((Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or its characters)
Here's the update, I hope to bring you more soon.
Enjoy x
Spencer woke with a painfully tight knot pulsing behind his eyes. He lay on the bed for a moment, his teeth gritted together as he wished away the pain. While he lay there he remembered his father's violence and he groaned.
It wasn't the first time his father had knocked him unconscious. Nor was it the first time for him to wake up in his old room with no recollection of getting there.
Spencer sat up slowly, hissing as the throbbing behind his eyes intensified to a fierce drum roll.
He squinted around the room, finding it bare as always. He stood, clutching a bed post for support while he worked feeling back into his limbs. His shoulders ached as did the small of his back which stung sharply each time he stretched. Spencer winced but tried to ignore it as he shuffled into the hall. He looked down at his feet and found his socks looking back at him. He grimaced: he hadn't changed those socks in days now. He was also still in the clothes he wore when he first got back, but the socks irritated him more.
"Mom?"
Spencer padded down the corridor to his mother's room. She didn't share with his father, hadn't since Spencer was ten, but he regretfully still saw the lust they had for one another, hungry in their eyes. It was something Spencer didn't want to figure out.
He paused outside his mother's room. There was a tapping coming from behind the door. Spencer pressed his ear close, careful not to push it open. It didn't sound like she was having an episode. She wasn't talking to herself.
Spencer gently pressed his palm to the door, letting it open wide enough for him to step inside.
He was about to call his mother's name again when he saw her. She was sat on the floor, crouched awkwardly. Her hands were carefully moving things around on the wood, her eyes fixed on them.
Spencer stepped closer and watched his mother slowly arrange photos, gently placing some on top of others and filling the empty spaces on the floorboards.
Spencer strained his neck to see and caught sight of himself as a young boy. He was wearing a half smile, his front teeth showing a little, his eyes were red. He was at least seven in the picture, his teeth were doing well, he remembered the feeling of not having many inside his mouth but luckily for him he'd grown his adult teeth out quick. His mom had gotten him a poorly-fitting pair of dentures when he was younger since his first set of teeth had fallen out so prematurely.
"Thirteen."
Spencer looked at his mother as she swayed a little. She hummed something without a tune and nodded. "Or fourteen?" she said.
"Mom?" Spencer's voice shook as he spoke and he unconsciously stepped back when his mother's neck twisted back and she stared at him. Slowly her lips curled into a smile and she patted the floor beside her.
"William, honey, sit by me."
"It's... alright," Spencer said, not bothering to correct her. She usually called him Spencer; she knew he preferred it. He assumed she was having an episode.
He walked over and carefully knelt down. He looked over the photos with a grimace. There were plenty of his father, each very serious, his father never smiled in them. The rest were of him with a sprinkling of his mother. He wasn't smiling much in any of them. In fact, the earlier ones he seemed to be crying.
Spencer squinted at them and saw that in every single one he had tears in his eyes. His mother had told him he was a difficult toddler. Spencer didn't remember. Or couldn't.
He turned to look at his mother and found her eyes on him. He blinked at her and licked his broken lips. "He hit me, mom," he murmured. His voice cracked and he looked away. His mother was still smiling.
"Oh, I know."
Spencer dropped his head and closed his eyes. He remembered Morgan telling him what he had to do. He'd given Spencer a lesson on standing up for himself and damn it, he could do it.
"I-I... won't..." he swallowed hard. "Mom I can't come back again. This is the last time," he said. He let out a deep breath and felt his anxiety trickle away slightly.
Diana studied him for a moment before reaching forward and rearranging the photos.
"Okay, sweetheart," she said.
"I'm sorry, mom. It's not you."
"It's fine. You're father already decided."
"He... what?"
Dave took a deep breath before he reached forward and opened the door to the conference room. The team were already gathered there, waiting for him.
Dave offered them a half-smile, handing out several files before sitting down.
"Sorry for taking so long," he muttered, he glanced at Aaron as the younger man opened his file and instantly turned his head away.
"I have a cold case I'd like to revisit and-"
"No," Aaron said, dropping his file on the table. "I understand you want this man found, Rossi, but it's been twenty-two years. I can't keep 'revisiting' this. We have to accept that we won't find him." He stared at Dave as the Italian calmly nodded.
"Have you really accepted that?" he asked after a long pause. Aaron was taken aback by the question. He looked down at Emily's open file and saw a photo of Sawyer Robinson. Aaron remembered Meat- the unsub taking the boy away. He never saw his face again until the case after.
Aaron didn't attempt to speak so Dave cleared his throat and started talking again. "I have reason to believe this unsub is active again, or at least is moving around within the public sphere. We have better technology, better agents, I really believe we have a good chance of finding this guy."
Garcia gathered her laptop under her arm and stood up. "What do you need from me, sir?"
Rossi looked up at her before a small smile graced his face. "I'd like to discuss the case a bit first, I'm sure there will be something for you to dig up then."
Garcia nodded slowly and retook her seat, setting her laptop down but giving Dave her full attention.
"Shall I call, Reid, we could use his brains on this," Morgan said, already half out of his seat.
"Sure, the more brains the better."
Morgan got up, pulling his phone out as he stepped into the hall.
Aaron pulled his hand from his face and shook his head. "No," he said. "Reid's having family time. We barely have any time like that, we'll do fine without him."
Rossi raised an eyebrow. "So you'll help?"
"If your reason to 'believe the unsub's active again' is valid," Aaron retorted.
"Go get Morgan, tell him we don't need Reid," Rossi said to Emily who got up and followed in the direction Morgan had left in.
"It's not enough to open this again based on a hunch," Aaron added, pulling Dave's attention back to him. The unit chief glanced at the door where Morgan had come in, holding his phone up.
"He didn't pick up anyway," Morgan said.
"What does Erin say about all of this?" Aaron turned back to Dave. The older man was clutching one of the files tightly in his grasp. They all knew that inside every file was a photograph of Dave's three-year-old son. There was also a photo of that smiling toddler's remains.
"She is happy to sign off on it," Dave answered simply.
It was JJ to speak next. Her voice was soft and she kept glancing at Dave sympathetically. "Hotch is right. This cold case is over two decades old. We need something conclusive to reopen it."
"Erin has given her consent, that's all that matters," Dave said, his grip growing tighter on the file.
JJ looked over at Hotch for help. The unit chief was trying to keep the image of Sawyer from his mind. He wanted to burn all of the files they had in the room. He wanted all evidence that it ever happened to be destroyed, and at that moment, that included himself.
He let out a deep breath that betrayed him by shaking as it escaped. "Meat..." Aaron paused, swallowing down the words quickly. "The unsub could be dead by now... h-he... he looked like he was in his forties back then and he was frail, which is why he targeted younger boys. He could have died on the run. Opening this case could do more harm than good."
"Harm? Reopening a few old wounds to finally get this man behind bars? Aaron, remember what he did to you. To all of those boys. He murdered my three-year-old son. He removed his teeth, beat him, and burned him alive. My little boy is dead because of this man. I know he's still out there." Dave was shaking, he held onto the file as if it was the little boy he'd lost in 1986. "I need justice for my son."
Aaron stared at Dave as the older man breathed quickly, forcing himself to calm down. Garcia had her head in her hands, things like this affected her deeply. Morgan silently snuck his hand around her and rubbed her back while he himself looked between Rossi and Hotch. Emily and JJ were trying to be invisible, Emily with her head in her file while JJ just looked at nothing in particular across the table.
"If you show me real proof-," Aaron said, his voice gentler this time. "-then I will agree to reopon this case. What is your reason to believe the unsub is back?"
Dave reached down into his pocket, fumbling for something there while an eerie silence fell over the room. "Heres my reason," he muttered, pulling a small drawstring bag from his pocket.
Rossi loosened the strings and turned the bag upside down and the team watched in muted horror as tiny teeth clattered onto the table.
Sorry that it's only short, especially since it took so long. the next chapter is under construction, hopefully I'll be able to refresh you with new content (as in past chapter 6) ;)
Please review, see you soon.