Chapter 14

Taking it Back

So I have three days to prepare myself.

One of the first things I ask for is something so I can write a couple of letters…three letters…not one for each day. Actually maybe I need to write four.

Gideon – I want to explain why this happened…though I think he knows.

Hotch – I need to apologise and say my farewells.

Mum – I want to send her my final chatter message. I don't need to tell her what is going on though. She doesn't need to know.

Floyd – A letter…A goodbye and a promise. A love letter I suppose you could call it.

But I need to be careful. I don't want them guessing my plan. I will write them all on the final day…and then it will be too late by the time they read them. Until then I will plan in my mind what I will say to the people I love.

I will have to assume that the routine will be the same…and I will be in the same shower. The head of the shower will be just right. I can tie the belt around my neck…in the water it will obviously become sodden and virtually impossible to undo again. I don't think…I probably mentioned this…but I don't think they will be in a hurry to save me. I will have five minutes and that is ample time to kill myself in. The belt around my neck…and around the shower head…You will be amazed how useful learning your knots can be throughout your life. I don't know what they are all called. Did I ever? How could I have forgotten? I'm not permitted to forget things…my mind wont let me…every nasty sordid detail of my life is recorded up there…everything except the names of knots it would seem….and I briefly wonder if there are actually other things I might have forgotten…Well that's something I will never know. For now I will plan this….I will go to the shower and I will keep the towel around me…and I will have to sneak the belt off my jeans and into the shower with me. I will slip it quickly around my neck. Mentally I will do this a thousand times over so when it happens it is quick. I will then half tie the loop on the other then…turn on the water…hold onto the shower head and pull myself up…slip the loop over and let go. Elastic belt…I am aware of that…but I will ensure I wont fail. I cant fail.

So I am sitting here and I go over it again and again in my head….and as I think about it one hand is playing over my neck…and I am feeling where the belt will dig in and cut off my supplies…the other hand skims quickly over my belt…over and over again

Three days.

I watch as a food tray slides under my door.

"Excuse me." I say and I stand up.

The guy stops and looks at me. "Yes?"

"I need to write some letters. Is there a way that can be organised?"

"I'll see what I can do."

And he turns and walks away….I move to the bars and I find my fingers are wrapping around them and my forehead is resting against them and I need to get out. I need so desperately for someone to understand…realise what happened…and let me out. I need Floyd. Where the hell is Floyd?

-o-o-o-

"Stop….for fucks sake stop kicking me you fucking bastard."

He's not going to….so I shut up…I curl up as small as I can and let him kick me. I don't know what's happened to Hotchner but really I should try to stay with him…but this stupid ape isn't going to let me and so I keep my arms around my head now trying to keep as many kicks away from my face and head as I can.

Someone stop him …in the name of G'hazahagard….who you have probably never heard of, but in his name…fucking stop hitting me!

When it finally does stop I am expecting cuffs to go on my hands….but they don't. Nothing actually happens. I open my eyes a crack and realise I have been kicked up against the wheels of a truck which stopped suddenly and somewhat fatally in the middle of the street. My back is pressed hard against the tyre and I am surrounded by boxes of some sort of sports drink and some crates of tomatoes which fell from somewhere…they sky? The back of the truck? I don't know…but they are forming like a wall of sorts around me. He's kicked me to the side with the other (?) rubbish. I rub at my nose and reach into my pocket for some pills…scrunch on those Floyd…they will make you feel better.

This has got to stop.

This whole load of shit has got to stop. I want to curl up tighter but I cant. I want to lay on my bed and form a Floyd ball and scream….but I cant do that either. Morgan will be back for me and so I have again choices to make.

I can heal up quick like….but to do that I need to retrieve that which I gave Hotch…or I can heal naturally…and that is going to hurt. So decision made I push myself up to my knees and then carefully using the crates I am on my feet. I blink a few times attempting to get my eyes to focus, but they don't want to do that….I guess I have concussion. My best bet it to just walk…this bleeding beaten lump of a person…walk to the ambulances. Morgan cant do anything if I am there unless it's legal.

Someone touches me on my back and I stop trying to move and just stand leaning on the boxes and I close my eyes. "Sir…please sit down…I will get someone to help you."

"I'm ok….I need…I – erm…the feds…where did they go?"

"Who?"

"The ni….the….the guy who I pulled out from under the car….and his little dusky friend." She still looks puzzled. "Don't worry."

"Please sit down sir. I will get someone over here. Where you hit by something."

I lower myself to a crate of something and glace up at her. "You could say that. Yeah…I was hit by something."

And in this way does a half truth become a fact.

She called someone over who was more than happy to touch me and inspect me and find where I was hurt.

"Can you walk? I would like to get you taken in for some X-rays." And I look at her. Does this mean I will be in the same hospital as Hotchner? It's a good bet…I'll take up the offer of a lift to the hospital…The bike…well what the fuck it's not mine anyway…I'll just get another when I've done what I need to do at the hospital. It's going to be busy. Carnage! Wonderful! And I didn't do it…I might have been part of the cause…but all this death ….this is Hotchner's doing. I'm going to enjoy telling him.

"I can try to walk." I say in my most pathetic voice – and the two whores who I can smell want me half carry me to an awaiting vehicle which will speed me onwards closer to my prey – I mean closer to Hotchner and Morgan.

-o-o-o-

I am given two bits of paper and a pencil. A disposable retracting one…orange plastic.

"Thank you." I say.

And I lay on the bed with my head on the pillow and I put my new treasures under it and slide my hand under to keep my fingers in contact with it. Almost as though it will disappear if I don't keep reminding it that I know it is there.

I don't want to write my messages yet. I don't want them –them being the guards – reading what I write and guessing my plan. One hand protectively on the paper and pencil…and the other plays with my belt. I should stop. I don't want them to see me doing that….they might realise what I am going to do. I cant have them interfere with my plan………………………..

And so I close my eyes as the lights dim and hopefully I will sleep. I would like to sleep until it is time to shower again….or die in my sleep. That would solve a lot of problems. There would be no blame and no guilt. It would just be done.

I'm not that lucky.

Someone shaking me is what wakes me up….

"Hey you!"

someone is shouting at me…and I roll over and look up at the faces of a huddle of guards standing in my room. "What?" did I sleep until showertime?

"You were screaming."

"I have – have nightmares." I suck in my bottom lip and have a chew on it. "I'm sorry."

They don't talk to me again they just back out and close and lock the door again and walk off. I have no idea what the time is…but the lights are still dimmed. I slide my hand under my pillow again and check on the paper and pencil. Thank the gods of Pluto – as Floyd would say – they are still there.

And suddenly I am crying…and I don't know why. I'm not sad – I'm not cross and I'm not scared. I think I am just lonely. I just want to see him one last time. I want to hold him and curl up with him…and smell that smell.

I spend my day reciting things in my head….lists…useless lists of things I have made in the past…things to take my mind of all else.

Pace….I walk from the bars to the back wall and back again…turning so swiftly sometimes that my head spins and I almost want to fall and hit my head and die. It would solve the problems. It would get me out of the way…

"I'm nothing…I'm scum…I'm filth….I'm filth….I'm filth." And I cant say anything else because I have started with the crying again. I wish I knew why…though this time…now….as I am…like a caged animal…back and forth…pacing, pacing, pacing…I cant stay here…I cant…I will….I will go mad. I will lose my mind…

"I will lose my mind!"

Did I just shout that…It feels…you know…it feels as though I shouted that. So I sit down on my bed and put my back hard against the wall and curl up and hold myself together and rock gently back and forth….back and forth….let me out…let me out…. "let me out let me out letmeout letmeout letmeoutletmeoutletmeoutLETMEOUT!"

Someone is shouting at me to shut up. I didn't realise I was talking….I let myself slide sideways and watch the tray slide under the door…but I wont be eating and they wont care. All I care about is the paper and pencil under my pillow.

-o-o-o-

I don't remember what happened…but I know Flanders was there…and the feeling is very strange. It is almost as though the man has his hand inside my chest and is keeping me alive. I can feel him there…sense him inside me…

It feels as though my soul….my spirit...the thing which makes me who I am has been raped. Someone is talking to me and a cold cloth is placed over my brow.

"……gent Hotchner?" I catch the end of it and I blink back the enormous amount of pain I am in and look at the doctor standing at the side of my bed. "Agent Hotchner?" The voice repeats…and I lick my dry lips and try to move my arms and look at my hands but I cant move. "Don't try to move." I am told. Too late. I have tried and nothing happened.

"What? What happened?" my voice is dry and rough and my throat is sore. "A drink?" I ask.

And the doctor places a cold white waxed paper straw at my lips and allows me to suck some of the lovely water into my mouth. I don't swallow it at first. I let it lay there…soaking in. I slosh it around my teeth and bath my tongue in it…then slowly I swallow.

"You were hit by a car." I am told, but I don't remember. What I remember is seeing Flanders….I remember walking across the road to talk to him, at least trying to. I don't remember anything else. Vague background memories of Flanders talking to me….touching me…taking away some of my pain. Helping me? He could have killed me in the street but he helped me. "You were lucky…a passerby gave you first aid at the scene, but you have a broken left shin and your right arm just below the elbow."

"A passer-by? Where is he…I would like to say thank you."

"Hotch." Morgan's voice. "Thank god you're awake." I look at him and I can see the worry etched across his face.

"Morgan…Flanders."

He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry Hotch. I took care of him."

"He was helping me."

But Morgan isn't listening…I watch him rub his hands together. "He is the reason Reid is locked up. He might have helped you…but for what reason?"

Thinking though is hard…my head hurts…and I just need to sleep. "Find him." I mumble as sleep and drugs take hold of me again and I slide back into a world with no pain or light.

-o-o-o-

I have to get to see Hotchner…and it's not that hard to do. I need to take back what I gave him…he wont need it now. He will be OK now. I don't even know why I did it. I refuse to let the reason be that Spencer would have wanted me to do it.

I don't do favours.

I don't know why I did it.

They have left me in my cubical. They have cleaned me up…told me I have a broken rib…and it is bound up and I am feeling too hot…much too hot…fucking hate hospitals I do. So I move away…I don't know what I am waiting for…they put some stitches in…they clipped bits of ripped flesh back together again…and I have a horrible feeling that Morgan knows I am here…I have to move…and find Hotchner and get my self whole again…then I can try to help Spencer…

Damnit…all too much…all too fucking much.

They – these agents – they need to learn to trust me. Will Hotchner now? Now that part of me is in him…it makes me feel ill to think about it. I am sure I have gone a strange shade of green…Fifth floor…I know he is up there…easy to find…because I am there too…with him…A deep breath…a quick deep breath…punching the button for the fifth floor and the door slide shut and I want to scream and cry and attack and eat and fuck….but I have to stay in control…I have to do this for Spence. I need him. My finger runs over the dog tag. "I need you." I whisper to myself.

'PING'

And the door opens…the corridor is far from empty but I cant see Morgan from where I am standing. Home run…Free…so here I am moving fast…and through the door…

Hotchner is laying on the bed and a nurse is with him…taking his temperature. "Is he going to make it?" I ask almost as though I give a shit.

She turns and looks at me. "He is battered and broken…but he will mend. Are you a friend." And I shake my head slowly.

"He has something of mine." And as I walk forwards I see the sunshine glinting through the window. "I just want to talk to him." I tell her…and she nods and starts to walk off as I stand next to the bed and look at the sleeping form.

"We have to help Spencer." I tell him. "I would confess to what I did, but I don't know if that will help him any." I run a finger over his chest. "It might make things worse for him…if they know for sure what I did." I pick up a hand. "This might hurt…I have to take it back again. I need it." I don't know if he understands me but he squeezes my hand and I think he does. Somewhere deep inside I think he understands.

So I put his hand down and I lay both hands on his chest.

I am concentrating…

………..that is why it happened……..

part of me wasn't there at all…and another chunk was concentrating.

Thus I didn't realise something was wrong until the hands grabbed me. One on my collar and one on the back of my jeans. I feel my feet leaving the floor and I feel a strange sucking sensation as I am once again ripped away from Hotchner….and a weird swinging then I am flying…back first…through the air. I can see Morgan's face as my already bruised body smacks against the window….I can see my own shadow as the grinding popping sound lets me know that the force has taken the window out of it's housing….well at least the glass part of it…and I'm not stopping….I'm not sliding to the floor…I am carrying on…out of the window…and slowly…in slow motion…I spin…and fall…and spin…and I put my hands out and I can feel the rough stone of the wall under my fingers….Then there is void…and I can see the sky.

It is a lovely sunny day and I can feel, as I slam into car which had been carefully parked in the bay that it has heated up the metal - I can feel the heat against my skin…and I think my skull sort of exploded. I'm not sure…but I did hear my spine snap….and my head is definitely at a funny angle….But yes…they sky is really very fucking lovely blue.

For a few seconds I hear people scream…

Then silence.