Author's Note!
Okay, THIS is the chapter that I've been waiting to write. I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out. Please, enjoy! It took me FOREVER to write! Also, not everything in here really happened in the show, I made most of them up. So PLEASE don't go all "That's not true!" Yes, I know. It's fiction and I can do what I want. Sorry if I confused you, once you read it you'll understand what I'm talking about.
I don't won Criminal Minds or the characters. All mistakes are my own. Spoilers. Language. Yeah...
Reid drifted awake to the sound of voices. His team's voices, to be exact. Reid moaned as a wave of nausea hit him. His eyes flew open and he rolled over onto him side, ignoring the painful bursts of flames in his abdomen.
He sat up on his knees and began to dry heave, having nothing in his stomach to vomit up. The contraction of the muscles only made the pain worsen and he groaned. When the heaving finally stopped, Reid pulled himself into a sitting position; his eyes screwed shut, and hissed in pain.
Reid sat absolutely still and tried to calm his breathing.
"Reid," Morgan said to him, "You okay, kid?" Reid opened his eyes and looked at Morgan and then looked around the room to assess his team.
Seaver was sitting on the floor, picking mindlessly at her grey shirt. She looked scared but unharmed. Emily looked summarily like Seaver, except she was sporting a dark blue bruise on the side of her cheek. As Reid looked closer he realized that her breathing was slightly off. Rossi was looking at him with the same concerned expression Morgan had. Reid's eyes wandered over to where Hotch was and were surprised at what he found.
Hotch was curled up on his side, sleeping. Hotch was sleeping? Usually he was the one fighting off the sleep and urging everyone else to get rest. But Hotch sleeping meant something was terribly wrong.
"Uh, Morgan? What's up with Hotch?" he asked. Seaver and Emily looked over, surprised to hear Reid's voice.
Morgan sighed and shook his head, "Starson came in about two hours after he took you. He took Hotch out of the room. They were gone for what? Four? Five hours? Anyways, when he got back, he was totally cationic. He looked so freaked out…" Morgan trailed off and shook his head, "He wouldn't even talk to us for about an hour. He just sat there, staring off into space. Then he finally started talking to us." Morgan stopped there and his hands balled up into fists.
"What happened?" Reid asked, softly.
Morgan sighed, "He said that Starson locked him in a coffin full of spider."
Reid sat there in shock. Spiders? There were so many things he had thought that could have happened, but that hadn't even crossed his mind.
"Why spiders?" Reid finally asked.
"I guess Hotch is afraid of spider?"Morgan guessed.
Reid decided to drop the subject, feeling uncomfortable talking about his boss.
"What happened to Prentiss?" Reid asked. Emily's head snapped up at the sound of her voice.
Morgan glanced over at her before looking back to Reid, "I don't know, man. That Gordon guy took her a couple of hours ago but she won't tell us what happened."
Reid looked over at Prentiss. Her head was bowed as she looked down into her lap, her dark hair creating a shield between them. Reid racked his mind for any ideas of what have might have happened to her when a disturbing realization came to him.
All the female victims were raped.
"Emily…" Reid began carefully but was interrupted by the sound of static and then a voice saying, "Hello, agents."
Everyone froze at the voice except Hotch who woke up and immediately snapped into alert. Hotch looked over at Reid and his eyes widened when he took in Reid's appearance.
"Well, I'm sure you're all very happy to all be together again," the voice that sounded like Starson said. Reid's eyes scanned the room to look for where his voice could be coming from and then he saw it. A few feet above Rossi's head was a small black speaker.
"There," Reid said and pointed over at the speaker. The team looked up at it and wore grim faces.
"What do you want?" Morgan shouted into the air.
The soft sound of Starson's laughter came out of the speaker and a shiver went down Reid's spine, "Manners, Agent Morgan, manners. I'm actually here to tell you that the people you are trying to protect aren't at all who they seem to be."
Morgan glared at the speaker and then looked over the team who were all looked around, anxiously. What the hell was he talking about?
"Well, I suppose I should start with the newest member of your team," Starson continued and Seaver stiffened.
"Special Agent Ashley Seaver. Apparently you had same daddy issues growing up, huh?" Starson began and Seaver pale, "says here that he killed 25 women before you were even a teenager. But that's not all is it? When you were nine years old, you walked in on your father stabbing a woman. What did you do? Nothing! You just stood there and watched that woman being killed! How did that make you feel? Just standing there knowing you could save that lady but choosing not to?"
Starson paused and the team looked at Seaver in shock. She did what? Seaver slowly sunk to the floor and her breathing became more forced.
"And then there was an incident in high school," Starson continued to psychologically torture Seaver, "A star football player… what was his name? Chase! Apparently, you and Chase had a history together, huh? Being caught in closets and under the stairs, Well, BAU team, Chase decided he was done playing with Ashley, here, and went and dumped her. And you know what she did?" Starson asked them.
Seaver was hyperventilating by then. How the fuck did he know that about her? She thought angrily to herself.
"Shut up!" she screamed at the ceiling and the team just watched in shock as their newest member's secrets became thrust into the spotlight.
"She went into the locker room and planted steroid pills in his bag," Starson answered his own question, "Chase was kicked off the football team and no college wanted to accept a player that used steroids so he never got a scholarship. Ashley ruined his whole entire life."
Starson stopped talking and listened to the sound of Seaver breaking down.
"Seaver. Ashley, honey," Emily said to her, "You need to breathe."
"Ah, and then there's Miss Emily Prentiss," Starson said and Emily froze.
"You were a little, ah, wild child weren't you?" Starson said and the team could practically hear the smile in his voice, "You became pregnant at fifteen and had an abortion. An abortion? I thought you had more class than that, Emily. A couple of years later, you were arrested for assault. You broke four of a girl's ribs and gave her a serious concussion. She was in the hospital for some time, all because she called you a slut."
Emily wasn't moving at all and her eyes were fixed on a point above Seaver's head. The team stared at her in shock. She had an abortion?
"Then when you were 25, you were arrested again for trespassing. I bet your team didn't know you had such a record, did they Emily?" Starson said in an amused tone. Emily remained unresponsive.
"How did you know that?" Emily suddenly hissed through clenched teeth but Starson didn't answer her question.
"And now that brings me to Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi!" Starson said gleefully but Rossi's expression remained neutral.
"A couple years back, there was a girl. Oh, what was it? Ah, yes. Zoe," Starson began and Rossi's mask slipped a tiny bit to reveal slight panic, "She only wanted to impress you, David. She sought you out to try to tell you about a serial killer and yet you blew her off. You told her to go off on her own and that was what caused her death. You led that poor girl straight into the ground. How did that feel? To know that you ended one's life before it even really started?"
Rossi's mask remains on his face but the trained profiler eyes of his team could tell he was slipping. None of the team blamed him for that poor girl's death but that didn't stop Rossi from blaming himself.
"Dave, what happened then was not your fault," Hotch told him sternly, "We've all made mistakes in the past, clearly, but we move past them."
Rossi looked up at Hotch and nodded silently.
"Oh, Agent Hotchner!" Starson's voice boomed, "It's so good to hear that you're not completely shell shocked."
Hotch stiffened when the UNSUB mentioned his name and prepared himself for what was going to happen next.
"Aaron Hotchner, you had an exciting life growing up. From mean ol' daddy who came home drunk and beat the shit out of you. For years, your father beat you and your brother. On more than one occasion, you landed in the hospital. Here's to name a few injuries; a spiral bone fracture, multiply broken ribs, other broken bones, numerous cuts and bruises. And then you learn that your old man has been sleeping with at least four other women beside your momma? Gee, harsh. Maybe he just didn't love you." Starson said.
Everyone eyes were glued to Hotch to watch his reaction. Everyone, if they wanted to admit it or not, had suspected Hotch was abused as a child but they would have never have guessed it was that bad. Hotch's hands balled up into fists and he looked like he desperately wanted to punch something.
"You tried so hard though," Starson continued, "To protect you team. Your family. But yet, you failed at that too. First, your job caused the tragic death of your wife. She begged, begged, you to spend more time with her and less time on the job. But you refused. Eventually, that decision came back to kill her. Literally. How did it feel to listen to your wife get murdered over the phone?"
The team jumped at the sound of Hotch's fist slamming into the wall.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH! I SWEAR IF YOU MENTION HER AGAIN, I'LL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!" Hotch screamed at the speaker and the team felt the same anger build inside them. How dare he? Speak to them like that?
Starson laughed over the intercom, "Well, I'll just have to watch my mouth, won't I? I guess that's my cue to move on to the next person."
Everyone stiffened and glanced from Morgan and Reid and wondered who was next. Reid felt panic build up in his chest. How much did he know about him? Well, obviously, he knows a lot more about them than he should. He even knew things that they didn't know about each other. But what if he mentions… that? Reid shuddered at the thought of his most private secrets meeting the ears of his team members.
"So, Derek Morgan," Starson began and Morgan's eyes blazed with anger, "What could I possibly know about you that nobody else does? Well, it appears that you little secret of sexual abuse as a child isn't exactly a secret anymore. I have to admit, I'm surprised at the lack of secrets you hide."
Morgan hissed through his teeth at the mention of his childhood but didn't say anything.
"But I'm guessing you never told anyone about Stella, did you?" Starson suddenly asked and Morgan stiffened and then suddenly shouted, "How the hell did you know about that?"
Starson made a 'tsk' sound, "You mustn't interrupt the story, Derek." Morgan sighed angrily out of his nose and the rest of the team sat in silence wondering who Stella was but then decided that they didn't want to know.
"Stella was Derek's high school sweet heart." Starson began his story, "But, unfortunately, they got separated when they went to college. Five years later, Derek runs into Stella at the store. But Stella reveals some, ah, news. Can you guess what it was?"
The team glanced nervously at each other and then looked back up at Morgan who as seeing red with anger.
"No? Well, apparently Stella was getting married! But poor Derek here still had feelings for the girl. So what does he do? He goes over to her house and beats her fiancée with a baseball bat." Starson finished and Seaver couldn't suppress a gasp of suprise.
Morgan beat him with a… baseball bat? The team stared at him with wide eyes. Morgan closed his eyes and took a shaky breath and then looked up at his team. His eyes were sad, angry, and broken. The team realized that they didn't really know all about each other after all. Even the closest knit of families had their holes, and between those holes, some of the darkest secrets can fall threw to never be seen again.
Reid looked over his team members with new eyes. His team looked down at their feet, ashamed. Then Reid realized he was the only one left. He had an idea of what Starson would mention and feared that his team would no longer love him once they knew what he was hiding. They will probably tell him that it was the past and it didn't change how they felt about him. Easy for them to say, they didn't kill somebody.
Bu Bu BUUUUUM! WHAT could Reid be talking about? Killed somebody? *Gasp* Heh heh I feel so evil right now... I seriously hoped you enjoyed this chapter as I enjoyed writing it. Sorry if the dialogue confused you a bit, I tried to make it as clear as possible.
I'll try to post tomorrow! Pleeaaasssee review! I worked so hard for you enjoyment!