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Spencer Reid finds himself standing in the rain in Washington, outside of a worn-down biker bar.
The BAU is investigating a strange series of murders, where victims have their hearts ripped out and assumedly kept somewhere as trophies, though they can’t seem to identify where, why, or how. There is no real link between the victims, besides the fact that the bodies have been disposed of in remote locations and that their hearts are missing. Their only real witness is a drunken man who also frequents the bar where one of the men was found, but ultimately, Spencer and Morgan agree that he is unreliable.
“Eyewitness misidentifications are known to have played a role in 70 percent of the 349 wrongful convictions that were later overturned based on DNA evidence,” Spencer says over the sound of the rain.
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” Morgan asks skeptically.
“Would you like me to pat you on the arm and tell you everything is going to be okay?"
Morgan makes a face. “No. I know we don’t have too much to go on, but you expect me to believe that some random chick reached into this guy’s chest and pulled his heart out?"
“It certainly leaves a lot to be desired.” Spencer agrees. “Not to mention that it is something humans are not physically strong enough to do."
“And apparently he saw someone else go out back with the same girl, but we have no proof that the second person he mentioned even existed. There is no body, no DNA evidence, and nothing from the local police to indicate this second person is real.” Morgan throws up his hands in the air, exasperated. “That makes his first eyewitness account seem less credible."
“Most serial killers who take trophies have a motive for doing so, but I fail to understand what reasoning Ms. Barker would have. None of the victims follow any sort of pattern, besides the fact that two of them appear to have been lured away from this location if town-drunk Thomas can be believed.”
Morgan’s phone rings, cutting off Spencer’s verbal onslaught. He answers it, but Spencer can’t hear the conversation over the rain, despite the fact they’ve had to wedge themselves close together to remain dry under the awning.
“What was that?” Spencer asks when Morgan puts his phone away from a huff.
“You can throw away your theory about the bar.” He replies sulkily, “Hotch just called. There was another dead body found behind the high school. Same MO and everything."
“Damn.” Spencer curses, feeling frustration start to build in the back of his mind.
“Look, pretty boy." Morgan says, “Let’s just regroup with the others and call it a night. We’ll all be thinking more clearly after a good night's rest."
Spencer hates to admit that he’s right. He’s not sure how well he’ll sleep—he hasn’t slept as peacefully as the night after visiting Dean Winchester’s bar and meeting Castiel—but even some form of low-grade sleep would do him some good. Spencer settled himself into the passenger’s seat, planning to review everything he knew once more on the drive back to their hotel, but now his brain is replaying the events of that night. Cas is a very interesting character, one that Spencer has yet to fully comprehend, but he doesn’t feel threatened by any of his behavior. Sure, he was an imposing figure and made vague threats a few times, but none of them seemed actively harmful in a way that made Spencer’s metaphorical alarm bells go off.
If anything, he offered his help to Spencer and his team in the future in exchange for simply not communicating to the rest of the FBI that he knew where Dean Winchester, and assumedly Sam, had retired to. Honestly, Spencer would’ve kept that to himself without being threatened, purely to avoid letting his team discover that he’s been adopted by an ex(?)-serial killer and his probably-not-a-murderer husband. What an odd life he leads.
Castiel’s offer had confused Spencer at the time, leaving him curious about what knowledge he could offer for the betterment of the FBI, but with this case throwing up roadblocks and missing so much vital information, it’s making Spencer want to take him up on it. Of course, Kansas is a far drive from Washington, and Spencer didn’t think to get his number, so he isn’t really sure it would be much help. Garcia could probably find his phone number with all her tech skills, but he doesn’t quite dare ask her for help yet. She’ll inevitably want to know all about it, and he is noticeably lacking in his ability to lie to her. If he’s still feeling just as clueless about this tomorrow, he’ll talk himself into actually doing it.
He’d also really like to know what the hell Cas did to his head.
It’s nothing bad, but it’s confusing him. The only problem with an eidetic memory is not being able to forget things that you wish you could. Sure, everyone deals with persistent memories of recent trauma, even more so with working in the FBI, but having the ability to recall things so vividly is a downside in this case. But now the once vivid images from his traumatic time with Tobias Hankel are less so. He can still remember what he needs to know—important facts and little details—but picturing them is like looking through a foggy window. He’s still haunted by it and continues to have nightmares about the experience, but simply knowing the details instead of having to relive them in high definition every time he thinks about it makes it hurt less. Even his nightmares have a foggy feel to them, where the pain is not as sharp and the overwhelming series of emotions are dull.
"Are you alive in there?” Morgan asks, reaching out to wave a hand in front of his face.
Spencer recoils on instinct and levels Morgan with a distinctly unimpressed stare as he cycles out of his thoughts and back into his body.
“Remind me why I like you again?” He asks sarcastically as he exits the car.
"Oh, please,” Morgan replies with too much energy for this late at night. “You love me."
“I tolerate you, at best.” Spencer deadpans, falling into step beside him as they make their way up to the doors of their hotel. Suddenly, Spencer stops, grabbing Morgan’s arm to halt his progress as well, his attention caught on something at the other end of the parking lot.
“What?” Morgan asks, trying to follow his gaze.
“Is that Ms. Barker?”
“The crazy killer chick that Thomas was telling us about?” They stare over at the young blonde woman curiously. “What is she doing here at a time like this?"
“It certainly doesn’t make her look any more innocent.” Spencer blinks, glancing over at Morgan. “Should we go talk to her?"
Morgan groans like he already doesn’t like where this is going. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Alright, let’s go."
They detour away from the front of the building and venture deeper into the parking lot.
“Ms. Barker?” Morgan calls out as they get closer. She doesn’t make a move to run away or answer the question. They stop a few feet away, cautious, and Morgan continues his line of questioning. “Ms. Barker? We’re with the FBI. We have a few questions for you."
She smiles, and it sends a chill down Spencer’s spine as her piercing yellow eyes turn to look at them, disregarding Morgan's line of questioning entirely. “Oh, I know exactly who you are."
She moves to attack them between one blink and the next, targeting Morgan first, knocking him to the ground easily, and turning to attack Spencer as he reaches to pull the gun from his belt. She pounces on him before he has time to fire and lands on top of him, his head slamming back onto the pavement. His vision blurs, his head throbbing from the impact, and the water from the wet pavement soaking into his shirt. He can’t focus enough to get a good shot, but he fires his gun off to the side anyway, hoping to alert the rest of the team that something is wrong. At the very least, they can find and assist Morgan, who hasn’t moved since he was originally attacked. And with that, his vision goes black, and he remembers little else.
________
He regains consciousness in an old, wooden barn, with straw poking at him through his damp clothes. He tries to figure out how long it’s been since he's been knocked unconscious based on how dry his clothes are, but his brain doesn’t work and the lights are too bright. He blinks up at the ceiling and ultimately squeezes his eyes shut again, rolling over some to try and shield them from the penetrating brightness.
“Oh, good.” A voice says, “You’re awake."
It takes him a few seconds longer as his brain lags behind to place the voice, but he eventually recognizes it. It’s Ms. Barker, of course. Assumedly, his gunshot drew attention to the parking lot, and she moved him to a secondary location. Great. He’s going to get another lecture on kidnapping, and Morgan is definitely going to yell at him for not just letting them go to sleep.
“Morgan?” He asks, trying to process his surroundings as he is manhandled viciously, being hauled into a vaugely upright position by the collar of his shirt.
"Your friend is just fine.” She reassures him in such a way that implies he will not fare the same. Spencer looks around but doesn’t see him in the barn with them. “You were much easier to drag away than he would’ve been. Huh?” She smirks and laughs to herself, like she’s just realized something funny. “I guess size really does matter.”
Oh god, Spencer thinks suddenly, he’s going to die, and the last thing that he’s going to hear is a poorly executed dick joke.
“It’s a shame that your heart is probably smaller too, but I’ll take what I can get.” She grinned maliciously at him, her other hand poised above his chest.
Spencer is starting to believe that she really could rip his heart out, and he mourns his skepticism from just a few hours ago. He also really regrets not being able to contact Cas. He still doesn’t quite understand what he meant, but Spencer doesn’t think he’s seen anything more confusing and unexplainable than having his heart ripped out of his chest. It’s a shame that they won’t know what happened to him, especially after Dean told him not to wind up dead.
Ms. Barker makes a noise, something like a growl, her fingers growing sharp, and Spencer doesn’t bother to look. Then, there’s a noise, like an extreme displacement of air, and Spencer is disregarded as an afterthought as Ms. Barker turns to face the intruder. Spencer tries to prop himself up and see what is happening, but the sudden movement of being dropped back to the floor leaves the room spinning. He can hear her growling, snarling words that he can’t quite understand, probably upset about being disturbed from her meal. Finally, he’s able to struggle into a vague sitting position, and he catches a flash of silver before she collapses to the ground, bleeding from a wound in her chest. She does not move again, the blood dripping down and saturating the straw beneath her.
“Spencer Reid.” A familiar voice says, and Spencer turns to see Castiel standing there, weaponless.
Spencer blinks at him once more before promptly turning to the side and throwing up.
“You should really stop getting into situations where you are injured,” Cas says, crouching down next to him. He reaches out, placing two fingers on his forehead, and that weird, warm, and calming feeling runs through his body. When Cas draws his hand away, his head isn’t throbbing anymore, and his stomach has settled. "Repeated head trauma can have long-lasting side effects."
“What did you do to me?” He asks.
“I healed you,” Cas states, like this should be obvious.
Spencer blinks, trying to wrap his mind around the situation at hand. He glances over to where Ms. Barker lies, unmoving. “You killed her, didn’t you?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer.
“I did express my intent to care for you. Allowing her to harm you is bad enough, but allowing her to kill you would have made that promise null.”
“But you didn’t know where I was,” Spencer states. “How did you get here? I don’t even have your phone number.”
“Dean did chastise me for not exchanging contact information. That can be rectified now.” He pauses, as if gathering his words, before speaking up again. “I was able to locate you because you prayed to me.” He says gently, understanding that this would be overwhelming for him to hear. “You did not mean to, but you were thinking about me intensely for an extended period of time as you perceived the impending end to your life, which provided me the ability to locate you here and prevent your untimely end."
“What do you mean, I prayed to you? What are you saying?"
“I am saying that I am an Angel of the Lord; Ms. Barker was a werewolf, and you, unfortunately, cannot be protected from the truth about the supernatural any longer."
Spencer’s head reels, and he tries not to have a crisis on the floor of the barn where he was almost murdered.
“However, I can wipe away this memory and provide an altered, more logical one in its place, if you would prefer to forget this ever happened.”
“No!” Spencer cries, holding his hands up slightly in front of him, like Cas might forcibly make him forget. He doesn’t like the idea of someone rooting around in his brain, changing what he remembers, and altering who he is. “If this is a thing that we could run into in the future, I need to know about it.”
Cas nods his head in understanding. “That is a very honorable decision. You are a brave and good man."
“I’m just going to need time to process. A lot of it.” He says. So much of his life has been science and facts; it’s going to take some time to adjust to a new reality. “Is that what you did to my head too? When we last met, I mean. My memories; they’re all fuzzy."
“Only the unpleasant ones. Your brain continues to work healthily otherwise, does it not?”
“Yes, but what was that? What did you do?"
Cas sighs, “The human mind was a very complex and fascinating design that took decades to properly finalize. Your mind, with its added ability to remember information, is even more so. Unfortunately, as I am sure you have come to realize, this ability has its drawbacks. You don't need to remember your traumatic experiences in the amount of detail your brain naturally prescribes. When we first met, I strived to help you with that to the best of my ability.” He frowns. “This, of course, is not a long-term solution, as new memories or old memories you try hard enough to remember will not be dulled without my help.”
“You did something to help me sleep too,” Spencer says, inviting Cas to share more.
He nods in affirmation. “Sam and Dean both suffer from extreme nightmares from their extensive years on and around Earth. I figured that you would experience similar discomforts.”
Spencer hadn’t even thought about the Winchesters. “They’re not serial killers, are they?”
“No,” Cas confirms. “They never hurt humans if they can help it.”
“They kill monsters, don’t they?"
“That is for another time,” Cas says, refusing to elaborate more on the subject. “You have enough to process for tonight.” He looks sad and infinitely old, like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders as he stares down at Spencer. “I can assist your sleep for tonight, but it troubles me that I am not able to help you long-term.” He stops and glances around the barn as if looking for something. He must find what he is looking for because a few seconds he stands to his feet. “I might have a solution for that.” He continues, walking over to the door of the barn and disappearing around the corner. Seconds later, he reappears. “How do you feel about cats?"
Spencer blinks at him, startled by the non-sequitur, and he gets to his feet as well, curious as to where Cas is going. “They’re fine. I like them."
“Good,” Cas says, and he disappears again. Spencer stares into the doorway, wondering if he’s gone insane.
Cas reappears just a few minutes later, followed by a white cat. “This is Iris.” Cas introduces, gesturing down to the cat. “She has agreed to be your companion if you are willing to look after her."
“What do you mean?” Spencer asks for what feels like the millionth time that night.
“Humans find comfort in having pets, and animals have been proven to be helpful for humans dealing with trauma. Dean has found great peace and enjoyment in our dog, Miracle. I wondered if you would do the same.”
He thinks about it for a second. “I don’t just want to steal someone’s cat. And therapy animals are good for humans, but they are usually trained and prescribed by professionals.”
“Iris is a stray who has been residing in the barn for the past three months, living off the mice that nest in the hay. You would be drastically improving her quality of life. Also, with her consent, I would bestow her with a drop of my grace, which would allow her to better understand the world around her as well as provide her with the ability to comfort you as needed.”
“With her consent? You mean, you’re talking with her?"
“Of course,” Castiel says, as if this is common knowledge. “Angels speak every language, even that of animals. And I assure you, Spencer Reid, I would never alter something about a living being without their express consent.”
That makes him feel a little better. “Well, I guess if she’s okay with it, you have no argument from me."
Spencer watches Cas kneel in front of Iris and stare into her eyes, conversing silently. After a few moments, he reaches out and delicately rests two of his fingers on top of her head, similar to what he did when healing him. Their eyes glow that same electric blue for a second, and it dims just as quickly as it appears. Cas stands to his feet, and Iris strides over to him, winding her way around his legs.
“How will we be able to communicate? Does she talk now?” He asks, though he immediately feels dumb for suggesting it.
Cas smiles and shakes his head, but does not make fun of him in any way. “No, she does not speak English, but my grace will allow her to understand it rather well. Her intelligence is all her own, but my grace helps break down the language barrier. You will still have to get to know her and earn her trust, as you would with any new animal, but she has promised to help ensure your safety and emotional well-being as she can."
“Wow,” Spencer says, feeling stunned. “Thank you, Cas.” He turns to Iris, bending down to her level, where she sits elegantly at his side. “Thank you. May I pick you up?” He asks, holding out his hands slightly. She stares at him for a moment, then proceeds to walk into his arms. He stands, holding her close to his chest, but she shifts quickly, settling onto his shoulders instead.
“It looks like you will get along nicely.” Cas comments as she licks at Spencer’s hair, her tail flicking in and out of his line of sight. Spencer jerks at the unexpected sensation, and she seems unbothered by the sudden movement, but she doesn’t move to lick him again. “I believe your team is looking for you. I should leave before they get here. Give me your phone, so you may contact me again in the future."
Spencer hands it over and Cas inputs his number.
“This knife that she carried,” Cas says, handing his phone back and walking over to where Ms. Barker lay, picking it up from her dead body, and dipping it in the drying blood before dropping it on the ground next to her. “You can say that she tried to carve your heart out with it, but you were able to stab her with it instead. I’m sure your team will be able to accept her death if they hear it was in your self-defense. The killings will stop now that she is dead."
Spencer nods. He hates to lie to his team, but they don’t need to know anything that could endanger them. “Thank you,” he says again, and Cas disappears.
“Spencer!” A voice calls in the distance, and he recognizes it as Hotch. They must have tracked his phone.
“In here!” He calls back, starting towards the door. Iris meows at him from her perch on his shoulders. “Good point,” he says to her as they draw closer. “How am I going to explain you to the team?"