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Faye Collins has been driving since dawn. She’d mapped out the cross-country trip to avoid interstates, going the scenic way.
She was currently on her way home on a long stretch of road in Georgia. Faye had just passed a large pine tree when her car started sputtering and smoking. Quickly pulling to the side of the road just in time as her engine gave up. Faye gets out of the car and opens the bonnet. She immediately backs away, coughing as a gust of hot smoke/steam blows up into her face. Quickly taking out her phone, she groaned in annoyance as her phone had one blinking bar of battery left and no signal.
Looking into the surroundings around her, Faye remembers that she passed a cemetery a few miles down the road, and she also remembers seeing a light coming from a cabin a few yards within the cemetery.
The gravel crunches under Faye’s boots as she walks through the gravestones, leading up to the lone cabin. Tugging her coat tighter around her against the wind. She knocks a few times until the door opens slowly.
A man stands there, mild, nervous, eyes sunken. “Oh, thank God,” Faye says brightly. “Sorry to trouble you, my car died a few miles down the road. No signal, naturally. Do you have a phone I could use?”
The man shifts nervously. “It’s broken. No service out here.”
Faye blinks. “Seriously? Not even a landline?” She cranes her neck past him. “This place looks straight out of a horror movie. Do you actually live here?”
He stiffens. “I was just heading out, actually.”
Faye smiles politely, stepping forward before he can stop her. “Right, well, I’ll just call a tow and get out of your hair.” She’s halfway through the door before she really smells the horrid smell of something burning. And then she sees it.
A man, pale, tied to a chair in the middle of the room, blood running down the side of his face and eyes wide with silent alarm. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at her, scared. For himself and for her. Faye’s body tenses. Tobias steps behind her now, closer than before.
Faye's gasp slips out before she can stop it. The man, with messy brown hair, wrists bound tight to the chair, eyes locked with hers like it’s the only thing holding him together. Something in his eyes, sharp, terrified, pleading, hits her square in the chest.
“What the hell-” Faye rushes to the injured and tied up man, cupping his cheek gently as she inspects his bloody face. Eye’s catching, and Faye could see the fear and desperation in the young man’s eyes.
That’s as far as she gets before Tobias moves. The blow comes from behind. A blinding crack at the base of her skull. She hits the floor hard, the wooden floors scratching her cheek as her vision goes black.
“No,” Reid calls out hoarsely, struggling against the ropes. “Don’t hurt her. She’s not part of this-”
Tobias, breath ragged, mutters a string of verses under his breath as he kneels beside her, checking her pulse. “Another test,” he hisses. “You weren’t supposed to bring temptation. This isn’t how it’s meant to go.”
Reid watches, helpless, as Tobias drags the woman’s unconscious form to the wall near Reid’s chair, tying up her hands and legs together.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Faye wakes with a groan. Her head pounds. She’s slumped against a dark wooden, nearly rotten wall, hands and ankles now zip-tied, already sore from digging in. Her shoes and socks her missing, the biting cold stinging her feet. The room smells like burning fish.
Across from her, still tied, watching her stir awake, sits the man she saw earlier. She doesn’t speak right away, just studies him and the room they were in.
Watching her with concern in his expression. “You okay?” he whispers.
“Define okay,” she croaks. “I was hoping this was a nightmare”, she mutters.
His voice is quiet. “It is”
“What is this place?” she asks, throat raw. “Who is that man?”
“His name is Tobias Hankel. He is suffering from a severe case of dissociative identity disorder. He experiences multiple personalities, including his own, an angel of death named "Raphael," and his abusive father, Charles.”
“How do you know all that?” Faye’s voice shakes.
“I’m an Agent at the FBI. We were tracing a serial killer, we had traced it back to Tobias’s house when my co-worker and I got separated.”
Faye gives a weak laugh. “I walked into a house of horrors for a landline”
“Why didn’t you try to get away when you could? Instead, you came further in the room to try and help me,” The man states.
“I couldn’t. When I saw you… your eyes. They told me to run, but they also asked for help. I couldn’t leave you,” Faye whispers into the dark room. “Guess I didn’t help much. Just got kidnapped myself”
“You tried to help someone. That’s not nothing.” They fall silent as footsteps echo from the next room.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The image flickers on Garcia’s screen, grainy, washed out, but clear enough. Faye’s face comes into focus. Everyone turns to Morgan when he freezes.
Hotch narrows his eyes. “You know her?”
Morgan nods slowly. “Yeah. Her name’s Faye Collins. Worked as a hostage negotiator. Helped with a hostage case I ran point on in Phoenix. She was able to talk a fifteen-year-old girl down from blowing up a bank lobby.”
JJ stares. “What’s she doing here?”
“She’s not the type to willingly walk into danger without preparing.” Morgan’s voice hardens. “Which means she didn’t know she was walking into it.”
Garcia’s eyes widen. “You think she recognised Reid?”
“She probably doesn’t even know who he is.” Morgan exhales. “But she knows when someone’s in trouble.”
_________________________________________________________________________
The silence in the basement stretches long. Faye exhales slowly, testing her binds around her red-rare wrists, the zip-ties painfully digging into her skin.
Across from her, Reid shifts, eyes flicking to the door across the room, tracking Tobias’s footsteps in the next room. Then softly, he whispers his name. “My name is Spencer Reid. I’m with the FBI. Behavioural Analysis Unit.”
Faye blinks. “Like... the profiling team?”
He nods once, “We track patterns. Predict behaviour based on signature, victimology, and ritual. Things people think they’re hiding.” Spencer’s jaw tightens. “We caught his signature on a double homicide. The way the victims were posed, the verses were written in blood. I was with my partner, JJ. We followed a lead to a property two counties over. Tobias ambushed us. He moved me here. I don’t know where she is now.” Then quietly, “I’m hoping she got away”
Faye processes that slowly. “You said he experiences multiple personalities, including his own, an angel of death named "Raphael," and his abusive father, Charles.” It was a statement, but it sounded like a question.
Spencer looks at her, and this time there’s something different in his eyes, not panic but calculation. He’s building the profile with her; it seems like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “Dissociative Identity Disorder. At least three alters. Tobias is one. The others, Charles and Raphael, represent his father and a warped version of divine justice, respectively. Charles was abusive. Controlled him through punishment and religious dogma. Now those voices live in his head. And they’re fighting. And when Raphael takes control, that’s the executioner. He thinks this is divine retribution.”
Faye looks down at the zip-ties cutting into her wrist. “So what’s his endgame?”
Spencer’s gaze hardens. “He makes you confess for sins. Then he kills you for confessing.”
Faye grimaces, “And the smell?”
“He believes fish liver and fish hearts to ward off the devil, which is a direct parallel to the events in the biblical Book of Tobit, instructed by the Archangel Raphael.”
A heavy pause settles between them. Faye swallows. “I’m Faye Collins. Former Crisis De-escalation and Negotiator officer. You work with Agent Derek Morgan?”
Spencer snaps his head towards her, eyes wide in shock. “You know Morgan?”
“Worked with him in a case in Phoenix,” Faye answers.
Spencer nods, “Then you know that staying calm is your best shot in making it out of here alive”.
Faye sighs, banging her head on the rotten wood she’s leaning against. “I still don’t understand why I’m here.”
Spencer’s voice softens. “You were curious. You knocked on the wrong door. And that broke his pattern. Now he doesn’t know what to do with you.” Next door, the floorboards creak. Spencer leans forward, voice at a whisper. “But my team is going to find us. You said you were having car trouble?” Spencer looks at the camera, praying that it is filming this for his team.
Before she can respond, the door creaks open. Tobias steps in, calm and otherworldly, carrying the Bible like this is just another Sunday in church. He then stands tall, rigid, rage-filled and intimidating.
He glances between them. “Two lambs, one lesson.” Tobias, currently controlled by his father’s personality, stands in front of a tied-up Reid. “He has sinned. Let his suffering teach him humility.”
Faye glances between them, voice trembling but steady. “He doesn’t need punishment, he’s hurt, he needs help.”
His eyes flicker towards her, like he didn’t perceive her as a threat until she spoke. “You dare defy the words of God?”
“Please, just let us go. We are free from sin. We have done no wrong” Faye tries her best to keep her voice from shaking.
Charles lands his gaze on the pale Reid. “He wallows in sin. This is what comes of indulgence, filth rotting from the inside out. He will suffer. And he will beg.”
“You think pain is holy, but what you’re doing, this isn’t salvation. It’s savagery wrapped in false righteousness.” She hisses.
Charles growls, a deep, rumbling sound that reverberates through the air. He steps forward, his imposing figure casting a shadow over her. “Woman, do not test me. I am the voice of correction. I am justice made flesh.” His hand grips the worn Bible tightly, knuckles whitening as fury races through him. For a brief moment, his body jerks involuntarily, shoulders twitching as if struggling against an unseen force. Then, like a curtain falling, the rage dissolves from his expression, leaving a heavy silence in its wake.
He stands unnaturally tall, unnaturally still. His eyes burn, not with rage, but judgment. Cold in its cruelty. His voice was void of warmth. This must be the Raphael personality. “Enough. This body sins by disobedience. The suffering purifies what the soul cannot.” He glances at Reid. “He sees the truth. He knows what must be done.”
Reid lifts his head, barely. His lips tremble. His voice, rough. “I have committed no sins,” he asserts, each word trembling with conviction. “My soul is pure. You’re not God,” he continues, a fiery challenge igniting in his eyes. “You're merely a fracture. A ghost in Tobias’s bones.”
Raphael moves and slaps Reid across the face “I am what Tobias could never become.” He then turns to Faye, who struggles to become one with the wall to get away from him. “You have sins. I can see them. I will make you confess,” He hisses in her ear.
Faye’s heart shudders in fear, tears flowing down her face. “I have no sins”
Raphael doesn’t care what she has to say, gripping her face tightly, causing her to look at him. “You will confess your sins” With that, he turns and walks out of the room. Reid and Faye share a look before he walks back in, only this time, the shoulders are slumped, back hunched, expression: nervous.
Tobias emerges from the shadowed room beyond the door, glassy-eyed and fragile, hands trembling with the vial in one, syringe in the other, headed straight for Reid. “I’m sorry. I’m not strong enough to stop them, but I have something that can help. You don’t have to feel this. Not all of it. I can make it quiet. Just... for a while.”
Reid looks at him, eyes raw. “Tobias... don't. Please.” He begs, voice scared.
Faye sits up, voice tight with emotion. “You're not saving him.” Tobias holds the syringe millimetres from Reid’s arm, as he begs and pleads against the forced drugging. Faye straightens, ignoring the burn digging into her wrists and ankles. “You don’t have to do this.” She firmly says.
Tobias stops, tilting his head. “Do what?”
“Whatever you think this is,” she says carefully. “This isn’t salvation. You’re not saving anyone.” He doesn’t answer. Just turns back toward Reid. Faye’s voice rises, firmer. “I know you think drugging him will help him, but it won’t. It won’t help because he isn’t a sinner, so the others have no reason to punish him. If they were to punish anyone, it would be me. He’s not the sinner. I am.” Reid looks at her sharply, but Tobias pauses. Faye presses forward. “I walked in uninvited. I ignored your warnings. I saw what I wasn’t meant to see. So whatever reckoning you planned, make it mine.”
Tobias stares at her for a long beat. Then... he turns and leaves. The door clicks shut behind him. Locked. The silence swells.
Spencer’s voice is rough. “That was incredibly stupid.”
She exhales shakily, eyes still on the door. “Was it?”
He meets her gaze. And this time, there’s something almost like awe. “No. It was brave.”
____________________________________________________________________
The screen flickers, grainy footage paused on a still frame: Reid tied to the chair, and beside him, the woman who shouldn’t be there. Faye Collins. Zip-ties digging into her skin. Eyes focused, not panicked.
JJ leans forward, fists clenched. “She stopped him. That syringe was millimetres from Spence.”
“She knew how to talk him down,” Emily adds, voice low. “That wasn’t instinct. That was trained control. Must be one hell of a negotiator”
Hotch nods. “Garcia, see if you can pull records on Faye Collins”
Garcia’s voice is worried, but steady. “Faye Collins: Served in the Crisis Negotiation Unit in Phoenix for five years. She specialised in psychological profiling and de-escalation, particularly with perpetrators exhibiting trauma-induced behaviour. She left the unit after a tense case ended in suicide-by-cop” Garcia’s voice turns sad. “Her last case: she negotiated for nine hours and still lost the suspect. After that, she quit. Changed states. Now works as a professor teaching hostage negotiator training”
“She’s someone who knows how to stay calm under pressure. That’s going to buy them time.” Emily inputs.
Morgan stands up. “Not enough if we don’t move.”
“Coordinates are narrowing,” Garcia says, typing furiously. “She said that her car broke down a few miles down the road. She must’ve had her GPS on before she lost signal. Based on where she lives, she posted a few days ago that she was going home to visit her parents. I’m calculating her most likely course. Considering we aren’t near interstates, she must have gone the longer scenic route… We’re closing in.”
JJ presses her lips together. “They shouldn’t have to go through this”
Hotch’s voice is sharp steel. “We’ll find them”
Morgan grinds his teeth. “Let’s bring them home.”
__________________________________________________________________________
It's been about 2 hours since Faye arrived. About an hour and a half since she’s been awake.
The door crashes open as Charles strides in, towering with authority, Bible in one hand and belt in the other. Reid is tied to the chair, barely able to hold himself upright, his face ashen and his breath shallow. A sheen of sweat glistens on his skin, betraying the fear coursing through him.
Charles looms over him, a fierce fire igniting in his eyes. "Confess, boy. Speak your sins aloud so we may purge the rot from your soul."
Reid, weak and trembling, musters all his strength to respond, “What sins? For trying to help others? For being afraid? I have no sins.”
A furious scowl overtakes Charles’s face. “Pride! Arrogance! You worship at the altar of your own intellect, defying God with every breath you take.” With an unsettling determination, he kneels and yanks off Reid’s shoes and socks, exposing his bare feet to the chilling air.
“You will confess!” Charles shouts, leaning in close. Reid instinctively tries to shrink away, feeling the confines of the chair tighten around him. Clenching the belt tightly in his right hand, Charles brings it down sharply against the tender sole of Reid’s foot, causing a cry of pain to erupt from him, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Stop! Please, stop!” Faye's voice pierces through the tension, desperate and filled with anguish.
"He will confess his sins!" Charles declares with unyielding conviction. "And once he does, he will find release from the agony. The punishment for his transgressions will be swift and painless." Charles explains.
Faye’s voice turns sharp. “That’s enough. He has no sins to confess!”
Charles turned to her, anger etched on his features. “You defend him? You would stand for his blasphemy?”
“I’d stand for his humanity. You talk about sin like it’s a stain; we carry it because we feel. That’s not damnation. That’s what makes us alive.” Faye leaned in, eager to share her thoughts, as she searched her memory for those lessons from Sunday school that she was forced to attend.
Charles scoffs, “Weakness. Flesh-born lies. Sin is to be cut away.”
“No. Sin is a wound. And wounds heal when you treat them with mercy, not fire.” Reid lifts his head slightly. His eyes meet hers, quiet, grateful, but also fearful, not for himself, but for her. “You want him to confess? Fine. He’s guilty of being human. So am I. Aren’t we all?”
Empowered, Reid lifts his head slowly, barely able to hold it aloft. His lip is split, his voice a shaky whisper, but steady. “God created us humans to have free will. Are you disagreeing with God?” Charles freezes. His hands still holding the belt, but he clenches around the Bible he previously set down, as if it might keep him from unravelling. Reid continues, “You want confession? Fine. I’m afraid. I’m angry. I make mistakes. I try to save people, and sometimes I don’t. But I try. That’s all we can really do. Try. I’m human. And I won’t apologise for it.”
The words hang in the air, quiet but charged. Faye watches, eyes burning with something between awe and fear.
Charles cries out, “Blasphemy”, but it’s shakier this time. His shoulders shake, and suddenly, just like before, his shoulders and back are unnaturally still, making him seem taller than he should.
Raphael rises. His posture locks, his gaze hollow, cold. “You mock the divine... and call it courage?” He steps toward Reid, slow and absolute. “You wear flesh like armour and call yourself brave. But flesh rots. And truth endures.”
Reid tries to speak, but his breath catches under the weight of Raphael’s presence. It feels like gravity has shifted in the room. Faye speaks up, voice steady, “He spoke the truth. That’s all. That’s all he ever-”
Raphael turns to Faye, “You cannot speak justice and sin. I am the messenger of God. I am the punisher of sin” He reaches for Reid with judgment in his cold eyes.
But Reid, fevered, weak, still unyielding, meets his gaze. “You’re not true. You’re a fake in a borrowed voice.”
Something cracks in Raphael’s expression, a flash of rage just beneath the divine mask. Then his gaze shifts slowly, deliberately, to Faye. His expression does not change. But the air around him feels heavier. “You defend sin with conviction. You speak as though mercy redeems filth.”
Faye flinched, her voice slightly wavering, “I said I’m human. That means I’ve failed. But it also means I care. That matters more than fear.”
Raphael coldly states, “Then you confess freely.”
"Every single day. I will not be ashamed of being flawed, for being human. That’s the essence of life: embracing your imperfections and making the effort to rise above them.” Faye nodded, a spark of defiance in her eyes.
Raphael steps forward, “Then you are impure. And you stand between justice and its blade.” He’s close now. Unnaturally still. The dim light glimmers off his sharp features, accentuating the deep hollows of his face. “You are not a shield,” he continues, his gaze piercing, “you are the wound.”
Faye holds his gaze, her blood rushing in her ears, “I’d rather be a wound that heals than a sword that never questions what it cuts.”
A long silence. Reid watches, barely breathing. Then Raphael’s mouth twitches, not in a smile, but something colder. They both can tell when the shift changes: the Archangel Raphael shifting back into Charles, the abusive father.
“You confessed, yet you justify your sins. Let’s see if a little water changes your tone” He leaves the room, but is quick to come back with a large metal basin of water. “I wonder if baptising you will release your sins” Charles has a sick smirk on his face.
Dragging a kicking and screaming Faye over, closer to the basin of water, forcing her on her knees, he hands and feet still bound behind her. Reid is still tied to the chair nearby, his face pale, a bruise beginning to bloom on his cheek, struggling against his ropes to get to the crying girl.
Charles stands over a metal basin filled with water. His shirt is damp with sweat. The damned Bible still in his hand, stained by the water. “Baptism is rebirth. You confess to sins, yet think them right. Now you must be cleansed.” He yanks Faye forward by the collar. She struggles, breath ragged, chest tight in fear, eyes locked with Reid’s.
Reid struggles more against his binds, his voice filled with fear and concern. “Leave her alone. You want a confession, take mine. Just… just stop this.”
Charles laughs, uncaring, enjoying the torture. “She welcomes sin. Stood proudly in its shadow. Her salvation must be earned with pain.” He shoves Faye’s head toward the basin, thrusting her head under the ice-cold water. Thrashing under his grip, Faye does her best to hold her breath while also trying to get out from under his hand and out of the water.
Once he pulls her head out, Faye’s eyes are stinging, but through gritted teeth she hisses, “This isn’t redemption. It’s control. You have more sin than I. Then both of us combined.”
“No. I am doing this out of mercy. The pain washes the rot.” He holds her down again. Water splashes violently as she thrashes, choking, swallowing water unwillingly as she is held down against her will.
Reid screams against his restraints. “Stop! That’s not mercy! Stop! You’re going to kill her! She’s innocent!”
Faye’s head jerks up, gasping and coughing. She blinks water from her eyes but glares up at him. In a tired, rough yet clear voice, she mutters, "If your God demands blood, then He is not a God; He is a monster."
Charles freezes. Rage exaggerates his features. “She speaks in blasphemies… and you are encouraging her!” He screams, turning to Reid.
Chucking Faye by the neck onto the ground near Reid’s bound feet, Faye lies coughing on the floor, soaked and shivering. Her breath comes in shallow and quick.
Charles turns slowly to Reid, eyes wild with fire and moral certainty. “She is defiant. And you... You are clever. Cleverness is pride reborn. It must be purged.”
Reid shakes his head slowly, lips cracked and bleeding. “You’re not washing away sin. You’re just afraid of anyone who doesn’t bow.”
Charles grabs the basin, sloshing water over the edge, and drags it toward Reid. Seeing this, Faye weakly protests, “Stop, no. Please don’t.”
Ignoring the shivering girl, he grips Reid’s jaw with one hand, forcing his head back to meet his eyes. Reid chokes against the restraint, eyes fluttering. “You speak with such conviction. Let’s see what truth you confess under water.” He forces Reid’s head toward the basin, the whole chair leaning down, only being held by Charles’s grip.
“Stop, please stop!” Faye screams as Reid is held down, his head struggling under the surface tension of the ice-cold water, and Charles' powerful grip on the back of his neck. Both holding him up and pulling him under. Faye, still gasping for air, crawls forward, trying to reach him.
“Weakness. Forever weakness.” Charles clicks his tongue, lifting a gasping Reid out of the water, his wet hair gripping to his flushed cheeks.
“Tobias... you don’t have to let him do this,” Reid whispers. Silence. Charles twitches. Reid’s words are barely audible, but might as well have been shouting in the silence of the cabin, “You don’t have to let him be the last thing you are.”
Charles doesn’t verbally react, but he does seem to struggle with himself, before putting Reid’s chair back on all fours and kneeling on the floor, his head in his hands, apologising repeatedly.
Reid and Faye share a look. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t stop him,” Tobias cries.
“It’s okay”, Faye whispers. Looking to Reid for courage, “It’s not your fault”
Reid croaks out, “It’s not your fault” They both watch as Tobias breaks down crying.
Faye locks her gaze onto a camera, recording every moment. She then gets an idea.
_____________________________________________________________________
The screen flickers with footage, grainy, but sharp enough to see pain on both their friends’ faces. Faye is on her knees, head forced underwater in a rusted basin by Charles. Reid, bound nearby, strains against his restraints, his voice hoarse with pleading.
Through the screen, the team can hear their youngest member plead for the unsub to leave the girl alone. “Stop! You’re going to kill her! She’s innocent.”
Morgan’s fists slam into the desk. "They're trying to protect each other, and we are useless to do anything” Garcia covers her mouth, tears welling as the audio crackles: Faye coughing, gasping as she’s yanked up.
JJ adds, “They’re holding each other up in the worst way.” On screen, Charles turns his wrath toward Reid, now grabbing him, dragging the basin closer.
“He’s staging it like a ritual. It’s not just violence; it’s deliberate, a performance. He believes it’s holy,” Gideon growls lowly.
Hotch’s voice is calm, but beneath, he is worried for his team member and the girl who, unfortunately, stumbled upon them. “He thinks what he’s doing is right. But he’s also enjoying himself.”
On the screen, Reid’s head is forced down. Faye, still gasping for air, crawls forward, trying to reach him.
“She’s still trying to stop it. She can barely breathe, and she’s still trying.” JJ states, slightly shocked at this girl's endurance and loyalty.
Morgan feels hopeless, watching his best friend, a person he sees as a little brother, get tortured in front of him, and is powerless to stop it. Along with a young woman, he met only once, but still admired her ability to talk down suspects, be put in the wrong place, wrong time scenario and get forced to try and talk down a suspect while enduring bursts of fear and pain. “We’ve gotta move. Now. Garcia, any update on locating them?”
Garcia’s voice booms through, “Faye’s phone is long dead, but she placed a call a few minutes before her car broke down. I’m trying to triangulate the cell towers, but around these parts, I can only pin it on one tower, even then, it's weak”
Emily squints at the screen. “Wait, guys, I think she’s trying to tell us something” Everyone snaps their heads to the screen, depicting Reid, hair and face dripping wet, hair sticking to flushed cheeks. And Faye, in the same condition, is still lying on the ground, facing the camera. Her eyelashes blinked in seemingly random intervals, only to start again, the same pattern.
“I think that Morse code”, Gideon comments.
“Garcia”, Hotch orders.
“On it, Sir”, Garcia replies, taking the footage and doing her magic. Coming up with dots and dashes and the translation. “Cemetery. There’s a cemetery a few miles from the cell tower her phone pinged off. It's a 30-minute drive from your location, seeing the address now”
“Let's go!” Hotch orders.
_________________________________________________________________________
The basement hums with silence, broken only by the occasional shiver of wind against the warped window.
Spencer breathes shallowly, his upper torso slick with water mixed with sweat. His skin where his restraints are rubbed raw. Faye’s been working the zip tie at her ankles with a rusted nail she pried from the rotten wooden floor for the past ten minutes, jaw clenched tight, breath measured. A snap. Not loud, but sharp enough to freeze them both. Her legs snap apart. Quickly shifting so her ankles aren’t seen, Faye moves to work on her wrists.
It took another painfully long 7 minutes until the zip-ties around her wrists snapped free.
Spencer looks at her. “You got it?”
She nods shakily. “Yeah.”
Tobias is next door. They can hear the slow pacing, boots on old wood, scripture murmured under his breath.
Faye doesn’t wait. She crosses the short distance between them and starts working on Spencer’s ropes with fingers that tremble but work quickly.
Spencer whispers, “Stay away from the next room’s door, the wood beneath creaks. There’s a bolt lock on the door- rusted but loose.” Faye nods, focusing, teeth biting into her lower lip. The rope comes free. Spencer flexes his hand, already crouching low. “Let’s go. He has a gun. If he hears us, we separate and run”
She glares. “I don’t leave people behind.”
Spencer opens his mouth to argue, then stops. Nodding, they move. Each step towards freedom feels like a lifetime. The door is shut. The lock is a simple one. Old, rusted and loose. Faye’s fingers slip once, then steady. It clicks. They open the door. Creeeeeak. Everything stills. Footsteps in the next room stop. Silence.
Spencer grabs Faye’s wrist. “Go now-” Then a crash comes from behind them.
The door slams open behind them. Charles’s voice tears through the silence, “You can’t run from this! You can’t run from punishment!”
Spencer grabs Faye’s hand and pulls he fast. They burst through the entrance of the cabin and into the cemetery beyond it. Going down the path, Faye walked only a few hours before, gravel and random sticks painfully dug into their bare feet.
Up ahead is a separate area in the cemetery that Faye missed the first time, a fence of iron blocking their path. “Up ahead”, Spencer gasps. “That fence- if we can clear it, we can lose him.” Behind them, Tobias, possessed by his father, crashes through the brush. Close. Too close. Faye nearly slips on wet leaves. Spencer catches her arm. Tobias shouts behind them.
A shot rings out, catching Spencer in his upper arm, enough to spark adrenaline through their veins just as they pass through the door of the iron fence. They dart between graves, ducking behind crypts and broken statues. Spencer stumbles, breath hitching, blood soaking through his sleeve.
Faye pulls him up. “Come on. We’re not dying in a cemetery, Spencer.” He looks at her, eyes scared but determined, and nods. They don’t stop.
______________________________________________________________________
The cemetery is dead quiet. Faye and Spencer crouch behind a half-collapsed mausoleum, hidden by ivy and a fallen angel statue. Moonlight glints off stone, casting deadly shadows. Faye’s breathing was ragged but steady. Spencer presses a hand to his arm, blood seeping warm and sticky.
“He stopped shouting,” she whispers.
Spencer nods. “That’s worse.” No more scripture. No footsteps. Just silence, thick, suffocating.
Then… A crunch. Quiet, but loud in the silence. Their eyes lock. Scared but determined to make it out of here alive, together.
Another footfall, soft, but close.
Muffled voices drift through the dark: “Two heat signatures were heading west. Check all exits.” “They’re close. Keep low.”
Faye’s eyes widen in surprise, and she silently whispers, “FBI?”
Spencer hesitates. “Maybe. Or…” Crunch. Closer. They both tense. Her pulse hammers loudly through her ears. Reid braces for an attack. Another step- a crunch of a broken stick.
And then brightness blinds them as a torch is shined upon their hiding place. “Reid?!” Morgan’s voice, sharp and unmistakable, cuts the tension with a knife.
Spencer exhales, knees buckling. “Morgan.”
Faye lowers the rusted pipe she found on the ground with a shaky laugh that breaks off halfway. From behind a headstone, Morgan appears- weapon raised, followed by JJ and two state police, guns half-raised and torches cutting through the darkness. Morgan’s eyes land on them. “Jesus. You’re alive.”
Spencer tries to smirk, fails. “Not for lack of effort.”
Faye slumps against the stone. “Can we call this a rescue now?”
Morgan crouches, eyes scanning them, voice softer now. “We’ve got you.”
Gravel crunches under the foot as the group sweep the far edges of the cemetery. Faye and Spencer are being guided toward the med van, both shaky, waterlogged, but alive. Then, behind them, a sudden snap of underbrush.
Spencer’s head turns. “Wait.”
Tobias bursts from the shadows like a ghost back for revenge. Mud-caked, eyes glassy, a revolver in one hand and the other locking around Faye’s throat before anyone can react. She gasps, a strangled breath as the barrel presses sharply into her ribs.
JJ shouts, “Drop it!”
Tobias presses the barrel to Faye’s ribs, voice deep and tainted with anger: “She wasn’t supposed to be here! None of this was supposed to happen!”
Faye stiffens in his grip. “You don’t have to...”
“Quiet!” His hand shakes. “I said quiet.”
Everyone tensed, their guns aimed at Tobias. Morgan inches forward, palm slightly raised, the one hand with a gun trained on Tobias’s head.
“Tobias... It’s over. Let her go. You don’t want to do this.” But Reid is already moving. Quiet. Sidestepping across the field to find a better angle. Tobias tenses, shifting just enough to track him.
That’s when Faye moves. Just half a step away from him to try and get away. But it’s enough. BANG! The shot deafens the area, like a beacon in the dead of night.
Tobias stumbles. Backward. Eyes wide with something that isn’t anger but surprise. Then he falls.
Reid stands frozen, the pistol lowered but clenched white in his hands. Breath ragged. Reid’s hands tremble around the gun. Faye sinks to her knees, breath catching, hands over her ears like she’s only now hearing the sound. Morgan reaches them first. Wordless. One hand on Reid’s shoulder, steadying him, the other gently guiding the gun away.
“You okay?” he asks softly. Reid doesn’t answer. Just looks at Faye. She meets his gaze. Then nods.
Faye says, voice shaking. “Thank you”
Tobias stares up into the starry night sky, unfocused, trembling. Blood soaks his shirt. The revolver is inches from his open hand, forgotten on the ground. Spencer drops beside him, Faye, hands still shaking, crawls on the other side.
Tobias’s gaze flickers, chest rising shallow, whispers into the dead air, “I’m sorry”
Spencer’s eyes fill with tears. Tobias never wanted to hurt anyone; it was his other two personalities, he just wasn’t strong enough to fight them. “It’s okay”, Spencer answers.
Tobias swallows. His lips crack as he speaks again, softer now. "Will mother forgive me?"
Faye’s tears flow down her cheeks. “I think she’s already forgiven you.”
His breath catches. "I miss her." His chest rises once more, his eyes closing one final time.
_______________________________________________________________________
White artificial lights hum overhead. The hospital room smells like antiseptic and chemicals. Faye lies down on a bed, finally resting. Her wrists, ankles and feet are bandaged, her hospital gown covered by a provided dressing gown. Her nails were caked with dirt that she hadn’t bothered washing off yet.
Derek Morgan enters the room, approaching quietly, a paper cup in one hand. He offers it without a word. Faye takes it with a weak smile. “If this is coffee, I’m going to assume you hate me.”
“It’s tea,” he says. “I’m not a monster.”
She chuckles, then immediately winces. Bruised ribs. Sore throat “Right.” They sit in silence for a moment.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Morgan says softly. Not accusing, just tired.
Faye looks down at her seaming cup. “I was just driving home.”
“You don’t just stumble into serial killers, Faye.”
“Apparently, I do.”
He exhales. “You have the worst luck.” Derek humorlessly laughs, “You could have run when you first got there. Any normal person would have at least tried. So why didn’t you?”
She shrugs, then glances at him. “I looked into his eyes. They pleaded for me to run, but they also asked for help. He needed help. And I... I couldn’t walk away.”
Morgan looks at her for a long moment. “You kept him alive,” he says. “You got him out.”
Her voice is low. “Only because I didn’t freeze this time.”
“You didn’t freeze last time either.” He hesitates, then adds, “I read the report. You did everything right. But that man lost his child. Very little can make up for that.”
Faye nods. “I understood why he did it. I just wish it could have ended differently”
“I don’t know about the past. But I do know that because of you, Reid is still alive. I don’t even want to imagine what would be different if you weren’t there, so… Thank you.”
They sit in quiet again. Her monitor beeps steadily. Faye finally asks, “Will he be okay?”
“Reid?” Faye nods. “Yeah. I think he will be. Pretty boy is braver than he should be. Smarter than anyone has a right to be.” Morgan smiles proudly.
Faye leans her head back against the wall. “I’m glad it was him.” A beat. “He kept me sane, and he saved me”
Morgan adds, “He said the same thing about you.” She blinks at that. Looks down into her tea. A small smile graced her lips.
_______________________________________________________________________
The room is quiet except for the slow beep of the monitor. Morning light slips through blinds, painting the walls and across Spencer Reid’s bandaged head. His eyes flutter open.
For a moment, he’s disoriented, white walls, antiseptic haze, pressure in his ribs. Then the memories rush back: rope, scripture, blood, a kind voice, Faye. The shot. The silence. The door creaks open.
Faye steps in, tentative, a Styrofoam cup in each hand. She's wearing a hospital-issued dressing gown, tied loosely around her. Her bruises have started to bloom on her face, her wrists and ankles bandaged, socks covering bandages on her feet. Her eyes flick to his, and when she sees them open, she exhales in relief.
“You’re awake,” she says.
“I am.” His voice is rasped but steady.
She holds out a cup. “One’s tea. One’s coffee. I forget which. It’s kind of a gamble.”
Spencer takes the one in her left hand and lifts it slowly. “Let’s hope I win.”
She sits in the visitor chair, watching him. Her shoulders are hunched over, making her seem small in the plastic chair. “They said you’d be okay. I waited until you finished your nap”
He nods. “Still piecing things together.” A pause. Then, softer: “You saved me”
She laughs, dry, light. “We saved each other.”
“I’m alive because of you,” he says simply.
“And I, you.” She smiles gently.
“You were very brave”, Reid remarks.
She looks down. “It wasn’t bravery. I was scared the entire time.”
“Same.” He smiles faintly. “That’s what made it real. ‘Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid," said Franklin P. Jones.”
“Highlighting that bravery isn't the absence of fear, but the ability to act despite it” After a moment, she glances toward the door. “You’re gonna be okay, right? After all this?”
“I don’t know,” he admits.
She nods. “Yeah. Same.”
“I just have one question. When you first arrived, why did you stay?” Spencer asks, eyes curious.
“When I saw you… your eyes. They told me to run, but they also asked for help. I couldn’t walk away after you looked at me like I was an Angel sent to save you.”
“You kinda were”, Spencer cracks a smile. As she rises to leave, he speaks again, quietly, “If you hadn’t knocked…”
Faye smiles, wry, tired, a little broken. “Funny. I keep thinking... if I hadn’t stumbled across you, things could have gone a lot differently. I’m just glad it turned out like this, we got out” She walks out, leaving behind the coffee cup. Spencer leans back against the pillow, eyes closed. Safe.
___________________________________________________________________________
Faye leans against a vending machine that’s humming louder than it should. She’s changed into fresh clothes, but the bruises on her jaw, wrists and ankles are sharp and undeniable of the experience she had to endure.
She doesn’t notice Hotch until he’s already there, composed, coat folded neatly over his arm.
“You must be Faye Collins,” he says.
She straightens. “That depends. Are you another federal agent come to debrief me, or another serial killer ready to kidnap me?”
His expression barely shifts. “Aaron Hotchner. I run the Behavioural Analysis Unit. Spencer’s team.”
Faye’s smirk fades. “Right. Sorry. It’s been a long few days,” Having been asleep for 2 days after getting rescued.
Hotch nods. “I wanted to thank you. For what you did.”
Her brow furrows. “You don’t have to. I was just-”
“You stepped into hell,” he cuts in gently. “You faced someone most agents couldn’t reason with. And you helped bring one of my people back alive.”
She blinks. “I didn’t know him. Not really.”
Hotch’s eyes meet hers, calm and deeply sincere. “You didn’t have to.” A beat of silence. Then he offers something almost like a smile. “If you ever decide to stop running from your past, we could use someone like you.”
Faye raises an eyebrow. “You recruiting me?”
“I’m thanking you.” He holds her gaze. “But we don’t forget people who walk through fire.”
He walks away before she can find the words to answer.
___________________________________________________________________
Spencer’s awake. Pale under the thin hospital blanket, eyes heavy but clear. A glass of water was on the tray beside him.
The door opens quietly. JJ steps in. She doesn’t say anything at first, just lingers near the foot of his bed, fingers twisting the hem of her sleeve like she’s trying to wring a hole into the fabric.
Spencer offers a small smile. “Hey.”
JJ returns it, barely. “Couldn’t sleep.” He nods like he gets it. Because he does. Then she breathes in sharply. “I should’ve been the one.” Spencer blinks, confused. JJ steps closer. “I went through the house, you around the exterior. If I’d switched sides, if I’d just—”
“You didn’t know,” he says gently.
“Neither did you.” Her voice cracks. “And it should’ve been me.”
Spencer is quiet for a beat. “You went left. I went right. It wasn’t your fault”
She laughs, but it breaks halfway through. “I just... I keep playing it over in my head. Wondering what I missed. What I could’ve done.”
He looks at her, really looks. “You didn’t miss anything. He waited for one of us. He was going to take someone.” His voice drops. “He just picked me.”
JJ nods, wipes at her face quickly. “I’m still sorry.”
Spencer holds her gaze. “I’m glad it was me. I don’t want to imagine you in my position” She moves to his side, reaches out, and squeezes his hand. Neither of them says another word.
___________________________________________________________________________
Spencer sits on the bed, IV line still tucked into his arm, flipping through a worn paperback with one hand. His wrists were wrapped, still red from rope burns. The window's cracked open just slightly, enough for a soft breeze to stir the stale air.
Morgan leans in the doorway, arms crossed, watching him for a moment before stepping in.
“You really gonna pretend to read right now?” he says gently.
Spencer glances up. “I’m skimming.”
Morgan raises an eyebrow. “That book’s upside down.”
Spencer hesitates, then flips it the right way. “It’s been a long week.”
Morgan grabs the visitor chair and pulls it close. There’s something quieter in his posture now, not tension, not worry. Just curiosity.
“She stayed with you,” he says.
Spencer doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yeah. And I still can’t figure out why”
Morgan nods. “She could’ve run. When she saw you. Or when she got loose”
“I know.”
“She said that when she saw you, your eyes told her to run, but they also asked for help” Morgan leans back. “She couldn’t leave.”
Spencer turns the book over in his hands, thoughtful. “She told me.. ‘When I saw you… your eyes. They told me to run, but they also asked for help. I couldn’t walk away after you looked at me like I was an Angel sent to save you.’ She wasn’t trying to be brave. She was just trying to do the right thing”
Morgan tilts his head. “That’s not the same as being fearless.”
“No,” Spencer says. “But maybe it’s better.”
The room goes quiet for a moment. Wind brushes the curtain, light shifting on the wall. “You okay with her walking away from this?”
Spencer’s voice softens. “She doesn’t owe us anything.”
Morgan stands, resting a hand briefly on Spencer’s shoulder before heading for the door. “She got discharged hours ago, yet she’s still here, outside your room. Gotta count for something”
And then he’s gone, leaving Spencer staring out the window, sunlight shining in his eyes and the memory of a kind smile in the middle of darkness.
________________________________________________________________________
The discharge paperwork is signed. The team unanimously decided to stay the night until the next morning for the flight to give Spencer time to heal. The strong smell of the hospital is replaced by the late sun shining through the trees lining the hospital car park.
Spencer steps outside slowly, feeling like a mummy with his head, wrists, torso, ankles, and upper arm wrapped up in bandages. But looking much better after getting dressed in his own clothes and taking a shower to get rid of the blood and dirt.
After their conversation in this hospital room, and despite what Morgan said, he doesn’t expect to see her. But there she is: leaning against a cement pillar facing the hospital entrance, a large hoodie covering her bruised and battered body. Sleeves covering her bandaged wrists, hood up in a vain attempt to cover her bruised face.
He stops. “You didn’t leave,” he says.
She shrugs. “Didn’t feel right. Not yet.”
Spencer shifts, searching for what to say. Then offers, softly, “Thank you… for staying”
She smiles, reading both meanings. “After the last few days… felt like a goodbye was needed.”
He hesitated, “There’s a diner two blocks from here. Terrible lighting. Questionable pie. But they serve coffee that tastes like it’s been brewing since 1987.” A beat. “Want to go be terrible critics together?”
Faye blinks, then tilts her head with mock suspicion. “Are you asking me out, Agent Reid?”
He plays with his hands nervously, “I’m inviting you to something that isn’t terrifying or life-threatening. So... yes. Kind of.”
She stands slowly, stretching sore limbs. “I’d like that. Only if we don’t talk about work. We just… be ourselves”
“I’m not really that interesting…” Spencer blushes lightly in embarrassment.
Faye laughs and falls into step beside him as they walk “Oh, Agent Reid. I believe you are the most interesting person I’ve ever met”
“It’s actually Dr Spencer mutters.
“Do tell,” Faye smirks. “Tell me the life story of Dr Spencer Reid”
Together, they walk into the diner. Not as victims, not as law enforcement. But as people.
________________________________________________________________________
The moving truck grumbles as it pulls away from the curb; meanwhile, Faye carries her last box up 4 flights of stairs. Faye wipes her hands on her jeans, still dusty and sweaty from hauling boxes up and down the 4 flights of stairs.
She turns to the modest apartment. Her new beginning.
She almost doesn’t notice the tall, lean figure stepping out of the apartment next door. Keys in one hand. A book tucked under the other arm and a messenger bag strapped around his body.
He stops mid-step when he sees her. Faye stares.
Spencer blinks. “Wait… you live here?”
“Just moved in," She blinks back. “You live here?”
He nods, stunned. “For 3 years, 7 months, 8 months, 2 hours and” He checks his watch, “12 minutes. Give for take a minute” A beat. Then they both laugh.
Faye gestures at her door with mock drama. “Well, Dr Reid, I guess this confirms it: the universe has a sense of humour and no boundaries.”
He steps a little closer, a smile growing. “I hear the coffee around the corner is terrible.”
“Sounds familiar,” she says.
He gestures behind him, towards the stairs, “What to be critics together?”
She exhales, grinning. “You know what? Yeah. I do.”