Derek sat Spencer on his bed to calm down and took out his phone, calling Hotch.
"Hotch, we have a problem."
"What kind of problem?"
He sighed, walking out of the bedroom and lowering his voice. "Not only does the unsub know where Reid lives. He came here, he trashed the place, and he stole his gun."
"And you're sure-"
"He double-checked the locks before leaving the apartment this morning." He sighed. "Hotch, this has gone from him being a victim of a mugging to this guy making it personal."
"Reid's responsible for him losing his pawns. We should've anticipated him acting irrationally-"
"There's anticipating irrationality, and then there's completely crossing the line. There were eight other victims. He's now made this personal against him and him alone, and he's armed."
Hotch sighed. "We have him on no-fly lists, not to mention every officer in the D.C. area has his photo, plates, and the make and model of his car."
"What are we supposed to do in the meantime?"
He thought for a minute. "I want you to have him pack a bag. He can stay with someone on the team until we have him. I don't want him alone at any point until he's in custody. Have I made myself clear?"
"Crystal. I'll take him to my apartment tonight, and we can figure out where to go from there."
He hung up, turning back to Spencer's room. "Get your things together."
Spencer looked up at him, confused. "…What?"
"It's obvious this isn't going to be a safe place for you. Pack enough clothes to last you a few days, and anything you'll need. Hotch doesn't want you to be alone until all of this is over."
"But-"
"You're going to stay with me for the night, and you're not going to be left alone at all until we have him."
Spencer bit down on his lip, grabbing a bag from his closet. "I'm sorry, Derek," he said softly, opening his drawers and starting to pack.
"You have nothing to be sorry for. This son of a bitch does. And once we find him, your life can go back to normal."
He nodded slightly, chewing on his lip and zipping up his bag as he finished packing.
Derek grabbed the bag, putting it over his shoulder.
"Do you have everything?"
"Mhm."
"Do you need anything else? Do I need to stop at a store on the way?"
He shook his head. "I have enough Tylenol to last, and so long as you have ice, I'm fine."
He took his keys out of his pocket. "Ready to go?"
He shrugged, wincing. "Have I mentioned lately this sucks?"
"You may have once or twice," he said, patting Spencer's other shoulder and walking out to his car.
Later that night, Spencer was settled in Derek's guest room, a pillow under his knee after Derek insisted. He reached for his phone when he heard it ringing.
"Hello?"
"How are you feeling, sweetie?"
He smiled slightly. "As great as I can, Garcia. Thanks for checking up."
"Anytime, Boy Wonder. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"I um, I'm going to be in tomorrow. Mainly because I really don't want to be alone and risk something happening. I'd really appreciate being able to distance myself from talk of the case and-"
"Say no more. My lair is wide open for you. I'll have a cup of disgustingly sweet coffee waiting for you. I'll even bring in some cupcakes."
He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you only baked when you were stressed. Your whole explanation is 'desserts are great, and stressed backwards is desserts. It's the perfect therapy'."
She laughed softly. "Oh, you think I'm not stressed? One of Momma Bear's cubs is in trouble. Bet your skinny little ass I'm worried about you."
He shook his head. "Well, I appreciate it, I guess." He bit down on his lip, wincing.
"No wincing! Do not make me call Derek Morgan to get you some meds."
"How did you-"
"A mother bear knows. Get some meds in you, get some sleep, and I'll see you in the morning, sweet cheeks."
He knew arguing with her was pointless, so agreed. "I'll see you then." He hung up, sighing.
"Hey, Derek?"
Derek walked over, poking his head in. "What's up?"
"I hate to be a bother, but I left the Tylenol on the bathroom counter, and you told me if I try moving my knee any more today, you were going to tell Garcia and she'd take care of punishing me."
Derek laughed. "So now I know how to get you to listen. Threaten you with Penelope." He walked to the bathroom and went to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water. He came back, handing them to Spencer. "Can I get you anything else?"
"I don't want to inconvenience you at all. I'm just going to get some sleep." He popped the pills into his mouth and took a sip of his water. "Garcia said she's going to take care of me tomorrow during the day so you guys can focus on the case."
"Good idea, but you do realize she's going to baby you?"
Spencer looked at him incredulously. "And you do realize if I don't let her, she's going to insist I stay with her until I'm healed up? It's bad enough I have an unsub after me, I don't need Kevin Lynch after me too. He may not look like much, but something tells me he has a switch that if it goes off, he'll turn into an unsub."
Derek smirked, shaking his head. "Good night, Pretty Boy." He walked out, closing the door behind him. This left Spencer to stare up at the ceiling, silently praying that all of this would be over soon, and hoping that his nightmares stayed at the apartment.
The next morning, Derek and Spencer walked into work. Spencer was glad that Derek avoided talking to him about his nightmares, which seemed to come back last night in full force. He was awake half the night, recovering from constant bad dreams. He sat at his desk, drinking his fourth coffee that morning, while Derek was in Hotch's office.
"How's he doing?" Hotch asked.
Derek groaned. "He's terrified. He was up most of the night, either screaming because he was having a nightmare, or crying and trying to recover from one."
"After the trauma he's been through? It's not surprising."
"Hotch, he's beyond traumatized. I left several windows open for him to blurt out facts and tell me information, but he just stayed quiet and inside his own mind. I've never been this worried about him before."
Hotch leaned forward, lowering his voice. "There hasn't been anything about him leaving the area, so he's still in D.C. Now it's just a matter of tracking him down and ending this."
"How are we supposed to do that if he's slipped under the radar?"
"I have Garcia tracking his banking information, as well as credit card use. Everyone in D.C. knows his face based on press conferences and news reports. I promise you, Morgan, he's not getting away with this."
He looked out of the office over at Spencer's desk, sighing.
"I'm worried about him too."
He nodded slightly. "And Garcia's going to let us know if anything comes up?"
"I promise."
He walked back to his desk, sitting down and looking over at Spencer. He'd put his glasses on and was currently fully immersed in a book. He knew that Spencer was now dead to the world and he couldn't have a conversation with him, no matter how hard he tried.
The day at the BAU was unfortunately quiet, and Spencer spent the night at Derek's apartment again. JJ had offered, but in his current state, he didn't want to scare Henry if he got a look at him. The following morning at work, everyone took notice that Strauss was in Hotch's office. While everyone else tried figuring out what was going on, Spencer went to the break room, making himself some coffee.
"What do you think is going on?" Emily asked, turning to JJ.
JJ sighed. "Well, we've been on this case for several days and only have 2/3 of the unsubs in custody. The most dangerous one is still missing. I'm willing to bet she's not pleased that her best team is focused on a personal case."
"Well, she'll just have to get used to it," Derek started, leaning back in his chair, "because even if she tells me I'm off this case, I'm not stopping until we have this guy."
"I'm with Derek on this one," Rossi added, leaning against Derek's desk. "How's the kid doing?"
Derek shrugged. "At the apartment, he buries himself in reading or just stays in the guest room. I haven't really talked to him, and I don't want to push him to talk about anything he doesn't want to."
JJ bit her lip. "I'm worried about him."
Emily looked over at him absentmindedly stirring his coffee. "We all are."
Hotch walked out of his office twenty minutes later. "BAU team, conference room now, please."
They all looked around at each other uneasily before getting up, following him to the conference room.
Rossi raised an eyebrow, looking at Spencer. "Are you coming, Reid?"
Spencer sat at the desk, chin in his hand, deep in thought.
He walked over, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Reid?"
Spencer jumped slightly at the contact, snapping out of it at looking up at him. "Yeah?"
"Hotch wants us in the conference room. Are you coming?"
He nodded, and without another word, walked to the conference room.
The team looked around at each other before Emily spoke up. "What's going on, Hotch?"
Hotch sighed. "Strauss wants us to back off of this case until a point where we can catch him."
Derek raised an eyebrow. "No offense to her, but one of our own was attacked. She really expects us to turn a blind eye to this?"
"Unfortunately, if something doesn't pop up by the end of the day, she wants this case on the backburner."
Spencer bit down on his lip, chewing on it. "I don't want to be the reason the team is being held back." Everyone turned to look at him. "This is about me, and it's not fair for anyone on this team to get in trouble because of something that happened to one of us."
JJ shook her head. "The second he chose to attack one of us, he attacked all of us. I'm not backing down. His face is going to stay plastered on every news station, in every paper, and on every billboard possible until he's in custody."
"I don't want any of you in trouble-"
"She can't punish all of us. With all due respect, Hotch, I'm not stopping."
He looked around at his team. "Is this how everyone thinks?"
They collectively nodded, and he chose to ignore Spencer shaking his head.
"Then you'll be happy to know I told her that I'm not off this case until I'm forced off. I'll take any suspension threats she throws out, but I am not taking the fact that he hand-selected one of my agents and attacked him lightly. Especially now that he's made this extremely personal." He eyed Spencer. "We are a family, and none of us are resting easy until you're safe."
Spencer swallowed, giving him a slight nod.
"I want all of you looking at case files until something comes in. There's nothing else we can do until Garcia comes up with something-"
Garcia ran into the room, setting her laptop on the table and sitting down.
"What do you have, Baby Girl?"
"He just used his credit card five minutes ago at a gas station six miles from here."
Hotch leaned over, looking at the address. "Do they have security cameras?"
She nodded. "Several."
He stood up. "Dave, you're coming with me. Prentiss and Morgan, you're going to the gas station and reviewing the security footage. Reid, I want you to stay here with Garcia, in her office with the door locked. Is that clear?"
He nodded, glancing over at Garcia.
She smiled sweetly, reaching over and patting his hand. "We're getting there, sweetie."
Spencer walked to Garcia's lair, holding onto his satchel. Once he was inside and sure the door was locked, he sat on the couch, sighing.
"Honey, do you need anything? Some water, painkillers, a snack? I brought in those cupcakes I told you about if you're interested?" she asked as she sat in her chair.
He quickly shook his head. "I'm fine."
She pouted slightly. "Well, if you think of anything, just let me know."He nodded and she turned around to her monitors. "Derek is going to link me to the security footage once he gets it from the station, and if I see his license plate, he's officially going to be screwed, because the APB is going to be put out faster than you can give me statistics on the origin of APBs." She smiled to herself. "Let me guess, APB stands for A Pain in my Butt, because that's what he is?" When she was greeted with silence, she turned back around in her chair and saw him curled up on the couch, fast asleep. She got up, going into her closet and grabbing a blanket. She walked over to the couch, putting it over him before getting back to work.
A while later, her phone rang. She jumped at the noise and quickly answered it, hoping not to wake him. "Yeah?"
"What, Baby Girl, no witty greeting? I'm hurt."
She smiled slightly, lowering her voice. "I'll go back to my fun, bubbly self when Boy Wonder can sleep at night."
"Where is he right now?"
She turned around and breathed a sigh of relief. "He's sleeping on the couch behind me. From the looks of it, he hasn't really slept since before this happened."
"Wouldn't surprise me."
She chewed on her lip. "Please tell me you have something."
"I need you to run a plate."
She put her fingers over the keys. "Gimme."
"6-Thomas-Alpha 4-Zebra-Peter."
She typed it in, raising an eyebrow. "Plates don't belong to him, they belong to his father," she paused, continuing to dig, "who hasn't been seen or heard from in three months."
"Home address?"
"On its way to your phone as we speak."
"You're the greatest."
"So I've heard. Now shh and go work. I'm not going to have him wake up." She hung up and went right back to work.
When there was a knock on the door, she shot up from her seat, walking over and propping it open. "I have a sleeping Boy Wonder in here, so this had better be good."
JJ held up a sheet of paper. "Local mailman recalls seeing somebody with the exact description going into a shopping mall 20 minutes ago. Hotch and Rossi are on their way there now. Do you have anything?"
She eyed the sleeping Spencer and stepped out of her lair, closing the door behind her. "He's driving around in his father's car, and his father hasn't been heard from in three months. Morgan and Prentiss are at his house now, looking into that."
"Security at the mall has all eyes out for him. He's still in there, and he's not going to be able to get out, unless he's in handcuffs. Our only problem after that is-"
"A confession or a positive identification," Garcia finished, thinking of Spencer fast asleep on the couch. "Do you think he can do it?"
She shrugged slightly. "I'm really not sure. I know he wants this to be over, but I also know he's terrified of this guy more than anything he's ever faced on the job."
Garcia sighed. "I'm worried about him. It's obvious by how quickly he fell asleep that he hasn't slept since this whole mess started. What are we supposed to do?"
JJ crossed her arms. "For now? We let him sleep, we have faith that Hotch and Rossi can find him, Derek and Emily can find something to nail him to the wall, and we pray that Spence can be in the right mindset to identify him. If he's out for more than a few hours, I'll order something. Make sure he eats, takes his meds, and gets back to sleep?"
"Promise."
She watched as JJ walked away and went back in. Luckily, Spencer was still out on the couch. She sat down, pulling up the security cameras for the mall and watching them closely.
Garcia kept a close eye on the cameras, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. She saw Hotch and Rossi running along the top level with mall security, while Derek and Emily were on the bottom level. All she could do was watch them and hope they caught him. She heard Spencer stirring on the couch quite a few times, from what she assumed was nightmares, but she was thankful that he stayed asleep for several hours. She heard him talking and mumbling, but knew better than to try to talk to him in this state. He hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in nearly a week, and she didn't want to be the one to interrupt him.
She saw something on the camera and froze, picking up her phone and calling Hotch.
"Hotchner."
She swallowed. "Sir, I believe our unsub was behind you, saw the gun, and started running in the direction you just came from. I'm pretty sure he has Reid's gun in his pocket."
"Thanks, Garcia."
"And sir?"
"Yes?"
"Do me a favor and please be careful. It breaks my heart to see one of us hurt. I don't want another."
He turned around. "I will." He hung up and started running.
She moved to one of her other screens, not being able to watch what was happening, just in case it ended poorly for one of the people she cared about. Instead, she opted to pull up a YouTube video of kittens, so she could think of something that wasn't so upsetting.
Looking back at the screen, she couldn't help but feel a rush of relief. Derek had him down on the ground in handcuffs while Emily stood by, putting the safety on Spencer's gun. She was ready to deem this a victory when she got a closer look and saw Hotch sitting on the ground, clutching his arm and wincing.
"Oh, no. Oh no no no," she whispered, picking up her phone and calling Rossi.
He took out his phone, answering. "What is it, kitten?"
"What's wrong with Hotch?" she asked, keeping her voice down.
"How do you- hacked into the mall security cameras?"
"Indeed."
"He's going to be fine. He took a shot at Hotch right before Derek tackled him and cuffed him."
"But he's okay, right?"
Hotch groaned, looking at the EMT. "It's just a graze, put a damn bandage on it so I can get back to work."
She laughed softly. "I see. Tell him I'm not allowing him back into this building until he gets that arm checked. I can fix the system to not accept his ID badge and password, so I wouldn't mess with me."
"Something I definitely wouldn't want to do. Derek and Emily are bringing him in now, I'm going with Hotch. How's the kid doing?"
She spun around in her chair, smiling to herself when she saw him curled up in a ball on the couch, the blanket wrapped tightly around him. "Getting some much needed sleep for a change."
"Good, keep it that way as long as you can. We're going to have Derek question him, and if that doesn't work, I'll let you know."
"Scout's honor, I'm not going to dare to wake him up. Spread the word to everyone not to come within feet of my lair unless they want to face the wrath of Momma Bear."
"Consider it noted."
She hung up and sighed, taking a deep breath and willing this whole mess to be over.
It was another hour before Spencer woke up, sitting up on the couch and looking around, confused.
"Well, good morning to you, Boy Wonder," Garcia said, spinning around in her chair. "Sleep well?"
He nodded slightly, checking his watch. "Did I really just sleep for four and a half hours?"
"Five, actually. You were pretty much out the second you hit that couch."
"Sorry," he mumbled, stretching slightly.
"Sweetie, don't be. It was quite obvious you really needed to get some sleep. Did it help?"
"Mhm. I didn't wake up, did I? I didn't-"
She shook her head. "It was definitely very peaceful, and I'm glad it was for you."
He smirked. "Anything yet?"
He felt extremely relieved when she gave him a nod. "They got him at a shopping mall a few miles away. Derek's downstairs questioning him right now and – where are you going?"
He pushed himself off the couch, wincing and walking out.
She got up, following him. "Hi, 187, it's Garcia, I was talking to you. Where are you going?"
He pressed the button on the elevator. "I'm ending this."
"Ending thi- what are you thinking? In case you've forgotten, I'm not a profiler. I can't read your mind."
"He's not going to start talking until he has a reason to talk. Yes, there were warrants out for his arrest and there's enough to hold him, but I'm going to make him admit what he did."
"…How are you going to do that?"
He stepped into the elevator, pressing the button and pushing on the close door button. "I'm pulling it out of him."
Before she could give a full reaction, the doors closed in front of her. She groaned loudly, walking back to her office and picking up the phone, dialing Emily.
"What is it, PG?"
"Boy Wonder's awake and he asked what happened. He's on his way down there right now."
"Wha- how did he get past you?!"
"For an injured agent, he moves pretty fast. I need you to stop him from talking to him, because I don't know what sort of emotional scars this is going to leave."
She sighed, walking out of the room and closing the door behind her. "It could leave a lot more if he sits back and says nothing."
"What?!"
She leaned against the wall. "Sometimes, when you're the victim, what you need more than anything to get over it is to face your attacker. I'm not sure that's the case with Reid, but if it's what he needs to do so he can have some closure and keep the nightmares away-"
"But what if it's the exact opposite of what he needs?"
"We'll deal with that if that's the case. If talking to his attacker is what helps? I can't stop him."
She groaned. "Take care of him, please?"
"I promise, PG."
She hung up, walking back in the room, sighing and crossing her arms while watching Derek attempt to interrogate him.
Rossi raised an eyebrow, turning to her. "What's wrong?"
"Reid's coming down here to interrogate him, whether we let him or not."