How could you do this to me? I trusted you. I knew you'd know it was me, but I never asked you to come here. Why did you think I didn't find you? I was just asking for advice, I know you knew that. So why, after everything I'd said about not wanting to be found out, would you do this?

I was doing fine. This was my life and you took it from me. You were the only person who truly understood, I told you everything, and you betrayed me.

I told you I'd disappear – well guess what? I'm gone.

"How did he know you were here? He wasn't here when you arrived."

"Where did he say he was going?"

"Home, he came back from the bathroom and said he wasn't feeling well a little after Gideon went into your office."

Gideon thought for a second and then started striding along to the corridor that led to the male bathroom. He stopped at a window and looked down onto the street below.

"He saw me."

"How do you know?"

"I walked along here to get into the building; I'd stopped to buy him a coffee and a bagel so I didn't take the usual entrance. He knew what I was here for."

"Now hold on just one second." Morgan and the other agents had been listening to the other agents, hardly able to believe what Hotch had thrown at them as they came rushing down into the bullpen from Hotch's office, searching frantically.

"Now just hold on, how do we even know what he's saying is true? We're his friends, we wouldn't let him slip this far. He's been a bit shook up, but he's always gotten over it. This guy abandons Reid, abandons all of us, and thinks he can just walk back in here and start accusing Reid of this stuff?"

"Morgan, we don't have time for this -"

"No, Hotch, it's alright." Gideon stepped forward, hands raised as he spoke in his distinctive manner. "Reid has been sending me emails for the past few weeks, explaining everything. I don't know how he found me. They never said they were from him but, even though he tried to decieve me by using different vocal patterns, I knew it was him. It wasn't just the content of his emails that worried me, it was his tone. Spencer has always been, at heart, an optimistic person. The tone of these was different. The mood is so low, and so warped from what I knew him to be, that worried me more than anything else in those emails. I was on my laptop showing Hotch the first emails when we found the two new ones. When we read them, we knew what must have happened even if we didn't know how. That was when we came out here. You can read them if you want."

"You believe this, Hotch?" Morgan looked to him, still hostile.

"I don't want to, but I think Gideon's right. Whatever the case we need to find Reid before he gets himself in any worse a situation. For now there are no cases, we're focusing only on finding Reid. Get this laptop to Garcia; see if she can trace the origin of all the emails, starting with the last one."

"Gideon was only in your office a few minutes; he won't have had much of a head start, unless he has mobile broadband he would have had to use one of the local internet cafes to send that last email." Prentiss interjected, all business.

"Prentiss is right. Morgan, get Garcia to compile a list of internet cafes in a two-mile radius, you and Prentiss go and find out if Reid was in any of them recently. Rossi, you and JJ go and keep a look out at the train station. Gideon and I will go check his apartment. Move quickly, I want him found before this gets out of control."

"Do you think we'll find him?" JJ looked across at Rossi as he drove them faster than was recommended to the station.

"Of course we will kiddo. We know him, we'll figure it out."

"Do we know him, though? We knew he was struggling, but none of us had any idea it was like what Gideon is saying . . ."

"When people want to hide things, they'll do it, even from profilers. Especially someone as smart as Reid. We're going to get him the help he needs."

"But what if he won't let us? I mean, did you ever think Reid would do something like this?"

"People can do all sorts of things when they're stressed. He's angry, and he's scared. When he calms down, he'll be thinking more clearly and we'll be able to get through to him."

"I hope you're right."

They had reached the station, JJ climbed out and hurried into the station whilst Rossi found somewhere to put the conspicuous black SUV.

Hotch banged on the door of Reid's apartment and shouted through the door.

"Reid! Open up! It's Hotch and Gideon! We just want to talk!"

Nothing.

"Come on, Reid! Let us help you!"

They exchanged a glance. Gideon nodded and Hotch put the key they had borrowed off the building supervisor in the lock.

"Reid? We're coming in now."

They opened the door and headed inside. It was easy to tell Reid had been here before them. The usually neat apartment was a mess; the bedroom had clothes on the floor he had flung aside when choosing what to pack. The front door led straight into the living room and things had been knocked over as he hurried to make it out the door.

"He's running" Hotch said as Gideon gazed around silently. "I'm going to tell the team." Gideon just nodded. He walked from room to room, stopping at the kitchen. As he'd expected, there was nothing fresh in refrigerator, no washing up in the sink or on the drainer. The only food left in the cupboards was imperishable.

Hotch came back from talking on the phone. "We have to figure out where he'd go. His mother?"

"No, too obvious. Reid's smarter than that. We can't just watch the train station; Garcia needs to trace his card for any rental car transactions, cash withdrawals or for buying airline tickets. We need to watch the bus station too."

"That's all very obvious, Reid would have thought of that."

"I know, he may try to send us on a false trail. Either way, we still have to watch for it."

"He may have been planning for this; he could already have an escape planned, under an alias or some other untraceable means. If that's the case we may not find him"

"Reid's smart, if he doesn't want to be found we probably won't find him. He may still try to stay in touch with me through email though."

"Emails can be traced; he'd have to find a way to cover his tracks."

"Which I'm sure he'll manage to do once he finds a computer hardware store."

"Our best chance would be to convince him to come home through replying to him then."

Gideon nodded, gazing out of the window. He hadn't looked at Hotch the whole time they'd been talking.

"This wasn't your fault, Jason. You had to tell us. He'll do serious harm to himself if he doesn't stop. He needs help."

"I know I was right to come here."

"But you feel like if you hadn't have left this wouldn't have happened?" Gideon didn't say anything. "I can't say whether that's true or not, but what's done is done. If you want to help Reid now you need to focus and help us find him."

Gideon paused. Hadn't he said that he'd only stay long enough to tell them what was happening? Then he'd leave, and go back to his safe little cabin? But Spencer was in trouble, could he just leave him? Gideon sighed. He knew he had to stay, no matter how much he didn't want to come back into this world. He may have lived in it for a long time, but that didn't give him the right to abandon the people who needed him now. He turned around.

"What did the team find out?"

"Prentiss and Morgan spoke to the owner of a coffee shop round the corner from the federal building who remembers Reid. He said Reid was agitated, only stayed long enough to log on, type something very quickly, and leave. It was just after you arrived."

"Well the amount of time it would take to get here, pack and leave means we must have only just missed him."

"I'll alert Garcia to watch any activity on Reid's cards and put out an APB on his card. JJ and Rossi are at the train station, they haven't seen him but he could still arrive there. I'll send Morgan and Prentiss to the bus station."

"Good. Have Garcia give the home Reid's mother is in a call and ask them to let us know if they see Reid there."

"We can start searching here more thoroughly and see if we can find any information that would tell us where he would go."

"Got it." Morgan put the phone down and looked across at Emily. "Hotch just phoned. He said he and Gideon are at Reid's apartment, he said it's a mess and that there's signs he was packing but no Reid. They think he's running."

"He doesn't want to be confronted about what he's doing." Prentiss sighed.

"We never knew" Morgan said softly.

"We couldn't know, Reid never said."

"No, it's because we didn't want to know, we didn't give him the time or the attention he needed to talk to us. . . He would rather track Gideon down, wherever the hell he's been and send him god damn anonymous emails than talk to us? He feels that distant from us? We're meant to be a team, but we weren't there for him. He needed help, and even though he saw us every single day, he felt like he had no one to talk to." Morgan's voice was angry, but his eyes shone. He shook his head and looked away.

"Reid didn't ask for help. If he had we would have given it. At least now he is reaching out to someone, it shows he does want help. When he admits that to us, we'll be able to help him."

"God damn it, Emily! He shouldn't have needed to ask! We should have known. We all saw him those days he didn't eat, we may have said a little something, but we never really talked to him about it. We should have known it was leading up to this. What if he does real harm to himself by doing this?"

"Whether we were wrong before or not, we're here for him now. We need to find him, and help him through this. Now what did Hotch say we should do?"

"That we should go to the bus station and watch for him there."

"Let's go."

As they both went and climbed in the SUV, Morgan's phone chirped on his hip.

"Hey baby girl, what you got for me?"

"Hello my fine, furry friends. What I have got is nothing. No flight tickets purchased in Reid's name, no ATM withdrawals, and no car rentals, no activity at all in Reid's accounts since he used his card yesterday to buy a buy a few books in his local store. His car was found in the garage he usually keeps it in, it seems like he dropped it off just after he left his apartment, which was about 20 minutes ago. I've already checked surveillance footage. There is none for the garage itself. There was one camera across the street that just caught a glimpse of him heading left out of the garage but I lose him after that. Whatever wonder boy's doing, so far he's living up to the title."

"Alright thanks baby girl. Could you keep digging for me? Try and find out if he has any bank accounts or assets he could be using that we don't know about. He's not going to get far with no cash or car."

"You want me to pry into Reid's life?"

"I know, I don't like it either, but we need to help him."

"Fine, if it really is to help him I'll do it, but I'm not happy about it. Peace out."

"Alright, thank you, keep looking." Hotch turned to Gideon. "The team hasn't found him at the train station or bus station. Garcia didn't find any activity on his card either, including ATM withdrawals, but when Morgan asked her to look more closely she found a local savings account listed in Diana Reid's name for Spencer. He hadn't withdrawn anything from it until today. Garcia found footage of Reid at a bank in DC, he emptied the account. There was $6000 in it. She tried to trace him through cameras on the street but he disapears from view down the street from the bank."

"$6000 could keep him going for a long time if he was frugal. How did he get from the garage in Quantico to the bank in DC?"

"Garcia didn't find any records; the best guess would be a cab."

Gideon nodded, more to himself than Hotch. He looked around himself slowly, surveying the mess of Reid's apartment. "So far all we've found here is that he wasn't eating - which we already knew, that he spent alot of time here which we can tell from the amount of books that show signs of being read and that he didn't have many people close to him which we can tell from the lack of photos or personal memorabilia. There's no laptop, no invoices, no maps, no train or subway tickets. Nothing that could tell us where he might have gone."

"If we can't find anything here that can help us find him we'll just have to build a profile on him from what we already know about him."

Gideon nodded to himself again, turning to the window. "Yes, you're definitely right about that." He gazed out at the view, deep in thought, his brow furrowed.

Hotch watched his old friend carefully, with a furrowed brow he said to Gideon's back "It's late Jason; we should find you somewhere to stay. Do you want to stay with one of us or would you like a hotel room?"

"You're right. It is late. I'll find a hotel room and see you tomorrow morning."

"Do you want me to drive you?"

"No, I'll take a cab."

"It's cheaper for me to drive you."

"It's alright, Aaron."

Hotch sighed. "What's going on, Jason?"

"What do you mean?"

"You thought of something a minute ago, something you're trying to hide from me, what is it?"

Gideon looked at him briefly, but then looked away. "I can't tell you."

"Why not? Does it have something to do with where Reid is? Have you figured out where he could be?"

"No, I just had an idea, but if I tell you and I'm right it could all go wrong."

"Why, Jason? Why would it go wrong?"

Gideon turned around to glare at Hotch. "Because if you find him, he'll run. He's not ready to face you and the team yet, that's why he reached out to me. If I know where he is and i tell you you'll have to try and find him. Our best chance for him to come in voluntarily is if I do it."

"You know I can't let hide the whereabouts of one of my agents from me. You need to tell me where he is Jason."

"I don't know where he is for definite, so I'm not hiding anything from you. But I'll make you a deal. Give me tonight alone. If I'm right I have a chance of bringing him in. If I'm wrong then I'll tell you what I know tomorrow morning and we can do it with the team."

Hotch stared at him for a few moments. "Alright, I'll give you tonight, but if you don't have him by tomorrow morning you have to tell us everything."

Gideon nodded. "You know if we have to use the full team to bring him in he'll fight."

"Hopefully he won't force us to do things that way." Hotch said a little less sternly.

"I'll call you in the morning to tell you what's happened, whatever that may be."

I feel ill. Not just physically, not just sick in my stomach. I feel ill in my head. It aches. I feel like the world is whirling around inside me. I can't think, the emotions inside me are so messy and confused. I just want to curl up and sleep. Maybe when I wake up I'll get back on my feet. I can't believe what I'm doing. It seems like the world has turned upside down, but i have this horrible feeling pulling at me that it's me that's upside down. This festering, rotten creature has crawled inside me and is feeding on my mind, gnawing on my sense and pride and excreting misery and confusion which pools inside me. I want to tear a hole in my mind and drain it out but I can't find the edges. I feel it pulse painfully at the edges of my skull but it never spreads far enough outside my head for me to grab it before it snaps back behind the safety of the bone. I sit here alone in the dark little hole that grew inside me without me even realising until I'd tripped and fallen in it and I wish more than anything to claw my way out and emerge back into the world I used to know. The world where I was happy and healthy and loved. The world that disappeared and left behind only a memory - like the smoke in the air after a hail of fireworks. But how can you escape something that you can't touch, can't hold in your hand, can only feel in your heart?

I don't want to be alone like this.

Reid stood up slowly, his knees cracking he'd been still for so long. Outside the dirty window of the down market motel that almost always took cash payments the moon shone bright as the neon signs beneath it. Reid didn't see the stars though, the prostitutes, the drug addicts. Fear made his lips numb, his fingers cold, he legs weak. His feet took him along the streets to his destination whilst his mind screamed. He had no idea why he was doing this. He felt like he was walking to his doom. And yet he had to go. He would rather be doomed with company, than alone in the whirlwind he lived in. He knew where he was going, he'd found it hours earlier by following a rented sedan with a single occupier.

Hands shaking, he knocked on the door in front of him. As he heard footsteps approach, panic overtook him and he quickly turned and had almost broken into a run when a single word froze him where he stood:

"Reid."

Really hope you liked it, I tried to make it good. Please R&R.