Post-ep 14X12, 'Hamelin'

Dual Projection

"Have you ever projected yourself into an imagined future?" JJ had asked him.

He'd been surprised by the question, and then challenged by it, for reasons known only to him. His first instinct was not to answer, so he'd come up with some nonsense about particles, and the impossibility of physical projection, even though he was fully aware that quantum physics had long since opened up the realm of time travel. But he'd heard an undercurrent of something in her voice.

Longing? Regret?

Whichever, she was his best friend, and he owed her the truth.

"I actually have three or four imagined futures."

When she responded, he could hear the note of surprise in her voice, and wondered what had brought it there.

Something about her mother? Something about their life as a family? Or something about her life now, and her family now?

The only thing he could be sure about was that this was a conversation that should take place in person. So, under the pretense of him sharing his visions of the future, they made a date to talk about it. Conversation over.

But not the inner one. Spencer Reid spent the remainder of the plane ride lost in reverie, of both past and present.

Of course he'd projected himself into the future.

Who would have wanted to stay in a present that represented rejection, and loss, and uncertainty, and fear? Not Spencer Reid. He'd only been surprised to hear, in the tone of her voice, that his best friend hadn't done the same. She had, after all, suffered her own tragedies as a child, in the loss of her sister, and the loss of her own family structure.

How many times has she told me how she couldn't wait to get out of that town? Was she just wishing for something to end, without imagining what would come after it? Was that small town so small that she couldn't see beyond the limits of it?

Not so for him. From the moment he'd first sounded out a word, the entire world had been open to him. He'd become aware of places, and things, and even ideas not quite thought through to fruition. Before he'd become more jaded about it, he'd even projected that his father must have been off on some quest, well beyond the borders of the city where they lived. That would have jelled with his mother's sharing of her love for medieval literature, and the awakening of possibilities that comes from romance. The child he'd been had been full of imagination, brought back to earth by the tragic realities within the confines of his own home and family.

His youngest self had projected a future where he would be judged by his character, and not simply by his size, or even his intellect. As he'd grown older, his projections had begun to revolve around that powerful intellect, as he'd envisioned utilizing it to alleviate the suffering of people like his mother, and all the families torn apart by mental illness.

But that had been the extent of his vision. While he'd still been living with her, Diana's health had so isolated the pair that he hadn't had enough substrate to project for himself a future that included a spouse and a family.

I could imagine being a knight, but not a husband. And definitely not a father. How pathetic was that?

Eventually, he'd emerged from that time, and taken a different path, and some of the things he'd been unable to imagine, had become imaginable. His projections had begun to include having a relationship, and children, perhaps driven by the example of his best friend. Of all of his colleagues, she'd been the only one who'd seemed to have successfully navigated the challenge. She'd also been the first friend he'd made after he'd entered the BAU, fulfilling that projection he'd made when he'd been a child, and inspiring him to believe that he might still achieve others.

Along the way, there had been several young women who'd had him projecting a future with them, but never with so much clarity as there had been with the woman he'd then been yet to meet. Maeve Donovan, and his singular relationship with her, had gotten him to truly believe that his future might look like something other than his present. For the first time, he'd been invested in what might happen to him for his own sake, and not solely for the sake of others. He'd been able to see the rest of his life unfolding as a shared experience, one in which he was happy, and fulfilled.

But that future had been completely erased by the actions of a troubled young woman, and suddenly, he hadn't been able to see any future at all. That time of his life had been so dark that he'd been barely able to make out the edges of himself, so subsumed had he been by grief. Ironically, as bleak as it had been, his emergence from it had been reluctant. He'd simply not been able to see any real point in doing so. The process had been painful, and slow. Incomplete.

He'd participated in the activities of his daily life, but not actually engaged with the concept of being alive. He'd barely been able to invest in his present, let alone envision a future, before the circumstances of his life had plunged him back into darkness.

Prison isn't a place for dreaming. That always comes as a surprise to people who've never lived that life. To the uninitiated, it seems like prisoners should spend their time doing nothing but dreaming of a time when they will be free once again. Nothing but projecting a future alternate to the present they are in. But the reality of prison life is that it demands to be lived in the present. You don't survive without hypervigilance, without constantly evaluating and reevaluating your environment, and the people in it. You become completely mired in the immediacy of the danger, and the need to protect yourself from it. There's nothing else left of you.

In prison, feeling that unrelenting threat, Reid had lost the ability to dream, in both his sleeping and waking moments. Despite the encouragement of his best friend, he'd become distanced from the life he'd led, unable to imagine himself living it again, let alone able to project it into the future. He'd become resigned to a life that would only be lived in the present, for however long, or short, it might be lived at all.

But now prison was behind him, and the rest of his life, ahead. It had taken him almost two full years to excrete the poison of it, but he'd gotten there. As it was, the intermittent furlough schedule he'd laughed about with JJ and Emily had actually served to give him a taste of what another path in life might have looked like. He just wasn't sure he was that enamored of academia.

But I also never saw myself hunting serial killers, either, and look what happened there. Just because I can't quite picture myself as a full time academic doesn't mean it's not in my future.

Once upon a time, academia had been one of his projections, as had medicine, and the other sciences. He'd even contemplated the study of law. He'd envisioned himself in a classroom, a lab, a courtroom, a hospital...

The memories launched him into a thought cascade about the many things he might have done, if he'd not joined the BAU, and the many things he might yet do, should his sojourn with the FBI come to an end. His mind worked so quickly, it felt like he was watching a film.

Projecting.

Am I the only one who's never looked into my future? Spence has three or four projections, and all I can see is me being a mother of two boys, a wife, and a profiler. And that last thing wouldn't have happened if Hotch hadn't 'projected' it for me. It never even occurred to me to come back to the BAU as anything but a liaison.

Jennifer Jareau stared at the road ahead, as she drove back to DC. She'd now been to East Allegheny twice in the past few months, which was two times more than she'd been there in nearly ten years.

Does that mean I'm happy? Have I not projected my future because I'm so content where I am?

Dismissing the idea even as it entered her mind. She wasn't technically unhappy. The boys were her joy, and she did love Will. They'd built a family, and managed to balance it with their jobs. But 'managing' and being content were two very different things. She felt as though she was never able to fully give herself to either role, 'mother' or' profiler', and often didn't have much left over for 'wife'.

Should I be projecting a time when one of those things goes away? A time when I'm looking back at the BAU, or a time when Will and I are sitting on an empty nest?

But that would mean sacrificing her present for her future, and her present was already becoming her past much too quickly. She'd mourned the passing of the infant Henry, and then the toddler, and Michael had already left those stages behind as well.

Now I have two boys, and soon enough they'll be two teenagers. Why would I want to project them out the door?

Her mother had projected. She'd learned that much over these past few days. Sandy Jareau had projected her own life, and by extension, her daughter's.

Is that how it works? Projection by proxy?

She'd meant it sarcastically, but something in it resonated with her. It felt familiar, though she didn't know why.

Sandy had projected herself into a future that still included both of her daughters, and her husband, and even her grandchildren. And then she'd had to come to terms with a life that had met none of those expectations.

Is that why I don't project? Because I'm afraid of being disappointed? Look what happened to Mom, and I had absolutely no idea. I have literally never thought about my own mother's hopes and dreams. Am I that selfish? Or is that because my own dreams have been so singular? All I ever wanted was to leave that town behind me. I never saw anything specific in my future. Only East Allegheny, in my rear view mirror.

Her family's suffering at the hands of small town gossip and judgment had shaped her priorities in life, so much so that she'd become focused on protecting her privacy above all else. Early in her time with the BAU, she'd done everything she could to keep her personal and work lives separate, which had nearly cost her her relationship with Will.

Will.

Another instance where she'd failed to project. After they'd met on the case in New Orleans, she'd visited him nearly every free weekend, yet never seriously considered where that might lead them. In fact, she'd completely dismissed the possibility that he would want to spend the rest of his life with her badly enough that he would leave his job to do so. When she'd realized she was pregnant, she'd been thrust into the dilemma of how to raise a child as a single parent, never even imagining living together with Will as a family.

He had to actually show up at a case, and leave his badge behind with me, for me to get it. Do I have absolutely no imagination? Or just no desire?

But she'd had desires. She'd desired the child she'd lost in Afghanistan. She'd desired Michael. And, while it might not have been until after she'd discovered she was pregnant, she'd desired Henry as well. As challenging as it could be, JJ loved being a parent. So much so, that she'd greatly desired it for her best friend, as well.

That's the only real projecting I've done. Spence has been through so much, and I've just wanted him to have some happiness. I even told him he'd have a child of his own, one day. Maybe I've been doing my own projection by proxy.

The thought sent her back into wondering what Reid had seen for himself.

Thank God he's at the point where he can see something beyond those horrific prison walls. I hope he still sees himself with a family. He would make such a great dad. I can just see him, holding his own, the way he held Henry. I can see us getting together, years from now, telling each other stories about our kids, remembering the old days. Okay, maybe, in our business, we shouldn't do too much remembering of the old days. But we can remember our friends. We can remember how much we all cared about one another. We can…

Wait a minute. I'm projecting!

Which made her reach out. As she continued down the road toward DC, JJ told her phone to send a text.

ARE YOU FREE FOR BRUNCH ON SATURDAY? JUST THE TWO OF US. I'M ON MY OWN UNTIL SUNDAY. I WANT TO HEAR HOW SPENCER REID SEES HIS FUTURE.

Hoping she would see it, too. Now, and then.

Reid saw the text, and had to think before responding to it. Projections were, after all, quite personal, and not necessarily things to be shared. One risked sounding too ambitious, or too self-centered. Maybe even too pathetic, should the hoped-for not come to pass. But it was JJ, and he could tell she needed to talk. He felt safe enough in her esteem that he could tell her things without fear of altering her opinion of him. So he texted back.

TEN O'CLOCK OKAY?

It was true he'd had three or four solidly imagined projections for his future. Three or four things he'd been able to see himself doing as a career. But, add in the permutations of his personal life, or lack thereof, and the number of projections started growing, and branching, and coming back together again. He was lost in them for a second time when JJ's return text came.

GREAT. WE CAN CHOOSE A GROWN-UP PLACE, SINCE WE WON'T NEED TO ORDER CHOCOLATE CHIP PANCAKES.

AHEM.

OKAY, SAME PLACE AS USUAL. LOOKS LIKE NOT ALL OF MY BOYS ARE IN FLORIDA.

He smiled to himself. Henry and Michael had influenced their godfather in many ways, including his palate.

They're my present, but seeing them as little boys has always brought me back to my past. If I'd grown up like them, if my family had been healthy, who would I be now? What would I be? If I could, would I want to project a different past for myself, in order to have a different future? A different present? Is it possible to go back and relive the past, and reinterpret it, to change the present? Would that change the futures I project for myself? Are there no constants?

But, even as he had the thought, he realized he already knew the answer. There were constants. There were things around which one lived one's life, in whatever configuration emerged. Things like love, and friendship. Mission. Compassion. Family. Some of them had names, like Diana, and Henry, and Michael, and Jennifer. The constants in his life had been born of his past and his present. They'd become defining parts of him, inherently carried into his future, integrated into his being and his aspirations. They'd become the foundation from which everything else projected.

He sent a reply to one of his constants.

SATURDAY AT TEN. WE CAN PROJECT TOGETHER.

GREAT. AND A YEAR FROM NOW, TO SEE HOW WE DID?

AND FIVE.

TEN.

THIRTY.

FIFTY!

IT'S A DATE.