Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I ought to bury you alive in there. Give you time to think about what you’ve done.”

“I know what I’ve done.”

“Don’t talk back to me! Dig.”

Spencer digs. Slowly. The shovel is too small and his body is trembling. It’s cold. There’s a disconnect somewhere. In his brain, in his bones. Everything hurts. He’s digging his own grave. He’s trying not to think about that.

He stops, exhaustion weighing him down. He just needs a minute, just to catch his breath. It’s barely a second. Hankel’s eyes narrow.

“What are you stopping for?” He demanded, and Reid sniffled, digging again. His body is giving out, giving up. His chest hurts. His head hurts. He can’t breathe. “Dig faster!”

His voice cracks. “I’m not strong enough.” And he’s not. It’s not an excuse. He’s in pain, he’s scared, he’s digging his own grave. He has minutes left to live, if he’s that lucky. Hankel snarls at his response.

“You’re all weak.” He rips off his coat, setting the gun down as he declares, “Get out of there.” Spencer moves, spies the gun. He has minutes. Not many. Not enough. He grabs the gun, prays to a god who has barely been on his side, and lifts the weapon, cocking it as he aims towards Hankle, who stares him down. Even though Spencer has the gun now, it’s painfully obvious who holds the real power. His captor towers over him, a gleam in his eye, and Spencer can’t stop his hands from shaking.

“Only one gun in that bullet, boy,” Hankel tells him, and Spencer falters. But it’s now or never, and he can see the lights through the trees. Even if the bullet isn’t in the chamber, or his shaking hands cause him to miss, he’s not alone anymore. Whatever Hankel does to him, the others are going to hear it.

Reid pulls the trigger and the gun clicks. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. A smile breaks out upon Hankel’s face.

“Looks like God has abandoned you.”

It’s Reid’s only warning before the gun is ripped from his hands and tossed out of reach, a fist cracking along the side of his jaw. He’d intended to stay quiet, stay strong, but that didn’t last as he cried out at the contact, falling to the ground and curling in on himself, trying desperately to protect as much of his body as he could as Hankel rained punches down upon him.

“There!” He heard someone—Morgan?—shout off in the distance. “I heard something! This way!”

They’re the last words Reid is completely cognizant of, because a moment later Hankel’s fist catches the side of his head and he sees stars, ears ringing. His body betrays him, giving up, and pain explodes as some of his bones give and then break. He thinks he screams. The pain is too blinding to be able to tell.

At some point, he’s aware the beating has stopped. He’s aware of a fist in his shirt, hauling him up before he’s gripped tightly, a blade pressed to his throat. There are lights in front of him. Flashlights. Reid can barely open his eyes, blood dripping into view and a headache screaming at him from a possible skull fracture.

Someone is shouting. Hankel keeps jostling him, backing up, and Reid thinks he’s going to be sick as he’s dragged backwards, a boneless human shield, feet dragging through the dirt. His head lolls against Hankel’s shoulder, baring his throat to the sharp blade against it. Hankel’s got an arm under both of Reid’s, across his chest and pressing against broken ribs.

CPR + beating = many many broken bones. Some distant part of Reid’s brain told him. At least one third of resuscitated patients sustain rib fractures and at least one fifth sustain sternum fractures .

He stares blankly up at the sky and wonders exactly how he's going to make it out of the situation alive. He blinked sluggishly, more facts filtering through the haze.

If CPR is performed after a cardiac arrest, it’s crucial to transport the person to a hospital immediately. Well. That hadn’t happened, obviously. He hopes the team intends to get him to a hospital when they rescue him. He has the vaguest of recollections of the camera being on before Hankel knocked him back and his brain went dark for a few moments before he came too after CPR. While CPR can help restart the heart and circulate blood, it’s a temporary measure. Without further medical intervention, the person is at high risk of further complications, including brain damage or death.

Well. He’s already died once. And chances are, he’s about to die again. So at least he doesn’t have to worry about brain damage. Not to say he has no faith in his team, of course, because of course he does. But he also has logic, and almost definitely a concussion, which is telling him that right now, his odds of getting out of this alive are, well, not good.

“Let him go, Hankel,” someone says, but the lights are too bright and his headache is too headachey that he really can’t make out who exactly is speaking.

“He’s a sinner,” Hankel snarls behind him, squeezing Spencer a little tighter, forcing an involuntary, high pitched groan out of him as his broken ribs shifted. “He has to die.”

“He’s a government agent.” Oh, that was Hotch. That was almost definitely Hotch. Even concussed, Spencer can tell that much. “Your sentence is going to be a lot worse if you kill him.”

“He abandoned his own mother,” Hankel declared. Exodus 21:17. And he that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. “By his own words, he has admitted this.”

“He’s scared and in pain.” Prentiss. Spencer thinks that might’ve been Prentiss. JJ doesn’t…JJ’s not quite that confident in the field. “He was willing to say anything if he thought it might give him an out, a way to escape.”

Not entirely true. Spencer thought, though he’d never breathe a word of that to any of them. I had given up. That’s why I quoted it. That’s the real reason I told him what I did to my mom. I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m sorry.

The blade breaks skin. Not a lot, not enough for him to bleed out, but enough for a trickle of red warmth to drip down his neck. Spencer’s only half aware of it. The others are very aware of it. He hears them remove their safety and knows they’ve made the choice, whether they like it or not, to bring Hankel down.

They’re either going to nail a headshot or they won’t have any choice but to shoot Reid and hope the shot goes through to Hankel as well.

“Hankel,” someone says again. “You’ve lost. It’s over. Let him go.”

No one moves. No one speaks. And then, quiet, Spencer hears JJ. “Tobias.” Her voice is soft, almost a whisper. Like she’s afraid of Charles Hankel hearing her. “Tobias, are you there?”

“My son is weak,” Charles says, but Spencer has felt a shift. It’s working. The identity is shifting. If JJ keeps pushing, if she keeps trying –

“Tobias,” JJ says again. “Tobias, you’re not a killer. You don’t want to hurt him. He needs help, Tobias. We have to get Spencer to a hospital.” He feels the body behind him ripple, coming to a halt. “Can you help us get Spencer to a hospital, Tobias?”

There’s a long, very long moment of silence. And then, slowly, the blade moves away and Spencer hears Tobias’ voice crack,

“What’ve I done?”

The arm holding him up shifts. Instead of an arm wrapped around his ribs, it’s two hands under his arms, lowering him to the ground. His eyes flutter as he opens them and he sees movement, rushing, frantic, until Gideon is leaning over him, blocking his view.

“You’re okay,” Gideon says. “You’re going to be okay, Reid, just hold on. An ambulance is coming.”

JJ kneels at his other side. “I called the ambulance, Spencer,” she tells him, a weak and worried smile on her face. “They’re coming. You’re going to be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mumbled.

Gideon frowned. “Why?”

“Because I…” I gave up.

“Hey.” Morgan appeared then, joining their group. “Hankel’s in custody and the ambulance is almost here. Paramedics have been alerted to our location.” He eyed Spencer. “How’re you doing, kid?”

“Tired,” Spencer replied.

“Stay awake a little longer,” Prentiss requested, another face leaning over him in the darkness. 

“Okay.”

He felt Gideon squeeze his hand. “You did good, kid,” Gideon murmured. “I told you you were stronger than him.”

Spencer just gave him a weak smile, squeezing back.

Chapter Text

Spencer only makes it a few steps before his aching foot and the adrenaline fail him and he crashes into the ground with a gasp. In a second he’s surrounded, Gideon on one side and Hotch on the other.

“We’ve got you,” Hotch assured. “It’s alright.”

“Just a few more steps,” Gideon promises, both of them supporting his arms as they help him stumble slowly through the graveyard. “I’ve got you. It’s over.”

Spencer’s exhausted. The blood has dried tacky against the side of his face and his body is crawling with the feeling. His chest hurts from inevitably broken bones from the CPR.

“Spencer, what hurts?” Gideon demanded.

“I–my head. My foot,” Spencer replied. “He–”

“We’re almost to the ambulance,” Hotch said, tightening his grip on Spencer’s arm just a little bit more. Spencer nodded. Or, well, he thought about nodding but with the inevitable concussion, he figured maybe that wasn’t his best idea.

He lets them guide him to the ambulance, squinting in the bright light and letting the paramedics fuss over him while Gideon and Hotch hang back. He answers the paramedic’s questions honestly and he blames the adrenaline coming down for that.

He blames the opiates leaving his system for that.

They want to take him to the hospital. Observation or something, they say. Gideon agrees and overrides Reid’s no by telling them that he’s not in his right mind, due to two days—has it really been two days—of psychological and physical torment as well as lack of proper rest, nutrition and water.

And the drugs. But Gideon doesn’t know about the drugs.

They go to the hospital and Spencer realizes that he must be a lot more tired than he thought he was because the world seems to blur for a few moments and one second he’s in the ambulance and when he blinks himself back into awareness soon after, he’s in a hospital room and Gideon is leaning over him.

“You worried me,” Gideon says, and Spencer knows he’s not just talking about right now.

“Sorry,” Spencer says, and Gideon knows he’s not just apologizing for right now.

“It’s just overnight, just for observation,” Gideon says as Spencer slowly pushes himself upright, body aching. Someone put a pair of hospital socks on his feet and he can feel that the right one has been bandaged.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll be grounded for a few days before you’re cleared to fly though.”

“Because of the ribs,” Spencer guessed, absently rubbing his chest. “From the CPR.”

Gideon nodded, hesitating a moment before reaching towards the end of the bed to produce a hospital gown, passing it over. 

“Hospital policy,” Gideon said, which Spencer knew he couldn’t really argue with, no matter how much he wanted to. Nodding, he took the gown and made his slow way out of the bed and to the attached bathroom, still a little unstable.

The first thing he did was sink his hand into his pocket, breathing out a quiet sigh of relief to feel the solid bottles of Dilaudid under his fingertips. It hadn’t been found. No one had checked. He’d been out for hours, had to have been , but thankfully Gideon must’ve fought for him to have some semblance of dignity, since the hospital hadn’t hooked him up to any sort of IV line while he was still wearing his shirt.

Changing quickly, he folded up his pants and took care to ensure the vials were properly protected before heading out, setting his clothes on the floor next to the visitor chair before 

“The nurse is going to come by soon, give you some tylenol for the pain and IV saline,” Gideon explained to him, taking the chair and bringing it a bit closer to the bed. “She said it’s best that you try and get as much sleep as you can.”

“It’s just one night,” Spencer told him. “And people don’t really sleep well in hospitals.”

“That’s true,” Gideon agreed. “But you went two days without proper rest and enduring unpleasant conditions. Your body is exhausted. Not to mention the psychological damage of having to play a twisted version of russian roulette or having to make a choice no one should ever have to make.”

Choose one to live. I’ll choose one to die.

“I can’t promise anything,” Spencer murmured, shifting to lay on his side, consciously keeping his left arm exposed so the nurse could hook up the IV without having to wake him.

Gideon just chuckled as he watched Spencer pass out pretty much as soon as his eyes closed. But the second he knew Spencer was out, his smile fell and he stood. Moving quietly on the off chance the other woke to too much noise, though unlikely, he carefully unbundled Spencer’s clothing. He had his suspicions on why the young man had wanted to stay back with Tobias for a few moments and while the others had whispered about Stockholm syndrome , Gideon had feared it might be something else.

As the two bottles clinked together, rolling out of Spencer’s pocket and into Gideon’s palm, his fears were confirmed. He stared down at the labels for a few moments before shooting a glance towards Spencer.

Standing, he slipped quietly out of the room and flagged down the first nurse he saw. 

“The patient in 317,” he murmured. 

“Yes, Dr. Reid.” She nodded. “I’m his attending nurse, I’m actually going to be in in a few minutes to get him hooked up.”

“Good.” Gideon nodded. “You know the situation?”

“Enough of it, I believe.” Worry creased her brow. “Why?”

“Do you know if there’s anything that can be done to keep in here a bit longer?”

She frowned. “I can speak to his doctor about referring him for a psych admission if you’re worried about–”

“No, I won’t do that to him,” Gideon declared firmly. He turned to leave.

“May I ask why you would want him to stay beyond the current twenty-four hours?”

Gideon hesitated. “He’s going to be withdrawing from opiates soon,” he replied. “I just want it to be somewhere he can be as comfortable as possible, not on a plane to D.C.”

She pressed her lips together, thinking. “I’ll see what his doctor can do.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

The first thing Spencer sees when he opens his eyes is a tiny vial of Dilaudid sitting on the table, pulled up to the bed. He stares at it for a few moments before sighing and asking,

“How’d you know?”

“Heard them in your pockets,” Gideon replied. “And I thought it was a bit odd that you’d want to stay behind with the body.”

Spencer doesn’t look at him. “Is this it then?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to tell Hotch and I’m going to get fired.”

“Why would I tell Hotch?” Gideon asked. “ What would I tell Hotch? That you were planning to continue using a drug you were forced to take and therefore, forced to become addicted to? I intervened and your doctor has arranged for you to remain inpatient until you’re through the worst of the withdrawal.”

Now Spencer looks at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Figured it might be easier on you to tell the others you were just tired or more injured than we thought, rather than having to explain that you got addicted.”

“Why do you care?”

There’s a long moment of silence. “Spencer, I’m incredibly insulted that you would truly think I didn’t.”

“I disappointed you.”

“When?” Spencer didn’t have an answer for that. “I’ve told the others you’re tired and not feeling up to visitors right now. They understand. They’re returning to D.C. today and we’ll catch another flight once you’ve been discharged and are ready.”

“You’re using personal time.”

“I’ve got a lot. It won’t kill me.”

Spencer twisted the hospital sheets under his hands. “Thank you,” he murmured. “For…staying with me, and…”

“You’re welcome. Now get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

Chapter Text

The cabin is empty. The cabin is empty, the camera is knocked over and the monitors are blank. Handcuffs and a belt sit in the chair Reid has spent the last three days in and Gideon has to remind himself that Hankel wouldn’t have moved the body, if he’d killed him. Has to remind himself that that last shot from the gun had gone over Spencer’s head, not through it.

Spencer’s not dead because he’s not here. He’s alive. Hankel hasn’t killed him, not yet. There’s still time. They still have time. 

They spread out through the cemetery, flashlights and guns drawn. Hankel’s truck is still here, still parked outside, so they know he and Spencer have to be somewhere on the property. They’re on foot and Spencer was just resuscitated. They haven’t gone far. They can’t .

“We’ll find him,” Hotch says quietly. Gideon doesn’t reply, just adjusts his grip on his weapon and keeps his eyes ahead. There’s no motion beyond the team, spread out. There aren’t any voices, gunshots, or anything else. Not even tracks. Hankel and Spencer are somewhere in the cemetery, they have to be, yet for all they can find it’s as though they completely vanished.

His thoughts ran in circles, heart pounding in his chest. He knew he should’ve been more collected, should’ve treated this like it was any other unsub, any other victim. But he couldn’t. Because it wasn’t his fault other victims were in this position. But it was because of him that Spencer was.

Because he was the one who had pushed the kid, the one who’d found him and driven him into this, into the BAU. He was the one who had pressed for Spencer to be waived out of the physical assessment requirement on account of his inability to pass it, the one who had said his intelligence would be enough to keep him off the field.

And it was, most of the time. And it should’ve been, because as far as they’d known and as far as they’d been concerned, Tobias Hankel had just been a witness , but then they’d been wrong and they’d split up, it had been Spencer’s idea but Gideon can’t help but feel like maybe he should’ve insisted from the very beginning, the minute the kid started working with them, that if he ever found himself on the field in such a situation as this then he needed to call for backup and wait . 

He can always insist now and he thinks he might. He will. When Spencer’s safe and they’re far, far away from Georgia he’ll sit the kid down and apologize and Spencer will say it wasn’t his fault, they couldn’t have known and Gideon will tell him to wait, ask why he didn’t wait and Spencer will say he didn’t have a choice.

So maybe telling him to wait in the future is just wasted breath because the kid has a good heart, a big one, and if he sees their unsub, if they’re in a situation where he’s found their unsub, he won’t be able to convince himself to sit back and just observe and watch. Not when he has a gun and training and could do something about it.

And Gideon knew that was his fault.

The shot rings out through the silence, deafening, and Gideon thinks for a moment his heart stops.

No . He thinks, as they all hurry towards the source of the sound. No, we’re right here. We’re right here.

He runs. They all do. Someone calls “I see him! Reid!” And Gideon tries to cling to that, to hope that the body he can see on the ground is Hankel not Spencer and he doesn’t breathe until the lights are on them and Spencer lifts his head, alive and god he looks awful, he’s been through hell, but Gideon just embraces him and lets himself breathe, feel the other do the same.

“Come on,” he says, quietly, pulling gently. “Paramedics are waiting.”

“Can I…can I have a minute?” Spencer asked, stumbling. Gideon frowned, glancing quickly towards Hankel, dead from a single shot to the chest. He deserved worse. He should’ve suffered more. Gideon knows those aren’t thoughts an FBI agent should have, so he shoves them away with the intent of not thinking them again.

That doesn’t stop them from lingering in the back of his mind.

He acquiesces Spencer’s request, stepping back and making sure Spencer is stable before he walks a few paces back, giving him space while also being close enough to get to him if something happens. If Spencer falls or if that bullet missed Hankel’s heart and the man rises to the ground to try and rake Spencer down with him.

He doesn’t. He stays still, dead, and Spencer rises alone, stumbling on beaten feet back to Gideon who swoops in to take hold of him, giving him support when Spencer’s legs almost give out.

"You're safe,” Gideon says, aware that he’s reassuring Spencer as much as he’s reassuring himself. “It’s over. He’s dead.”

Spencer just nods with him, remaining silent as he leans into Gideon and allows himself to be led out of the cemetery to the waiting ambulance. To the waiting help.