Chapter one: Insane

How did he get himself in this situation again? Morgan was right; he was a danger magnet. Some FBI agent he was. Spencer woke slowly, an ache in his head and an uncomfortable restriction of his hands. Rope. His hands were bound by rope. He tried to move his legs and couldn't help but gasp in excruciating pain. His foot was broken. There were 26 bones in the human foot, 33 joints- 20 of which were actively articulated. There were more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. He hated his facts sometimes as that didn't make it any less painful.

"Hey, calm down," a disembodied voice said in an English accent. London, if he wasn't mistaken, with just a hint of a Scottish overtone.

"I'm going insane," he mumbled out through a dry mouth and cracked lips.

Was this Heaven? It seemed fitting that an angel had such an accent. He was partial to accents, particularly European.

"You aren't going mad," the voice said, decidedly female," you're just as sane as I am."

He groaned and realized he had yet to open his eyes and did so. There was a single light bulb above emitting a dim light, but it was still just enough light that he had to squint and blink a few times. Across from him was a large cage, a strap iron cell very popular in the American Southwest during the frontier period. There was a girl sitting at the bottom of it, closest to him with her fingers gripping the bars. In the dim light he could tell she was average height, probably about 110lb. Long, thick brown hair in curls.

"Where are we?" Spencer asked.

"I'm not sure. I think somewhere around the D.C. area. At least, that's where I was taken. What about you?"

He swallowed to moisten his throat. It was so dry. "Quantico. We're probably still in the area then. The probability that we were both taken from the same area but both transported elsewhere at different times is very slim."

"You're taking this very well," she observed.

"Not my first time," he admitted, becoming more alert. "Besides, I think it is just now registering what's going on."

He started pulling at the ropes on his wrists, chaffing the skin past the point of bruising and starting to break the skin. He hissed through his teeth.

"Stop!" she said. "You're going to hurt yourself."

He realized she was right and he was getting nowhere so he looked around, only just now realizing how bare the room was. The floors were swept, there was nothing in the concrete room except he and the girl in the cage. No windows. One door. He'd bet the door was welded shut based on the rest of the room. A bomb shelter of sorts maybe. He tried to move again and groaned in pain, staying still for a few minutes until it passed to its dull pain when it wasn't moving.

"Are you okay?"

"How long do you think we've been here?"

"I've been here a few days, I think. You about eight hours."

He frowned, biting his lip against the pain so he could drag himself across the room to lean against the cage. "That was fairly concise for a timeline considering there's no way to see outside."

"He hasn't come back except to bring you here."

That wasn't an answer, but he supposed technically he didn't ask a question. Hotch and the rest of the team must know he's gone by now. Though, in the event of Gideon's leaving and Hotch being stabbed, none of them knew until a day after it happened. They just accepted that they weren't answering their calls. Morgan was supposed to pick him up though to drive him to work. Surely he wouldn't leave without an answer. He had Spencer's permission to break the door down.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the girl, Hermione, introduced her self to him- moving her hand through the bars in a daft attempt to shake his. The handshake was originated as a peace sign to show the hand was holding no weapon. He motioned with his bindings and she blushed, her face going slightly darker in the dim lighting, and retracted her hand.

"Spencer Reid, FBI."

Her face lit up. "Are you really? That's wonderful!"

"Doesn't really do me much good here with a broken foot and bound hands, does it?" He remarked impatiently.

There was movement and he looked behind him to where she had a small, purple beaded bag. With it, she pulled out a knife and gestured that she could fix part of his statement. He gladly held them out and she sawed at the thick ropes until they snapped. He unwrapped them from around his wrists and rubbed the tender skin.

"Thanks. How did you get away with a bag?"

"I, uh, it was hidden in my sock. I keep it there."

"That's not strange," he commented with a bit of gallows humor.

She stared at it lovingly. "It's helped me through a lot. You wouldn't believe what I have in here."

"Well, I doubt you have any water."

She frowned at him and opened the bag, putting her back to him and turning back around with a bottle of water with a label he didn't recognize, but a name he did. Evian was the most popular bottled water in the UK with about 8,480 drinkers a year. Hermione squeezed it through the bars and he took it gratefully, wondering how she fit it and a knife in such a small bag.

"We have to get out of here," he said aloud. Mostly for her benefit that he could keep her calm, though, she was being remarkably blasé about this. He supposed she had gotten the panic out of her system already, having been here for days. She looked good for being here that long.

"My cage has been welded shut," she told him, looking around. Then he was right with the welding. He looked to the door of the cell and traced the lines with his finger.

"My team will find us. I promise. They're the best."

She laughed hollowly. "If they get here before my friends do. Harry has a bit of a hero complex."

At least she had something to hold on to, as unlikely as it was. "What did he look like?"

"Short, short for a man. He was skinny, like drug using skinny, and had five o' clock shadow. Dark hair. He never spoke."

"Alright, then he may or may not come back at some point despite the welding that's probably on the door. He broke my foot for that reason then, so I couldn't try to take him down."

Hermione shook her head. "He didn't weld the door out. He chained it. And, I w-watched him break your foot."

Spencer breathed shakily. "Chains. He's a welder, he probably made them himself. What did he do to my foot?"

"Hammer," she whispered. "Twice to the top of your foot. I'm sorry."

"It will heal," he said, more to himself than her. "I think it may be possible he's trying to starve us out. Especially if he has only come down here to bring me. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have lived 21 days without food."

"We have food," she sighed. "How long do you think it will take your team to find us?"

"We have an average of a week. Add a day and a half for them to realize I'm gone at most, then a day or two extra without me. Your friends? When will they realize you're gone?"

"Harry is at my house every week, a few times a week. He's overly paranoid, we all are. He'll find us."

"Why did he choose us?" Spencer asked to himself. "I mean, I've never seen you before in my life. I'd remember."

She smiled. "Would you? Remember me?"

"I have an eidetic memory, so yes, I remember almost everything."

"Ah! Well, I don't think I've ever seen you. I own a bookstore on the corner of Ashland and Juniper."

He nodded. "Crooks Books, I've heard of it. I've been meaning to check it out, but we've been so busy lately."

"Yeah, well, I've been working on making it twenty-four hours. We have a cafe, I mostly run it by myself. Sometimes one of the guys will come by and help. Crookshanks is my cat, that's how I came up with the name."

"I can't be around animals," he said, not understanding how he could be so calm, "My team calls it the Reid Effect. Happens with kids too."

"Crooks doesn't like anyone," she told him. "He's fairly passive about most people, but he adores Harry and my friend George."

Spencer frowned. "What were you doing when you were taken?"

"I-I was painting."

"Painting?" He took in her well-worn jeans with paint smears and old shirt with a band he was sure he'd never heard of.

"I was painting a few walls and decorating the shop. He came in and that's all I remember. It was Sunday."

"Today's Thursday."

Hermione sighed. "Well, that's wonderful isn't it? Luna and Harry were supposed to bring Teddy over to visit."

"I was about to go to bed, just in my apartment. My... friend... was supposed to pick me up to drive me to work. He'll know something's-" He stopped. "Why are you in a cage?"

"What?"

Spencer turned as best he could, wincing at his foot, and faced her. "Why did he break my foot, but lock you in a cage?"

"It's a strap iron cell," she whispered quietly.

He hissed through his teeth at his foot, trying not to make much noise and startle her. She looked at him in concern. "I have something that would take the pain away."

Spencer immediately thought of Dilaudid and grimaced, rubbing absently at the old track marks in the crook of his elbow. "I don't think so."

"It's nothing like that. It's just a potion of sorts. Liquid medicine. I-I'll sip first if that would make you feel better."

He swallowed and admitted to himself that he was curious about whatever it was. She referred to it as a potion. In Latin, potio meant a drink- usually poisonous. In Old French potare was a magical and medicinal drink. That was a very big difference.

"You first."

She smiled and reached into her bag again, up to the elbow, and pulled out a small wooden box of vials. Spencer choked at it, at watching something so impossible. His mind was suddenly riddled with physics and spacial laws. Though, physics did support a perfect sequence that could open portals to other dimensions. She pulled one out, a green glass vial, and held it up in cheers before taking a sip. Hermione then held it out for him to take and he shrank away from it, staring at her with a feeling he could only describe as complete confusion. He didn't like it.

"How did you do that?"

"Magic," she said seriously, pushing it toward him again. "I know it's alarming, but it really will make the pain go away. And maybe some chocolate afterwards will help."

Spencer's foot was throbbing and he wasn't sure what to do. Maybe he was going crazy just like his mother. Paranoid schizophrenics were known for hallucinations. It stood to reason that in a stressful time like this that he would come up with an intelligent, British young woman to help him.

"This is- this is insane."

Hermione sighed and in a flash, reached out to grab his shoulder and pulled him to the bars- pouring the liquid down his throat and closing his mouth where he had to swallow it. Immediately his foot was numb.

"Wh-what is that?"

"Just a simple pain relieving potion. Chocolate?"

She pulled out a strange candy package, showing a frog shape.

A/N: Here you go. Yes, I literally named the story Untitled because I couldn't think of an actual name. I'm sorry. I hate it, but c'est la vie, you know? Anyway, tell me what you think. Love always, Skye.