Chapter 10

AN: Oh my gosh, I suck. I have been crazy busy and haven't updated in forever, so to make up for it, I'm just going to be posting a lot of chapters in a short amount of time because, well, I'm sorry. Warning, things got a little dark in this chapter… Oops. Also, feel free to suggest anything that you might want to see in another story.. As this one is getting closer to ending, I'll be looking for new ideas (preferably focused on Reid, with a lot of Morgan)

Every inch of her hurt.

Olivia had no idea what to do at this point – every time the man came downstairs, it was a surprise as to how he was going to treat her. As sick as the whole situation was, she preferred having to tell him she loved him than dealing with what he was doing to her physically the other times. Loving, angry – she could never predict which one he would be each time he entered the room. She was also beyond frustrated at the idea that she knew this guy but even after hours and hours of running through all the possibilities, she was coming up empty.

What she did know was that she was in a lot of pain. Her head was pounding and she wasn't sure if it was because of how many times he had hit her or if it was the drugs he kept giving her. Being the doctor she was, she was constantly assessing herself – she knew she was severely dehydrated and weak. He wasn't giving her enough to sufficiently sustain her, and mixed with the drugs he kept giving her, she figured if he didn't physically kill her first, she wouldn't have much time left anyways.

She knew she was badly bruised but nothing life threatening. Luckily, this guy wasn't a complete idiot – he had hit her so hard before that Olivia was pretty sure he broke her nose, and if he had left the gag in her mouth, she would have asphyxiated herself. However, he had enough common sense to remove the gag once he saw the blood pouring from her nose. Between the physical, mental, and sexual abuse, she wasn't sure how much more she could take. Olivia silently was praying that her brother would find her.

I wonder how he's doing.

That thought constantly nagged at her. All she wanted to do was see her brother. It was what kept her going. If anybody was going to find her, it would be him.

She could hear footsteps from above and tried to prepare herself for whatever was about to happen. Olivia closed her eyes and prayed as she heard the door open.

It was day six of their expected ten-day window to find Olivia. They had taken a dinner break; meanwhile, Reid found himself in the bathroom once again. Since he wasn't eating, all he could really do was dry heave at this point – almost nothing was coming up anymore. He was no longer even pretending to be okay in front of the team, to be eating and sleeping like a normal person would be. He didn't have the energy to hide it.

You're gonna die.

Reid couldn't stop that thought from entering his head again. It was loud and clear.

Wouldn't that be so much easier, though?

Reid heard the door open and knew without even looking that it was Morgan checking up on him. Reid was sitting on the bathroom floor, his head leaning back against the wall.

So much easier than dealing with what was happening right now.

Morgan came over and sat down next to Reid. Reid had his eyes closed and didn't even bother to open them.

"Talk to me, Kid," Morgan said softly.

What a way to go out.

"There's nothing to talk about," Reid said flatly.

End your suffering. The voices were getting progressively louder.

"Don't give me that bullshit, Reid. Like you think I'd believe that."

Just give up on everything?

"Please, Morgan. Just leave me alone."

Just give up. It's okay.

"Not a chance. We haven't really talked since that night in your apartment. Before Liv went missing, you were honest with me. With her. You talked about what was going on in your head. Don't shut me out, Reid. You know it was helping you to talk, so why stop now? You almost relapsed, you're having nightmares, your sister is missing. Don't tell me there's nothing to talk about. You need to talk now more than ever, so talk," Morgan desperately tried to connect with Reid, to get him to finally open back up.

It'd be so nice.

"I can't do this anymore," Reid blurted out, tired of the voices in his head. "Just make it stop," he begged. At first, Morgan wasn't really sure what Reid was referring to, so Reid continued. "It's not worth it. None of this is worth it. Stop trying to help me, stop trying to fix me because I can't be fixed," Reid started to get upset, but now he couldn't stop.

"Even if we do find Liv and she's okay, it's not going to fix me. I was ready to relapse before she even went missing. I can't… I can't spend the rest of my life dealing with this. It's not worth it," his voice broke. "Just let me give up," he whispered almost inaudibly, but Morgan heard it all the same. He felt it.

Hearing Reid talk like this scared Morgan more than anything. He'd heard Reid say similar things but that was when he was going through withdrawals – Liv had told him not to think that Reid actually meant those words, that he was just in a lot of pain and it was common for addicts to say those things during withdrawals.

But Reid wasn't on drugs anymore. He wasn't going through withdrawals. This was real now.

"Reid," Morgan chose his words carefully. "More than half of drug users relapse at some point. Many, more than once. But they work through it because they know that things will be okay eventually. Nobody said it was easy, but it most certainly is worth it. And I'm not letting you give up because I know, deep down, that's not what you really want."

"How do you know that?" Reid said quietly.

"Because I know you, Kid. I've seen what you've gone through and you've become a better person because of it. And I know that you're going to get through this too and you're going to look back on this and realize that it's never worth giving up. You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, Reid. Don't let this stop you from seeing that."

"Even if I do get through this, who's to say this doesn't happen again? Who's to say I don't relapse again?"

"Nobody is saying you won't, but that's life. Nobody's saying I won't walk out of my house tomorrow and get struck by lightning. You just don't know. You can't predict what's going to happen, but you have to believe that you won't relapse again. You have to believe that it's going to be okay because that's the only way anybody makes it through life. Maybe you don't see it, Reid, but what's going on in your head right now is all because of your addiction."

"What do you mean?" Reid asked.

"Depression, Reid. Addiction – past and present – it causes depression. All this talk about giving up – that's not you, man. That's not you talking, it's the depression. It's the addiction. And these nightmares are a relapse of your PTSD from your kidnapping. One relapse is causing another. It's messing with your head."

Reid was studying the floor, refusing to make eye contact with Morgan. Morgan continued, "Listen, Reid. Before Liv went missing, she was talking to me about you. She saw what was happening before anybody else saw it. She thought maybe you would benefit from maybe seeing someone," Morgan said.

"I'm not seeing anyone," Reid said firmly.

"Listen, Liv has a lot of good friends who deal specifically with people who struggle with what you struggle with. They could really help you. Reid, you can't expect to get to a better place if you won't accept the help that's going to get you there. Liv and I can only do so much, Kid, but we're not familiar with what you're going through. Liv isn't that kind of doctor and I'm not a doctor at all – we just want you to get the best help possible."

"So you want to pawn me off on someone else…" Reid said calmly, saying it but knowing he didn't really mean what he was saying. Morgan knew it was the relapse talking. A long time ago, Liv explained to Morgan that sometimes, when people were about to relapse, they would try to sabotage their relationships, push everyone away - it often made it easier for them to slip into a relapse when their world was falling apart and they're now alone because they pushed everyone out. They need to sabotage everything around them so they can then sabotage themselves in the end. A person's subconscious knows that they're relapsing before the person is even aware of it themselves, Liv had said. That's why he snaps at you, why he gets angry. His subconscious is trying to destroy his relationship with you. He doesn't even realize he's doing it.

"I never said that, Kid. Liv and I are going to be there just as much as we were before, but you also need help that we can't give you," Morgan started to say but Reid cut him off.

"Don't make promises you can't keep. Nobody said Liv was coming back," Reid snapped. He didn't know where all this frustration was coming from, but it was spilling from his mouth and he couldn't control it.

Morgan took a second and then decided to dismiss Reid's anger. Another thing Reid hadn't been very aware of was that he had been having mood swings, so Morgan knew Reid didn't necessarily mean the things he said when he snapped at Morgan or Liv on occasion. Morgan knew how to take these things in stride.

"Liv thought about trying to get you to see someone after you relapsed the first time but she didn't think you would go for it and she was hoping to talk you into it this time. She just wants you to be okay, Reid."

Reid sighed, "So do I."

Morgan reached up and squeezed Reid's shoulder. "As long as you promise not to give up on me and accept the help people are willing to offer, I promise you that it will get easier. I promise you that you will make it through this and that one day, you will regret ever even thinking that you wanted to give up."

"How could you possibly promise that?"

"You don't trust me, Kid?" Morgan pressed.

"It's not that…" Reid started.

"So do you promise or not?" Morgan questioned.

After a couple seconds of contemplation, Reid said, "I promise."

"Good," Morgan said. "Why don't we go back in there, and if we don't find this Unsub in the next two hours, I take you back to your apartment so you can get some rest."

Reid was about to protest, but as much as he needed to find his sister, he didn't think he would be of much help if he kept pushing himself. He'd already passed out once and he didn't need to it to happen again, let alone happen in front of people.

Morgan stood up and held out a hand to pull Reid up off the bathroom floor. Morgan gave him a reassuring pat on the back, but then put both of his hands on Reid's shoulders and said, "Now no more of this putting up walls, okay? Talk to me," Morgan said, shaking Reid's shoulders with each emphasis, forcing a smile out of Reid.

"Okay, okay," Reid said. "I promise."

"Good," Morgan said. "Now let's go find your sister."

It was nearing the two hour mark that Morgan had given Reid and Reid was beyond frustrated at how little they had on this Unsub. No viable connections between victims, no leads, no suspects, no nothing. This guy was a ghost. The room was deathly quiet while everybody was lost in thought. Reid had stood up from his chair to get closer to the board, praying that just by staring at the board a connection would pop up out of nowhere. He knew it wouldn't happen but the team was desperate for clues. He was desperate. The team had started talking again all around him, murmuring facts about the case and reports that other policemen had filed on the previous cases, but Reid couldn't quite make out what they were saying.

There was a strange ringing sensation in his ears that began to drown out the voices next to him. His head continued to pound relentlessly, as it had been for weeks now, but worse. Reid felt his vision start to blur on the edges but he tried to rub his eyes in hopes of regaining clarity. His heart was suddenly beating rapidly, and Reid couldn't think straight anymore. His entire body was suddenly in overdrive – his lungs were pushing for air and all Reid could do was continue to stare blankly at the board with his sister's face all over it.

I won't find her alive.

Suddenly, Reid could hear that all the voices in the background were saying the same thing. They were calling his name, but he couldn't pull out of the daze that his mind was in. He recognized that his team was calling for him but the only clear thought he had was

I won't find her alive.

And with that, the ringing in his ears stopped and everything got deathly quiet. The room turned sideways and then his world went black.