Spencer's Point of View
Hotch had, again, assigned me to talk to Leah— ask her if she would help me make a visual representation of the UNSUB with a computer program that was supposed to work better than having a sketch artist draw from a description. It was worth a shot; then again, anything that could help us catch this creep was worth a shot.
I had the program with me on a BAU lap top computer when I walked into Leah's hospital room. She was sitting up with a tray across her lap, eating lime Jell-O. She smiled at me vaguely when I came into the room and shut the door.
"Does the FBI visit everybody this often, or is it just me?" she asked as I pulled the chair beside her bed again. She seemed more at ease than the last time I had been there. Either she was burying her ordeal, or was trying to be brave and overcome it. She seemed like the 'grin and bear it' type, so I assumed it was the latter.
"Not often do I have to privilege to talk to someone like you during work hours," I said truthfully, adjusting the lap top and my files so they sat comfortably in my lap. "My boss is being very considerate of the situation, because of how unique it is." Leah looked confused, so I explained. "We don't usually deal with live ones, in our unit, as a general rule. Not to mention the fact that I was the one who found you in the first place— nothing about this case is ordinary."
"I see. I doubt your boss, as nice as he sounds, would send you down here just to sit with me, so..." She ate a spoonful of her Jell-O. "What's up?"
Her calmness had me ill at ease, now. Her casual way of asking me why I was there was startling, coming from someone who had been through so much. After I had been kidnapped, nothing had been 'normal' to me for weeks. The way I talked, reacted to people coming near me or talking to me, walked and even the things I did were all off the norm following my abduction. Perhaps that was partially due to the drugs, but I didn't think it was customary for the average person to get over anything emotionally traumatizing this fast. It had been mere hours since the last time we had spoken, and yet she seemed much more together than that last time. Maybe that was just her personality, but I couldn't help but think that that was unusual.
"Hotch— Agent Hotchner, my boss— asked me if perhaps I could get you to help me create a picture of your attacker using this new computer program... it gives you a general face and you tweak it until it looks similar." Leah sighed.
"That won't be necessary." She put down her empty Jell-O container on the tray and moved it off to the side then pointed to the bookcase across the room, beside the door. "Could you pass me that?" I stood and put the laptop gently on the chair, crossed the room and picked up what she was pointing to; a simple 200 page Notebook brand blue notebook.
I handed it to her without a word, picked up the lap top and sat back down with it on my lap. She began to flip through the notebook, and then stopped, folding the back over so the page she had stopped on was the front. She offered me the notebook and I took it from her, not knowing what to expect.
It was a perfect drawing of him. From easily descriptive things— his round face, chin scar, short blonde hair and cold eyes— to more insignificant details— the stubble on his chin, flared nostrils, imperfect (yet slightly nauseating) smile with pointy incisors and large front teeth— she had him perfectly sketched in pencil on the lined notebook paper.
I looked up at her, wide-eyed. As I am not artistically inclined myself, I found her talent a wonderful gift that should be cherished. I also found that the fire in my stomach— the part of me that wanted to kill the monster who had treated her this way— grew stronger when I saw for the first time how much potential she had.
"Wow," I mumbled, speechless— and that never, ever happens to me. I licked my lips. "Well, we defidently don't need that program, then." She nodded.
"You can take that with you. I thought it might help," she said, smiling a little, "It's not like I'm going to forget his face anytime soon." Her words sounded bitter-sweet. I nodded, feeling sad. No, she was not going to forget his face anytime soon. She might never. I would never forget the face of my captor, Tobias Hankel. Though perhaps my eidetic memory had something to do with that; and I hoped that was the case, so she would not have to see this man's face in her dreams for many nights to come.
"It will, help," I agreed, "Thank you." I tore out the page with his picture and offered her back the notebook, then slipped the offending paper into my case file. I couldn't look at it anymore, though I knew I would remember it forever— damn eidetic memory. His face would probably haunt me until we found him. Me and my moronic nightmares; I hate them, but they're a part of me.
She nodded and looked down at her notebook, which was now on a blank page. I wondered briefly where she had gotten it— had a nurse gotten her it, or had a family member or friend dropped by? Perhaps her boyfriend or husband had brought her it.
My stomach twisted. I didn't know why I was upset at the thought of her having an intimate relationship. Then I remembered how I had called her beautiful. I was experiencing jealousy— jealousy over someone I barely knew, and had no clue if she was seeing anybody. Not that that mattered! It did not. I couldn't see her in a romantic light; oh, no. A victim of a brutal attack, raped and stabbed... no, I would not think about how lovely her high cheekbones were or how her lips reminded me of Lila's. I would not wonder how it would be to hiss those lips, or run my fingers through her dark hair. I would not! I could not! If we had met under different circumstances, I figured that I would have had a crush on her. But at this time, there was no way I could feel anything for her. I would force myself not to, if I had to. Because she was a victim; I could not have feelings of a romantic nature for her. No. I would not let myself.
"Are you okay?" Her voice made me jump and I fumbled with the computer and file in my lap as I was pulled out of my dream-world rather abruptly. I need to censor my thoughts, or else I drift away like I just had into the bowls of my own brain. I blinked rapidly and regained my composure as best as I could, then cleared my throat.
"Oh. Yeah, sorry," I paused. "I'm fine. I was just thinking, you know." I moved the computer into my arms and stood, pushing back the chair with my foot as I did so. "Thank you, for the drawing. It's sure to be a big help in our investigation." She nodded, her eyebrows pushed together.
"Yeah, sure," she said, "It was no trouble at all."
"We'll find him," I told her as I walked toward the door. I paused with my hand on the doorknob and turned back to her, shifting the weight of the laptop to one side. "I promise." She smiled, and I left.
I didn't see her again for a while.
I didn't sleep that night. I saw her eyes when I closed mine; scared, alone, afraid, desperate. They haunted me. The next morning Morgan and I went around to the women's work places, grocery stores, homes, favourite restaurants and showed the picture to the people there. We left copies at all the public bulletin boards we knew of, at coffee shops, everywhere we could think of. I even pinned one on my bulletin board in my apartment, above my desk. No one had seen him. I couldn't understand it. The drawing was perfect; flawless. Leah was an amazing artist.
The next night, I didn't sleep either. Nothing new had turned up. There had been no changes in the case whatsoever. I heard through the grapevine that Leah had been released from the hospital. Every now and then Emily or Hotch or Morgan or Garcia would give me a sympathetic look, tell me I looked thin or mentioned the dark circles under my eyes; this went on for a week. A week we wasted trying to catch the uncatchable, while we could have been after another killer and found him by now. That's when the guilt started.
Ten days after I saw Leah at the hospital, Agent Todd gave us a missing kid case. A little girl had gone missing in Alabama. Rossi told me we'd continue to look for Leah's attacker after we got back, but at the moment, ten-year-old Cate Hale took priority. I was silent most of the flight, and only spoke when we were there when it was necessary to the case. I tried to be a productive member of the team, but I found myself slipping; at first I stopped doing little things that came naturally, like shaving my five o'clock shadow and brushing my teeth after lunch.
After we solved the case (it was a horrifying, and unfinished-feeling end, but an end none the less) and returned home, those little things became bigger things: forgetting to eat lunch, take out the trash, wash the dishes, or take a shower in the morning. Things that used to be routine became stupid feeling and tedious. I craved Dilaudid more than I had in months. Everything was falling apart before my eyes. And we were no closer to solving the damn case!
I wanted to hard to keep my promise to Leah Banks. She seemed like a distant memory to my sleep deprived brain. As I lay awake on my bed fully dressed six days after our return to Quantico, I wondered if I had imagined her. No person's eyes could be that green; my eidetic memory must be exaggerating. No woman's face could be so flawless, no scar so beautiful. I must be misremembering. Perhaps she wasn't even as beautiful as I had thought. Perhaps my imagination had been running wild.
Those thoughts made me physically sick to my stomach. If I was misremembering Leah, perfect Leah... then something must be wrong with me. My eyes drifted close, and I drifted into a light sleep. I woke an hour later covered in a thin sheet of sweat from my nightmare; a nightmare filled with green eyes and bleeding wounds on a beach.
I glanced at the clock. It was two AM. I sat up and stumbled to the bathroom, splashing water on my face as soon as I could figured out how to turn the tap (I tried to turn it in the wrong direction for at least a minute or two). It didn't help. I was exhausted. How could one case, one girl, do this to me? I was breaking!
I did what I had to so I could fall asleep; I took a couple of Advil for the headache that constantly rattled my brains and a tablet of over-the-counter cinnarizine for the nausea. I had long ago figured out what dosed could be used together without being dangerous. Chronic headaches and insomnia had plagued me before. The cinnarizine made me just drowsy enough to get through a night.
But every night the same thing happened. I would have the same dream, and the same events would follow. But it wasn't a dream. It always felt so real. Terror would tug at my stomach as the UNSUB Leah had drawn stood over me with a knife in his hand, a grin slowly spreading across his lips and a glint in his eye as he raised it high above his head. He would bring it down, and I would stiffen, waiting for the pain. As the knife touched my skin, but before it could tear through it, I would wake. Panting and sweating, head throbbing, stomach churning, muscles tight with anticipation of the agony, I would surface into consciousness. It happened just as the lethargic effects of the medication wore off. Usually, it would be almost time for work. I would drag myself out of bed, take a quick shower and get dressed as normally as I could; white or beige collar shirt, patterned tie, brown sweater vest, dark slacks and mismatched socks.
I started the day and tried to act normal. But nothing felt normal. It couldn't, until Leah was brought justice. I couldn't help but feeling that day would never come. And that just wasn't fair.