Chapter Text
The BAU bullpen was quiet that morning. Stacks of paperwork, neglected during their last grueling case, were finally being dealt with now that the team had returned from two long weeks in Mississippi.
The case had dragged on far longer than anyone had wanted. So while paperwork was dull, the repetitive act of filing reports offered a rare, if temporary, sense of relaxation.
That relaxation stalled the moment Aaron Hotchner strode out of his office. He stopped at the railing, eyes sweeping the bullpen, his expression set sternly. His shoulders were tense, his mouth a firm line—anyone who knew him recognized that particular stiffness.
Every agent looked up, instincts sharpening.
"Conference room. Now." Hotch’s voice was quiet, but it carried. His authority didn’t need volume—it moved like a ripple across a dark, still lake, undeniable.
Morgan and Prentiss exchanged glances.
“There’s no way we’re being sent out already,” Morgan muttered, shaking his head as he stood.
Prentiss snorted. “Since when have serial killers ever respected our rest days?”
Morgan chuckled dryly, pushing back his chair.
Behind them, Spencer Reid finished the last sentence of his report before rising. He moved more slowly than usual, exhaustion settling deep in his bones. After two relentless weeks tracking down an Unsub targeting young teenagers, all he wanted was to go home and sleep for five fucking years.
Distantly, a thought flickered of how much easier sleep would come if he just stuck a little needle in his arm. He swallowed hard, shaking his head as he forced the thought away. He was one year, two months, four days, and sixteen hours clean. The cravings had never stopped.
He reached the top of the stairs just as David Rossi emerged from his office. The older agent took in Reid’s worn out, subdued expression, and clapped a hand on Reid’s shoulder, smirking.
"I don’t know about you, kid, but I’d kill for a day off."
A small, reluctant smile tugged at Reid’s lips—exactly what Rossi had been aiming for.
"That’s an incredibly bold statement, considering our line of work," Reid murmured.
Rossi chuckled as they stepped into the conference room.
The rest of the team was already there. Hotch stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, while Garcia moved around the room, handing out folders. As Rossi and Reid took their seats, she passed theirs over too.
Hotch waited as the team settled. When all eyes were on him, he uncrossed his arms and spoke.
"Thirty minutes ago, I received a call from the CIA."
His gaze swept over the room, catching the way each agent instinctively tensed.
CIA involvement was never good news. Historically, their business with the FBI was more of a turf war than a partnership—two intelligence agencies constantly stepping on each other’s toes. And if the CIA was reaching out now, it meant trouble.
Morgan, never one to filter his thoughts, let out a scoff. "God, will the CIA ever give it a rest? If they need intelligence, they should’ve just gone straight to the genius over there." He jabbed a thumb in Reid’s direction.
Prentiss and Rossi chuckled, and Garcia playfully swatted Morgan’s shoulder.
Reid, however, didn’t react.
While the others shook off the news with their usual banter, he remained unnaturally still. His posture had stiffened—just slightly, almost imperceptibly—but his face was unreadable, frozen in careful neutrality.
Hotch’s gaze flicked from Morgan’s easy grin to Reid’s uncharacteristically locked-down expression, a faint frown pulling at his brow.
Hotch cleared his throat, drawing the team’s attention back.
"They weren’t asking for intelligence, Morgan. Rather, cooperation on a recent mission."
That one word— cooperation —made Prentiss sit up straighter. She leaned forward, sharp eyes narrowing. "Cooperation?" Years at Interpol had taught her how to decipher bureaucratic language. "They’re bringing us in?"
Hotch exhaled through his nose. Sometimes, wrangling this team felt like corralling a roomful of over-caffeinated graduate students. "Not quite," he corrected. "They’re coming to us. Please, open your files."
The team obeyed, flipping through the documents inside. Pages filled with thick black redactions greeted them—just enough unredacted text to be frustratingly vague.
Morgan huffed. "Well, this is helpful," he muttered, flicking past yet another blacked-out paragraph.
Prentiss shook her head. "Classic. Just enough to tell us nothing."
Garcia made an exaggerated sound of despair. "I have never seen such an offensive amount of black marker in my life."
Rossi smirked. "I have. Means whatever this is, it's deep."
Reid mirrored their movements, flipping through the pages like everyone else. But inside, his body had turned cold.
When Hotch first mentioned the CIA, he had allowed himself a flicker of unease—a small, instinctive feeling, easily extinguished.
But now?
Now, staring at the carefully curated scraps of information, at words meant to mean nothing to his team but everything to him—his stomach dropped. The embers of panic reignited into something burning; sharp and bright.
This wasn’t just CIA business.
This was his business.
And none of them knew.
His fingers clenched slightly on the pages, and he forced himself to relax, to breathe. The trick was not to react. Not to let it show.
But across the table, Hotch’s eyes flicked up, landing on him for just a second too long.
Reid swallowed hard and turned the page.
Hotch continued.
"As you can see, we have very little information. But from what was said on the phone, this mission dates back roughly eight years. The CIA had undercover operatives infiltrating a terrorist organization—one they’d been tracking for years. The operation went south, and the operatives had to get out. Only a handful of the organisation’s members were captured—we'll learn more about them in the briefing. However, in the last two weeks, recurring signs of the organization have resurfaced."
He paused, scanning the room. "That is the extent of my knowledge so far."
The air in the conference room shifted. The team, previously half-engaged in flipping through their heavily redacted files, was now fully tuned in.
Rossi sat back in his chair, fingers steepled, his expression pensive. "So, what, we’re profiling the remaining terrorists? Tracking their movements?"
"Exactly," Hotch confirmed, pulling out a chair at the round table and lowering himself into it. "To what extent, I don’t yet know. I wasn’t given details about the nature of the terrorism or even the locations involved. Presumably, that will be clarified in the briefing."
A beat of silence followed, the weight of uncertainty pressing down.
Morgan exhaled sharply, leaning back. "I don’t like working blind. Feels like we’re walking into a trap."
Prentiss tapped her fingers against the file, brows furrowed. "It’s strange they’re coming to us. If this is their operation, they’d usually keep it locked down, or surely go to one of their own anti-terrorism units for help."
"Exactly." Rossi nodded. "Which means they need something from us. Badly."
Garcia grimaced, crossing her arms. "I really don’t like the idea of playing nice with the CIA. I really don’t like it."
Reid barely heard them.
His fingers rested lightly on the file, unmoving. He didn’t need to turn the pages. He already knew.
Eight years ago. A failed infiltration. A mission that went bad.
He had seen what that meant.
He had been there.
A breath hitched in his throat, but he forced it steady, keeping his face carefully blank. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. He ran over the likelihood that the CIA were knowingly involving him in this shit again. The CIA had thousands of covert missions. Dozens of failed infiltrations. This could be something else entirely—something unrelated.
But he knew better.
His eyes flicked back to the file, scanning over the words he’d already memorized, even as they blurred at the edges.
Operatives ➖, ➖, and ➖ required emergency ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ with ➖➖➖➖➖ ➖➖➖ ➖➖➖➖➖ as their contact, reporting back to ➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖➖➖➖.
Operative ➖ was the only remaining member to continue ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖➖➖ ➖➖ ➖➖➖➖ ➖➖ ➖➖➖➖➖.
He reported his safety on ➖➖/➖/2008, after two weeks of failed contact.
His stomach twisted.
The words on the page flickered, shifting into something else entirely.
Black smoke. A heat so intense it blistered his skin. The scent of burning bodies, acrid and thick, choking the air. Blood— so much blood —wet and warm on his hands, coating his fingers, slipping between them, impossible to wipe away—
No.
Reid exhaled slowly, blinking hard. His hand curled into a fist beneath the table, nails pressing sharply into his palm. Harder. Harder. A sharp, grounding pain. He focused on it. The indentations his fingernails left in his skin. The exact pressure it took before pain became breaking. Before skin became split.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He wasn’t there.
Not anymore.
The mask settled over him, old and familiar. His heartbeat slowed. His hands stilled. His expression smoothed into something calm, detached, unreadable.
He flipped the page. A meaningless motion. His body moving as if nothing had happened. As if his blood wasn’t still running ice-cold beneath his skin.
Across the table, Hotch’s gaze flicked to him again.
Reid ignored it.
But the thought gnawed at him.
Had the CIA told Hotch anything? Given him any hint of what Reid had been before the BAU? Before the FBI? Before he was the Spencer Reid they all knew?
Or was Hotch just seeing what he always saw: too much.
Reid swallowed, keeping his gaze fixed on the file, the words still blurred at the edges of his vision.
He just had to hold it together.
He would hold it together.
He'd survived worse than this.
And he wasn’t about to break now.