Knight's Pawn

He was sawing his hands in a frenzied pitch, controlling the staccato strokes against the metal lip of the boat's brim to keep the motion out of sight. Sleight of hands, as it were, Reid knew even though he had to put an end to this and immediately that he couldn't just leave Gideon out to dry. The man needed help, psychiatric help… and while he had a degree in Psychology, even more importantly, he was a human being and couldn't just turn his back on a fellow member. He just hoped Hotch wouldn't have his head examined for it.

He figured he probably deserved to, though. That thought was entertained alongside the thought of getting himself chipped. He seemed to get kidnapped enough for the investment to be worthwhile, sans the massive invasion of privacy he'd have if Garcia ever found out about it. He felt the first bits of tape rip. He used the metal lip to catch one of the torn corners and then proceeded to pull, that rip was loud enough to draw Gideon's attention to Reid's dismay.

"Let's try this again, shall we? Turn the boat around, take me back to my car, and leave. If you don't… this becomes a federal offense. If you do, I overlook it, buy Hotch flowers… and hope he doesn't ask too many questions." Reid realized he should have shut up instead of clue Gideon in on his and Hotch's date, though maybe the pressure would be better. He was expected somewhere. Someone would know he was gone, and have the resources to find out where and why.

Gideon locked eyes with Reid, his authoritative, alpha-male look was a fraction of what Hotch could pull off, hell it wasn't even as much as Morgan could manage, and Reid refused to back down at it, instead he pulled his hands forward. "I'm done with this game, Gideon. Turn it around." He could see Gideon's eyes shine sadly at that.

"That isn't an option. I really wish you'd just behave like the good kid that you are…"

"I am 29 fucking years old I am not a KID god damn it! I can make my own decisions and know what I want, and am aware of the consequences, now cut the crap Gideon. Think about what YOU'RE doing… seriously think about it! You were in Georgia with me, you know full fucking well what this is doing to me!"

Gideon leaned closer toward Reid, drawing out a vile, "Now you listen to me… you're damn right I know about what happened in Georgia, and I'm trying very hard to not have to resort to similar tactics, so sit down, shut up and just steal yourself for a long chat otherwise, so help me, I will plunge this into that tired vein of yours in the nook of your left elbow where you shot up for over 3 months and we'll STILL go exactly where I plan on going with you. Is that what you want? To feel more like a martyr? More like a victim?"

Reid's eyes went wide, his jaw slacked at the threat, not because he thought it was a shock-value bluff, but because in that moment that crazed look in Gideon's eyes told him he'd do it, too.

Reid broke off eye contact, not blinking nearly as much as his dry eyes would have preferred, his mouth still agape at the threat, he was now shooting through tallies in his mind, ratios, thoughts, organizing thousands of scenarios and categorizing the likelihood of him falling into each one, ranking them. Where was this going…? He was sure to hell and in a hand-basket was a very, very viable possibility.

This type of dissociative break was definitely a mark of PTSD, but it was more than that, Gideon was in some semblance of control, it wasn't some pure hallucination, it was a paranoid delusion… more specifically a schizoid episode. Reid knew those warning signs well, so he was sure he was picking up on it correctly. After all, that was just one of the bullets loaded into the proverbial revolver of life pointed at his head— 'No, stop it!' Reid chided himself, thinking about Raphael at this exact moment would benefit Gideon, not Reid and he couldn't lose any ground, he was already working up hill as it were!

How do you get through to a schizoid when they were in the bouts of a paranoid fit? He could play along, but he was sure that would be seen as suspicious, he could wait it out… but he didn't know where he was, what Gideon was truly capable of at this point, let alone if this was going to end in a hail of bullets… No, it wouldn't go that far. Hotch would never… Reid tried to recalibrate, he actually might. He was very protective of Reid, and instincts would push Gideon into Unsub, which at the moment he was acting enough like where the functional compartmentalizing minds of BAU team members would easily fall into stride with. No, he had to resolve this immediately and on his own if he wanted this to go away as quietly and with the fewest casualties as possible.

"You keep saying you're going to give me some stern talking to and then you just keep going quiet. Are you planning to kill me, or something, Gideon? You do realize that's what you're making me think… don't you?" Maybe reverse psychology, make the man realize just how psychotic his own thoughts are, shock him back into the righteous path.

"I know you don't think that. You know I'm desperate to show you just how big of a mistake you're making. Think about it this way, I'm willing to stake my life on it that your relationship with Hotch can get someone killed. Someone you care about, no less. I believe that strongly in how wrong it is. If it's me instead of Morgan, JJ, Prentiss, or Garcia… so be it. I could go either way with Rossi, but that's not the point. You are naïve, Reid. You don't know the kind of pain you're getting yourself into. I know you can't possibly understand it, it's part of the condition of the naivety. So if I have to prove it to you… if it takes that, I think you can get over everything then."

"Now who's trying for the martyrdom bullshit? You don't really plan on dying… and you know that if it got to that point you'd destroy both of our lives, let alone careers and that's not your goal. So what are you really planning?"

Gideon smiled, "That's more like it. Now you're thinking like a profiler… once we get you back to using logic, you should snap out of your hormonal haze and get over the Hotch-itch you have."

"Four years is not a fucking itch!" Reid spat out, again swearing. He knew this would punctuate a stark contrast to the Reid Gideon knew, but simultaneously worried he'd just write it off as some 'teenage rebellion'. How far was his delusion about Reid being his son, anyway? Sure, protégé replaced the word outwardly in context, but the same thought of 'continuation' was clearly linked with paternal instincts, so really the word wasn't as far off as Reid would have hoped. He just hoped Hotch would figure it out soon, how long had it even been, anyway? Two hours…?

Gideon fished his arm into the water, coming up with a rope, he began to pull it guiding him into a moldy dock, beside it a water shed that would probably be condemned if any living soul outside of being bat-shit crazy or desperate had come and inspected it. He was starting to realize woods this rural with the areas possible to expand to were numerous, but many of those were accessible to civilians, and that wasn't Gideon's style.

Trying to think, he realized he had to be on a government-owned piece of land. It's isolated, people don't go too deep into it, and if they DID…? Well, they'd never report hearing screams, because that would out them for trespassing.

Gideon unfolded two chairs, pushing Reid to sit in one before padlocking the entrance and joining him. Reid was really favoring the bat-shit crazy working hypothesis as he looked around the room. This… this wasn't even fragments of Gideon's psyche in here, this… he was channeling Frank of all the nut-jobs…

Frank Breitkopf, one of the few crime scenes that ever had blanched Reid and he had been standing next to Hotch. Sure, it was after the Henkel case, but it did make what Charles Henkel and Raphael do look like children's play.

He shuddered, then he stiffened, he couldn't let this have an effect on him! Gideon could be using this to condition him, how sane was that man right now? Well, sane wasn't the right coin of phrase, how aware was he, then? To be dissociated and detached enough to look at it clinically and find the most pragmatic way to break a psyche… and how long would it take a great profiling mind, when twisted and motivated enough, like Gideon to warp Reid's views to what he wanted? Sure he hadn't used any physical force yet, per say… but would he have to? Could he bring himself to hurt Gideon? Gideon, like a father to him, Gideon?

He was letting this get to him more than he should allow, he just had to hold out for Hotch. He'd come, he'd understand, he'd realize, he'd rescue him. Hotch always did. Even so far back as in a Virginian hospital, the man had antagonized a narcissistic psychotic to make sure he focused on Hotch and not Reid. He was that protective of him, even way back when. He even apologized for kicking him, despite that being what saved their lives and the lives of 12 other hostages.

He latched onto that thought. He knew Hotch would come, that'd he'd get through this and get Gideon the help he needed. Until then, he just couldn't antagonize Gideon, if the other man was pushed too far he might do something they'd all regret, and Reid had had enough of those over the past few years to not want to collect any more.

As Reid steeled himself, encroaching the close of the second hour inside the cabin with Gideon's punctuated rantings about the morality of his illicit affairs, Hotch was busy with trying to jimmy the door to Reid's car. Regrettably, Hotch had never mastered picking car locks, unlike Morgan with his years on the Baltimore Police Force. Even Reid had been good at picking locks, but he always explained the sleight of hands easing it's way into it… he suddenly thought, warm but simultaneously bitter that Reid probably wasn't as good of a kid as everyone thought he had been. Sure he knew Spencer's fun was harmless fun, but he also worried about what tricks Jack might pick up and hoped that his fun would also be the kind that shied away from arrest records despite the potential to do a large amount of property damage if so correctly applied. He was bitter that he wasn't sharing the conversation over a glass of champagne about what sort of strategies they'd develop when Jack entered the rebellious teenager phase, instead he was picking a lock to get into his lover's car and stop a former colleague from trying to wedge them apart.

A currently psychotic former colleague, after all… who the hell else would kidnap a federal agent when they knew the risks if not a psychopath? And Hotch prayed that if Gideon had crossed that it was in the direction of psychotic and not psychopath. Psychotics did a stint in a mental asylum, Psychopaths did a stint in Club Feb or State Prison. Neither of the latter places would be a long-lived retirement home for Gideon. Garcia was pulling bank records for their former coworker as he worked.

The others were combing through those financial trails and establishing a profile, they weren't liking what they saw. They all knew Gideon dropped off the grid, as Garcia'd called it, after Frank Breitkopf killed Sarah, but eventually, when he was sure the others weren't looking, he came back onto the grid, he resurfaced doing hobbies of his, his pension paid rent… Aaron had made damn sure of that much for his once-friend, but now…? For the past two months he was back to that lifestyle so closely associated to PTSD yet so different than his bout with it from Boston so many years ago. It amazed Hotch that Boston no longer held the same symbolic meaning as it had from say, five years ago. No, it was different now… but he had Reid, he had Jack… and while he knew Haley had cheated on him he had never wished her an end like that. He simply had moved on, and she was deprived of that chance.

He heard a click, he let out a sigh of makeshift accomplishment. He should have managed that ten minutes ago, instead of fumbling for fifteen minutes before getting the damn thing to give. He searched the car, dialed speed-dial 2, 1 was for voice messages, it came default on his phone and he'd never bothered to reset it. 3 was Jessica's number, 4 was Garcia's, 5 was Dave's, 6, Morgan, 7 JJ, 8 Prentiss, 9 …well, it was sad that he had 911 on speed dial, but he did. He just hoped today wouldn't be the day he dialed 9.

Thanks to a humming sound coming from Reid's glove box, Hotch quickly located the device, Reid's badge and his gun. A mixed blessing, sure it meant Reid was unarmed, but Gideon never was one to have firearms lying about, and since he had handed his own in when he retired and Garcia had yet to tag the purchase of any firearm- be it a rifle to a pea shooter and she had checked… it meant they were unarmed. He had no idea if Gideon had it in him to point a gun at Reid, or even at Hotch… he doubted it, he didn't even have it in him to call Strauss and had he really wanted to be a dick, he could have just placed a phone call.

As Hotch thought about it more, the less he thought this was really a problem about he and Spencer being together. It was about Spencer, Spencer being close to someone else… it was a possessive act of a borderline personality type, maybe even a dissociative personality disorder. Gideon always had been distant, but this was beyond distant. He had cut himself off from everyone he had known for years, came back suddenly… he wondered what his team was finding out about what happened two months ago, when Jason Gideon fell back off the face of the Earth.

He wondered that, and how the hell he was going to trek 3 miles through woods to get to where his GPS indicated Gideon's phone, and presumably Reid and Gideon to be.

As he started his trek, Morgan's name and number flashed across the faceplate of his phone and he answered it on the end half of the first ring. "Hotch, here."

"Man… you're not going to like this. Apparently, Gideon's son… Stephen… two months ago he died in a car crash…He and his fiancée."

There was a pause as it was lining into place, "Apparently, he and Stephen had reconciled recently, he was headed over to introduce him to his future estranged daughter-in-law."

"Shit!" Hotch huffed into his phone and Morgan knew it meant the man was sprinting, and having a conversation with him at once. "Is there any red-flag indicator that he was planning an end-game? Look! Make sure he wasn't liquidating assets and paying off debts!"

"Garcia's on that, Hotch. That wasn't the worst of the news though."

"Spill it…" Hotch continued, the balance of running and holding the phone was precarious, robbing him of speed he doubted he'd want to lose.

Morgan paused to think of how to say it, "Garcia didn't find any firearm purchases, but she's found a string of cash receipts from places semi-local to your location from last night… all with surveillance matching Gideon's description of some nasty stuff. It includes diabetic needles."

It wasn't Derek Morgan's first picnic, he knew that diabetic needles were what was known in the medical profession as 'subdural' needles, 'intravenous' needles were the sort that could support the force to shoot up into the blood-stream, subdural needle tips broke off, that's why IV drug addicts would hold onto a dirty needle for ages instead of try to grab diabetic supplies, because if the tip broke off and pierced something down the pipes, like blood vessels in the lungs or head or heart, there were problems, bad ones, fatal ones.

"Well he wouldn't just get diabetic needles. Find out what drugs he grabbed to go with it." Hotch's mind was screaming, he knew what that realization would do to Reid. Reid was more fragile than he looked, fragile like glass… in normal circumstances he could contain things, keep it together, but in the wrong pitch or hit at a certain angle and he'd shatter and you couldn't put him back together without losing the bulk of the pieces and getting blood everywhere. He'd remember trying to pull him back together in the past. It had been hard, almost impossible. He did it because he loved him, he was friends and coworkers with him, and he'd do it again if he had to. He just really, really didn't want to have to.

"Looks like sedatives… but he could find anything on the street Hotch, and Garcia can't trace that, no matter how great she is." Morgan said. Hotch grunted and hung up, now running faster with both his arms in full swing. His strides grew longer now that he could afford the extra allotment of balance.

TBC.