Chapter 38

Midnight

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

-William Blake,

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.

He lay in the hospital bed and listened to the sound of the buzzing over head light trying to block out the chattering around him.

His jaw was wired together where Taki had smashed the bone. His teeth he still had had been pushed back into place. The few still missing would be easy to replace and didn't even show if he didn't smile – and he wasn't doing a whole lot of that right now.

Spencer had dressings on his foot and over his damaged thumb and something over his nose holding it in place whilst the damage healed.

The slice over the back of his neck had been very much for show. No lasting damage but maybe a light scar.

And the chattering around him. Driving him insane. A gentle hand on his arm. "Do you need anything?"

Garcia.

A small shake of the head. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to see Floyd. He wanted to know what had happened to him. But any questions where answered with smiles and - "You get yourself better first."

It had been a week. A full week…not just a few days and someone was coming to see him each day to 'chat' and see how he was doing.

"I'm fine. I just need my questions answered."

"Can you tell me how you are feeling today Spencer?"

"Like I am being ignored. I need to know about Floyd."

"Well we need to talk about you first Spencer."

"I don't know why you won't tell me. Either he is alive or dead – I can take it – I just need to know."

"Well I don't know the answer to that question Spencer."

-o-o-o-

As Hotch had carried Spencer away Morgan knelt in the blood soaked snow next to Floyd. Taki had done a fine job of gutting him and the sight wasn't one that Morgan particularly liked the look of. Floyd held his hands over his stomach and with his head tipped back he was letting out the most god-awful sound Morgan had ever heard.

He tried calming words. He tried to give some sort of comfort but it was beyond him.

Prentiss stood and watched with her hand over her mouth and big tears running down her face.

"Prentiss some help!" Derek called to her, but she was frozen to the spot as she watched Floyd go into some kind of fit and spit foamy blood everywhere and hold onto his sliced skin trying to keep everything in and failing. She turned and followed Hotch.

-o-o-o-

Spencer's room was full of flowers and a bowl of fruit and 'get well soon' cards from Prentiss.

Floyd's room was plane white. The window had bars and the door was locked.

Spencer had an almost constant flow of people visiting him.

Floyd was being observed.

"He's not fit for trial and judging by the state of him, if he pulls through never will be. Physically and mentally broken. I have no idea how long this is going to take. We've had to strap him down to stop him from ripping out his stitches. He seems to be stuck in a nightmare. Nothing we do wakes him up. He is resistant to any medical help. He was pulling out the drips until we strapped his arms down – and then there is the strange blood loss. The worst nose bleeds we've ever seen – bleeding from his ears – I've never seen anything quite like it."

Hotch stood and looked through the window in the door. "Can I talk to him? Maybe a familiar voice."

With a nod they unlocked the door and let Hotch into the room. He waited until the door was locked again before approaching the bed. Floyd was staring up at the ceiling. His legs were pulled up as tight to himself as he could. His arms strapped down at his sides. Tubes going in and out of various places. A huge dressing covered his stomach from just below the navel to his sternum. There was dried blood around his ears and under his nose.

"Floyd." He reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "You need to start talking to us."

He blinked.

"I know you can hear me – I need you to talk – so we can start to unpick the mess."

"So you can arrange my speedy execution?"

Hotch hadn't expected an answer. "No."

"Unpick the mess? Ask Reid and Rossi and Emily. They know. You don't need me to dig my own grave Agent Aaron Hotchner"

"You left a lot of damage in your wake Floyd. I need to know what happened."

"Then I think I will need a lawyer. Hotchner – I was doing it for Spencer. You know that don't you?"

"Then you went about it in a very strange manner Floyd. Reid would be the last person to want others harmed on his behalf."

"He's a Fed." And a sigh

"And this gives you the right to do what you did? Do you think that would relieve you of the mess you left behind?"

"No – I just thought he had a better stomach for it. He's not stupid – he's tougher than he looks."

"You did a good job of breaking down his defences."

"Oh – get out of here and leave me alone before I do something I will probably regret. You know full bloody well that wasn't me. You saw what that bastard had done. That had nothing to do with me. The idiot wandered off again and got himself into shit. Not my doing Agent Aaron Hotchner. He did that all on his own."

"And the slaughter of the family just so you could take the car?"

"I left the kids alone! Christ! I could have had them too – but I left them alone."

"You killed their parents and while Reid waited in the car you masturbated over a sleeping child."

"Next to her! Don't you say I did things I never did!"

"You took Reid to a hunting lodge and tore the occupants apart and left them next to the log pile outside the rear door."

"It was cold! He needed somewhere to stay – it was snowing – what choice did I have? Would you forgive me if I have let him freeze to death when warmth was just a stones throw away?"

"You ate parts of them Floyd. There were bits missing."

"I was hungry!"

"That is not an excuse!" And now Hotch was raising his voice too.

"What difference does it make? For most people dead is dead. Nothing more than a fresh food source."

"It's cannibalism Floyd! That's the difference."

Suddenly Floyd was sitting in the bed, the straps open at his side. Quickly he was pulling out the needles and drips from his arms. "Well piss on you mister fucking perfect! Where's your wife and child Hotchner? Not at home awaiting the father of the year are they? No because you are a pathetic waste of space Hotchner who doesn't know a good think when it's staring him in the face. Go look at yourself before you judge me." A finger on Hotch's chest.

"Get back on the bed before I call security."

"Screw you! You are going to call in the cowboys because the Fed isn't armed?" The finger pushed hard against Aaron who stood his ground. "So tell me Hotchner, what really is the difference between the two of us?"

Hotch stood his ground and kept eye contact with Flanders. "The difference is Floyd that I was late home for dinner – you are a sadistic psychopath."

Now the palm of his hand on Hotch's chest. "No – I – am – not! What is it with your lot? Why can't you see beyond the end of your noses?"

Hotch pushed Floyd's hand out of the way. "Because you have admitted to what you did Flanders. We don't have to go looking for the reasons you did it. You have no reason except for greed."

"Necessity!" And the hand was back on his chest – but this time his fingers were holding the lapel of his dark grey jacket. "Sort it – or I will have to sort it myself Hotchner and I assure you that you won't like that!"

"Let go of me and sit down. You're bleeding." Aaron was looking at the way the dressing on Floyd's front was HIslowly going a bright fresh red.

"You fucked up and you need someone to blame and right now I look like a good person for you to point your soiled fingers at FBI – but you can't pin this on me."

"No – you are right Floyd – you pinned it on yourself. You are admitted what you did and you will be going to trial and you will never see Reid or Prentiss again."

Floyd's hand dropped from Hotch. One hand moved to hold his stomach and the other he brushed a stray lock of hair off his face.

"Emily? What has she got to do with this?"

Hotch could sense then change in demeanour. He suddenly went from arrogant to slightly submissive in tone.

"I don't now what you did to her…………….."

"Nothing! I did nothing to her! I wouldn't…….Did she say I did something to her?" Floyd was backing off back to his bed. The bleeding was obviously getting worse.

"You need someone to check you out. You broke her nose and abducted her Floyd."

Floyd sat back down on the bed looking down at his stomach which was now dripping blood onto the floor. "The hell I did. She came willingly."

"You coerced her. I'm getting a doctor." Aaron turned to leave.

"But I didn't fuck her…and she wanted me to." Aaron stood at the door whilst they unlocked it and let him out.

He turned to a medic outside. "He can get out of those restraints. Get something stronger or keep an armed guard on him. Where's the doctor?"

The medic locked the door again and looked through the small window into the room. Floyd was sitting on the floor with his back to the bed and his knees pulled up tight holding onto his stomach muttering to himself.

-o-o-o-

One last chat before they let him go home.

He was trying to keep that happy Spencer face in place but so much had happened he would never be able to even touch on how he was really feeling. He wanted out of this place. He wanted to go home and relax. He wanted to get him brain back in gear and return to work. Talk after talk after talk. Always the same and never going anywhere near what he felt he needed to talk about, and all the time not able to bring the subject up himself. Why wouldn't they just ask him? Was he really so pathetic that they could see the answers without having to ask him.

He sat with his arms folded across his chest. He had on a white short sleeved shirt and tan cords. His legs were crossed in as casual manor as he could manage.

"I will be expecting to see you once a week Spencer."

"Yes I know."

"Spencer – you saying you know and you saying you will keep your appointments……………."

"I will keep them. I will be there."

"And you still insist that you want to return to work?"

"Absolutely." Keeping his answers as short as possible. He just wanted to have his slip signed and be able to walk from this damned place.

"You do realise the strain that……………."

"I understand. You tell me every time I see you."

"I will be recommending a different line of tests before you return."

Reid looked up at the doctor. "Pardon?"

"You fake your psych evaluations."

Reid swallowed. "Er – actually it isn't faking as such."

"Either way Spencer – we will be sure you are ready."

A lick of the lips.

"You don't trust me?" He tucked his newly cut slightly shorter hair behind his ear. You couldn't see now where the chunk had been taken from, but it made him look much younger than his years.

"I didn't say I didn't trust you Spencer. I just need to be sure."

Reid nodded and folded his arms again.

-o-o-o-

And so everyone back in their places. Rossi back in his apartment and Aaron in his house which was too big for him. Prentiss back in her large empty apartment staring out of the window and a sob in her breath.

Spencer got a tub of ice cream from his freezer and went and sat on his big leather chair. He had no idea what had happened to Floyd and he had no idea what had happened to Taki. He sat and thought about everything and where it went wrong. He knew it was his fault – all of it.

Floyd had killed for him. He had done unspeakable things in his name. There was no getting away from that – Spencer was totally responsible for the deaths of those people. The ice cream hurt his new teeth and where the wires were holding his face together but he enjoyed the pain. It made him feel like there was a purpose to it all afterall.

Just hold it together for a few weeks – then the eval – and back to work and all will be back to normal.

-o-o-o-

Rossi locked and double locked his door and set the new alarm system up. He had the dogs there too now. Before he kept them at the kennels…Now he would keep them in his home.

-o-o-o-

Aaron flicked through his pages of telephone numbers. He needed to move from this place. Far too many memories – good and bad – swarming around. This was no longer the comfortable secure family home.

-o-o-o-

Prentiss stood at the window and looked at her reflection. She still could feel him. She knew he would be back and she longed for him with all her heart and soul.

-o-o-o-

He sat in the corner of an empty room. They had originally given him the basic room. Bed – side cupboard – plastic mirror on the wall. Everything nailed down. Bars at the windows and flush light fittings.

He wrecked his room.

Security were called in and asked to sedate him, which they did. Floyd's body metabolized it and the only effect it had was to piss him off more. Rather than move him from his room they just removed everything from it. Now he had a floor.

Floyd sat in the corner with his legs pulled up tight and his head tipped back against the wall.

No one came in to talk to Floyd. No one had a death wish and so he sat and waited. They would come and get him. He knew they would. He hoped they would. He might be filth and scum and worth nothing to anyone – but he was still one of theirs and they wouldn't leave him here.

He closed his eyes and thought of Spencer.

-o-o-o-

At the midnight checks the alarms sounded. Floyd's room was empty.

-o-o-o-

At midnight Dave's alarms suddenly sounded.

-o-o-o-

At midnight a shadow passed by the open door way Aaron was sitting by.

-o-o-o-

At midnight Morgan's dog started to howl.

-o-o-o-

At midnight Emily thought she saw someone behind her in the reflection in the window.

-o-o-o-

At midnight Spencer's cell phone began to ring.

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else: -Hermann Hesse

A/N: THE END – well of this bit anyway -

To be continued