WARNING: Standard cautions about language, sexual content, and spoilers apply.

The file folder landed in the back of Reid's rented sedan with a splat, the bruised and muddied bodies of the' unsolved' murders slid out of the file and all over the backseat. Reid tried to find everything that needed to be done before he set out rather than acknowledge the grotesque photos spread out over the backseat. Before throwing his suitcase into the backseat, Reid begrudgingly gathered up the photos to put them back in the case file.

Reid had tried not to open it. The last thing he wanted to see was Keller with that look on his face – staring him down even through ink and paper. The difference from the living-breathing man and the photo in the file were night and day. Reid stared at Keller's photo in a way he knew he'd never get away with in their day-to-day interactions. It wasn't that Keller wouldn't allow it, to the contrary, actually Keller would have encouraged it with every profane words in his vocabulary. The weight of Keller, against him, over him, and on his lap stung at Reid's memory as his gaze clung to the old photo in his hands. Reid shook his head and looked down at those blue eyes one more time - 'living-breathing' was such a poor choice of words. Reid shut the case file and resolved himself to a mind free of Chris Keller for the next two days. Well, right after he was done meeting Hotch to provide a status update for the case.

On the way to Hotch's office all Reid could think about was Keller's mention of Hotch. True, he hadn't mentioned the Unit Chief by name, he really didn't know anything about the team at all, Reid tried to reason. Still the continuous play of those words in his head. The idea of how close Reid had come to that being a reality was the more unsettling thought on Reid's mind. Reid had seen it happen before with Elle and with Gideon, Hotch sitting at his desk looking over a newly-minted case file created just so the Bureau could put a tidy end on an otherwise chaotic situation. Reid could just as easily imagine Hotch sitting behind his gloomily official desk and pouring over the results of Reid's exam, which he had received upon being admitted to some anonymous hospital. Reid tried his best not to entertain the idea that Hotch would enjoy hearing the details of his injuries, in any circumstance.

Reid had been mentally kicking himself ever since he'd left the hospital that day. No one else on the team would have been so foolish as to let that happen. No one else on the team would have agreed to enter into an unsupervised meeting space, unarmed, and with the knowledge of the previous day's events. Reid should have seen this coming and part of Reid wasn't totally convinced that he didn't see it coming. The first night of fitful sleep should have been warning enough, of course, that would be on top of the ample warnings he had from the thick case file that accompanied him everywhere.

As Reid pulled into the lot of the FBI Building, he was resolved not to mention a word of the last encounter with Keller. He would convince Hotch to swap out him for Morgan. Morgan would be able to identify with Keller's hard-scrabble beginnings, the victimization in the absence of a father-figure, and the unfair treatment from local law enforcement. Reid nodded to himself as he solidified the pitch in his head. Reid was prepared to overcome Hotch's doubts on the success of the switch, given Morgan's law enforcement background, his equally impressive physique, and any latent reservations he might have regarding Keller's receptiveness due to his dealings with Vern Schillinger. Yes, Reid thought, as he ran over the talking points once again in his mind – it would be a hard sell but Reid was convinced he could do it. After all, he had just completed a week-long training in the art of verbal sparring with Chris Keller. Reid was sure this meeting would be infinitely easier for the sheer fact that he didn't have to worry about being accosted by his superior. Reid laughed out loud and then just as quickly felt his stomach lurch as the image of his last meeting with Keller stepped to the forefront of his thoughts.

Upon entering their work area, Reid was taken aback by the stillness of the room. Regardless of the day of the week, the bullpen was a rush of people and paperwork; teams arriving from cases, individual agents engaged in phone or webchat consultations, and his other team members either scrambling for their away-gear or settling into the mountain of paperwork that waited at the conclusion of every case. As it were, a few scattered agents sat at their desks fully absorbed in post-case paperwork. Reid felt his stomach clench and his nerves simmer when he looked up at the widow of Hotch's office and saw the lights on. It wasn't as if he thought Hotch was not going to be there –no, remember Reid was prepared for this.

After two knocks on Hotch's door, Reid cracked the door open, and Hotch gestured for Reid to come in and take a seat.

"Thank you. Yes. I will speak to my team and have an update for you in forty-eight hours. "Hotch looked over at Reid and narrowed his eyes as if to indicate his frustration with the caller. "Yes. Yes, thank you. I will be in touch." Hotch hung up the phone with a poorly-contained sigh of exasperation.

"How was your drive back?" Hotch asked trying to turn his focus to the young man in front of him.

"It was alright, not much traffic." Reid said, "Funny thing, did you know that each motorist loses an average of nine hundred dollars a year due to road congestion and wait-time and that the U.S. economy actually loses around seventy-two trillion dollars in lost labor, wages, and other positive economic activity?" Reid chuckled, nervously breathing in harshly through his nose as he continued, "so really if they're talking to you about budget cuts for the next fiscal year they may want to consider what that would mean on the larger scale if we drove everywhere. The jet is really the most practical answer to that…"

Hotch interjected, "Reid it's a two hour drive, hardly worthy of taking the jet." Hotch said, grateful for the bit of levity that Reid had inadvertently brought to the day. Hotch quickly contained the on-coming smile and looked at Reid seriously, "I know that this assignment is a tough for each member of the team given the unrealistic timeframe and the challenges with the interviewees, in general," Hotch caught himself rambling and lookded Reid directly in the eye, which only confirmed his suspicion when Reid pulled away from the eye contact, almost immediately. "What's going on Reid?"

Reid found his gaze flitting anxiously around the room like a bird suddenly trapped in a crowded building. When he tried to occupy his thoughts on the notebook in his hands he could almost hear Keller's voice, "If you're gonna ask me something like that, the least you could do is look at me!" Reid could hear the sound of the scattered paper on the meeting room floor, Keller's angry blue eyes that seemed to deeped in color depending on his intensity, and finally, the weight of him on Reid's lap.

Reid stopped hesitating and blurted out, "I want you to reassign me. I want you to send Morgan in my place. Of all the team members Morgan has just as many, if not more, rapport-building points than I do. I am certain that Keller's pervious associations with Schillinger, and the White Power Movement inside Oz, has nothing to do with his personal beliefs. .."

Hotch held up his hand. "And you think even if Keller was a vitriolic racist, that even still Morgan would be safer than you are now." It wasn't so much a question as an observation and before Reid could refute Hotch's claim, the older man continued, "Has Keller threatened you? You've mentioned in your reports that conversations have often become emotional and at times confrontational. Has Keller crossed any lines that would lead you to believe that his impending execution would increase the likelihood of his displaying violent or dangerous behaviors towards you?"

He can't do it, so the next best thing is hearing about it from you or a hospital log in a case file.

Reid looked over his notes, because he could get away with it, and because it helped with the illusion that he was entertaining both options. Answering in the affirmative, well, that wouldn't put an end to Reid suffering any less. Yes, that is exactly what he wanted to do, spend his Saturday afternoon filling out incident reports and detailing the several overt sexual advances made towards him by a man who …. Reid couldn't finish that. He knew the danger he was facing, Keller had all but told him what he was capable of. Keller, like a lot of men in Oz, was like a petulant teenager that had outgrown the body that made his behaviors excusable and slightly less threatening. Keller was violent and angry when he was feeling frightened, upset, or vulnerable…all of the stereotypical attributes that came to mind with a hyper-masculine male. Keller's behavior was unsettling, and at times frightening, but so was Keller's impending and fast-approaching fate.

"Given the circumstances, I would say that Keller is behaving normally. I have no reason to suspect that his impending execution will cause him to be violent toward me." Reid minced, clipped, and perfected his words and that statement was about as close as he would get to the truth. "No, sir. I think I can complete the interview."

Hotch's eyes narrowed as he looked Reid over like an eagle assessing its descent, and then stood to escort Reid out of his office. "Alright, Reid, I expect I'll see you back here on Thursday night. Call me immediately if anything changes."

Hotch pulled back allowing Reid to pass him and exit the office but before Reid was out of reach, Hotch put a hand on Reid's shoulder – Reid stopped himself before he could jerk out of reach. Hotch's warm hand rubbed in a tight circle on Reid's back," I'm proud of you, Reid. I know this wasn't an easy assignment and you've been very successful in gathering the information you have so far. I am sad to say that I am never surprised by the similarities in the stories that emerge during these interviews. You've gotten him to be honest with you, which is more than a great many people can say. I'm sorry that this is the only way it could be done – for both of you." Reid looked out into the empty bullpen fighting the emotion that was gnawing at his throat. It wasn't too late to beg Hotch to send someone else, to tell him that he'd lied, and that he was certain the only thing guaranteed with Keller besides vulgarity, was unpredictability.

Instead Reid absorbed the reassurance and left to return to his car, then on to his apartment to spend the next twenty-four hour divesting himself of as much of Chris Keller as he possibly could.

#-#-#-#-#-#-#

The routine. In Oz there wasn't much to depend on other than The Routine. You might not know if you'd make it into the next day for tomorrow's repeat of The Routine but there sure as hell was something comforting about it. Keller had no such routine. Sure, you'd think meals would be something to set his clock by but at times those were infrequent as well. Currently, the Homeboys, or the drug-pushing Black inmates of Oz that would just as willingly shank one of Vern Schillinger's men as they would the self-anointed Imam, Kareem Said, were the ones running the kitchen. If you believed, as some did, that Keller was responsible for the death of Mondo Browne then you'd know why Keller's meals could be infrequent or non-existent depending on who got assigned to the meal cart. Keller didn't complain - the gnawing hunger was a welcome distraction from the persistent gnaw of death on Keller's mind.

Keller had come up with various ways of physically exhausting himself, usually consisting of strength exercises and multiple retreads of the well-worn Hustler magazine he'd been thumbing through the last time he'd seen Dr. Reid. And that was really it, wasn't it? It wasn't so much the plasticized babes spread open in various poses. No, it was Reid. Reid watching him unaware as he unashamedly began to touch himself before Mineo had alerted him to their presence. It was Reid trying not to look at the magazine left purposefully open on Keller's bed as they sat there and talked. It was that boyishly look of disgust that Reid tried so hard to plaster to his face when he finally did give into the urge to comb over the open pages. It was seeing that magazine discarded, teetering at the foot of his bed, as Keller sat astride Reid indulging in some familiar pleasures.

Keller's disinterest dissipated slowly into arousal as he entertained that image a little longer. For someone as lean as Reid, Keller was surprised at how warm he felt under his hands. Keller took in a deep breath allowing the details of Reid to become more vivid. He smelled good. Keller had noticed it the first time he'd walked into the meeting room. Pleasant scents of any kind were so foreign in Oz that even the faintest hint of sweetness or spice overwhelmed the senses.

Had Keller been afforded the time, he would have buried his nose in the young man's neck, to inhale every last bit of that scent and then to run his teeth, lips and tongue along Reid's neck and collarbone. Keller dropped the old magazine to the floor as he imagined the rush of Reid's blood pulsing against his lips as Keller sunk his teeth into the younger man's neck.

Keller would make good on his promise to mark Reid up. He'd leave behind bites so perfect that Reid, and his fellow agents, would be looking at those black and blue kiss-shaped marks for weeks. Keller dipped his hand below the waistband of his pants, running an encouraging hand over his rapidly hardening length.

He could just see Reid shifting uncomfortably in his chair, concealed in a long series of gray cubes, filled with anxiety over what he'd allowed to happen. Keller had seen that look before, that blushing, shy, and evasive look. Reid had done such a poor job at trying extricate himself from Keller's grasp before. Keller knew the type. Reid needed to still have a way to deny it, not so much to others as to himself. Keller knew all about that.

So that's why Keller would be generous to the sweet young doctor; he'd let Reid struggle, to try and distract Keller with his bullshit theories, and maybe issue a few weak threats before Keller would swallow all of the doctor's words, silencing Reid with kisses that would leave him panting and clawing at Keller.

Chris closed his eyes as his hand picked up its teasingly slow pace. The contact of their lips had been brief, but not short enough to stop Chris from imagining what those soft pink lips would feel like pressed against his mouth or, better yet, stretched around his aching cock as Reid's big green eyes looked up at him filled with tears. The idea of tangling his hand in that short, and always disheveled, hair as he forced himself down Reid's throat had Keller approaching the edge faster than he would have liked.

Keller took his hand off his aching prick and ran his tongue over the palm of his hand, wishing it was the young doctor instead. As Keller thrust into his spit-slicked hand he could see Reid pressed into mattress of his cot as Keller thrust into him. Chris wasn't sure which would be more satisfying; watching Reid struggle and cry as he hit that place inside of him that to Reid's embaressment would eventually make his toes curl his orgasm to spill guiltily over Keller's hand; or he'd take his time with Reid, kissing, licking and driving him out of his mind until he begged Chris to enter him. The last image of a pliant and wanton Dr. Reid begging for him had Chris spilling over his swift moving fist.

Keller's drawn out moan of release reverberated against the cold cement hallway, only to die out moments later. Keller licked the sticky fluid from his hand before turning to the cold wall, falling into a catnap filled with images of all of the ways he could have played with the young Dr. Reid.

#-#-#-#-#-#-#

Sunday night arrived all too quickly for Dr. Reid. He'd torn through books, edited and re-edited a few academic papers, and generally tried to engage in any and all activities that would keep his mind off of the impending coldness of Oz and the mesmerizing stare of Chris Keller.

#-#-#-#-#-#-#

Reid had been up most of the night trying to keep his mind off of the coming morning and his next interview with Keller. His alarm had gone off after Reid had managed to squeeze a couple paltry hours of sleep from the nighttime hours.

Reid too had fallen into a kind of familiar routine; he started by divesting his messenger bag ,and anything else he was taking into Oz, of anything that could be easily weaponized, which included metal pens and neckties. Reid's wardrobe had streamlined itself out of necessity; vests, slacks, dress shirts, and a single pair of brown loafers that were terribly inadequate for keeping out the ever-present cold of Oz. Reid had been tempted to add on a sweater or something else. Another layer to get through, I suppose.

He'd stopped debating bringing his notepad but decided this time he would leave Keller's file behind. From what little Keller's file provided on his childhood, Reid knew he wasn't trying to put one over on him with his survey answers. Keller seemed less and less interested in lying to Reid, in general. Reid wondered if his openness was part of his manipulation tactics. Is that how he got Beecher into the gym, a sob story about his childhood? Doubtful.

When the metal gate slammed shut behind Dr. Reid after his security check, he barely gave it any acknowledgement. Yes, it was still frightening to be locked into a building, a building that just ten years earlier had blown-up into chaos and rioting over revoked rights and a game of checkers. At least that is what he'd gleaned from the background Garcia had prepared for him on the fly.

Reid could feel his heart hammering in his chest as he walked down the last few stairs and into the final hallway of Death Row. The guard that had escorted Reid stopped at the bottom of the stairs and let Reid continue on alone. All of the guards had been given orders to stay away, Reid figured, after the altercation in the previous week with Officer Lopresti.

Reid arrived at Keller's cell only to find the door open and Keller missing. Dr. Reid only had moments to contemplate Keller's whereabouts before the sound of two pairs of feet came trundling down the stairs and right into the young doctor.

There stood Christopher Keller; dripping wet, wearing his boots, loose and unlaced, and a white towel that he skillfully tucked inside itself, leaving both of his hands free to be cuffed behind his back. Reid couldn't help but look the guard over incredulously as the guard glared back at him, "What are you doing down here? You're not supposed to be down here! Visiting hours start at eleven and they sure as hell ain't down here." The guard let go of Keller and began to try and hustle Reid out of the corridor and back up the stairs.

Reid quickly dislodged his credentials from his messenger bag and shoved them into the guard's face, "Dr. Spencer Reid from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI." Reid said jerking his bicep out of the guard's grasp, as the guard simultaneously dropped his hands and stood back. "I'm conducting an ongoing psychological intake interview with Christopher Keller, we had a meeting today…Warden Glynn should have notified you?" Reid spoke deliberately as if to ask if any of this information registered with the overly-forceful young man.

"Sorry, doc. He's all yours," He said undoing Keller's cuffs and shoving him into the cell. Before he left, the guard looked Reid over, "You sure got your work cut out for you."

Reid was about to call after the guard to tell him that he'd forgotten to leave a means for Reid to contact him or to allow him entry into Keller's cell. The latter, Reid thought, may not be such a misfortunate turn of events. This thought was only reinforced when Reid turned, beginning to ask Keller a question, and found himself staring at Keller who was now divested of his unlaced boots and white towel. As Reid sputtered, still staring, caught mid-question, Keller walked toward Reid, slipping his arms through the bars.

"He forgot that you're supposed to be in here with me," Keller smiled, crooking his middle and index finger and gesturing for Reid to come closer. "You're early but I'm not really complaining. Come here."

Reid hoped that the awkwardness of the situation only made it feel like he'd spent the last few minutes staring at the butterfly tattoo near the top of Keller's inner thigh, or the random droplets of water that were still sliding down his neck and chest. "I can come back when you're dressed," Reid said turning quickly, hoping that in reality his stare had only really been a momentary glance.

"And here I thought you'd be more fun coming off a weekend," Keller said continuing to stand at the bars, his elbows resting on the crossbar and his arms outstretched in the direction of Reid. "It's just skin, Spencer." Keller said as if speaking to a child, not-so-secretly pleased to finally know Reid's first name.

Reid whipped around on his heel without even thinking, "Dr. Reid!" He said sounding a great deal more flustered than he wanted to let on, his cheeks now glowing red. "Now would you get dressed?" Reid said regretting his tone and even more the fact that Keller had gotten him so agitated, so quickly.

"Why? After what I told you during our last meeting, you've already seen me more stripped down than this. What's the difference?" Keller said with a smile before gesturing again for Reid to come closer.

Because this is like the beginning of really bad pornography. Reid resisted the urge to vocalize that observation for many of the obvious reasons, "Because for once in your life you need to start thinking of something other than immediate gratification. The warden, hell, another guard comes down here and sees you like this, and me standing here…with your history…I'd be out the door and you on the table before we knew what hit us." Reid said immediately regretting his words when Keller's eyes narrowed and he took a step back.

Keller slipped on his gray pants, blue tank top, and light gray hooded sweatshirt, leaving it unzipped at the front. As Keller sat on his cot, slipping into his socks and boots, he mumbled, "A little late for that lecture now, Dr. Reid."

Reid shouldn't, but he could feel pangs of remorse creeping into his throat forming a lump that he tried to swallow before he spoke, "Chris, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

Keller looked at Reid, his eyes empty of any emotion, "No, you're fuckin' right. I've let my dick do most of my thinking and when it wasn't running the show it was my anger – perpetually screwing or pissed off about something. You'd know, right?"

Reid took a step closer to the bars, putting one hand on the horizontal bar where Chris's elbow had been resting not long ago. "It doesn't matter, really? Doesn't it? I shouldn't have said that. I'll go and be back at eleven with someone who can at least leave me some sort of contact with the rest of this place."

Keller was up from the bed and his hand covering Reid's before he could pull away. "Now you're going to start being gentle with me? You're gonna start hiding behind your bullshit academic language and bleach-cleaned terms because, 'hey, you're just dealing with a corpse that hasn't hit the ground yet', is that right, Dr. Reid?"

"Chris, I'm sorry." Reid said not hesitating to look the older man in the eye.

Keller squeezed Reid's hand under his, "I've got Sr. Pete to cry over me for her failure, yet again, to stop another one of us from getting put to death. I don't need your fucking pity. I'm going to die, Spencer, and after what I tell you today you may just think I deserve it." Keller said looking at Reid, he gave a few dismissive pats to Reid's hand before letting go and stepping back. "Go get one of the hacks to give you what you need and I'll tell you everything you want to know." Keller sat down with a sigh on his unmade bed looking positively dejected.

Reid turned and headed up the metal stairs. Just keep telling yourself, it's all a game. It's all a game.

#-#-#-#-#-#-#

When Reid returned with C.O. Supervisor, Ryan Murphy, Keller was hanging by the ledge in his cell, at the divot between where the metal bars met with the concrete, doing chin-ups. "Okay Keller, enough monkeying around." Murphy called. Keller let go of the ledge and stepped back, still refusing to acknowledge Reid.

Reid stood in the doorway of Keller's cell, his back to the same wall he'd been up against that previous week. "Alright, Dr. Reid," Murphy drawled in his thick New York accent, "here's the radio, I assume Mineo showed you how to use this," when Reid nodded in affirmative, Murphy continued. "Keller has a meeting with Sr. Pete at three so I'll be back down by then if I don't hear from you. Also, the lunch cart should be around by noon so if there is any trouble you can always alert the officer that will be accompanying the inmate delivering the trays," Murphy looked around the empty bank of cells, "Tray, I guess. Ya know, doctor, I'd like to say that Devlin's plan to empty Death Row has made our lives easier here in Oz but it really isn't true. All of Em. City is on edge. I had to call in the S.O.R.T. team over the weekend and Unit B is in perpetual lockdown with the rest of the prison to follow as the week comes to an end. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that Devlin's little stunt has made a lot of our lives miserable. Just my two cents," Murphy said with a wave of a hand. "I'll see you both at three if I don't hear from you, Dr. Reid."

Reid stood, again his back to the barred gate, as he watched Keller, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement.

Keller sat down at the head of his bed facing Reid. "You gonna stand there til three?"

"No, I think I'll spit my time between here and the other end of the gate." Reid said in partial sarcasm. If Keller only knew how true that intention was….Reid thought shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"No big file today? This mean you're almost rid of me?" Keller said smiling at Reid, "I think we're makin' progress though, doctor," Keller made a dramatic show of sitting on his hands, "I'm working on impulse control and you came to see me with less armor. I think Sr. Pete would call this a breakthrough."

Reid shifted on his feet again, feeling the cold ground burning through the soles of his flimsy loafers. "How many times were you married?"

Keller's eyebrows furrowed and he glared at Reid taken aback by the rapid topic change, "Three. Well, if we're being technical, I was married four times. I married Bonnie twice."

"You said you married Bonnie in Vegas the first time and then back here the second time so her parents could be there, right? Was she the first one you married?"

"Naw, first was Kitty….Kathleen, or something, to be honest I don't really remember. Anyhow, she probably wouldn't answer to that if you did call her by it – other than our wedding day I don't think I'd ever heard anyone call her by her given name. We knew each other from high school, she's the perfect blonde cheerleader type. I ran into her back in my hometown after getting out of Lardner. She'd just broken up with her high school boyfriend - football player, go figure - and she…well, what can I say, before I fuck 'em, I marry 'em," Chris said dismissively.

"Because you think that will keep them around, they won't leave like your mother did if you pull out all the stops and put a ring on their finger?" Reid said as if clarifying Keller's words.

"Shit, Reid! See this is why you gotta keep coming back." Keller stood up from the cot and headed in Reid's direction but stopped leaving Reid about a foot of space between them, "You keep coming back and maybe by the time they're ready to put me out of my misery, I'll have learned all of the things that caused it in the first place."

"Why did you divorce?" Reid asked.

"I met Bonnie. I'd taken my bike to the shore one afternoon just to get the fuck away from Kitty and her crazy shit and there was Bonnie, all alone. She looked miserable. She was sitting by herself on one of the benches just looking out at the ocean and sucking down that taffy-stuff that is so popular there. Anyway, I knew she wouldn't turn me down. Other than Beecher, I've never met an easier mark. Once I was free of Kitty and I'd told her I wanted us to get married.…she was up for anything, did anything I asked, and never asked questions when I was out late or had 'odd' friends around. Kitty was always crawling up my ass about Ronnie or one of the other guys coming by. Bonnie, she was the perfect little housewife and you could tell she fuckin' loved it, like she'd been waiting all her life for it. Though when the guys weren't around….she was wild." Keller said fondly as if sharing lurid stories over with a buddy over a beer.

"Then you divorced again?" Reid questioned looking quizzically at Keller who was still standing in front of him, watching amused as Reid shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Angie…Angelique. I met her on a job a year or so after marrying Bonnie. Angie was the daughter of this guy that my buddy was running a construction scam on. Her father owned a lot of old buildings downtown, kinda a slumlord, ya know? Anyhow the city'd forced him into cleaning up one of the buildings so my buddy got in on the bid. Of course, he underbid and found ways to soak it out of the guy even still…really piece of shit. Angie though, she's a sweetie. Things were fine with Bonnie. She made sure never to give me a moment's pause or regret for being with her. She was painfully insecure. I knew that wouldn't last, eventually she'd come to hate me, so I guess I beat her to the punch and left her first. I married Angie as soon as the divorce was final."

Reid didn't need to ask this time, just nod and continue writing as Keller elaborated on divorce number three.

"Angie got homesick, plain and simple. Her daddy, that scumfuck, always had way more influence over her than any man would ever have, so she went back home. Bonnie just happened to come around again. Even after all of the shit I'd pulled, she wanted me." Keller smiled slightly and shook his head," I divorced her, broke her heart, and she was the one telling me how sorry she was and how bad she'd been. I missed that. I missed her. I know it's fucked up, I knew it then, it's just…"

"It's just this time you wanted a woman who could be beaten out the front door and would still come back for you?" Reid said looking at Keller sincerely.

"Shit, yeah….I guess so. I never did hit her though…not one of them, ever. I can't stand that look a woman gets when she's afraid or upset with someone…physically, it makes me sick."

Reid nodded again in understanding. "I've been here long enough, I'm sure you know what I'll tell you is the cause of that."

Keller smiled ruefully at Reid, "My mother?" Keller asked with a tinge of disgust before turning and flopping down on his cot.

"Something like that," Reid said stopping himself before he launched into over-exposition about 'love maps' and developmental psychology.

Keller crossed his arms underneath his head. "You're a good teacher, Reid. You should give up this badge-and-gun shit and teach." When Reid smiled slightly, Keller sat up on his bed and turned to face Reid, putting his back up against the concrete wall, practically mirroring the position that had gotten Reid in so much trouble the week before. "This boss of yours sounds like a real shitheel. First, he lets you get kidnapped, you said, right? And then he serves you up on a silver platter hoping that while I'm busy salivatin' he'll get the confession he wants. You got any chicks on your team?"

Reid nodded, not bothering to try and refute Keller.

"Damn, man. I'd hate to see the assignments they got. What, he buy them each schoolgirl outfits and send them off to interview rapists and serial killers too?"

Reid tried hard not to laugh at the barrage of images that Keller's words had conjured, "they wear pants but yes, you're description is otherwise accurate."

"Otherwise accurate?" Keller parroted back to Reid mocking his tone filled with scholarly indignation. "What, that your boss is a shitheel? Sorry, I'll use the more academic term, sadist. Your boss is a sadist-shitheel that gets off sitting behind his big desk while he sends girls and…well, you – sorry, doc - to do the work he's probably better suited for. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's some balding fatty that couldn't run after a perp if he wanted to, and the girls, they work in government, they can't be that good-looking." Keller said with that same wicked grin spread across his face.

Reid had fought hard to suppress his laughter at Keller's characterization of Hotch but felt his cheeks flush red at the mention of JJ and the memory of his failed attempt, many years ago, to ask her out on a date.

"Ah," Keller said pointing and wiggling his finger playfully at Reid, still grinning from ear to ear, "I'd ask you which one you'd fucked but since we've already established that the head on top of your shoulders is the only head of yours that's seen any action.."

"I've never….I mean I'm not…oh forget it." Reid said putting his hand up in disgust.

Keller fought the urge to fall onto his side and roll on the small cot with laughter as Reid began to sputter.

Suddenly the grin on Keller's face disappear, "Which one should it have been?"

"I don't want to talk about it….but she's beautiful and you're completely wrong, not that such a fact would have stopped you from making these ludicrous accusations." Reid said glaring in Keller's direction.

Keller smiled as Reid glared at him, this time taking on the visage of a brother, more than a tormentor. "She may be beautiful but she's fuckin' stupid for turning you down."

"Whatever….she's married." Reid said resignedly.

Keller's wicked grin returned, "Well, if we've learned anything today, Dr. Spencer Reid, it's that marriage does end." He said winking at the younger man.

That was the first afternoon that Reid called for a guard and felt disappointed to see them come. The day's session had succeeded in making the impending Friday, just that much harder to acknowledge.


A/N: WOW! Thank you for all of the reviews and new readership! Keller isn't the only one sitting on his hands trying not to give way to those deep, dark ideas. ;) I enjoyed all of the speculations and requests. I am still fumbling about when it comes to how we'll get to the end so who knows, some of those ideas may show up. And here I thought Reid would get out fairly unscathed, at least physically. Also thanks for your patience regarding the delay, I'm still trying to lengthen these chapters and with the added length comes added editing – which is always, a moderately successful task. Thanks again for all of the kind words, constructive criticism, and increased lurker-ship.