Title: The Dark Side of a Secret
Summary: Post"Profiler, Profiled". There are some wounds that time just can't heal.
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: Since you don't see stuff like this on TV, suffice it to say that they aren't mine.
Spoilers: 2x12 "Profiler, Profiled"
A/N: Not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine.
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Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
-Mark Twain
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It'd been a few days since the ordeal in Chicago ended. Days since the truth he'd managed to keep hidden for years leaked out and was discovered. Days since he'd had any contact with the BAU team. He expected a day or two to himself, and then he expected everyone to either be calling him or to be pounding on his door. But the phone had remained silent and no one was stopping by.
He settled onto the sofa with a bottle of beer in one hand, the same that he'd been nursing for more than an hour. He'd look at the phone every so often, wondering why it remained silent. After a while, he stopped wondering. He stopped, because he knew. They didn't want anything to do with him now that he was different, that they knew his deepest secret. They knew what had been done to him, what he'd hidden for so many years. They were ashamed. He couldn't even blame them for that. He was thoroughly familiar with the shame.
It wasn't until the next night that there was a knocking on Derek's door. Beer in hand, he peered through the peephole to see a familiar, and not wholly unwelcome, face on the other side of his door. So Derek put the beer down, then unlocked the door.
"Gideon," Derek said, getting a nod in reply.
"May I come in?" Jason Gideon asked, and Derek stepped aside.
The two men settled down in the living room, Derek having gotten Gideon and himself glasses of water. It was an awkward silence, Gideon working on the words and Derek bracing himself for what was coming.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Gideon finally asked, setting his glass on the coffee table.
"Tell you? There isn't exactly an easy way to do that. I mean, 'Oh, by the way, I was molested by a father-figure when I was a teenager…'" Derek snapped, "I'm sure that would've gone over well."
"We all have something we'd rather the world not know," Gideon said. "We have buried secrets that we want to remain that way forever. But yours weren't buried, they were only lost and waiting to be discovered. It's up to you what happens now."
"It isn't, Gideon."
"How so?" Gideon questioned, his puzzled gaze following Derek as the other man got to his feet and went to a window.
"They know."
"Yes, they know."
Derek turned around, and Gideon couldn't miss the fire in the younger man's eyes. "Damn it, Gideon! They know, that changes things. They won't think of me the same, they won't look at me the same…they'll wonder if some cases I shouldn't be on because it might strike a nerve or they'll wonder if I can handle the job…"
"If anyone questions your ability to do our job, then they don't know you as well as they thought. Yes, Derek, things are different. But no one thinks any less of you. If anything…the fact that you've survived and excelled despite what happened…" Gideon said, trailing off when no more words were needed.
"I can't have them looking at me like a victim," Derek admitted quietly.
"They don't," Gideon assured him. "We talked on the way back. Believe me, Derek, no one thinks of you as a victim."
"It's weird…" Derek began, sitting back down. "I was so angry with you…with Hotch. I just didn't want you finding out…"
Gideon nodded, and let Derek continue. "But then I got angry with you because no one called…it seemed like no cared if I was alright…that I was alone. But then I figured you were all ashamed me of me, like I was of myself."
"We wanted to give you some space," Gideon replied. "I admit, I think we gave you a little too much. But we are in no way, shape or form ashamed. We're angry that you felt like you had to carry this alone for so long, and we're angry that this happened in the first place, but we aren't angry with you nor are we ashamed of you."
Derek nodded, then sipped his water. "It feels weird, knowing that other people know."
"That's not surprising," Gideon replied. "You aren't carrying that secret alone anymore."
"I don't think it's technically a secret anymore. After all, a secret by definition is something that no one else knows."
"You almost sound like Reid," Gideon noted with a small smile.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Derek answered with a smile of his own.
They chatted about happenings around the office for a while longer, until Gideon was comfortable leaving Derek alone for the night. Once Gideon was ready to head out, Derek stood to see him out.
"Eight AM sharp?" Gideon asked at the door.
"Eight AM sharp," Derek affirmed.
FIN