Title: Obsession
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
Author's Note: This is it. This is the final chapter. There might be an epilogue, but I enjoy leaving things with just the summing up of the conflict and the possibility for happiness. I've considered a sequel, but I have other story ideas too. So, your two cents is appreciated. Thank you for reading this and reviewing. Here's the final chapter!

Chapter 13

Jason Gideon slid one chair across the floor as Reid continued to watch the screen before him. The young agent had his fingers splayed out across the keyboard while Gideon let go of his shoulder and sat down next to him. Reid pressed his lips against each other.

"Everyone always considers the survivors lucky." Gideon said nothing and Reid continued. "I pulled the wire from the ankles and wrist. I could see the bone." His fingers tapped one key, and he watched the screen flicker and twitch to a different angle from across the hall of the room. "I could see his skull on the wall after the shotgun blast—pits and pieces scattered across the wall and the floor and her hair." Gideon was lost having no recollection of cases after his time, but the basic, underlying meaning caught his attention. "I have an IQ of 187, I can read twenty thousand words per minute, and I have an eidetic memory. I can never forget what I see. I see every image over and over. Every blank wall is flecked with red. How am I supposed to look at her when every time my mind will just put the image of blood and wire over her?" Reid hit the key again and the original screen came back. "When did it seem like a good idea to show an eighteen year old boy, with an eidetic memory, pictures of the dead day after day? Ethan got out, but I don't think I could. I don't think I want to. I can't forget any of those pictures." Gideon gripped Reid's shoulder. "I want to talk to her, but can't look at her."

"I think talking to her is a good idea."

"It won't make the images go away."

"Not quickly, not forever, but it will help. It will be a good distraction."

"It will be on her back forever. She doesn't feel anything. She has rationalized it. No one can do; no should be able to do that." The pause went on in silence, and Reid groaned. "No one ever talks to her."

"Aaron told me about her."

"She based her thesis on my research." Gideon slid his hand from Reid's shoulder to up against his cheek, and his once student finally met his eyes.

"You just need to make some new memories, and enough of them that, when you look at her, the new memories are what come to your mind first." Spencer Reid smiled slightly and nodded.

"That's a short answer to all of my questions."

"I don't think you really want those answers." Neither moved until Gideon pushed Reid's hair back from his face and, and Gideon stood. "You need to cut your hair. Where's the chess board?" Reid smiled and walked with him to the door. Gideon pulled him back.

"You were always meant for the BAU. We would've found you no matter what, and the BAU will always be there for you."

"Gideon, even after everything, I don't think that the BAU finding me was a bad thing."

They found him sitting at a kitchen table scattered with old case files and Star Trek DVDs covered in coffee mugs. He was taller, he was thinner, and he was quiet as they approached. Pale fingers wrapped around a cup of coffee that had cooled hours ago, Nathan Harris kept his eyes focused on the cup across from him that he had filled with coffee the same number of hours ago. A few hundred empty sugar packets covered the floor at his feet. Nathan raised his eyes to Morgan's gun.

"Dr. Reid isn't coming, is he?"

"Why Jason?" Aaron Hotchner tore his eyes from the blue lights swirling over the head of Nathan Harris, and glanced at Rossi.

"Jason was Reid's mentor. He handpicked Reid during college and oversaw all of his FBI training." Rossi nodded his companion onwards. "Reid never talks much about his family, but he never mentions his father."

"And Jason treated Reid like a son."

"In more ways than one." Emily Prentiss had slid in behind Rossi as Hotchner had spoken, and he glanced once at her before moving aside to let her into the conversation. "Reid's father left a letter after he left Reid and his mother just like Gideon left to Reid when he left the BAU." The three were silent as Morgan walked over with his knuckled turned in against his shirt.

"He's already confessed. Are we done here?" Hotchner nodded and led the team to the SUV.

"We are." Rossi crossed in front, and Morgan did away with any niceties while crawling across the back seat. Hotchner held the door as Prentiss got into the back seat behind the driver."Reid isn't."

There were five packets of sugar dissolving in Reid's cup of coffee as he struggled to find his balance walking down the hall of the hospital the next day. The other cup held only half a spoonful of creamer. Gideon had taken his bag into the waiting room, but Reid's balanced was still off as he dodged a racing nurse to open the door with his elbows. She didn't frown as he entered, but she bit her bottom lip and cocked her head to the left. Reid held out one cup of coffee to her and smiled.

"Dr. Addy, I was wondering if you might like to discuss the tendency of those accused or suspected of violent crimes to use the iussive subjunctive over the more commonly used optative subjunctive over some coffee?"

-END-