Chapter Text
It’s almost midnight when the jet takes off; gliding into a dark sky filled with a thousand stars. There are hardly any lights on in the cabin; most of the team members are asleep. JJ is curled up on the small couch. Even in her sleep she holds her mobile tightly and close to her chest. It pings softly; Will is still awake, waiting for her.
Morgan and Elle sit next to each other, near the rear of the plane. Her head is on his shoulder and soft Jazz music comes from Morgan’s headphone but their eyes are closed.
Hotchner is sitting by himself, slumped in his chair and with his mouth slightly open. The suit is now wrinkled; he looks undignified, but human, at last.
Reid isn’t sleeping. He hasn’t been for the last days. Instead he’s setting up a chess game.
Gideon can still remember when he first saw Reid. A lanky teenager, sitting cross-legged on a desk, staring up at a blackboard full with mathematical equations, on his own. Bony hands covered in chalk, brown eyes wide open when caught after hours. A nervous stutter, wringing hands, ill-fitting clothes.
He’d been just a teenager. Defenseless against the charm of a profiler.
‘Play with me?’ Reid asks.
‘Of course,’ Gideon answers.
Sometimes it feels like that’s all he’s ever done.
Their second meeting had been different; Reid’s face just one of the hundreds in the large lecture hall. Gideon hadn’t even known he was there until the very end, when one of the lecturers dragged the poor boy in front of the class, offering him up as bait for the BAU.
And Gideon hadn’t said no, though he had many reasons to.
No, he’s too young, too fragile.
No, he has enough burdens to bear.
No, he still has dreams.
But he hadn’t said no. Instead he’d talked to the boy about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, about their research projects into the minds of criminals, about the papers he’d written, the awards he’d received, the science of all that he did, every day. And the boy had loved it.
Still loves it.
Reid carefully sets the board down on the small table between them. He always gives Gideon white. Studies have shown that playing white has a slight advantage, the openings move, the draw of luck. 52 to 56% of the games are won by white. Reid knows that. He tells Gideon that he likes to give him a fighting chance. Gideon knows that he needs something to blame for his loss.
The genius is nothing if not a sore loser.
And he lost. Even before the game started. Years ago, because Gideon didn’t say no and Reid said yes.
‘Do you remember why you joined the BAU?’
Reid frowns as Gideon makes his opening-move.
‘Yes.’
He joined the academy because Gideon had told him stories about science, research, about fighting the good fight, being a hero, saving lives, protecting the innocent, making history.
He joined because he still had dreams.
Gideon looks at his protégé. And thinks about how he has given him nightmares instead.
‘I don’t regret it,’ Reid says, meeting his eye over the chessboard. His mentor gives him a sad smile.
‘I do.’