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"What is it, Hotch?" His voice rang through his boss's office uncertainly. His fingers worried the thin fabric of his sleeve, resisting the urge to scratch at his elbow. Two months - it'd been two months since Georgia, and still, those thoughts never went away. "Is something wrong with one of my evaluations? Or the medical clearance? Strauss said I was good to come back in for desk duty today - ?"
"Sit down, Reid."
He sat, unceremoniously, in a chair. His fingers abandoned the sleeve, but his leg bounced. Up and down and up and down. Eyes darting around the room, anywhere but Hotch's face.
"Strauss gave me your debrief on the Hankel case."
His leg stopped bouncing.
"I thought... she said the Director had already reviewed the case and determined it was... that I was..." He couldn't say it. Couldn't say it, not with Tobias' voice in his head and that gunshot ringing in his ears.
Hotch's voice softened, slightly. "The shot was good, Reid. No one is questioning that."
He cleared his throat. Nodded, looking down at his lap. Refusing to let Hotch see the tears glistening.
"However, I am concerned about another aspect of your report."
That brief relief faded as ice flooded him. He looked up, forcing himself to meet Hotch's eyes. To see the pity and worry there, but also the suspicion.
"W-what do you mean?"
He cursed the stutter in his voice. Cursed the way his hands shook, the way he could almost smell burning fish hearts and feel cold cuffs around his wrists.
"You said Charles believed you were a sinner from the beginning, but Tobias disagreed. He injected you with Dilaudid three times in an effort to help you. But after the third injection, the entire system came to the conclusion you were a sinner and decided to kill you."
The words, spoken softly, gently, were still harsh. His head spun with memories: the bliss, the fear, the pain. Tobias, Raphael, and Charles.
"H-Hotch - "
"He held you for two days because his moral code required a confession to kill." Hotch's eyes seemed to burn into his, burn with knowledge and fear and knowing. "So you must have told Tobias something to trigger him, and you left it out of your report. You knew the profile. You knew he wouldn't kill you without prompting. And you still confessed."
The accusation hung in the air between them. It wrapped around his heart, squeezing his chest, clanging in his head.
You gave it to him, you gave it to him, you did this -
You aimed and pulled the trigger; Tobias was simply the gun. The bullet.
He stood, fast, thinking of nothing but that cabin and the way he couldn't seem to breathe and how the walls of the office were closing in. But his legs buckled. He barely caught himself on the edge of Hotch's desk. And a hand was there, helping him sit.
A voice, telling him to count. To breathe. Just as it had so many times, these past two months. In for four, out of for eight. Make a box in his head, with his breathing. A pentagon. An octagon. Any polyhedral.
In, out. In, out.
When the world stopped spinning, when he could see again, Hotch was kneeling on the floor beside his chair. Hand clasped firmly around his, eyes bright.
"Can you hear me?"
He nodded, barely, wincing at the pounding in his head and the bile curling up his throat. He'd gotten used to that a month ago, dealt with it every day since he got clean.
"I'm not doing this to hurt you. I'm asking as your friend, Spencer. Not as your unit chief, not as an agent." The hand squeezed. And he squeezed back, slightly, a small gesture of understanding. "What happened?"
A beat of silence. A moment of courage. Then -
"Exodus 21:17."
His voice was nothing more than a whisper in the still air.
Hotch gave him a small smile - gentle, almost sad, and so unlike the ever-stoic agent he always saw. "Twelve years of Sunday school, and I'll never know my verses as well as you."
"I-it, uh... And he who curseth his mother or his father.... s-shall surely be put to death."
The words echoed. In his voice, than Tobias'. Charles' and Raphael's.
... put to death. put to death. put to death.
His confession.
"You told Tobias about your mother?"
He nodded, breathing deep, focusing on the gentle pressure Hotch kept on their hands. Grounding him.
"Why?"
And there was no judgement, in that single word. No doubt, no suspicion.
"I saw her. All the times she struggled, during my childhood. Over and over and over again. When Tobias - when he - " Another deep breath, pushing past that rush of want that flooded him. "That last time, it was the day I had her committed. The day I - "
Abandoned her.
But he didn't dare speak those words. Not to Hotch. Not even now.
It would make it real, spoken into this office.
"I didn't know if you guys were coming, Hotch. I didn't know if I was even right about the graveyard, or if I'd just sent you all halfway across Georgia. I, I was in so much pain. And I couldn't... I couldn't stop seeing their blood on my hands - "
A sob racked his chest. The tears finally left his eyes, but he hardly noticed. All he could see was that couple, that knife, the blood and the screams -
Arms wrapped around him. Squeezing him, deep pressure. And he listened to a slow heartbeat, with a skip every couple of beats. That little bit of arrhythmia every one on the team knew about, in case something happened in the field.
Hotch.
"I just wanted it to end."
The words whispered, but Hotch just embraced him tighter. Kept him locked in this office, this moment, despite the memories trying to take over.
The realization of what he'd just said, of the confession he'd made, hit him. And he pulled back, desperately.
"It's not - " He shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes and the room spinning slightly. Voice hoarse. "I didn't want to die. Not, not really."
His eyes met Hotch's, and he begged his friend to believe him. To understand.
I didn't want to leave Morgan, or JJ, or Gideon, or Garcia, or Emily. I didn't want to leave you. I just wanted the pain to stop.
"I know, Spencer. I know." Hotch pulled him back into his arms, and he slid off the chair, onto the floor. His ankle, still braced, protested, but he ignored it. Ignored everything but the warmth of the arms around him, that subtle beat-beat-skip in his ear. "It's over. You made it."
"You made it." He whispered back, repeating the words, unable to stop himself.
But, for the first time, he truly believed it.
I made it.
I made it.
I made it.