This is my Last Resort (Chapter Six) by Lexikal
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Dark themes; violence; missing children/implied child abuse, a child who behaves like an UnSub, lots of Reid angst
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: I actually enjoy working on this story more than "The Blue Boy" ("The Blue Boy" is also getting pretty sad, although, for those that are reading it, I guarantee it is not a death fic or tragedy). Also, if anyone thinks Elle has symptoms of RAD (reactive attachment disorder) or gets that vibe in this chapter, I'll consider my portrayal of that character, in particular, a success.
Also, in case anyone has noticed, I have paired lyrics from the song "Last Resort" by Papa Roach to each chapter, and I tried to make the lyrics for each chapter appropriate/significant to what took place in that chapter.
It all started when I lost my Mother/ No love for myself/ And no love for another...- "Last Resort" by Papa Roach
Reid was nervous. He wasn't sure why, exactly, but he was, and it had something to do with talking to Elle. A traumatized six year old in the ICU. Morgan had phoned from the BAU headquarters, spoken to Hotch, and Hotch had decided to "let" Reid come back to work a few days early... as long as he ate regularly and spent the days at the office, helping Garcia, doing paperwork. Nothing strenuous. He wasn't cleared for field duty. Not yet. His arm was still in a sling, and would be for a while.
But he had been cleared to talk to Elle. And so, it was Morgan who drove Reid down to the hospital, with J.J. in the back... J.J. because she was a woman, but also blonde haired and blue eyed like Elle. Hotch and Rossi both held out hope that Elle might, somewhat, identify with J.J. based on her physical characteristics. Elle had delivered the envelope to Morgan, so he was another good choice. For whatever reason, Morgan didn't threaten her. Possibly because her "parents", the only parents she had ever known, had been Caucasian and Morgan was black.
And then, of course, there was Reid.
They stopped at the hospital's information desk and signed in. Due to the media coverage and the fact that Dolores White was still on the loose Elle's room was being guarded 24-7 by police. Just in case.
The trio got into the elevator and Reid repeatedly hammered the button for the paediatric ICU floor. Reid fiddled with buttons on his shirt as the elevator slowly rose; his hands sweaty and cold. Finally their floor arrived, the doors opening with a low yawning noise.
The walls were painted yellow, and the entire floor had a childish feel to it. Reid proceeded to the Nurse's station, trailed by both J.J. and Morgan and flashed his badge.
"We're here to speak to Elle?" Reid said.
Because the child had been kidnapped at three, she didn't have a legal last name and therefore couldn't be processed as Elle Dolores White. Elle Dolores White, after all, had died at birth. However, because she had been declared dead shortly after her disappearance and the murder of her parents, she also couldn't be processed as Lise Miller. Usually a child in such a situation would be referred to as a Jane Doe until the courts sorted the matter out, but Elle had a name, a name she knew and responded to. The case was high-profile enough that the nurse didn't need a last name. She just nodded, smiling.
"Very brave little girl. And so resilient." The nurse led them down a hallway, to a room. A policeman was standing in front of the door, looking bored. Reid, J.J. and Morgan each flashed their credentials and the policeman nodded, and let them in.
The television was on. That was the first thing Reid noticed. Some cartoon station. Elle was lying in bed, holding a plush monkey and staring at the television with a funny little smile on her face.
She glanced up at the sound of footsteps, eyes going wide when she saw Reid.
"Spencer! I thought you'd died!"
She was still hooked up to an IV and what looked like a banana bag- a pack of IV fluids that was a medium yellow colour full of vitamins and nutrients.
Spencer smiled weakly and sat down. Elle glanced over at Morgan and then at J.J. and frowned.
"No, I didn't die. Why would you think that?" Reid said, grabbing one of the chairs in the room and pulling it over to the child's bed.
"Because you were gone for a long time, and didn't come to see me," Elle said simply, as if the answer were obvious.
"I'm sorry you were worried about me," Reid said earnestly, leaning forward. "I was really worried about you too. Especially when you stopped talking."
"I stopped talking?"
"Yes. Don't you remember?" He didn't want to do this. Drag this child through these memories again. But he had to start somewhere if he was ever going to be able to really profile Elle... and she had had a part in his abduction. She'd distracted Prentiss, Hotch and Morgan the day Edward White had injected him in the leg. She'd hand-delivered her "Father's" taunting message to the police, and for all they knew, she may have written the note they'd found inside.
"I remember it being dark. Mommy shot you in the shoulder."
"You don't remember being shot?" Reid asked gently. Elle shrugged. Looked back at the television, apparently indifferent.
"This show is boring," she murmured after a moment, and changed the channel with a small remote control, that, until then, had been hidden in the folds of her hospital blanket. She flipped through the channels until she got to some history program. Black and white scenes of World War 2 suddenly flooded the screen; emaciated, slack jawed corpses in shallow, frozen trenches. Elle gawked at the footage, expression blank. Reid watched her, then turned and looked over at Derek and J.J., who were also both watching the child. Elle gazed over. Found J.J. and Morgan watching her and scowled at them.
"What are they doing here?"
"Elle, these are my friends," Reid said slowly, pointing. "This is J.J., and this is Derek-"
"I don't want to talk to them!" Elle snapped, hiding her face behind the plush monkey.
"Okay. Let me go have a word with them, and then you and I... we'll just talk? Okay?"
Elle glanced out from behind the toy. "Just us, Spencer? Big Brother?"
Reid smiled and nodded, but something was wrong. The child who had told him what to do in the oubliette, who had been punished by being beaten and left in ice water, who he'd cradled after being shot in the stomach... that child had been feisty, stroppy. This child was timid, almost phobic. Of course, she was out of her element, had probably never been in a hospital before, let alone questioned and examined by doctors and shrinks and social workers, but still, something was niggling inside Spencer Reid's brain.
Strange that she had stopped the television on a history show documenting the atrocities of the Second World War, but that could be explained. Elle had personally seen children die. Had probably seen a few starve to death. To see death and human cruelty on the television like that, unannounced... of course she had stopped. Stared. Gawked. Who wouldn't?
Reid would have to have a talk with the nurses about maybe putting some sort of parental control mechanism on the television remote. Kid-friendly stations only. Elle had seen enough horror to last a life-time.
Elle was still staring at the black and white film footage, the hordes of bodies.
"Elle, why don't you put the cartoon back on? That... that sort of television... I don't think you need to see that right now," Reid ventured uncertainly.
"Okay, Spencer," The child said, smiling, and flicked the channel back to Sponge-bob. Reid sighed and motioned to J.J. and Morgan to follow him out of the room.
They pitched their voices low.
"Reid, I'm not a child psychologist, but I think that child is suffering from a lot more than just..."
"They took her when she was three, Morgan!" Reid interjected before Morgan could say anything. "She was the first. She's been there the longest, seen the most death, probably been forced to commit..."
"All I'm saying is that it wouldn't hurt for us to have her evaluated by a child psychiatrist."
"She was just shot in the stomach."
"She's obsessed with violence," J.J. interjected gently, softly, voice just above a whisper. "Yet displays a flat affect."
"Guys, she's six, and was almost killed a few days ago..." Reid trailed, but in his gut, he knew their instincts were right. "Of course she's obsessed with violence. Who wouldn't be?"
"Reid, if she was taken at three... Reid, three year olds are still forming attachments- bonds- to their mothers. And I know you know that, Kid, and I know you know where I am going with this. They are at the tail end of the bonding process, as you know, but there is still the possibility that she developed an attachment disorder, to say the least. Seeing her biological parents murdered, and then being raised by those murderers and seeing on regular basis what they are capable of..."
Reid shook his head. "She risked her life to try and get me water."
"Kid, you're too close to this. If I'm right, if J.J.'s right...she might play you."
"She's six years old, Morgan!" Reid said again. Six years old. Six! Six year olds were innocent. Damn it, Morgan, innocent! Except... Spencer Reid knew better than anyone that that wasn't necessarily true. Unfortunately.
The cop was staring at them now, at their whispered, slightly angry debate in the hall.
"At any rate, she will only talk to me," Reid exhaled. He knew on a level he didn't want to consciously admit that they were right. That Elle's behaviour, what he had seen, was just the tip of the iceberg. That when she had played the light from the flashlight over the child skeleton in the corner, swinging it lazily to and fro, that something was wrong. The way she had had prodded Reid in the ribs... hard. He struggled to think back, to when he'd first been taken. The van. She had done something to him in the van too. At Edward White's insistence, but she'd done it. Reid shut his eyes.
And then, he remembered. She'd smashed him in the skull as hard as she possibly could with a mag-lite flashlight. He'd seen stars. Felt like vomiting. She hadn't had to hit him that hard, had she? And when "Daddy" had praised her, she'd responded with "Thanks."
"I-she'll only talk to me," Reid said, shaking his head, as if clearing away the memories could somehow be that easy.
"Thus making you feel important. Thus allowing her to manipulate you..." Morgan said sadly, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. "Don't get me wrong kid. I feel really, really sorry for that little girl. I think she is damaged, I think she is... I am not sure what, but I remember the day you were taken, and the look on her face when she first tugged on my sleeve for help. And then, instantly, how that expression changed when she handed me the envelope. Instantly, Reid. From scared and innocent to..."
"To what, Morgan?" Reid snapped, lowering his voice, glancing back to the room. He knew Morgan was telling the truth. He just didn't want it to be the truth. Sponge-bob was still on. Cartoons!
"She looked...she looked proud, almost. And there was no innocence. It was like looking at an adult UnSub, at their eyes... the eyes don't change, Reid... like an adult UnSub wearing the mask of a little girl..."
"Morgan, I appreciate you were worried about me, that this little girl... that in your mind she probably represents something sinister when in reality she's just a victim but..."
"Reid! You didn't see her that day!"
"No...I just saw how she treated me in the van ride back, and how she acted for the 4 and a half days it took you guys to find us. That's all. Now I am going back in there now..."
His heart was racing. Dim memories of being drugged, of someone crawling around in the dank, cold dark with him. Pain. But the memories were incomplete, like dreams that turn to dust moments after awakening. Reid could almost- but not quite- access those memories.
Reid pulled the digital voice recorder out of his pocket. It was voice-activated, meaning that once he flicked it on, any talking would be recorded. It would shut off after 30 seconds or more of silence. But with the television going in the background, it probably wouldn't shut off at all...
"I'll try my best to get something we can use," Reid said flatly, and went back into the child's hospital room, gently closing the door shut behind him.
"I'm glad they're gone," Elle said when she had Reid alone. Reid nodded and tried to smile.
He felt totally out of his depths. Interrogating an adult UnSub was one thing, but he had little to no experience dealing with and talking to children, especially small children.
"Elle, we're still looking for... for your..." He trailed uneasily remembering the crazed, female eyes that had welled with tears. Right before he'd been shot. "Your Mom. We were wondering if you might know where she'd go."
Elle looked bored. Shrugged.
"Elle... okay this is really important, okay? Did she... did she or your Dad ever take you out anywhere else? Maybe for a vacation or..."
"No," Elle said simply. Reid nodded.
"Okay, um... remember you told me about the police man? The one before me?"
Elle nodded again, her eyes drifting back to the TV. Reid- never a huge television fan- had the sudden urge to grab the remote and turn the cartoons off, but held that urge in check.
"Okay. You said he was killed," Reid prodded.
"Yeah. After he got one of Daddy's guns. Edgar and Paula too."
Reid nodded encouragingly but Elle was only answering direct questions. He tried to remember if she'd been like this before they'd been rescued. His memory, strangely, for the entire experience was hazy and slightly off.
"So your father killed him after he found out that the police man had one of the guns?"
Elle nodded again blandly. "Yeah. Right here," the girl tapped between her eyes. "Except he used the shot gun so nothing was left of his face."
Reid tried to keep his expression neutral, but a coldness was spreading through him, as if someone was replacing his blood with ice water. Was Elle... was she smiling?
"No face left at all!" Elle repeated, as if she found the idea highly novel. "Did you know a shot gun could do that Spencer?"
Spencer Reid nodded bleakly.
"What...do you know what happened to him? After he was shot? Where your...parents took him?"
Elle sucked in her lower lip, and Reid could almost see the gears turning. God, how long ago had this taken place? She is only six now, how young was she been when this occurred...
"They took him out of the Oubliette and out of the Dungeon. They wrapped him in a big black bag. That's all I know. But it took a long time to clean up..."
Reid froze and stared at the child. Okay, Reid, easy does it. Don't act strange, don't act like you've just been sucker punched in the gut.
"Clean up?" Reid breathed out, almost afraid of the answer.
"Yeah, Daddy got me a pail and a scrub brush and the bleach and stuff. Said I had to clean up the floor or we'd attract vermin..."
Reid felt sick.
"What are vermin, Spencer?"
On impulse, Reid answered. "Most people assume they are just rodents like rats and mice that infest homes, but the term can be used to describe any small animal that spreads disease, including cockroaches, lice, bedbugs..." Reid stopped. His heart was racing.
"Oh, pests. Like rats, sometimes? I once saw a rat in the oubliette, hiding in the straw. They're fast, but they squeak pretty loud when you squeeze them..." Another smile, but not a smile Spencer Reid ever wanted to see again, especially on a child.
Reid didn't just feel sick now, but also a little dizzy. He tried to focus.
"Elle, you said your Dad killed the policeman after he got one of the guns. How did the policeman get the gun?"
"Daddy left the lock box open, so I took one. I took it down to the oubliette and showed it to the police man and he grabbed it from me really fast. He was really fast, but it was loaded so I didn't think he would. I wanted him to see that he had to listen to me, because he kept trying to order me around."
Okay, Reid, breathe...
"And...your Dad noticed it missing and came down?"
Elle shook her head sadly. "No. He asked me at dinner if I knew where it was. It was one of his old pistols, one of his Daddy's guns from the war..."
"And you told him?" Reid said numbly, already knowing the answer.
"I told him I'd taken it to show the policeman, to show that I was the boss, even though I was only little at the time..."
"How little Elle? Do you remember how old you were?" If a six year old was calling herself "little", she must've been pretty damn young...
"I don't know. It happened pretty soon after Mommy and Daddy took me from my first Mommy and Daddy..." Elle's voice was softer now, more contemplative. Reid nodded. Gulped noisily.
God, she remembered. She consciously remembered being abducted. Did she remember the murder of her biological parents, too?
"How little Elle?" Reid asked again, sotto voce, concern etched all over his face. His heart was fluttering fast. He almost didn't want to know.
"I think I had just turned four. That's why I got to pick one. It was a birthday present."
The temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees.
"What?" Reid gasped, even more alarmed. Elle raised her eyebrows as if to say, whoa, man, chill out.
"Yeah. For my birthday... Mommy and Daddy take new kids, because they thought I was lonely, but when I was four, they took the police man. It was a present. They wanted a kid closer to my age. They said he was too old, not even a kid at all. But I wanted the police man."
"Why Elle?"
"Because children," Elle said simply, staring at Reid with eyes that were somehow empty and devoid of all emotion, except perhaps boredom, "aren't as much fun as grown-ups."
Reid felt his stomach cringe painfully.
"Elle... your birthday is in March... that was months ago. B-But...did your parents want to make me part of the family or did... was taking me your idea?"
Elle smiled sweetly. It was answer enough. Reid inhaled deeply.
"Elle... why did Daddy make you clean up after the first police man was killed?" Reid asked, changing topics. He really didn't want to ask about himself right now, even though he knew he'd have to. Eventually.
"Because Daddy said I was stupid for taking the gun, that the gun was his and I could've broken it and the police man could've taken me hostage..."
"So... it was punishment. You having to clean up... after the police man?"
"Yes, because I wasn't supposed to touch the guns. Guns are dangerous."
Reid nodded again. Guns are dangerous. God.
"Elle, one last question for now, and then I'll let you get back to, to your show... okay?" Even if the child didn't need a break, Spencer Reid did. Desperately.
Elle shrugged, apparently indifferent. Finally bobbed her head.
"Do you happen to remember the police man's name?"
Elle smiled again, and nodded fervently. "Yeah."
"Do you think... could you tell me what it is?"
"David. And he was twenty-one years old. And he was from Virginia." Another big smile.
Reid smiled back too, tightly, hoping it didn't look as fake as it felt. "Thanks Elle." He turned to leave.
"Spencer?"
"Yes?"
"Why haven't Mommy and Daddy come for me yet?" She sounded, just then, like any other six-year-old. Lonely and homesick and missing her parents. Too bad they were murdering psychos and one of them had committed suicide the day before.
"Um...Elle..." God, how did you answer something like that? "I don't know, Elle. We are still trying to find your Mommy. Remember earlier, I said she was missing?"
"Oh, yeah. What about Daddy?"
"I-I am not sure. You... you just get back to your show okay?"
"Will you come back again? It gets boring in bed by yourself with nobody to talk to..."
Reid nodded solemnly. He'd return. He'd have to, whether he wanted to or not.
"Jesus, Kid, I'd ask how it went, but from the look on your face..." Morgan trailed.
Reid was breathing heavily. He fingered the bruise on his forehead, where Elle had smashed him with the mag-lite just a bit harder than she'd had too. Thought about what she'd just told him. He pulled the voice-recorder out of his pocket, rewound a bit. Pressed play. Could hear the child talking, could hear himself. He shut it off, scowling.
"You guys were right," Reid said blankly, and began to walk away from his colleagues, towards the bathroom. He felt sick. Like he might vomit.
"About?"
"She's... she's very disturbed." Reid said simply. He just wanted to get back to the office, let the team listen to the audio recording.
"I know why I was taken though," Reid said, stooping at a water fountain. He took several slow gulps of the water, grimacing. The water tasted like iron, like blood. And it was tepid.
"And?" Morgan asked. Reid lifted his head and wiped the dribbles of water from his mouth with the sleeve of his cardigan.
"Elle chose me. Like she choose the police officer that was killed. Apparently I was a belated birthday present," Reid stopped, and shook his head dismally. "Apparently grown-ups are more fun than children."
Reid finally met his friend's eyes. Morgan's eyes were concerned, full of anger but also compassion and pain. J.J. looked horrified, eyes sparkling and dewy.
"She chose you? Elle?" J.J. sputtered.
Reid nodded and sighed again. "Yeah. And if I had to guess, she probably chose Connor Stephens, too..."
"But why? Why would she...what sort of UnSubs would give a child that much power?" J.J. asked, but Reid has begun to walk again, briskly, eager to get out of the hospital.
"She is their miracle baby. Their pride and joy. Apparently the children they abduct are taken as company for Elle," Reid said, licking his lips nervously. "Hotch and Rossi were right about them wanting a nuclear family."
"But the murdered children... if Elle is making decisions, at least on her birthday, about who is taken... that would explain the mixed victimology, the holes in our profile..." Morgan said quietly.
They were at the elevator. Reid began to hammer the button repeatedly. He wanted to get out of this building.
"It might also explain why the children were found tortured and murdered... Elle didn't like them." Reid said darkly as they stepped onto the elevator.
"They weren't fun enough for her," Morgan finished, throwing a glance over at Reid, who was half-hugging himself. Reid met Derek Morgan's eyes and his head twitched just a little.
"They aren't collectors. That part of the profile is wrong, too," Reid finished.
The elevator was slowly descending. It had seemed to move slowly on the way up to Elle's room, but now it was moving at a crawl, making strange squealing noises that raised the hair on the back of Spencer Reid's neck. Not that he'd ever particularly liked elevators, anyway.
"Reid, from the beginning we were looking at this case as if Edward White was the planner of these kidnappings, although subservient in the sense that he was terrified of his wife's psychosis, and that Dolores was the instigator, the UnSub who decided which children lived and died... that Dolores was dissatisfied with certain children. That they didn't meet her standards..."
"I know."
"But from what you've just told us... it's not Dolores, but Elle, who incited Edward White to kill these kids."
"I know, Morgan." Reid said tiredly.
"Which... you realize that makes that little girl...you realize that puts Elle in the same camp as any other UnSub we deal with? Even though she's a young child?"
"Morgan, just stop, okay?"
Morgan nodded and stopped speaking. There was a high-pitched ding as they reached ground level and the doors creaked opened. Reid tumbled out, walking quickly, eager to get outside and breathe fresh air.
End of chapter 6 note: For those of you that didn't like Elle being the youngest or the protected one, well... you should have had faith. I like to whump Reid. Also, I thought the idea of having such a young child helping in the selection process was both eerie as hell, but also true to life (children are capable as just as much violence as adults, even though we like to think of them as innocent and "pure"). A child with an attachment disorder, raised by UnSubs like those depicted in this story would be even more likely to commit violence, but many children who don't have attachment disorders can be quite violent and cruel ("Lord of the Flies" is quite realistic in that respect, as is the psychology behind the child soldier mind-set...) For those that are interested in learning more about violent, even deadly children, I recommend watching the movie "Child of Rage" based on the true-life story of Beth Thomas (there are actual interviews with her as a child on youtube, as well as the 1992 TV movie)
Again, please review if you liked this. I like getting feedback. If you didn't like this, also, please review and tell me how I could've improved (within reason).- Lexikal