Chapter Text
The cabin is empty. The cabin is empty, the camera is knocked over and the monitors are blank. Handcuffs and a belt sit in the chair Reid has spent the last three days in and Gideon has to remind himself that Hankel wouldn’t have moved the body, if he’d killed him. Has to remind himself that that last shot from the gun had gone over Spencer’s head, not through it.
Spencer’s not dead because he’s not here. He’s alive. Hankel hasn’t killed him, not yet. There’s still time. They still have time.
They spread out through the cemetery, flashlights and guns drawn. Hankel’s truck is still here, still parked outside, so they know he and Spencer have to be somewhere on the property. They’re on foot and Spencer was just resuscitated. They haven’t gone far. They can’t .
“We’ll find him,” Hotch says quietly. Gideon doesn’t reply, just adjusts his grip on his weapon and keeps his eyes ahead. There’s no motion beyond the team, spread out. There aren’t any voices, gunshots, or anything else. Not even tracks. Hankel and Spencer are somewhere in the cemetery, they have to be, yet for all they can find it’s as though they completely vanished.
His thoughts ran in circles, heart pounding in his chest. He knew he should’ve been more collected, should’ve treated this like it was any other unsub, any other victim. But he couldn’t. Because it wasn’t his fault other victims were in this position. But it was because of him that Spencer was.
Because he was the one who had pushed the kid, the one who’d found him and driven him into this, into the BAU. He was the one who had pressed for Spencer to be waived out of the physical assessment requirement on account of his inability to pass it, the one who had said his intelligence would be enough to keep him off the field.
And it was, most of the time. And it should’ve been, because as far as they’d known and as far as they’d been concerned, Tobias Hankel had just been a witness , but then they’d been wrong and they’d split up, it had been Spencer’s idea but Gideon can’t help but feel like maybe he should’ve insisted from the very beginning, the minute the kid started working with them, that if he ever found himself on the field in such a situation as this then he needed to call for backup and wait .
He can always insist now and he thinks he might. He will. When Spencer’s safe and they’re far, far away from Georgia he’ll sit the kid down and apologize and Spencer will say it wasn’t his fault, they couldn’t have known and Gideon will tell him to wait, ask why he didn’t wait and Spencer will say he didn’t have a choice.
So maybe telling him to wait in the future is just wasted breath because the kid has a good heart, a big one, and if he sees their unsub, if they’re in a situation where he’s found their unsub, he won’t be able to convince himself to sit back and just observe and watch. Not when he has a gun and training and could do something about it.
And Gideon knew that was his fault.
The shot rings out through the silence, deafening, and Gideon thinks for a moment his heart stops.
No . He thinks, as they all hurry towards the source of the sound. No, we’re right here. We’re right here.
He runs. They all do. Someone calls “I see him! Reid!” And Gideon tries to cling to that, to hope that the body he can see on the ground is Hankel not Spencer and he doesn’t breathe until the lights are on them and Spencer lifts his head, alive and god he looks awful, he’s been through hell, but Gideon just embraces him and lets himself breathe, feel the other do the same.
“Come on,” he says, quietly, pulling gently. “Paramedics are waiting.”
“Can I…can I have a minute?” Spencer asked, stumbling. Gideon frowned, glancing quickly towards Hankel, dead from a single shot to the chest. He deserved worse. He should’ve suffered more. Gideon knows those aren’t thoughts an FBI agent should have, so he shoves them away with the intent of not thinking them again.
That doesn’t stop them from lingering in the back of his mind.
He acquiesces Spencer’s request, stepping back and making sure Spencer is stable before he walks a few paces back, giving him space while also being close enough to get to him if something happens. If Spencer falls or if that bullet missed Hankel’s heart and the man rises to the ground to try and rake Spencer down with him.
He doesn’t. He stays still, dead, and Spencer rises alone, stumbling on beaten feet back to Gideon who swoops in to take hold of him, giving him support when Spencer’s legs almost give out.
"You're safe,” Gideon says, aware that he’s reassuring Spencer as much as he’s reassuring himself. “It’s over. He’s dead.”
Spencer just nods with him, remaining silent as he leans into Gideon and allows himself to be led out of the cemetery to the waiting ambulance. To the waiting help.