White Rabbit - A Criminal Minds Fic

Fourteen

Agent Hotchner joined Ellen and Robert in the cafeteria where they were eating, both quietly discussing the things they'd heard Alice talking about. They stopped when they looked up to see Aaron hovering by them, pointing to a chair to ask if he could join them.

"Can I asked you some questions about how Alice was when she returned?" He said to the couple, switching on a hand held tape recorder when they nodded.

"You said originally you got a phone call one day from her and she was in a diner three hours away from your home. That would be Alice's childhood home, yes? You didn't move out of the house your parents left you until a few years back?"

"That's right, yes. I remember doing laundry one day, I was off work because I'd worked a weekend shift and the phone rang, it was about seven thirty am. When I answered I could barely make out the person on the other end. It sounded like a terrified little girl. I threatened to hang up, I though it was a prank call and then I heard her voice clearer and she said her name. She begged me to come and pick her up and I did. Alice managed to get the zip code from the diner owner so I could find out where she was. She was about an hour or so drive from Rylon County where she'd gone missing."

"And she didn't tell you where she'd been?"

"No." Ellen shook her head. "All she'd say was that she'd escaped, and she could never go back. She fell asleep in the back seat of the car and I had to wake her to get her into the house."

"And then?"

"She stuffed herself full of food and passed out again, dead asleep. She didn't wake until the next day. It was quite a shock for Robert when he came home from work to find her there."

"So what happened when Alice woke up the next day?" Aaron asked.

"She showered and dressed in some of my old clothes, but she still wouldn't say where she'd been, only that she'd needed to escape. She asked me 'how far away am I?' and I said 'from what?'. She replied with 'from yesterday.' I remember that conversation so clearly because it seemed like such an odd thing for her to say. I told her were a three hour drive from where I picked up, if that was what she meant and she seemed happy with that information."

"But you didn't take her to a hospital or call the police?"

Robert took over from him wife. "No. Alice didn't appear to have any obvious injuries apart from the needle marks on her arms, although she didn't seem to be high or suffering withdrawal from anything. When we wanted to call the police she told us no, that THEY'D find her and get her if we did. She seemed so frightened of something and no matter how much we assured her that she was safe, she wouldn't let us. So we gave up trying. A few months later she asked if she could start using my surname and we agreed. If it made her feel safer then it was okay by me."

"She's got a drivers license issued in that name though?" Hotch commented, seeing the sheepish look on Roberts face, and making a mental note to get Spencer to ask about the needle marks.

"It's a fake. She made it herself, she'd always been a whizz with computers and things, according to Ellen. I was shocked at how realistic it looked."

"So what about afterwards, her behaviour."

Robert continued talking, Ellen now eating her lunch silently, picking apart her food. "She.... I don't know how different she was from before, I'd only just started dating Ellen when she went missing. But she did have odd behaviour. She'd... She come out of the bathroom after showering, not wearing any clothes or a towel and on a few occasions, she'd come into our bedroom when we were.... Erm, making love. She'd just stand there in a daze until we'd realise and shout at her. Then she'd burst into tears and look really shocked. We used to find soiled bed clothes in the laundry as well, where she'd wet the bed and tried to hide it, but that stopped after a while of her being back."

Robert carried on, listing how Alice would hide in her closet sometimes and would refuse to leave the house between certain hours if at all. It was only when Ellen threatened her with being taken to a psychiatrist that Alice started trying to reign in her weird quirks. What Robert found equally strange was that despite her behaviour, he could sit down with Ally and talk to her for hours about books and TV shows, and she'd be fine. He'd found his sister in law to be very smart, and an avid reader and when they'd bought her a laptop, she'd spend hours online.

Aaron didn't find the behaviour odd at all. Given what the girl had apparently been through, it could have been a lot worse. Bed wetting, sudden outbursts of emotion, possible sleepwalking by the sounds of it; they were the least of what could have been happened.

Robert spoke again. "Sir, IS Alice in danger?"

"Honestly, we're still trying to dertimine that."

....

Back on the BAU floor and Spencer had taken Alice to the break out area, where Morgan had ordered pizza for them both, leaving them to it as they ate. The team seemed to realise that Spencer had connected with this girl and that if she was going to talk, it would be to him.

Alice shovelled a piece of pizza into her mouth, licking the grease off her fingers and feeling a pair of eyes on her. She glanced up at Dr Reid, seeing him watching her.

"Whatever you're thinking, just ask it. You'll soon find out if I'll answer you or not." She was used to that look, the curiosity on his face, it was one her sister and Robert often wore.

"Alright. Did you really believe Lewis? What he said about the future?" He brushed a lock of hair back behind his ears as he waited to see if she'd answer.

"I didn't want to. It's absurd what he was saying, how COULD he be from the future, it's just not possible. But... The more I listened, and the more he talked, the more I found myself believing him. Now, I don't see how it could be true, but then..... I dunno. He talked with such conviction and he'd built up that place and was preparing for something he said would happen in the future, a future he wouldn't be around for. You had to have been there, to listen to him speak."

Spencer had interviewed enough manipulative psychopaths and had seen enough tapes of cult leaders to know how charismatic they could be, how they could woo a person with words and body language, and convince even the most intelligent or the most skeptical of people that their words, their way, was the right one. It was a skill, a skill they actually learnt in the BAU in order to talk unsubs down when they needed to, it was something that Spencer himself was very good at, being able to disarm people with words rather than weapons.

Alice spoke again. "Dr Reid, I know that you probably think I'm stupid for having fallen for his lies but...."

"Ally, I don't think you're stupid at all. I know how these people work." He interrupted her and she smiled slightly.

"Thank you but what I was going to say was, that I don't think he was fooling people on purpose. I still think that Lewis genuinely believes that he's from the future. He genuinely thinks that was he was doing, what he is still doing I presume, is the only way that his followers will survive."

Spencer knew that if that was the case, then this person would be a lot harder to deal with than someone who was trying to manipulate for their own good.

"Are you ready to go back? We have more questions to ask you."

"I'm ready. I think."