Wildest Dreams

Chapter 26

It's been three weeks since Y/n's trial. Three painful weeks. I haven't been able to focus on much of anything since. I have only read six books in this time, a significant drop from my usual twelve per week. She consumes all of my thoughts, and I know I won't be able to get closure for a long time.

I'm sure my coworkers have noticed the change in my mood. They're profilers, and they're good at their jobs. Thankfully, none of them have tried to confront me about it, until now.

Garcia calls us into the roundtable room under the guise of a new case. When I enter the room, all of the other agents are staring at me, including Hotch. Oh shit.

"What's going on?", I ask.

"Take a seat, Reid", Hotch says.

I do as he says, albeit hesitantly. I take my bag off of my shoulder and rest it against the leg of the table before adjusting my sweater. The others sit beside me, all having files on the table in front of them.

"For the past three weeks, you've been acting weird", Garica starts.

"Weirder than usual", Morgan adds teasingly.

"Don't interrupt", Garcia chastises. "As I was saying, ever since you came back from your visit with your mom, you've been off. You haven't been reading as much, you look exhausted and I can't remember the last time you told us an interesting fact."

I slink further down in my chair and I feel my cheeks start to burn. I hate being the center of attention like this.

"We were all worried about you, so I did some snooping into your records. You purchased a plane ticket to Las Vegas, but it wasn't a round-trip like usual. You also made reservations for three nights at a hotel, but you checked out after the second. Looking back to your previous trips, it seems like you stay with your mom at the home when you visit, so this was the first thing that tipped me off."

Garcia picks a folder up from the table and drops it down in front of me. The cover is blank, and when I open it, my stomach churns. Y/n's name bleeds over the page, along with mine. It's a transcript of the trial.

"Derek told me about the woman you dreamt about, who just so happened to be the unsub on that case a few months ago. Now, I knew that you were interested in doing more research into the case, but you actually went to testify."

That is technically true. I did ask for Garcia's help to get the samples of Y/n's handwriting for the trial, but I never told her anything that she didn't need to know.

"You presented the evidence at the trial to try to prove her innocence, but she was still sentenced."

"Did you call me in here to make me relive this?", I snap.

"We are trying to help", Rossi assures.

"I was able to pull a few strings and managed to get my hands on some more evidence that may work in Y/n's favor", JJ says.

"Proving her innocence won't be enough. Eleanor Wright told me herself that she killed those people, we just have to prove it", I tell them.

"She's good, I'll give her that, but she's only an individual. She doesn't have the resources to cover all of her tracks. She has to have a trail and we will find it", Morgan says, no longer poking fun at me.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves that had spiked at the beginning of this interaction. I close the folder in front of me because the picture of Y/n watching me on the stand, a look of adoration on her face, is a little too much to handle right now.

"Why are you doing this? None of you believed me before", I ask quietly.

"There wasn't any evidence before. Not all of us rely on our heart to lead us around, Reid", Emily says with a sad smile.

"I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds here, but I would like to explore the possibility of me defending Y/n for the retrial. Obviously, it would be up to her, but I would need her contact information", Hotch speaks up.

My eyesight starts to unfocus and everything in my peripheral vision becomes blurry. My head doesn't start to spin, exactly, rather it feels fuzzy and slow.

I push my chair away from the table and stumble slightly as I rush out of the door. I make my way down the stairs carefully and just as I feel my stomach churn, I grab the small trash can from underneath my desk.