Damage
Spencer came to tied to the same kitchen chair JJ had been hours earlier. He had a massive headache, and the dim morning light was far too bright, searing his eye sockets. He squinted and tried to focus, working his bruised jaw at the same time. That's when he smelled it. That horrible reek. The burning entrails that kept the evil at bay. Only it didn't. The bad was right here.
Gideon sat directly in front of him, and everything came rushing back at once. Spencer struggled to loosen the bindings around his aching wrists and arms. Reid noticed that Gideon had a syringe in his hand, and where was... oh god. JJ... god, Jennifer.
"Where is she, Gideon? Is she in that room? Is she?" Spencer yelled, ignoring the screaming pain in his head. "What are you doing? What- "
Gideon held his hands up,"Spencer, calm down, she's alright... she's alright. I'll answer all your questions if you just calm down now. You have a concussion, you need to quiet down and just listen to me.
Spencer looked at the syringe in Gideon's hand. "What are you doing with that? What are you doing with ANY of this?" Spencer looked around the room. "Why are we here, Gideon, what are you trying - what's your endgame?"
Jason looked at Reid's confused, battered face and took a deep breath. He sat down across from Spencer again, slowly. "I've been watching you, Spencer. Watching your struggle. I've seen what you've been going through since I left. I've seen you come through your addiction, your recovery. I've seen you fall in love, and I like to think I was there for the very beginning of that. I've seen you come back to yourself, Spencer. And now you need to keep moving forward, to keep realizing that there is no limit to who and what you can become. What you can achieve for the betterment of society is staggering. But you don't see it. And you never will as long as you stay with them."
"What are you talking about? What does this have to do with the murders? Kidnapping JJ, luring me here...? Are you behind the Hankel connection? Only you would think to call the UnSub by that name, knowing what it would do to me. How it would freak me out – GOD, Gideon! I wanted to call you in on this case! Nobody agreed with me but I just knew you could crack it." Spencer gave a bitter laugh. "Yeah... never knew how close I was to..."
"No," Jason interrupted. Let me talk, Spencer. All your questions will be addressed, I promise you".
"Why should I believe anything you say? Look at us! We're tied up, trapped... and you sitting there with a needle in your hand. Is that Dilaudid? IS IT?" Spencer's voice was like a cracking whip. He was desperate, and getting more so by the moment. He needed to get free, to get to JJ.
"This isn't for you, Spencer. Unless you force me to use it, unless you refuse to calm down. This...", and he held up the needle, "...is for her."
Spencer stared, wide-eyed, mouth open, and couldn't believe his ears. "No.", he mouthed, shaking his agonized head, "God, Gideon, not her! Tell me you haven't - ". Spencer's mind was whirling, hot tears burning his eyes now. He had to get through to Gideon, make him listen.
Spencer made his voice as calm as he could. "I'll do whatever you want, I will. Just tell me what it is you want me to do... why you took her, what it is you need. Listen to me, listen... I'll go with you, anywhere you say, let her go and I'll - "...
"Bargaining?," Gideon gave a wry smile. "You know that never works. And I don't think you will go with me now... not willingly. Now that she's pregnant. No, I'm going to have to alter the plan. Yes...". He stood up and paced slowly in front of his bound protege, absently thinking and murmuring to himself, passing the syringe from one hand to the other.
Spencer stopped trying to work his bonds loose, and felt like a hot machete had been stabbed into his stomach and a heavy brick had crashed into his head all at once. "PREGNANT?" It took every single bit of his resolve and training to sit perfectly still, yet every muscle was tensed, every nerve ending ablaze. He schooled his face into a blank mask of unconcern and calm, doing his best to pretend he knew. He couldn't give this to Gideon, let him know he'd shocked him into submission. Because Spencer knew, at his very core, that he would do anything this man said if it meant keeping Jennifer safe. Jennifer and now the baby... their baby.
Reid cleared his dry, scratchy throat to get Gideon's attention. "Uh... have you used it on her yet?" Spencer said, indicating the syringe with a nod of his head.
Gideon nodded. "A couple of times, just to keep her quiet. She fights me. You'd think if she really loved you she'd see what I'm trying to do for you. What I've got to do..." He replied.
Spencer's heart sank. God please don't let her be hurt, be addicted. "And what is that, exactly, Gideon? Tell me so I can understand." He was thankful that he was able to keep his voice even, keep the tremor out of it. Gideon would've surely noticed, excellent profiler that he was, or... used to be.
Excited to be able to tell the younger man his plans for him at last, Gideon sat before him on the floor. Surely he'd go along once he understood how very necessary the plan was, how very right.
"I have a place, Spencer. I've been having it built since I left. It's a place for research, for discovering your real and true potential as the brilliant human being you are... and you'll be... protected. You'll never have to deal with the darkness any more, you'll never have to leave. The murders, the brutality, the violence and the horrors that men visit upon each other every day, every hour will soon be scrubbed from your flawless mind, and you'll be free to develop means and ways, proving theory and courses of study that psychological scholars will laud for all time. You'll be legendary, even revolutionary... and you'll be free. Free from these struggling ants that pull you down with their mundanity, with their slogging around in the viscous guts of dead bodies, rotting corpses, and mutilated victims. No more will you be compelled to seek approval and acceptance from those limited minds, wallowing in stinking human excreta every day of their ordinary, sickening lives... god, son, you're so far above them, it's unfathomable. I've cried over it, Spencer. Over your predicament. And the only thing to do, the only thing, was this. There is no other choice, if you are to survive."
Spencer let him finish, then looked in his eyes and said "Yes, you are so right. I don't know why I didn't see it for myself."
Gideon's joy at Reid's response was palpable. His shoulders dropped, and he exhaled and looked down at the floor with relief.
"... See for myself how truly insane you've become.", Spencer finished.
Seizing his moment, he grunted and brought his foot up from the floor with all his might, catching Gideon under the chin and lifting him up and flinging him onto his back on the coarse wooden floor. His hands finally free from the ropes, he rolled out of the chair, snatching up the fallen syringe of Dilaudid and stabbing it into Gideon's neck before the shocked, stronger man had time to react, releasing the entire dosage into his bloodstream.
Spencer didn't even look back as he jumped up from the floor and ran to the next room, banging the door open and seeing her...his goddess, still unconscious with her hands cuffed behind her. Her back was to the door and he ran around to the other side of the bed and bent down, out of breath and worried out of his mind for her, he knelt and stroked her face, willing her to wake up. He kissed her forehead and began murmuring her name over and over as his hand stroked her hair softly, gently. Spencer remembered her words then, the words she'd spoken to him that awful day in the hospital, the words that had penetrated his fog and had woken him up to the beautiful mess that had been her, that day. He put his lips to her ear and said, "Baby, please, wake up. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here for you, please… ".
Spencer's breath caught and his heart leapt as he saw her beautiful blue eyes flutter open once, twice... then he sagged with relief as he saw her focus on him, her vivid eyes catching his, and her small smile bringing fresh tears to his own ravaged eyes.
"About time.", she whispered.
A shadow cast over the two of them and Spencer's head snapped up. There was Gideon holding on to the doorjamb with one hand, Spencer's gun in the other. He was leaning heavily against the door, fighting the effects of the drug, and he was angry.
"You tricked me, Spencer", he growled. You didn't see, you didn't. And that's too bad... because now she has to die."
He raised the gun and pointed it directly at JJ's back and Spencer screamed "NO!", as he rose up over her and stretched his arm out to stop the bullet with his bare hand if need be, making himself the target instead of Jennifer.
Two shots rang out, and Spencer collapsed on top of JJ, pinning her and scanning her, panicky, looking for bullet holes, when Gideon fell. Forward, like a tree trunk, face-first onto the floor. Spencer gazed at his back, feeling detached, like he was underwater, everything slow, and seeing two red holes growing larger with every moment. He lifted his head to the doorway...
...and there stood Hotch and Emily, guns drawn, the barrels still smoking.