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Spencer doesn’t remember much.
He remembers lying down in the back of an SUV, JJ petting his hair, speaking to him in hushed tones.
He remembers seeing a flash of white, a flash of red, and a flash of black.
He isn’t sure where they came from.
“JJ?”
She quietly shushes him, “It’s okay. You’re okay, Spence.”
“My leg hurts,”
“I know, Spence. You’re gonna be fine though, okay?”
Spencer nods, not knowing exactly what he’s agreed to. “I jumped off of a roof, JJ.”
“I know,” She gulps. “But you’re okay now.”
“I’m tired.”
“You can sleep now, okay?”
“Okay.” And he does.
*
He’s on the ground when he finally hears the sweet sound of sirens. His knee throbs in time with his heart, reminding him of when he was shot.
The blood curdling sound comes closer and closer, until it stops along with car doors slamming closed.
“Spence!” He hears JJ cry out, nearly screaming. “Spence!”
“Reid!” Morgan’s voice joins hers.
Spencer melts from relief, cheek falling into concrete. “Here,” He hisses. “Here! JJ!”
“Morgan! Over here!” She calls out, skidding to her knees next to his collapsed body. “Spence, hey, Spence, you’re okay now. You’re okay.”
Melting into her touch, he cries, “You found me,”
Morgan crouches down a second later, confirming, “We’ll always find you, pretty boy.”
“I thought you’d have given up by now,”
“We’d never give up.”
Spencer sobs, reaching out to his friends- his family, and his fingers connect with JJ’s own. “We never gave up, Spence. Never.”
*
Spencer has one chance. For the first time in what feels like forever, Spencer’s mind and body isn’t muddled from drugs. He can do this. He can do this.
As quietly as he can, he tears off the loose bit of wood from the child sized bed frame, and takes a deep breath. He can do this.
In his mind, Spencer counts down from three to zero. At zero, he hits the piece of the bedframe through the window, shattering it, making a nice twinkling noise. As suspected, heavy foot falls clamber up the stairs, taking two at a time.
Spencer stands on the side of the door, grabbing the makeshift wooden stake in both of his hands. The older man bursts through the door, and before he has the chance to look around, Spencer jabs the wood into his gut.
He does his best to fight back, but the man stupidly pulls out the stake, and blood flows like a river from his stomach to the ground.
Spencer doesn’t bother to look down to see if he survives.
Spencer isn’t stupid, he knows that he can’t go down through the front door.
After all, that was the first lesson he learned.
Using the bedsheet, he punches through the rest of the glass window, giving himself enough open space to fit his body through.
He takes a deep breath, and jumps.
*
Spencer has a plan.
He’d been thinking of plans since he was taken, but he had been moved around far too much for him to put any ideas in motion. This time though, he knows what to do.
He’ll have almost exactly an hour to do this correctly, and if he messes up, he knows that he’ll never get another chance. He’ll be under a lock and key- well. Another lock and key if he screws up his only chance.
The wind is strong tonight, and with each gust, the oak tree bangs against the window. It’s a surprisingly nice rhythm, and Spencer finds himself calming from it.
Footsteps echo from the staircase, and Spencer gulps right before the door opens. If he wants to do this right, he’s got to act as natural as possible.
“Hey kiddo,” The gravely voice greets, faux kindness littering the edges of his words. “Are you ready for your evening meds?”
Spencer nods, wordlessly taking the six pills from the older man’s hand. Spencer has built up his trust. He puts all six of them in his mouth, and swallows none of them.
The older man kisses him goodnight on the forehead and tucks him in.
Spencer spits out the pills, and gets to work.
*
He’s beginning to feel a little too comfortable with the routine.
He wakes up, swallows the pills, eats breakfast, and keeps his head down. Spencer makes sure that Carlton doesn’t have a reason to get mad at him. Spencer makes sure that Carlton doesn’t have a reason to get mad at the other children.
The actual children.
He eats lunch, and keeps his head down. He plays into Carlton’s fantasies.
He eats dinner, gets ready for bed, and swallows the pills. He sleeps.
Even without his watch, Spencer attempts to catalog each hour, and what he’s doing during it. Spencer makes a mental map of the suburban house, keeping track of where the children and Carlton are at anytime.
It’s been a long time, but today is the first day that Spencer is sure he knows where everyone’s location is. He can finally create a plan.
*
“There’s a man named Hotch,” Spencer tells the little boy, shaking with fear, and anticipation. “You need to find him. Do you remember the number I told you?”
The little boy nods, reciting the ten digits.
“That’s the first thing you need to do, okay? Call him. His name is Hotch. He’s going to help you. He’s going to help all of us.”
Spencer hopes that he’s not lying.
*
The actual children instantly take a liking to Spencer.
He’s pretty sure it’s because he’s the only functioning adult these kids have been around, but he doesn’t dislike it by any sense of the word. Spencer has enough training regarding younger kids from Henry and Jack, so he’s not completely clueless.
Some of the younger ones follow him like ducklings during the day, and only leave his side when Carlton forces them to go to bed.
Spencer holds them close, giving them the protection they so desperately need.
*
The first time Spencer sees the other children, his blood runs cold.
It’s one thing, finding and kidnapping other humans, but to do that to kids? Those are the worst types of unsubs, and he’s sure that the rest of his team would agree.
The rest of his team.
Spencer wonders if they’re still looking. It’s been over a week. He knows he’s probably assumed dead. Spencer wonders if they held a funeral for him. Probably not. If there’s no body, there’s no way anyone would hold a funeral, even if Strauss declares him dead.
He pushes the thought from his head.
Spencer can only see the children through glass, and they all stare at him, eyes wide. He stares back, mostly in shock.
The younger ones are curious, while the older children are instantly distrustful of him. Spencer can’t blame the boys, after all, it is an adult male that’s kidnapped them.
Their opinions instantly change when they’re forced to watch Carlton beat Spencer. Now they know that Spencer’s on their side.
*
Spencer escapes for the first time.
Or at least, he thinks he does. He should’ve known Carlton was two moves ahead, already preparing for Spencer’s inevitable escape.
Spencer makes it all of the way down the staircase, but the second his hand hits the door knob, pain erupts in his back. His muscles seize, and in a flash, he’s on the ground, breathing heavily.
Just as he gets his bearings, the electrified pain hits him again.
Watching the world swim around him, he mutely thinks about the fact that he’s actually never gotten tased before now.
Carlton tases him once more, and the world fizzles away.
*
Spencer made a mistake.
Spencer did something bad.
And it’s the very first time he feels Carlton’s meaty fists slam into his body, over, and over, and over again.
First his head, then his sternum, all the way down to his stomach.
Curling in on himself, Spencer knows that he has to leave before this man kills him.
After all, it’s inevitable at this point.
*
His hand is back, full of white and blue pills, open and inviting.
They’re all so tiny, but Spencer shudders at the thought of even a single milligram of an unknown drug. To be fair, he thought he was done being kidnapped and drugged.
Spencer shakes his head. He is done. He’s not doing this again.
Spencer refuses to take them.
*
There’s a gun pressed to his back, forcing him into a suburban home. There are white slats on the outside walls, and flowers on the windowsills. There’s a big oak in the side yard, reaching above the second story windows.
Spencer stumbles up the stairs, and the man uses the butt of the gun to push him into a room. The door is secured with a lock and chain on the outside, and Spencer wishes that the profiler part of him doesn’t read into that fact.
The room is one of a child’s. There’s a twin sized bed with bedsheets, but there’s nothing in the room that Spencer can use to hang himself with it. There are wooden blocks and small car figurines, and the thought of a child living here makes him sick.
“It’s bedtime now.”
*
There’s a hand pushing pills into Spencer’s mouth.
There’s a hand palming his throat, forcing him to swallow them.
No matter how much he struggles, Carlton forces him to take them.
The world goes dark.
*
The BAU is huddled around a conference table, all on edge. Any case regarding children makes their tensions rise tenfold. Even Hotch isn’t stopping himself from snapping at his own subordinates.
The local detectives have barked at Spencer, and although it’s nothing new, paired with this case, Spencer is only a few minutes away from a meltdown. He tells Morgan and Hotch he’s taking a few minutes outside, and both of the men absentmindedly nod, still focused on the evidence in front of them.
It’s already late, fog settling down on the town, and Spencer walks, if only to warm up his body.
He walks past a bus top and-
*
Montgomery Carlton is a pedophile.
“Who the hell names their kid Montgomery?” Morgan questions, but his angry eyes aren’t really focused on his name.
Ignoring Morgan’s question Hotch states, “Carlton is the main suspect of kidnapping over ten young boys. He’s managed to evade the local police for what’s probably well over a year. They need our help before he takes any other boys. We’ll brief more on the jet. Wheels up in fifteen.”
*
Spencer wakes at 2:35 from the incessant ringing of his phone. There’s fading imagines of Charles Hankel beating him into submission, so Spencer doesn’t exactly mind the wake-up call.
“Hotch?” Spencer asks, voice scratchy from sleep.
“We have a case. I need you at the round table yesterday.”
“I’ll be there in twenty,” Spencer answers, already pulling on his shoes.
*
It’s six PM at the BAU, and Spencer is creating fractals with paper clips and staples. Morgan is beside him, tapping out a rhythm, and from what he can tell, no one else is doing any paperwork. Everyone keeps sneaking glances to Spencer, which does nothing but put him on edge even more than he already is.
It’s been four years since Hankel. He’s fine.
Hotch offers him a ride home, and he accepts, if only to calm the other man down. The car is full of tension, and at this point, Spencer would rather have taken the crowded subways.
When they finally arrive at Spencer’s apartment complex, Hotch furrows his brow and asks, “Reid, do you need anyone to stay with you tonight?”
That’s how it’s been the past three years. Someone stays with him. Holding him tight. Promising that everything is fine. That everything is in the past. That Hankel can’t get to him anymore.
Spencer shakes his head. “I think I’ll be okay this year. Thanks though,” He adds with a pinched smile.
“Are you sure?”
Spencer nods. “Yeah.” He reaches for the car handle, but stops once his fingers curl around it. “Hey, Hotch?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for finding me.” Spencer quietly muses, staring out the window. “Back, back in Georgia. Thank you.”
Without skipping a beat, Hotch answers, “We’ll always find you, Reid.”
*
Spencer wakes up, pretending that he doesn’t know what day it is.
The day he killed an innocent man.
The day he freed himself from a psychopath, the day he got his revenge on a murderer.
But it’s also the day his friends found him.
It’s the day that his family never gave up, and tried their damndest to bring back their youngest agent. The day where he sobbed in relief in the arms of Hotch and Gideon.
Today is the day where he escaped from hell itself.
The day he escaped.