"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift." -Mary Oliver

…

Spencer Reid did not often experience confusion. But here he was, clutching Gideon's letter again —again, like he hadn't memorized the words. He clutched it now when he wanted to feel the paper beneath his fingertips. Rocking back and forth on his sofa, he gazed at the tattered paper. The words had faded from the years of being battered around in his wallet. He returned here whenever he needed answers.

The answers he sought now would not erupt from this ancient, tattered piece of paper. But the crinkling against his fingertips soothed him nonetheless. He repeated it, focusing on the grounding of the stimulation.

His new upstairs neighbors had an old television. It emitted a high-pitched electronic whine whenever they turned it on. It drove him insane. He was fortunate he wasn't home often enough for it to become a regular disturbance, but now it whirred overhead again, something they certainly couldn't hear but he certainly could. Very few people ever heard the noise electronics made the way he did. That was why he disliked them —or part of the reason, anyway.

Paper was stimulating. Paper felt good under his fingertips. Tablets and computers were sensory hell with their bright, blue light backdrops. Paper was familiar.

Donning his headphones, Spencer pressed play on his walkman CD player. The headphones sealed off the external sounds of the apartment, the lights and his neighbors' television. Maybe I ought to buy them a new television. Would that be too forward, replacing an outdated electronic with a newer, quieter one? Perhaps. Would it be worth the exchange of no longer hearing the electrical whine whenever he was trying to relax or think? The pleasant sounds of Für Elise floated to his ears, droning out the other nuisances.

Think. He needed to think. He folded the corner of Gideon's note back and forth, fidgeting with it.

"Reid." The summoning made him lift his head. He stole a glance back at the board, but the inclination of Hotch's head indicated he had no intention of speaking about the case. Spencer followed him from the conference room. Hotch closed the door behind them so JJ couldn't hear their exchange. "If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me." Hotch's dark eyes glittered under the fluorescent lights of the police station.

The glint sent Spencer's heart thundering in his chest. He carefully avoided eye contact. It was easier to stare off to the side, at the slope of Hotch's shoulder. "I can't." He swallowed, licking his chapped lips. "I didn't come to your house crying for ten weeks." He ducked his head, starting to shuffle away in the hopes of Hotch letting him escape with ease.

Hope, however, had never served him as much as he would've liked. Hotch caught him by the shoulder with the heel of his hand. He guided him into the corner. Spencer pressed his mouth into a tight, nervous line. He stole glances at Hotch's face, trying to gauge his expressions without making eye contact. His whole body warmed at the contact of Hotch's hand against his shoulder. Sweat prickled on his skin. "Then maybe you should have."

Hotch's hot breath fanned across his face —he glanced up and decided, No, we're not close enough for that, I just imagined it, but the imagination didn't detract from the sensation. Hotch held him at arm's length. "I —I couldn't." His voice wanted to remain trapped in his throat. "You weren't here. You were in the Middle East."

"Exactly. I ran." Spencer blinked in surprise. It was an admission, but it was stated like an imperative; he didn't know how to interpret it, or what type of response Hotch wanted from him. "I decided to lie to several people who are very important to me, and instead of sticking around to handle it myself, I requested a transfer overseas effective immediately and left JJ to pick up the pieces of a decision I made." Spencer's face twitched at the flat statement. "I tasked her with the assembly of the false identities, with the accumulation of the bank accounts, and then I left her to comfort four of our grieving friends because I couldn't do it." What was Hotch doing? Admitting himself a coward? He still wasn't blinking as he said it. Spencer couldn't stop blinking, and his fingers slid up and down the dark denim of his pants, seeking some sensation. "Every time she saw you, she called me and asked me, begged me, to make an exception for the team, or even just for you, sometimes in tears herself —and every time, I told her no, we couldn't compromise Prentiss like that, regardless of who it hurt. And I didn't have to look at any of you until the decision was made to bring her back."

Spencer's eyes burned. He wanted to cry again, but crying in front of Hotch would be one of the most embarrassing things he had ever done, so he bit the inside of his cheek and focused on the pattern of the hems of the pockets of his jeans where his fingers traced them. Hotch raised his eyebrows. "Does that change your mind about who deserves your anger?"

Logically, Spencer knew it should, at least in part. Logically, he knew JJ had not made any executive decisions about what happened to Emily. Logically, he knew she would have been reprimanded for compromising Emily's location, possibly even fired. Spencer considered himself a man of logic. But no logic could explain the splintering sensation in his chest, like someone had dropped a glass vase inside of him and the shards and fragments impaled his cells from the inside out. "It should," he acknowledged, "but… it doesn't."

For whatever stupid reason, Spencer couldn't be angry with Hotch. He couldn't be angry because that other feeling, that unfamiliar feeling, shattered him, so similar to the shattering he'd felt when JJ told them Emily had died. And when it shattered him, he lost all of his anger.

Since they'd come home, Spencer spent a lot of time thinking about the feeling. He had reached one name for it in conclusion: heartbreak.

This raised another serious question for Spencer: Why would being deceived by Hotch make him so heartbroken? Sure, he'd initially felt it about JJ's betrayal, but it hadn't taken more than a few days for the shock to wear off and utter fury to replace it. He'd had weeks now to consider what Hotch had said to him, and he still wasn't angry, and he still was hurt. Why? It made no sense. Hotch had no reason to prioritize him over the rest of the team, nor had he ever given any indication he would do such a thing on Spencer's behalf. He had no reason to expect Hotch would treat him differently or care about his feelings. Why was he so fixated on this?

For the same reason, he supposed, Hotch kept appearing in his dreams, and the same reason his touch was so polarizing compared to everyone else's. (Of course, Spencer never liked to be touched, but with Hotch, it set him aflame with some mingling adoration and terror and robbed him of his ability to focus on anything else, somehow simultaneously sensory bliss and sensory hell, which elicited confusion, and Spencer did not like to be confused, so he spent his days avoiding any physical contact with Hotch while also wondering with mixed dread and awe when it would happen again.) Spencer had a great suspicion about himself, increasingly confirming itself each time he dreamed about lying in Hotch's embrace.

But he had to be sure.

Unfortunately, this was not a matter he could validate by opening a textbook (and he had opened a great many in this attempt). Spencer never confirmed biases within himself.

If I were a science experiment, I would have a control group and an experimental group. In this case, he imagined the experiment. The control group would be women and the experimental group men, and he would report his findings after each encounter in a journal and eventually reach a conclusion to confirm or reject his hypothesis.

However, because he was not an experiment and because he found the idea of sleeping around with strangers for the sake of science incredibly icky, he fell to plan B: Consult an expert.

He needed an expert on Spencer Reid, someone who didn't see him through rose-tinted glasses. Not himself… He ground his jaw. Ordinarily, he confided in Morgan or Emily or JJ. But this wasn't a question he wanted to ask Morgan, and now he had lost confidence in JJ. And Emily? He didn't know if she could be unbiased, and he couldn't have her projecting her own experiences onto him when she gave him an answer. He was going to have to leave Virginia to find another unaffiliated party who was also an expert on Spencer Reid.

But Hotch was right. He had behaved badly. His behavior with JJ was uncalled for —his anger was misplaced. It wasn't her fault he couldn't direct it where it truly belonged. Guilt plagued him. If his suspicions were correct, he had deceived her —had deceived all of them, really, about who he was. He needed to apologize.

Pausing Beethoven from playing in his ears, Spencer reached for his phone. JJ was still his first speed dial from the sheer number of times he had called her, sick with grief. And in spite of everything, she picked up on the first ring. "Spence?"

Remorse pierced him. "JJ?" Her voice was so familiar and soft, like coming home. "I, um… I needed to apologize."

"Spence, no, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Yeah, I did. I didn't —I didn't have any right to talk to you that way, and I'm sorry."

"You were hurt. You had every right to be upset. I'm sorry."

Spencer licked his lips. "I know you did what you had to do to protect her, since she's your…" He drifted off. JJ hadn't named her affiliation with Emily, and it wasn't his business to invade their nomenclature. "…and I know you'd do it to protect me, too, or any of us. I shouldn't have been so angry. It wasn't right." He trailed off, thinking. "Listen, I —I need a few days."

"A few days?" JJ repeated.

"Yeah. A week, maybe. I, um…" He bit his lower lip. What was a good explanation? The truth, if only part of it, maybe. "I think I'm going to go see my mom." Should he add on? Make it more believable? "I mean, because —because I tell her things in my letters, and I haven't seen her in so long anyway, but I think I've got some things to tell her that will be easier to say in person."

She sounded perplexed, but she accepted it. "Okay, Spence, take as long as you need."

"You'll tell the others?"

"Sure. Are you sure you're okay? Do you need anything?"

"No —No. Thanks, JJ." Spencer listened to her breathing on the end of the line for another long moment before he ended the call.

She had believed him, at least as far as he could tell —and beyond that, he didn't really care. He had a journey to embark upon, one of self-discovery, and he couldn't hang on the team now. Just like in all the novels. Spencer had never cared for fiction much, but now, he was Frodo. He packed his bags, prepared to head to Las Vegas.

…

Aaron sat behind his desk above the bullpen, paperwork sprawled before him —paperwork seemed like a fitting distraction from everything in his head right now. As he worked, he sipped his coffee. One of the papers had a coffee ring on it. He hoped Strauss didn't notice. Lately, he had trouble sleeping, though for different reasons than before.

Before, every night, he heard Haley die. He awoke in a cold sweat, and he crawled into Jack's twin-sized bed with him, where he somehow slept more restfully than anywhere else. Perhaps the discomfort in the twin bed made it impossible for his brain to conjure up something worse than half of his body dangling off of a mattress trying to keep from rolling over onto Jack in odd contortionist mannerisms until finally the exhaustion wore him down to sleep. He dreaded the nightmares, but at least he knew he could make them go away by smelling Jack's hair. He prayed that, by the time Jack was old enough to tell him to get the hell out of his bed, he had a handle on the nightmares.

These days, though, Haley and Foyet featured less often in his sleeping hours. He had anxiously awaited this day to come, but instead, the nightmares had been replaced by some of the most uncomfortable dreams he had ever had before in his life.

It was Reid. Of course it was Reid. If it had been anyone else, he might've been more comfortable with it —no, no, he reminded himself, other people would be worse. As much as the dreams about Reid made him squirm internally (never betraying any of this in public, masking himself better than Batman), the matter would be worse if it had been Dave, or Garcia, or Morgan. At least Reid was his type.

Massaging the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, Aaron stared at the paperwork. His type? He had almost forgotten he had ever had a type. He and Haley had met in high school, and the break they had taken in college seemed so fleeting in comparison to the rest of their lives together —a two year break, enough to learn more about himself and enough to know he wanted to spend the rest of his life with one person, with Haley. Indeed, he knew he had a type, both for men and for women. He liked independent, capable women who knew what they wanted and would ask him for it. He liked quieter, more bookish, subtle, quirky men.

But he wasn't ready to like anyone, probably ever again.

Just the thought made him itchy in his suit.

He had considered it once when Jessica had asked, "Doesn't Jack deserve a mother?" He had looked at her, brow furrowed, and insisted, "He has one." He wouldn't let Haley disappear from their collective memory so easily, and he surely wouldn't try to replace her, not for himself and not even for Jack. But later that night he had tossed and turned and sweated profusely at the mere suggestion.

Haley had lived her life fearful his job would rob her of her husband, Jack of his father, and in a twist of devastating irony, it robbed her of her life instead. His job, which Haley always touted as too dangerous, had reared its ugly head and stolen her away. He already battled the chronic fear, the constant worrying, that the same would happen to Jack. He couldn't face the anxiety of roping another partner into this life and putting them at risk, as well.

No, Foyet had sealed his fate. He was a widower and bachelor for life. He wouldn't make the mistake of allowing someone else near to him so they could be hurt by this life. The BAU was his choice. His decisions had hurt too many people already.

People like Reid. His mind kept drawing back to Reid. Had he been too frank with him? I needed him to stop antagonizing JJ. JJ was too good of an agent to have Reid at her throat during an active investigation. More than that, Aaron couldn't allow another woman to take the fall for his choices, however minor. But since the confrontation, Reid had become as skittish as a deer around him —not that that was unusual for Reid. The man, for all of his genius, could be somewhat fickle with his mood swings. And Aaron hadn't made a point of keeping him close, either. He didn't deliberately avoid him for fear of raising suspicions. But he didn't seek out his company. He needed no more fodder for the dreams.

Gazing at the white papers upon his desk, he tilted his head, remembering the dream from last night. Reid's hair had smelled like cinnamon. He remembered it so distinctly, the cinnamon and spice aroma rising from him, something he had recognized unconsciously after years of working beside him but which only struck him as Reid now when his subconscious drew it to his attention. Reid had turned, nude, in his arms and rested his cheek upon Aaron's chest, and Aaron had cradled him, petting him and relishing in his touch.

Years had guided Aaron into an expert at masking his emotions. He had no doubt he could continue to lead his team without any incidents, Reid included. It didn't even hurt, knowing Reid would never feel anything for him —he expected it. Haley had hardened his resolve by teaching him those he loved would scarcely love him back in the same way. No, he didn't want anything from Reid (in fact, all he wanted was for the dreams to go away), but he didn't like knowing he had hurt him.

He had hurt his whole team. Dave had been furious with him —and Aaron was glad he was the proper recipient of the anger, not Emily and certainly not JJ. He'd listened to Dave's list of grievances, his brief rage-filled arrogant ravings, and then he had come down with tears in his eyes and relief lifting from his shoulders, and Aaron was grateful it was over. Morgan had his misgivings about the situation, Aaron knew, but he was too grateful to have Emily back to care, and Garcia was too kind and bright to lash out at any of them.

Reid, though, Reid was frail. His headaches haunted him. He struggled to sleep. His chattery little brain never quieted enough for him to know any peace. His education had fast-tracked him through life and left him a vulnerable adult who had never really learned how to be a child but still hadn't grown into his father's shoes. Aaron hadn't anticipated how much this would impact him. I should have. Reid had confided in Emily. It took so much for him to trust authority figures after what his parents had forced him to endure —Aaron knew this, he knew he still didn't fully have Reid's trust, knew that Reid had only ever really trusted Gideon and Gideon alone —and then everyone had broken that fickle bond.

I need to talk to him. He hadn't heard Reid mention the movies in quite a long time. That didn't mean Reid wasn't going to the movies, but it made the hair on the back of Aaron's neck stand up, thinking of the risk it posed. His team had fought a war and won. They couldn't afford to lose Reid now.

He couldn't afford to lose Reid now.

However silly it was, Reid brought him some wry form of joy, the way he rambled at random and reveled in his statistics and piddled with his magic physics rockets and always wore that goofy, sheepish half-smirk. Aaron had so few sources of joy left in his life. He didn't want to risk losing one of them.

A quick rap at his office door drew his attention. Aaron lifted his head from his paperwork, though he hadn't marked on the page in the last ten minutes at least. "JJ," he greeted. Her solemn expression filled the room with thick tension. "Come in."

She entered the room, standing in front of his desk and shifting her weight from foot to foot. As she halted, she squared up, crossing her arms and setting her jaw. "Spencer called me this morning. He said he needs to take a few days off." She lingered in front of his desk at the statement, planting herself there, a tree with its roots anchoring it to the ground.

Aaron waited with bated breath. She didn't finish, so he ventured, "He has unused PTO. If he needs a few days, he can take a few days."

JJ sighed. "You know that's not why I'm concerned." Aaron raised his eyebrows, encouraging her to continue. "I think he's relapsed."

"He's been clean for almost five years. What makes you think that?" Aaron pretended his heart didn't skip a beat at JJ's words, pretended JJ had no reason to suspect, but the little voice in his head whispered, She's his best friend; she knows him better than anyone; she wouldn't bring it up if she didn't have valid cause for concern, and other damnations.

"When he called me this morning, he apologized to me. Spencer —he doesn't interpret messages the right way all the time, you know that. He would never apologize over something like that. Not unless he was feeling extremely guilty about something else."

She has a point. "Something he can't say," Aaron mused. His heart sank. Nobody knew Reid better than JJ. "Has he been going to NA?"

She swallowed hard, shaking her head. "No, he —he stopped a few years ago. He said he was learning things about drug use there that he didn't want to know." Nobody is more creative with drugs than a bunch of addicts talking to each other for an hour. "It wasn't just what he said, Hotch. He didn't sound right. He sounded really —really lost. Like he didn't know what to do with himself."

"Is he staying in town?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. He said he was going to see his mother to tell her some things in person. He said she wouldn't understand in a letter."

"Do you think he was telling the truth?"

JJ shrugged. "I —I think so." She looked up at him, unfolding her arms for the first time since she entered his office. "Do you want me to go check on him? I can try to catch him before he makes it to the airport…"

Aaron shook his head. "No. I'll go." He pushed back from his desk, stacking things in a neat order so it appeared he had tried to repair the state of disarray he had created. "Call me if you need anything."

Her brow quirked. "You're not going to Nevada, are you?"

He frowned. His eyes darted up to JJ's face, holding contact. "If that's where Reid is, then I guess I am." He couldn't leave Reid to wander the world alone, especially if he had relapsed. But something prickled in the back of Aaron's mind. Why would Reid go to Las Vegas if he had relapsed? That wasn't something he would advertise to his mother of all people, nor would he be particularly fit to board a plane. Aaron was hopeful JJ was wrong.

But if she was, what on earth had prompted this sudden shift in his demeanor?

Giving a curt nod to JJ, Aaron passed by her on his way out of the office. He strode out of the bullpen. Eyes followed him; he ignored them. JJ would fill them in. Catching up with Reid was imperative if he didn't want to take a flight to Las Vegas. He stopped only at the office door of Penelope Garcia, drumming his fingers against the wood. She never has her door closed.

"Sir?" Aaron turned at the summoning. Garcia stood there, bags spilling over on herself, keys in her hand and extended as if to unlock the door only to find him blocking her path. He stepped back from her trail to the door to allow her passage, but she held his gaze. "What's wrong?" What's wrong? "I mean, not that anything would be wrong, just that I'm not late, and you're here, so there must be a reason you're here, but of course you can be here any time, it's just a matter of…" She paused, gulped, and then amended, "What can I do for you today, sir?" as she approached the door and quickly unlocked it, entering the dark room.

Garcia flicked on a switch, and all of the screens illuminated the office. "I may need some information from you later. I'm giving you the heads up now because it needs to be kept under the table."

"Under the table, sir?" she repeated. "What —What kind of information are we talking about?"

No need to worry her without cause. He had no reason to think Reid was unsafe yet. As far as he knew, Reid was still at his home, packing his bags and preparing everything he needed to make an impromptu trip across the country. "I'll call you if I need you. But anything we discuss cannot leave this room. Is that understood?"

She gulped. I've already worried her. "Yes, sir."

Aaron nodded to her. "Thank you, Garcia." Time to get her flowers again. After everything she had done for this team, she deserved a reward. She needed to know she was appreciated. He left her office and headed for the elevator.

The road to Reid's apartment was busy, everyone caught in traffic on their way to work, and after too long a period of time, Aaron parked in the guest lot. He paused outside the building, surveying it, judging it. Low crime area. It was a nice complex. I've never been here before. He wondered if anyone in the team had. JJ, probably, and Prentiss. Maybe Garcia and Morgan. Entering the front door, Aaron followed the carpeted staircase up to the fourth floor. Another stretch of bland, patterned carpet spanned before him.

The upstairs neighbors thumped around. That must drive Reid crazy. Reid had once marched across the silent, mostly empty bullpen, stood beneath the black-screened television resting innocently and quietly on the wall, and ripped the plug from the wall, announcing, "I can't take that noise anymore." No one else had noticed the electrical whine stemming from the television, but for Reid, the buzzing was tormenting.

Aaron paused outside of Reid's apartment door. He cracked his knuckles against the wood in this nondescript hallway of this nondescript apartment building which held a man who was exactly the opposite of nondescript. "Reid?" he called. He put his eye to the peephole, but he couldn't see through to the other side. "Reid, open up." Perhaps he couldn't issue an imperative to Reid while they weren't at work, but he knew Reid would respond to a direct order no matter the circumstances. He went belly up when he was tasked assertively.

But the door did not open. I must have missed him. Aaron reached up to the top of the door frame, feeling around, but Reid kept no key there, nor did he have a welcome mat or any sort of decorative stone to hide a key beneath. He has an eidetic memory. He would never misplace his keys. He has no need to keep an extra. And Aaron had no just cause to break down his apartment door to investigate.

"Pardon me, young man?" Aaron faced the woman who had spoken, her voice —and her words, referring to Aaron as a young man —betraying her age. Wrinkles set deep into her face. "I'm sorry, but if you're looking for Spencer, you've missed him. He's going out of town. He asked me to get his mail and water his succulents while he's away."

Tilting his head, Aaron gazed back at her. "So you saw Spencer this morning?" She nodded. "How did his behavior seem to you? Was he acting erratically?"

Her brows knitted together at the questions. "Who are you exactly?"

Aaron held up his badge. "SSA Aaron Hotchner. I'm a colleague of Spencer's."

This relieved the tense lines around her face. "Oh, of course, Agent." She gave a somewhat sheepish smile. "To be honest with you, I was a little concerned. He seemed… Well, he seemed frightened, I suppose. Like he was running from something. He left in a hurry and said he had to see his mother. I just assumed it was a family emergency. I always get his mail and water his plants while he's away. That's actually what I was about to do just now."

"How long ago did Spencer leave?"

She considered. "An hour and a half, maybe. He said he had booked the next flight to Las Vegas and had to run." I'll never catch up to him. Aaron would have nothing to gain by rushing to the airport; Reid was already on his way across the country. He stepped out of the way so the elderly woman could open the door. "Come inside, if you like… I suppose Spencer wouldn't see anything wrong with it." Aaron followed her into the apartment.

Reid kept an abundance of plants by the picture window. The woman placed his mail on the counter and went to the plants. The apartment was scantily and randomly decorated and pristine with cleanliness. The things in frames, his PhDs mostly, were dusted and clean with no fingerprints on the glass. Reid had a couch and an armchair, but only one end of the couch was worn. This end of the couch had an extra pair of glasses resting on the end table and propped up against the leg, a clipboard, a notebook, and a pen. This is where he writes to his mother.

Aaron browsed the room and then slipped down the hallway, the woman paying him no heed.

The bathroom, also, sparkled and shone like a Mr. Clean commercial. In the bedroom, Aaron found Reid's desk, compulsively organized with his textbooks stacked in order, tagged and tabbed and notes highlighted. He studies even though he doesn't need to. Aaron tugged out the desk drawers. The top one had pens, highlighters, pencils, sticky notes, and other office supplies. The second had unused notebooks. The last held a stack of odd papers —not odd papers, Aaron realized as he sorted through them, diplomas.

In his hand, this stack of papers, he grasped all of the diplomas Spencer Reid had ever earned, starting with high school at the very bottom. His PhDs were framed on his living room wall, but these other ones? To him, they weren't even worth acknowledging, instead tucked shamefully into the lowest drawer of his desk.

To Reid, a bachelors' degree wasn't an achievement. To him, it was a failure —a failure he hadn't pursued the matter and gained a more impressive degree. Reid had stopped seeking doctoral degrees after he had joined the BAU, but endlessly he earned more undergraduate degrees, like a favorite hobby. One expensive hobby. Aaron had no doubt Reid earned every scholarship known to man and had never spent a dime on his education.

Reid kept his accomplishments buried in the lowest drawer in his room, reluctant to claim them as his own. Imposter syndrome, Aaron mused as he tucked the diplomas back where they belonged and slid the door closed. Was that possible, even from a man like Reid? Aaron had no clue.

He stepped back, admiring the crisp sheets on Reid's made bed, and then he lifted his eyes to the walls. On every wall, Reid had hung broad, foamy panels almost edge to edge. Sound absorbers. Was that to keep the sound of the raucous neighbors out? Or was it to entrap the sounds of his own nightmares when they rose to the surface so no one would worry?

"Young man, just what do you think you're doing?" The woman reminded him so much of his mother, he almost snapped around to face her in surprise. She stood at the mouth of the short, narrow hallway with her hands planted on her hips, gazing at him shamefully where she had caught him snooping. "Is Spencer in some kind of trouble?"

Aaron shook his head. "No. No, ma'am, you don't need to worry." Striding smoothly, he left the bedroom, approaching the woman, whose stern face softened as he grew nearer. "Thank you for your time. If Spencer comes back, please let him know I stopped by." He reached for his cell phone and vacated the apartment, his footsteps muffled by the dull carpet of the apartment hallways. "Garcia?"

"Speak and it shall be known."

"I need a location on Reid's cell phone."

"Reid? JJ said he's taking a few days —"

"Yes, he is. I need a location on his phone, please."

Her concern bloomed, palpable on the line, and he listened to the distinct sound of her fingers clicking across the keyboard. "His cell phone is turned off now but the last known location was at the Dulles Airport."

"Which flight did he board?"

"He's going to Las Vegas."

He was telling the truth. Reid told JJ he was going to see his mother, he told his neighbor he was going to see his mother, he went to the airport, he bought tickets to go to Las Vegas, and he boarded the flight to Las Vegas to see his mother. JJ was wrong, as far as Aaron could tell; he hadn't relapsed. Then why am I going to fly to Las Vegas anyway?

Maybe it was that JJ said Reid had to be feeling guilty about something to have apologized to her over a little spat. Maybe it was the sound absorbers on his walls, which Aaron suspected were mounted more to consume the screams from Reid's night terrors than the rowdiness from his neighbors. Maybe it was the dreams, those odd and uncomfortable dreams which were never uncomfortable in the moment, when Reid smelled of cinnamon and spice and curled so nicely against his body, complementing his every angle in a nude embrace.

Perhaps Aaron was starved for affection. Perhaps it entered his dreams and made him conjure odd scenarios with one of the men nearest to him. And perhaps that was the reason he said, "Book me the next flight to Vegas, please, Garcia?"

"But sir, isn't he just going to visit his mother?"

Maybe. Maybe not. Aaron had to be sure. A more patient man would have waited until the flight landed and called Reid, heard his side of the story, his fibs and his carefully constructed tales made specifically for this purpose, and he would have accepted it because Reid was a grown man and Aaron had to trust him to take care of himself. But Aaron was not so patient, and he couldn't accept the genius known as Spencer Reid, who stored his bachelors degrees out of sight because they brought him shame, was okay. Not without seeing it for himself. "Book the flight, please?" he repeated. "And I want to know when his cell phone turns back on."

Garcia hesitated, but she agreed, "Yes, sir." The call ended.

Aaron stepped out of the apartment building and into the late morning light, trying not to think of the ridiculousness of this whole adventure.