Chapter 18

The White Swan Inn
San Francisco, CA

Morgan

"Now you said Alice needed help finding a path." Morgan asked.

This was clearly more personal for Spencer. "She...she was in an accident when she was younger."

"Is she all right?"

"Yes. She can function without issue, but she does have some pretty bad scarring." Spencer shrugged. "I understand some men would find that distasteful but it doesn't bother me. But as a result of that she's...from the way she's described it she's always felt very detached from the world around her. She's created an impressive...life for the people she loves, surrounded them in..." He gestured to the elegant hotel around them. "...beauty and given them...amazing experiences but she's never really...taken part." Morgan thought Spencer was talking about something more than living in a hotel. "She's always been an outside observer, taking pleasure from...watching the people she loves enjoy themselves. The Unsubs ruined her ability to enjoy that anymore."

"Watching." All of a sudden Morgan realized what Spencer was getting at. "Ahhh. The Unsub set this whole thing up to punish her for taking Joey away."

"As well as to lock his crew in place and to provide his own victims, yes."

"But she couldn't anymore." Likely not, not without serious PTSD issues. "So you suggested she...participate."

"Yeah. She was afraid her medical issues would...get in the way of participation. And like I said, most guys are turned off by scars of that sort."

"But you're not."

"How someone looks never mattered to me."

"Well, from what I heard she was participating just fine this morning." Morgan grinned.

The smile Spencer gave his coffee was both shy and proud. "The experiment was entirely successful, yes."

"That's what we're calling it these days."

"Ahem." Spencer shook it off. "I was concerned when I realized that she has nothing but black pants and grey t-shirts in her wardrobe, both designed to cover all of the scarring. Dressing to hide one's self is indicative of fairly serious body dysmorpia. But then she sent Joey out to run errands for her, so I don't know..."

"You can't fix everything all at once. Hell, you can't even expect to fix everything. You both need to see a shrink." Morgan said.

"Yeah, I know." Something caught Spencer's eye, and his jaw dropped.

Morgan looked after him. Now it wasn't like Alice had gone from covering everything up in don't-look-at-me clothes to prancing around in a strapless mini-dress. But instead of black, loose pants she'd gone with something dark red, with a better fit, and instead of the loose, grey t-shirt hooked over her thumbs and tight to her neck she'd pulled on a lacy white tunic thing. One that didn't quite cover all of the scars. Morgan could see them, just a little, over her collarbone and creeping upper her left arm. But he only glanced there. What mattered more was her affect, shy and nervous, and quite brave, clearly this was a big step for her. Until she saw Spencer. Then there was nothing but love. "Yep, I'd say you started something." He said to Spencer.

"I guess so." Spencer replied. "Excuse me." He said, as he moved to Alice's side.

Morgan left them to talk and moved to the conference table with the rest of the team. "It makes so much more sense now." Seaver was saying to Hotch. "It is about control, but not what you would think."

"Oh?" Hard to tell if Hotch was actually interested or just having a teaching moment. "How so?"

"The common perception of BDSM is that it's about a Dominant taking control of someone and making them their submissive. But that's not really the case. The submissives are really the ones who have all the control, they decide who they submit to, and when and what they do and all of it. They give up control, it's not taken, and they can take it back at a word or a gesture. This whole community is about making a safe space for them to give up that control, and helping people who love them learn how to accept it from them and give them what they want safely."

"So you're saying there are no users or freaks out there." Morgan didn't buy that.

"From what I could tell the users are weeded out very quickly." Seaver replied. "If by freaks you mean people with paraphillias, there are lots of them. Another part of this is to make a safe space where they can be accepted. It's also about making a safe, accepting place for people with all kinds of bodies or all kinds of sexuality. But even that is part of it, it's about making a safe space for the vulnerable, not about making a place where the strong can lord it over people."

"Very good, young padwan." Rossi said. "That's the part these Unsubs missed. They were kicked out of the community up north because the community decided they weren't safe So they created their own little club which they thought was replicating what really happens, but they had it entirely wrong. They just didn't know how wrong."

"No." Hotch replied. "They knew. They knew the minute they decided to kill their victims when they were done with them."

"There is that."

Right after breakfast Hotch got the call they were hoping for. The fog had lifted and the airport was open.

So they flew home to DC.