(Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Criminal minds or the show itself)
3 weeks later - Orlando
Callen had hit for a forth time, this occasion was in Orlando, Florida. The BAU had followed him from Albany, to Jacksonville and now to Orlando. They'd decided to work from the police departments and not to visit the crime scenes, which had annoyed Jack Callen immensely; his work was being wasted.
His contacts watched the team and anyone who so much as talked with them, relentlessly.
"Yo, Boss, there's someone else." The short Canadian man Callen employed several months before, confronted him eagerly.
Callen remained on the sofa, his attention was on his fingers, which were caressing the blade of his knife.
"Care to elaborate?" He sighed, boredom laced into his voice.
"There's this guy. I don't know who he is, but I seen him around those pigs. He's always following them."
"How's this going to help me?" Callen's voice had a sharp, poinsonous purr to it.
"Uh...welll.." the Canadian started, but was interrupted by Darrell.
"We could take him out, maybe he's with 'em."
The Canadian suddenly jumped up. "Yea, yea! He's always hiding away, it would be easy boss."
The two men watched Callen; waiting.
He licked his lips slyly, slippinb his knife into his belt.
"I guess it couldn't hurt, to play with him. Where's he staying?"
BAU
Hotch rubbed his forehead angrily. The team sat around him, glancing subtly at him, waiting for instruction. He tightened his fists and forced his eyes up at them.
"This isn't working. We've been away from home for about 3 weeks now. There's nothing much we can do here. I suggest we get back to Quantico, have a few days off to recooperate. If we're right, then Callen will strike again next week..."
Morgan slammed his fist on the table. "Hotch, we can't give up on catching this sonovabitch!" He snapped.
"That's not what I was implying. But, we also have lives back at home. You may not like leaving, Morgan, but it's an order." Hotch stood up then.
"Let's get back to the hotel and pack." The whole team bar Morgan, and JJ who had been recovering at home, and Reid who was 'dead', nodded silently and got up.
Garcia shook Morgan's shoulder lightly. "Come on, Sweetness. We can't leave without you."
"And yet we keep leaving without Reid." Morgan whispered after the team was out of earshot. He hauled himself up, and sighed hopelessly.
Miami
Reid holstered his gun and raised his hands calmly.
"I just want to talk."
Amelia was stood around a foot behind him, her gun drawn and locked on the suspect.
"I understand why you did this. You want recognition; your whole life you've been forced into shadows." Reid edged closer to the suspect, who had a middle aged woman in a headlock and a gun pressed against her skull.
The suspect faltered.
"You know?" He murmured.
"Yes. I also know what it's like to be taken for granted or to suffer predjudice. Trust me. You don't have to do this. Let her go and we can talk this out."
The suspect loosened his grip on the woman, Reid nodded reassuringly.
Just as his arm began to release the terrified woman, the cops burst in.
"STOP! Stay where you are!" Reid called, but it was too late, the suspect had regained his grip and his finger trembled over the trigger on his gun.
"DON'T MOVE." Screamed an officer who came to stand by Reid, frowning at his holstered gun.
"No, no no no no, you're tricking me." The suspect hissed.
Before Reid could negotiate again, the cop next to him fired his gun which was dangerously close to Reid's injured ear.
A shrill buzzing tore through Reid's head. It felt as if a knife was being driven into his skull. He pressed his hands to his ears and staggered back in agony. Images of an explosion and a burning car filled his claustrophobic head.
The bullet chewed into the suspects collar bone. He growled in pain, and spun the gun out towards the team. Amelia had no choice but to launch a bullet between the suspect's eyes.
Cooper was on the floor, his hands pressed over his ears and his face contorted in severe pain. He was moaning quietly, his teeth biting into his bottom lip.
Reid held his head tight, feeling as if it may explode. A dull throb replaced the intense pain, but the high pitched, incessant ringing continued. A face he'd hoped he'd never see again, flashed in front of his eyes. The sound of a gunshot was heard in his memory. He squeezed his eyes shut against the intrusive visions. All sound suddenly became muffled, he couldn't even hear the low groans emitting from his gritted teeth.
"Coop! You alright?" Amelia knelt beside him. He didn't seem to hear her. She shock him gently, and he pulled his knees into himself, panting wildly.
"He wasn't hit." Said the offending officer indignantly.
"How could you be so stupid!? Mara yelled from behind them.
"First you interrupt our negotiations, then you shoot your gun in close proximity of another person. You were completely out of bounds!" She reprimanded.
The officers eyes widened in realisation. Harper pushed through and grabbed the officers sleeve.
"You jeopardised our whole mission. We could've saved them both! Get out! GET OUT OF MY FACE!" He snarled, shoving the officer away from him as if he were something grotesque.
Reid still writhed in pain on the ground, his fingers began to twitch where they were thumbed against his right ear.
"You okay,kid?" Harper asked.
Something warm and sticky trickled into Reid's hand. He mercifully pulled his fingers away from his head, and stared at the crimson licking his palms.
"Jeez..." Reid didn't make out the rest because the buzzing devoured his hearing for several seconds. He suddenly panicked, looking up at his new team trying to make out what their lips were saying.
"Can you hear us, Coop?" Mara said emphasising her lip movements. Cooper didn't reply.
Reid sat disorientated for another minute, until sound broke through again. "...we take him to the hospital?"
Reid jumped to his feet so suddenly he almost fell back over and Harper had to hold him up.
"I...c'n h...hear you." He stuttered loudly, his ears still ringing.
A migraine plundered through his head.
"'m fine" he said breathlessly.
"No you're not, Kid. You've clearly sustained damage to your ear." McGarity frowned, cupping Cooper's ear, to see where the blood had come from.
"I...I was in an e'plosion, c..couple months b..back. I've g...got permanent ear damage a..anyw..way." He winced.
"Seriously, I..i'll be o..okay in a minute, the ringing is j..just a little intense r..right now" he mumbled.
"You, my friend, are one mysterious guy." Amelia laughed tapping his cheek lightly.
Stanley nodded in understanding and went over to the body.
"What, so you hear ringing all the time?" Mara asked sympathetically.
"Uh... something like that I..I guess."
"Mara, you take James back to the office, make sure he's alright till we get back. We can clean up here." Harper ordered. Reid tried to protest, but Mara was already guiding him out slowly.
She helped his into the car, and he leaned his thumping head against the cool glass.
Mara glanced over at him, pity in her eyes.
I won't put my music on right now. I don't want to kill your ears anymore."
"No, please do." He quavered. "I need something to drown out the ringing."
1 week later - Miami
"What we got, Harper?" Stanley asking slurping his coffee loudly.
"Two shootings downtown. One fatal, the other victim survived though."
"That's a lot of paper work for a simple case."
"It's not that simple. Apparently the suspect is a serial killer. He's been working his way down the country. He's been targeting an elite team in the FBI. They're on their way down from Virginia to work on the case." Harper relayed grimly.
Stanley chewed his lip curiously. "What branch are they from?"
"The BAU."
"Oh right, they're pretty elite. I wonder why this guys after them." Stanley sat down at his desk and sucked the end of a pen he'd already chewed.
"It's this line of work, we don't get on too well with criminals."
"Where's Mara and James?" Asked Matthew, who was sat on the edge of Mara's desk, scoffing a donut.
"I sent them on a coffee run. I can't stand that new coffee machine." Grumbled Amelia.
"Oh and Matthew; You'd best make yourself a bit more presentable, the FBI will be here soon." Amelia taunted. Matthew hopped off the desk, brushing off the donut crumbs and swallowing the last mouthful in an exaggerated movement, smiling sweetly at her, with a bulging mouth.
"Bet'er?" He sputtered, spraying crumbs on the floor.
Amelia swerved away from the crumbs. "Yea, now knock it off!" She laughed, playfully punching his skinny arm.
The glass door behind them swung open and several sets of feet came into the office.
Matthew suddenly froze with nerves, and Amelia had to push him out of the way.
"Hi, I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner, these are SSA's Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, David Rossi, Jennifer Jeurea, Alex Blake and our tech analysist Penelope Garcia." Hotch held out his hand, a small, but serious smile on his lips.
"Nice to meet you all, you can set up here if you want. I'm Micheal Harper and this is my team. This is detective Stanley McGarity, that's detective Amelia Dukel, her sister Mara is just getting Coffee with Cooper, they are both detectives as well. These are our 'computer guys', if you will, Conner Jacobs and Matthew Copus. We also have Angela Morris on this team, but she works with the bodies." Harper grinned widely at the agents, in spite of himself.
After a minute of greetings and introductions, the two teams sat down together to discuss.
" I didn't know you take your tech analysists out in the field with you." Conner jibbed.
"We don't, but this case is rather a personal one, as I expect you are well aware." Hotch said, without missing a beat, and ignoring the man's sarcastic tone.
"Well, you don't need three computer geeks to work this case." Grumbled Conner, and he slunk back off into his dark lab.
"Ignore him. He has good intentions, he's just not a...uh people person." Matthew gave them a sweet closed mouth smile.
Harper turned his attention back to the BAU.
"I've heard some of the details about the 'personal' part of this case, but not enough to work the case. Would you be up for making that part clearer for us."
Hotch looked over at Morgan, who was looking up at the ceiling.
He sighed and sat back. "It was around 2/3 months ago. Our Unsub -Jack Callen- had been planning an assault on this team for quite sometime, in order to seek revenge for the death of his brother, who had been killed by one of my agents. You must also understand, agent Reid and I had been in a hostage situation with this brother of his, along with around 20 innocent people. My Agent had no choice, it had been my idea to take out the Unsub, and I still support that decision." Hotch paused scanning the faces watching him eagerly.
"Callen drugged us, and held us all captive in a basement for a few days. He played sick games with each team member and Agent Reid. His end game was to kill us , but the bureau traced our phones and managed to find us before he could achieve that goal. Callen did, however, shoot and kill Agent Reid." Hotch let out a huff. Amelia looked down at her nails, her stomach suddenly feeling tight.
"His mission, now, is to draw us out, and finish what he started."
Harper nodded along seriously with Hotch's story.
Stanley shook his head . "I'm sorry about what happened to your Agent. We will help in any way to catch this bastard." He said, narrowing his eyes with determination.
"Thank you. We can use all the help we can get." The Italian agent spoke up.
"Who was Agent Reid?" Asked Matthew, scratching his nose.
"Damn genius, that's what he was." Laughed Derek.
Harper raised his eyebrows in curiosity.
"Uh... well that's one way of putting it. But he was so much more than that, he was part of our family. His name was Dr Spencer Reid, he joined the BAU when he was 22. He had an IQ of 187, 3 Phd's and 2 ba's, I wouldn't be surprised if he was working on a 4th one. He could als..." Emily was cut off by a loud giggle and the slamming of doors.
Mara and Cooper skipped in. Mara had her back turned to the two teams and was walking backwards talking to Cooper, who was rolling his eyes.
Mara turned and she stopped abruptly. James almost walked straight into her, he shuffled to her left and his eyes flew open in shock.
The BAU tried to hide their surprise. Garcia had to look away, desperate to run over and wrap Reid in her arms.
"Oh gosh! I'm so sorry for interrupting. You're the FBI, aren't you? I'm Mara." She bounced up the steps, plopping herself into a seat next to Amelia, and waving at Cooper to join her.
Reid was wearing a navy blue, short sleeve shirt, the top 2 buttons undone. He had black Levi's and dark blue deck shoes on.
"C'mon Coop, don't be shy." Teased Amelia.
Harper looked at Prentiss with a sympathetic smile.
"I hate to ask, but d'you have any pictures of the body, or of agent Reid?"
"Nope.no, noooo, no." Garcia chimed, her voice pitching a high note.
"We don't have any pictures of the body, it's... uh... complicated. And we'd prefer not to have his picture up." Hotch said with a sense of finality on the subject.
"Completely understandable. Oh, uh, this is Detective James Cooper, he's been with us a few months now. He's basically an encyclopaedia, so if you have any questions, and I mean any, ask him." Harper smiled mischievously at Reid.
"Great, I have a few of those." Said Rossi, wiggling his finger at Reid, signaling him over.
"So where shall we start." Inquired Harper, clasping his hands together.
Rossi walked into a secluded office, pulling the door to.
"So this is where you've been." He asked slyly.
"What are you doing here?" Hissed Reid, anxiety sweating off him.
"Callen's been killing again, first Albany, then Jacksonville and Orlando and now here. You know what he wants."
"His end game." Murmured Reid with fright.
"He cannot see you with us, Kid. He might recognise you." Rossi warned.
Reid bit his lip, looking up into the older Agent's eyes.
"It's great to see you, Kiddo." The Italian grinned happily, pulling Reid into a tight embrace.
"And you. I.. I hope this will be over soon." He admitted.
"You and me both."
Hotch stuck his head through the door, pulling it open.
"We've decided to go to the crime scene." Hotch announced grimly.
"Aaron, are you mad? That is exactly what he wants." Rossi began, but Hotch held up his hand.
"It'll only be, Morgan, Emily and I going, you stay here and work on the details we have."
"We've worked it to death already..." Rossi started, but Hotch interrupted again.
"Which is exactly why we have to go. Don't worry we will have protection." With that Hotch slipped out of the room, Reid quickly followed.
"You should take some of my team too. Stanley, Amelia and I will accompany you." Reid flicked open a file in front of Harper, subtly. "Oh and you can tag along too James, just don't bore these agents with your facts."
"Sure." Reid replied amicably. Rossi shot him a look, but Reid wasn't going to stand by and lose his team.
Crime scene
The team got out of the SUV, armed cops swarmed the area, along with a swelling crowd of people. Reid watched as his team made their way to the scene of the crime.
"I'll stay here, and have a look around." Reid offered, putting his hands in his pockets and eying the crowd.
"Not much here, kid. Are you staying guard?" Asked Stanley. "'Cus I don't think anyone is going to steal the car."
"It's extremely possibly that our suspect is in the crowd. I was just going to watch for any suspicious activity."
"Good luck with that." Amelia tittered, as the crowd bloomed.
"Where's detective Cooper?" Hotch frowned, as the CSI team joined them at the sight.
"He's 'watching for suspicious activity'." Laughed Amelia.
Derek gave his boss a worried look, wishing Reid had never come.
"So, tell me what we have." Amelia said putting her hands on her hips.
Reid scanned the crowd quickly, looking for the face he had never wanted to see again. His eyes passed several suspicious looking people, but none were that of Jack Callen.
He decided to walk around the police tape, intergrating into the crowd. He'd been around once, so he went around again, his eyes flicking back and forth, like he'd seen his mothers do when she was having one of her episodes.
On the third time around, a new face appeared in the wave of people.
Reid knew that face. That face had taken everything from him: His name, his home, his work and his family
For the first time in his entire life, Reid saw red.
"CSI, don't move!" He growled gruffly, whipping his gun out and making several civilians jump. Callen froze and turned his head toward 'James Cooper', he smiled nastily and began running, ramming people into walls to get by.
Reid took off after him, he heard several shouts behind him, but his focus was on the man ahead of him.
"STOP!" He yelled, swerving around bystanders.
"Cooper, what are you doing?" Crackled a voice from the walkie talkie on his belt. He thrust it up to his lips.
"I got him! I've got Callen!" He shouted back.
Callen ran into the road, a taxi almost moed him down, car horns showered him. Reid followed across the road, several cars stopped abruptly, a car stopped right in front of him and he slid across the bonnet, beeping ensued.
Callen ricochet off an elderly couple, sending them sprawling. He zoomed left down an alleyway, Reid skidded across the concrete and followed.
Callen slowed down and turned, a heavy gun clutched in his arms. He fired and Reid threw himself to the ground. Callen emptied a sleeve, he hesitated fumbling with the bullets. Reid took this hesitation to his advantage and barrelled towards him. He smacked into him, falling down in a tangle of limbs. Reid smashed a wild fist into Callen's nose, smiling when he heard a satisfying crunch. Callen sent a knee into Reid's groin, knocking the air out of him.
Callen pulled himself back up and Reid wasn't quick enough. A foot connected with Reid's ribs and he was forced back. Reid tried to catch himself, but he felt only air beneath and he was falling. His shoulder connected with a hard concrete step, his body tumbleing down the rest of them, small gasps escaping him.
He came to a stop at the door at the bottom of the staircase, already he heard footsteps running away.
He got to his feet quickly and painfully and pulled himself up the steps. He peeked over the top step, grimacing at the pain burning through his body. Callen was making a dash around the corner.
Reid pulled his gun out and shot.
The ringing in his ears exploded, completely muffling the sound around him. He ignored it, watching Callen fall to his knees holding his calf in agony. Reid watched his lips part, in what he assumed was a blood curdling scream, but his ears were keeping the sound at bay. Reid hopped out from the staircase, and tried to run towards the injured man. His body rebelled against movement, and he could feel himself melting into the wall.
His ears suddenly popped, like they often did on the jet, and he could hear the hustle of the city again. Callen seethed in pain, trying desperately to get to his feet.
"Darrell, get here no...w, shot..." he gurgled into his walkie talkie. Reid hobbled over.
He had him he'd found him. Callen was cowering over himself, Reid aimed his gun shakily at the mans head.
"Cooper, where are you?" Yelled Mara's voice from his own walkie talkie.
"I've got him." Reid whispered, holding his finger on the reply button, so they could hear Callen.
Callen lifted his head and smiled.
"Sorry, kid. Not today." he grinned. Reid frowned, looking up too late, as a bat cracked across his cheek. He dropped his walkie talkie.
Stars burst across Reid's vision and he collapsed to the ground, fighting for consciousness.
"Coop?! Coop!" Screamed voices from the walkie talkie.