Chapter Text
And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in.
~ Haruki Murakami
I am the righteous hand of God
And I am the devil that you forgot
And I told you one day you will see
That I'll be back, I guarantee
And that hell's coming, hell's coming
Hell, hell's coming with me
Hell's Comin' with Me
It's one of those mornings when he stops by the cafeteria to get their crappy coffee because he needs a lot of caffeine already and he doesn't want to wait for his coffee maker to kick in or to use the one in the kitchen nook. That coffee is crappy as well but at the very least in cafeteria he doesn't have to engage himself in conversations with concerned individuals.
He climbs the stairs to the sixth floor. It's both his daily dose of exercise and an evasion tactic because the door to the staircase closest to the elevators opens to the corridor that connects BAU office space across the entirety of the sixth floor. From there he just needs to turn right to enter the bullpen through the side door and with just a couple of strides he's on his own turf.
He takes a cursory look at the bullpen and finds it empty which doesn't really surprise him. His team, against their best efforts, in so far hadn't managed to beat him to the office if his work day hadn't already started elsewhere. And Rossi's team…? They are Rossi's problem and the old man has enough of these. Not that he hadn't invited a lion share of them.
He looks up at the door and isn't surprised that the plaque on it proclaims that the office belongs to Aaron Hotchner. It's not the first time Hotch's name appeared on it and won't be the last time. He knows people behind it and their intentions. He silently approves of them even though deep inside he knows that Hotch isn't Beetlejuice and he won't just turn up back in BAU if someone will say his name enough times.
Because no matter if the name plaque on the door reads Aaron Hotchner the one on the desk still does say: Spencer Reid. Spencer knows that because, unlike his predecessors, he does lock his fucking door. He used to leave it open but the problem with open door is that it invites pests inside. Like Jennifer Jareau and her not so subtle designs on what she believes should be her space. She had that particular chip on her shoulder since Antonia Slade dug it out, if not longer than that. She was good at covering it up too, until she got caught on the fence in the aftermath of his bad decision.
Spencer's order for breach at Lynch's site had killed six FBI SWAT officers and nearly bloody killed him. That it also killed Emily Prentiss's chances to become first female director of the FBI Spencer hadn't known until JJ had thrown it into his face, claiming that she would be staying in BAU if he hadn't made that stupid order. Pissed off and reeling by that kind of goodbye he went to Emily for confirmation. He got it as well as assurances that while she wanted the team to be prepared for that eventuality she also believed that the offer was too good to be true. She claimed that in no way whatsoever she'd held him accountable for what happened. He issued an order based on the profile and information he had. That was it. He almost died in the aftermath of it too. She then assured him that JJ will apologize once she will cool off and settle down in Louisiana. She added that JJ probably gave into the stress of it all and blew up at him because he had hit a nerve.
He didn't, he knew for certain that he didn't. If anyone had hit a nerve then it was Will and the man had every right in the world to do so. When JJ had gotten pregnant with Henry he didn't even suggest that she should move to New Orleans and had taken her reluctance to discuss it or leave the job for what it was. Instead, he left his family, his friends and his job in Louisiana and moved half across the country to be with her. He took a year off work to be around Henry during his first year. He had never pressured her into anything, not even marriage and had waited for her to be ready even though he wanted to put a ring on her finger for a very long time. He accepted that their marriage will always be a marriage of unequal footing and that everything will be in her favor for as long as she favored him with her love and affection. But the growing doubt that maybe that wasn't the case had been soon weighed down with the news about cancer diagnosis of one of Will's aunts, an elderly lady that helped to raise him whom he loved dearly and couldn't imagine not attending to her at the end of her life. Then Henry overheard Will talking with one of his cousins and everything snowballed from there…
All of that Spencer had learned when he came around to say goodbye to his godsons. JJ was out with the girls and Spencer and Will talked after they put the boys to bed. Or rather Will talked and Spencer listened seeing the other man's need to talk with someone, voice out his fears, doubts and desires. Will knew even back then that the move was either going to cement or break his marriage but he was willing to risk it for his aunt.
Spencer shakes his head before he puts the key in the lock. JJ will get her wish eventually, just not at his expense. Rossi's? Probably and all of this is almost poetic.
He shakes his head again and steps into his office, leaving on the door the name of the man to which it once belonged. He'll deal with the plaque later, once he will get the coffee going.
Aaron Hotchner's office under Emily Prentis's reign hadn't changed from the room it used to be. Sure, her personal effects and decorations replaced his but that was it. She hadn't rearranged or replaced any furniture, keeping everything as it was and where it was. From shelving units to Felix the Faux Fichus, including the couch. The team hadn't really address the issue because at first she was only going to be there until Lewis would be caught and then they assumed that she most likely got used to the set up.
But it wasn't until Spencer was standing inside the room, not as a visitor with something to discuss with its occupant rather than someone who was going to take over it and make it his own and arguing with maintenance over their proposed changes that he realized the truth. With no personal effects inside Emily Prentiss left no mark on the office. But Hotch, his tastes and preferences were still all over the room, long after he was gone.
Hotch's, a little oddball choice given the man's general disposition, of yellow walls were painted sage green because Spencer liked the color better. Standard carpet had been replaced by less standard paneling that was easier to clean up. Furniture had also been changed, although not at Spencer's insistence. Aside of locked filling cabinets, those he actually wanted to get new and as fast as possible after he discovered that the keys to them that Hotch had given him ages ago were still capable of opening them (and they shouldn't be, not with a different Unit Chief and a couple of years between them). Hotch's original shelving units and desks had given up the ghost during painting while Spencer was on a consult in Baltimore. And since it was an eighteen years old office furniture, not an antiquity, the maintenance refused to restore it. Couch and armchair he had chosen to surrender because it had been inside the office for just as long and he also knew where it had been in the past and for how long.
While the new furniture that replaced the old one wasn't custom made it did fit better with shelving units spanning properly from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Spencer's desk space was better than the previous set up that separated computer space from more representative desk space. It was quite similar to his old one down in the bullpen but longer and wider. Felix the Faux Fichus found its posting by the window next to the bookcase, conveniently hiding the cables leading to the coffee maker. That one was a gift from Derek and Savannah.
Of personal effects Spencer kept at the office very little, used to almost nonexistent display space. His doctorate diplomas? He kept all inside the office with two of them being at the most prominent display, right above his head while he was sitting down, framing a photograph from his graduation from the FBI academy. The picture captured him standing between Hotch and Gideon, his surprise guests to the ceremony. Like many pictures it told a story of its own. Of Gideon caught in a discussion with an off camera instructor and Spencer and Hotch caught in the middle of a discussion about geographical profiling, none of them looking in the direction of the camera or the person holding it. The photograph was framed by his doctorate diplomas from judicial science and psychology. It had been a gift from John Richmond, back in the day Associate Deputy Director (and as of last four months Deputy Director), privately Spencer's sponsor and the man to whom Spencer loudly wondered over dinner shared with the man and the man's wife, Vivian, about whom he'll have to suck off or kiss in the ass to get an office in that bloody, plague-ridden circus.
To Spencer's initial horror and almost overwhelming shame that almost had him slinking underneath the table John's answer to the question was the deadpan 'me apparently'. Vivian, bless her heart, still active history professor at Georgetown and fellow map enthusiast that understood the importance of owning an office space where one could spread their stuff out, was not offended by Spencer's bitching or essentially propositioning her husband. She laughed her ass off so hard that she started to hiccup.
While Vivian retired to calm herself down John promised Spencer that he'd bring up this anecdote at Spencer's funeral, if he were to predecease the older man (highly likely considering Spencer's line of work as well as his relatively recent brush with death). Then he revealed Director Wray's plans for that plague-ridden circus.
Wray's idea was to restructure divisions, units and teams in such manner to limit the number of agents on individual teams to the barest efficient minimum while at the same time increasing the number of teams. In theory it was supposed to limit the number of teams that had to be quarantined due to having their agents coming in contact with COVID-19. On paper it seemed like a brilliant idea but in practice even a year and a half into the Grand Divide the bureau had problems with nailing down what should be considered the barest but efficient minimum of agents on a team
Spencer in the Grand Divide had won: the office that he was actively pursuing for quite some time (though he didn't start with that particular one in mind); giant promotion that he wasn't pursuing that vehemently (he would have been content with being Senior SSA or ASAC on Rossi's team even with Rossi being… Rossi in the aftermath of his own tragedy); and a team that he didn't believe that he needed that much considering that on a good day he could do enough work for four people (in theory and in paperwork because his first case as the captain and the crew of his little dingy had proved that while he could pull off solitary profiling the group effort actually made it easier, more efficient, and much fucking faster).
That's why he kept his complaints about the Grand Divide to the relevant minimum and topics. And it wasn't as if he and his team weren't going to win the Major Merger. It wasn't exactly announced yet but first ripples of the coming change could be felt through the bureau. The Grand Divide did the best job it could do in a time it made sense but times and circumstances were changing.
He gets the coffee maker going, makes himself a third cup of coffee even though he isn't remotely done with his second one and he loses himself in Todd Jackson's cold cases. Well, one, the newer one is Todd's, the other, older one is Gideon's. Todd has a gut feeling that they might be connected, with each other as well as another cold case from 2019.
Theodore 'Todd' Jackson has been in BAU from 1994 to 2013, serving for the last twelve of them as the Unit Chief of a BAU team that majorly specialized in crimes against children. His initial exit from BAU isn't discussed, not amongst those that had been around for it, not that they know the details and most definitely by those that weren't. All Spencer knows about the man and the surrounding circumstances is that Todd Jackson he had known wouldn't have chosen to retire out of the blue, not when his team was already an agent down on what was looking out to be permanent basis.
The man returned to Behavioral Analysis Unit in what's jokingly referred as the Semi-grand Summoning of old, retired and inactive agents (also courtesy of Wray) to aid their plague-ridden former postings in fall of 2020. Initially Todd was aiding Unit Chief Kathleen Nichols, his own eventual replacement (after not really counting the initial hiccup that had been Todd's direct replacement). But while Todd and Nichols got along like house on fire over the fall of 2020 they've come to an agreement that it would be better for everyone if Todd would seek an opening on a different team, if one would become available. Grand Divide for both of them turned into a blessing in disguise and while Todd was the second Unit Chief to be promoted in the wake of Wray's decision he was the first one with a ready team before he fully settled back into his old office. He acquired it by coming to agreement with Nichols and her team about who will keep which child in the divorce and on which team. They also had no problem with swapping them around when and if it was necessary.
Spencer always liked Todd, initially for nothing else but Todd's Hotchesque approach to BAU's newest addition that was Spencer Reid, the very eager but also very inexperienced genius. Todd, much like Hotch, was patient with him, understanding (unlike Gideon) that certain kind of knowledge Spencer couldn't acquire through books or osmosis. He never shied away from answering Spencer's questions, even if the answers initially should have been obvious. He treated Spencer with the same level of respect, no matter if Spencer came to the him as just freshly graduated agent in training or a seasoned profiler with over a decade of field experience under his belt.
Then there was Todd's genuine joy at seeing Spencer for the first time in almost seven years. It couldn't have be hidden behind the mask. And in the aftermath of Spencer's very recent, although not really much of a confrontation with his own Unit Chief of that time, David Rossi it was like a punch in the gut. Because how the fuck it was possible that the man he hadn't seen in more than half a decade had been more happy to see him the man he worked alongside with for almost twice as much. On the top of Spencer's recent brush with death in the form of COVID-19 that put him out of commission for six and half months and nearly bloody killed him in the first place it was…
These days Todd is a bit of it all. Coworker as much as a mentor but above all, he's a friend and they both had lost enough of these. He's a never-ending reservoir of anecdotes he shares with a flair that makes one feel as if they're living them. He and Spencer get along like a pineapple on a pizza meant to insult a certain grumpy Italian Unit Chief.
He's so focused on Todd's consult, privately agreeing on instinctual level with the older man that the cases are connected even though that connection refuses to materialize yet that he almost completely misses the knock.
"Aaron Hotchner?" a voice he recognizes asks a question that over the past year and half had occasionally been directed at him and it makes him realize that he forgot to swap the bloody plaques.
Maybe he should just superglue his bloody name to the door. Or give up trying to replace it.
He hums, neither confirming nor denying that the name on the door that isn't his own doesn't have anything to do with him. At the very least it's Luke Alvez and Spencer can handle him, even at this hou… He glances at his watch realizing that time had really gotten away from him.
"If the shoe fits," Spencer concedes gesturing at the chairs in front of his desk.
It's not the first time he and Luke had this song and dance in the last couple of weeks. Last couple of months really. The only difference is that in all of the previous instances Spencer's own name was on the door.
"Does it?" asks Luke as he moves through the room, there's no skepticism in his voice, only curiosity.
"Depends on whom you're asking," Spencer replies.
"So all of these Hotch stories that's been going around since you've become the Unit Chief?" asks Luke, not really finishing the sentence, out of habit giving Spencer the rope to hang himself on it.
There's no malice in it, it's just one of the hazards of the job.
Spencer smiles, mostly to himself. He knows that Rossi and his team have heard their fair share of Hotch stories. He also knows that a handful of them confuse Rossi, JJ and Prentiss because they describe things that Aaron Hotchner would never have done. Or at the very least would have done differently.
"Depends from the story," says Spencer simply as Luke slides into one of the chairs in front of Spencer's desk, the one closer to the windows.
"There's this one about going undercover as a prostitute or a drag queen," Luke offers. "I have no idea how it even came up but it had and agents I heard them from claim that it's old."
"I know how it came up, how old it is and the confusing factor in it," replies Spencer with a grimace. "Morgan witnessed it, he's been trying to meet with the fellow tactical instructors at least once per year since he retired and they've been talking. The year was 2003 which makes that nineteen years old and the confusing factor in it is that it's both."
"Both?" Luke echoes.
"I mean a Hotch," he gestures at himself with a resigned sigh, "went undercover as a prostitute and the Hotch," he gestures at the door, "went undercover as a drag queen. And Derek Morgan that accompanied both had remained woefully unhelpful through the entire duration of operation which is why he had ended up in the backseat of an undercover police car tied up with a boa and fishnets like a cattle while two maniacs at the front proceed to deafen him by howling to the accompaniment of the radio."
"That must have been quite an evening," Luke chokes out.
"It was a bloody murder," Spencer replies with a snort. "I mean a bloody murder had started it all, then it went cold like murders sometimes do then it got connected with a different fresh case from a different state. The team was different back in the day, not better or worse, just different. On paper Gideon ran the entire thing, in practice he always hated the administrative side of being Unit Chief. To balance him out he got assigned a Senior SSA that would be capable to keep him in line."
"Not Hotch," guesses Luke.
"Not Hotch," Spencer confirms. "Her name was Georgia Guidry and she was this African-American woman from Louisiana. Her father was a pastor, her mother Sunday school teacher. She came to DC to study something that wasn't the law degree she ended getting. She was also the only woman on the team back then. That's relevant, as is the next thing. She wasn't very tall, in fact she wasn't tall at all because she was 5'1."
"And she played on it all," offers Luke.
"You bet your ass that she did, son," Spencer offers, aiming for a southern twang that he can only nail by the end of his zoom calls with Henry, Michael and Will. "I've seen her take Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, James Carter, Michael Donahue and Jason Gideon head on and boss them around like a bunch of prepubescent schoolboys in Sunday school. Yes, madam; no, madam. Not in sarcasm or petulance. She was good at what she did and she did an awful lot to make this job easier for others just because she could."
He pauses, reaching for his cold coffee to cover up the emotion he knows is about to choke him. Georgia died three months ago, in a stupidly tragic and premature way that would have her laughing so hard that she would be crying before she would declare that 'good Lord does have a sense of humor'. It was a head on collision with a moose because the brakes of her car had failed. Spencer had gotten that call because even though the occupants of the room had changed the landline number did not and it was the only ICE number on Georgia's phone that was still active. So he and Todd, blessedly free at the time, had hopped on a plane after plane after plane to get to Fairbanks, Alaska to bring Georgia's remains to her hometown in Louisiana.
"And she let them do the heavy lifting," offers Luke to lift up Spencer's mood.
"Oh, she could take out the door without a problem but since so many strong and eager young men were always offering to do so why should she risk a limb injury," Spencer explains, aiming once more for southern accent. "Funny thing about Georgia is that if you were younger than her she occasionally refereed to you as young man or woman. Me? Not really an issue. Morgan and Carter as well. Hotch and Donahue did raise a couple of eyebrows. But Gideon? She was just a month older than him. He looked his age, she didn't."
The point is getting away from him like it has a tendency of doing with Luke because he never cuts Spencer off. He always listens in earnest regardless of the topic or where Spencer's mind will led them.
"She had died in recent months, didn't she?" asks Luke.
"She had," Spencer confirms and sighs. "The case," he tries to continue. "The case itself is irrelevant, what is that Gideon with Georgia, Carter and Donahue ended up in San Francisco investigating a ritualistic murder and Hotch, Morgan and I wound up in Seattle looking into a somewhat similar ritualistic murder from eight years prior. For some reason our support from local law enforcement was almost non-existent. There was something else going on at the time and between the usual issues…" Spencer pauses for a grimace. "Sure we got a space to set up and access to case files but generally it was knock yourself out guys. So we did, the problem was, that the connection that we managed to tentatively establish between both cases was pretty shaky until we verified a couple of things. Amongst the other things to what sort of clientele our victim's last known haunt had catered."
"Quite specific I'm guessing," says Luke.
"Bisexual swingers that enjoyed listening to drag queens," Spencer answers. "It was also a haunt of considerable popularity amongst a little more high end kind of ladies of the night."
"And someone decided that you could pass for one," Luke nods.
"I did pass for one," Spencer corrects him. "Our problem was that Hotch got the two of us identified to the owner that required an observation as FBI agents. The problem with Morgan was that he stuck out in the club like a very sore thumb because a substantial number of clientele of color preferred a place street over. Similar layout, menu, a little different music taste, better place to be if you wanted to find Adam and Eve in similar skin color to yours. No one is kicking you out but if you came here for that you will probably leave dissatisfied."
"So men of color didn't come to that place at all or came for music," says Luke.
"Pretty much so and let me tell you: Morgan, not a fan of disco and that's the only thing he had to listen for three days straight. Which is why he came up with the brilliant idea to investigate other angles undercover since Hotch and I got ourselves burned and we didn't really got any kind of support from Seattle PD," continues Spencer.
"Hence the get up," says Luke.
"It wasn't bad on paper. Problem for me was that in order to cover my fins of feet someone whose name I'm not going to mention had decided to put me in heels. Now, I'm tall and back in the day I was a smidgeon shorter but we're talking about an inch, not three," Spencer says. "So I stuck out like a sore, gangly and still a little bit anemic thumb. My wig was atrocious and lousy enough that it kept sliding off; bra's underwire was bruising my ribs; my left fake boob constantly tried to slide out, just the left one for some reason; my underwear not only was threatening to cut off my blood circulation it also threatened to castrate me every time I moved my leg too wide in any direction; and the makeup was so strong and permanent that I was getting it out for next two days. And on top of that every hour in heels felt like a day. The only thing that made me feel better was that I wasn't going through that misery alone. That was the only highlight because nothing else was panning out and that was just the beginning of our misery."
"How so?" asks Luke curiously.
"Well, back then cell phone towers were a bit rarer and a bit weaker. My cell phone was on the verge of giving up the ghost and it decided to give it up once and for good. Hotch got himself trapped in a spot where there was no signal whatsoever and in all of this we had lost Morgan. He had trouble with the signal and stepped outside to take the call from San Francisco. Got himself locked out because it was Friday, I don't remember the hour but the guy at the door was under strict orders to keep people from getting inside unless some more people would leave."
"And he didn't flash the badge?" asks Luke.
"Nope," Spencer confirms. "He had been waiting outside for about two bloody hours calling my dead phone and Hotch's not dead but equally useless one every now and again until the two of us reached a conclusion that it was getting us nowhere and that we managed to lose Morgan. And over the years that I've spent working with the man I've seen a wide variety of expressions on Hotch's face but this mix of worry, shock and fury that I've seen in those couple of minutes from the moment he registered that we lost Morgan until we found him and at the same time learned that the other guys and Georgia managed to get their hands on the unsub who was already confessing to our murder amongst other things…" he pauses and shakes his head. "Granted proving that he had done it was required. What was not required was the bloody torture we've been experiencing for two fucking hours."
"Hence boa and fishnets."
"And it's not as if he couldn't have gotten out of it. We didn't tie him up that hard," Spencer concludes. "What I think offended him more was that Hotch gave me the keys to drive the car and I had to break right in the moment Morgan managed to get himself out of the restrains. For a very long time he considered it as an attempted murder and me as a very bad driver."
"Why did you let him get away with it for so long?" asks Luke.
"Because I'm a certified genius and I never felt the need to assert myself or my dominance over a group or situation by doing something that most teenagers can do," Spencer replies simply.
"And these days it's different because it's pretty much expected from you," finishes Luke.
Here they are, again. Doing the same song and dance they've been doing through the past couple of months.
"Luke," Spencer says, trying his best to keep the sigh out of his voice because Luke doesn't deserve to hear Spencer's exasperation even if it's with the situation and not the man himself. Luke came through for Spencer in the darkest periods of his life when Spencer was a nobody to him. "You know…" he starts his usual explanations.
"I know," says Luke, he doesn't sound forlorn but for a brief moment Spencer catches it in his eyes before it passes. "If I had a degree in computer science or was capable of a higher level computer wizardry you would have taken me in a heartbeat."
He would have and he told Luke as much many, many times.
"I didn't know that this job was what I needed to be doing until I was already doing it," Luke continues. "I know that my degree, background and specialization is too generic for a man my age in the unit. I'm not an academic like Tara, I don't have Matt's language skillset. I have no alternatives that would keep me…" Luke pauses chewing on his bottom lip.
Here is what he's not saying. Spencer knows that and he knows also why.
"I'm sorry, Luke," Spencer says earnestly. "I can ask other unit chiefs," something that Luke definitely has tried himself by this point, "make recommendations myself," or maybe collect or offer favors, "but I can't take you."
"What if told you that you could?" comes the new voice from the doorway.
Spencer glances up from Luke to the door and finds Todd Jackson with his hand on the handle. Todd's left eyebrow is hitched up slightly like it always is whenever he finds Hotch's name on Spencer's door. He looks meticulously put together for a man that was supposed to have a day off today (last time when Spencer checked it, which was yesterday). From polished shoes that match his impeccably black suit, tie that matches his hair that had gone prematurely grey long before he left BAU for the first time Theodore Jackson looks every inch of an Unit Chief that he happens to be. Then the door closes as he approaches the desk and slides into the free seat by the desk.
"Alvez," Todd says acknowledging Luke's presence. "Hotchner," he adds looking at Spencer pointedly.
"Fuck off, Ryan," Spencer replies because two can play this game and while there are things Todd can get away with between the two of them doing the same in a more public setting is a completely different thing.
Luke glances from Spencer to Todd before Spencer sighs, rolls his chair towards the coffee maker and gets the coffee going.
"Max Ryan trained you, didn't he?" asks Luke as he looks at Todd.
Todd nods simply.
"The plaque?" Luke prompts.
"That would be Grant Anderson," replies Todd. "I suspect that it long since stopped to serve its purpose which was to passive-aggressively admonish Spencer for getting in touch with his inner drill sergeant. I'm only taking it an inch further and very rarely on that."
"How is your day off, Theodore?" Spencer interrupts him as he makes sure to pass the first cup to the older man.
"It started splendidly," Todd offers. "I woke up at a decent hour, in my very comfortable bed in front of my favorite view that I planned to enjoy a little more before s…"
"Theodore," Spencer admonishes him but without real heat.
"Spoiling it with a little bit of snuggling before morning despoliation, you prude," Todd concludes with a smile. "Have I ever gone into detail about what Teo and I are doing in bed?"
"With others? I have no idea," Spencer replies quickly. "With me?" he grimaces mockingly. "No further than three weeks ago you've been singing praises to that prostate massager and describing what you and Teo were doing with it…"
"Was I on anesthesia at the time?" asks Todd incredulously.
"Wilcox's going away party?" asks Luke.
"Yes to both," Spencer confirms with a grin as he passes Luke a cup of coffee. "Todd got accidentally punched in the jaw by that NCIS bag of bricks who was aiming for Ito because he convinced himself that poor Jun was salivating over his girlfriend. Got a tooth loose. Teo was away on a conference, so when I called him he asked me to make sure that the light of his days makes it back home safe," he relies to Luke's benefit before he turns to Todd. "We get it Todd, you're a very happy man and we're happy for you. But you were saying…" he looks at the older man expectantly.
"That I could make you happy," says Todd, oddly enough grimacing slightly. "Kathleen's report made it up to Wray yesterday and he demanded an emergency meeting this morning between himself, Richmond, Sallet, Kathleen and Section Chief Emily Prentiss. The former four had been in the director's office at eight o'clock this morning. Prentiss was not and five to eight HR got in contact with Sallet that she filled for a day off. Five after eight I'm getting a call from Richmond claiming that he's terribly sorry for inconveniencing me on my day off but that my presence is insistently requested in director's office as soon as possible and that I should bring my laptop," he adds, keeping his voice calm and even but the news he's sharing are anything but such.
"What's the verdict?" asks Spencer, taking a leaf from Todd's book and keeping his voice calm even though he's far from such.
He feels sorry for a woman who used to be his friend, who was a good Unit Chief but the Section Chief that she became…
"Unclear at the moment," replies Todd and he sighs. "The holy trinity doesn't want to make too rash decisions without allowing her to defend herself. Kathleen's evidence though is damning and solid enough to ensure Emily Prentiss's removal from the position of the Section Chief of IOSS. Pending the internal investigation she'll be either dismissed from the bureau altogether or reassigned to an inconsequential location or unit."
"Who's going to take her place?" Spencer asks quickly because in the grand scheme of things it's the only thing that really matters to him and his team.
"As of 9:20AM I'm the Acting Section Chief of Investigative and Operations Support Section. Permanent replacement is still discussed but when I was leaving Hoover the general consensus in so far had been between me, myself and I. Wray doesn't want an outsider to clean up the potential mess, Sallet doesn't want anyone to mess with the current state of CMU and RDL, Richmond's other suggestion had answered thank you but no to temporal position and the answer to permanent will be most definitely the same," replies Todd.
"Lisa Keller and Kathleen Nichols," Spencer says, guessing correctly.
The first is on the verge of retiring and hunting for her replacement with a vehement glee and the other is almost certainly heading to maternity leave within the next couple of days.
"What about…" asks Luke cautiously as he looks at the wall behind Spencer's back.
"That remains to be seen," Todd answers and grimaces. "Neither he nor his ASAC is in. He called in sick and she's been cashing out some PTO for the divorce proceedings. Both of them Director Richmond graciously offered to take care of and I've chosen to accept his offer."
They all know what it means for Rossi's team.
"The team is getting dissolved," it's Luke who says it at loud and he sounds oddly relieved rather than mournful.
And Spencer? He finds that he feels a little sorry for Rossi and JJ but they had brought it on their own heads. Because one can lead the horse to water but one can't really make it drink.
It should have been dissolved years ago.
Where that intrusive thought comes from he has no idea but his eyes land on the closed door when it passes through his brain.
Yes, the team should have been dissolved in the aftermath of that bloody mess that was the hunt for Scratch but at the time they all have lost too much to see that it was the best solution for everyone.
And it doesn't hurt because he's not a member of that team. Not anymore. He has his own team to lead and look after. He should have had one for longer than that. He was very slowly outgrowing his position for a very long time but he was clinging so hard to the concept of the team as a family unit that he didn't realize that it was a lie until he was the bad guy.
"What about Tara?" Luke asks.
"Doctor Lewis isn't in today," Todd offers. "If she was her desk would be my next stop. She will be offered a position of ASAC on Lisa Keller's team. To entice her to Lisa's offer because if she takes it within a year to year and a half, two at the most she will be promoted to SAC."
"She deserves it," Luke says earnestly.
"She deserves it, Lisa wants it, no one on her team is against it which for me is an all-around win," Todd adds. "You too deserve a team that won't throw you out with the bath water and everybody knows Spencer's hiring preferences."
"Ha, ha, ha," Spencer mutters.
Spencer's supposed hiring preferences are BAU's running joke that used to give HR a conniption until Spencer complained to Sallet that he was being harassed by HR for following his superiors orders. Then he carbon-copied to Sallet Emily's email where she claimed that since he decided without her input that he could be an Unit Chief then he could pick up his team and specializations without her input as well. Which was exactly what he had done.
"I will have you know that Michael Donahue is retired and he's the only computer specialist aside of Penelope Garcia along whom I worked," Spencer points out.
"And you aren't harassing one or the other?" asks Todd briskly.
"The first has gotten on a boat and is planning to sail around the world for a bit before settling on a retirement spot. The other isn't speaking to me since I betrayed the concerned citizen by supporting her husband in the custody dispute so…" Spencer replies and shrugs.
"To be fair she's getting more feedback from her than from you," Luke supplies.
"To be fair you cannot be objective when it comes to her so let's agree to disagree," Spencer points out. "Point is, she isn't speaking to me right now and after the dust will settle she will have even more reasons to not speak to me," he concludes.
"Why don't you get the transfer request ready so I can get it to Richmond and HR as soon as I get to my office," offers Todd as he turns slightly to Luke. "So you're ready to leave with them when a case comes up."
Spencer nods quickly covering the trepidation that starts to blossom in his gut with a smile that follows Luke to the door. It falls from his face the moment the door close behind Luke. Strictly speaking his team isn't supposed to be off the rotation but they aren't also at the top of the working totem. That's why he didn't have problems with them scheduling parts of their workdays at the academy.
Todd's urging for Luke to be ready to leave with the team doesn't bode well. Especially considering the direction it came from. Their eyes lock as Todd opens his laptop bag and pulls out a thick case file. Spencer takes it without breaking the eye contact until it's lying flat on his desk and he dives into it.
Page after page after page after page. Reports, photographs, test results. All going back from day before yesterday to the last days of December last year. All a testament of Boston PD and Boston field office ineffectiveness because they missed that they have a serial killer running rampant through their accursed town and had done so for over five months. And not just a regular serial killer but a copycat.
That copycat.
But the direction this case file came from? What it means? It's…
He takes as deep breath as he dares to make before leans back in his chair, fixes his eyes on Todd's warm brown ones and asks, "What the holy trinity expects of me, Theodore?"
Todd doesn't answer right away but he holds Spencer gaze for what feels like ages before he says calmly, "To do your job, Spencer."
"Which is to find them a serial killer or a scapegoat?" offers Spencer flatly.
Todd doesn't answer, just looks him dead in the eye.
"Because this, Theodore Ellis Jackson," he pokes the case file with his left forefinger, "is the vilest thing I ever saw in the nineteen years that I've spent with the bureau. And bear in mind that I'm including into it the period of time when this very agency had deserted me to the point of refusing to offer me a legal counsel," he pauses and takes a deep breath as calmly as he can.
"Hotch," starts Todd.
"Don't you dare," Spencer hisses, keeping his voice low enough to not alert Luke.
"I dare and I will continue to do so, Hotch," Todd says firmly, leaning forward in his seat, making the nickname sound like a challenge that it is. "You're a very efficient reader of both lines and things between them. Do you really think that this file would have ended on your desk if the holy trinity's opinions aligned with that of Boston PD?" he offers in a heated whisper.
"No," Spencer whispers as he sinks in further into his chair.
John wouldn't have done it to him. And if he was around for it he wouldn't have allowed SWAT to arrest Hotch at a gunpoint inside his home either.
Still…
Spencer breaths in and out slowly before he asks softly, "Has he been contacted then?"
"Who?" asks Todd quickly.
"Prince of Wales, Theodore," Spencer replies, trying to keep his voice as flat and even as he can make it. "Aaron Michael Hotchner," he adds for clarification, trying to keep his voice steady.
Hotch's middle name isn't widely known, has been even more rarely used. But still it's one of the valid forms of identification without which Spencer feels Todd might end up talking about one Aaron Edward Hotchner. Who to Aaron Michael Hotchner is either an unspecified distant relative or a complete stranger and an over hundred years old novelist and philanthropist that's most likely deceased at this point and about whom Spencer doesn't give a rat's ass.
The eyebrow twitch on Todd's face is minimal and quick and just enough for Spencer to realize that Todd is trying to intentionally rile him up so he can have a potential emotional meltdown in the safety of his office instead of in front of his team or worse in front of complete strangers from Boston PD, Massachusetts' field office and members of district attorney's office.
"Well played, Theodore," he breaths out feigning the calm he's not feeling but he will fake it until he can make it.
"You're welcome, Spencer," Todd replies, sounding sincere. "And the answer is no. Not for the lack of trying."
Or not. He cannot control the dread that fills him, sucking the oxygen out of the room, filling in his lungs and sinking into his bones. Because Hotch can't be…
"Is he dead?" the words that leave his mouth sound barely audible to his own ears.
"Worse," Todd replies softly.
Spencer's mind goes completely blank. From IQ 187 to ameba in just five letters. For a moment. Because what can be worse than death? And the onslaught of answers to that question is even worse. Image after image that he cannot stop even as Todd says:
"He's gone."
Gone. Four letters, two consonants, two vowels. Past participle of go. As an adjective used to describe things, people and places no longer present, departed or lost. Also informally used to describe having reach a specified period of time in a pregnancy.
As he tries to ground himself his mind jumps from picturing Aaron Hotchner lying dead on a steel slab in the morgue to Aaron Hotchner lounging in hospital heavy with child. Where does it come from he has no idea but the sheer absurdity of it makes him shake his head and focus all of his attention on Todd.
"What do you mean by that?" Spencer hears himself asking.
"Exactly that," Todd replies and then he repeats, "he's gone."
"As in…" Spencer presses because what the fuck that phrase means in this context, dead is dead and if Hotch is dead then Todd should just say so.
"As in missing," Todd says heavily. "Presumed anything at this point."
"How long?" Spencer breaths out.
"The last source that at the moment the bureau considers as completely reliable comes from 9th October 2016 and places him at Burger King at Connecticut…"
"… Avenue," Spencer finishes feeling sudden heaviness settling in his gut and in his lungs. "With Jack," he adds softly.
He knows because he was there, with them that day and not by 'happens because we live in roughly the same neighborhood' accident.
Initially Jack invited him to Sunday lunch as a form of payment for Spencer's services as a magician at the boy's birthday party. Spencer had no problem with doing it for free but Jack insisted on the payment (for about ten days in advance, via texts from Hotch's phone). The party had been the day before on a Saturday, day after the actual birthday for which the team barely made it back to DC at a decent enough hour for Hotch to wish his son 'happy birthday' in person on the date rather than just over the phone in the morning.
It was all a party of an eleven years old boy could be. Great fun for most of the kids and a little bit awkward gathering for the adults. At the very least those adults that realized that a birthday party of a prepubescent child wasn't a best place and time for looking for potential spouses and parents to one's current and/or future children.
Lunch was lunch and also a very inconspicuous birthday party for Spencer and the memory of it, of Hotch and Jack during it and after, when they were parting their ways, was enough for Spencer to not even consider reaching out to Hotch in the aftermath. At the very least not without Hotch reaching out to him first. He should have reached out first.
And then there are things which Todd doesn't say, not just yet, at the very least not to him. But there are things that Spencer needs to say first.
"I can't take this," he whispers as he pushes the Boston file towards Todd. "Not with this," he gestures at Todd because words fail him, "not with Hotch and Jack missing," he forces himself to say it anyway.
"You can and you will and you will do it because I say so," Todd counters him quickly. "You know why you can't be working on that case, Spencer," he offers heatedly. "You want to help Aaron Hotchner? Then help me make sure that when we will find him he won't end up in jail for the murders he didn't commit," he adds vehemently.
The jab stings but even before Todd gets to the end of it Spencer knows that the older man is right. He's too emotionally involved in the Hotchners disappearance to investigate it. He understands the implications of Todd's statements and what they mean, people they concern and how many days it could have been since the trail has gone cold.
And then it downs on him.
"You weren't supposed to tell me."
"I wasn't explicitly forbidden," replies Todd and he grimaces. "However, I was encouraged to maintain the lie we all lived in for as long as possible so the bureau can investigate people of interest properly and hopefully without them noticing that they're being investigated."
Heavily implied Emily Prentiss makes for a solitary person of interest but plural form needs someone else, a willing or unwilling accomplice. Accepting David Rossi as a person of interest in Hotch's disappearance shouldn't be as easy as it is. Because Hotch and Rossi used to be friends, with Rossi being that kind of friend that's constantly in his friend's business. Yet when it came to Hotch's supposed exit from the bureau the man was completely unaffected by it. Rossi's wedding should have been another red flag.
"Don't beat yourself over that," Todd's voice reaches him.
"I should have noticed," Spencer sighs.
"So should I," Todd points out bitterly. "I shared the desk with Aaron Hotchner for three years. I went into the field with his go bag more times than I can count because we had the same bag, wore things in the same fucking size and the only thing we could tell apart at the first glance was the underwear. I stepped in as the best man at his wedding because his had fallen through and himself was busy. My daughter was their flower girl and the poor thing couldn't stay on point. And the only reason why I wasn't at Haley's funeral…" he finally chokes on that and brings a fist to his lips to cover it up.
Everybody knows why Todd hadn't been at Haley's funeral and no one has held it against Todd, least of all Hotch.
"When we're supposed to leave?" Spencer asks softly, trying to pull himself together because while he can't be looking for Hotch there's another way in which he can help the man.
"Franklin's team is flying back home from Los Angeles, they have a mid-landing in St Louis to pick up Reyes and his team," Todd replies pensively, frowning as he says it. "I'd say four hours, three and a half if you will met the crew on the runway."
"What about the media? Does the bureau has a strategy ready or has it been left to my discretion?" Spencer asks.
"Grant's," Todd points out, frowns and then he adds. "But if you'll see an opening to go big, go big."
That's an odd suggestion and Spencer conveys that thought into a slightly hitched eyebrow.
"I can't really explain it," Todd clarifies. "I can't rule out all possibilities either," he sighs. "And they're endless, Spencer," he pauses.
They are and Spencer knows that. He also knows how highly unlikely most of them are but much like Todd Jackson he'll continue to believe in those in which Aaron Hotchner and his son live until the evidence proves otherwise.
"One of your gut feelings?" asks Spencer.
"Wishful thinking," Todd corrects him as he stands up. "For what it's worth, Spencer," he adds after a moment of hesitation. "I'm sorry."
"I know," Spencer replies. "Just bring him home, Todd and I will make sure that he won't be going away anywhere else."
Todd leaves moments later, making a stop at Luke's desk to collect Luke's transfer papers. Spencer can hear them talking while texts the rest of the team the meeting time and underlines the necessity to depart shortly after. It gets him three texts that say: ok. Ashley's text, which is last, is followed by: lunch from Marcelino?
There's no way he would be able to stomach anything right now or in near future but if he'll say no then instead of one lunch bag to deal with he'll have three. Feeding him (and trying to fatten him up) is their form of looking out for him.
He texts Ashley back with lasagna which is about the only thing he can put away without processing that he had eaten something. But that isn't going to be his concern for another two to three hours when they will get back to BAU.
In the meantime he needs to prepare. For his team and Boston PD. The first won't be much of a problem on the copycat front. He should be getting access to digital files within minutes.
The problem lies with Foyet's files. There was no hiding from the public that George Foyet was the Boston Reaper. The bureau and Boston PD desperately needed a statement and the good PR that came from Foyet's capture. No one, for even a single second contemplated that it was exactly what George Foyet had wanted all along. Boston PD files are available for public viewing without bits and pieces of verbal reports. Everything that came after his escape from prison however is classified, separated by individual cases. Had been from the start really and Replicator's access to what was available had only ended with further fragmentation and increasing the security clearances.
These days the full access to Foyet's files is limited to the three most important directors in the bureau and to agents that worked individual cases. Spencer, due to his own injury, is an oddity but his access to all case files had been granted by Aaron Hotchner and no one had messed with it since. And now he's the only agent in the bureau that not only has access to the case files but had also lived through it.
He witnessed firsthand what monsters like George Foyet or Peter Lewis or Cat Adams do to people just because they're convinced that they can get away with it. Will this copycat be the same?
The knock on the door startles him out of his thoughts. It's quickly followed by a questioning, "Aaron Hotchner?"
I need to fix that, he reminds himself as he looks up to the door. The intruder is a woman of small stature; long, fiery red hair; fairness of her complexion heavily implies that the color itself is natural. From the distance that separates them he cannot tell the color of her eyes, aside of that they aren't brown or her position in the bureau.
"Excuse me, Agent Hotchner," the woman says, sounding a little nervous, "I'm looking for SAC Spencer Reid."
"That would be me," says Spencer as he stands up, gesturing with his right hand at the chairs in front of his desk and with his left at his own name plate. "I just happen to work with middle-schoolers who consider that an appropriate form of name calling."
"Isn't name calling supposed to be insulting?" the woman offers as she approaches the desk, she isn't rushing towards it but neither she's hesitating. "Special Agent Patricia Donahue," she adds, hesitating slightly over extending her hand to him, which he grabs in a brief squeeze because he has less issues with handshakes these days. "Your TA if you will allow it. I was coming in with Agent Anderson but he stepped away to accept a call and told me to go ahead."
Spencer smiles at that when she sits down because he knows Grant and his calls. He also knows that Grant was working the TA angle, in fact he had told Spencer to butt out and not interfere with an expression that could either make Spencer a very happy Unit Chief or a very miserable one.
Her surname rings a bell, as does the barely there accent. It sounds Irish to his ears, the surname definitely is Irish in origin. Means dark warrior which doesn't exactly suit the woman but Spencer used to known the man that it had…
… and that man had three nieces: Kelly, Saoirse, and the oldest of them, Patricia. And if Spencer's math is right (which is always) once upon time little Patty Donahue should be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. And much like their mother, Michael's sister-in-law, all three girls were red-haired.
Grant Fucking Anderson.
"How is Papa's trip doing?" he ask without a preamble because if he's wrong then she will just tell him.
She smiles at the question and relaxes into the seat before she answers, "He and Tom made it to Iceland and they're goading Saoirse into flying to them with all of their lousy photos. I reckon she's like three weeks from breaking. Kelly says it will be six or whenever they will reach the shores of the old country," she replies before she pauses briefly. "How did you know?" she asks after a moment of hesitation.
He gives into a quick smirk before he answers, "I don't know if you had heard it yet but I'm provably a genius, the Unit Chief of the most efficient team in BAU and I happen to know my people."
"That much I heard," Patty replies with a smile. "I also heard that you had problems with retaining technical analysts."
That's an understatement and not really Spencer's fault. Unlike some people he knows that one shouldn't mess with people that are capable of destroying one's life with a single click. He adapted to the parade of technical analysts that followed Garcia's departure from BAU. He treated each of them with respect but he too grew weary when Rossi successfully managed to spook three of them within six weeks. So he adapted as best as he could. That said as efficient as he tries to be he's still miles away from achieving the same level of efficiency a trained analyst can.
And to the contrary to what he leads everyone to believe he isn't a technophobe. He just intensely dislikes putting too much faith in one (often too easily) hackable basket that can die at the most inconvenient of times. He maintains three emails outside of his official FBI one, uses a smartphone and bitches that the screens of tablets and e-readers still slow him down (not as badly as they once used to but still).
"I don't believe that we're going to have that problem anymore," he offers because he isn't David Rossi. "But I have to ask. Why BAU?" he prods out of curiosity.
"I love horrible working hours," she deadpans. "With a main course of the responsibility for the cybersecurity of the unit and a side of potentially mentally scarring images that might or might not keep me in therapy for years to come."
"And crappy pay for dessert," he supplies.
There's no beating around the bush about it. The pay at the level Patty should be now is crappy. Manageable but crappy. Not that it will be something to write home about until a couple years more down the line. His own isn't too bad but he just recently but not literally celebrated his nineteenth year in the bureau's employ; he has multiple degrees that also contribute to his paycheck; and then there's the bump he gets for being the guy that signs other people's paperwork. Financially he's at this point of his life where he can live off comfortably from just his FBI paycheck without dipping into his savings or supplementing his finances with abusing the predictability of hazard machines.
"I know," Patty replies with a smile. "Which is why my training schedule was a little odd. I entered academy as both cadet and support personnel. I know that the counselors try their best to discourage things like that but what isn't expressly forbidden…" she pauses and smiles again.
"Can become an exception," he finishes. "So SA or TA or SATA?" he asks.
"My ID says SA but I don't really mind wearing it in a way that would make covering the SA part hard or being called TA around the office. In the field, if you will allow me to go into the field, that's completely up to you," she answers.
"Clearances?" he asks.
"A moment," she replies before she stretches out to get her bag.
Moments later he has her file in his hands and is reading through her resume, letters of recommendation. He notes master degrees in Cybersecurity Engineering and Information Technology along with recommendations from IT department and Cyber Division. Both recommend the other primarily but agree that Patricia Donahue would be a great addition to any division or unit that could utilize her abilities.
She also has and that's what matters to him all of the necessary security clearances that she should have. Probably Grant's doing if he had been thinking about bringing her on board for a while.
"So where do you want me to set up?" she asks when he closes the file.
It's a tough question because he knows where he wants to set her up as BAU technical analyst. In Garcia's former office with the access to all of the servers so she could start working on cybersecurity of the unit right away. Problem is that two and half years after she had left FBI it still remains Garcia's office. Out of the things he can and does hold against Matteo Cruz and Emily Prentiss not looking for Penelope's replacement wasn't one of them. They both did their best but their best never lasted long. Not really surprising considering that for almost a decade Penelope did the job of two and on occasion three people.
And while everybody agreed that she deserved to do what was the best for her and that at the time what was the best for her was getting the fuck out of FBI filling the void left by her exit wasn't easy. Personalities of new hires were never a problem for Spencer, particularly by the time he became the Unit Chief because at that point Rossi went through many TA that couldn't measure up. Spencer also quickly stopped counting at their presence and between reading the manuals left by Penelope and bothering other divisions TAs he became sufficient enough at operating the database that he could substitute for TA if none was working at the moment.
The problem with setting Patty up in Garcia's office is that her presence will be noticed which isn't really a good thing until he's sure of what will became of his current neighborhood.
And then there's this bloody mess of a case. He can theorize all he wants about the intentions of Boston PD but he won't know anything for certain until they'll get there. Once he knows what he's up against on that front he can start working against it. And the more eyes and hands he will have on the actual case in question the better.
"How about starting with fieldwork before we'll set you up with an office?" he offers. "I have a messy case on which I could use another pair of eyes and hands. It would also allow you to interact directly with the entire team and develop a rapport in person rather than over the phone."
Only a small hitch of eyebrows betrays her initial surprise but it passes quickly before she asks, "What do you need from me?"
TBC