Fate

Chapter 6: Prelude to Movie Night

When we arrived at the hospital, Sheriff Pryce went to find the doctor. He wanted a report on Reid's injuries. Gideon and I headed for the man in question. He was asleep and I felt a pang of disappointment over it. At first I had been relieved, but now I just wanted to talk to him. I wanted him to know that we were here for him.

Morgan sat in one of the chairs with his feet propped up on the bed. He was flipping through channels on the muted tv. He didn't acknowledge us and I could tell that he was lost in thought.

I could see him jump in surprise when I spoke, "How is he?"

He took his feet off of the bed and turned in the chair to look at us, "I... I don't really know." He rubbed a hand over his tired face, "He woke up for a bit."

"He did?"

"Yeah. He was kind of out of it. He asked me if this was real, if I was real. He passed out after that." Morgan told us quietly.

I looked back at the sleeping man and sighed. It shouldn't have surprised me that he wasn't lucid, the doctor had told me he would try to keep Reid sedated for a while. My throat became suspiciously tight and I cleared it before saying, "We just came to check in. There's one more thing we've got to take care of and then we'll be back."

"You guys going to keep me out of the loop on this one?"

I knew there would be more fight in him about this. "Trust me, you don't want to be in the loop on this one. Just focus on Reid, the future. Not what's in the past."

"Yeah. That's what matters, right?" He asked softly, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Right." I nodded.

We spent a few more minutes watching Reid in silence. Sometimes he would move in his sleep, and mumble something none of us could catch. Morgan's hand was latched onto his and at times he would whisper soothing words to the younger man. The assurance that someone was there seemed to calm Reid.

The doctor came back with Sheriff Pryce and we watched for a moment while he checked on Reid and wrote something on his chart. He smiled at us before leaving. I told Morgan we would be back soon and left as well, Gideon and Pryce following behind me.

Once again I found myself in the sheriff's backseat, but this time I was staring at the plastic encased video camera sitting on the seat next to me. We were waiting until we got to the sheriff's department to watch it. I've seen a lot of terrible things during my career, and I couldn't help but pull those images into my mind when I thought about what might be on that tape.

I started to reconsider Pryce's offer to watch the tape first. It was bad enough knowing what had happened to the boy genius, but did I really want to see it occur? How would that help any of us? Reid would only be embarrassed that we had seen. He's always been such a private person and for us to see him stripped of that privacy would hurt. It would be taking the control out of his hands all over again. Not to mention what it would do to our already high guilt levels.

While it would be a lot easier for the sheriff to screen it for us first, I couldn't do that. I needed to know as much as I could about what happened. It might be a while before he opens up to any of us and I don't want to be surprised. If I know about it ahead of time I can react and get it over with. I don't want Reid to witness my despair, surprise, disgust, or any of the other emotions I'm sure I'll be feeling. I want to shield him as much as I possibly can.

The sheriff lead us to his office before leaving again. He came back with a tv cart and shut the door behind him. He asked Gideon to close the blinds before asking me for the video camera. I hadn't even realized I was tightly clutching it in my hands. I handed it over slowly and watched as Pryce hooked it up to the television and plugged it in, saying something about the battery being dead.

My heart was thumping wildly and I thought I might be sick when Pryce turned the tv on. He looked back at me and said, "You can take a seat." He paused for a moment before saying, "Are you sure you want to see this?"

I took a deep breath and nodded. I sat down in one of the visitor's chairs and barely acknowledged Gideon as he sat beside me. He patted my arm and I nodded, not knowing why, just feeling like I should.

I didn't want to watch this.

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