(Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or its characters)

Hope everyone is safe. This is the last rewritten chapter after this I will be able to properly update the story.

If this is your first time visiting the story, basically I didn't like the way the story was going and so (after a long time of procrastination) I deleted three chapters and made big changes to them. Everything should make sense now.

Please review, it has taken me so long to get the motivation to rewrite this and your thoughts mean so much to me.

Thank you to Caroliny Hotchner, Rocco23, zhangxinna, and Svnflower who left a review on the last chapter.

Enjoy

Spencer glanced out of his window. His father's car was back. It had been for an hour.

Spencer looked down at his phone. Morgan's contact details were up on the screen.

He's only been gone two days. His dad hadn't been back since he hit him... until now. He could call Morgan; reimpose the sense of normality he found when he left home.

"William!?"

Spencer froze, his finger over the call button. She's probably calling him, he thought with a nauseous feeling rising in his stomach. His tongue felt fat.

"William, your father wants to talk to you!"

Erin Strauss wasn't a rash person. She was usually quite calm, experiences had hardened her.

She'd lost a child, been through a messy divorce only to reconcile that marriage, not to mention the countless cases she'd conducted.

So, as she sat with her partner's team, her deceased three-year-old son's teeth laid out in front of her, she tried to keep herself composed.

Aaron lowered his head as vicious images of 1986 came to mind. He felt like screaming when he remembered the night they had left Spencer behind.

Dave, meanwhile, was holding Erin's face. "But this means something, Erin. It means we can find the one responsible."

Morgan, who had been trying to console Garcia with looks of solace, nodded solemnly.

Emily, also intrigued, spoke up, "we can help take on the case."

JJ nodded, as did Garcia, though she quickly ducked her head back down, still reeling from seeing such small teeth discarded on the table.

Aaron was about to insist he stayed and finished paperwork for their current cases when his phone chirped to life. Rossi looked his way and suddenly saw how pale the unit chief was. Aaron muttered an apology to Dave (who just nodded) and stepped out. He glanced at his phone only to see an unrecognised number.

He felt sick when the memory of him and the other boys calling the police on a stranger's phone surfaced, one of the older boys, Bailey had done it while they listened in and sobbed. He squeezed his eyes shut and the voices of the boys shouting down phone, begging for help, ebbed into the normal sounds of the bullpen. He looked back at the conference room, before hurrying toward his office. He prayed the number was good news. For once.

Spencer watched his father. He sat at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in front of him and the newspaper hiding his face. Spencer tentatively reached up and touched his own face. He'd checked his eye that afternoon and the corner was a vivid pink; purple would soon start creeping from it. He could feel it every time he blinked and his eyelid refused to open more than halfway.

William Reid senior shuffled his papers and dropped them slowly.

Spencer's eyelid made a valiant attempt at opening fully as he stared at his father's swollen face. The man's lip was split and his nose had swelled painfully, the skin around it inflamed.

"Sir?"

William grunted and pointed to the chair opposite him. Spencer didn't argue, he pulled out the chair and sat down quickly. His mother stood by the sink, gently rubbing a cloth across a plate.

"What happened?" Spencer whispered after a tense moment of silence.

June 1986

Spencer's mouth hurt. In fact, he was in agony, his gums pulsed like electricity. He sat in the back seat, his trembling hands trying to keep a bloody rag in his mouth. He sobbed as quietly as he could, his body convulsing with them.

The lady looked back, meat man still had his eyes on the road. She tilted her head before looking at Meat-Man. "We should get him some ice," she said.

Meat-man took his eyes off the road for a moment and shrugged.

"You wanted him, you deal with him."

"W-wanna go h-o-home," Spencer stammered between sobs.

"Now now, we're going home. We're your parents now."

"No! I want my papa!"

Diana rolled her eyes and looked at her husband. He seemed to be smirking.

"William." Diana looked back at Spencer and he sniffled loudly, trying to swallow the stale blood in his mouth and whining at the pain in his gums. "William look at me."

Spencer blinked his wet eyes at her then frowned. "I'm not William."

"Of course you are-"

"No! I'm Spen-"

"William Reid Jr. That's what we called you when you were born."

Despite his mouth aching Spencer shook his head stubbornly.

"I'm Spencer Rossi!" he declared. He closed his mouth quickly with a whine. Talking hurt; his tongue nudged at his raw and empty gums.

Meat-man turned his nasty head around and glared at Spencer. "You are William Reid Junior," he hissed.

"William 'Spencer' Reid Jr," Diana added with a chirp in her voice. "That's your middle name, honey. That's why you're confused."

Spencer looked between the two strangers and he sunk back into the car seats. His papa would find him. He repeated it in his head as he tried to cry quietly, a bitter taste of blood continuing to encapsulate his mouth.

He wanted to go home.

Aaron pulled his office door closed and let out a brief sigh. The past was being dug up once again. His hands shook and he fumbled with his phone. They were going to have to go there again and Aaron... he wasn't sure he could face it. And as for Spencer Reid and Dave's son, Aaron was at a lost end. All coherency had flitted from sight.

Aaron, forgetting himself, accepted the call and pressed the phone to his ear.

"This is-"

"Aaron!? Tell me it's you!"

Aaron pulled the phone away from his ear and frowned.

"Who is this?"

"Me... Joe. I'm talking to Aaron Hotchner right?"

Hotch felt his arm grow heavy. Joe Roberts.

"Yes, it's Aaron. Joe... I haven't heard from you for a while. You didn't come to the meeting." Aaron fumbled for his chair and he sat down slowly, his other hand reaching up to cradle the phone. Figures from his past were springing up everywhere and now Joe Roberts, the boy he'd cried with when the police found them twenty-two-years ago, had reared his head.

"I was trying to move on. Aaron, I need you to listen to me, okay?"

"Alright."

"Trust me-"

"I always have," Aaron said in a quiet voice and Joe went quiet for a moment.

Finally, he took a deep breath and said: "I've been attacked, Aaron."

Aaron sat up a bit straighter. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, well, I'll live. A couple of bruised ribs and a gnarly concussion, I got off lightly this time."

Hotch looked up as someone knocked on his door and pushed it open. Rossi glanced his way and then backed away but Aaron motioned him in.

"It isn't the first time?"

Dave sat down on the couch and watched Aaron.

"No. It... Christ, I can't believe I'm saying this. It was him, Aaron. That motherfucker. Not done with me apparently."

Aaron's eyes met with Dave's and the older agent felt a shiver pass through him at the look of utter terror in the gaze.

"Where are you? Where is he now!?"

"Gone. He hit me from behind but I messed him up before he could do much more than he has. He ran when someone heard us. But it was him."

"Aaron? What is it?" Dave asked as Aaron started to yank open his drawers.

"You're sure, Joe?"

Aaron found his sketchbook and slammed it on his desk as he adjusted the phone.

"Yea... you work for the CIA or something don't you?"

"FBI. Where are you?"

"Oh right, yea, Utah."

"Wheels Up," Aaron said, looking straight at Dave. Rossi stood up and nodded solemnly. He patted his pocket where Aaron knew his son's teeth lay. "Thirty minutes."

"What?"

"Send me your address, Joe, we'll be there soon."

Aaron pulled the phone away from his ear and dropped it on his desk. It landed on the side of his sketchbook which was open on the earliest sketch of Meat-Man.

Early June 1986

Aaron held his knees to his chest and tried to hold off the shivers. Despite it being the start of summer the basement was cold at night. Aaron slowly turned his head and saw Spencer at his side. The boy didn't leave him much.

Aaron was surprised by how little he boy cried. Most nights at least someone in the basement whimpered and cried quietly and Aaron had been guilty of it once. Spencer also cried but not as often as Aaron would imagine for a toddler.

Aaron looked at the boy and saw that he was sleeping, his head lolled to the side and resting on Aaron's hip.

On Aaron's other side sat Joe who was glaring at the door.

"Joe?" Aaron whispered, his eyes narrowed on the teen in the dark.

"I reckon we could escape you know," Joe said, his eyes drifting slowly to a locked window close to the basement's ceiling. It was pretty high up. The boy's sat quietly, listening to the other kid's snoring softly, someone was sniffing in the corner.

Aaron looked at the window. He wet his lips as he eyed the lock on the latch. "How old are you, Joe?"

Joe glanced at Aaron, his eyes wet. "Fourteen," he whispered. "You?"

"Fifteen. My dad is going to teach me to drive soon."

Joe stared at Aaron with a hopeful look before a smile rose to his lips. "Is..." he mumbled and then he nodded. "Yea. I'm... I'm moving in with my dad, he said I could when schools finished."

"That's cool. Where's your dad live?"

"California. Sweet right?"

Aaron nodded with an impressed look. "Yea."

"What car are you gonna get?"

Aaron shrugged. "I thought my dad was going to fix up one from his work but he might get me a new one after this." Aaron smirked as did Joe.

"You really think we can get out of here?" Joe said, doubt back in his voice.

Aaron glanced back at Spencer who was still sleeping against him. "Yea. I'm sure we can."

Aaron walked back into the conference room, his phone in his clenched fist. Dave followed behind, his face hopeful almost excited.

"Dave was right," Aaron said. "Joe Roberts just called me. He's been attacked and I have reason to believe it was our unsub. That means he is active again." Aaron nodded to Dave who suddenly looked hopeful.

"I'm assuming Joe Roberts as in..." Emily pulled out a photo from her file of a fourteen year old Joe taken after they were found, his face dirty, and scratched and relieved.

"Yes," said Aaron.

"So..." JJ closed her file. "Do you think he's targeting the victims?"

"And their families," added Garcia, her sympathetic smile directed at Dave.

"Maybe. We need to discuss this more on the jet." Aaron paused. His eyes had fallen on a file on the table and he could see a photo of Spencer peeking out from under some others. He hardened his expression and looked around at his team. "Wheels up."

Thanks for reading. I'm trying to bring coherency back to this work.

Please review and I'll see you soon...ish.

If you like Supernatural I'd really appreciate you checking out my story 'Stuck in the Impala.' It's an entry for the Quarantine Writing Challenge. it would mean the world if you guys enjoy it enough to vote for me. Details are on the story (in my profile.) voting ends May 11th. Check out the other stories too.