Warning: Brief mention of rape. This chapter is sort of a filler, but it still advances the plot in some ways. Enjoy. Please see the end notes.
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SUNDAY, JULY 7–MONDAY, JULY 8, 2013 | WASHINGTON DC
Her sleep was precious to her—a much needed rest after a full day of meeting the needs of concerned parents, husbands, wives, adult-children, and everything in between, or having full schedules of surgeries back to back.
Today was a slow day, wherein she'd made rounds with her surgical patients from the early morning until the early evening. Not bad at all.
Her day seemed to be wrapping up blessedly early—a rare treat on a weekend shift—as she sat at her desk to write notes and go over patient files for the next two hours. And then she was hailed shortly after six for an emergency appendectomy. It was a simple, one-hour surgery made complicated by peritonitis and ended up lasting for nearly three hours. Then she had to meet with the family post-op.
When she came home a little after ten—hungry, tired, and a bit ornery—she had burnt her microwave dinner food and had to make another. Perfect. After eating, she had to walk her lovable dog, who refused to poop for almost an hour, and who was resisting pooping in or around his crate lately.
"I love my pooch—I swear I do," she murmured. Days like today, though, when she just needed to come home and decompress, she wished everything outside of her own body stopped existing for just a little while, and that extended to Rusty.
By the time her head hit her pillow after a quick, mid-temperature shower, it was past midnight, and she would need to be up by five-fifteen to start it all again.
At sleep's edge, a noise emanated from her neighbor's apartment below. Sitting upright in alarm, she sucked in a breath.
She'd seen him a couple of times—a fine specimen of a man who wasn't afraid to flash his pearly white smile her way or give her a suave Hello while their dogs sniffed at each other in passing. She never spared him any ammunition beyond a reciprocal Hello and an affable smile. She was busy and uninterested.
On that, he seemed to be rather busy as well; sometimes after days of utter quiet below, she would hear him trotting around late in the evening or rushing out at ungodly hours in the morning—not unsimilar to her, honestly. Considering where they lived and the sidearm she saw him wearing a few times, she pegged him as someone in a governmental position or possibly a detective. Not crazy about those types.
Sometimes the older neighbor in his adjoining apartment would watch his dog for him when he was gone for days on end—at least, this is what she surmised when she would see the lovely Mrs Booker walking his dog. He was generally quiet, but there were days—if he was around on the weekends—where he would blast 90s throwbacks of the smooth jazz, rap, or the R&B variety—Sadé, Nas, En Vogue—or old episodes of Soul Train. He liked to play Illmatic often. What a throwback.
She also heard him groaning in the middle of the night a few times when she was sure there was no female—or male, she didn't know!—voice to accompany him. It sounded . . . pained. Maybe a veteran. Maybe this was PTSD.
She could sometimes gauge his mood, too, even during their brief hellos. When he was around and in a good mood, he would greet her and send his straight row of irritatingly white teeth smile at her if they passed in the hall, and he would play the music in his apartment. When he was around and in a bad mood, he would barely give her a hello and the apartment would be quiet—save for some footsteps and the trotting of his dog. It could last for upwards of a week.
She had an impeccable memory of these events ever since she'd moved to this condo four years ago. The dates were mentally marked as she tried to figure out if there was any pattern—certain dates—that might mark these changes in his mood. There was nothing distinct. But there was a long stretch where he was daily in better spirits, throwing her his Hey.
Since early April, though, the disquieting groaning was more frequent, the unsettling quiet or pacing if ever he was around. And then, nearer the end of April, he seemed to be gone for upwards of two weeks. When he returned, so did the pacing, the groaning, and—within days—the distinct sobs of a woman—and not on just one occasion. Now, nearly a month and a half later, it was happening again.
Either way, what caught her attention at this wee morning hour was neither the grunting or pacing (irritating but understandable and which she could fall asleep to) nor music (unacceptable), but the piercing sound of shattering glass.
She gasped at its suddenness and sat upright in her bed, listening for guttural roars of distress or anything. Nothing. So she shuffled out of bed, toed her way to her medical bag, and pulled out her stethoscope.
She wasn't one to violate another person's privacy, but she just wanted to ensure that he was okay. She breathed out, sat down cross-legged, and agilely leaned forward until her chest was almost flush with her wooden flooring.
His deep rumble repeated the same muffled words, but she couldn't quite make out what he was saying. He didn't seem injured.
After a few minutes, the heavy booted pacing came again, much clearer with her medical gear.
Cracking, like glass being crushed under shoes, being swept, a faucet running, and then the quiet pads of shoeless feet walking about.
She waited.
Thwump and then silence. Two minutes later, loud snoring.
She blinked incredulously, sitting straight. "The nerve to wake me up to that and just fall asleep," she murmured.
Padding back to her bed, she climbed in and slept.
—
The next morning when she awoke promptly at five-thirty, she rolled out of bed, quickly brushed her teeth, splashed her face with water, flicked the crust out from the corner of her eyes, and then changed her clothes.
Grabbing her phone, ear buds, bucket hat, and a leash, she went to the sleeping dog, gave it the smallest touch.
"Up up, Rusty!" she whispered. It sprang up energetically and she shushed it when it made a garbled bark. She attached the leash and stepped out of her condo and into the hall.
She was out of the building within ten minutes of having woken up.
She and her dog went for a brief walk; it pooped quickly—Figures—she surreptitiously chucked it in the nearest waste bin, and then they went for a run for the remaining twenty-five minutes she had before rounding the bend to the building and running up the stairs.
Five fifty-eight. Over three miles in less than 25 minutes? Damn, I'm still good. If it wasn't for Rusty's short legs, she'd have gone faster.
Both she and her dog were huffing at the steps as she stretched her muscles for a couple of minutes, and she opened the door to the condominium, walking into the hall. At the first step, she paused, and Rusty gave a grunt at the sudden tautness of his leash. Stepping back, she breathed, tapped her foot a couple of times, then back-pedaled to peer around the bend where she knew her neighbor lived.
It was quiet—as it should be at 6:02 a.m.—but curiosity and perhaps a little concern urged her to go down the hallway and stop in front of his door.
"Girl, you're buggin'," she whispered to herself. No sane person knocked on their neighbor's door this early in the morning. That there was a recipe for bad relations. Despite her misgivings, though, she raised her hand and knocked on the door, three sharp raps against the wood.
She stepped back, sure that he wouldn't answer. Soft footfalls neared the door not long after the knock. She straightened her back and tightened her hand on the leash, then waited as he stopped in front of the door before unlocking it.
His expression—hard lines cutting across handsome features—didn't waver as he looked down at her, half-hidden behind the door.
"Yeah?"
Sagging broad shoulders, and—despite the sound of his snores last night—groggy. He clearly hadn't changed out of his clothes when he'd returned yesterday, for he was wearing a dark, buttoned cotton shirt and a pair of belted black jeans, both of which were disheveled. Rather worse for wear.
"I—" she started. She squared herself again; she was a doctor, worked hard to be in her field, and didn't allow people—let alone alpha men—to make her feel small. "I heard glass breaking."
His expression didn't waver. Her dog's leash jangled below her and the canine moved about to sniff the air from his apartment.
"Early this morning?" she clarified. "Just wanted to make sure everything was okay."
"I'm good. Sorry about it," he said dismissively before pulling back.
Just before he could close the door fully, her dog bounded forward with a little Boof! and the door closed with the canine stuck in his apartment, the lead in the door jamb, and its owner bounding forward in bemusement.
"Rusty, no! Bad!" she theatrically whispered. On the other side was scuttering.
The door opened, and her neighbor was holding the canine in his hands. He handed it to her, and what she hadn't seen when he'd opened the door before was now apparent to her: there was a large, blood-clotted knuckle-to-wrist cut on his right hand, along with other smaller cuts littered across.
"Wh—this doesn't constitute as good!" She grabbed his hand before thinking. "Damn," she murmured, angling his hand before he pulled it away. "You need to get this looked at," she declared.
"Listen, miss," he started with the roll of his eyes.
"Doctor," she corrected.
He glossed over her assertion, though: "I'm good. Sorry for the noise last night. Thanks for checking in. But I'm good."
"Mm. No. I'm a doctor." She then pointed to his hand as she jutted her foot forward to prevent him from closing his door. "I can fix that right upstairs. Please, I can't let that go untreated."
Without further preamble, he rolled his eyes again and followed, shutting his door behind him.
After unlocking her apartment and flipping the switch, she threw her keys on her console. "Sit."
"Me or the dog?" he quipped.
"I don't have to tell Rusty what he already knows to do."
Her neighbor looked around for a quick moment to see that the dog wasn't even in the room, but was in the kitchen munching on his dry breakfast with little aborted grunts.
She went to her bathroom, gathered a few items, and returned to see him seated at her table, quiet and stooped over. She grabbed a hinged magnifying glass sitting on another console and dumped everything on the table after wiping it down.
As she went to her sink to wash her hands, he let out a long breath.
He gets free emergency medical care and he's sighing? A bit rude. Not for effect but rather out of necessity— Well . . . a little for effect, she corrected herself—she pulled out her phone and called the hospital.
"Hey, mornin', Sam. It's Dr Hayes. Nope, I don't need to be patched to him. I have an at-home medical emergency to attend to and will be in later this morning." She looked down at her watch. "Unsure. Maybe at nine? No hard time at the moment. Oh, damn, do I? Yikes, I forgot. Have, ugh . . . have Haversham take my eight o'clock. Hah! Yeah, Sam. I know he's a ham sandwich and I don't trust him with my patients, but I think he can handle that one. Hopefully, I'll be in before he starts with her, though. Okay. See ya, Sam."
She hung up her phone, put it aside, washed her hands again, walked to the table and sat down. With another drawn-out sigh, she took more time to look him over.
This was neither impatience nor irritation. He was worn at the edges.
She put on her gloves, grabbed his veiny, muscled hand. "Sit still."
He obeyed.
She pulled over the hinged magnifying glass, worked her craft—cleaning, angling, irrigating—and it was overall silent. Where she thought he might tense, he hadn't, so she looked up at him for any signs of discomfort.
His expression was locked in that shroud of bone-weary, pensive brooding.
"You okay?" Her eyes went back to her task.
He didn't answer, and she glanced again before flicking her gaze down.
"We've got our days," she answered herself. Working on the large gash, she murmured, "This might hurt a bit, so . . ." The needle pierced his flesh, and he didn't even flinch. She looked up again and found that his expression had softened, but wasn't comforted by it.
His eyes were hooded, vacant.
While the inaction—and what she perceived might be dissociation—was disconcerting, and while she knew she should stop what she was doing to ground him, it wasn't practical with the suture only part ways complete. So she worked the task of suturing the gash, applying a dressing wrap and smaller bandages to his other cuts.
"I'm done."
There were small bullets of sweat forming at his forehead and she leaned forward in concern.
"Hey, you okay?" She pulled off her gloves and cleaned her hand with rubbing alcohol, then peered closer. Yep, eyes were dilated. Furtively taking his wrist, she took his pulse and looked at her watch for a few seconds. Very slow.
Concerningly slow.
She went to her fridge, grabbed a small Gatorade, returned.
"Hey," she cajoled. "You able to take this from me?" Sitting in front of him again, she tentatively brushed the cool, wet bottle at his fingertips again and again. "Hey there. You with me? Can you look at anything in the room and describe it to me?"
He finally came around, though, blinking rapidly, thick eyebrows curling inward.
"Hey there. You know where you are?"
"M'yeah, I'm good. Sorry about that."
"You're good. Drink this, please." Again, the brushing.
He looked down as if only now registering the sensation, raising his brows in curiosity at seeing the bottle. But he took it, opened it with ease—Good—and drank. When he pulled it away from his lips, he wrinkled his nose and took a deep breath.
"Thanks," he said. "I'm . . . thanks."
"No problem." She gave him a warm, sympathetic smile. "You alright?"
Quiet.
His phone buzzed, and with a soft groan he closed his eyes, tilting his head the smallest fraction and tightening his jaw as he reached for his phone and stuck up his finger at her in a Wait gesture.
"Morgan."
She stepped away and gave him privacy but overheard him as she went about cleaning the tools and dumping what was no longer usable.
Morgan. Filing that away.
"—nks, man. You good? Good. We got a new case or—damn. It's Strauss isn't it?" A sigh. "No, yeah, I know. I figured. Yeah, got it, Hotch. See you soon, man."
She came back around.
"I, ah, gotta go, miss—"
"Doctor," they both corrected in unison.
A ghost of a smile split across his lips. "Thanks, Doc," he said, flexing his hand.
"Mm-hmm." She walked toward her door to let him out. As he stepped past the threshold, she spoke. "Let me look at that this evening to make sure there's no infection."
"Ah, there's no nee—"
"Yep, nope. It wasn't a question." She scrunched her face and gave a single shake of her head. "This evening. I'll be available any time after six. I live right over you. If you don't come to me, I'll knock on your door by seven-thirty. Drink electrolytes throughout the day, and don't let the bandage get wet."
He didn't respond but rather flashed her the white-toothed, sure grin that she'd seen before, nodding and walking away.
She supposed she had observed him well enough over the years to know when his smiles were genuine. That one hadn't been.
Quantico, Virginia
Derek thought about his neighbor—Dr Hayes, was it?—for his whole drive down to Quantico. He'd seen her a few times when they crossed paths—both her and that excuse for a dog. It was a punter; she, on the other hand, cut a fine silhouette.
It didn't matter. He didn't have the capacity to pursue anything right now, whether it was a one night stand (bad idea to be done with a neighbor) or something more long-lasting (which never lasted long at all).
Besides, whenever he had ruminating thoughts about his own abuser, his libido nose-dived. Thoughts of Spencer last night had invariably led him there.
No. No, he wouldn't let his mind linger on that man. The fingers clenching on his steering wheel were a sign that his rage might soon fly again.
In the elevator at headquarters, he told himself that he had seventeen seconds to recalibrate his thoughts before he would reach the sixth level.
Aaron called earlier and told him that everyone needed to be in the briefing room by 8:15, as Strauss needed to have a word with them before they got about their day. He felt that it would deal with Spencer, so something was sitting heavily at the bottom of his gut.
It was 8:10 exactly when he opened his office door and found Penelope at one of the cushioned seats, cradling a large mug in both of her hands.
"Derek." She shuffled up.
In that moment, she became the best thing he'd seen in the past few days. "Sweetness."
She melded with his shape as he wrapped his arm around her and tucked his nose into her hair.
"I feel like someone is squeezing my heart right in my chest, Derek."
"Trust me, I know, Garcia."
"I don't wanna go to this meeting," Penelope lamented. "It's gonna be about Reid, and it's Strauss, so it can't be good, and Re—what's that?"
She was pointing at his bandaged hand, reaching for it.
He tucked it in his pocket. "Yeah, no. Don't worry about it."
Her expression flattened as she gave the roll of her eyes. "Professional worrier, Derek. What happened?"
"Let it go. Lemme catch you in the conference room. I need a minute."
"Derek."
"Please, Penelope."
It was the Penelope that made her eyes water. Nonetheless, she relented, gave a nod with a shielded expression, and walked out without another word.
He sighed.
In just a couple minutes more, Derek was walking out of his office and across the upper level of the bullpen toward the conference room, where everyone else was already waiting.
Erin Strauss and Aaron were standing; everyone else was sitting, and Derek found a space next to Penelope. He reached for her under the table, squeezed, and was relieved when she squeezed back.
"I appreciate you all being able to gather a little earlier this morning," Aaron began, voice even. "Chief Strauss and I have had a frank conversation regarding Reid's case and came to an understanding. Chief Strauss?"
Derek held in a sigh.
"Firstly, the director and assistant director are both pleased with your performance as of late, even in spite of what happened in Arizona," Erin Strauss began diplomatically, hands folded into each other. "However, in my better judgement I allowed you as a team to investigate the latest developments of Agent Reid's case, which generated nothing that you as a team could further investigate. We cannot have this moving forward."
Aaron himself sighed, then spoke. "On Thursday in Rapid City, South Dakota, the severely emaciated body of a man missing since the end of April was found in Black Hills National Park. The murder was forensically linked through VICAP to be the second in what looked to be a serial crime, and circumstantially to a third murder. On Friday, a request was sent to the BAU to assist with this case. Upon authorities delving into it, a fourth body, that of a freshly murdered female victim, was also found and forensically linked to this case.
"Last night, after locals pursued this case, there was an inexplicable murder-suicide linked to this, enacted by the suspect onto his wife and then himself. Unfortunately, we'll never truly know the full details of the motivations behind this case, and it's considered closed."
Erin stepped in here, expression unwavering. "I'm of the belief that the last two murders—if not just one—could have been prevented and that we could have apprehended the perpetrator successfully. As I'd explained to Aaron when this . . ." She drawled and then paused. It seemed she wasn't sure how to label all of this. "When this unfortunate incident first occurred and you were all up for review, we can't needlessly use government funds when there seems to be an inkling that something is happening with Dr Reid's case. In the meantime, an active case that could have been handled by this team ended badly in the pursuit of an inactive case.
"I understand your concern, and I'm sympathetic towards it, but this cannot continue. From now on, if Agent Hotchner receives a call from Sheriff Reiner and after he and I have discussed the developments, I'm putting a hard limit on the number of investigating agents to just two of you—if you have no current cases. I prefer it just be one, honestly, but I leave that to Aaron's discretion. The jet cannot go with you, and you cannot exceed a day up there under an official capacity. If a case comes up while you're there, it takes precedence without question and you will be expected to be in the field. However you choose to facilitate this, I once again leave it to Aaron's discretion."
"This is better than us not being able to work on the case at all," Aaron tried to convince everyone, expression resigned. "The director is trying to cut us off from the case altogether because he believes that our judgement is clouded that we're unable to maintain objectivity. He's close to giving this over to the Newark Field Office to oversee if there are any developments. Chief Strauss is trying to avoid this where she can. In reality, we cannot focus our attention elsewhere when there are other active cases to be handled."
Alex spoke up, expression cool. "And if we find that there is a significant lead and the whole team is needed?"
"You talk it over with Agent Hotchner, he and I discuss, and then I can sanction you all to go up if I deem it necessary. Again, we need to be cautious of how government funding is being used." Erin looked out at them all. "Any questions?"
No one spoke up.
"Good." Erin nodded her head. "Get started on your workload today."
—
Derek sat in David's office with his lunch, sipping on a Gatorade. "They're slowly pushing us away from Reid's case, man." He shook his head. "It's being boiled down to how unprofitable it is to save a life—the life of an agent who's given himself up for other people countless times. It's bull."
"I hate it too, Morgan, but you know how these things sometimes go. It's the crappy reality of the politics of the job, and that's why you'll never see me take up a position like Strauss'—or Aaron's, for that matter. Neither of them was wrong, either. I took a look at that case file, and damn if we wouldn't've been able to get that narcissistic son of a bitch if we'd put our heads together. It was senseless. At a certain point, we have to move forward instead of constantly looking back. That happens, and we might begin to spiral."
Again, Derek shook his head. "No, yeah, I don't think I'd let it get that bad. But . . . somewhere, the kid is hurtin', Rossi. I don't think I can just move on from this. Until we get a call from the Sheriff and he tells us that someone else is missing, I have to keep believin' that Reid's still alive. And if that's the case, then he's hurting. I know what kind of pain it is." He breathed out a sigh, eyes untrained and fixed on David's desktop. "Reid's gonna compare himself to me. I know he is. I know how he thinks. He spirals."
David sat back in his chair, heaving a sigh. "Our hands are tied right now. Until more clues pop up or something significant happens, we have no leads to work on. Look how long it took us to find Doyle after we thought Emily died by his hands. It took nearly half a year.
"If we go beyond what we've been told to do, then we run the risk of getting broken up and getting reassigned. Last time, it wasn't so bad, and after it all we got lucky enough to end up being a cohesive team again. This time?" David shook his head with an affected look of doubt. "The director won't make the same mistake twice; he'll put things into motion that'll make it even more difficult for us to meet together behind the scenes as we'd done for Ian Doyle."
Again, Derek shook his head. "We don't want that."
"We don't," David agreed. "And we have to accept the reality that the kid . . . he just might be dead. It's not something I want. And it cuts me to the quick to think like that, not just because we'd be losing a colleague or a workmate, but because a part of this messed up family will be gone. It's a hole in the heart."
Derek clenched his jaws. "I wish I coulda been there for him that night, man."
"Then I'll tell you the same thing I said to Aaron when he sorta said something along that line months ago. You'd probably be dead right now."
Derek's stomach rolled.
"If he's still alive—which he is in my gut—" David asserted, "and if we ever solve this, you will be there for him."
"Yeah. I will. We all will be."
"Amen and amen."
"And if he's not . . . if those sons of bitches . . ." Derek looked down and he felt a heat consuming him. His voice strained out. "If they've already killed him—"
David tilted his head. "We catch 'em and we fry 'em. We give the kid justice. We give Noah, Marion, Zachary, and all the other victims justice, and we give those sons of bitches hell."
Derek sighed heavily. "I need him to be alive. In my gut, he is. I need him to keep hoping that someone is out there looking for him, that we're out there looking for him."
"If he is, he knows it, Morgan, he does," David said convincingly. "But . . . realistically, we can't put our life on pause for this. And at a certain point, we keep doing other work until something pops up that we can work with. We take steps in our lives to put ourselves outside of what is causing us some grief."
Derek looked down in thought, and his eyes inevitably trained on the bandage.
"By the way, what's with the hand?" David kicked his chin at Derek's hand.
Derek looked down at his bandaged hand, flexing his fingers. "Ah. Nothin' to worry about," he answered.
Throughout the day, he kept looking at it, though.
—
When Derek came back home from work, he went straight to his apartment. He finally got his dog from Mrs Booker, changed, took him for a slow run, showered, cooked his dinner, and ate. It wasn't until the knock at his door that he remembered his directive from this morning.
"Damn it." It hadn't been a good day, and he didn't want to entertain anyone.
Derek scrambled up and went to his door, looking at the time. It was 7:30 pm. Damn was she prompt, though. He opened the door.
"Hey, I—"
"Mm-hm?" Dr Hayes' expression was somewhere between amused and no nonsense.
"I'm sorry, I just lost track of time and I just—"
"Yeah," she drawled, tilting her head and scrunching her nose. "You forgot, or you didn't wanna bother?"
"Uh . . ."
There was a beat of silence and her eyebrows jutted up. "Honestly, I just wanna check in. You were sort of in a bad way this morning."
Derek let out an aborted puff before swinging his body and the door to let the doctor inside. He'd try to be congenial.
"So who's this?" She bent down and petted Clooney, who was sniffing everything on her, wary of the scent of another canine. "I see him all the time but we never got to know each other."
"That's Clooney."
"Clooney!" she cooed.
"We can take a seat over here," Derek said emphatically, pointing. Not very congenial.
She cleared her throat and went to his table, the direction of which he extended his hand. She emptied the bag on the table-top, pulled out the chair, and moved it nearer to where he'd taken a seat.
"I'd like to wash my hands?"
"Kitchen's fine."
She returned soon, sat in the chair, then set to work, peeling back the bandage to look at the wound.
It was silent for just a moment.
"How was your day?" she asked, eyes trained on the hand and her task. "Did you get your electrolytes?"
Derek must have startled her, for at the thumping of a bottle on the tabletop, she bristled and looked up with a little jump.
"Oh, good," she said in praise. "Fruit Punch's my favorite, by the way."
His was Fruit Punch. "Not really a fan of it," he admitted.
"Ah."
Piss poor work of the congeniality thing.
He sought to correct himself. "I mean Gatorade in general. I drink it when I need to, but it always just tastes like I'm lickin' a sweaty armpit."
"Bleugh." She bridled at the comparison, shivering and wrinkling her nose again.
Damn but was that cute.
"Which hospital you work out of?" Derek asked by way of conversation. He was brisk with her this morning; he wasn't starting things well again, and she was only helping. He didn't want to leave a bad impression on her. "Heard you this morning on the phone."
"Ah, Bethesda General."
"Mm. Practice?"
"General Surgeon."
They lapsed into silence, he winced at a sting in his hand, and she worked.
"So . . . this came about in an act of rage," she began. "I'm hoping that I don't have to do anything reparative like this again in the future?"
"Yeah, no, you don't have to worry about this again. Hopefully."
"Mm."
"My bad, by the way. For the noise this morning."
"'s no problem. Scared me, but—it's all good. I was more relieved that you were okay."
"Yeah, sorry."
"Wanna talk about it?"
Silence.
"Address the elephant in the room?"
"The what?"
"You'd dissociated while I was stitching you up."
He kept silent.
"I'm not asking for any details, but I am a medical professional. I take it you're a detective or in some form of law enforcement, yeah? If that's the case, if you're emotionally unstable, if you're finding that the work is stressing you, you may wanna take yourself off of whatever you're working on, or advise a work-sanctioned counselor to properly address . . . things."
Derek's face scrunched, and at his perturbed silence, she looked up.
"I've seen the sidearm, you're in plain clothes, and, again, I overheard you this morning," she explained. "Mentioned something about a case. To wit: G-man or detective."
"Ah."
"You realize that instability makes you a liability in the field and puts lives in danger, right?"
The fuck is she on?
"Listen—"
"It's just . . ." She paused, sighed. "I've seen enough people that had ten too many bullets in them arrive in the ER at my hospital—and not make it —when law enforcement cracks because they can't process stress properly, you get me?"
Ah.
He understood.
Her tone was soft, sympathetic. "Are you currently undergoing work-related stress?" She lifted her shoulder, crinkling her chin as she lowered her jowls. "Maybe a bad case?"
Derek cleared his throat, wishing he hadn't answered the door. "Something like that, yeah," he answered in a tight voice.
She looked up at him, pausing with what she was doing. "A pretty tough one."
He swallowed, sighed, sagged.
She, in turn, tilted her head. "I get you. Sometimes things don't go well in my line of work, and when I have a life in my hands, even for the simplest procedure . . ." She seemed to want to say more but refrained from doing so. "Whatever this is—a bad case or something else . . . I hope it gets better, if it's not resolved yet. Either way, it helps to talk to someone. I think you might need that."
"Mm." Derek paused. "Thanks," he said around a dry tongue.
"Mkay. I'm done here." She pulled away, peeled off her gloves, wiped some of her equipment. "I'm Savannah, by the way."
"Savannah. Hey. I'm—"
"Morgan, right?"
He must have given her a look; she was quick to explain herself: "Sorry. I sort of overheard it this morning, too. When you were on the phone. Didn't mean to snoop, but—" She contorted her face, wrinkling her nose and lifting a shoulder again. "Guess I snooped a lot more than I realized."
"Yeah," he answered, not correcting her. He'd done the same thing this morning, too. And now he knew:
Savannah Hayes. Doctor.
And she had a damned cute nose-wrinkle.
"So, um, Morgan." She heaved a breath, stood, and began putting her things in her medical bag. "I can take a look at that in another couple of days, if that's fine with you."
"Um"—he ticked his head—"yeah, if I'm around. Might get called outta state, though."
"Ooh. Outta state. So, G-man, then," Savannah concluded. "FBI."
Derek affected a smile, standing as well. "Mm."
"Okay, then." She bent down again to give Clooney a rub, and he thump thump thumped his tail. "Wednesday? I'm available after seven."
"If I can, I'll knock on your door."
"Mm-hmm." She looked tickled, standing straight and moving to the door.
"I swear it." Derek held up his hand as an oath before opening the door for her. "If I'm not away, I'll knock on your door before you have to knock on mine."
Savannah crossed the threshold and stood in the hallway. "Okay then, Morgan. Have a good night. Electrolytes, clean bandage, all that jazz."
"You got it, Doc. Night."
He closed the door behind her, and guilt gnawed at him.
DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
It was . . . disorienting when things returned to the former routine.
It started with being awakened by the woman and then escorted to the toilet. After another painful bowel movement, he was taken to the sink, and a toothbrush was handed to him.
With it tucked in his hand and before it reached his mouth, he paused. Did I brush at all these past few days? He couldn't remember. There were lost pockets of time. But running his tongue over his teeth—over his remaining teeth—told him that, yes, he must have. Not enough plaque build-up.
He didn't like losing so much time.
Afterwards, he was taken back to his bed, easing down tentatively. At the shuffling of the port, he brought up his hand. "I can't eat. Please."
He was starving, honestly. But he knew it might come right back up, and his stomach had cramped enough over the last few days.
"I'll get sick. Please. I'm not trying to be—"
But she patted his leg, and he sighed out in relief. She tapped his hand, and he raised them.
"A bath, then."
The relief he felt was whisked away when that distinct scent hit him, and the man drew near.
Yes, of course, he assisted with this. He was just surprised that the man would resume things as they had been before, as if he didn't finally get his conquest and he could be off to do whatever he wished while his wife cared for the sick child.
With a knuckled pat pat to his chest, Spencer stilled. He didn't know how to do this, how to normalize this with a man who had raped him.
Normal is relative. None of this was ever normal.
Another, more adamant pat pat.
He wouldn't do anything to incite his ire. So, he began removing his clothes. The sudden clap to his neck startled him to flinching, clenching his pants to his chest. It wasn't until he was reaching his hands forward again, though, that he realized it: he hadn't even noticed folding the other articles and handing them off to the man.
The clap was of praise. A job well done.
Yes, they'd trained him well, and he clenched his jaws at that. Their routine was his. Their normal was his. Damn everything to hell and back.
The shortened fetters on his wrists, the ankle being cuffed and chained to restrict his movement in the tub—this was jarring. This was the first time in over a week that his captors were bathing him instead of him bathing post-rape.
And the reverence returned. As fingers massaged his hands, he was unable to process the inner conflict. It wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't unpleasant. But it was wrong. It was just . . . just erasing everything he'd suffered. Yet his hands relaxed instead of tensing.
A hand tucked under his chin, tilted his head back. This wasn't the same hand that had inflicted violence, the one that gripped, hit, or strangled him.
This was the father.
The massaging hands below—those were of the mother.
This restoration was baffling, bizarre. The worst was that he preferred it.
He couldn't wrap his mind around this—around accepting this, favoring it—and became unsettled, numbed at his inability to rationalize what certainly should be plainly black and white.
He shouldn't miss what was in and of itself wrong, perverse.
The scraping of the blade and the rubbing of the towel over his bruised skin, of its descent elsewhere—these became peripheral as his mind hurdled over the conflict.
It was the citrus and lavender—the insistent tap tap tap at his bare chest—that brought him back. He was sitting on the bed, and fabric was brushing against the back of his hands. His gaze went downward, as if he could see what was before him, and he tilted his head.
Nothing was processing properly. Not the unfolding of the fabrics or how he slipped on his clothes.
But the curling warmth of the dryer did. The fingers lacing through his uninhibited hair to usher along the process. He'd not even noticed the removal of the brace, and yet his fingers were now pressed to his eyes with fabric between them as if they had always belonged there.
He couldn't explain it beyond this routine being safe, predictable.
Spencer Reid.
He couldn't deal with what this was becoming. Preference would beget a pursuit for comfort, and comfort would beget complacency.
No. This is long enough.
The team was either no longer a team, or this case had gone cold. He didn't yet know how he would do it, but he needed to get out of here.
Before the woman could retreat too far, Spencer reached out a desperate, halting hand, fingers grasping and then pulling on her clothes.
She tapped him. "What's wrong?"
"I'll cooperate. I will."
There was a pause.
"Please. I'll cooperate. You can do all of this without giving me drugs. Your husband doesn't have—"
There was a pat pat pat on his shoulder, and then the hand tucked under his chin, squeezing kindly. Upon the double tap on his hands, he raised them.
"My —-— boy. You're confused. You've been so sick these past few days."
He dropped his head and puffed out a breath.
"But you'll get better. This will be behind you. We're doing everything to make you come back to me. How are you feeling now?"
"I wasn't sick. Your husband raped me for days." And you kept me drugged.
"No. You don't understand how sick you are. It makes you very confused and say awful things. Your father and I both love you. We only do what's best for you."
He could vomit.
"The rape could kill me. Do you understand this? The others before me . . . Noah's body began fighting itself because it couldn't fight the infection. This is—this is sepsis. This needed to be treated with antibiotics. It didn't need to get to this point with him. The rape did this to him. I don't want to die like this. Your husband can't keep doing this. Why do you let him do this to us?"
She didn't answer.
Unsubs had methods to their own madness, and he would further drive himself mad trying to understand what was sensible to them, what their motivations were, what kind of fantasy they had.
He licked his lips and tucked the bottom one between his teeth, careful in what he next expressed with deliberate gestures. "I know you're a good—good mother. You can't let this continue. It can kill me. You don't want that."
Her answer was surprisingly mild. "What will kill you is your sickness. You get better by eating properly and letting us care for you."
"It doesn't make sense."
He knew reasoning with her would drive him in circles, but he couldn't wrap his mind around this.
Tap tap. "You must be hungry."
Damn it. Damn it. He was. Despite knowing it would turn his stomach, he was damned hungry. But she was trying to distract him. He might have to let her. Build trust. Fake it.
"Yes, I am," he relented.
Indulge the fantasy. Lower their guard.
They would, eventually, and he would escape this hell.
He was going to get out.
—
Spencer kept to his word, and he was overabundantly cooperative. By his next bath, his roots were colored and his hair trimmed.
Spencer Reid.
In the following days, he was tamed into being on his utmost behavior—cooperated when made to lay on the bed so that ointments could be rubbed wherever the hands innocently massaged or dipped.
—
But after about a week of reprieve, of some semblance of normalcy where he was doted upon and where both of their hands were kind, the man came for him again with beer and drugs.
Fighting would do nothing but exhaust him, wouldn't stay his captor's aggression, and these weren't worth it. Guilt gnawed at him—guilt that he continued to let this happen instead of fighting with his dying breath.
But he would continue to behave, and he would build trust. His continued rape would happen despite any efforts otherwise. He was at no advantage here.
However, just after the last bottle pulled away from his lips, instead of being tethered as was customary, the length of chain around his ankle was elongated, the padlocks on his cuffed wrists were removed, and he was pulled from the bed and led to the toilet, hand at the back of his neck.
His perturbation locked his jaws and curled his fists into silence. The hand tugged at the hem of his pants and he sucked in a breath, pulling both his pants and underwear down before he sat at the toilet.
What is this?
With a tap-tap, he was urged to shimmy to its edge. The hand then locked around his neck and bent him double, chest to thighs. He jolted when water was sprayed in and around his anus.
Of course this was happening, and he knew why. An undesirable, humiliating consequence of the previous rapes had been the occasional fecal deposits between his buttocks when the man finally pulled away from him. It stood to reason that there was also residue on the man's penis as well. They were clean people; they wouldn't stand for this.
It wouldn't be the last time this—the pre-cleaning—would happen.
It was over in a short order, but his mortification remained as he was made to stand, wipe, pull up his pants, and walk back to the bed. His calloused feet were planted to the ground the moments before he reached it.
Before everything would overtake him, he sought to make an appeal.
He put out his hand, touched a sleeve. "Wait, please. I want to help you."
There was no answer.
"I know why you do this. I can tell you why you're like this. You don't have to do this."
He couldn't know if the man was paying attention, but he continued anyway.
"You're only—um"—here he began to fingerspell various words that he didn't know the correct equivalents for—"transferring the trauma you suffered onto a surrogate to regain your own identity and power. You can break this cycle. I can help you if you let me. We can talk."
There was no response. He waited for one. Instead, arms wrapped around him, he was twisted, an ankle tucking around his own, and he was tumbling to the ground below.
There, he pleaded the moment the legs straddled his pelvis, hands fluttering. "You don't have to do this. This is wrong. You don't have to do this. You don't have to—"
Tap tap. The hand wasn't harsh. "You won't win this."
Tobias' face was conjured unbidden, his voice whispery and resigned in his mind. He'll win in the end.
Desolation clawed at him.
"Understand that you won't leave here. She won't let you leave. You die, or we kill you."
Spencer swallowed, and in the next moment he was watching a pair of headlights barreling towards him. The inevitability was before him.
Be water.
He could crash—resist everything, continue to be hurt as a consequence of his own actions—or he could flow—allow this, permit it, and hope for leniency from them both.
His muscles slackened. The seconds stretched between them before the man patted his shoulder. Hands gripped his shirt, and he was hefted up before being led to the bed. There, he was pushed prone onto the mattress, and his arms were stretched overhead before his wrist was locked to the head frame.
He didn't want to flow, to permit them to shape his mind. He couldn't help it. His mind was his own.
"Please," Spencer rasped out, begging, crushing his other hand between himself and the bed. "I won't fight you. I won't. I won't. Let me help you. Let me help you. Please, don't do thi—"
Fingers latched onto the brace, laced through his hair, and hefted his head up. What patience the man deigned him was gone; he was walloped in the jaw once, twice, and a third time before his face was smothering into the pillow to shut him up.
Spencer clenched his jaws as his other hand was taken and locked, gagged as his pants and underwear shuffled down to his knees, gave a humming, forlorn wail as he was straddled and mounted onto like a horse, both hands grasping his buttocks.
This time, the man wasn't waiting.
Spencer clenched up.
"Wuh—wait, pl'se, please," he slurred. "I won't resist you. I won't." And he meant it.
This wasn't permission. This was strategy. He would do and say anything at this point to prolong his life.
Swallowing, he knew that his next words—his demand— wouldn't be met well. "But don't rape me without lubricant. You continue tearing into me like this and you risk killing me eventually. I don't want to die like this. Noah was septic. Do you understand that? He was septic. Please, don't do this dry. Plea—"
By the hairs, his head was wrenched back again and his mouth clenched as he hissed. Fingers eased onto his lips, swiped across his clenched teeth, a nail tap tapped, and—at the dawning of understanding—he drawled a quavering moan beyond his inclination to bite down. This wouldn't be sufficient.
But he unhinged his jaw, and the index and middle fingers slipped in, wasted little time, and just dove to the back enough to brush against the tubing. He gagged, hacked, coughed. It did the paltry job of coating the fingers with his saliva and mucous.
The fingers pulled away, his head was dropped, and in moments the tip of the phallus pressed against his anus. He sought to relax as much as he could to ease the pain of the penetration.
It hadn't been sufficient. He hissed and let out an aborted roar as he was torn into and raped at a leisurely, perfunctory, dispassionate pace once his captor was fully embedded within him.
—
This time, hours after the hand fell away from his ankle, Spencer waded beyond this all and turned his observations inward, to the victim. The woman hadn't come. He'd not been further drugged. The window of clarity was clearing, and he wished it wasn't so.
With time and circumstance at his disposal, Spencer was now left to analyze and confront his own physiology.
He would have preferred a clinical approach to such introspection but was unable to separate his roiling emotions from it all.
The two events from high school, what happened to him in college, confounding feelings towards his workmates, budding and deepening conversations with Maeve, all that happened the day she was murdered, and now his rape—these were all one part of a vicious web. Of course they were. These all corresponded.
The reality of the implications was disturbing.
Whatever the hell these drugs were, he'd still not gotten an erection, let alone grown turgid during any of the rapes. Like the man who raped him, it seemed that he, too, truly had a sexual dysfunction, the discovery of which was acutely undesirable to have found out while being, of all things, a victim of rape.
The motions during were never in the manner that apparently increased the pleasures of copulation through friction. No. The man was always and only ever settled within him, barely dislodging from the deep embedding, and his movements weren't licentious but a robotic pressing and overbearing pressure.
This didn't stimulate his prostate beyond the initial intrusion—depending on the positioning—and the transient jolt only served to generate a need for him to urinate before the raw, fiery ache took over. And the man still didn't attempt to fondle his penis—not once—still didn't stimulate him in any way or grasp him—an important component of the physiologic response, an important component in disempowerment, degradation, and humiliation.
Therein laid the dilemma. There were conflicting emotions that often arose when a male would become erect, ejaculate, and or even orgasm during rape—either when being penetrated or being forced to penetrate.
Erections were a common involuntary response for most men even in times of intense pain, anxiety, panic and or fear. Whether man or woman, having a physiological response even in the face of rape was normal. He himself had gone tumescent when he was stripped in high school due to that intense fear.
He didn't wish for any of these things. However, this just further highlighted the depth of his own trauma.
With the exception of the experiences in his youth—the rare tumescence due to his harrowing high school bullying, his early pubescent changes that heralded his bouts of anxieties, and some masturbatory exploits that finally ended with disengagement—he was as his college peer had told him: broken.
Discourse regarding male virility, sexuality, libido, and masculinity was nuanced and not always in the favor of a male victim.
In that vein, was it inappropriate in this moment for his thoughts to lead to those of sexual intimacy? If he had finally overcome his anxieties and if he wanted to act on a desire, were performance issues inevitable? Would he and Maeve have had issues with intimacy with each other once their relationship traversed beyond pen, paper, and payphone? He knew there were other forms of sex. But the most basic—was this lost on him?
He and Maeve had trodden lightly on such conversations.
That besides, the whole parental aspect of captivity—where he fell in this confounding scheme—invariably led him to think of parenthood, of his own parents, of Henry, of his own progeny.
What of children for him?
'Are you considering it? Having baby geniuses one day?' Emily had asked him this once.
Maeve, too, had asked him if he wanted children of his own.
Lack of an erection, even a lack of discharge, had nothing to do with sperm motility. He knew this. One could sire children despite these issues through insemination. But even then, he'd never considered if he couldn't have children. So far, he seemed to have a major component in traditional child-making against him. Wouldn't it be ironic, then, icing on the cake, if he were to find that he was also infertile for some reason or another?
No. No, he wouldn't. He couldn't dwell on this now. The subject of parenthood was . . . it was too complicated to think about.
Dysfunction. He had to think about this.
He had no known physical disorders to contribute to his dysfunction.
Substance-linked sex, wherein chemical drugs are used to facilitate and enhance sexual activity isn't uncommon. For men involved in it, it often has to be assisted with vasodilators because the mixture of drugs and alcohol can ironically cause difficulties with proper vasodilation. Elevated levels of serotonin is inhibitory.
Yet, the one time the man hadn't given him alcohol and he still hadn't reacted for over an hour was telling. Again, the man was going for a reaction. That stood to reason that the second tablet—the full-sized one—might be a PDE5 inhibitor, such as sildenafil.
Inducing an erection despite the lack of penile stimulation wasn't impossible. Again, anxiety, fear of punishment, terror, along with a slew of other things could cause an erection. So beyond the physical assault, this was a psychological assault against him, whether or not it was intentional.
Considering that the first tablet was always broken, he drew a conclusion as to what it was—MDMA, a common drug used among people involved with SLS and easy to overdose on because it was rarely ever pure MDMA. People often consumed the pill form in small pieces to avoid overdosing in the face of using other drugs or drinking alcohol.
But alcohol wasn't the problem. Drugs weren't the problem. These things made a pre-existing problem worse.
The obvious conclusion was that this was a psychological problem—possibly caused by multi-imprint, traumatic events.
It could be stress, which never truly abated since his father had walked out the door. And this captivity was, without a doubt, stressful. Depression also diminished a man's capacity to have an erection. His grief over Maeve's death penetrated him. He'd been on the cusp of addressing it with the hope to find peace with it, but it could certainly be attributed to his dysfunction.
Anxiety was a two-edged sword. In some situations, it could cause erections. But anxiety also activated the sympathetic nervous system, resulting in—among other things—constriction of blood vessels and increased production of stress hormones such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol. This could lead to an increase in blood pressure levels and a subsequent reduction in blood flow to parts of the body, such as the penis.
It could also be the way his brain worked. Before he was attacked by his peers and tied to a goal post, his thoughts of sexuality were purely clinical, functional. Sex was interesting in its own right scientifically as the means of reproduction, and he knew that for others it was a means of livelihood and survival to get by. He didn't judge, but he had no interest in the latter. Despite the associated dangers, he'd considered it for the briefest blip in the early weeks after his father left and he'd worried over finances, but the associated dangers and the physicality of it were far more than he cared for.
He knew, though, that according to his peers, sex had other merits: it was used between friends with benefits, he'd heard; it quenched horniness, some said; it was amazing for make-up sessions or post break-up rebound sessions; scientifically, he knew that between lovers, the flooding release of oxytocin fostered greater trust, empathy, and increased the pleasures and intensity of an orgasm.
These things were lost on him and didn't warrant his concern as a child, though he wouldn't dispute that his mind might change as he grew older. Sex just wasn't at all in the forefront of his mind. There were so many other things to think about, to worry over.
And then he knew that he was capable of at least being tumescent—if the high school event and his puberty was anything to go by. But otherwise, physical and sexual arousal on his part was virtually non-existent.
The only other factor that might come into play was the actual physicality of it, which was two-fold. Despite whatever medical attention the woman was giving him, it didn't diminish the soreness due to the tearing. Regarding the anal activity, blood traveled to other parts of the body when they were stimulated.
But in general, trauma, anxiety, stress, depression, and sexual indifference—he couldn't deny that he dealt with these in spades. And every physical or near-sexual experience he ever had with another person—whether it was being tied naked to a goal post or being molested by a high school peer or trying to understand himself with a college peer or inappropriately engaging with a scared victim who couldn't properly process her fear by any means other than transference or being cleaned by members of the CDC or being assaulted by a possessive stalker who then fixated on him—was either transgressive, aversive, or under bad terms.
Some victims, as a result of their molestation or rape, became hypersexual to reassert their autonomy over themselves. Male victims might become hypermasculine. Perhaps these were Derek's outlets. Perhaps this contributed to his overt sexuality and was how he overcame Carl Buford.
I'm stuck. Sexually traumatized to such a severity that I can't become erect even while being raped. Pitiful.
At this point, he didn't—and might never—care to experiment in other ways sexually—through prostate stimulation, whether external or internal, to see about a full erection or ejaculation or orgasm.
However.
When they had massaged him after having punished him and removing his second tooth, that had been the most physically intimate anyone had ever been with him.
It felt good. Transgressively good.
A heat did pool within him, a foreign flutter, and it was its greatest, its deepest and most titillating when he urinated while in the tub. He couldn't control the contortion of his limbs or the undulation of his hips, or the sounds he was sure he made.
This could be attributed to the increased lymphatic flow, excess water release—confounding given his dehydration. This was a common side-effect of getting a deep muscle massage, and they had both worked on him thoroughly.
The pleasant sensations have to do with the parasympathetic nerve system, he reasoned. The human bladder, the urethra, all of these can become highly sensitized. The release of the building urine in a distended bladder can be an intense, pleasurable relief.
He couldn't deny the euphoria or even the physical sensation that came with it.
Again, not something he wanted to have discovered while being in captivity—the fact that he might be somewhat physically aroused by some type of urine play—that this was possibly the closest thing to the semblance of an orgasm he'd ever experienced. It was a paraphilia.
But the side effects of the drugs he was given before he was raped the first time gave him more clarity. He must have been drugged at some point before he'd been bathed in that occasion when he was punished—possibly after he'd blacked out.
Very dangerous to do to someone after days of starvation and after a physically harrowing experience. The floral hallucinations he'd experienced could have been drug-induced or just due to his deteriorated mental and physical state or a combination of the both.
Spencer didn't have the full emotional capacity at the moment to mentally hurdle over other things that framed all of this.
Again, it was Maeve who was the only one who came the closest to understanding—though not fully knowing—all these things. She hadn't been wrong that these things were intricate.
He had wanted to share an intimacy with her. He had been ready to try and discover this with Maeve—the possibility of a sexual relationship or the possibility that they might never have one at all—aside from the more important things that would properly frame their duality: domesticity, normalcy, intellectual dialogue, discovery, parenting. Meeting her would be the next step in their relationship to delve into this.
And he'd wanted to allow that exploration to open room to foster further intimacy—a reciprocity—with Derek, Jennifer, Penelope, later Alex, and, from a distance, Emily, which was what he began exploring in small measures.
Now, again, he didn't know about it all, and he didn't care. Not only were any of those prospects dashed with her murder, but now he was positive that sex was something that he never, ever wanted to delve into.
He knew that this was unhealthy, and he knew, rationally, that he shouldn't associate sex or physical intimacy with assault or rape or forced intimacy, but he couldn't divorce himself from the trauma.
To avoid burdening himself with these thoughts and marring Maeve's memory or those of his cherished family, he set himself to the monotony of recitation, repetition, and recollection while trying to devise just how to facilitate his escape. As these rapes resumed, he began to find solace in an ever-thickening fog.
.
.
.
Note 1: Thank you for sticking with this (very) slow-build story, whether you're a silent reader or a commenter. All is appreciated. At this point, we're past the halfway mark. Take care, stop if needed, do things to take your mind off it.
Note 2: The botched case that the team failed to assist with mentioned in this chapter is from Criminal Minds episode 08x20 Alchemy. This was a case that Spencer specifically picked up on and directed the team's attention to after Maeve's murder. Coincidentally, this case involved naturopathic healing, a holistic approach to health, and a male-female unsub dynamic. And other things besides. Oopsie. I'd suggest a rewatch of the episode to make some links :) . . . Also, coincidentally, it hadn't originally been my intention to have so many links to this episode, but alas, some are very similar.
Note 3: Since Derek and Savannah canonically started off-screen between S8 and s9 when she, as his neighbor, approached him after he was depressed about a case, I thought to weave in just how that came about. Though she won't be heavily featured in this book, she moves things along in some ways in Book 2.
