But a stronger part of her felt that she was almost a mother, or a big sister to Spencer. He wasn't cut out for this much pain.

"He's a good kid. A strong kid. But...isn't anyone else here wondering if...I mean..." Derek's struggle for words brought Blake out of her stupor.

"We shouldn't be discussing that," Hotch said harshly, but he seemed to be concerned by the words.

"We all know about it, Hotch," Morgan retorted.

There was silence, and Blake saw this as an opportunity to speak up. "I'm sorry, what exactly are we talking about here?"

The rest of the team looked over at Blake and suddenly, they all looked at a loss for words.

"We could all get in serious trouble with the bureau if they were to find out that we were harboring this information," Hotch said after a while.

"We're family, Hotch," Garcia spoke up, her voice weak but insistent.

Hotch looked around the room and sighed. He looked just as stoic as usual, but he nodded once. Blake looked around at everyone, hoping for an explanation.

"Spence went through something about six years ago. Tobias Hankel was a serial killer we were profiling, and Reid was the one who found him," JJ explained as she sat next to Blake on the couch. "But Tobias got to him first. He ended up kidnapping and torturing Reid for two days, and once we finally saved him..."

"He got himself in to Dilaudid. The drug. He'd been on it for a while before he finally got help, but he let slip that he almost did it again last year when we lost one of our team members, Emily," Derek finished.

There was silence as Blake let this sink in. She was shocked to the core, but she could feel the fear deep inside her. Spencer Reid on drugs? It didn't make sense. Spencer tortured? Blake could have lived without that information for the rest of her life, but now that she knew, she felt more protective of Spencer than she ever had before. Before she could say anything, JJ jumped in.

"He wouldn't do it. He thought about it with Emily, but he didn't and he wouldn't. I just...I don't think he should be alone."

"He's a grown man, JJ, there's nothing we can do about that," Hotch explained, though his voice was softer than before.

Blake looked around at the team. Rossi was staring at the floor from his place against a wall, looking exhausted and devastated. JJ's hair was a bird's nest as she kept running her hands through it and sighing. Morgan had worry lines etched in to his forehead, standing over top of a sniffling Garcia who sat at Reid's desk. Hotch looked deep in thought as he stood by the coffee machines.

Blake felt as if the world was ending. When she had taken this job, she had never expected to look at her colleagues as family members. She had never expected to see Reid as a surrogate son, or to look at Garcia and JJ as her sisters or Rossi and Hotch as her old buddies.

And though she loved them all so very much, she wished it didn't have to be so hard.