Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nate turned a glass of Jameson around on the table, rings of condensation circling out around it like he was seeing triple. The brewpub had a few lingering clients here and there, though they seemed to have been drawn in by the garlic and parmesan fries Eliot added to the menu rather than the brews. It was easy to spot the client as she stepped through the door— her hair had mostly fallen free from a days old ponytail, her sweater a size too large, and files clutched to her chest. Her eyes swept across the pub and Nate lifted his chin in hello as they fell on him.

Swallowing hard, she walked across the bar, and slid into the booth opposite him. Judging by her bloodshot eyes, she hadn’t gotten a good night's sleep in days. Nor a shower by her frizzy hair. Papers were poorly tucked into the manilla folder she held tight with both hands, like she thought it were going to be ripped from her.

“Nathan Ford?”

“That’s me.” Nate sipped his drink. “I take it you’re Lindsey McNeil?”

Lindsey nodded.

“Your message said you think the hospital your brother was institutionalized at… caused his death?”

“I know they did, but no one will listen to me because they all believe Johnny killed himself.”

Nate raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“No, that I believe, but they’re the reason why,” Lindsey said. “Johnny had depression. Once he hit high school, he… he would have months where he couldn’t get out of bed. We tried therapists and meds, but when his most recent psychiatrist suggested he try something more intensive, he agreed because… because he wanted to get better.”

“Okay…”

“But he wasn’t getting better. As soon as we checked him in, they cut off all contact with us except to make sure the payments were rolling in. They diagnosed him with MDD, Bipolar I, Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and a whole bunch of other disorders. After they kept refusing us visitation, I said I was going to take him home, and they got a court order to keep him there for his own safety. I hadn’t… I hadn’t spoken to him in three months by the time he…”

“Is that his file?”

Lindsey clutched it tighter. “I had to bribe one of the nurses to get it.”

“May I see it?”

Lindsey’s fingers tightened, then finger by finger she pried her own grip free to set it on the table. Nate pulled it closer, flipping through the documents, medical jargon blurring before his eyes. Blinking hard, he forced himself to focus on the list of medications he was being prescribed— six different pills, a baffling mix of uppers and downers. There were no therapy notes in the files, but the diagnosis and observation listed Johnny McNeil as being agitated, violent, and paranoid. Apparently he was convinced the staff were attempting to harm him and attacked several staff members.

“It’s all lies,” Lindsey said. “Johnny wasn’t violent. He was… he was sad. He didn’t even have the energy to brush his teeth most days much less to be getting into fights with staff members.” 

Nate nodded.

“He was… he was a good guy. Even on his bad days, he would try to make me laugh because he didn’t want me to worry about him. He just… he needed help, and instead they used his suffering to drain my bank account dry.”

“How much did they take from you?” 

“Mr. Ford, My brother’s dead. I want that placed burned to the ground, not a pay out.”

“I understand.”

“I tried cops, lawyers, but no one’s listening.”

“I hear you.” Nate looked over the file. “Can I keep this?”

Lindsey hesitated.

“I’ll return it. I promise.”

Lindsey brushed her hair back from her face. “Yeah. Okay.”

Knocking back the rest of his whiskey, Nate headed upstairs to their headquarters, and called for the others. 

Alec clicked his remote to start the briefing. “Morningside Psychiatric Hospital is a for-profit hospital--“

“For profit hospital?” Parker asked.

“Owned by private companies they keep all the profits and they operate on different standards of care,” Nate said. “They also have higher mortality rates.”

“—here in Portland,” Alec said. “It’s the top rated mental health care facility in Oregon, it gets a lot of its revenue from referrals from other hospitals and rehab centers. It popped up about ten years ago and it’s run by this guy, Dr. Adam Heron.”

“What do we know about him?” Sophie asked.

“Comes from old money, like, don’t worry about paying off med school old money which is also how he got this hospital up and off the ground and oh, boy, let me tell you he’s raking it in now.” Alec pulled up his financial statements alongside a toothy headshot —like the doctor expected to be on the silver screen not in medical journals— on the screens.

“Any negative reviews?” Eliot asked.

“Nah, but I’ll bet they’ve got people scrubbing them,” Alec said. 

“What about fatalities?” Nate asked.

“Aside from Johnny McNeil, no.”

“What about transfers to other hospitals and then fatalities?” Nate asked.

Alec frowned, tapping at his keyboard. “I… yeah. Yeah, there’s a couple transfers back to in-patient wards after their cash dried up, and when they got let go because of over crowding they…”

“Some ended up on the streets, a couple ODs, death by accident without proper supervision, or suicide.” Eliot skimmed the files on the screen.

“Yeah, I mean, it looks like most of the patients there are in it for the long-haul, less of a treatment center and more of a permanent residence situation,” Alec said. “They’ve even got a couple boarders being paid for by the state who were declared unfit for trial.”

Parker frowned. “Don’t they have state facilities for those?”

“Yeah, but there’s overcrowding, so it looks like they sent some of the more difficult cases to Morningside who had the capacity and resources to handle them.” 

Sophie stepped closer. “So, they wring every penny they can out of insurance plans and families who want their loved ones to get better by… falsifying records? Getting court-mandated holds?”

“I think it’s worse than that,” Nate said. “Johnny’s prescriptions had a number of medications that could react negatively with one another.”

“You think they’re making them sick,” Eliot said.

Nate inclined his head. “Families would need proof that their loved ones needed to be there or else there would be public outrage.”

“They think their loved ones are in the hands of trained professionals who can deal with psychotic breaks and personality disorders.” Alec shook his head. “And instead the doctors are exacerbating their symptoms to keep them longer.”

“It’s despicable,” Sophie said. 

“How do we take them down?” Parker asked.

Nate drummed his fingers. “Do you remember Nellie Bly?” 

“You want one of us to go undercover as a patient here?” Alec asked, tapping a finger to his nose. “Nah, no way, not it.”

“No, I want them to think there’s an undercover reporter there and I want to watch them scramble,” Nate said. 

“Quickest way to find the skeletons is making them think someone’s onto their grave site,” Eliot said.

“And you say Parker’s creepy,” Sophie said with no small amount of judgement.

“She is,” Eliot said.

“Boo!” Parker lurched forwards like she was going to jump on him.

“Do not,” Eliot said sharply.

Parker launched herself off the couch. Eliot caught her to keep her from slamming into the wall behind him and then proceeded to try to pry her off like a barnacle from a boat. It was a futile attempt. Parker climbed over his shoulder like a cat, and settled in for a piggy back ride. 

“I’ll drop down onto the ground right now, squish you like a damn bug, don’t think I won’t.”

“You won’t,” Parker said. “Bring me to the kitchen. I want dinner.”

Eliot scowled, stomping off. “I’m not cooking with you on my back it’s a goddamn hazard.”

Alec watched them go with amusement before turning back. “Fake IDs all around?”

“Ooh.” Sophie clapped her hands. “I’ll be Dr. Isles, pioneering brand new therapeutic approach—“

“Nate’s already got a doctor alias I’m going to reuse. So do you want nurse, janitor, or concerned family member?”

Sophie pouted. 

It took them the rest of the evening to slap together their con. Come morning, Nate was strolling into Morningside as Dr. John Johanna a temporary replacement as one of their doctors got an emergency call from a patient half way across the country. Or at least that’s what Nate told the front desk as he flashed his credentials.

“Yeah, I work over at county usually, but apparently you’re short staffed this weekend, and man, I could use a little extra billing to pay off those med school loans, you know?”

“Yes, it looks like your privileges have been approved, Dr. Johanna,” she said, handing over a badge. “You’re covering for Dr. Devin, so I assume he’s briefed you on his patients?”

“Yes, of course,” Nate said.

“I’ll buzz you in.” 

The receptionist unlocked the first door, his badge unlocked the second, letting him into the day room. Pristine white walls, stiff furniture, and windows with two panes of thick glass. A few of the chairs were occupied by patients with glazed eyes staring out the windows (or at the walls), there was a lethargic card game at a table, and a young women curled up in the corner pulling at her hair and talking to herself. Orderlies milled about, but it looked more like prison guards making their rounds, none of them bothering to actually speak with the patients they were supervising. 

“Hardison, what do you know about the rest of the staff?” Nate asked under his breath.

“You’re wondering who is getting paid off?” Alec asked.

“Something like that.” 

As a doctor, Nate had the most access to the place, but was also the most likely to get caught without extensive medical knowledge or treatment procedures. Eliot had gone as a new hire orderly and was getting the training rundown, faintly, Nate could hear about proper holds for violent patients and use of restraints in his earpiece. Sophie was attempting to get let in for visiting hours —rather unsuccessfully— by playing a teary aunt. 

The smell of hospital grade cleaner clogged his nose. It was funny how he could knock whiskey back without a problem, but a whiff of rubbing alcohol had his hands shaking. Breathing through his mouth, Nate left the day room, heading deeper into the hospital. There was a woman in a white coat trying to convince an elderly lady to take a paper cup full of pills. 

“Dr. Archer,” Nate read off her pin. “I’m Dr. Johanna. I’m filling in for Dr. Devin for the weekend and he told me you were who I should ask to get me up to speed.”

Archer straightened up with a sigh. “The weekends are usually pretty calm, the patients have group therapy Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as well as individual therapy once a week. Weekend staff are mostly responsible for making sure their patients are keeping up with their medication regime and emergency sessions. I assume Dr. Devin at least briefed you on his patients?"

“Yeah, oh yeah.” Nate whistled. “Pretty interesting bunch. One of his cases is absolutely convinced there’s someone spying on all of us. Says they’ve been taking notes, taking pictures…"

“Paranoia is common with many severe mental illnesses,” Archer said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure that’s it.” Nate nodded, stepping away. “Anywho, nice to meet you. Better get started. A lot of patients to heal, right?”

It took a few tries to locate the offices. Through thick doors he could hear the murmur of therapy sessions, calm soothing tones, and agitated voices. Jimmying the lock to Dr. Heron’s office took him twice as long as it would any of the rest of the team, even with Parker in his ear.  

“This place is locked up tighter than a bank vault,” Parker said. “I mean, the windows have two sheets of glass spaced four inches apart and some of them even have mesh between them. I would need a glass cutter, wire cutters, and a glass cutter again just to slip inside. Even the roof access has like three locks.”

“Are you in?” Nate asked.

“I’m in, heading down the elevator shaft to the basement now,” Parker said.

“Good. See what you can dig up.”

Sifting through the files, it took him a few tries to find Johnny McNeil’s therapy notes. Spreading them out across the desk, he snapped photos of them before tucking the file away in the drawer again. Except he left it in the C’s section. Sticking a bug under the desk, out of sight. He put a second in the opposite corner of room— not exactly easy to spot, but not impossible either. 

“Nate,” Eliot said under his breath. “If you’re still in that office, get out. We're heading your way."

Nate slipped out of the office, voices just around the corner, but the offices were a dead end and he didn’t have time to pick another lock. On the opposite end of the hall were the patient rooms, if he could just get past the crossroads... Stealing a glance down the hall, he caught Eliot’s eye and a second later he was shouting, “Hey, are the patients allowed to do that?” All the orderlies turned to look back the way they came, and Nate used the opening to cross the hall, and slip into the first patient room his key card unlocked.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

Nate turned to find a young man sitting on his cot, knees drawn up to his chest, and books scattered around the room in various stacks. Long hair fell in his face, bandages wound around his arms, and his eyes glassy but fixed on him.

“I’m filling in for Dr. Devin for the weekend, he won a last minute cruise. I’m Dr. Johanna.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

Nate raised an eyebrow. “Four years of medical school and I’m not a doctor. My mother would be so disappointed.”

“You never went to medical school,” the patient said with a hint of amusement.

“What makes you say that?”

“Your shoes,” the boy said.

Nate looked down. “…my shoes?”

“They’re not comfortable. The first lesson you learned in your residency after spending hours on your feet would be that you needed a decent pair of shoes to make it to the end of the day.”

“Maybe I ditched the habit after becoming a psychiatrist. I spend most of my time in my office and my clients come to me.”

“And didn’t use any of your paycheck on higher quality clothes? Unlikely.”

“I’m frugal.”

The boy tilted his head to one side, giving him an unimpressed look. “You brought a pen in here.”

“And?”

“And I’ve been deemed clinically insane and therefore incapable of defending myself in trial after being accused of killing thirteen people which you would know if you were actually a temporary member of the staff instead of someone who managed to swipe keys and a coat. You would also know not to bring any sharps in here."”

“Ah.”

The boy drew his knees in closer, resting his cheek on top as he looked him over. “Are you here to kill me?”

“No.” 

“I thought…” the boy’s eyes glazed over. “I thought maybe the families might come. Might take their revenge since the court won’t put me away.”

“You don’t sound clinically insane to me.”

“I am,” the boy said. “Or they made me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why not? Since it won’t go to trial?”

“Since it’s true now.” The boy’s eyes fixed on something in the distance. “I’m always alone, but it’s never quiet.”

Nate followed his eyes, but there wasn’t anything in the corner of the room to fixate on. “Who talks to you?”

“Ghosts.”

“Is that who told you I’m not a doctor?”

The boy’s eyes slid back over to him, looking amused again. “No, I used to work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit with the FBI.”

“The Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Nate repeated.

“The BAU— profilers? Nate, are you blown?” Alec asked over the comms.

“How does an FBI agent end up in an institution?”

“He gets framed for thirteen murders… or maybe he commits thirteen murders, I don’t remember what’s true and what’s not anymore.” The boy’s head cocked to the side as though listening. “If you’re not here to kill me, why are you posing as a doctor?”

“I’m an undercover reporter—“

“No, you’re not.”

Nate clicked his tongue. “No. I’m not, but I am investigating Morningside for malpractice.”

“Malpractice,” the boy repeated as though turning the word around in his mouth. “I thought this was private owned, not Oregon State Hospital.”

“Oregon State Hospital?” 

“But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen,” the boy tilted his head to the side as he smiled.

Nate gave him a long look. 

“The orderlies will have finished their rounds,” the boy said. “If that’s what you were waiting for."

“How do you know that?”

The boy’s eyes fixed on the corner of the room again. “I know a lot of things. It’s the unknowing that’s hard.”

“Nate, we just finished our walk around. Get out of there,” Eliot said.

Nate slipped back out into the hall, only to duck into an empty patient room across the hall as a nurse and an orderly made their way down the hall. Leaving the door cracked, he watched them unlock the boy’s door.

“You gonna give us trouble today?” One of them asked.

“The Due Process Clause states I have the right to refuse any and all medical care,” the boy said, voice barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have any rights when you’re declared incompetent by the state." 

The boy shrank in on himself. “They’re making me worse.”

“Or when you’re a serial killer,” the other said, stepping forwards. “So are we getting Jekyll or Hyde today?”

“Dr. Jekyll wasn’t entirely good. He was still a flawed character—"

“Jekyll. Or Hyde.”

The boy held out his hand accepting the pills and swallowing them down before tucking his face down into his shoulder. 

“Jekyll it is,” the man said, stepping back.

Nate waited for them to pass --locking the boy’s door firmly-- before stepping back out into the hall, heading towards the day room.

“Hey, guys?” Parker’s voice chimed in his ear. “Is electro-shock therapy still a thing? Because there’s these like scary machines in the basement that look kinda like that.”

“Electro-convulsive therapy is still around, typically for people with severe depression, but it’s changed a lot,” Alec said.

“Snap some photos,” Nate said. “And make sure to leave a breadcrumb.”

“Aye, aye,” Parker said. 

“Doctor.”

Nate startled slightly as the orderly addressed him. “Yes, what can I do for you?”

“We have a patient who is acting up, can you administer haloperidol?”

“I… yes, of course, just let me go get the, uh, the haloperidol.”

The orderly held up a little vial and a syringe.

“…and wash my hands first. You know those pesky infections.”

The orderly looked unimpressed, holding out blue gloves. “Doctor, we barely have her restrained, put on some gloves and administer the injection.”

“Right.” Nate pulled on the gloves.

The orderly led him into the day room where four grown men were restraining an elderly lady who was trying to gouge out their eyes. 

“No! No! You won’t get my life insurance you bastards! It’s all going to my cats!” She cried.

“Nate, are you really going to do this?” Alec asked.

“Looks like.” Nate took the needle, holding it over the vial.

“It’s 5 milligrams according to medicalguidelines.org,” Alec said.

“Oh that fills me with confidence,” Eliot said. “Nate, do not stick that woman with that needle. If she’s got any type of cardiac problems you could kill her.” 

“At least it’s not .com?” Parker said.

“What difference does that make?” Sophie asked.

“Dot org is way more trustworthy than dot com,” Parker said. 

Nate filled the needle, hovering over the woman who tried to kick it right out of his hand.

“Doctor, now!” One of the orderlies snapped, pinning her leg.

Nate could hear the phantom beep of a heart monitor, the needle nearly slipping through his shaking fingers, and gloves sticky with cold sweat. 

“For the love of—“ One of the orderlies snatched the needle and stabbed it into her bony shoulder.

The woman’s fight slowed to a twitch, still mumbling about people trying to take her life insurance as two orderlies hauled her out of the room. The other two turned to look at him.

“What hospital did you say you were from?” One of them asked.

“Uh, county.”

“County,” the other repeated slowly.

“Oh, look at that, I’m getting paged…” Nate made a hasty retreat out from behind the locked doors, leaving his badge on the front desk, and heading to the parking lot.

Sophie was sitting in the passenger side of his car, Parker laying down in the back, turning Polaroid photos over in her hands. Getting behind the wheel, Nate pulled out of the lot, heading back for the pub.

“They let you in?” Nate asked. 

“Didn’t even make it past the front door,” Sophie said.

“Parker?"

“Left a couple Polaroids laying around. I suppose our made up reporter is a bit of a careless one.” Parker waved the photos.

Nate nodded. “Hardison? Do a deep dive on Spencer Reid.”

“Spencer Reid?”

“From the BAU.”

They waited for Eliot to finish his shift at the hospital before starting their second briefing of the week. 

“Dr. Spencer Reid.” Alec brought up the photo. 

“Doctor? That kid looks like he hasn’t even made it out of college,” Eliot said.

“Graduated high school at the age of twelve, went on to get doctorates in mathematics, engineering, and chemistry before being recruited by the FBI.”

“The FBI?” Sophie’s eyes widened. “What is he doing in Morningside?”

“Six months ago he was charged with thirteen counts of homicide, but declared unfit for trial, and shipped off to Morningside due to lack of resources.”

“You got his file?” Nate asked.

“Yeah.” Alec opened up the medical documents. “Looks like they diagnosed him with schizophrenia, reports of hallucination, delusions, extreme paranoia. Says he was convinced someone set him up, that he was being drugged…”

“Could he be?” Eliot asked.

“I don’t know,” Alec said. “I mean those case files are sealed, like, no amount of running it under hot water, banging it against a counter, using a rubber band gonna get it open kind of sealed.”

“So, no, you don’t have access to his case,” Nate said.

“Not yet, no,” Alec said. “I mean with a little time I can hack my way in, but I figure that’s a little outside our goals here, isn’t it?”

“We’re here to shut down Morningside, not reopen an investigation into a serial killer,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, but if he is innocent, who’s going to listen to him?” Parker asked.

“Where’s his family? Friends?” Nate asked.

“Uh.” Alec tapped at his keys. “Dad bailed when he was ten leaving him to… leaving him to take care of his schizophrenic mother who he had committed once he turned eighteen. No other relatives.”

“Friends?” Parker asked tentatively.

“There’s no visitor logs or phone calls since he was transferred to Morningside. It looks like the other members of his team tried to talk to him when he was first arrested, but once the evidence was laid out… no more visits.”

“They thought he was guilty,” Sophie said.

“And left him to rot,” Eliot said.

“He could actually be guilty,” Alec said. “I mean, yeah, Morningside’s shady as hell, but Dr. Reid was declared unfit for trial and then sent to Morningside, they couldn’t have been drugging him before he even got through the doors.”

Nate looked at the photo of Dr. Spencer Reid standing alongside his team during a press conference. “How old is he?”

“Twenty-three,” Alec said. 

“Let’s go steal a serial killer.”

Chapter Text

By the time Eliot stepped through the doors of Morningside for his evening shift, he found the top doctors scrambling. All of the faculty had been called in despite it being Sunday and were pulling the patients into their office’s for “emergency sessions” which Eliot was pretty sure meant interrogations about a possible leak. The camera in Dr. Heron’s office had been found, but not the microphone under his desk recording every word.

The linchpin in their plan was far more subtle than an undercover reporter. It was Alec hacking the system to approve any and all patients for visitors. Including an actual reporter visiting her supposedly schizophrenic sister, a detective visiting his “delusional” best friend, and a judge visiting his “psychotic” son. All of whom were sitting in the dayroom when Dr. Heron’s conversations with his staff somehow ended up on the loudspeakers.

“I don’t care what you have to do, I want to find that reporter even if it means you have to beat it out of the patients. If it gets out that we were drugging them, we won’t just lose our licenses for malpractice, we’ll go to jail.”

Eliot didn’t stay to watch the rest of the puzzle pieces fall into place, heading back to the patient rooms with the chaos for cover. Unlocking the door for Spencer Reid’s room, he stepped inside. 

Bruises circled the boy’s wrists. Glassy eyes fixated on the corner of the room as he sat up against the headboard, knees drawn up to his chest, and idly picking at the hair tie around his wrist. Dr. Spencer Reid wore cotton pajama pants and a moth-eaten sweater. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his chapped lips bloody. 

“Hey, kid.”

Spencer startled as he glanced over, though Eliot could have sworn there was a flicker of disappointment in his eyes as they landed on him. “You definitely don’t work here.”

“No, I’m actually here to kidnap you.”

“Oh.” Spencer’s eyes flicked around the room before landing on him. “Because I hurt those people?”

“Did you?”

Spencer drew his knees closer. “I must have or else they wouldn’t leave me here.”

“Who?”

“My team,” Spencer said. “If I wasn’t guilty they… they wouldn’t have left me here.”

Eliot’s jaw worked. “I’m going to tie you up and carry you out that window, understand?”

Spencer held out his hands. “And then what?”

Eliot tied his hands first, then crouched down to bind his legs. “Then I’m going to take you somewhere to meet my team.”

Spencer looked down at him. “Are you going to kill me?”

Eliot’s whole body stilled, looking up at him. “No.”

“You’re not wearing a mask.”

Eliot stepped away to jimmy the window, the other pane already taken care of by Parker, and a rope awaiting him. “Yeah, well, I figure you’re not exactly a trustworthy eye witness, now are you?”

“…right.”

Eliot hefted him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “Don’t squirm, we’re four stories up.”

Spencer was ragdoll limp over his shoulders as he climbed down the side of the building. Not even putting up a protest when he set him in the trunk of a car which was more disturbing than kicking and screaming could ever possibly be. Sophie had purposefully parked the car where the surveillance cameras would catch it— after all, escaping from custody itself could stick the kid with a five year sentence.

“That was easy,” Sophie said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

“That’s what concerns me,” Eliot said. 

It was a quiet drive back to the loft, Sophie parking the car in the alley beside the brew pub. Spencer blinked up at him as Eliot popped the trunk open, letting himself get tossed over Eliot’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes without a word. The others were waiting in the loft.

“Is that him?” Parker asked.

“No, I just grabbed a patient at random,” Eliot said, setting him down on an armchair, and crouching down to undo the ropes.

“This is our serial killer?” Alec asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Alleged,” Nate said, stepping closer. “Dr. Reid, my name’s Nathan Ford. I pick up where the law leaves off and I think the system’s failed you.” 

Spencer stared at him with wide eyes.

“By tomorrow, Morningside will be shut down once it has been revealed that Dr. Heron was drugging his patients to exacerbate and even falsify symptoms that would lengthen their stay at his facilities.” 

Spencer rubbed at the inside of his arm, eyes sliding away. 

“Which means that come morning you would have been shuffled off to some other facility where the drugging may have stopped but that doesn’t exactly change your situation, does it?”

“It’s what I deserve,” Spencer told the floor. “If I hurt those people.”

“You said in your earlier sessions…” Nate flipped open his file. “I’ve be framed. Even if I had a schizophrenic break, most schizophrenics are non-violent and if I had been, my team would have noticed. Serial killers who are schizophrenic are disorganized and incapable of properly concealing their tracks. I never would have been able to kill thirteen people without the best profilers in the country figuring me out.”

Spencer curled in on himself.

“You’re a profiler.” Nate wiggled the file. “And you admit to being in an altered state, but you also know that the very fact that you were experiencing psychosis makes you a disorganized killer which is in direct conflict with the highly organized and concealed crime scenes.”

“It’s improbable, not beyond the realm of possibilities. If the kills were… were during a drug induced psychosis that I surfaced from once it wore off and then proceeded to cover my tracks.”

“Were you on drugs?” Nate asked.

“I don’t know.” Spencer’s nails dug into his arms.

Nate held up the photos of the victims. “Did you kill these people?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer’s voice raised slightly. “I used to be able to quote every book in Cal-tech’s library and I don’t… I don’t even know what today is. I don’t know.” 

“Have you ever killed someone before?” Eliot asked.

“Philip Dowd, 34. Killed two people, shot and rescued eight. Long distance serial killer with hero syndrome. Tobias Hankel, 28. Suffered from dissociative identity disorder, his two other personalities killed seven people. Organized visionary serial killer,” Spencer said, as though reciting it. 

“Do you remember killing anyone else?” Parker asked.

Spencer’s eyes went unfocused. “I… I remember the photos.”

“You remember the…?” Alec shook his head. “You know a study in the UK took 30 students college and managed to convince 71% of them they had committed a crime as a teenager in a friendly interview setting?”

“And I can bet your interrogation wasn’t so friendly,” Eliot said.

Spencer flinched slightly, talking just loud enough to be heard. “It was a sixty sample trial, thirty were told they committed a crime the other thirty a false emotional event, 76% of the other group were also convinced of a false memory with no relation to criminality. It was done by incorporating details of their actual lives into the stories.” 

“So you know how easy it is to create false memories,” Nate said.

“If there is nothing that needs correcting in the world memory, the only thing left to do is correct reality where it doesn’t agree with that memory,” Spencer told the floor.

The others exchanged baffled looks. 

Eliot frowned. “What were they giving this kid?”

“Uh, anti-psychotics and sedatives supposedly,” Alec said. “But who knows, man.”

“Parker.” 

Parker disappeared and returned with their first aid kid. Eliot snapped on a pair of gloves, grabbing the IV rigging, and stepping closer. Spencer pressed his back against the chair, curling in on himself.

“I’m just going to take some blood so we can test it.” Eliot crouched down before him, needle in hand.

“If you drink much from a bottle marked poison it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later,” Spencer said, barely audible.

“There’s nothing in the needle. Hey, look.” Eliot held up the needle. “It’s empty. I’m just taking a blood sample.” 

Spencer’s eyes flickered to him, but there wasn’t a lot of recognition.

“Alright,” Eliot said quietly.

Reaching out slowly, he tugged up Spencer’s sleeve. There were track marks on the inside of his elbow, veins stark against his pale skin. Tying a band around his arm, he slid the needle in. Spencer flinched, trying to pull back.

“What are you giving—“

“I’m drawing your blood,” Eliot said.

“I don’t want it.”

“I’m not giving you anything. I’m taking your blood. Look.” Eliot held up the vial. 

Spencer chewed on his thumb. 

“And I’m done.” Eliot handed the vial off to Parker behind him as he pressed gauze over the mark. 

“It is not in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from tortured memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” Spencer said around his thumb.

“Edgar Allen Poe,” Eliot said.

Spencer’s eyes fixed on him as though only just realizing he was there. 

“Let’s get you something to eat, then. C’mon.” 

Slowly, Spencer unfolded himself from the chair, trailing after him like a shadow to the kitchen, but Eliot paid it little mind. It wasn’t any weirder than Parker dropping down from the ceiling like a damn bat. Making a cup of coffee, Eliot loaded it up with sugar and milk when asking got no answer. Spencer’s eyes seemed stuck to the reflective surface of the microwave. 

“Hey.” Eliot stepped between him and his warped reflection. 

Spencer blinked up at him.

“Coffee.” 

Spencer curled his hands around it like the joints of his fingers were rusted, his thank you barely audible. Scrambling a couple eggs, Eliot made a few pancakes for good measure incase the kid couldn’t keep more than simple carbs down. The coffee didn’t appear to bring clarity, but the sugar eased a degree of the twitchiness. Not exactly uncommon for someone with a habit. Spencer held onto the cup like it was salvation. 

“It’s Thursday.” Eliot set the plate before him. “Barely, considering it’s four AM.”

Spencer’s eyes met his then, fell away. “Thank you.” 

“Food’ll help.”

Spencer tore the pancakes into smaller and smaller pieces, but barely ate any. Parker had disappeared with the blood sample. None of them were exactly proficient in the medical arena aside from basic field medicine, but she could certainly sneak the sample into the nearest hospital’s testing queue, and wait for the results. The coffee at least got drunk.

“When’s the last time you got some sleep, kid?” Eliot asked, resting his elbows on the counter as he stood across from him.

Spencer gave a slight shake of his head.

Eliot’s eyes lingered on the marks where his sleeve slipped up. “Those bruises the worst of it or is there more?”

Spencer’s shoulders curled in.  

Eliot nodded. “How ‘bout a change of clothes and a hot shower?”

Spencer’s eyes flicked up to his.

“And we’ve got a winner.” Eliot led him up the stairs, grabbing a set of his own clothes to set on the ensuite bathroom. “Do me a favor and don’t kill yourself, yeah?”

“Pinky promise,” Spencer said mildly.

Eliot snorted, heading back down the stairs. Parker had returned, still wearing a pair of hospital scrubs that she must have nabbed, and sitting on the back of the armchair despite its wobbling. Alec sat down on it before it could tip over backwards, acting as a counterweight. Sophie was thumbing through Spencer’s Morningside file with a frown. Nate was looking contemplatively out the window— what he was thinking was anyone’s guess.  

“Is it really a good idea to leave him unsupervised?” Alec asked.

“What’s he going to do? Climb out the bathroom window? It’s a four story drop,” Eliot said. 

“That might be an upside if he’s… you know…” Sophie trailed off.

“No suicidal tendencies in the file,” Nate said.

“Yeah, cause the file is so sound,” Alec said.

“Is four stories even enough to—“ Parker made a sharp motion with her head. “—blehhh?”

Eliot stared at her. “You have no tact, do you?”

Parker sat up straighter. “Never needed it before. Hey, are there more pancakes?”

Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose. “Warming in the oven.”

“Yes!” Parker hopped to her feet.

“Chocolate chip?” Alec asked.

Eliot sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Yes, there’s chocolate chip.”

“Aw, see? That’s how you know he loves us.” Alec slapped his shoulder as he passed. 

“We should start with a list of possible enemies, if we’re thinking someone set him up,” Sophie said. 

“I mean, that can’t be small working as an FBI agent,” Eliot said.

“We’ll get Hardison to dig through his case files,” Nate said. “Starting recent and going backwards.”

Spencer tiptoed down the stairs, absolutely swimming in a borrowed Henley and a pair of sweats rolled over a few times. Eliot knew how deceiving looks could be, but at the moment he looked a lot more like a scared college kid than a damn serial killer. His long hair dripped onto his shoulders, curling slightly as it dried.

“Mmmghts,” Parker said around a mouthful of pancake, holding one in her hands despite the melting chocolate chips.

“Chew, swallow, then speak, please, Parker,” Sophie said with a sigh.

Parker gulped down her mouthful, holding up her phone— chocolate fingerprints on the screen. “I got the blood results.”

“And?” Nate asked.

“Ketamine, amphetamine, lysergic acid diethylamide—"

“LSD?” Alec asked. 

“LSD, speed, and K,” Eliot said.

Alec whistled lowly. “No wonder you thought you were losing your mind, you were tripping balls.”

Spencer chewed on his thumb, blood pricking up from the torn skin. Eliot tugged his hand away from his mouth, giving him a mug to keep his hands busy, and herding him deeper into the loft. 

“We need a list of anyone who might do this to you,” Nate said.

Spencer sat down in the armchair again, tucking his feet up underneath him, and sipping at his fresh cup of coffee.

“It looks like your last case was here, in Portland.” Alec tapped at his computer, bringing up a clip of a press conference on the big screen.

A stern looking man in a stiff suit stood before the reporters, a blond woman to his left, and the head of the local police department to his right. 

”We are looking for a white man in his forties or fifties of average height. We believe he is using a ruse to lure women into his car. He may be pretending to be injured or having car difficulties. It is imperative that you take precautions. If you can avoid it, don’t be out late at night. If you can’t, don’t travel alone, stay in well lit areas, and avoid strangers.” 

It took Eliot a moment to realize Spencer was mouthing along with the press conference even though he wasn’t looking at the screen.

“You catch him?” Eliot asked.

“Mm.” Spencer scrunched up his nose as he thought. “White male. Mid-forties to fifties. Sexual sadist. Abducted women in their thirties on their way home from work. Waitresses. Abducted older waitresses who… who reminded him of his mother. Kept menus as souvenirs. Diners. Diners open all night in the comfort zone. Three diners.” 

Eliot felt like he could see the gears catching in Spencer’s mind where he stumbled over the details of the case. “Can’t remember?"

Spencer’s grip tightened on his mug, eyes shut tight. “I… I stayed back. At the precinct while they staked out the diners.”

Nate turned away from the screen. “Why did you stay back?"

“I was…” Spencer opened his eyes, but seemed to get lost on his way to the rest of the sentence.

Nate stepped into his line of sight. “Are you having a difficult time remembering now or were you having a difficult time keeping track of what was happening then?”

Spencer chewed on his lip, giving a slight shake of his head.

“Did you start having a difficult time concentrating after you were arrested or before?” Nate tried again.

Spencer didn’t answer.

“What are you thinking?” Alec asked. “That he was drugged before getting to Morningside?"

“Either he was drugged before he got to Morningside to set him up for the murders or he had a schizophrenic break and the drugs at Morningside exacerbated it,” Nate said.

“Why don’t we just wait for the drugs to wear off then?” Parker asked. “I mean, either he’ll still be… y’know. Or he won’t."

Spencer curled in tighter on himself.

“It’s not that simple,” Eliot said.

“In people genetically predisposed to schizophrenia long term exposure to drugs like these can cause a schizophrenic break,” Nate said.

“So even when the drugs wear off he’ll still have schizophrenic symptoms,” Sophie said softly.

Nate nodded. “The symptoms won’t be as bad without the drugs to exacerbate them, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever be… entirely un-symptomatic."

Spencer’s grip was tight around his coffee cup, but there wasn’t any surprise in his features.

“You knew that though, huh?” Eliot asked.

Spencer nodded slightly.

“What about anti-psychotics?” Parker asked. “I mean, like, actual ones not whatever Morningside was prescribing. Will those help?”

“In theory, yes, but dosage and medications are unpredictable, we would need an actual psychiatrist to handle it and probably a few trial runs before finding the right fit. Not exactly a timely solution for a fugitive framed for thirteen murders,” Sophie said.

“Spencer.” Eliot caught his eyes. “Do you want to wait for the drugs to wear off before we try to figure this out or do you want to keep going?”

“Go forwards? Only thing to do! On we go! So up he got and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter,” Spencer said without any inflection.

“The Hobbit,” Alec said, snapping his fingers. “That’s from The Hobbit.”

“Does The Hobbit mean yes or no?” Sophie asked.

Parker tilted her head to one side. “Sounded more yes-ish, than no-ish to me.”

“Yes-ish it is,” Nate said, grabbing a paper and pen. “Write down anyone who might want to frame you for murder."

Spencer took the paper, scratching away for a concerning amount of time. Although when Eliot realized he had trailed off from writing names, he took the paper back. Below a list of names was a scrawling drawing of perhaps the creepiest deer-like creature Eliot had ever seen. By the look of the names, they were all serial killers who had been put away or their families. Eliot handed off the list to Nate, who skimmed it.

“Alec, prioritize getting your hands on these case files, then start going backwards from the arrest,” Nate said. “Looks like we have a long day of reading to do.”

Parker groaned, flopping backwards onto the couch, but didn’t complain further. Alec hacked into the FBI database, printer working over time so they could each dig through the files as Alec tracked down the movements of potential suspects a map on the big screen with color coded points of the BAU’s movements for the last six months as well as the suspects locations according to cellphone data. It looked like a color by numbers to Eliot’s eyes. Spencer stayed curled up in the armchair, but he watched the dots appear on the screen until his blinks slowed down and forehead came to rest on his knee. Even in sleep his fingers twitched.

“We’re sure he was framed?” Eliot asked. 

Nate’s eyes lingered on Spencer, face hidden in his knees, and hands drawn up protectively, fingers twitching as he stirred. “I’m sure we couldn’t leave him in that hospital bed."

Chapter Text

The BAUs files were far more well guarded than Alec anticipated. Whoever their technical analyst likely was recruited. As cybercrimes became a bigger threat the government made a decent number of deals with several hackers to insure their own security the same way private companies often employed rather shady characters to test their own defenses. Alec would bet his Xbox the BAU’s own analyst had cut a deal with the feds. 

Once he managed weasel into the system, Alec started with cases where there could have been potential grudges either from unsubs or their families. As far as he could tell, while Spencer Reid had been invaluable in dozens of arrests, none of the criminals the BAU had taken down had a money trail leading to a frame job. It didn’t stop him from reading a news article about how Spencer Reid had walked onto a train, unarmed, to take down a delusional gunman with close up magic. 

“You, Dr. Reid, are a damn badass.” Alec glanced away from his computer.

Spencer was still curled up into a ball in the armchair, fast asleep. Sophie and Nate had retired to actual beds, but Eliot was stretched out on the couch. Despite the soft spot he obviously had for the kid there was no way he would leave a potential threat unattended. Especially not with Alec only fifteen feet away with only his laptop for a weapon. Parker had made herself comfortable along the top of the couch like a dozing cat, one hand just barely brushing Eliot’s shoulder.

It made Alec's ribs ache trying to contain the warmth he felt for them. Eliot was a fighter. It was who he was and he had decided that they were a worth cause to dedicate himself to. It wasn’t something Alec took lightly. Parker wasn’t a fighter, she was a survivor. She knew when to fight, when to run, and when to hide. Money, priceless art, even the damn Hope Diamond she would leave behind if she had to. Bunny was the only thing Alec knew that she ever risked going back for. Her, dozing on top of the couch on account of a potential threat meant something else. Meant that she had decided they were something she wasn’t willing to survive without.

Alec was a lover, but hey, someone had to be.

Eliot woke up first. Eyes sliding open and the usual tension he carried with him settling in. As he stirred, Parker’s fingers twitched, one eye sliding open to take in the room.

“Go back to sleep,” Eliot said, rising to his feet.

Parker rolled off the back of the couch down onto the cushions, stealing Eliot's lingering body heat with a content hum. Alec snorted. Eliot rolled his eyes, shuffling off towards the kitchen.

“I want waffles,” Alec called after him.

“I’m not running a fucking restaurant,” Eliot said.

“Just a brewpub?”

“Partial owner. I’m a partial owner.” 

“So is that a no on the waffles, or…?”

Eliot flipped him off without looking away from the coffee maker. 

Alec listened to him bang around in the kitchen as Sophie descended the stairs not looking even slightly sleep rumpled in her designer clothes and styled hair— clearly she kept an emergency everything on hand for crashing at the loft.

“Good morning,” Sophie said, accepting the mug of tea Eliot handed her. “Thank you.”

Alec held out his hand expectantly.

Eliot nudged Parker and pointedly gave her a mug first (more milk than coffee and with carefully rationed sugar) before taking a sip of the other mug in his hands.

“I know that coffee is for me,” Alec said.

“Why would I make you coffee?” Eliot asked, taking another sip.

“No, I know that coffee is for me because I can see clear as day there’s oat milk in there and you only drink yours black because you think it makes you look manly, so hand it on over now.”

Eliot took a longer drink.

“I swear to god, man, you do not want to withhold a man’s caffeine. So hand it on over and nobody gets hurt.”

“How about, thank you Eliot for making me coffee and breakfast?” 

“I’ll thank you if breakfast is waffles.” Alec held out his hand.

Eliot’s eye twitched, but he gave him the mug, stomping back towards the kitchen where his own coffee was waiting him on the counter in a mug Parker had painted on one of her outings as Alice. It said, “World’s Best Eliot” on it.

“Thank you!” Alec called after him, taking a sip of coffee made in the fancy little French press Eliot liked.

Eliot grumbled under his breath about ungrateful assholes.

Spencer made a wounded noise in his sleep, curling in tighter, but not waking. 

Sophie perched herself on the arm of Alec’s chair, peering at his screen. “Anything interesting?”

Alec sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “No, not particularly. Dr. Spencer Reid here has made plenty of enemies over his career, but most of them are behind bars and it doesn’t look like anyone they keep in contact with was itching for revenge.”

“Contract workers?” Nate asked, leaning over the rail, not nearly as put together in his jeans and wrinkled t-shirt, and goddamn that man could use a comb… or a shower with shampoo and conditioner. 

“Not according to the money,” Alec said. “No big withdrawals or shuffling funds around or anything like that.” 

Nate looked contemplative. 

Spencer woke so violently he threw himself to the floor and nearly upended the armchair in the process.

“Easy there,” Nate said, descending the rest of the way down the stairs.

Spencer pressed himself back against the foot of the armchair, looking at them with wide eyes.

“You remember where you are, man?” Alec asked. “…or who we are?”

“We kidnapped you,” Parker said helpfully, noisily sipping her coffee.

Alec sighed. “Parker, you can’t just…”

“What? We did.”

Eliot crouched down in front of Spencer, holding a cup of coffee. “It’s Thursday, we took you from Morningside about ten hours ago. You dozed off while we were trying to figure out if you were framed. We’re gonna have breakfast then get back to it.”

Spencer nodded slowly. “…right.”

Eliot offered his hand. Spencer stared blankly at it. Wrapping his hand around Spencer’s narrow wrist, Eliot tugged until he got with the program and rose to his feet, pulling his sleeves over his finger tips when Eliot released him. Eliot held up the coffee, taking a sip, then holding it out. Spencer wrapped both hands around it, drifting after him as Eliot headed back to the kitchen, but giving Nate a wide berth.

“He’s good with him,” Sophie said.

“Eliot’s good with people,” Parker said easily.

“That’s not exactly how I would describe him,” Nate said with a touch of amusement.

Sophie gave a hum. “Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome, I mean, Eliot was the one to grab him after all.”

“No, Eliot’s…” Alec tried to find the right word to describe the way Eliot spoke to scared kids, he barely gentled himself, didn’t talk down to them, or placate them, he was just…

“Steady,” Parker said.

Alec snapped his fingers, pointing to her in agreement. In the kitchen, Eliot was dicing vegetables as though they had personally wronged him. Spencer had tucked himself into the crook between the fridge and the counter as he sipped his coffee like he was watching his very own cooking show. Or maybe he was making sure nothing got slipped into the food.

“Steady,” Alec said. “Doc could probably use a little bit of that right now.” 

Eliot did not make waffles. Instead he served up omelettes and breakfast potatoes. Parker’s omelette had only cheese inside, placed a careful distance away from her pile of potatoes, which were kept safely separate from the dollop of ketchup so she could dip them herself rather than have it drizzled over top. The rest of them were served omelettes with cheddar, ham, and caramelized onions though Alec was pleased to find his came with a glass of orange juice. Spencer hovered a step behind, clutching his own plate.

“Sit.” Eliot pointed to the armchair. “Eat.” 

Spencer tucked himself up into the chair and mumbled something that sound like, ‘kidnapping and breakfast, four stars on Yelp’. The omelette he cut up into tiny pieces but left largely untouched as he picked at the potatoes. Parker took the plate from his hands when it was clear the rest of the food wouldn’t be finished, ditching it in the sink, and returning with one of her own protein shakes.

“Don’t worry,” Parker said. “I only buy the chocolate kind so it won’t taste like chalk.”

“…thanks.”

“What’s our best suspect so far, Hardison?” Nate asked.

Alec clicked his tongue. “Well, I combed through the list of suspects pretty thoroughly and it doesn’t look like any of them are coming for revenge, which means…”

“It’s likely someone closer,” Sophie said. “A more personal motive.”

Alec nodded. “It seems like most of the people Spencer interacted with on a daily basis worked for the FBI which keeps their personal information locked down pretty tight. Honestly, I could barely look into most of the BAU’s cases aside from getting the names of the unsubs and the victims, the case details were pretty much inaccessible. I’m pretty sure they’ve got a hacker on the inside—“

Spencer’s lips quirked up slightly, but didn’t say anything.

“—and the other contacts in the data I stole from Spencer’s phone is his the visitor’s number at his mother’s hospital, her doctor, and a psychiatrist who works for the FBI.” 

“Psychiatrist?” Nate asked.

Alec pulled up her information. “Yeah, uh, Dr. Weems, looks like she does psych evals for the feds which is how I’m assuming Spencer met her—“

“No, my psychiatrist was Dr. Fell,” Spencer said. “Dr. Weems was my originally appointed therapist, but she ended up taking a sabbatical before our first session.”

Alec frowned, tapping at his computer. “Dr. Fell has privileges at Morningside, but was not a part of the faculty. Looks like he’s on call for the FBI mostly, but he’s an independent contractor it looks like.”

Spencer twisted at his sleeves. “It’s mandatory to be psychologically evaluated after being injured in the line of duty.”

“Injured how?” Nate asked.

Spencer’s head twitched as though listening to something in the distance. 

“Dr. Reid?” Sophie asked. “Spencer? How were you injured?”

“I was… abducted.”

“Abducted?” Eliot asked.

“Tobias Hankel had two alternate personalities, his abusive father, and the angel Raphael who was on a mission to eradicate sinners.” Spencer chewed on his lip. “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice the magic arts, the idolaters and all liars— the will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” 

“Revelations,” Nate said. 

“You were abducted by a serial killer?” Alec asked. 

Spencer chewed his thumb bloody, eyes fixed in the corner of the room. 

Eliot’s eyes flicked over him. “And tortured?”

Spencer tucked one foot under himself. “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” 

“Yeah,” Eliot said, jaw tensing. “That’s sums it up pretty well.”

“Hardison, what do you have on Tobias Hankel?” Nate asked.

Alec tapped at his screen, pulling up a news report. “A wealthy couple in Atlanta were killed in there homes after a Super Bowl party at which point the BAU were called in—“

Spencer tucked his face into his shoulder as a picture of a stern looking man and a blonde woman stood before the cameras giving a press statement. 

“—because this psycho left a very disturbing police call before the kills saying he was punishing the sinners for having too much money.”

“Not a psycho,” Spencer said. "Tobias never killed anyone. It was his alters, Charles Hankel and the archangel Raphael.”

“Right,” Alec said slowly. “Uh, he went on to break into another home and kill a handyman and abduct a woman who was, uh, torn apart by rabid dogs.” 

Spencer worried his lip.

“Digging a little deeper, looks like he was big into tech. See, I can’t exactly crack open these casefiles without raising a couple alarms, at least not without a couple more hours… or days, seriously, whoever they’ve got in there is crazy good, but I can definitely hack this dude’s system… oh.” 

The video showed Spencer sitting in a chair under a naked lightbulb, blood matting his hair, and rolling down the side of his face. Dressed in a button down and sweater vest, he looked like someone had kicked the hell out of a TA, not an FBI agent.

“Hankel live-streamed it to his own system and it automatically backed up to his drive,” Alec said. 

Spencer’s nails dug into his arm.

“Turn it off,” Eliot said.

“Yeah, um, yeah.” Alec cleared the screens entirely. “It’s gone.”

“After this, you had mandated therapy,” Nate said. “With Dr. Fell.”

Spencer fiddled with a loose string in his sleeve. “In those with genetic and environmental liability psychosocial stress can play a role in symptoms of schizophrenia. Many first-episodes of psychosis occur after a significant life event.”

“And you killed him to escape?” Sophie asked.

“Yes,” Spencer said, barely audible.

“Does he have any family? Friends?” Sophie asked.

Alec shook his head. “No, no, there’s no one. No family, no close friends. I totally dug through his life, I mean, I didn’t know that he had, um, done all this, but I checked out Hankel and Dowd first out of all the unsubs. I mean, I figured if anyone was going to want revenge it would be…"

“The families of the people he’s killed,” Eliot said.

Spencer snapped the string, twisting it around his ring finger. 

“So let’s go personal,” Sophie said. “Spencer, is there anyone in your personal life who might want to get revenge? A jilted lover? An estranged family member? A fellow agent you double crossed?"

“A little too soap-opera, Sophie,” Nate said.

“Says you, we have a framed serial killer in our loft!” Sophie protested.

“True,” Alec said. “So? Anyone who might want to get back at you?”

“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged,” Spencer mumbled.

“Cryptic,” Alec said.

“Anyone at all you can think of?” Sophie asked. “Motive can be small. Even the smallest slight can be a mortal wound to ego against the wrong person.”

Spencer wound the thread tighter around his finger, the tip turning purple.

Nate looked contemplative. “Forget motive. What about opportunity? Dr. Reid, if someone has been framed for committing murders while traveling across the country, potentially drugged as well, who would have the ability to do that."

Spencer looked up. “Only those traveling with them or who had the means to follow in such close proximity without raising alarm. Either a well financed stalker with falsified identity documents to evade notice or…"

“Or your team?” Nate asked.

Spencer looked down at the thread. “Then I killed them."

“What?” Alec asked.

“If the only other plausible option is that a member of my team committed the murders, then I must be guilty after all,” Spencer said. “I killed those people."

“You have that much faith in them,” Parker said. “That none of them could have committed the murders?"

“The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back,” Spencer quoted.

“So they get brownie points for all those people they’ve saved and you get none?” Eliot asked.

Spencer looked down at his feet.

“Start digging into the team,” Nate said. 

“On it,” Alec said.

“Parker, I want the court transcripts, pictures of physical evidence, everything you can get from the local police."

“Yes, sir.” Parker gave him a wonky salute that made Eliot’s eye twitch before running off to collect her gear.

“Sophie call the families and friends of our serial killers, I’m thinking a reporter or crime novelist, just double check that there’s no leads there to chase,” Nate said.

“Ooh, I have the perfect character for this Delilah Lewis, always wanted to be a glamorous TV crime reporter but never quite made it. She writes crime novels that sell, but nothing noteworthy and dreams of being in front of the camera."

“…sure,” Nate said. “I’m going to make a few calls of my own, see if I can’t find out if this Dr. Fell was getting kickbacks from Morningside to send patients there way, or make them patients.”

“What do you want me to do?” Eliot asked.

“Maybe see if you can get Dr. Reid to answer in something other than book quotes, get a little background info on his team or other leads,” Nate said.

“They didn’t do it,” Spencer told his feet.

“Heard you the first time,” Eliot said. “But your word doesn’t exactly rule them out so why don’t you tell me something that does?"

Spencer chewed on his index finger.

Eliot sighed. “Fine. Then you’re on dish duty, let’s go.”

Spencer trailed after him into the kitchen, settling in at the sink while Eliot picked up a towel to dry. Popping his headphones on, Alec kept digging at the BAUs case files but there was almost no way to access them entirely without alerting whoever set up the system. It was damn near boobytrapped, one wrong keystroke and he was certain someone’s sirens would be going off.

“Who is this? Oracle in the flesh?” Alec muttered to himself. “…actually, if you were recruited you probably had some very interesting web-activity about, what? A decade ago? So if I find traces of your old vigilante hacking they might tell me a little bit about how you set all this up, and give me an opening…"

Alec sidestepped the files he was supposed to be looking for by digging into hacktivism roughly five to ten years prior focusing in on leaked government documents, specifically ones from the FBI. The last known web-activity from legendary hacker TheBlackQueen lined up very nicely with the start of technical analyst Penelope Garcia’s career at the FBI.

“This is like meeting a celebrity,” Alec said, marveling over her code from several years ago, which wan’t anywhere near as nuanced as what he was facing with her protective measures over the BAU files but nothing to scoff at.

It also didn’t leave him any clues how to hack into the BAU files. Yet.

“What is?"

Alec nearly toppled his chair as Parker leaned over his shoulder, appearing to materialize from thin air.

“Woman, you have got to stop doing that,” Alec said. “You got something for me?” 

Parker dropped down onto the arm of his chair with a stack of papers in hand, a few plastic bags by her feet. “I’ve got the court transcripts.”

Alec flipped through them. “In what language?"

“Court stenographers keep their own short hand and type them up into official transcripts later,” Parker said.

“So you basically brought me them in code,” Alec said.

“You’re welcome,” Parker said brightly.

Alec sighed.

Parker picked up the bags, bouncing over to where Spencer was curled up in the armchair, sketching the world’s creepiest deer for the dozenth time. She upended them on his lap, jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, underwear, socks, and basic toiletries tumbled out.

“Okay, we’ve got your basics, all good for layering depending on the weather, obviously, and not too bulky if you’ve gotta pack and move light—"

“He’s not a fugitive, Parker,” Alec said.

“Technically, he is,” Eliot said.

Parker ignored both of them. “—and they’re the good textures, don’t worry, I double checked them myself, no wool, no scratchy tags, no weird seams.”

Alec almost opened his mouth to tell her that not everyone had good and evil textures— something he had learned when one of the costumes she had worn on a case had been so unbearable she started stripping in Lucille rather than wait to get back to the loft— but he kept his mouth shut as Spencer only said thank you.

“You’re welcome,” Parker said, smiling to herself.

Alec put his headphones back on, digging into the transcripts.

Judge: How do you plead?

Reid: Not guilty.

Defense: Not guilty by reason of insanity, your honor.

Reid: "In the 18th century, physicians only suspected that insanity was a genuine illness; today they are sure of it. Yet the evidence for this belief is still only the fact that crazy people talk crazy.” I am not schizophrenic and I am not guilty. I… I wasn’t schizophrenic.

Defense: Not guilty by reason of insanity, your honor.

Judge: We will proceed. 

--

Prosecution: As the leader of an elite team of behavioral analysts, you never once noticed any odd behavior from Dr. Spencer Reid?

Hotchner: Odd behavior?

Prosecution: You, and your team profile serial killers, do you not?

Hotchner: We build profiles for a number of serial crimes, yes.

Prosecution: So in your professional opinion, does Dr. Reid fit any characteristics of the profile of the criminal who murdered thirteen people in cold blood?

Defense: Objection. Hotchner is here not in a professional capacity to provide a psychological profile, but to give context to the behavior he has witnessed of a coworker.

Prosecution: A coworker at the Behavioral Analyst Unit. It would be remiss not to ask what Hotchner’s observations of his behaviors leading up to his arrest to fullest extent of his capacities the same way I would question, say, someone who happened to be a doctor if their friend who dropped dead of a heart attack had any of the signs they would be trained to recognize.

Judge: I’ll allow it.

Prosecution: Does Dr. Reid fit any of the characteristics of the profile of a serial killer?

Hotchner: Yes. That can also be said of myself, or you, or half the people on the jury. Reid is a young, white man, with a family history of mental illness. I’m certain the same can be said for many people in this room.

Prosecution: The profile your team created two weeks before Dr. Reid was arrested said, and I quote, “He will be young, white, and highly educated. He is highly intelligent, but underplays it to prey on those who underestimate him. Tall or otherwise physically imposing, but non-threatening. He will be well-liked, socially adept, and those who know him will be shocked to find out the truth. Some may never believe it even when the evidence stacks against him.” Does this not describe Dr. Reid standing at 6’0” with an IQ of 187, but plays the shy, modest, naive boy? 

Hotchner: Profilers are to be used to narrow search parameters, not to be held next to a suspect like a police artist’s sketch--

Prosecution: No further questions, your honor. 

--

Prosecution: Was there a change in Dr. Reid’s behavior in the past several weeks?

Morgan: Yes.

Prosecution: Can you describe these changes?

Morgan. He was… disorganized.

Prosecution: Can you elaborate on that?

Morgan: Forgetting where he put his belongings, trailing off in the middle of sentences, not responding when I called his name.

Prosecution: Did you confront him about these changes?

Morgan: Yes.

Prosecution: And?

Morgan: And he told me he wasn’t sleeping well.

Prosecution: And you believed that?

Morgan: Yes. It’s not the first time S— Reid has complained of nightmares or insomnia and he had recently been through a traumatic ordeal which is what I believed the behavior to be from.

Prosecution: Believed. Past tense.

Morgan: You asked me what I thought in that conversation. A past conversation.

Prosecution: This traumatic incident you’re referring to is the abduction and torture at the hands of Tobias Hankel?

Morgan: Yes.

Prosecution: Isn’t a traumatic incident, such as that, what you call in behavior analysis a “stressor”?

Morgan: Traumatic events can be a stressor in some cases.

Prosecution: Do you believe this was one of those cases?

Defense: Objection; asking for a professional opinion.

Prosecution: Withdrawn. Concerning Dr. Reid’s abduction, isn’t it true that he was repeatedly drugged with Dilaudid?

Morgan: Yes.

Prosecution: Did you ever have suspicions that Dr. Reid was using drugs?

Morgan: How is this relevant? S— the blood tests were clean after Reid’s arrest. He’s not on drugs.

Prosecution: At the time of arrest, no, he wasn’t, but didn’t the behavior you referred to previously have a lot of overlap with drug use?

Morgan: That’s not my--

Prosecution: Did you, or did you not, ever have suspicions that Dr. Reid was using drugs while on the job?

Morgan: Yes. 

--

Prosecution: Can you tell me about Reid’s behavior in the weeks leading up to his arrest?

Prentiss: I haven’t known Reid as long as the rest of the team, but what I have seen is a young man determined to do good. You can take that as my character witness, my professional opinion, whichever you would like, but no matter how you phrase your questions, that’s my answer. 

Prosecution: Even with the new evidence?

Prentiss: The new evidence?

Prosecution: For the record I would like to say I’m holding up Exhibit H which is a picture of Dr. Reid’s bookshelf. Of which three books had fingerprints corresponding to three of the victims and one even had personal annotations written in the margins. The handwriting has been determined to be Lucy O’Neil’s the seventh victim. 

Defense: Objection; circumstantial. Dr. Reid could have bought those from second hand bookstores while traveling for work.

Prosecution: Your claim is that rather than killing and taking a souvenir book from each victim’s apartment, Dr. Reid just so happened to find the time to go to a used bookstore in each city of the kills, and buy three books that just so happened to belong to murder victims?

Prentiss: When did you find these?

Prosecution: After reading up on the BAU’s cases, I noticed that more common than finding the murder weapon, your team found trophies. I had the police go over Dr. Reid’s apartment again. With a fine tooth comb.

--

Garcia: There’s nothing on Spencer’s internet activity that could even indicate that he meant people harm, trust me, I dug, and I’m the best digger there is, there’s no way--

Prosecution: That would make sense if he were hiding it from one of the best technical analysts in the States, wouldn’t it? If he was intimately familiar with what can and what cannot be traced on the internet?

Garcia: I— you— you’re twisting my words.

Prosecution: You don’t think that someone with Dr. Reid’s training and IQ might know how to cover his tracks?

Garcia: I mean, obviously that comes with the territory, but you might as well be accusing any of the team of being serial killers!

Prosecution: The rest of your team wasn’t found at the scene of a murder, covered in blood. 

--

Prosecution: How would the best profilers in the world miss that there was a serial killer in their ranks?

Rossi: They wouldn’t.

Prosecution: So you have never been fooled before? There has never been a killer who has slipped through your hands? Because I believe you mentioned an open case that still plagued you in one of your more recent books.

Rossi: …there is no cop or agent alive who doesn’t have a story of the one who got away, but there’s getting away, and there’s right under your nose.

Prosecution: Have any of the other killers you’ve caught, or haven’t, had an IQ of 187?

Rossi: I didn’t ask.

Prosecution: I’ll take that as a no. After all, if Dr. Reid was clever enough to hide a drug habit—"

Defense: Objection, Dr. Reid had no drugs in his system at the time of arrest--

Prosecution: Exhibit G, a bottle of Dilaudid found in Dr. Reid’s apartment hidden in the kitchen cabinets.

Rossi: If Reid was using drugs, that doesn’t fit with the profile of an unsub who killed and covered up thirteen murders before being caught. Drug users and schizophrenics are notoriously disorganized killers. Our unsub was organized otherwise the kills wouldn’t have gone unnoticed for so long.

Prosecution: Do you believe it’s possible the schizophrenia is an act then? That as you closed in, he started acting out of character to cover his tracks should he be caught? After all, who would know better how to emulate it than a profiler who grew up with a schizophrenic mother.

Rossi: You’re putting words in my mouth, counselor.

--

Jareau: You really think that Reid could fool the best minds in the country?

Prosecution: Do I believe that a man with three doctorates before he’s even reached the age of twenty-five and field experience profiling killers and his own teammates managed to give them the run-around? Yes, yes, I do.

Jareau: Spence— Dr. Reid is not well. In the past several weeks he has been tired, losing track of his belongings, spacing out. I don’t know about the profile, or the evidence, or the crime scenes and how they add up, but he hasn’t been himself--

Prosecution: So you believe he’s having a mental breakdown?

Jareau: I believe… I believed he was getting help and I trusted… I trusted everything would be okay. That he would be okay.

--

Defense: Dr. Fell, can you tell us what you were treating Dr. Reid for?

Fell: I cannot answer any specifics as that would be a violation of patient confidentiality, but it is on record that Dr. Reid had undergone a traumatic event in the field and the FBI mandated psychological treatment as a condition of his return to active duty.

Defense: Isn’t it true that in those genetically predisposed to schizophrenia are more likely to have a break after a traumatic event?

Fell: Yes, that’s true.

Defense: And isn’t it also true that drugs, such as Dilaudid, can also increase the risk of a schizophrenic break?

Fell: Yes.

Defense: In your professional opinion, after being abducted, tortured, and drugged against his will repeatedly did Dr. Reid show any signs of having a schizophrenic break?

Fell: Yes. The behavior he exhibited, is still exhibiting right here in this courtroom, aligns with the beginning stages of schizophrenia. If you will look to Dr. Reid you will see he is not even following the conversation we are having at this very moment. It’s possible he’s simply lost in his own head, or does not understand the gravity of sitting here in court, or believes this trial isn’t even real. In our sessions sometimes he would forget where we were, who I was, or even claim he was actually asleep and only dreaming of sitting on my couch.

Defense: Did Dr. Reid ever express a desire to hurt anyone in your sessions?

Fell: No, if he had shown any indication of planning on causing harm to another I would be legally obligated to report it.

Defense: No further questions.

--

Judge: What’s your name?

Reid: Dr. Spencer Reid. 

Judge: How old are you?

Reid: Twenty-three.

Judge: Are you of sound mind and body?

Reid: Yes.

Judge: Do you understand why you are here?

Reid: I have been accused of killing thirteen people.

Judge: Are you able to aid your defense?

Reid: Yes.

Defense: Your honor, if I may ask a question?

Judge: I’ll allow it.

Defense: Dr. Reid, what did you have for breakfast this morning?

Reid: I...

Defense: Do you or do you not have an eidetic memory?

Reid: I do, I just… I...

Defense: But you can’t remember what you had for breakfast?

Reid: I… it’ll come to me, just let me think.

Defense: What about what you had for dinner last night?

Reid: I don’t...

Defense: Without looking, what color socks did you put on this morning?

Reid: You’re confusing me, I— I— what was the first question?

Defense: What’s my name, Dr. Reid?

Reid: I… it’s… you’re my lawyer.

Defense: And my name is? The name of the prosecuting lawyer? What’s the judge's name?

Reid: Stop! Stop, you’re confusing me— you’re— I—

Defense: Is this the first or second day of the trial?

Reid: Second.

Defense: Dr. Reid, this trial has been going on for two weeks now.

Alec scrubbed at his eyes, leaning back from the transcripts as the words began to swim in front of his eyes. 

Sophie dropped down on the couch with a sigh. “Well, the good news is that none of the family or friends of the victims are looking for revenge, the bad news is that means I spent all day on the phone for nothing. Nada. Zip.”

Nate appeared next. “My contacts mentioned the BAU being one of the FBI’s biggest assets and that their solved cases rate went up about fourteen percent after Spencer Reid joined but otherwise couldn’t provide any insight to their interpersonal dynamics.” 

Parker emerged from the kitchen with a plate, perching on the edge of the Alec’s chair, and smacking his hand away when he tried to steal one of her pieces of broccoli.

“It’s broccoli!” Alec protested.

“Garlic broccoli,” Parker said. “Which means hands off."

Alec sighed, resigning himself to wait until Eliot emerged with plates (and Spencer) to feed them all dinner.

“Anything you can tell us about your team, Spencer?” Nate asked. “Anyone you didn’t get along with? Anything at all?”

“…I wasn’t very welcoming when Emily first joined."

“You didn’t get along?” Sophie asked.

“And Rossi was irritated with me when he came back because I would quote his books from memory.”

Alec accepted the plate of chow mein and broccoli from Eliot’s hands, digging in with gusto. “Those don’t really seem frame-for-thirteen-murders-worthy.”

“They didn’t do it,” Spencer said, fumbling with his chopsticks. 

Sophie plucked them from his hands, tying a hair-tie around them, and handing them back. “I know it’s hard to think that people close to you could do such a thing, but that’s exactly what makes them capable. They were close, they had opportunity, access to you. Those are the people who can hurt you the most."

Spencer shook his head.

“What makes you so certain?” Nate asked. “Not thinking as their friend, but as a profiler. Give us something to go on."

Spencer chewed on his index finger. “…the victimology."

“What about it?” Eliot asked.

Spencer looked up. “Killing people with no connection, no association, and no representation to you is the only way not to get caught. The only person who kills this way is someone who is killing to get away with it. To keep killing because killing is the goal. The addiction. Each of my team members have deep personal traumas and if they were to kill, there would be a link to those core fundamentals. Victimology would be specific."

“Tell us then,” Nate said. “Tell us who your team would kill.”

Spencer’s gaze drifted away, but he spoke. “Aaron Hotchner, divorced, but still loves his wife. The divorce, not being able to see his son may be the stressor but he still loves his wife, he wouldn’t kill representations of her, he would kill people who represent himself. Middle aged, white men, strong stature or physically imposing. Likely one’s who harm their family, physically, emotionally, that’s who he would target. Likely would either use a gun or strangulation."

“Killing people who remind you of yourself,” Sophie said. “Talk about ego-death.”

“Jennifer Jareau, found her sister’s body after she committed suicide as a young child. May have an effect on how she views suffering and if she believed she was helping, putting people out of their misery would likely kill people with a long history of mental illness. Or inversely, may target those she believed failed people who committed suicide; parents, friends, professionals. Likely to use drugs, asphyxiation, or drowning.

“Derek Morgan, childhood trauma, could target child abusers or might target those he believed failed to help him when he needed it the most. Has complicated feelings about religion and may play a part. The victims would have to be athletic, a physical challenge, and they would likely be killed up close and personal. Most likely bludgeoned to death.

“Penelope Garcia, does not have the ability to look at crime scene photos nor the ability to lie convincingly. If she did manage to kill someone it would be through a contracted hitman, untraceable over the internet, and out of revenge for a loved one, but extremely unlikely as one of her core beliefs is forgiveness.

“Emily Prentiss, very compartmentalized and well trained for undercover operations, the stressor unknown, but she has shown a pattern of dislike for men who abuse their authority. Most likely weapon would be a gun, clean, hit-like, and without any leftover forensics or trophies taken from the scene. It would be clinical, impersonal, and quick, no lingering. In her mind, it would be a vigilante killing, a necessity that she would get out of the way and then bury deep down in her mind.

“David Rossi, one of the founders of the BAU, enjoys the chase of hunting down a serial killer and has sacrificed several personal relationships for his own profession. If he were to kill it would likely be people he thought of as his equal, a challenge, men near his age and intellect but who he opposed in some way so he could remain the white knight in his own mind. It’s likely he would add another layer to the game, either by taunting the police, or leaving clues at the crime scenes to prove that he could not be caught."

“…you really thought about this,” Alec said.

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” Spencer said.

“And you think you’re the only suspect left on the board after eliminating your teammates,” Eliot said.

Spencer’s eyes slid to the floor. 

Alec’s computer pinged with a Google alert and he put the news onto the big screen. “The press got word of your break out."

A reporter spoke to the camera man about the details of Morningside being shut down and “FBI agent turned serial killer, Spencer Reid, being abducted in the chaos” in the background six figures were making their way into the police station, FBI jackets keeping the rain off their back as they disappeared inside.

“The BAU’s arrived,” Nate said.