Broken

Chapter 11

It had been as strange a meeting as either of them could remember. Not that Reid had experienced all that many meetings with the upper echelons. He'd gone into it expecting to be reprimanded at best, reamed out at hopeful, and fired at worst, but none of those things had happened. The Deputy Director had looked appropriately stern and displeased, and Reid had immediately apologized for the fact that the meeting had been necessary at all. But then things had taken an unexpected turn.

"SSA Reid, who, besides you, might have had access to your personnel file?"

Caught off guard, Reid could only respond with, "Shouldn't there be a record of that?"

The DD didn't like that response. "I'm asking you if you have shown the contents of your folder to anyone."

"Honestly, I've never even looked at my folder. I've never had a reason to."

Until now. And shouldn't there be a record of whether I've looked at it?

"Well, then," asked the Deputy Director, "how do you think the information from your folder was leaked to Ms. Adams?"

It was a measure of how off his game he was, that he'd never even thought about it. He'd given Cat false information to try to detect the limits of her knowledge about him, but he hadn't taken it to the next step. He hadn't thought about where that knowledge had come from. But she'd known some things that Wilkins and Lyndsey shouldn't have known, that they shouldn't have been able to pass on to her.

They've got a mole. That's what's saving my career. They've got a mole, and they're afraid I'll hold them responsible for what happened to me.

The DD was speaking again. "Is there anyone you might have inadvertently shared information with? Anyone you're particularly close to?"

Prentiss and Cruz spoke at once, leaving no room for Reid to respond.

Emily's "You can't think this was anyone on the team!" Competed with Cruz', "I think we need to look elsewhere, sir."

Internally, Reid could feel himself getting agitated. The only person who met the criterion of knowing everything there was to know about him was JJ. And the only person who could have crept in and out of his file without leaving a footprint was Garcia. Surely the DD didn't mean to implicate either one of the women in this!

When he found an opening he spoke. "I have, and will continue to, place my life in the hands of my fellow team members. I trust all of them, sir."

The DD wasn't about to concede. "I hope that's not what got you into trouble, SSA Reid."


The trip back to Emily's became a strategy session.

"Do you think there's a mole?" Testing this new piece of information against her opinion.

"I'm sure of it. Someone got information about you to Cat Adams and Wilkins."

Reid tried to shake some sense into his head, but it wouldn't come.

"Why are you so sure? I mean, can't anyone just Google anyone else these days? Wouldn't it have been that easy to find my address? All Cat had to do was to connect with Lyndsey. She could have found out where I lived and followed me. She'd have known I had my mom living with me. She could have followed me to the airport…"

Emily cut him off there. "The last time you flew to Houston, you left from a case. Lyndsey couldn't have followed us to an away case. The only way she could have known you'd gone to Houston was if someone told her."

Which brought both of them to an uncomfortable truth. He'd made the decision emergently, when he'd left from their away location. Until the reports had been filed, it had been only the team who'd known that Reid hadn't returned with them.

Reid turned away from the road when he felt Emily's intense gaze on him, and they locked eyes for a moment. And then she shook it off.

"No. No way. But we'll figure out how it did happen. That is, if you decide to come back."

He turned back to the road. "I'm coming back. I have to."


After dropping Emily off, he picked up take-out from his favorite Indian place, and headed home.

Home. He'd lived in his apartment for nearly as long as he'd been in the BAU, the longest he'd lived anywhere. It had been his refuge, his retreat, his place of mourning, his place of refueling and refreshing. But, for nearly half of the past year, it had lost its identity, much as he had lost his.

When he'd brought his mother to live with him, he'd lost the sense of order, even if it was an order often buried beneath an array of open books. He'd lost the room to move about, he'd lost his bed, and his closet, and his routine. Most piercingly, he'd lost his solitude. And he'd felt guilty for mourning it.

After that, he'd lost his home, his privacy, his way of life, his freedom and, ultimately, his self-control. Now, entering his apartment alone for the first time in forever, he wondered how much of what he'd lost could still be found.

Reid put the food down on the coffee table that was still displaced by some of his mother's furniture. He went into the bedroom to change out of the suit he'd worn for what could have been his last day with the FBI. When he went to his closet, he saw the space left from where his mother's things had hung, and felt a pang of guilt, that he'd not gone back to see how she'd been settling in this evening. But he had connected with Luz, who'd suggested he stay away, to let Diana learn to rely on the staff at Mountain Laurel.

I guess this is how it's going to be, from now on. I'll never feel like I'm in the right place.

Emerging once again, he found something to drink and sat down with his food. Since his release, all of his trips to his apartment had been purpose-driven, and he'd stuck to the task at hand. Now, he sat back, carton in hand, and leaned against the familiar cushions of his sofa, looking out at the familiar skyline. He took a few bites before he realized that, with night falling, he could see his own reflection in the window. Suddenly, that sense of familiarity evaporated.

He'd used a mirror to shave, and even to try to tame his unruly hair, for his meeting with the Deputy Director. But that had also been purpose-driven, and he'd studiously avoided his own eyes. Tonight, they drew him. He pushed aside his food, leaned forward in his seat, and stared at the man in the window.

He'd done it before, many times, as an exercise in self-reflection, both literally and metaphorically. He'd looked at his image, and tried to see himself from without, as someone else might see him. Objectively. Physically.

Especially in his early years, his social isolation had made it easy to focus on his flaws. His baby face, his mismatched clothing, his thick-lensed glasses, all the things he'd been bullied with. He'd learned, then, to avoid his eyes, afraid of the pain and loneliness he would find there. Time, and relationship, had done much to change that. Eventually, he'd begun to try to see himself as a particular someone else might have seen him….Gideon, or Hotch, or Morgan. Elle. JJ. Emily, Garcia. Someone who'd found something of value in him. And it had begun to change who he'd seen in his reflection.

He'd begun to see assurance, a burgeoning self-confidence that had somehow made its way into his features. A straighter stance, a more upright posture….the accoutrements of acceptance. And still, he'd avoided his eyes, fearful of them proclaiming him a fraud.

Tonight, he sought them out. Maybe it was to punish himself for what he thought he would find there. Maybe it was to confront the man who owned them. Maybe it was to condemn him.

Reid stared as deeply as he dared into the eyes staring back at him. In the near dark, they looked like black holes, reflecting no light, too burdened by the gravity of the situation of his life.

The eyes looking back at Reid belonged to a man who had tried to hurt others. A man who had hurt others. A man who, but for the grace of God….and the staying hand of his best friend…might have actually killed another, of his own volition. Reid could barely hold his own gaze. But, if he was to come out the other side of this with any hope of a future, he would have to. He would have to confront what he'd been through, and what it had done to him.

You've been imprisoned. Forcing himself to picture the man before him being handcuffed, and strip-searched, and marched around, just because he could be. Pushed, and commanded, and humiliated, and locked away.

You've been beaten. Forcing himself to picture his image being restrained, and gagged, and kicked, and punched, and slapped, begging for help that would not come. Helpless, and hopeless.

You've cost someone his life. Forcing himself to envision the man before him as he watched someone else pay the price for his hubris. But this image, at least, was not as difficult as the image that had presented itself to his eyes on that fateful day, as he'd watched Luis' life taken from him, in the split of a second.

You've become just like them. Maybe he'd always been just like them. Maybe that was the real reason he'd avoided looking into his own eyes all these years. Maybe he'd always known what he would see there. Maybe Cat Adams had seen it too, that very first time they'd met.

He tried to force himself to look through the eyes of his reflected image, and into the distorted depths within. But, this time, something blocked his gaze. Something wouldn't let him search those depths. Something was wrong with his vision. Although his eyes remained fixed on the reflection in the window, it was a different image that surfaced in his mind. Just a few days ago, he'd heard her voice in his head, when he'd broken down in Rossi's garden. Now he saw her face, as it had looked when she'd told him, "I would have, yes. If someone had threatened my life like that, I would have done exactly what you did. That doesn't make you like them."

She would have done it. JJ, his best friend, whose face he'd looked at a million times, whose eyes he'd drowned in more often than he would ever admit. She would have done exactly as he had. If she was being truthful with him, what did that mean about her? In his mind's eye, he looked into hers, searching deeply. Would he find her changed? Would he see her external beauty housing a rotten core?

He didn't. He couldn't. It wasn't there. All he'd ever been able to see, all he could still see, was love, and loyalty, and friendship. Her external beauty was a constant, but his memory could never conjure it without it being enhanced by the beauty inside. Even when he looked at her in the flesh, he never really saw JJ's face anymore. He saw JJ.

And then it came to him. Finally, it came to him. With most of the others, it had simply been a phase, an exercise, looking at himself as they looked at him. But with JJ, it was different. It had always been different. She'd gotten closer. He'd let her in. And she'd accepted what she'd seen inside him, and loved him, either because of it or in spite of it. The depth of their friendship was such that her gaze had become his. He could no longer look into himself through his own lens alone. His vision had become shaped, in part, by hers. Thus, as she could not see past the good in him, neither could he.

Maybe we're both just blind.

He would find out, soon enough. His immediate future was determined now. He would return to the FBI, and the BAU. Ironically, as he was in the best physical shape of all of them save Garcia, he would be the first to return. He would start in on finding out who had hurt his friends, and who had made a train wreck of his life. At the moment, it looked as though both roads might lead in the same direction. To Scratch.

He would find Peter Lewis. And he would bring him to justice. Whether he was the man Cat Adams believed him to be, or the man JJ believed him to be, would be found out. Because, if he was as Cat said, he would do more than demand justice.

He would impose it.