Notes:

TW: suggested rape (not explicit, never actually happened) choking, bombs, character deaths, etc.

Season 12 Episodes 21-22

There was no time for Reid to regain his footing, his mother was still missing and if Scratch got his hands on her, well prison wasn't the worst thing that could happen to him. He wasn't allowed back in the field, wasn't allowed to carry a gun. Wise, he thought. Frustratingly helpless still. But now, out here, he could do something of value and the team was putting everything into this. Someday maybe he'd find a way to thank them.

Leads followed tails and trails ending on a suspect no one expected. Another woman.

Cat Adams. Another name and face Spencer hadn't forgotten.

The team was trying to trust him, but they were afraid. Worried, that he'd lost too much of himself behind bars. Emily backed him up, she was relying on him to be honest, to admit if he couldn't handle interviewing Cat in prison.

They were right to be worried, but they were wrong. Cat couldn't break him, regardless of her games or the touch of her cold hand on his face. He wasn't alone, hadn't really been alone even inside.

"I want to know where you go, everybody goes someplace, they have to, to survive on the inside, so, tell me Spencey, where is your safe place?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to see it. I'm stuck in here for the rest of forever, and I want to know if your happy place is anything like mine."

"It's not."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because we have nothing in common."

"Do you want to see where I go? You can decide for yourself, but I think we have a lot in common."

He wouldn't break, didn't crack. Even when she revealed her winning hand. When she said those fatal words.

"We're pregnant."

"No."

"Yes."

"That's not possible."

"And yet, here we are. I am pregnant, and it is yours. Want to know how I did it?"

"No."

"I had Lindsey dose you in Mexico. And I gave her very specific instructions."

"What, you had her pretend to be you?"

"Would that have worked?" She grimaced as she read the truth in his face. Was it possible? Had they… he could just remember a cold hand on his cheek, as though someone had been holding an ice cold soda or sitting in the a/c too long. Cat smirked and then she added, "no, I know that wouldn't have worked, I told her to pretend to be Maeve."

Reid had been wavering on the edge of belief, trying to remember, horrifying as it was, until Cat said Maeve. "That didn't happen." He left the room without another word.

"Spence?" JJ hesitated. "it's in her file, and… the timeline matches."

"She's lying." Reid said, firmly, without a trace of doubt. "It's a lie, that never happened, it couldn't have."

JJ nodded, taking his word for it without knowing his reason. "I'll tell Emily."

It couldn't be his baby. Because Maeve wasn't the person he'd been thinking about every night in prison. No. When he imagined the hand of a lover on his cheek, it was warm and smelled of rose and citrus. A rush of adrenaline followed that realization and Spencer's confidence rose along with his certainty.

"I'm going back in, I know I can get to her, just… trust me on this, okay? Even if it looks like I'm losing it, just, trust me."

"Yeah, ok Spence." JJ said, waiting for the phone to connect.

Spencer played his hand well and Cat folded, dialing the number to Lindsey's phone, letting his mothers voice and gunshots echo through the small speaker before an explosion ended the call. But Reid was wrong in one instance at least, he could still break. His hands were around her throat before he could hear JJ yelling at him to stop. He dropped Cat like a disease and ran from the room, wiping his hands and shaking.

Now wasn't the moment to lose it, he wasn't trapped, these bars were not for him, he had to let the panic out before it consumed him. His mother. Dead. But not the only reason to keep fighting. He had to make it out. But if he did... What kind of man was he now? The kind that would lay hands on a woman? Not innocent, but pregnant and the child hadn't earned the mothers punishment. What kind of life would either of them have now? For the first time, Spencer wished the child was his, knew in his soul, no matter how corrupted he may have become, that little boy or girl would be better off in his care. But it was over, the gunshot, the explosion, it was over now and the child wasn't his.

JJ found him in the hallway. "There's no evidence of Lindsey or your mother at the scene of the explosion. We have to assume she's alive." Sinking to the floor beside him. "Hey, what's going on in there?"

"I'm worried, that maybe this is who I am now. I thought I was in control, but I…"

"Spence, anyone in your position would've reacted, especially after everything you've been through, I know you had to do things to survive in there, bad things. But that doesn't mean you're like them."

"You don't know what I did." Reid said, his voice cracking as he ducked his head.

"Yeah, yeah, I do Spence, and if it had been me? I might have done worse. That doesn't make you a bad person. You didn't somehow develop psychopathy, only a…" JJ's tone changed with her revelation, a smile beginning to curl the corners of her lips, "only someone like Cat would think that!"

"That's it, that's the secret! Cat thinks she made me like her, that putting me behind bars would make me psychopath!"

It was all a game, and Cat needed to believe that she was winning, so, he would play into her delusion. Get her to reveal the other player, the guard who'd been helping her. Those strings led the team to the cabin. This wasn't Reid's first game and he laid his trap well.

In the end, Cat overplayed her hand.

Lindsey was ready to kill them all, the bombs were set, the detonator in her hand. But Lindsey didn't know about the pregnancy. And that simple fact unraveled Cat's carefully laid revenge. Lindsey surrendered, Diana was spared.

Spencer returned to the BAU, to his waiting team and to his mother, safe and nearly whole. He was home. The rest would heal in time.

That should have been the end.

Justice would have been three days unbroken sleep for all of them.

But it was not to be, Morgan awaited the team in Emily's office, with a shady text from Garcia, that she definitely didn't send. Scratch, laying yet another trap for the moment that they, in their exhaustion tripped into it.

Garcia traced the hack back to Scratch's location, and the team, reorganized, as refreshed as a half hour of calm could make them, prepared for another takedown. Derek was a civilian now, so he was going home, but not before a visit to the best baby brother this side of Chicago.

"Is that-? I'm not imagining things, am I?" Reid said, throwing the door open.

"It's really me pretty boy, c'mon, give me a hug." Derek engulfed him in a hug. "Now are you going to invite me in?"

"Yes, of course, please, uh, ignore the mess, I've been home for all of ten minutes."

"Your mother?"

"In the hospital for tonight, after everything she's been through, she was dehydrated and a little malnourished and hadn't had her meds in over a week, so they've got her under observation to make sure she's recovering. I'm arranging to have her driven home to Las Vegas."

"That's got to be tough, letting her go back."

"Yeah, but its what she wants, it's been her home for over a decade. And I can call and write and visit as often as I want. It's better for her." Reid said, trying to be chipper but screwing up his mouth in that way he did when he was trying not to show too much emotion. "How's Hank?"

"He's great! He's just started walking, I've got video, you want to see it?"

"Yeah, please!"

They traded news for twenty minutes and then Morgan had to leave to catch his flight.

Reid was settling on his couch, trying to fit the events of the last three months into his history, a half finished rough sketch of little Hank worked up on the paper in his lap, his eyelids just beginning to droop when the call came.

"They, Uh, an accident, everybody… EMS is taking everyone to hospital… Scratch took Emily. and Stephen… He's really bad, I heard the paramedic say something about spine... I know you just got home, but-"

"Which hospital?" Reid waited for the details as he collected his keys, suddenly startling awake. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

Blood pounded and thrashed through Reid's veins, throbbing behind his eyes. His mind was failing him and Emily was out there, being tortured, killed maybe, waiting for him to figure it out. Seven hours, running down leads and piecing things together and trying to make his eyes work. Luke suggested he was suffering PTSS; the prolonged trauma of imprisonment and not nearly enough sleep finally catching up with him. But he didn't have time to fix it, Emily was counting on him.

When it was over, he'd sleep. When she was safe. He'd be okay when he knew that Emily was alive and Scratch was dead.

When the text came, he was out the door in a vest, armed with Rossi's permission and ready to end nearly a year of torment, to avenge himself on at least one of the unsubs that had done so much damage to his family.

They found her in a warehouse. Emily. Alive, wounded but not defeated.

Scratch was running, but Reid wasn't going to let him get away. Not this time. Never again.

"Reid, Please! I need you to stay, with me-" Emily's tearful voice arrested him. "I need someone I know is real, please, don't leave me!"

"Okay." He changed direction immediately, wrapping her up tight and murmuring reassurances into her ear. "I've got you, Emily. I've got you. You're okay now. I'm here and I'm not letting you go." She wept in his arms and he rubbed little circles into her shoulders.

Luke spoke in his earpiece, "Scratch is down, I repeat, Scratch is down."

"He's dead Emily, you made it and he didn't. It's over… Lets go." Reid helped her outside to the arriving ambulance. "Let them look after you, I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm fine, really, I just…"

"Sit." Reid said authoritatively, "you need to have your head looked at, you might have a concussion."

She raised an eyebrow at him but acquiesced, letting the paramedics check her eyes and reflexes for nerve damage or swelling in the brain. The damage that had been done wasn't tangible, and she saw it reflected in Reid's face. The wound was in the psyche. And it would take time to heal, to find peace. They both needed to find peace.

Stephen Walker was no longer at deaths door, and though it was doubtful he'd ever use his legs again, he was grateful to still be alive.

Debriefing the rest of the team, Emily shared the mantra that had kept her going through the worst of the pain, the reminder that no matter how bad it gets, the team was coming for her. Rest was needed, they were all being given a necessary hiatus, but when the time came…

"Wheels up."

"Wheels up." The team answered, one at a time, a promise, an oath.

Spencer saw his mother into the care of nurses she recognized and returned home in the afternoon of the next day with a single mission.

He drove without consulting a map or street signs and found himself on a long graveled driveway lined with trees.

Notes:

Woof, that was rough, hope it makes sense!
The next chapter still needs some work so it might be a couple days before it gets posted, but I promise, It'll be worth waiting for!
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