Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 43. In Utero View

Redblack...dark...

Redblack...muffled...

Redblack...vibration...

Redblack...warm...

Redblack...move...

Redblack...Move...

...MOVE...

She had always traveled. Without thought. Without effort. By psychic instinct. By psychic smell and psychic touch. She’d found him once. He was perfect. She loved him. But then something had happened. She couldn’t reach him. She knew he was there, but she couldn’t fall into him anymore. Something stopped her.

She could feel him now. He was coming. He was still denied her. Her psyche was held at bay. But she could move in other ways now. She had a body. There were others that called to her, too. But him…he was special, beloved…perfect.

Out there.

She had to go Out There. Everything was waiting. Everyone. Him. Beautiful him. Beautiful Him began with a sound like rough velvet, a soft growl. Errrrr…Errrrr…

Errrr…unnnn…

She would love him forever. Even if she couldn’t touch him at the moment, she loved Beautiful Him.

Forever.

Errrr…unnnn…

Forever.

Until then everything was…

Redblack...warm...

Redblack...dark...

xxxxxxx

J.J. had been hoping that this time she’d be the one to accompany the band of BAU travelers to the psychic sanctuary that had come to figure so prominently in the lives of Reid, Ana, Hotch and Rossi. But Rossi recalled the doctor’s wish to discourage any more new visitors unless circumstances made their presence unavoidable; like when Hotch’s damaged mind had required the doctor’s special brand of help.

So J.J., Garcia, Prentiss and Morgan had seen the three men off. Reid had been understandably dazed. Looking a little lost, he’d sometimes needed things repeated before he’d hear them. He’d needed to be shepherded along. Clearly, his mind was elsewhere. Hugs and well-wishes followed his nervous, bemused departure.

It was Hotch who’d baffled them.

He was as distracted as Reid, but with a subtle difference. The prospective father was looking outward and forward, his telepathy unable to stop itself from reaching toward his wife, despite knowing his efforts were defeated by the distance between them. The Unit Chief’s mind was focused inward, searching himself for proof of something when no proof was possible; at least, none of a concrete nature.

Hotch’s career was centered around evidence that could be presented in a court of law. He functioned on logical assumption and downplayed his natural intuition, letting it give him private guidance, but always granting tangible proof prominence in his professional life. After Rossi’s revelation, he felt unmoored and he was haunted by a phantom of that insubstantial, transitory sensation that had assaulted him in the graveyard.

He found no answers within himself. He hoped that there would be some waiting upstate. But he’d settle for reassurance and a restoration of normal grounded, substantial feelings. Hotch sighed. He knew he was acting a little distant, but he couldn’t help it. Right now he felt like dandelion fluff. The slightest breath might sweep him away.

When Rossi took his arm and steered him around obstacles and into a seat on the plane which was the first leg of their journey, Hotch was grateful. Dave was his anchor. Dave wouldn’t let him float away without a fight.