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Time	By : cr8zymommy Category: 1 through F > Criminal Minds Views: 4585 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story

Chapter List
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From the other side of the two way glass, the team watched as Emily and Garcia walked into the room with Reid. It was heartbreaking to stand there and look at the kneeling form in that interrogation room. The first sight of him had been like a blow to Morgan. Everything inside of him had ached. God, look at him he’d thought to himself. Look at the kid!
There were welts and bruises all over Reid’s body. Light scars were peppered over his skin. His kneeling position presented his side to them, so that they could see the side of his arm and leg and just a glimpse of his back. It was enough to make them cringe.
“How the hell has he survived?” Morgan asked. Even through the glass he could see a few longer scars along Reid’s side, or on his leg. “How the hell was he beaten like that and still managed to survive it?”
“He’s one tough kid.” It was Rossi who spoke up this time. Their eyes all turned to him, but he continued to watch as Emily spoke softly. “To live through this kind of torture, he had to be tough.”
Detective Kurgan looked over to Rossi. “Tough? That man broke him. Listen to how he talks about his ‘Master’. He sounds like he loves the guy.”
Hotch shifted, his eyes locked on the scene in front of him. “He does, in a sense.” He answered the Detective. “It’s known as Stockholm syndrome.”
“What is Stockholm syndrome?”
“It’s a when hostages have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. Such as you saw when you took Vincent and Reid tried to defend him. It happens when someone’s been under their captor’s care for a long period of time. Not always, but it does happen. Strong emotional ties between the captive and his captor.”
Seeing that the Detective was confused, Morgan stepped in. “When a person is beaten, day after day, their mind slowly starts to break down. Everything in that person’s life begins to revolve around the hell that they’re living in. The person who has them becomes God, so to speak. He brings pain or comfort. He can hurt you, or he can heal you. Everything in your life is dictated by him. After a while, a captive can begin to love their captor for those kind moments and they begin to think that their pain is their punishment for doing something wrong. So they strive to do everything right; to be what their captor, their master, wants them to be.”
“That’s just crazy.” He shook his head, stealing a glance at Reid again. “Ok, so why is he naked on the floor of my room?”
Hotch looked over to Kurgan. “Most likely that’s how he’s forced to be at home. A lot of kidnappers, especially when sexual assault is included, make clothes either a privilege for their captive, or they refuse to allow them any kind of covering. They want to see the handiwork they’ve left behind. It’s also another way to break down the mind and make them rely totally on you.”
A sound from the interrogation room cut off their conversation. All of them watched as Emily asked one of the important questions in her effort to keep him at ease. “How many pretty ladies did he hurt?”
The answer Reid gave had all of them staring. “Eighteen.”
“Eighteen of them?” Detective Kurgan swore. “We only found seven!”
Rossi gestured for him to hush as Reid kept talking. “I tried to help them. I let him hurt me instead. It’s better when he hurts me. But the pretty ladies cry. They cry when I’m bad and he punishes me.” Pain leaked into his voice. “He’s going to punish me for talking to you.”
“Honey, no one’s going to tell him that you spoke, I promise you.” Emily said soothingly. Her eyes lifted to the glass, looking at them for a moment with so much heartbreak.
“Master knows.” Reid whispered back. “Master always knows. He’ll punish me because I’m bad. I’m a bad, bad boy. I deserve it.”
Morgan wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to cover his ears and get as far away from here as possible. God, this poor kid. The hell he had lived through, all of them could only imagine! Could they blame him for latching on to the only person that had been in his world for the past few years?
He couldn’t take his eyes off Reid as the younger man suddenly started to draw his nails over his legs. They could all see the welts he left behind.
Detective Kurgan cursed. “What the hell is he doing?”
“He’s punishing himself.” Rossi explained. “He’s not supposed to talk, I’d imagine, and especially not about these ‘pretty ladies’. Without Vincent here to punish him, he has to punish himself, but there’s nothing here for him to do it with.”
They all heard the muted exclamation, drawing their eyes to Garcia, who had been standing nervously behind Emily, totally unsure of what to do. She didn’t look unsure now. That caring, protective side of her reared its head and she was suddenly moving forward and dropping to his knees. Morgan shifted, ready to race in there if he needed to, to pull her back to safety. Reid had hurt others when he’d been cornered.
But Reid surprised them once more. When Garcia touched him, Reid visibly froze, but he didn’t turn violent. Instead, he stayed there, his hair curtaining his face. Suddenly he whispered “Garcia?”
“Would you look at that?” Rossi said with amazement.
He hadn’t known who Emily was when they’d come in, but one look at Garcia and he whispered her name in a voice so full of heartache. Hope flared bright in Morgan. His pretty boy was still buried in there somewhere. A part of him still remembered. Thank God!
“Oh, baby.” Garcia whispered to him. Her hands gripped his, lacing their fingers together. “Yeah, it’s me. It’s Garcia.”
Reid’s head seemed to tip up a little. It was like the floodgates suddenly opened. His voice filled their observation room. “You have to get out of here, Garcia. You have to go know. Take the pretty lady with you. Please, hurry. Before he comes back! He’ll hurt you, all of you. I can’t let him hurt you. I won’t! Please, just go! Don’t turn around, don’t come back, don’t stop, and don’t listen. Go, go, go. Master will hurt you. I don’t want Master to hurt you.”
“I don’t want Master to hurt you either, baby cakes.”
“Master loves me.” He told her. “Master hurts me because I’m bad. Because I’m a bad boy. He takes care of me. But he’ll hurt you. Go. I’ll be bad; I’ll let him get mad so you can go.”
For a moment Morgan had to turn away, to stare at the wall opposite him. He couldn’t stand listening to Reid talk that way. Not his sweet, shy, awkward little Reid. Where were the hesitant smiles he’d used to give? Where was that innocence in his eyes that had been so entrancing? The man had seen some of the worst as a profiler, yet he’d still retained a semblance of innocence. It was gone now.
He started paying attention when he heard Garcia say “Good, good. Emily is going to ask you a few things, ok?”
Morgan turned back and watched as Emily asked Reid, “Let’s try a few simple things first, ok?” She paused, waited, and then “What’s your name?”
“Boy.”
Garcia looked at the window and back at Reid, confused. “No, sweetie. Your name.”
“Boy.” He sounded confused that they’d asked him that again.
Emily, well used to talking to victims, dropped that one and moved on. “Do you know where you are?”
“Fairfax, Virginia. At Division Headquarters in Division Seven with the Virginia State Police.”
“That’s right. We drove here from the FBI headquarters in Quantico. Do you know how far away that is?” Her mouth quirked as she asked this. Rossi and Hotch had told her to try and ask triggering questions, things that the old Reid might have known. This was one of them.
Reid didn’t even hesitate to answer. “If you take the I-95 North to the VA-123 North then it would be twenty eight point twenty four miles and take approximately forty two minutes to arrive. If you took the US-1 north to the VA-123 north than it would be twenty seven point forty one miles. Or you could take just I-95 north and it would be thirty point eighteen miles. The easiest path but the longest time.”
“Ok, honey. We’re going to ask some things that are a little harder now, ok? But only if you’re ok with this.”
Morgan’s eyes locked on to Reid. Here was where it was going to get difficult.
“You said your Master hurt eighteen women. Are any of them still alive?”
Reid shook his head no. Behind him, Morgan heard Kurgan curse, but he paid no attention. All his attention was focused on Reid.
“So your Master killed all of them?” Emily asked.
At her question, Reid’s head jerked up, throwing his hair back from his face. They could see his wide eyes; the shock plainly written on his face. “What?” he croaked out. “No!”
“It’s ok, honey, it’s ok.” Emily read the obvious stress her question had brought and tried to tone it down. She had her hands out in a gesture universal to ask for calm. “He can’t hurt you, we told you that. He’s not going to hurt you for telling us the truth.”
“Master didn’t kill them!”
“If your Master didn’t kill them, then who did?” Emily asked him.
Reid let go of Garcia, holding his hands up so that he was staring at his palms. Before he spoke the words, Morgan knew what he would say. “I did.”
“What?” Emily looked stunned.
“I did.” He repeated it twice more, growing louder with each one. The profiler in Emily stopped and the friend kicked in. She reached for him, obviously intending on trying to soothe him. They all knew that this was the wrong thing. They were already moving toward the door when Reid shot backwards, knocking him and Emily both over. His voice echoed out of the room “Go away, go away! No, no!”
Cops were swarming the hall, making it almost impossible for them to get to the room. Seeing the others trapped in the mass, Morgan growled and just started to push his way through. “Move!” he barked out. It startled enough people that he made his way through the crowd, closer to the door. Over all their voices he could hear Reid still screaming. It gave him extra strength to barrel through the last part of the crowd.
When he reached the door he was surprised by what he saw. Emily was rising from the floor, trying to gesture the cops back. Over in the corner, Reid was screaming and crying, but he was wrapped tightly in Garcia’s arms.
She was holding Reid against her, kneeling beside him, his head pillow against her chest. Soothingly she whispered to him, words that couldn’t be heard over everyone. Though Reid was still bucking, looking as if he was trying to get free, he wasn’t doing anything that would physically hurt Garcia. It looked like he was trying to get free without hurting her.
“Everyone out!” Emily called out, waving her hands. “Out!” She’d obviously lost her patience with the group.
Seeing that they weren’t listening to her, Morgan stepped up, shouldering into the room. He put his shoulder against hers and pointed over top the cops. “Clear the room, now!” He barked out.
Then Hotch and Rossi were there, pulling people back, clearing them from the hallway. “I got this, Hotch.” Rossi told him, following the group out. They could hear him calling out to them as they got further away “No one was hurt in there, I assure you…”
Once JJ and Hotch were in the room, JJ shut the door behind her. That left all of them to turn and face Garcia and Reid. The younger man had gone limp in her arms. One look told Morgan that Reid had escaped into unconsciousness. But still Garcia held him, her cheek resting on his head as she rocked him, stroking her fingers through his hair. All the while she crooned softly to him, whispering little soothing words like a mother with a child that woke from a nightmare. But this wasn’t something that could be hugged away or made better by a kiss.
Looking at his friend, Morgan asked “You ok, Prentiss?”
She nodded at him. “Yeah. It wasn’t his fault. I shouldn’t have reached out to him like that, not while he was stressed. But he didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”
The group turned as one to look over to where Garcia was still rocking the young man. “What the hell are we going to do with him, Hotch?” Morgan asked quietly. “How the hell are we going to help him heal from this?”
“I don’t know. But first things first, we’ve got to get done with the cops here and get him released before we figure out the rest of it. Garcia, he’s obviously latched on to you as someone he trusts. Do you mind staying here with him?” The unit chief asked her.
There was a fierce light in Garcia’s eyes as she held Reid even closer. “I’ll watch over him. No one is going to get in here with him.” She said.
Hotch nodded at her. “Good. Morgan, I want you to stay here, stand guard. The rest of you, let’s go out there and get Dave and go see what we can do to help them with the bastard down the hall. If I have my way, we’ll have him in jail and Reid home before the day is out.”
All of them having their assignments, the group dispersed. Once they were gone, Morgan shut the door and took a seat at the table, stationing himself between the door and his charges. He looked over at his two best friends. He rose suddenly, grabbing the blanket from the corner and coming to tuck it around Reid. Garcia shifted her grip long enough to let Morgan tuck the man in and then she was pulling Reid back to her, keeping him safe in the circle of her arms.
Morgan stepped back and took his seat again. “What are we going to do with him, baby girl?” he asked quietly.
“We’re going to keep him safe and help him heal.” She answered promptly. “No one is going to hurt him again, not on our watch. I’ll claw their eyes out.”
Smiling softly, Morgan went back to watching Reid. Even in sleep the younger man didn’t lose the fear and stress in his face. They had one hell of a road ahead of them.
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