This is my Last Resort (Chapter Five) by Lexikal
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Dark themes; violence; Hotch, Morgan and Rossi wonder whether Reid was sexually assaulted (raped) by a female UnSub (He wasn't, there IS NO NON-CON in this story, but the possibility of it is brought up)... this is rated M, if you are underage, please go away and watch "Akeelah and the Bee" or something, I don't know...
Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish, is kidnapped/taken hostage and abused/terrorized along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Please see chapter one for more info.
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews. I know I am ping-ponging between Reid's interaction with other team members, namely Hotch and Morgan. Oh well, my brain is a little (actually a LOT!) fuzzy these days due to some medical issues. Please excuse typos, grammatical errors, etc... I don't have a beta and I try to proof-read for obvious, blatant errors but I still, unfortunately, make too many mistakes.
Also, not everything Reid went through while he was missing/abducted has been "shown" to the audience yet (he was gone for over four days, yet there are only a few scenes covering the span of maybe 4 or 5 hours, but yes, more will be revealed with time...) On to chapter five...
Note about song: I have been calling the song "This is my last resort" by Papa Roach, I believe, for the first four chapters, but I am pretty sure the song is just "Last Resort" by Papa Roach. Sorry about that, guys.
Updated note: I posted while tired. I had to repost chapter 5, because in the 4th chapter (towards the end) Reid is shirtless, but there are 3 lines, which I have now erased, where Reid was in the ambulance having his sweater vest cut off (wrote chapter 5 when I was tired so I missed that goof).
Suffocation/ No breathing/ Don't give a fuck if my arm is bleeding....-" Last Resort" by Papa Roach
"Where's Elle?" Reid said, eyes darting around. He was sitting in the back of one of the ambulances, eyes somehow both shiny and glazed at the same time. Squinting as if he hadn't seen daylight in weeks, instead of days or hours. "Where is she? Is she okay? Hotch?"
Reid refused to lie down on the gurney. They were driving towards the hospital but not speeding, no sirens. Hotch sat across from Reid, profiling the case to the best of his ability by profiling the profiler. He had never seen Spencer Reid this distraught or disoriented (he's dissociative, you know that), not even after really heavy cases involving kids, hell, not even when Reid had been forced to kill someone in self-defence. He'd been upset after Hankel, had hugged him hard and Hotch had hugged back, but now Reid was shying away from touch. The paramedic's ministrations, for example.
He'd acted more normal after Hankel, and Hankel had beat and tortured him for 2 days. What the hell had happened this time to cause Reid to act like this?
"Sir," the paramedic said, addressing Reid. "Please stop..." The medic shot Hotch a look. Hotch reached out and took one of Reid's cold, blood-stained hands.
"Reid, calm down. Let the man look at your shoulder."
Reid seemed to have forgotten about the shoulder. He glanced toward the injury, as if Hotch were talking nonsense.
"Hotch, radio the other ambulance and see about Elle, see if she is..."
"The little girl with you? Her name was Elle?" Hotch asked carefully. Reid nodded emphatically. Okay. So they had been right about that. About the name-switch.
"Make sure she is okay. Can't you radio them?"
"Reid, I don't work for the ambulance service," Hotch said curtly. "Now let the man look at your shoulder."
"My shoulder is fine..."
But apparently it wasn't. Gloved hands prodded and Reid let out a low hiss of a scream.
"Well, the bullet didn't go through, so they're going to need to dig it out," the paramedic told Reid conversationally, as if they were discussing a sports game. "And of course they're going to need to stitch you up and...sir, I need to put an IV in..."
"I thought the bullet went in and out," Reid said tiredly. "It felt like it did."
"No exit wound," the medic said in the same calm, conversational tone. "I need to get started on your IV now..."
They had tried to put an IV in Reid when they'd first gotten him in the ambulance and he'd pulled away, first claiming he didn't need one, then that he'd wait until the hospital. Finally he sighed and held out his hand. The paramedic nodded gratefully and went about preparing the tourniquet and swabbing Reid's hand.
"No pain meds," Reid said then, staring at the paramedic intently. The medic looked slightly taken aback and glanced over at Hotch. Hotch just nodded as if to say: yeah, yeah, that's fine. You got your IV, don't push him on the narcotics.
"Sir...pain meds..."
"I said no," Reid repeated adamantly. The paramedic shrugged.
"They're going to want to numb your shoulder before stitching you up... that's if you don't need surgery."
"Surgery?" Reid coughed out with a laugh, as if it were a joke. "For a gunshot wound to the shoulder?"
"Sir, despite what you might think, being shot is kind of a big deal," the paramedic said mildly.
Reid turned back to Hotch, apparently done with talking to the paramedic. Spencer Reid's pupils were huge, his expression... well... it was eerie. As if something in his mind, something precious, something called sanity, had been stabbed a few times. Or at least bruised badly. Hotch was reminded of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland as he sat in the back of the ambulance and looked at his agent. Hotch felt an uneasiness uncurling in his stomach like a slowly waking snake.
"Hotch, phone the hospital then, and ask about Elle, okay? Her ambulance was going a lot faster, they'll know by now, maybe..."
"Reid, calm down," Hotch said in his best, you better listen to me, I know what's best for you tone of voice.
"I am calm!" Reid snapped. And then they were there, at the hospital. The ambulance came to a stop.
"Sir, I am going to have to ask you to lie down. Just so we can transport you..."
"Hotch... I want to sit up..."
Aaron Hotchner sighed. Looked over at the paramedic. The paramedic sighed and nodded.
"Okay, we'll tilt the gurney so you're sitting up, okay? But we have to strap you in..." the paramedic explained to Reid, as if he were a child.
"Hotch, just go see about Elle!"
Reid was fast-tracked through the ER and into a treatment room very quickly. The bullet had gone straight into the muscle without shattering any bone. He was lucky, apparently.
Hotch could hear Reid babbling about Elle as he entered the treatment room. Reid was sitting shirtless on an exam table, his pale chest smudged with blood; both his own and the child's. He'd obviously- hopefully- been numbed because stitches were being put in his shoulder. The bullet and some blood and what looked like small clots of coagulated blood were sitting in a small, stainless steel bowl. Evidence, apparently.
"Did you hear about Elle, Hotch?" Reid all but shouted when his boss entered. "Is she okay?"
"She's critical right now, but she's alive," Hotch said carefully.
"She lost a lot of blood," Reid said, like a broken record. Hotch nodded again. Watched the doctor put in a few more stitches. He'd already spoken to another doctor in the ER about the case, about his potential... concerns. Involving Reid, and the UnSub.
If something like that... if Reid had been violated that would go a long way to explaining his strange behaviour.
"Okay, just a few more, and you're done, Agent Reid," the doctor stitching him up said gently. Reid's IV was hanging above his head, and he'd also been hooked up to a bag of O negative. Already, he was looking a little less ghostly.
"Then we'll move you to a bed-"
"Bed? I don't need a bed. I just..."
The doctor and Hotch exchanged glances. "Reid, they want to observe you overnight."
"That's unnecessary."
"Reid, you were in shock when we found you. You're still severely dehydrated and pale. It's not unnecessary," Hotch said calmly, glancing at the doctor. The doctor put in the last stitch and tied it off.
"How bad is Elle? Did they need to operate?"
"She's in the OR now," Hotch said, pulling a chair from the corner of the room and sitting down. The doctor who was stitching Reid up finished and began to dress the wound.
There was a knock on the door and another doctor, a male, entered.
"Agent Reid, my name is Dr. Charles Anders. I work with male assault victims here at the hospital. S.S.A. Hotchner thought you'd prefer a male doctor..."
Reid's eyes literally tripled in size. "What? What do you mean by assault victim?" Reid asked suspiciously. "Why would I prefer a male doctor to look at a gunshot wound to my..." and then Reid trailed off. Dead Silence. Any colour he'd gained from the IV and the blood transfusion quickly drained back out of his face.
"You're talking about... Hotch... is he talking about what I think he is?" Reid said warily, eyes narrowed.
"Reid...Spencer... you were taken. You are an adult male. Our profile suggests that Edward White... may have been impotent and that you were taken because..."
"No, no, no, no, no!" Reid sputtered, recoiling on the exam table. He stood up unsteadily, holding onto his IV pole. "Nothing like that happened!"
"Reid, we need to check. You were shot. You were unconscious... and you were drugged at least once by these people..."
"No, Hotch, that's not why they took me..."
"Reid, if nothing happened, why are you acting like this?"
"Acting like what, Hotch?" Reid roared, suddenly furious. "How should I act after four and a half days of being locked up and seeing children cowering in the dark, half-starved and seeing the human remains of children in jars and one little girl tortured for trying to get me drinking water and then shot because I messed up and tried to attack an UnSub with a meat cleaver? How exactly should I act right now? You tell me, because I really don't know!"
"Reid, it makes no sense for them to take you if not for this... purpose. We've seen cases like this before. And no one would think any differently of you..."
"Nothing like that happened, Hotchner!" Reid yelled, louder now, eyes blazing. Hotch couldn't remember the last time Spencer Reid had called him by his full last name.
"Then just submit to the physical. Then we'll know for sure," Hotch said simply, staring hard. He had to get Reid to submit. If he didn't... he didn't want to think about what it would be like for Reid if they had to force this on him.
"No," Reid snarled, and moved forward with his IV pole, still shirtless but his bloody pants still on.
"Agent Reid, I promise just to take a look. This won't be a physical in the sense you're probably thinking of. From what I've been told about this case, you weren't attacked by a man, but..."
"I wasn't attacked by anyone!" Reid snarled.
"Bodies will react when touched," the doctor continued calmly. "And if you were drugged and then violated... you nerve endings wouldn't know the difference. It is possible. You need to be tested for DNA traces, for STDs..."
"No,"
The doctor looked over at Hotch tiredly. He hadn't expected this much resistance.
They sent Morgan in to speak to Reid. Reid had been given a fresh pair of pants and underwear to wear and the usual hospital gown. He was sitting up on the hospital bed.
"Hey, kid," Morgan said gently. "It won't be that bad,"
"I don't care how bad it will be. It's a waste of time. It's detracting from the real profile. That... never happened."
"Reid, if that is true... look, you know we can't let this drop. There is no other reason why they would've taken you..."
"Even if that were true... if they started taking older males in preparation for... you know. It still never happened. Not yet... not to me."
"Reid, you haven't showered yet. You haven't even used the washroom. If there is any DNA..."
Reid hung his head low. He was tired. Tired of struggling. They were just going to keep hounding him until he gave in. Until they realized that he'd been taken for another purpose, the profile would be wrong. Incomplete.
"Fine. Tell them to make it fast," Reid couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. He'd never felt so betrayed by his own team. Logically he knew they were just doing their job. Emotionally, he just wanted to get away from all of them.
Morgan nodded, very subtly. Walked back out of the room.
"No DNA evidence found, no fluids or secretions, no signs of any STDs..." Hotch read the results to the team. They were back at the field office, except for Reid, who was at home regaining some of his strength and drinking boost meal replacements. 2 days had passed. They'd rushed the rape kit on Reid. Nothing.
Reid had been right. Their profile had been wrong. And they were back at square one.
There was an uneasy tension amongst all of them now. Prentiss and even JJ had brought up the possibility- independently of Hotch- that Reid may have been violated, and Hotch had had to tell them. Share the information with them. Or they would've wondered what he was hiding.
Reid was blunt on the phone, answering questions with monosyllabic responses. When Hotch had phoned and told him the results of the rape kit, Reid's eloquent response, to Hotch's immense surprise, had been: "Screw you, Hotch." And then he'd hung up.
No, not bitter...
The only survivors of Ed and Dolores White's madness at their disposal were Reid and the little girl, Elle. She was still in the ICU on antibiotics, but expected to make a full recovery. Miraculously.
"Reid should interview Elle," Hotch said as they sat around the table, talking the case over. "Elle already knows Reid, she was involved in his kidnapping, and they were shot seconds apart. There is a bond there and even if it's based in trauma... all of you saw Reid when we got to him. He was hysterical at the thought that she might be dead."
"Are you sure it's a good idea for Reid to interview Elle? They may be too close, and I am not certain Reid can remain objective right now," Rossi said, glancing over at Hotch. Hotch sighed.
"J.J. went to the hospital earlier to talk to her," Hotch said glancing over at J.J. to continue.
"She refused to speak to me. Asked if I knew Spencer, when I said I did, she said good, that she'd only talk to him," J.J. finished.
"So it's not a matter about them having a bond," Rossi exhaled tiredly. "She refuses to speak to us, and right now, apparently, Reid shares her sentiments."
"Reid's just...pissed off. He'll get over it." Morgan said softly, thinking back to the time when the team had found out about his past, about his youth, about Carl Buford. About how angry at God he had felt, how certain he was that the team were looking at him with looks of pity. Even when they weren't.
"Reid, man, I know you're home..." Morgan was standing outside Reid's door, a bag of carry-out in one hand, two additional bags in the other. He could see lights on inside. Plus, it was 9:30 at night, and Reid wasn't exactly a party animal or the type to cruise bars for chicks.
"Reid? C'mon, man, I got three different types of take-out, in case the first two weren't up to your sophisticated palate..."
The door opened suddenly. Reid's eyes, always rather dark underneath, stared out angrily. More than two days later and the kid was still ticked.
"I've already eaten, so I guess you wasted your money."
"Kid, c'mon, at least let me inside?"
"Morgan, I am not in the mood for chit chat right now. Hotch told me I have to take a week off, so I am. I am following his orders, like always..."
Morgan wanted to roll his eyes. Spencer Reid follow orders? Who was the kid trying to fool? Morgan had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, though.
"Reid, please man..."
A deep, heavy sigh. Morgan heard Reid pull the chain off his door. The living room was a mess, books scattered everywhere. Status quo, in other words.
"Reid, nobody wanted to hurt you. Hotch would've been investigated if he hadn't looked at that angle of the profile."
"Are you done?"
"Elle's awake... will only speak to you."
Reid was silent when he heard this, absorbing quietly.
"Hotch said not to come in for a week," Reid repeated after a moment.
"Look, now that we have found you and Edward White is dead, the pressure is heating up. Dolores was dangerous before, but Edward tempered that somewhat. He wasn't completely out of touch with reality, and while dangerous, he was also highly organized. There is no indication that any of the children died or were killed accidentally or during the abduction process. Dolores on the other hand..."
"Did Hotch tell you to come here?" Reid asked after a moment. Morgan sighed.
"No. But he's worried about you. Obviously."
Reid decided to ignore that last comment.
"So what, then? He doesn't want me to come into work, but he wants you to come over here and pick my brain?"
"There was a reason you were taken," Morgan said slowly, staring Reid straight in the eyes, "And you more than anyone know that if we were to overlook victimology here, we wouldn't be doing our job. Why you? Why these specific kids? Elle was a proxy for their own child, sure..."
Reid had been briefed on the case, on Elle's true identity in the last two days. Garcia had faxed him over what they knew about the six year old.
"But why the other kids? Apart from the fact they wanted to create this perfect nuclear family, or have a store of kids so they could pick and chose at random when one of them became defective, why take the kids they did? Besides the fact they were all Caucasian, nothing else ties them together. Not sex, eye colour, hair colour... not even age or location of birth."
"Morgan, I can't tell you what I don't know. For most of the time I was tied up in that straw filled basement, and for a brief while was up in the dungeon- what they called the dungeon- but you know all of this already. I don't know why they chose the kids they did. I don't even know why they took a police officer before me, and then worked up to FBI..."
"What?" Morgan asked sharply. Had he just heard Reid correctly?
"Yeah... what? You didn't find the body on the property?"
They had found 8 skeletons buried in the earth in what Elle had called the Oubliette, care of ground-penetrating radar, thick slabs of concrete poured over each small body.
"No. All we found were children's skeletons, 8 in the ground... concrete poured over them, and the skeleton of the boy in the corner that you mentioned, of course. Reid... a police officer?"
"It's what Elle said," Reid admitted, a little disturbed himself, now. "That before me, Edward White had kidnapped a young policeman like me," Reid quoted. "Apparently the victim tried to escape, stole a gun, and was killed by Edward White, along with two children named Edgar and Paula..."
"The coroner did say that of the 8 skeletons found in the ground, four were female and four male," Morgan replied. Reid nodded.
"Reid, if they took a police officer before you... this... I don't know what this is, but if it's true, and they killed him..."
Reid nodded solemnly. Every time this profile seemed to make a bit of sense, part of it would crumble away and they were back at square one.
"I'll... I'll talk to Hotch first thing in the morning. I probably don't have to tell you that he's going to want you to talk to the girl..."
Reid licked his lips nervously. Nodded.
Ahhh, I was hoping I could write more by Halloween 2010. I'll try to get another 2-3 chapters up before Halloween, (and a few chapters for "The Blue Boy", plus there are a few one-shot stories I want to work on). Please rate and review.
Thanks.