Honesty - Criminal Minds || Spencer Reid Fanfiction

8. Out With It

"I finally figured out that not every crisis can be managed. As much as we want to keep ourselves safe, we can't protect ourselves from everything. If we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos." ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The Daughter

My heart was pounding as I rode the elevator the next morning. I hadn't received any 'you have nine point seven seconds before I beat you to the coffee-pot' texts from Spencer. This, was extremely unusual, to say the least.

But I suppose it wasn't anything I didn't deserve.

As a matter of fact, I still had seventy-eight seconds until Spencer would be in the office, and I made sure of this because I wanted to be there before everyone that morning in order to talk to Hotch. Alone.

I knew it'd be easier for everyone if I just told them the truth about my past, but I couldn't. There was a reason I'd kept it buried; mostly out of protection and oath. But after Caitlyn's appearance in New York the day before, I had known Garcia would've found something, but I couldn't quite believe she'd been about to announce everything to the whole team. 

I was still hurt, and completely outraged. 

The team had every right to be angry at me for keeping something huge from them, but we all had secrets. Secrets of the field, secrets of the career. When you were in this line of work, you had to keep skeletons in your closet. There was no room to be dragging that shit around with you.

"Melanie, a word?" Hotch said the second I was at my desk. I'd opened my mouth to ask if I could talk to him, but apparently, I was just too slow.

I rose from my desk and froze momentarily as I realised what had been so off about his words.

He'd just called me Melanie.

I gulped back the dread as I followed him up to his office where he closed the door behind me.
"Please, take a seat." He gestured to the sofa where I sat down while he stood in the centre of his office; his hands in his pockets.

"I am so sorry for not telling you sooner," I apologised. "But you have to understand, I changed who I was because I was scared. I was left with no choice. You must understand that that information wouldn't be classified without good cause... I've worked hard to keep my past buried, and that's where I'd like it to stay. I have enemies that I don't want finding me again, the last thing I wanted was for that information to be found and passed around." Hotch was nodding his head.

"You don't have to explain to me, Melanie, I completely understand."

I hadn't been called Melanie in such a long time. But to hear my father calling me the one name I'd been shut off to... it made me feel like all of those wrong decisions had been right. Somehow.

"Y-you do?" I stuttered, blinking up at him in confusion. He nodded and sighed, taking a seat on the coffee table a couple of feet in front of me.

"I do," He admitted. "You done what you thought was best to protect yourself. I would have done exactly the same thing if I were in your shoes, and believe me, after everything that happened with your mother and the New York Terrorist Cell, I wanted to start my life all over as someone completely different too. 

"But I couldn't. I had a family and a team here, I couldn't just drop all of that and change. But you were young, impressionable, with your whole life ahead of you and no ties. Whatever happened in your past, was awful enough to have you running. That I can only begin to understand." Hotch sighed and shook his head sadly.

"Have you read the file?" I whispered, looking down at my clasped hands.

"No," he said firmly, shaking his head. "That information, you can share with me in your own time. I understand what you had to do for your safety, you have done what any good agent would do...