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"The world wants a prodigy, and they want to watch a prodigy fall." -Marlo Payne Rice
1: A warrior must only take care that his spirit is not broken. -Anonymous
They've been on the case of a child murderer for four months when the cracks started to appear. Hotch noticed them in Gideon first, quick to anger, quicker to violence. He never notices them in Reid. Too little sleep, too much coffee, hands a little jittery, nothing new. It's still Reid who figures it out, his big brain working out the puzzles that the killer carved into the trees. They finally catch him, right after he hangs another child on a tree outside Georgia. Gideon's already up the tree, leaving Hotch on the ground trying to pull Reid of all people off the unsub before he kills him. Once Reid stops fighting Hotch goes to hand him off to Morgan and is surprised to find Prentiss there instead. Reid goes slack in her arms as Morgan cuffs the unsub.
When they get back, Hotch finds a transfer request on his desk, and signs without hesitation.
2: Wine hath drowned more men than the sea. -Thomas Fuller
Reid has been in a bar every night for the last five nights. The first with Morgan, getting drunk on beer and laughing at the college girls that seems to fall at Morgan's feet. Morgan had been the one who had taught him about beer. A trip up in Wisconsin, a serial rapist that time, and the art of the microbrew caught Reid's attention.
Garcia is always up for a night at the bar, whether just with Reid or with the whole gang. The second night they drink something rum laced and beat three other teams at Tuesday Trivia. There were high fives and even a little dance as they loudly preened over their victory. It was the forth week in a row, and became the third bar they'd been banned from playing in.
The third night Reid went with J.J. Tequila shots were declared the night's drink, and Reid matched J.J. shot for shot. He couldn't match her accuracy at darts though and sat out after the third round and a profuse apology to the table nearest the dart board. J.J. could still hustle the local boys out of their cash seven shots in. Reid couldn't even stand, let alone walk in a straight line. They ended up sleeping on her living room floor.
Prentiss tagged along on the forth day, when Reid mentioned he was going to pick up some dinner after work. He hadn't intended on drinking, but Prentiss ordered a bottle of wine which they ended up finishing off. He followed her home after she offered Babylon 5 DVDs and more wine. They switched to a bottle of cheap coconut rum sometime around "Comes the Inquisitor." This time he managed to make it to a bed. It's sort of pink and frilly, and he's pretty sure Prentiss didn't pick out the decor, but it was better than a living room floor.
The last night, Reid drank by himself. Bourbon, the sort that Gideon used to favor, back when Reid was more of a teaching assistant then a field agent. In those days, Gideon would've been the one buying, but tonight Reid has no idea where Gideon is, and that's okay with him. He's drunk enough that the bartender calls Hotch to come and get him.
3: There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. -Oscar Levant
Hotch first noticed it as they were loading the unsub into an ambulance. Reid just stood, expressionless, staring at the body. At the time, Hotch assumed that it was just shock, the adrenaline of the hunt leaving Reid. Now, he knew it was the beginning of the end. At first it was little things, Reid would lose track of a conversation, bobble a word or two. Hotch knew that the case had been getting to Reid, but he just figured the kid needed a vacation.
He started worrying when he overheard Reid talking to thin air. Overheard the muttered, "You're not real, you're not real." He worried even more when Gideon noticed, knowing that it wasn't just his imagination. In the end, it wasn't that Reid's genius had left him, he'd been the one to solve the last case he worked, it was just that it had slid over that fine line into insanity.
4: If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will. - Antonin Artaud
Gideon finds him. Finds the body. The body that used to be Spencer Reid. Gideon had kicked in the door, and stands in the doorway frozen for long moments.
He doesn't care that it could be a crime scene. Doesn't call nine-one-one, doesn't put on nitrile gloves, just walks into the apartment.
Gideon doesn't drop to his knees beside the body. He feels too old for that sort of dramatics. Instead, he maneuvers Spencer's body back on his couch.
He stands there, staring at the body. Neither of them moves for a moment. Then Gideon walks to the kitchen, wets a hand towel and returns.
As carefully as he can, Gideon washes the body's face. Soft swipes removing traces of pain, of blood.
Gideon is interrupted by a neighbor. She gawks at the kicked open door, then turns tail and runs.
Then there are sirens, and then police, and then the paramedics take the empty body away. Gideon just sits on the couch until Hotch takes him away.
5: "Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them." -Alice Sebold
The lights of the Los Vegas strip are drowned by the flashing police lights. Elle stands in the background, letting the local PD do their job. Spencer Reid is bent over the hood of a police car, one of the local uniforms slapping him in cuffs, none to gently. He's covered in blood, and for once it's not his own. Carl Heber is dead, and Elle is damn proud of Reid. There's no one else left to be proud of him.
Elle heard about Gideon's last little mistake two month into the aftermath, three month before today. Morgan, dead in the unsubs' parlor long before Gideon even arrived on the scene. Chaos when they'd found him. FBI agents swarming the scene, flack jackets and helmeted heads everywhere.
The team had come straight in from the office, no helmet to protect her replacement's pretty head. No flack jacket to prevent the shot that killed Hotch. The unsub hadn't even bothered to take a shot at Gideon, the man had just grabbed Hotch's lifeless body and held on as the blood soaked through to his skin. Reid and JJ both hit their target, but the other unsub, the dominant of the pair had gotten away clean with his victim. The six year old girl had been left in the county sheriff's front stoop the next day.
The BAU, not that there had been a lot left of the BAU, had been taken off the case two days later.
Now Reid is in Vegas, standing right in front of her, the last unsub's blood pooling on the cement. Elle knows Gideon, the old Gideon, wouldn't approve, but she does. Which is why she's going to pay his bail three days later, why she's going to put him in her car and drive them both away from this thing.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay