A.N. Post-ep for 'Minimal Loss', episode 4X03. One shot.

The FBI Agent

"You what?"

He'd been too much taken by surprise to temper the tone of incredulity. But in the few seconds that followed his question, Aaron Hotchner took in the disheartened look on the face of his youngest agent, who was finding it hard to repeat the words he'd just said to his unit chief.

Hotch decided not to wait him out.

"You want to resign. Is that what you said?"

Met by a silent nod, absent the expected eye contact.

Recognizing the moment of personal crisis, Hotch put his pen down. He came around his desk and pulled two chairs together, taking one as he indicated that Reid should take the other.

"Tell me what this is about."

Slowly realizing that he probably knew. That, in retrospect, he shouldn't have been surprised at all.

Reid was still studying the floor, still unable to put words to what had gone into his decision. More precisely, he was unable to say the words aloud, though he'd shouted them internally for the past three days.

You're a sham! You don't belong with these people! Look at what happened! Get out before somebody else gets hurt!

"Reid?"

Hazel eyes flashed up, and then resumed their examination of the carpet.

"I don't belong here."

"What does that mean?"

"Just what I said. I don't belong with the BAU. I don't even belong in the FBI."

Hotch sat forward, imposing himself into Reid's space, trying to force sustained eye contact.

"And you've concluded this because…..?"

No such luck on the eye contact.

"You know. Because of what happened to Emily. Because of what Cyrus did to her."

"That wasn't your fault." Meant to console, but said too quickly, and Hotch immediately regretted it. Reid would recognize it as the pat answer.

"Of course it was. You weren't there. You didn't see it happening. Cyrus was standing right in front of me, looking right at me, when he asked the question. It was pretty obvious he thought it was me."

"Well, then, Prentiss provided the element of surprise. It worked."

Now, the eye contact came, as the younger man was adamant in his response, and wanted his unit chief to know it.

"It wasn't strategy! We didn't plan it! It happened because I hesitated. I was afraid to admit that I was an agent. I just….. I froze. I didn't know what to do. I guess I thought we might be able to convince him that neither of us was with the FBI. But then Emily spoke up, and he turned his rage on her."

"You aren't responsible for what Cyrus chose to do, Spencer."

Trying to move the misassigned blame to where it belonged, to distract the young man from his moment of perceived failure. But Reid would not be distracted.

"Yes, I am. If I'd spoken up…."

"If you'd spoken up, he might have done the same to you. Yes. As I recall, you did sustain a beating anyway, correct?"

"Yes, but…."

"Reid. Listen to me. Cyrus was a self-proclaimed messianic predator. He distorted Scripture to suit his purpose. We know he saw women as inferior, and men as their lords and protectors. He would have gone after Emily anyway. At some point, he would have realized you were there together, and he would have hurt her as a means of gaining your cooperation. There was nothing you could have done to change what happened to her. But you did manage to change the outcome. Which, I'll remind you, was probably as good a one as we had any hope of."

Spencer Reid had spent much of the past three days and nights making these same arguments with himself. But there was one point he couldn't get past.

"She was protecting me, and she shouldn't have had to. No one should have to. I should be able to hold my own in the field. No one should have to worry that I won't have their back."

His superior's heavy brow creased in a combination of concern and frustration.

"Reid…"

"No, Hotch, let me finish. Please, it's taken me three days to have the courage to do the right thing. But we both know that I'm only on the team because of Gideon. Emily, Morgan, even JJ, they've earned their right to be here. But me…. I was forced on the team by one of its founders. You remember, right? He even had to get them to waive a bunch of the physical requirements to get me instated. I was too excited about it to realize what a burden he'd made of me. But now….now, he's gone. And my eyes are opened. I don't want to be a burden any more. You….all of you….deserve better from me."

Hotch rubbed at his own eyes, giving himself time to gather his thoughts. There was both truth and distortion in what Reid had just said. How could he acknowledge the truth, without destroying the fragile ego attached to it? He threw out a question to give himself more time to think.

"Did you talk to Emily about this?"

Reid hesitated for a second, then responded with, "She talked to me."

Aaron Hotchner hadn't been at all certain he should trust the ambassador's daughter when she'd appeared without a word of advance notice that day over a year ago. Since then, he'd grown into it. Now, hearing that she'd discerned the distress of her younger colleague, and tried to address it, she'd earned his deepening respect.

"What did she say?"

Younger eyes briefly holding his, then looking away.

"She said it had been her choice."

"And…?"

"That's it. That it had been her choice. But I already told you, she didn't have a choice. When I didn't answer Cyrus, he became angry. She did it to save me. And I should never have needed saving."

The unit chief considered his options carefully. He could assure Reid he'd done nothing wrong, and point out once again that the outcome had been good. Or he could tell him that Emily had indeed had the choice to deny being an FBI agent as well. Or he could upend the young man's argument altogether. He chose the final option.

"Why do you think she did it to save you? I heard you say it wasn't strategy, but how do you know that it wasn't her strategy? Maybe she knew you could work better apart, infiltrating the cult members. Maybe she understood that Cyrus would trust you, the man, if the woman had been disposed of."

The length of time it took Reid to answer told Hotch that he'd chosen his argument well.

It's never even occurred to him. He's been too busy beating himself up.

"I….. you think…. But….no. How could…. She couldn't know. She couldn't know that he wouldn't just kill her."

As Reid feared had happened, until he'd seen Emily again.

Before then, I never even knew it was possible for a person to feel so elated and yet so crushingly guilty at the same time.

"She took a chance."

One that would stay with Aaron Hotchner for a very long time. Few things in his life had been as painful as listening to one of his own being beaten. Helplessness was not an emotion he tolerated well, when he tolerated emotion.

"But she shouldn't have had to! It should have been me!"

Although it was coming excruciatingly slowly, Hotch could feel a bit of wisdom seeping in. He just needed to figure out how to share it.

Carefully.

"Do you remember the history of the BAU?"

Reid nodded, but Hotch recounted it anyway.

"Gideon….and Rossi, for that matter….founded the unit for one reason. They'd grown tired of pursuing serial killers after the fact, frustrated with the limitations of hard evidence. They were confident they'd found a way to get into the mind of the killer, to uncover a pattern that might lead directly to him. At worst, to predict his next kill, and get him then. At best, to save the next victim."

"I know that."

He'd heard Gideon tell the story any number of times.

"Both of them had field experience before they developed their partnership. Both of them had done case analysis, but they'd also both seen action."

Hotch was pleased to see that Reid's gaze had become fixed on him. He had the young man's attention.

"Rossi had retired, but Gideon was still leading the unit when I came on board. It was only the incident in Boston that sidelined him, and that's when I stepped in as unit chief."

Reid nodded, familiar with the history. He'd been around for the very last part of it.

"You'll recall that I came from a career as a prosecutor, not as a field agent. I was hired into the unit for my skills in case analysis, not for my expertise in the field."

"But you gained field experience."

"You haven't?"

Reid shook his head, eyes back on the floor. "If getting abducted by a serial killer is experience, yes, I've gained some. And there was the time I couldn't talk an angry parent out of killing a kid right in front of me. And the time I watched a kid nearly bleed out from trying to kill himself."

Hotch gave it right back to him. "He didn't bleed out, because you were there to save him. You also saved lives on that train with Elle, remember? And the woman in LA? And that young man in Texas."

The genius' brows went up. He'd been threatened with firing over that last case.

"I thought…."

"So did I. But then I thought some more. This is what I wanted to say to you before. Gideon and Rossi started the BAU as one thing, but it's become another. It's evolved. Which means its members have needed to evolve as well. There was a time Gideon wouldn't take a woman into the field. Did you know that? Until the time Elle joined the team, the only female on it had been the liaison position. JJ will tell you that I had to fight to bring her with us, to manage the media. And then to bring Elle on board…..I thought she brought a needed area of expertise, but Gideon wasn't convinced. She had to prove herself, to win him over."

"Gideon wasn't like that, was he?"

"Everybody was like that, Reid. The FBI has never exactly been on the forefront of societal change. The point is, we've evolved. I've evolved. It's true that I was angry with how you handled things in Texas. You did put others at risk, but no one more than yourself. Once I'd gotten past that, I could see what you'd actually done. You saved a young man who had been a victim himself for his entire life. You saw that he'd absorbed the hate directed toward him, and you made an empathetic guess that he might also be able to absorb compassion."

"An 'empathetic guess'? Not an 'educated' one?"

"You bring more to the team than your IQ."

"But…"

Hotch leaned forward again, forearms resting on his knees.

"I wasn't wrong to chastise you that day. But I was wrong on the reason. Your empathy ultimately saved us all from unnecessarily taking a life. But you didn't function as a member of the team that day. You went off on your own, and by keeping it from us, you put yourself, and possibly others, at risk. That was the real problem. You didn't think we would value your empathy."

"Did you?"

Hotch gave what passed for a small smile at having been caught out.

"If I'm honest, no. Not right away. But it stayed with me, and then I looked back, and I saw that it had been there from the beginning. Now, I'm wondering if you're able to see it."

"Me?"

"I think the reason you don't see the value you bring to the team is that you're holding yourself up to a false standard. You're comparing yourself to Morgan, and Emily in the field, even Rossi. Am I right?"

Reid shrugged his response.

"Can you honestly tell me that you see all of them as functioning in the same way? Can you see Rossi kicking down doors, or Morgan cajoling an angry sheriff?"

"No."

"That's because it's not what they do. It's not what they bring to the team. It's why there are six of us in the field, and not just one. You do bring value to this team, Spencer, in a way that none of the others can. Your intellect is a given, and it's irreplaceable, even with Garcia's computers. But you've also demonstrated the power of your personality, and you've given different perspective to a number of our cases."

"Still, I wish I could have saved Emily from Cyrus."

"Instead, you saved the rest of the compound from him. Do you think Emily could have gained his trust, or manipulated his actions? It doesn't matter that he turned on you in the end. It only matters that you were able to set it up for the rest of the task force to get everyone out. Cyrus would never have let Emily come close enough to do that."

Reid took that in for a few seconds.

"So…I found a way to combine empathy and teamwork?"

The unit chief's smile, though still small, now reached his eyes.

"Yes."

Hotch rose, and resumed his place behind his desk, signaling that their conversation was nearing an end.

"There will be other times when you'll have to allow your colleagues to do what they do best, while they count on you to do what you do best. It may be difficult, and you may have to distance yourself from your concern for them, for the sake of someone else. But that's the job." Pausing for emphasis. "Do you still think you can't do it?"

Reid took so long to respond that Hotch was afraid of the answer. Until it came.

"I trust you. For as long as you think I have something to offer, I'll offer it. Just promise me that you'll tell me if I've become a drain on the team because I'm not up to par in the field."

Standing, ready to leave.

Hotch nodded gravely, though he was bemused.

"I will. But I will also remind you that your inadequate skills in the field saved my life one day."

Reid gave him a wry smile. Wry, but appreciative.

"I told you, I was aiming for his leg."

"Right."