Evolution, a Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 26. Puzzle Pieces

Reid didn’t tell Ana everything.

He left out the odor of sweat and fear and human effluvia that had gusted out of the crate containing Sarah when they’d ripped it open. He left out the lurid bruising and cuts on her body that spoke of the mortal struggle she’d waged…and lost…against her attacker. He left out the details of the bodily fluids the murderer, Arthur Brandenhoff, had sent down the air tubes to his victims.

Such details were in the autopsy and police reports. Relatives of victims rarely asked to read the full account. And they were never offered the opportunity. If Ana’s parents had asked, they would have been given full disclosure of their youngest daughter’s captivity and death. But Reid felt, if they had, it was up to them whether or not they shared the information with Ana. He wasn’t about to subject her to that. He lived with it daily. It was part of his job. But he wouldn’t pass it on willingly.

What he did tell her was scary enough. At least, Reid thought so.

He told about slipping and letting his boss know there was something even stranger than an eidetic memory residing in his brain. He told about his first visit to see Dr. Bescardi and how Hotch had helped him ease the team into learning about his new abilities. He even told her about losing himself in a killer’s mind and about Hotch’s ill-advised bravery in retrieving him. And he spoke of Sarah and how they’d found her at the end of a wild dash through an unknown town and a trackless wilderness.

When Reid was done. His tears had stopped, leaving only dull, salty tracks on his hollow cheeks. Ana had stayed by his side the entire time, both of them gazing out over the park vista before them, but not really seeing their surroundings. He appreciated that she hadn’t insisted on looking into his eyes while he told her sister’s story. If she’d been judging him, he would have seen it. But she rendered her presence unthreatening simply by avoiding eye contact and letting the warmth of her nearness seep into him.

It was comforting. Reid would have been happy if it never ended.

Of course, it did end. After he fell silent, Ana stirred and sat up.

“I don’t understand, Spencer.”

“What?” He couldn’t think of anything that would make his story clearer. More horribly visceral, yes. Clearer, no.

“Where does the guilt come in?”

He was baffled. “What…I  didn’t…what…what guilt?”

“It’s all over you. It’s covering you and…muffling you. It’s everywhere.”

It was Reid’s turn to stare and to say that he didn’t understand. And it was Ana’s turn to tell her story. Reid learned about a childhood of loneliness and wondering if you hid your talents, whether that might give you friends and dates and dances. He heard his own story, but from a feminine point of view. He also realized that Ana was ‘gifted’ in a similar way. Same, but different. Except, she’d had her ‘gift’ from birth; had grown up with it…grown into it. His had been a sudden deluge of strangeness in an already odd life.

When it came to empathic abilities, Ana was the stronger. Reid had needed to touch Hotch to feel the full extent of the man’s pain and sorrow. Ana knew people’s feelings just by looking. It was a little daunting for her to tell Reid about his sense of guilt. The team had tried to talk him out of it, so he thought he’d buried it deeply enough to be able to fool them. And if he could hide it from a group whose profession was deciphering such secrets, it should be virtually invisible to the rest of the world. But Ana ‘saw’ it as though he were carrying a sign proclaiming culpability.

“It’s not your fault, Spencer.” She didn’t sob or weep uncontrollably. What tears Ana shed when speaking of her sister were quiet; like punctuation in a powerful language whose sole purpose was the communication of grief. Reid supposed she had worn herself out with crying already.

“But if I’d been just a little faster, a little less…scared…to look into her killer’s mind, you might still have her.”

“And if she hadn’t gone to the mall, or parked where she did, or gotten out of bed that morning, or…done anything differently at any time…things might have been different.”

The young agent shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but a few minutes might have made all the difference. That means I was the one who let her slip away.” The defeat and self-loathing Ana saw on his face alarmed as well as angered her. She moved from his side to an angle where he was forced to confront her directly.

“Do you want to know what you really did? Really?” Ana could see the conflict: he was afraid of blame, but confirmation of it would somehow free him to let himself be devoured by it. She saw he was tired of so many things. The struggle to hide his strangeness as well as his guilty conscience. The struggle to function in a world where he found so little support. Mostly, Reid was tired of wanting things he believed he would never have. It was all lumped together in a roiling mass. Ana saw a Medusa-like ball of writhing strands that desperately needed untangling. She faced him squarely.

“Let me tell you exactly what you did, Spencer Reid.” His eyes were dark, waiting for another episode of condemnation and desertion to add to his lifetime tally. Waiting for her to destroy him.

“You found her. You gave my mom and dad and the rest of our family a last moment. Mom told me. She said, as bad as it was to lose Sarah, as painful as that will always be, she was just so grateful to, and I quote, ‘the young man they said found her against all odds.’ Now that I know how it was for you…how new you are to using your mind that way…I can’t wait to tell my family that I met you. I met the one who risked everything to give us the gift of ‘goodbye.’” Ana released Reid from her gaze and settled back, leaning against him once more. “That is no small thing. Don’t you dare discredit it.”

It was what Rossi had said. For a moment, Reid wondered if Ana had somehow taken the words from his own thoughts…his memories of the moment J.J. announced Sarah’s death…,but the power and conviction behind Ana’s speech marked it as original material. As something born deep within her heart.

And when she slipped her hand into his, there was no room for doubt.

Reid gasped. He rarely touched or was touched by anyone. This was so different from anything he’d experienced. Touching Hotch and Sarah’s murderer had been uncomfortable in very different ways. This was…indescribable. But, being Reid, he had to try to quantify and label new discoveries.

It’s a thousand incredibly intricate puzzle pieces slipping into place simultaneously. It’s a flash of brilliance that blinds, but leaves greater vision when it passes. It’s…completion.

He turned his head and looked down at the girl beside him. She tilted hers up and gave him a sly, sidelong glance. Her Mona Lisa smile was back.

“I know,” she said.

As Ana watched, the tangled mass of Reid’s insecurities and needs and misconceptions unraveled just a little. She sighed. It was a start. The rest would take time. When he squeezed her hand, she knew he was feeling it, too. It was the beginning of a process.

So two of the most unique people Central Park would ever host, sat beneath their tree, holding hands, learning each other in a most unusual way.

Osmosis, thought Reid.

Nice, thought Ana.

xxxxxxx

From a bench not far away, an elderly couple had been watching the discussion and drama enacted by the young man and woman beneath the tree. When Reid and Ana finally fell silent, hand in hand, the old woman smiled at her husband of sixty years.

“Remember when that was us?”

“Like yesterday.”

“I wonder if they’ll stay together.”

The man sighed and turned his face to the warmth of the sun. “They’re happy now. That’s all that matters.”

His wife watched the young couple a while longer. She closed her eyes and joined her husband in basking in the beautiful day. He’s right. They’re happy now. And ‘now’ is all any of us have.