Author's Note: Thanks so much for the reviews everyone! It's been a pleasure to read them, and I'm glad people are enjoying the story. To answer a few questions: no, this won't be following the storyline in the episode – there is one scene that I kept fairly similar (because it suits my rewrite, and also because it has Petulant Reid, and I love Petulant Reid), but virtually everything else will be changed. I totally forgot J.J. went into labor in that episode, for example, and she's not even pregnant in this story! There will be more exploration into Reid's dad's character, and how he's impacted Reid. Diana will be involved more in the coming chapters. As to whether or when they'll find Charlie, and whether Reid's dad is the UnSub, you'll have to wait to find out! There will also be more of Reid dealing with drug addiction, and I might update the main summary and warnings to reflect that. For now, I'll warn you that while this won't be a deathfic or anything, my goal is to have you all crying by the end of it. I'm just evil that way.

Chapter 4

"Baby Girl! I was beginning to think you'd found someone else," said Morgan when his phone rang at two minutes to nine.

"Have you seen Reid?" She asked abruptly.

"Huh? No," said Morgan, surprised, "Rossi and I were at the abduction sight, we're just going back into the station now." He motioned for Rossi and Detective Vargas to go on ahead of him while he remained out front in the warm evening air. The station was busy, and it'd be easier to take the call out here. "You need Reid for something?" he asked.

"No, it's nothing," said Garcia. Then, "Yes. No. I don't know."

"Sweetness, is there something going on that I should know about?"

"Just...tell him to call me, okay?" she said.

Morgan could hear the worry in her voice. It was about as subtle as a ton of bricks. Normally he'd press the matter, but the clock ticking in his head had just struck the five and a half hour mark: eighteen hours and thirty minutes left. Charlie Woods was running out of time.

"Okay," he said. "What have you got on the parents."

There was a moment of hesitation on the other end of the line before Garcia spoke, "The mom's had a rough time of it – a really rough time – but she's clean. Like, powder-fresh, holy as a saint, Listerine clean. She's never even had a parking ticket. Born and raised just outside Vegas. Her parents both died in a plane crash when she was eighteen, leaving her to take care of her two teenage sisters. Despite that, she somehow managed to keep all three of them together. Got a full-ride academic scholarship to UC Berkley, studied history, worked through school so she could support her sisters until they got to college. Moved back to Vegas and taught for a few years. She married Bill Woods eleven years ago, stopped working when she got pregnant with Charles, and by all accounts is the perfect mother: on the PTA board, takes him to the library every week, goes to all his Little League games.

"A couple years after Charlie was born, her youngest sister was killed by an abusive boyfriend. Since then she's been working from home campaigning for stronger domestic violence laws and leading Battered-Women's Support groups at the YWCA. Seriously, the woman's a rock. She's a superhero."

Or she's compensating for what was happening in her own home, thought Morgan cynically.

"What about the father?"

"Nothing incriminating."

Morgan waited for more, but there was only silence on the other end of the line. "That's it?" he said, "That's all you got for me?"

Another beat of silence. "Just… have Reid call me, okay? I'll talk to you later," she said, and hung up.

Morgan stared at his phone for a minute. Everything about that conversation was seriously concerning. He paced around in the stillness of the warm night, looked up at the sky, and took a few deep breaths.

Cases like this – they awakened old ghosts. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms protectively around himself, and shivered a little before regaining his focus: seven minutes on the phone with Penelope. Three minutes to breathe. Eighteen hours and twenty minutes left. Ghosts are dead. Charlie Woods might still be alive. He opened his eyes and made his way into the station to look for Reid.

Vargas, J.J., and Herrera were updating one another when Morgan entered the main office.

"The father's looking better for this every minute," said Herrera by way of greeting.

"Apparently, things got a bit heated after we left," said Vargas to Morgan.

"He was downright hostile, defensive," said Herrera, "I think he came damn near socking that kid of yours in the face."

"You mean Reid?" asked Morgan.

Herrera nodded, "Agent Hotchner is with Mr. Woods in my office now, Agent Rossi's checking in with him."

"Prentiss is talking to the mother," said J.J. "She's pretty distraught."

"Where's Reid?" asked Morgan.

"He's working on case files of possible suspects in one of the interview rooms down the hall," he motioned for Morgan to follow. "I watched him reading for a couple minutes. Kid was going through whole files in the time it'd take me to read one page," he said as they proceeded towards the double doors leading to the interview rooms and the private offices. "Never seen anything like it. Like watching a squirrel on crack."

J.J. smirked, and Morgan let out a small laugh just as Reid pushed through the swinging doors, almost crashing into them.

"Hey, kid!" said Morgan, but Reid bolted right past them without a word.

Prentiss followed almost immediately after, having seen Reid leave the other interview room. "Are you okay," she asked, trying to catch up, but he ignored her completely, and walked straight out of the station. A moment later, Hotch and Rossi appeared in the doorway.

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How much had they heard? Reid wondered. The mic was broken in that room, that's why they put me in there in the first place, he kicked himself. How could he have forgotten? Anyone in the hallway could've heard every word of that conversation. Not that it mattered. They would have found out anyway.

As soon as he exited the station he stopped and took a deep breath. Two uniforms nodded to him in greeting as they headed inside, and he promptly walked to the back of the station where no one was around.

The lights of the parking lot cast weird shadows on the landscaping, making all the little shrubs and bushes looks artificial. He caught his reflection in one of the station's windows. His face looked blank and yellow. He looked artificial too. He still felt numb. He leaned against the wall, and this time he answered when Garcia called.

"Reid?" she said after a slight hesitation.

"Yeah."

They were silent for a few moments. Two people whose strength lay in their words, and both were at a loss.

"I'm okay," said Reid finally. And then, "I have a brother."

Garcia breathed out a slow and controlled breath. "I know, honey. He looks a lot like you, too."

They were silent again.

"What would you do?" Asked Reid suddenly. They were the both of them too intelligent to beat around the bush. "Your dad left too, didn't he? Your biological father?"

"Yes," she said, "Before I was born. My stepfather raised me. I considered him my real dad." She took another breath. Reid was silent on the other end of the line and Garcia was very aware of the significance of his question. It wasn't the question itself, but the fact that he'd asked. Reid never asked for advice: not since Gideon left. He didn't trust anyone enough. Now he'd asked her flat-out: what would she do in his situation? "I don't know," she said, and felt miserable at the inadequacy of her answer.

"I think I handled it badly," Reid said.

Garcia closed her eyes. "I can hear you beating yourself up from here," she said. "Stop it, now. Your dad leaving wasn't your fault."

"I know that," said Reid.

"No, I don't think you do," she said, "Look, it took me thirty years and the deaths of my mom and the only dad I ever knew to figure that one out. Sometimes people leave, but it's not your fault." She emphasized the last words, breathed, continued, "Sometimes they leave of their own volition, sometimes they don't have a choice, sometimes they are taken from us. Sometimes there are reasons, sometimes it's totally random… but sitting there blaming yourself is not only unfair, it's stupid. You were a little boy, he was the grown up; whatever his reasons were for leaving, it wasn't your fault."

Reid wanted to believe her. He sort of did. But he sort of didn't, too. "Do I ask him then? Let him explain himself?"

"You have to take care of yourself," she replied. "Do what's right for you, okay? You're in control here. Remember that. If you want to give him a chance, it is yours to give, not his to take, do you understand? "

Reid remained silent, and Garcia continued, "He left when you were what, nine? Ten? There was a part of him that was there for you. Part of him that gave you almost ten years. You have to decide which part is more important to you: the part that stayed, or the part that left." Prentiss had said almost the exact same thing to him once. He sighed.

His phone was getting sweaty against his ear. He was having trouble thinking – there was just too much to process. With his free hand he disappeared and reappeared his medallion again; he hadn't even noticed he'd been playing with it and wondered when he'd pulled it from his pocket. It reflected the artificial light dimly as it rolled across the back of his hand. Did he have control? Or was the idea of control just artifice, just illusion? He pocketed the medallion once more, said, "Thanks, Garcia. I've got to go," and walked back into the station.

Garcia hung up the phone and sat alone in the dark. She picked up a small, framed photograph from a corner of her desk and leaned back in her chair. With her thumb she stroked the cheek of her dad. Her stepdad. She'd never even seen a photo of her biological father.

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Hotch looked at Charles Woods' oversized grin. Of course he saw the resemblance. Now it was practically all he could see.

They'd moved Reid's board and map to the station's conference room, and Hotch turned from it to face his team. Morgan, Prentiss, J.J., Rossi, and Reid sat in silence around the conference table. The team looked at him with sober faces, all except Rossi, who was watching Reid, and Reid, who was watching the floor.

Hotch cleaned up messes. It's what he did. And he was good at it. But this wasn't going to be easy, not for any of them.

Kathy Woods had gone into a quiet rage, storming out of the interview room almost immediately after Reid. Bill Woods had almost collapsed into one of the chairs, apparently spent. He had sat with his head in his hands, and Hotch had seen the resemblance there too. Reid looked like his mother, but there was definitely something of his father in him as well.

He and Rossi had left the dejected man to follow Reid, but stopped when they ran into J.J., Morgan, Herrera, Vargas, and Prentiss in the main office. They had all watched Reid as he made his way out of the station. He had let Reid go, the man needed some space. He would give him as long as it took to fill in the rest of his team regarding the situation, but no longer. There was a clock ticking in Hotch's head too. A clock that was very near the six-hour mark. And, as cruel as it was, Reid had now become an even more valuable asset in solving this case, having personal knowledge of their primary suspect. With that in mind, Hotch took on the difficult task of explaining the confrontation that had just happened down the hall.

Reid returned on his own a few minutes later, and the team were making their way to the conference room Herrera was clearing out for them when Kathy Woods walked up. Her eyes were dry now, her face was determined, and Hotch noticed that, whereas back in the interview room she couldn't seem to tear her eyes from Reid, now she couldn't seem to bear to look at him. Instead she looked only at Hotch, and she handed him a large leather briefcase. "It's Bill's," she said. "His laptop's in it. You're looking for a pedophile, right? There's a password-protected file on there. I don't know what's in it. He's been distant lately; he leaves work early, goes out in the evenings. He says it's to run errands but he never tells me what he's doing. I never thought he… I mean, he never gave me any reason to suspect…" she choked on her words. "Well, he's good at keeping secrets from me," she said. "Just find my son." And she walked away.

The laptop now sat open in the corner of the conference room as Garcia dug through it remotely.

Hotch looked at Reid. His eyes were on the floor, his hands folded neatly on the conference table. He looked very young. Hotch hated himself for what he was about to say. "I'm sorry I can't be more delicate with this, Reid, but if your father's the UnSub, you know what that means. He's a preferential offender. He has a very specific type: specific age, hair color, build." The photo of Charles smiled at the team from its place on the board behind Hotch, looking more like Reid with every second, "I know that your father left when you were nine. Is there anything else about him that I need to know?"

"He never touched me," said Reid looking up, but not looking at anyone.

"It might be why he left," said Prentiss. Hotch could hear her struggling to get the words out. She didn't want to say them. None of them wanted to be talking about this.

"You think he left because he was afraid he'd molest me?" asked Reid, still not meeting anyone's eyes.

"A lot of pedophiles do," said Morgan. "They can't control their desires, so they walk away. Put as much distance between themselves and kids as possible so they don't hurt anyone."

"But this time he wasn't strong enough," continued Prentiss. "He gave in to the temptation. Couldn't cope with what he'd done, and got rid of Charlie rather than face it."

"He's definitely struggling to control his emotions," said Rossi, still watching Reid intently, "But then, any parent of a missing child would be."

Reid sifted through the memories in his head. Hours, days, years of memories replayed themselves, as clear as if they were yesterday.

"Diana, please, you need to eat something," said his father.

Spencer jumped when she hurled the proffered food across the room. "It's poison, William, how can you not see it? How can he not see it?" She asked, talking to someone who wasn't there. Her eyes were swollen, she was gaunt from days of refusing food, and her hair and nightdress were a mess. She hadn't had an episode this bad in over a year. Spencer hugged his knees, squeezing as tightly to himself as he could as he watched from his spot on the stairs.

"William, it's how they get into my head. You know what they do. They modify the food. At the DNA level. They poison it. It's how they brainwash us."

"Mommy, please just eat dinner. It's not poisoned," said Spencer.

"This is what they want! Don't you see? They want to turn you against me," She looked at Spencer and cried, "They want to turn my baby against me! They're going to ruin his mind. They're going to take him from me!" She stormed back into her bedroom and locked the door, and Spencer started to cry. His father stared sadly at the bedroom door for a minute, and then turned and walked towards Spencer, picked him up, and carried him up to his room.

They sat on Spencer's bed while he cried.

"Your mom loves you very much, you know that, right?" said his father. "She's just sick. You have to understand that when she gets angry and yells like that, it's not because of something you did. It's not your fault." Spencer nodded and continued to cry, while his father sat by his side, rubbing soothing circles on his back.

"There was nothing," said Reid, and they all looked at him. Part of him wanted his father to be guilty. He wanted him to be a total monster so that he could justify the anger he felt. But he thought of the words spoken to him first by Prentiss, then echoed by Garcia, and he had to be as honest about the man who had stayed as he was about the man who had left. "He never did anything to me. I'd never even heard him yell before today. He and my mom fought all the time, but he never lost his temper. He was always the stable one."

Morgan's phone rang. "You're on speaker, Baby Girl."

"Woods is clean," she said. "His record's clean, his finances are clean, his computer's clean. Aside from work and Charlie's Little League, he leads a quiet life. There's nothing on his computer, no kiddie porn, no untoward web activity, no illicit chat rooms, no suspicious emails. Nothing."

Reid felt both relieved and disappointed at the news, and then the anger boiled up again. "He's smart, and he's good at keeping secrets," he said. He wanted there to be something. Something that would show everyone that his father was a monster. Something that would justify him burying the memories of the man who had comforted him when his mother lost control, the man who coached him in Little League, the man who for nine years had been his rock, and who brought the only normalcy into his life he'd ever known. Something that could make him embrace his anger and hatred wholly, and help him deny the fact that he missed his dad. "What about the password-protected file?" he asked.

There was a beat. Then, "It's you, kiddo," said Garcia. Reid caught his breath. "It's all you. Every paper you've ever published, every newspaper article you've ever been quoted in that's been published online. He even has a copy of your dissertation."

"He's been keeping tabs on you," said Rossi, "That's saying something."

"Yeah, that he Googled me," said Reid petulantly, "That makes up for everything,"

"He is hiding something, Garcia," said Hotch, "His wife said he leaves work early, goes out on random evenings. See if you can find out what he's been up to."

"Yes, sir," replied Garcia.

"Morgan, you and Prentiss check out the Woods' home," Hotch continued. Rossi and I will update Herrera and Vargas. J.J., you're with us. Reid, keep working on those case files, and if there is anything you remember, anything at all, tell me."

The clock in Hotch's head struck the six and a half hour mark. Seventeen and a half hours to go, and they were no closer to finding Charlie.