Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I really loved them. This ones a little long and I hope you all like it.

Thanks to my beta Irish Anor. She doesn't watch the show but reads this anyway... that's love. ; )

Fate

Chapter 1: Coping Skills

We each found ways to blame ourselves. We should have noticed that he was gone sooner, we should have looked at the evidence closer, we should have worked harder. If we had, Reid would be with us right now, instead of God knows where having God knows what done to him. It was a thought I entertained often, but I know we did the best we could. We couldn't have handled the situation any better. It was just a fact of the job that not every case gets solved. Some slip through the crack and there's nothing we can do about it.

Work got us through those first weeks. We had all focused on finding the boy genius, rather than on the fact that he was gone. As the weeks turned to months we had to push Reid's case to the back burner and let the police handle it. By then it was becoming painfully obvious that we might not see him again. We had other cases to focus on, but what had happened had started to sink in.

Each member of the team found their own way to cope, some constructive and others not so much. We were just trying to get through the day without breaking down. It was our fear of never seeing him again coupled with the guilt of not being able to save him. We felt impotent, helpless.

Gideon took it upon himself to look after Reid's mother. He called to check up on her and wrote. On Reid's birthday Gideon went down to visit her. I always wondered how he explained her son's disappearance to her, but he never said so I never asked.

Garcia had taken Reid's kitten. We didn't even know he had one until we went through his apartment for evidence. The computer tech had jumped at the chance to take care of the baby feline. No one challenged her, although JJ looked like she wanted to.

Elle stayed to herself, trying to keep an air of indifference around her. She picked up the pieces and looked to be moving on. There were moments, though, when her wall fell away. It was during moments like finding her in the cafeteria late at night, crying into a cup of coffee that I could see that she was still hurting.

It was JJ and I who kept harassing the detectives who were given Reid's case. Neither of us knew the other was doing it until one of the detectives snapped at JJ about the FBI's nagging. Neither of us stopped afterwards either. They still receive calls from both of us.

It was a surprise to find that out of all of us, it was Morgan who had taken Reid's disappearance the hardest. He confided in me once, saying that Reid was like a little brother to him. He was the innocent one that needed protecting. Morgan felt that he had failed him in that aspect. He kept his sanity by keeping Reid's things. After a month we got rid of the apartment and Morgan put Reid's stuff into storage. He says he goes there sometimes to paw through things, trying to remember him.

The whole team joined him on Reid's birthday. It was the hardest day any of us had. Besides it being his day, it was also the day we believe he disappeared. It was a Friday, we had celebrated, he went home, and we didn't see him again. We were thankful that it had been a slow day, seeing as none of us felt up to working. A year. He had been in Hell for a year and we weren't doing anything about it. It was hard. And then time went on. Month's went by and it seemed like the cycle was starting all over again. I don't think any of us could have handled his birthday coming around again.

There are moments in my life that I can remember as clear as the day they happened, moments I will never forget. The day I married Haley, the day my son was born, and the day I received the most important phone call of my life.

When I was told the man on the phone was a sheriff down in Ames, Iowa. I believed it was another case. The others would not be happy. When he said he was calling about Spencer Reid every rational thought left me, including holding the phone. It took a moment for my blank mind to realize that I had dropped the only lifeline to my missing agent. After snagging it from the floor I demanded to know if he was alive, fearful of the answer. I hadn't realized how much pressure his disappearance had put on my shoulders until I heard the sheriff assure me that he was alive. He told me that Reid was in the hospital, but he was stable. I had never breathed easier in my life.

Gideon and Morgan were the only ones left after I had hung up. I had caught Morgan as he was leaving, saying simply, "They found Reid." I started off towards Gideon's office to tell him. I thought Morgan might start grilling me then and there, but he was patient. He followed me to the older agent's office and waited for me to fill both of them in together. I said that I was going down there and Morgan jumped in saying that he was too. Gideon merely nodded his head. I hadn't the heart to tell them that I couldn't take the whole team down with me.

I settled on calling JJ and Elle from the plane to tell them the good news. I also pulled rank, forbidding them to come. Someone had to stay in case we got a call. It was easier to deal with their anger from over the phone. It would have been impossible to deny Morgan and Gideon to their face. The two women calmed a little after I told them it might not be best to overwhelm Reid with all of them being present. We had no idea what he had gone through.

We had no idea what he had gone through.

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