This is my Last Resort (Chapter Twelve) by Lexikal

Spoilers: None.

Warnings: Dark themes; violence; missing children/implied child abuse, lots of Reid angst...

Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish (2008-ish), is kidnapped/taken hostage and abused/terrorized along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Please see chapter one for more info.

Chapter Note: The spaciness and grogginess that I've had for ages now is even worse due to medication changes and this story contains a lot of small details. I am trying my best to keep everything in order (the original blueprint, so to speak, for this story was quite detailed) but if something weird happens, well... Reid's mind is all jumbled up so that's my new excuse. I want to keep updating this but I feel high as a freaking kite on my meds (probably very similar to how Reid is supposed to feel in this story, ironically), it's very hard to think, let alone write, and I have to keep going back and re-reading old chapters of this story just to make sense of where I am and what I am doing. That said, I hope this chapter and those to come make sense, and don't have any plot holes, etc... please enjoy and if you have the time, review! Also, thank you so much to the reviewer who said Elle was worse than Michael Myers. I have been a huge fan of the "Halloween" movies since I was a little girl, so that review was especially awesome (all the reviews have been great, but worse than Michael Myers? I actually grinned!) Thanks to all the readers, and reviewers, of this story.

Reid undressed slowly for bed, and turned the shower on... he didn't black out this time. Showers, apparently, were okay. For now. He got into his pyjamas and looked at his bed, unwilling to sleep, afraid of what might creep up from his subconscious and snag him in his dreams. Eventually he walked back to the kitchen and put on another pot of coffee. He wasn't sure how many cups of coffee he'd had to drink that day, but his heart was still racing, and even though he was exhausted, he didn't want to sleep.

He sat down with his coffee on the sofa and turned on the television, flipping through the channels. Morgan had left hours ago and he knew he needed to sleep in order to function well, but the fear remained, lingering, like a tight band around his throat. He flipped through paid advertisements selling exercise gear, children's cartoons, and old history programs. Finally he turned back to a paid advertisement and watched it. Some sort of new blender that could apparently make almost anything you wanted to eat in a matter of seconds. It was called the Magic Bullet. Reid watched, bored out of his skull, but the inane chatter and "acting" were soothing in a strange way.

The people on the screen were blending up some sort of sauce for pasta now, and then they were making pesto sauce. Reid watched them dump the ingredients into the machine, turn it on... the pesto turned bright green and was spooned onto the pre-made pasta and then the television flickered and flashed.

"We can also use the Magic Bullet to incite fear in guests," the announcer said, grinning wildly. Reid stared at the television, his breath starting to hitch. He glanced around the living room, but everything else looked normal...more or less. The announcer asked one of the "guests" on the infomercial for his hand and a rather chubby man grinned pleasantly and extended his hand without hesitation.

"No..." Spencer Reid muttered, staring in horror. No. You're sleeping. Wake up. Wake up. You have to be sleeping, because if you're not, that means you've completely lost your mind. If you're not sleeping, you're psychotic. Oh God, no. Wake up!

"With one, two... three quick seconds... look! Nothing left of his hand! That hurts, eh? I bet that hurt!"

The chubby man held up a bleeding stump and nodded, before laughing dimly. The outside of Spencer Reid's television was splattered with blood. The young man got up off his sofa and crept to the television. He had to be dreaming. This had to be a dream.

He touched the television, the blood. Brought his fingers back. Nothing. Nothing was there. When he glanced back to the television the chubby man was back to normal, and nobody was blending up hands. Even the man's hand was back to normal. What the hell had just happened?

But then...there was a strange whine, and the television flared brightly again, so brightly that the inside of Reid's living room glowed white as if a nuclear bomb had just been dropped outside. He squinted his eyes shut against the onslaught and the television dimmed.

When he reopened them the infomercial was gone. Instead, there was a strange horror movie playing, a little blonde-haired girl and... No... This wasn't a horror movie.

These were memories.

He could see himself on his television, no longer tied up but lying in the straw, sweaty and shaking. Shock-white.

"Spencer..." Elle taunted sweetly and circled him like a small hyena. "I know you're awake."

His entire body was trembling. He lifted himself, grunting, and stared around wild-eyed. Reid watched all of this unfold on the "television". He wanted to wake up now. He wanted to wake up. He wanted to wake up!

But he couldn't.

"You're fun, Spencer..."

"Elle, what have you done?" The young man barked from where he lay in the straw. His eyes were glazed and unseeing.

"You don't like it? It's like being in a dream. It's fun."

The young man on the television screen- that's you Reid- was beginning to hyperventilate.

"What...what's happening?"

"I don't know..." the child trailed, perching in the straw, watching intently. "It's different for everybody. What are you seeing? Insanity is different for everyone..."

"God!" Reid shrieked and scuttled backwards in the straw, until his back hit the wall of the oubliette. "God, stop this." He was staring down at his arms, staring at them wildly.

"Get them off me! Get them off me!"

"Get what off you?" Elle said sweetly, too sweetly. She walked over to him and sat down near him, and as Reid watched the "television" in horror he saw the child remove an old-fashioned razor from her pocket. She flicked the razor open and offered the weapon to "Spencer".

"They're burrowing into me!" Reid howled and scrabbled at his arms.

"You can maybe...get them out with this?" the girl suggested, and waved the razor again. Reid-on-the-screen stared at the razor for a moment, eyes blinking. Finally he shook his head.

"No...What have you done? This is not real, it's a hallucination. There is nothing really inside of me, nothing burrowing into me, this is impossible."

"We get cockroaches down here sometimes. Maybe they laid their eggs in you," Elle said simply, apparently indifferent to her "big brother's" panic.

"Elle, stop it!" Reid made a move to grab her and she dropped the razor and scuttled backward. "Stop it! What is wrong with you?"

"Stop saying that, Spencer. Stop saying that. It's what is wrong with you, now, isn't it? You don't see me freaking out like you, do you?" The voice was very, very smug and pleased.

Reid continued to stare at the television, at the scene unfolding in front of him. Elle got up then and walked away, leaving him in the near-darkness lightly clawing at his arms, rocking and moaning. Eventually he heard footsteps again, heavier footsteps, and Edward White came back with the child. He was holding a shot gun.

"I hear you're picking on your little sister, boy," White said in a low growl. Reid eyed the shot gun, then Elle, then White. He was still hallucinating on-screen, apparently, glancing around and squinting, recoiling from invisible threats. But he could still see and hear White. And see the shot gun.

"No, I wasn't...picking on her."

"Elle?" White turned to look at the six-year-old.

"He was!"

"Are you tired of him, now? I told you he was too old for you. Much too old to be a play-mate. You never listen..."

Elle's eyes hardened.

"What are you suggesting, Daddy?"

"You know what I am suggesting, sweet-heart." The shot gun was raised. Reid-on-the-screen put up his hands in an I'm-no-threat-to-you pose.

"You want to shoot him?" Elle said blandly, considering this. White grunted. Reid made a noise like a squeak.

"Elle, I am sorry, I didn't mean to pick on you... I am sorry, okay?" He was begging her. But he knew he was going to die. He was going to be killed with a shot gun.

Elle considered his begging, tilting her head to the side.

"How hard would it be to get another one like him?" She finally asked her father doubtfully.

"Another one like him? What do you mean?" White snapped impatiently, obviously gearing to kill something. Someone.

"FBI agent like him. How easy would it be?"

"You think taking him was easy? You think so? Well, it wasn't!"

Reid-on-the-screen still had his hands up but his eyes were darting back and forth between Elle and Edward White, trying to make sense of their conversation. It was perhaps the most important conversation of his life; it would determine whether he lived or died.

"Wellll..." Elle trailed, like a child trying to decide what toys to keep and which to give up for the Good Will or the family garage sale. "He's still kind of fun. I guess..."

"Elle, you come and get me when you're tired of him or when you want to play with Daddy's tools... other than that... I have things to do..." White sounded angry, but he lowered the shot gun and stomped away, not even looking at Reid. He stomped back up the staircase, louder now than when he had come down.

Elle looked down at Reid and smiled. "I told you, you better be nice to me," the child stated simply. Reid nodded dully and licked his lips.

"Okay," he finally said, sounding resigned. "Okay, Elle."

Reid gasped and looked around. He was sitting on his sofa; the TV was still on, some other advertisement playing. He got up shakily and turned the television off, trembling. Did I just dream that... or was that a hallucination? Am I going mad?

He couldn't turn his brain off, and it felt very, very hard to breathe. He'd always been simultaneously frightened of his mother's disease, but at the same time, proud of her inner strength. But he had never really known what hallucinating was like. Was this what going mad was like? Was he developing schizophrenia? He knew that hallucinogens could sometimes trigger disorders like schizophrenia in people who were predisposed to them, and there was definitely a genetic link to schizophrenia. God.

Reid licked his lips nervously, not sure what was real, what wasn't. Had that...whatever it was...actually happened? Or was he losing it? Was it just some random subconscious garbage caused by fear and stress and hallucinogens or a flashback to actual events? He didn't know, and worse than that, he didn't trust reality anymore. Would the ceiling suddenly fall and bury him alive? Would he start seeing ghosts walking in and out of the walls? Would he...

"Calm down," he ordered himself aloud. His breathing was faster now, bordering on hyperventilation. "Calm down, Spencer. Calm down."

He walked slowly into his bedroom, turning on all the lights as he went, eyes wary as he searched, afraid of what he might possibly see. He went to his desk and pulled out a sheaf of loose leaf paper, an envelope and a pen and walked back into the living room and sat down shakily. It was still hard to breathe, hard to think, and his fear was growing by the minute. A soul-deep terror that made him feel cold all over.

I can't go mad. I can't go crazy. I can't...I won't.

He began to write, recording everything he had just experienced. When he was done he quickly re-read his scrawled note and sighed heavily, the sigh of a very old man. He folded the pages and stuffed them into the envelope, licked the envelope shut and hastily wrote Hotch's name on the front.

"Please, God...please don't let me go crazy..." His voice came out as a strangled whine.

The clock said it was 4:30 in the morning. In a few hours he'd have to get up anyway, and he doubted he could fall asleep again tonight, even if he wanted to. Exhaustion pulled at his muscles and tendons, but fear was stronger, almost fluorescent in its intensity and it lit up his brain and synapses with horrible possibilities for the future.

Madness. Years of anti-psychotics and restraints and hypodermics full of Haldol and inane babbling in some backward of a psychiatric hospital.

"Stop it," Reid told himself sternly. "Just stop it. Even if it was a flashback from the drugs, that's probably all it was. You know that. Stop scaring yourself with what-ifs, Spencer."

The derealisation- if that's what it really was- that had been ever-present since his rescue was still there and stronger than ever, giving everything a deformed, distorted, dreamy look.

Please help me God. I just want my brain back. Please.

But somehow, he knew it wouldn't be that simple. If anything, he knew- on a level that went far deeper than the objective consciousness of his genius- that these symptoms were just the beginning of whatever fate was in store for him.

He was at work at 6:30 am, pacing. Hotch was in, but his office door was closed. Reid waited patiently. The rest of the team wasn't in yet.

Hotch's door opened suddenly and the older man came out and walked slowly down the steps into the bullpen before spotting Reid.

"Reid? Here a little early today, aren't you? Even for you, I mean." Hotch asked.

"I..um...can I speak to you?" Reid asked softly, eyes heavy-lidded. His hands were shaking though, a combination of too much caffeine and anxiety. Hotch nodded simply and indicated the young man should follow him back to his office. Hotch shut the door quietly and offered Reid a seat. Reid took it and exhaled deeply, then pulled the envelope from his satchel. He handed the envelope to Hotch without explanation, watching as the man's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"It's... it's not a letter of a resignation," Reid interjected as Hotch carefully opened the letter with his letter opener. "At least... not yet."

Hotch glanced over at his agent then, looking a little bit worried. The look faded quickly, however, and he turned back to the letter, neutral expression carefully back in place. He read the letter quickly, frowning towards the end. He then folded it up and carefully put it back in its envelope and stared at Spencer Reid.

"And...You don't know if this experience was a dream or a hallucination?" Hotch questioned, eyes sharp as a hawk's.

Reid shrugged. "I could have been dreaming, but honestly, I don't think so. It didn't feel like a dream. I thought...I thought you should know."

Hotch nodded again and seemed to think for a moment.

"And you still feel unreal and...Like everything is distorted and dream-like, right now?"

Reid nodded glumly.

"I realize you're going to have to take my gun..." Reid started nervously. Hotch sighed wearily before finally nodding.

"I don't want to, Reid, but I can't risk you having a psychotic episode at work or out on the field. You know that."

Reid nodded tightly. Psychotic episode. God, hearing Hotch say it, suddenly made all of it more real, more vivid... more terrifying.

"I...they're going to retire me, aren't they? Too damaged now, aren't I?" the words were out before he could stop them. Hotch stared at Reid for a long moment without blinking.

"Spencer, we don't know what's going on yet. Right now, it could very well just be the effects of whatever you were drugged with..."

"I wasn't tested for hallucinogens, though, and that is not going to satisfy Strauss or your superiors. You'll have to put a notation in my jacket if...when...you take my gun and after my addiction to Dilaudid, I doubt they'll keep me on." Reid's voice was miserable, choked.

"Reid, don't think about that right now..."

Reid sighed. "Do you...obviously I still can't be on this case. Not if there is a chance I might hallucinate. Maybe worse."

Hotch sighed then and rubbed a fist against his forehead. "Um...look. I don't see any reason why you can't stay on the case. No gun, you're right, I'll have to ask you for that. And I can't let you drive in your condition, if it's as disorienting as you claim. But aside from that, I don't see any reason why you should be off this case. You can still read, right?"

Reid nodded miserably. Yeah. He could still read.

"Look, just so we're both covered, I want you to see a doctor..."

Reid gulped audibly.

"I mean a medical doctor, not a psychiatrist. I want you to describe your symptoms. I'll type up a letter stating we think you were drugged with some unknown hallucinogen or hallucinogens and maybe you can get a neurology consult. You stated earlier that you thought you had a concussion after being taken, and that can cause neurological damage. You know that."

"Okay," Reid said softly. "Hotch?"

"Yes?"

"You don't think...do you think I am going to...I mean schizophrenia can be triggered by..."

Hotch sighed tiredly. He knew Reid's fear, knew how scared Reid was.

"I think you should see a doctor first, get what can be medically checked out... checked out." He said simply, knowing it wouldn't satisfy Reid, but also knowing that the truth- the honest, unchecked truth- would upset him even more.

Reid already knew at least as much as he did about the stats for schizophrenia following substance abuse. He was obviously asking his superior for comfort, not speculation.

"I'll type up a letter describing your symptoms and our theories now," Hotch said simply, staring at his agent kindly. Reid nodded.

"You- you think I should see a doctor today?"

"I don't see any point in delaying seeing one. Not when you're still having symptoms."

"Yeah," Reid agreed softly. He turned to leave then, to go brood at his desk.

"Reid?"

"Yeah?"

"Whatever ends up happening...you are going to be okay. You know that, don't you?"

Reid shrugged and puffed out another breath. He didn't know that. He didn't know anything of the sort.

That's it for chapter 12. The team will interview crazy little Elle again and hunt down Dolores White, but there is still plenty of Reid whumping ahead! Please review! I hope this made some sort of sense! I feel so spaced out, it's incredible (hums the tune to 'Alice in Wonderland'...) -Lexikal