You don't know how long you're in that barn for. Those dogs, those feral creatures filled with rage, are dead. They can't hurt you. You're safe, you repeat these words to yourself on a loop, and you wonder when you'll start to believe them. You're hiding, waiting for Hankel, for someone, to show up. You see a group of men walk into the building and a part of you wonders if it's Hankel or more UNSUBs. Cautiously you wait until they're a little bit closer, until you see Morgan looking at the decimated body of the victim and the dogs on the floor.
Shaking, you walk out of your hiding spot, gun in hand. Morgan spots you immediately, looking worse for wear. He and Emily approach you cautiously, waiting to hear what went wrong here.
"Tobias… Tobias Hankel is the UNSUB." you stutter, the situation feeling surreal to you. Morgan nods his head; they already knew.
"We just thought he was a witness… and the dogs, they just, I had to kill them. They just tore her apart completely, there's not even anything left of her, I-" You can barely think, your brain is still stuck in survival mode, in a state of shock.
"Listen to me, Y/N, where is Reid?" Emily asks, with a state of urgency. A pit forms in your stomach, not knowing where Reid is can't be a good sign.
"He wanted to split up, he told me he was going around back and then just, he just disappeared." you tell them, but something tells you that this isn't as simple as Reid being somewhere he shouldn't.
You end up having to be looked over by paramedics while the rest of the team search the house and the barn. You wish you were in there with them but all you can see is those dogs, those creatures rushing at you. You wonder if it makes you weak. Emily comes over to check on you as the paramedics finish up, and you overhear the end of her conversation with the local sheriff - they can't find Reid.
Reid. You don't like him, he doesn't like you. The mutual distaste, hatred even, for each other has been long standing for the four months you've been on the team. And yet, something about no one knowing his location is terrifying to you, far more than it should be. Guilt, you decide, is the reason. His idea to split up was stupid, reckless even, and you should've just followed him to wherever he ran off to. Reid is gone and it feels like it's your fault.
The next morning, Garcia arrives. None of the team have her tech know-how to even think about looking at Hankel's computers without her presence. There's still no sign of Reid. The computers, which Gideon compares to the UNSUB's brain, are the main hope they have of finding him. Of finding Reid.
The rest of you start sorting through his journals, the endless writings documenting his every second. Garcia starts digging through computers. Every aspect of the life of Tobias Hankel is to be dissected in minute detail. You decide that you won't stop looking until you see Spencer Reid's obnoxious face in person again.
While digging through the endless piles of junk, you find a listing for narcotics anonymous meetings, with a name and number.
"There are no bad leads." Gideon tells you when you show him, encouraging you to follow through with the lead, as small as it might be.
You excuse yourself from the scene for a bit to go to the bathroom; you can still see the dogs in your mind and you need a moment to recalibrate and place the horrors of the night into little boxes, to be ignored now and processed later. Staring at yourself in the mirror, you can almost hear their growling ringing through your ears. It's paralysing. You barely hear Emily calling your name until she's right beside you.
"Hey, are you alright?" She asks, looking concerned - she knows it's been a rough night for you.
"I'm just tired Em, it's been a fucked up series of events ever since we got to Georgia." You sigh, and she nods in agreement.
You ask if she wants to go with you to speak to a guy who knew Hankel from a narcotics anonymous meeting and she agrees easily. JJ comes up behind the two of you, looking frazzled. It seems you aren't the only one not coping with the events of the night. By contrast, Emily acts as if this is almost a normal day on the job, unfazed by how terribly wrong this case is going.
JJ and Hotch call her out on it, as you watch on. You wonder why Emily is so good at compartmentalising if she's just off a desk job. Perhaps it was never a desk job in the first place or perhaps, like you, she learnt from a very young age how to package up feelings and never truly show them. The benefits of growing up with parents in powerful positions you suppose. Either way, you wish that you could compartmentalise this case as well as Emily was. You were tired of thinking about dogs and about blood on the floor and Spencer Reid.
Emily drives the two of you out to an address in town to meet this man who vaguely knew Hankel - a long shot, but with few leads to work with the team would take any kind of information right now.
"Tobias Hankel. I haven't thought about that boy in ten years." The man tells you, and the small hope that he might possibly know something gets even smaller.
"The two of you were in a program together?" You clarify, wanting to get every possible detail from him.
The man affirms your statement and tells you he was once Hankel's sponsor, despite being an alcoholic rather than a drug user. Tobias's drug of choice left you with a bad taste in your mouth.
"Tobias was a whole different sort of animal. He was heavy into dilaudid, used to cut it with a psychedelic." The man explained and you shuddered, thinking about the effects that combination could have on a person.
"Drugstore heroin but worse." Emily murmured to you, and you nodded in response.
"That boy was looking to escape as far from reality as he could get; there's no excuses for addiction, but if anyone ever needed to self medicate? It would be Tobias Hankel, with that daddy of his. You know anything about him?"
"At this point in the investigation we believe he might have murdered his father." You state, remembering your odd exchange with Hankel; a man scared of a father who showed no sign of being inside the house.
"Good for him." The man almost smiles and you and Emily exchange looks. Just how bad was this man's father?
He explains more about Hankel and you begin to understand, to an extent. His mother leaving for another man had caused his father to snap and turn to obsessively to religion and ideas of sinners, beating Hankel excessively as a child. You ask if Hankel has any other ties, but the man shakes his head, telling you that he was otherwise a shut-in. Emily thanks him for his time and the two of you begin the drive back to the house.
"You seem off today, are you sure you're doing okay?" Emily asks with concern.
"Don't profile me, Em." You snap, before sighing and running a hand through your hair. "Shit, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just feeling… guilty about Reid. Like, I shouldn't have let him run off after Hankel by himself."
"Whatever happens, it is not your fault, Y/N. Reid's a big boy and he makes his own decisions. Besides, we're going to find him and he's going to be fine, okay?" Emily reassures you, and you smile wanly back but the feelings of guilt and worry in your stomach don't go away.
Back at the Hankel residence, Emily informs the team of Hankel's severe drug problem, which Hotch and Gideon credit as a reason for Hankel's psychotic fracture, explaining the process to JJ.
Suddenly, Garcia calls out to the team. She found Reid; or rather someone wanted them to see him. The team crowds around the many computer screens, watching with baited breath as you see Reid tied up and clearly injured.
"Can't you track him?" JJ cries out, distressed at the sight before her.
"Hankel's only streaming to his own computer, he's rerouting to different IP addresses too quickly, I can't track him." Garcia
"This is for us. He knows we're here." Gideon states solemnly, and the entire team falls silent for a second. Morgan, clearly aggravated, starts threatening violence. JJ looks terrified. You stand there, unable to tear your eyes from the screen. That tiny voice in the back of your head tells you that you should be stuck there, not Reid. After all, are you not the reckless one?
You refocus yourself. Hankel asks Reid to pick someone to die, in exchange for a life saved. A abhorrent decision to be forced upon someone. The team watches on in silence. What more can you do other than watch? He picks a name, and Gideon works quickly to get the chosen woman to shut down her camera. As he does, the screen goes blank.
Morgan breaks a door. You stay silent. Everyone holds their breath and waits, for what else can you do but wait?
As expected, there's another murder. Another couple dead. Another couple you couldn't save. You stay behind at the house, with Morgan and JJ. You're too tense for a crime scene, too wrapped up in the fact that you and Reid should've stayed together.
You stand there, completely zoned out, not noticing Morgan walk up to you.
"Hey Y/N, shouldn't you be getting some rest? It's been a long one for you." He asks, and you clutch at your coffee mug even tighter.
"I can't rest not with Reid… Not with everything happening," you start, and then change gears. "Morgan, do you think it's my fault that Reid is gone? If he hadn't run off, if we had just stayed together, none of this would be happening."
"The fact of the matter is that one of you is here and the other one isn't. Stop beating yourself up about it and get some rest, Y/N." Morgan states, walking away from you. A part of you thinks that he secretly blames you for Reid's kidnapping - the two of them are close - but the more rational side of your brain reminds you that you have no control over the actions of Reid, of Hankel, of anyone.
You sigh, and sip your coffee. Maybe rest is a good idea.
Later, Reid appears on the screen again and again. Each time, the team witnesses horrors unfold. You watch Reid receive awful beatings. You watch Reid be tortured. You watch Reid have a seizure and almost die. In that moment you realise that after this, you can't hate Reid anymore, that you don't hate him. You don't like the man and his obnoxious tendencies, but seeing him brutally attacked by the UNSUB with very little leads as to their location, you can't hate him. If you were a crier, you'd probably have shed at least a few tears by this point. However, you take a breath and steel yourself. Reid is alive. Reid is going to be okay. You are going to be okay.
Suddenly, a breakthrough. The time between the killings and the video being posted gives you a radius for Hankel's location. It's a large zone but it's something.
"How many members on your team?" Hankel's voice, or rather, Raphael's voice comes through the tinny speakers.
"Seven." You all look around, confused. Including Reid, there's eight of you. Perhaps he's playing into the delusional nature of Hankel, using the number seven for a reason, or maybe he really does detest your presence on the team that much. You try not to think about it.
Hankel starts ranting about archangels and Hotch figures it out; he's reenacting the book of Revelations. His next statement makes you all freeze.
"Choose one to die. Your team members - choose one to die." You all wait with bated breath; what kind of logical response can Reid give to that? A part of you suspects he'll give your name, it's no secret the two of you hate - hated - each other.
And yet, after some back and forth, Reid chooses Hotch, calling him a narcissist. An odd choice of criticism; the team lists through Hotch's worst qualities and narcissism is not one of them. Hotch suddenly recalls an argument over the definition of narcissism with Reid - an argument in which he quoted Genesis, in which he mentioned a graveyard.
Of course Reid would be obnoxious enough to give you a clue via a biblical quote he'd cited days ago.
His obscure reference is enough to lead the team to a location, Marshall Parish, and you all rush to the SUV's. You didn't know how much time Reid had left, and you didn't want to think too closely about it. Reid would be fine. He would be fine and he wouldn't die because you split up in the field.
You find Reid after he somehow managed to take down Hankel in the cemetery. He was alive. Maybe not okay, but alive.
"You all right?" Hotch asks him softly, as Reid pulls him into into a hug.
"I knew you'd understand," He says, as if he were on the verge of tears. You all look on with relief and empathy.
You find you don't quite know what to do with yourself. A part of you desperately wants to hug Reid, to prove to yourself that he really is there, alive. Another part of you detests that idea, thinking it would be weird and uncomfortable for you both. You stare at him, and he looks back at you.
"Reid… I… I'm glad you're okay." You manage to get out, unsure of what else to say. He nods, and you breathe out a sigh of relief.
Morgan reaches out and squeezes your shoulder, and you smile shakily at him. It's over. It's over. It's over.
You find Reid sitting in an ambulance, waiting for the paramedics to take him to the hospital. Compelled to say more to him, you find yourself suddenly right in front of him, but without the words to truly convey how you feel. Honestly, you don't really know how you feel.
"What, Y/N?" Reid breathes out, looking tired by your presence.
"Reid, I'm so sorry. I just, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't mean for this… for this to happen." You blurt out, the guilt that has been settled in your stomach the entire case finally rearing its head.
"Y/N… It was my idea to split up in the first place. This wasn't your fault. Okay?" He sighs and you nod. Relief that he doesn't blame you floods through your veins.
Walking away towards the SUV, you wrap your arms around yourself. The tiredness from your lack of sleep finally hits you. You're exhausted from the shit show that occurred; you never want to set foot in rural Georgia again. And somehow, your feelings about Spencer Reid feel far more complicated than you were used to.