Spencer Reid knew panic as one of his common states of mind, had been since he was eleven and realized what could happen if the authorities ever found out about his mother. With a career as an FBI field agent, he was already ahead of his fellow trainees in more ways than just his intellect. With panic as a constant companion, he knew how to work through it and use it to get the task done.

Reid knew fear as panic's close cousin. Fear of discovery, fear of failure, fear of mockery, and fear of death and loss. He had felt fear in a hospital ER room in Des Plains, Illinois. He hadn't known when to stop fearing a cabin in the Georgian woods. He had felt fear, looking at the body of his mentor's closest friend and realizing that his daughter was missing.

And Reid felt fear when Gideon hadn't returned when he said he would, fear which only deepened as Reid's calls went unanswered.

"You're driving out to his cabin, aren't you?" Hotch asked as the team disembarked from the plane on their private strip after Milwaukee.

"Yes," Reid answered levelly. He had already stated his concerns the day before, concerns he knew Hotch shared but couldn't address while a killer was free and a victim was in jeopardy.

Hotch nodded grimly. It seemed he did everything grimly lately. "Call me when you get there."

Reid could plainly see that Hotch wanted to come with him, but the older man had more responsibilities calling on him, including his wife and Rachel. Reid winced to think about the girl, dreading what he would find at the cabin, or not find. But there was nothing for it but to get on the road and find out once and for all.

He had never been to the cabin personally. One of the first things to learn about Gideon was his adherence to separation of work and family. It was why Reid had been so surprised to be invited home with him for chess games, and then invited to Sarah's house for dinners. But where Gideon was often aloof and would step back for Reid to figure something out on his own (like good mentors should), Sarah was warm and inviting. Reid sometimes imagined what it would have been like to have had Sarah as a mother. But he did love his own mother and would quickly banish those thoughts.

And Rachel was something Reid never thought to encounter in his life. She had been thirteen when he first met her, struggling with geometric equations. Reid knew that he hadn't done a very good job tutoring her at first, based on the scathing looks she would give him when she thought he couldn't see, but as she grew accustomed to Reid's idiosyncrasies and Reid learned how to talk to a teenager (something he had never mastered really despite going to school with them since he was nine), they grew to like and respect each other.

They shouldn't have had anything in common between the age difference, vastly different childhoods, and the vast difference in intellects. But they were both only children since Rachel had effectively been raised alone. And they both had Gideon, for good and ill.

At that exact moment that Reid was walking up the dark and imposing cabin, he almost wished that Rachel had never gotten close to her father and that he himself was at some university, working on experiments all day. Then maybe Sarah, warm and loving Sarah, wouldn't have been killed, Rachel would be in sunny California and Reid wouldn't feel like throwing up as he opened the unlocked door.

Maybe one of the others would have seen the service weapon and FBI shield and then searched the rest of the cabin frantically for a body. But Reid's brain processed quickly past Oh my God, Gideon's killed himself to He's gone and left us all behind. The two white envelopes, each marked with a name, really only confirmed Reid's theory without him needing to read the one titled with his own name.

He sat at the desk and switched on the light. Before opening his letter, he pulled out his phone and dialed.

"Gideon's not here," he told Hotch. "I have his badge and gun and he left Rachel a letter."

"She fell asleep a half hour ago," Hotch replied quietly. "I'll bring her into the office tomorrow morning."

After hanging up, Reid still didn't open his letter. He stared at the two envelopes, side by side. Spencer. Rachel.

An entire team and his family abandoned, but Gideon only felt the need to leave messages for his daughter and for himself. An amateur could deduce that Gideon was distinguishing them as his children and the two he was most sorry to leave.

And if that meant that Reid and Rachel were now siblings, Reid was ready for that. Rachel would be wrecked by this, and on some level, so would Reid. Losing a father wasn't new for him, so he could be there for Rachel as she experienced it herself.

It was what big brothers were for.

Notes:

Nothing too earth-shattering in here, I don't think. But I kind of wanted to show Reid's thought process as well as his impressions and feeling for Rachel.

Thanks for reading, I hope that everyone is enjoying these little extra scenes. Reminder that chapter four of Mvt III will be posted on Saturday.

Cantoris