Essential listening – Broken, by Lifehouse

0o0

They had trawled all night through some of the saddest files of the Wisconsin school system, and it felt like they were running out of time. There was only an hour, now, until the UnSub's usual 'drop off' time and there were still several hundred files to go. All of these boys had horrible pasts (and some of them presents), and none of their families fit the UnSub's profile. They could've opened a new department just to do this job every six months and it still wouldn't have helped all these kids.

Grace ran a hand through her hair, frustrated.

"It's impossible, there's too many," Reid complained, unusually petulant.

"Keep lookin' Reid," said Morgan, without looking up. "We still have an hour."

"Never thought we'd find a paper trail you didn't like," Grace muttered.

Reid grunted.

"Thank you, by the way, for giving Garcia that file to give to me," said Hotch, in an undertone to JJ.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said JJ, confused. "I didn't see Garcia before I left."

Emily smirked at Grace; Garcia could be pretty devious when she wanted to be – it took people by surprise.

They stuck at it, conscious that every file they chewed through brought them one step closer to Clara Thompson and her abductor.

0o0o0o0

It was never easy when it ended like this.

Aaron followed their section chief to the gutter containing Clara Thompson's mortal remains, surprised that she had been the first out of the SUVs. He'd thought at first it was all a part of showing them who was boss, but he saw her face when she got closer and understood.

This was the first victim Erin Strauss hadn't been able to save.

He steadied her when she stumbled against the fence.

"Are you alright?" he said softly. "You're okay."

She looked strained and distraught, caught out by the visceral reality of death. This would be the first major stain that she would carry home on her soul.

"I stepped – I stepped on her hair," she choked, looking as if she felt dreadfully exposed. That was the trouble with a scene like this. Everyone was watching you.

"If you need a second, take a second," said Aaron. "This is what it is. Just don't let the public see you break down."

He helped her get the first few steps out of the gutter, where Pearce pulled her up the rest of the way. The young agent led Strauss away, already offering her a bottle of water in case she needed to rinse her mouth out.

"This is a different area from the other dump sites, isn't it?" Prentiss asked.

"He's getting smarter," Reid observed. "He knows where all of our manpower is, so he's just changing locations."

"He's not done yet," said JJ.

"Well, how long before he changes when and where he abducts them?" Morgan said.

"He does that, we're back at zero," Prentiss remarked.

A shout from beyond the tape made them all look up.

"Clara?"

A man was approaching the scene at some speed, greatly distressed. Aaron recognised the husband of a victim when he saw one.

"No, no, no, no, we gotta keep him outta here," said Morgan, and took off toward the tape, Prentiss and JJ close behind.

Aaron let them go, glad that his team had been able to function without him, as anxious as they were.

"Morgan says you're worried about Gideon," he said, as Reid bent to take a closer look at their latest victim.

He glanced up, looking for hope Aaron wasn't sure he could provide.

"I keep on calling him, he doesn't call back," said the young agent.

Hotch nodded. Gideon's continued absence wasn't a good sign. He'd been shaky enough as it was before the suspension – well, shaky for Gideon.

"He's probably at his cabin. That's where he goes when he," he paused. "Needs to get away." Aaron gazed sadly at what was left of Clara Thompson. "Reid, I need your head in this," he said, aware of what he was asking.

"I know."

0o0o0o0

"So, what's around the dump site?" Hotch asked.

Detective Wolinski pointed them out on the map,

"Here's the old printing press at Quantagraphics, and the paving yard – and then the concrete factory where we found the body," he said. "None of them visible from the highway."

"You don't end up there by accident," Prentiss mused.

"Suggesting prior knowledge," Pearce observed from somewhere behind him.

"So we go back to the schools, we eliminate the third ward and we target problem kids whose fathers have held blue collar jobs over the last ten years," Hotch instructed.

Damn it was good to have some real leadership again, Derek reflected.

"What if he's not a problem kid?" Reid postulated, suddenly.

"What?" said Derek.

"Forget it," the young agent said. "It's off the textbook profile."

"What is it, Reid?" Hotch asked, inviting him to continue.

"Sometimes when a parent is unstable – especially when the other one's out of the picture," he began, and Derek wondered if he was recalling his own upbringing. "You'll do anything to be the perfect child."

"Like help your father abduct women?" Prentiss asked, shocked.

"If it makes him happy," said Pearce, who appeared to be giving Reid a searching look. He avoided her gaze. "Makes about as much sense as anything when you're seven."

"They're never late for school," Reid pointed out. "Even with the abductions, the disposals of the bodies – it's always timed perfectly so the kid'll be on time to school." He was starting to sound excited now. "I don't think the killer would care – I think the kid would."

0o0o0o0

"What kind of person finds out their partner has cancer and just skips out on them?" Grace grumbled, crouching behind the Smith house with JJ and Reid.

"Cancer's a scary thing," said JJ. "Maybe she just couldn't face it."

She and Reid were struggling into their stab vests; Reid gave JJ an odd look.

"Leaving a kid, though, just because life gets hard?" Grace asked.

"I can't imagine it," JJ admitted.

How long had Emily been inside now? Two minutes? Three?

"Her son will never forgive her," said Reid; there was just enough of a hint of darkness about the way he said it for JJ and Grace to share a speaking look behind his head.

"The door's locked," said JJ, after a moment. "I'm not technically allowed to –"

Hotch gave the signal and Grace kicked the door off its frame; the three agents strafed through the kitchen of what had obviously been a happy, well-maintained home. They followed the sounds of the other half of their team down to the basement, where a sort of queue of agents was forming.

It had all gone rather quiet beyond, as they dealt with whatever the UnSub had waiting for them down there.

Grace got inside in time to see Emily stumble backwards, her head bleeding and bruised. Morgan had a hand on Smith already, but Hotch – her blood ran cold. Hotch was facing down Smith's seven year old son, who was pointing a gun at him.

It looked very large in the child's hands, almost like a toy. There was a moment in which the world seemed to coalesce, but the UnSub, who must still have felt something for his son, told him to put it down. Hotch lifted it out of his unresisting fingers as she and Reid untied the school nurse. She sobbed and cried against her when they managed to get her hands loose.

Behind her, Grace could hear JJ taking care of Emily, who sounded woozy and unfocussed.

"You're dying," said Detective Wolinski, who was checking Smith's cuffs. "And this is what you wanna leave your son?"

Smith gazed at the hearts in their perfectly crafted wooden boxes before the detective bundled him out of the basement and away. As if by some unspoken signal, she and Reid kept his latest victim back until he was gone, blocking her view of the grisly souvenirs of her predecessors while they untied her hands and could escort her out without the UnSub causing further trauma.

They got her into the first ambulance, which sped off in the direction of the nearest hospital, getting her away from there as fast as possible. Emily was led, unresisting to the other one.

Grace had stationed herself by David, who seemed disturbingly resigned to the mess his father had made of their lives. He'd told her that he knew his daddy was killing the women, but he didn't listen when he told him not to – he'd just get angry instead.

Grace had told him he was very brave.

If she had to, she would stand by this car until child services arrived. She watched Detective Wolinski lead Smith to the car that would whisk him away to processing.

"I'll be dead before I ever stand trial," he gloated.

"Good," said Detective Wolinski.

"You know," he said, as they passed the car. "I never even told the boy to bring me this last one."

Grace closed her eyes.

Always striving to be the perfect kid.

She looked up again as Strauss came back out of the house.

"How's she doing?" she asked Hotch, nodding in Emily's direction.

"She'll be okay."

"You know I can't officially approve of how this transpired, but…" she said, leaving what was probably an attempt at apology hanging in the air.

"I know," said Hotch. "The arrest was clean." He looked right at her when he continued, "It would be a mistake to break up this team."

Strauss looked around, aware that they could all hear – and were hanging on her and Hotch's every word.

"None of you will ever move up the chain of command," she said. "You know that."

"Why would I ever wanna leave the BAU?" Hotch asked, and walked away.

The smallest of smiles passed across Grace's lips; Strauss met her gaze and she turned away, content to let the others reassure themselves. In many ways Grace was still an outsider on this team.

"Hotch, you mean that?" Morgan asked, some way behind her. "You're not gonna leave us?"

"I don't know," he said. "I gotta talk to Haley."

"Hey," said Grace, crouching beside the little boy in the car. "If you ever need help, wherever you are, you call me, okay?" she said, offering him her card. "Any time."

"Okay," he said, and took it, holding it almost reverently.

"You're going to be okay, kiddo," she said, and ruffled his hair, eliciting the first smile she'd seen on him.

Hotch patted her on her shoulder, taking her by surprise. She got to her feet, conscious that David was watching them.

"Good work," he said.

"It's good to have you back," she said, surprised, but he was already walking away.

"My dad does that too," said David, correctly interpreting Hotch's relationship with the team.

"Yeah," she nodded, with a half-smile. "They all do."

0o0o0o0

It was close to 10 p.m. when Spencer finally arrived at Gideon's cabin. He hoped it wasn't too late to be visiting his friend and mentor, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly, irrevocably wrong. He had to be sure.

He got out of the car slowly, shoving the torch he kept in the glovebox in his back pocket. The bumps and dips on the dirt road hadn't done the suspension on what – even in its heyday – had only ever been intended as a city car, any good. There were no lights in the cabin at all.

Even before he reached the door it stuck him, that feeling of the emptiness beyond, and for a moment he couldn't lift his hand.

Denial is a fine thing, he thought. But I have to know.

He knocked on the door out of politeness.

"Gideon?" he asked, suddenly glad he'd left his own car headlights on. He turned to look behind him in case the man was out on a trail somewhere and had heard him calling. Surely he would come back if he heard a friendly voice. "Gideon?" he called again, uncertainly.

He went to knock a second time, but the door swung open of its own accord. The darkness seemed to have an added quality inside the cabin, but already he could tell from the sound of his voice that something wasn't right.

He swung the torch around, revealing the empty shelves and countertops he had feared.

There was a lamp on the table and he switched it on, feeling lost. His heart sank as he spotted Gideon's badge and gun on the table. Spencer stared at them, unbelieving.

He sat down at the table, where he imagined Gideon had wanted him to, feeling – not afraid, not now his worst fears had been confirmed – but hollow, as empty as the cabin itself.

He picked up the envelope with his name on it, uncertain how to feel that Gideon had expected him to come – and expected him to find him long gone.

With that part of his mind that functioned without reference to circumstance he noted that the envelope was huge compared to its contents, pages torn from Gideon's notebook, perhaps. He began to read:

Spencer,

I knew it would be you who came to the cabin to check on me. I'm sorry the explanation couldn't be better, and I'm sorry that it doesn't make more sense, but I've already told you, I just don't understand any of it anymore…

0o0o0o0

Grace moved through her pitch dark house, her gun up and ready.

Since she'd arrived in Apple Tree Lane the patterns of her neighbours' comings and goings had solidified in her mind; the arrival of an unknown car engine on the windy side of 2 a.m. had caught her attention. The candles burning around her empty book room, where she had been quietly reading, had been quickly extinguished when she'd heard, just a little while later, the noise of a car door opening.

She listened, taut and ready, as someone opened and closed her garden gate. Their noisy footsteps matched her silent ones as she padded, barefoot, towards her own front door. They arrived either side of it at the same time, Grace and her mysterious guest. Grace stayed clear of the door, in case whoever it was tried to shoot their way in.

It seemed an age before the someone moved again. Grace could hear her heart hammering against the inside of her chest as whoever it was continued to stare at the outside of her front door, waiting for her to – what, exactly? Go back to sleep?

The knock startled her. She tensed, frozen to the spot. What kind of nefarious nocturnal person knocked on your door at 2 a.m.? A ruse, perhaps? She frowned down at her weapon, baffled.

The intruder knocked again.

"Grace?"

She straightened, stunned.

"Are you there?" There was a pause. "Please be there," he added, much more softly this time. It sounded like he'd been crying.

Without bothering to look through the peephole she drew back the chain and opened the door.

"Spencer?"

He was a mess. What she could see of his face was streaked with tears, his eyes red and puffy from crying. The rest was obscured by his hair, which had been allowed to fall forward.

"Hey," he said thickly and then paused, focussing on the gun hanging loosely at her side. His eyes travelled up to her face.

"Well, it is two in the morning," she said, answering his unspoken question. "What happened?"

The confusion on his face was replaced by what Grace could only describe as agony. Suddenly she wondered whether his mother had been taken ill. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and broken, almost like a child's.

"He's gone," he said. "Gideon – he's gone."

Grace stared at him for a moment, fearful of asking him to elaborate. There were a lot of things that the word 'gone' could mean.

"I went to his cabin," he told herm and she realised he was crying again. "It was empty."

"Empty?"

"All his stuff was gone." He was trying very hard to stop the tears now, but his lower lip was trembling like he had no real control over his face. "He's gone away."

He said the last part so softly it nearly broke her heart.

"I called Hotch," he sobbed. "He took his badge and gun –"

"He left them?" Grace asked, horrified. "Just like that?"

She felt staggered. That was the act of a copper who was never coming back. If anyone knew what running away looked like, Grace did. She'd thought about doing the same thing a hundred times.

"He wrote – uh –" Spencer offered her the letter, holding out a pale, trembling hand. "You can read it, I don't mind…"

She moved to take the pages from him, feeling numb and oddly bereft for someone who had only been with the BAU for a short time. After the last few days she had felt like her family had been under threat – it wasn't a feeling she'd expected to experience again and as such, she wasn't sure how to respond. Her fingers closed around more than the letter, however.

"You're freezing," she exclaimed, taking his hand; it dawned on her that he wasn't trembling so much as shivering. "How long were you out there?"

"A couple hours," he said tearfully. "I don't know… I – uh – I started driving home but I needed – I needed to…" His eyes flicked up to her face and then away again, and she wondered what he wasn't saying. "I couldn't get warm…"

"You drove here?"

Grace stuck her head out of her door; sure enough, Spencer's light blue Volvo was parked at the end of her garden among the roses, making the end of the street look like a still from an old movie. She looked back at her friend, who cleared his throat. For a moment it looked like he might say something, but he faltered and stared at his shoes instead.

Spencer was gripping her hand like the world might end if he let go.

"Come on," she said gently, and led him inside.

"Why are you carrying your gun?" he asked thickly, as she locked and chained the door.

"You're armed."

"I'm not in my PJs…"

"When your car pulled up I thought –" she glanced at him. "Old habits," she finished, instead.

He stood awkwardly in the doorway to the book room while she relit the candles. Neither of them said anything about how obvious it was that she hadn't been sleeping.

Grace read the note by candlelight, with Spencer hovering nearby. It was heartfelt and stark; she could see why he wouldn't want to let it out of his sight.

"He's not coming back then," she said aloud, sadly.

And I don't blame him, she thought, remembering a conversation they'd had in Kansas City*.

Spencer made a muffled noise and when she looked up again he'd turned away. Controlling his grief, she supposed.

"Here," she said, pressing the letter back into his hand. He stuffed it into his pocket, no longer able to meet her eyes. It was easy to forget, sometimes, how very young Spencer seemed, when they dealt day to day with such horrors.

His earlier comment about a child's forgiveness sprang to the forefront of her mind. Spencer's father had left when he was young and for a long time he had been trying to be perfect. Gideon had been as much a father figure for him as Lightfoot was for her.

"I can't – I can't –" he stuttered, quietly, and them seemed to pull himself together. "I should go. I – uh – it's late and I should –"

Grace never found out what he thought he should, as she wrapped her arms around him and he buried his face in her neck. He made a sound that was almost a whimper; she felt his legs buckle and managed to drop at roughly the same speed, so that neither of them injured their knees when they crashed to the floor. Grace held him tightly while he sobbed uncontrollably into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry – I'm sorry," he stammered eventually, pulling away. "I –"

"It's okay –"

"It's not. It's not okay – I should go."

He got to his feet, but Grace stopped him, managing to grab the sleeve of his cardigan.

"You can't drive like this," she told him. "I'm amazed you made it all the way from Shenandoah without crashing into anything."

"But –"

"No," she said firmly. "Stay. Please?"

She tucked an errant strand of hair behind his ear; the movement clearly confused him for a moment and he glanced in the direction of the front door and his car, but then his shoulders slumped, defeated. It struck Grace that he had given up far too easily, and that worried her.

She picked up one of the blankets from the pile by her makeshift bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. He shivered.

"I can't get warm," he said, softly. "I –"

He pulled the blanket tighter around herself.

"Well it was a bit like hugging a snowman," she teased, gently. "I mean, if snowmen were tall, skinny and kind of bony."

A chuckle escaped him, which made her feel a hell of a lot better.

"Bony?" he asked, pulling a face.

"Well, it made you laugh. Take off your shoes."

"My – my shoes?"

"My friend Alice says feet are the windows to your soul," she said, moving to sit down. The fact that she still had hold of his cardigan meant that he had to, too; he joined her on the floor.

"She does?" he asked, and she heard the confusion in his voice.

"She's a little odd," Grace allowed, "but she's right about the feet. Shoes off."

Spencer did as he was told, shooting her bemused looks, which at least meant that he wasn't crying anymore. He glanced at her through his hair, almost shyly.

"It's always the feet that get cold first when someone's sick and the first things you need to heat up again. Socks too," she added, smiling slightly at the bright, unmatched things. "Or you'll just keep the cold in."

Spencer gave her a doubtful look that would have made her laugh in other circumstances, but he pulled them off anyway. After a moment's thought he took off his watch and gun belt too. He glanced at the makeshift bed and blushed, but didn't say anything. Hesitantly, he crawled in beside her instead, and made an involuntary noise at her sudden warmth.

It took Grace by surprise when his arms wound around her waist, almost as a reflex. Normally, he shied away from human contact, and she suspected that he tolerated her disruptive presence and occasional hugs because he liked her company. He was so cold that she made no move to dislodge him, letting her friend cling to her until some of the heat began to return to his body. She could feel his eyes on her, embarrassed, so she did what she always did when she was uncomfortable: tried to make him laugh.

"Hey," she said. "At least this time we've got clothes on."

0o0

"I can't believe he's gone," Spencer sighed. He was holding the letter against his chest as if to read it, but Grace would have been prepared to swear he had already memorised its contents. Besides, given how low some of the candles were getting now, he couldn't have read much anyway. She could barely make out his face.

Although they had started out leaning with their backs against one of the bookshelves, as the night wore into morning they had gradually slipped lower and lower until Grace was propping herself up against a bank of pillows and Spencer (who had sort of slipped sideways at the same time) was resting his head on her stomach. They had spent the past few hours alternately grieving and comforting one another. Grace had been astonished to discover tears on her own face and when Spencer had spotted them he'd done his shaky best to look after her, too.

Gideon was the kind of person who left a lasting impression. She felt a little like she'd misplaced her long-lost uncle. She stroked Spencer's hair, absently.

"It's like you told Strauss," she said. "Some things just stick with you. They change you – and solace is hard to come by. I guess running away was the only thing he had left, after Sarah."

"I guess I just thought better of him…"

Grace looked at his shape in the flickering shadows.

"You're telling me you've never run away from anything?"

"No," he said quietly. "At least – not physically."

Absently, he scratched his arm were the scars of needle tracks were beginning to fade.

Grace looked away. She'd been running away the entire time she'd known him, and he'd 'thought better' of Gideon. What would he think of her, if he knew the truth? Would he be disappointed to know that she'd flirted with the idea of carrying on, the very morning she'd landed in New Orleans? Or did his talent for profiling allow him to see right through her?

"Maybe some things are just too much to bear," she murmured.

Possibly he sensed her turmoil, because he laid his hand over hers.

"I know," he said. "I just wish he would have said goodbye."

"I wouldn't have been able to," said Grace, after a moment's thought, realising that this was true. "I couldn't have faced any of you. Goodbye makes it sound like you're never coming back."

Spencer didn't say anything, but he kept a hold of her hand.

Everything went quiet for a while, save the occasional soft pop or gutter of a candle going out. Some of the shadows receded while others took on a more definite form; the cold, grey dawn light began to soak into the sky outside, intruding into their candlelit fortress.

"Grace?" Spencer said, softly. She had become so accustomed to the silence that it was a moment or two before she replied.

"Mmm?"

"I don't know what happened to you before you left England – I – uh – I know it makes you really sad sometimes, and I'm not glad it happened to you," he said, speaking more gently to her than he had in all the time she'd known him. "But I am glad you're here."

She turned her hand under his and laced their fingers together, unable to tell him how much his words had meant. He gave her hand the briefest of squeezes.

"So am I," she said, her voice unusually croaky.

There was another lengthy silence, in which the two of them began to hear the birds of the morning beginning their songs. It was warmer now, a little lighter: peaceful. She knew he wasn't asleep from the pattern of his breathing.

"Hey, Spencer?" she said, at last.

His voice was low when he responded, free of his earlier tension.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," she said, inwardly marvelling at how small her voice sounded, even to her.

"For what?"

She felt him twist so he was lying on his side, peering up at her in the darkness.

"For not asking."

0o0o0o0

It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our finest friends.

The Brothers Grimm

0o0

*See Moments of Grace, Season Two, Act Three, No Mortal Lock – Chapter Three, Left for Dead.