" The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind. "

— François de la Rochefoucauld

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

16.2 ; THE FISHER KING.

CAROLINE FELT LIKE HER head was going to explode. For the past hour, all she had done was stare at the piece of paper taped onto the whiteboard. She didn't allow her thoughts to wander past the numbers on the page. If she did, she knew her traitorous mind would go right back to the man beside her—and why he would barely look at her.

With Haley, Jack, and her sisters safely nested in a hotel somewhere, she had to focus on this case. Catch the unsub, remove the threat. It was all she should be thinking about.

But she just couldn't stop herself. If her thoughts were visible, they would be an inverse explosion, crazy, chaotic spins, and twists of words jumbled together to try and form how she felt into a sentence, or to a word. However, right now, she knew what she wanted.

She wanted him to look at her again for something besides work. She wanted to know why he wouldn't talk to her, why he wouldn't look at her like he did a couple of weeks ago. And, most important of all, she wanted to know why he was now so different. Was it because of her past? Because of their kiss? Or was it because of everything she lost before that made her so off-putting for him?

The sound of Hotch's voice broke her out of her tangled thoughts. "Reid, how many books do you think are published in a year?"

The genius, who had been staring intently at the board for over an hour now, pulled his gaze away. "In the whole world?" He puffed out a frustrated breath. "Thousands."

"Great," Morgan scoffed. "All we gotta do is find one."

He picked up the evidence bag in the center of the table. It was Gideon's "gift"—the baseball card. He stared at it for a moment before sighing. "You know," he began, "I can see this unsub gettin' out phone numbers and addresses from the bureau personnel files, but come on, man. It really says in there that Gideon digs Nellie Fox?"

"Or that JJ collects butterflies and I collected music boxes?" Caroline added, her voice quiet but not weak.

"I didn't even know these things about us," Morgan commented, tossing the card back onto the table.

"'Never would it be night, but always clear day to any man's sight'," Reid recited. He had been repeating that phrase off-and-on since he found it. She didn't need an eidetic memory to know the phrase now.

Morgan put his head on the table as he groaned, "Reid, not again with the poem from the music box, please."

"There's something familiar about it. I think I've heard it before."

"I thought you had a photographic memory," Morgan said.

"Eidetic memory," the young doctor corrected, "but that's primarily related to things I read. Like I said, this is something I think I've heard."

Hotch looked to Spencer as he said, "Which leaves us..."

"Nowhere," Morgan said. "That's where it leaves us."

As much as Caroline hated to admit it, he had a point. They had been at this for hours now and they hadn't made any noticeable progress. Every step they took lead them to more questions that pushed them five steps back.

Gideon must have entered the conference room while they were talking because she heard his voice behind her say, "Not necessarily. How would we proceed if we didn't have all these clues? What's the first thing we'd look at?

Caroline twisted her torso to look back at him. "Victimology," she said. "Why this particular victim in this particular place at this particular time?"

"Exactly," he said. "We have a victim, don't we?"

Gideon went over and plucked the picture of the blonde-haired girl tacked to the board. He set the photo in the middle of the table and pointed to it. "Rebecca Bryant. Missin' out of South Boston, Virginia." He turned to Morgan. "You can get there in a few hours if you hurry. Take JJ. Find out everything there is to know about this girl."

Morgan nodded before he stood up. "You got it."

"We've been letting him lead us around like he's something more than he is," Gideon continued as Morgan brushed past him to exit the room.

"He's just another unsub," Hotch said. "Let's start putting together a profile."

Hotch turned to leave. Caroline stood from her chair and asked, "What do you want us to do?"

Gideon paused and gestured to the room. "Keep workin' on this," he replied. "If anybody can put it together, it's you two."

She opened her mouth to ask if there was anything else she could do, but Gideon was already half-way down the hall. She let out a soft sigh before glancing back at Spencer. For the first time today, he made eye contact with her that lasted for more than two seconds.

Neither of them said a word. Spencer cleared his throat and averted his gaze, focusing his attention back on the board behind them. Her throat feels like she swallowed a golf ball.

Well, this was going to be interesting.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

She paced back and forth behind the young doctor, her stride almost creating a hole in the floor. She had focused on criss-cross sections in the floor where the tiles meet and walked back and forth between them. It was helpful to have something else to focus on besides the case.

"There are thousands of books published every year," she said aloud, mostly to herself, as she paced. "Book titles, possible book titles..."

She stopped mid-pace and shook her head. "This is impossible."

Spencer hadn't moved from his spot nor had he spoken to her as she thought aloud. He glanced back at her, his eyebrows pressed together. "Impossible?"

"I didn't—" She sighed and shook her head. "It just feels impossible. New books are published every year. How are we supposed to choose...okay, what are you doing?"

As she was talking, Spencer went behind her and started to shuffle through the pile of evidence on the conference table. As he searched, he mumbled, "Every year...every year."

His hand latched onto the baseball card and he held it up to his face. He looked over at her. "What year was this card again?"

"1963," she answered automatically. "Why?"

"1963," he repeated softly as he looked down at the card. He stood silently for a second before shoving the card into his shirt pocket and taking off down the hall in a fast jog.

"Spencer!" Caroline hissed after him as she fast-walked behind him. "Slow down!"

She followed him all the way to Gideon's office, both of them bursting through the door. Gideon looked up from the file in his hands, his eyes peering over his glasses with a blank expression on his face.

Spencer wasted no time as he launched into his usual word-babble. "The book has to be the right volume and the right publication date or the code won't work, right?"

Gideon blinked. "Okay."

"Now, when you talk about Nellie Fox, it's in regards to the 1959 White Sox," the young doctor said as he pulled the bagged baseball card out of his pocket. "That's the year that's important to you, but for some reason, this is a 1963 card."

Their mentor shrugged. "Well, maybe he couldn't find a '59."

"You think a pale clouded yellow butterfly was easy to find, or a music box that specifically plays The Trout Quintet or Starlit Nights?"

"So you think it's a book published in 1963," Caroline stated.

"It has to be." He bit his lip as a look of doubt flashed across his face. "Maybe."

Before she could say anything else to him, Hotch stuck his head inside Gideon's office and said, "The guy who delivered the puzzle to my house just turned himself in."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"This guy is infuriatingly good," Garcia fumed as she typed furiously on her keyboard. "He routed his IP through major corporations, crisscrossed it through countries, bounced it off satellites—"

"But I thought you already tracked the hacker," Caroline said.

"No, I only found what he wanted me to find. The apartment where Giles was dead." The tech analyst shook her head once. "Guys, a hacker capable of getting into my systems is going to have amazingly sophisticated equipment. Did Giles's apartment have that?"

With Gideon and Hotch interrogating their newest lead, the next best step for them was to investigate Reid's newest theory so that meant a trip to Garcia's was in order. Unfortunately for them, her usual cheery disposition had been chased off due to her being hacked. The moment they had walked through the door she had cast them a glare and returned back to her computer.

"He didn't have a couch," Reid said.

"Exactly. Giles was a smokescreen I should have seen through."

Caroline carefully came by her side and placed her hand on her friend's shoulder. The muscle underneath was tense and hard.

"You're not expected to be perfect all the time, P.G.," she told her. "What happened could've happened to anybody."

The tech analyst didn't look at her. "Well, I'm not everybody, and this guy hacked me. But now I have this glorious program I wrote, tracking the hacker through his other identity—Sir Kneighf."

Spencer appeared on Garcia's other side, leaning forward to stare at the screen. He was so close that she could see the pale blue light from the computer screen reflected back on his face.

"K-N-E-I-G-H-T," he spelled out, tilting his head. "That's an odd spelling."

Garcia turned her head to look at him, her nose an inch from his ear. "Do you need something?"

Spencer cleared his throat as he stood. "Yeah, is there a database, which lists all the books published in a given year?"

"Individual publishers have lists, but I don't think there's anything like a master one," she answered. "Plus, it would depend upon the year because the further back you go, the less likely there'll be any database at all."

"1963."

"Yeah, okay, that would be an example of extremely less likely."

Caroline bit her lip. That had been there only lead and now they were back to where they started. How were they supposed to find a book published in 1963 without a database to look into?

"Could you do me a favor?" Spencer asked the tech analyst. "Type something into a search engine for me? 'Never would it be night, but always clear day to any man's sight.'"

Garcia nodded and began typing the phrase into the computer. Once she hit enter, the search results popped up on the screen in front of her. "Ok, that's from a poem, 'The Parliament of—'"

"Fowls!" He exclaimed. "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Chaucer, my—my mom use to read me that. It's widely considered as the first Valentine's poem."

"Your mom read you Valentine's poems?" Garcia snickered. "Hello, therapy."

Spencer began to pace behind them, rubbing the back of his ear. Caroline recognized the look on his face. It was his "thinking" look. She took a step back, giving him space to walk as his brain worked. After a moment, he paused and faced her.

"What was the name of the song in the music box you received?" He asked quickly.

"Starlit Nights," she said.

He shook his head. "No, the full name."

"May: Starlit Nights. Why?"

"That's it!" He snapped his fingers together as he rushed by Garcia's side again. "There was a contemporary British author—Fowles. John Fowles. Will you type it into a search engine?"

Garcia's hands flew across the keyboard as Caroline watched over her shoulder. A list of books popped up on the screen and the tech analyst began to read them off. "He wrote The Magus, he wrote The French Lieutenant's Woman—"

"Anything in May 1963 published in Great Britain?" Spencer asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, The Collector."

Caroline frowned. "Garcia, did you say The Collector?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I wrote a thesis on the main character in the book for my senior psych class," she explained. "The plot of the story follows a man who kidnaps a woman and holds her hostage in the cellar of a farmhouse. The whole story revolves around his dissolving psyche."

"Collector," Spencer said. "Baseball cards, music boxes, and skeleton keys are things that are collected."

"You guys scare me sometimes," the tech analyst murmured as she highlighted The Collector on the screen and hit search.

When the cover popped up on the screen, her stomach lurched. Beside her, Garcia went pale.

On the cover of the book was a white butterfly, a skeleton key, and a lock of blonde hair tied together with a pink ribbon.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

In their excitement that they found the book, Spencer and Caroline almost ran right into Hotch and Gideon exiting the interrogation room. The older profilers saw their wide-eyed gazes and paused in the hall.

"We know what the book is," Spencer told them, his voice a tad bit higher from his excitement. For most, the prospect of getting excited over something as trivial as a book was strange, but it had been a puzzle—a challenge. There was nothing the young doctor loved more than a good challenge. "It's The Collector by John Fowles."

"You sure?" Gideon asked.

"Not one-hundred percent," Caroline replied. "Not until we see if the code works, but we have four separate libraries searching for the 1963 edition published in Great Britain."

"Good work, you guys," Hotch said.

One of the floor agents came up behind Gideon and tapped his shoulder. "Agent Gideon," she said, "there's a call for you on line 2, says it's extremely urgent."

He furrowed his brow slightly. "Is there a name?"

"Sort of," she replied hesitantly as she handed Spencer the notepad in her hand. "He calls himself The Fisher King."

The Fisher King? What kind of name was that?

"This could be the unsub, guys," Reid said as he stared down at the notepad.

Caroline glanced over at him. "Why?"

"In mythology, The Fisher King is the Grail King," he explained. "Sir Kneighf is an anagram for Fisher King."

"Fisher King's at the end of all grail quests," Gideon murmured to himself before walking into the bullpen.

The rest of them followed without question. As Gideon reached for the nearest phone, Hotch said, "Line 2, trapped and traced."

An agent to the left of him nodded and disappeared. Once she was out of sight, they all gathered around as Gideon put the phone on speaker and said, "Gideon."

"What I had to do was not my fault."

"Excuse me?"

"It was distasteful and barbaric."

Caroline frowned as she listened. It was the same voice from the videotape, but he sounded different this time. More emotional—angry.

Gideon's brow furrowed as he tried again. "Who is this?"

"No one else had to be hurt."

Hurt? Who was he talking about?

"Call yourself 'The Fisher King'?"

"I told you there were rules."

"I'm actually more interested in exactly how you got all those burns," Gideon stated.

There was a brief moment of silence over the line. She could hear the unsub's labored breathing on the other end.

"Remember this next time you decide to step outside my instructions," the unsub whispered into the line, slow and sure. "Agent Greenaway did not have to die like that."

Before the words could process in her head, the dial tone turned on. He was gone, but she didn't care about that. The words "Elle" and "dead" were still ringing in her ears.

Caroline turned to Hotch, her hand partially over her mouth. "He can't be telling the truth," she said, her voice breathless. "She's just went home thirty minutes ago. Elle can't be dead."

Hotch didn't say a word. The look on his face held nothing—no reassurance or worry. Just mindnumbing blankness. A wave of nausea bubbled in her stomach.

No one said anything as a moment of silence passed, all the profilers unsure what to do now. Then, the phone rang. It was Agent Anderson, and he confirmed her fear.

Elle had been shot.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

After Anderson had called, Hotch and Gideon went to the hospital. As far as they all knew, she was still in surgery. Somehow, she had managed to call 911 before she passed out from blood loss. Just the thought of seeing Elle in a hospital bed with tubes and wires taped to her instead of the usual sarcastic, healthy Elle had been upsetting enough to cause Caroline to stay at Quantico.

First, the unsub had involved Haley and her sisters. Now Elle? Delusional or not, Caroline wanted him behind bars before he could hurt anyone else she cared about.

The electronic beep signaling the phone had been answered snapped her out her thoughts. Beside her, Spencer asked, "Mrs. Valez, are you there?"

While Hotch and Gideon were with Elle, Caroline and Spencer had continued their search, trying the book. Thankfully, one of the libraries they called had informed them that they had the exact edition they were looking for.

A soothing female voice came over the line. "Yes, Dr. Reid, I am. I have a first edition of The Collector, published in Great Britain in May 1963."

Caroline started to take down some of the evidence taped to the whiteboard as Spencer replied, "Wonderful. Mrs. Valez, I'm gonna read you a set of three numbers. The first is gonna be a page number, the second a line number on that page, and the third, a word number in that line. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, I understand."

The young doctor nodded to Caroline. She uncapped one of the markers and gave him a thumbs up.

"All right," he said. "The first is on page 222, line 23. What is the 16th word on that line?"

A beat of silence passed before she said, "The."

She wrote the word on the board as Spencer continued, " 'The'. . . Great. Page 91, line 11, word 13."

"Path. Does the make sense?"

"The path," he exclaimed eagerly. "Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. All right, please go to page 31, line 9, word 1."

The phone call with Mrs. Valez lasted for twenty minutes before they finally finished the code. They both thanked the librarian profusely before hanging up. Now, they stared up at the whiteboard at the message she had written.

"The path to the end began at his start," Caroline read. "To find her first calm her long broken heart. She sits in a window with secrets from her knight. Is it adventure that keeps him out of her sight?"

During the call, Garcia had come to help. As she looked at the board, her head tilted to the side, she asked, "Another puzzle?"

"It's a riddle," Spencer said as he took a step towards the board. He began to murmur to himself again. Caroline couldn't hear what he was saying.

"Oh," Garcia huffed. "He's doing it again."

She leaned over and elbowed her friend in the ribs gently with her finger pressed against her lips. The tech analyst simply shrugged and replied, "What? We were both thinkin' it."

Suddenly, Spencer whipped around and said, "It's never night in Las Vegas."

Caroline blinked. "What?"

He didn't elaborate as he brushed by her. He grabbed the phone as he hit one of the extensions.

"I need to be connected to the field office closest to Las Vegas, Nevada, immediately," Spencer explained quickly into the phone.

Garcia exchanged a confused look with Caroline. She turned to him and said, "Spence, what's going on?"

He didn't respond to her but instead started talking on the phone once more.

"Hi, this is Dr. Spencer Reid with the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico. I need my mother picked up and brought to Virginia in protective custody as soon as possible."

His mother? Spencer had mentioned her a couple of times, but he had never really talked about her, even when she asked. What was going on that meant that Ms. Reid had to be placed in protective custody?

"We're searching for an unsub who shot one of our agents today, and I think he might know my mother, and I believe she may be in danger," he continued without a beat. Then, his voice became softer. "She's at the Bennington Sanitarium in Las Vegas. Her name's Diana Reid. She's a patient there."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Once Spencer had finished his phone call, he retired to his desk. It was where he sat for the past thirty minutes, quietly toying with the musical box poem in his hands. Caroline had watched him from the conference room window until the Las Vegas field office called.

She walked into the bullpen and glided up to his desk, her hands clasped in front of her. He glanced up as she approached.

"She's okay—you mom, I mean," she told him. "Some agents picked her up and she's flying here right now."

He nodded a little. However, the absent look on his face didn't go away.

"I forgot she used to always read me this poem," he murmured as he looked at the baggie in his hands. "It's funny, huh?"

She frowned. "Funny?"

"I should have realized this sooner," he said. "Nobody knows things like you collected music boxes except for me. People tell me their secrets all the time. I think it's 'cause they know I don't have anyone to betray them to...well, except to my mother. I...I tell her pretty much everything."

A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "I don't think anyone would mind."

"Do you know that I write her a letter every day?"

"That's really sweet, Spence."

"It depends on why I write to her, though," he murmured. "I write her letters so I won't feel so guilty about not visiting her."

Caroline carefully perched herself on the edge of his desk, watching him start to pick at his fingers. "Spencer," she whispered, "that's not your fault. I feel guilty when I miss one of Cass's school plays or Caitlin's softball games, but it's just apart of our job."

"That's not—" He took a small breath. "Did you know that schizophrenia is genetically passed?"

"Yes, genetics can be a factor. But it's not everything."

"The logical part of me knows that, but a small part of me doesn't seem to believe it."

"Well, schizophrenic or not, you are always going to be my best friend, which means you're basically stuck with me." She let out a weak laugh. "Even when you're avoiding me."

Spencer's face flushed. "I—I haven't been avoiding you."

"Spencer Reid, you may be smart, but you are a god-awful liar."

"Yeah, so I've been told."

Caroline chuckled and Spencer laughed with her. It was a weak laugh, but it was something. He was finally talking to her again, which was all she ever wanted.

Once the moment passed, she cleared her throat. "Look, I understand that my past is...heavy, to say the least. Sometimes, it's too much for me. And I know it probably changes how you see me—"

"You thought I was avoiding you because I think you're, what, somehow less of a human because of what happened to you?" He asked, his brow furrowing.

She frowned. "I—well, when you put it like that it sounds rude."

"Caroline, I don't think that, not even in the slightest. To be completely honest..." He sighed. "I was avoiding you for my own selfish reason."

"What was it?"

"I was afraid," he admitted. "Not of you or your past, but of not being what you need. You've been through so much and I want to be there for you, but I'm scared of doing it wrong."

At that moment, her whole body relaxed like she was releasing a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. The relief that washed over her was exquisitely wonderful and like nothing she had ever felt before. Her lips stretched into a broad smile.

He doesn't hate her.

"What?" He asked, the corners of his mouth tugging up as he looked at her. "Why are you smiling at me like that?"

"I—nothing." She shook her head. "I'm just happy you're speaking to me again."

"Yeah, me too. It was a miserable couple of weeks."

"Aw, you missed me."

"Okay, you don't have to rub it in."

Caroline slipped off his desk as she said, "If it makes you feel any better, I missed you, too."

"It does, actually."

"Good."

Halfway back to the conference room, Caroline paused. She turned back before she said, "Oh, Spencer?"

He looked back up at her. "Yeah?"

"There's no 'right way' to be there for somebody," she told him. "You support me, and that's all I could ever ask for. You care about everyone, not just me. That's what makes you so amazing."

A small smile grew on his face. "Thanks, Care."

"You're welcome, Spence."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline sat in the conference room, still mulling over all the evidence. Now that they had the book, there had to be some sort of clue as to where he was keeping Rebecca, or maybe even his identity. She just had to find it—for Elle.

From behind her, she heard the door open and she twisted around in her chair to see the new arrival. Spencer stepped into the room with a woman closely behind him, clutching her bag with a nervous look on her face. She was tall, almost as tall as Spencer, with short-cropped blonde hair. She knew it was his mother, Diana Reid, because of their similar facial features.

"This is where you work?" His mother asked, glancing around the room warily.

"This is where we meet," he replied. "Uh, my desk, you can see it, it's right out there in the bullpen area."

Diana Reid began to walk around the room, completely ignoring Caroline. She looked to Spencer and he gave her an apologetic look. She stood up from her chair to stand by his side.

"The table's round," she mused as she followed along the edge of the table.

"Yeah, just like I wrote to you in my letters," he told her. "Mom, there's someone I'd like you to meet."

Diana stopped in her tracks and looked over to him. Her eyes drifted to Caroline, suddenly noticing her presence.

"Mom, this Caroline Lucas. We—we work together. Caroline, this is my mother, Diana Reid."

She smiled at Spencer's mother. "It's so nice to meet you, Ms. Reid."

"Yes, I suppose it is," she said, pausing to look at her for a moment. She turned to her son. "She's very pretty. Just like you wrote in your letters."

Caroline felt her face get hot as Spencer exclaimed, "Mom!"

However, Diana seemed unaffected by what she had said. She began to wander around the room again, seeming to forget that Caroline was still there. This time, she said, "Dr. Jessen gave me the book you brought. Marjorie Kemp."

Spencer smiled a little. "She's your favorite."

"That particular book is one of her minor works."

Neither one of them said anything as Reid's mother wandered over to the board, staring at all the evidence taped up. Without warning, she reached out and grabbed the key from the board.

"Mom, no! Don't ta—" Spencer surged forward, snatching the key from his mother's hand. He tacked it back onto the board. "You can't grab stuff off the board. The key is evidence."

Diana flinched away from her son, her head shrinking back into her shoulder. Her eyes were focused on the floor, her expression ashamed. Caroline stepped behind Spencer and put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. He paused for a moment then took a deep breath, gaining back his composure.

"Mom, the unsub that we're looking for—the bad guy," he corrected, his voice gentle, "knows things about my colleagues' personal lives, things that only. . .you would know. Do you write about them in your journals?"

Diana stiffened, her hands going back to clinging her bag's straps, as she snapped, "My journals are none of the government's business!"

"I'm not the government, Mom," Spencer said.

Well, technically. . .

"This certainly looks like a government office!" Diana shouted, her hands wringing nervously on the straps of her bag.

"Mother, do you write about my colleagues' personal lives?"

Her hands went to the sides of her face, almost shielding herself. She slowly dragged her hands down as she looked up at her son, rubbing her face. "Why did you bring me here, Spencer?"

"I need to ask you some things about a man I think you might know," he told her. "A bad man. He's killed some people, and he's holding a girl hostage."

Diana frowned. "You think I know someone like that?"

"Ms. Reid, I know this is all very scary and confusing," Caroline said, trying to make her voice soothing and soft. Diana locked eyes with her. "But would you be willing to watch a tape and see if he sounds familiar? You'd be helping your son and the girl being held hostage."

Spencer's mother stared at her for a second longer before nodding slowly. Spencer glanced at her and mouthed, "Thank you," before pulling out a chair for his mother to sit at the round table. Caroline picked up the remote and hit play on the tape.

As the audio played, Caroline watched as Diana's hand covered half of her mouth, almost as if she was in shock. She noticed the look of recognition in her eyes. She paused the video and turned to her.

"Ms. Reid, do you recognize him?" She asked gently.

Diana nodded once. "I'm sure it's. . .Randall Garner.

"Randall Garner?" Spencer repeated.

"He was with me at the hospital. He's a very emotionally disturbed man."

There was a quick rap of knuckles on the door as Garcia stepped into the conference room. "Caroline, Reid, I got to the end of the IP string. Sir Kneighf, the Fisher King, his name is Randall Garner. He's Rebecca Bryant's biological father."

Caroline and Spencer shared a look. It was him. It was their unsub.

Everything after that moved in a blur. Garcia was on the phone, contacting the rest of the team about their discovery. Caroline and Spencer were still searching through the evidence to see if there was anything more they could find about where Garner had Rebecca. She had forgotten that Diana was still in the room with them until she said, "I can't believe she's real."

Caroline looked up at her, standing near the board. "What do you mean?"

"Whenever he talked about Rebecca, he never said she was his daughter," Diana murmured. "He said all his children died in a fire. He spoke of a Rebecca, more in the abstract. I really thought she was a metaphor, not an actual human being." She sighed, shaking her head. "An ideal."

"A grail," Spencer said. "He thinks he's the Fisher King."

"Who does?" Morgan asked as he walked into the room, JJ trailing behind him.

"Randall Garner," Spencer replied. "Our unsub."

"He believes you're all modern-day knights of the round table," Diana said as she pointed her finger at all of them.

Morgan and JJ stared at Spencer's mom with confused looks. Spencer said quickly, "Uh, Derek Morgan, this is my mother, Diana Reid."

"It's your mother?" Morgan cleared his throat as he turned to Diana. "Ma'am, it's a pleasure to meet you."

The older woman inclined her head towards him, almost in a nod. Caroline couldn't tell if she was going to say anything, but Hotch's arrival into the room interrupted whatever she was about to say.

"So where are we on finding this son of a bitch?" He asked.

"We rechecked all the clues," Spencer answered automatically. "There's nothing that points to an address."

"The adoption records for Rebecca listed an address of the fire, so I made a call to Nevada," JJ added. "It's vacant. No one ever rebuilt."

"Nevada?" Hotch questioned. "So we don't even know what state he's in?"

"I'll search tax records," Garcia said. "See if he owns any property."

Caroline felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned around in her chair. Ms. Reid stood behind her, anxiously twisting her hands. "Excuse me."

Spencer turned to his mother. "Mom, do you want to wait out in the—"

Diana ignored her son, this time looking at everyone in the room. "Just before the agents got me from the hospital," she said as she rifled through her bag, "a man delivered this to me."

She held up a photo of a mansion before flipping it to the white underside. "It's a photo of a house with an address on the back."

Morgan squinted at the handwriting scrawled on the back. "Shiloh, Virginia? That's only 10 miles from here."

Caroline stood from her chair before giving a small smile to Spencer's mother. "I think we just found our address."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Within the hour, Hotch, Morgan, Spencer, and Caroline were at the address on the photo with SWAT. The property was huge, at least six acres. If this was the unsub's house, their best hope was the house. Fortunately for them, the gate was unlocked.

After doing an entire sweep of downstairs, Caroline had found Elle's badge tucked in one of the drawers in the living room. This was the last clue—they had found him.

She slipped the badge into her pocket. Elle would want it back once she felt better.

Once downstairs had been cleared, Spencer and Caroline made their way up the spiral staircase. They froze when they heard a creaking noise like someone had opened a door. She whispered to Hotch and Morgan at the foot of the stairs, "There's someone up here."

They continued up the stairs with Morgan and Hotch close behind them. They paused outside the hallway. Beside her, Spencer peered over the wall and nodded. "He's in there."

"All right, cover me," Morgan said. "I'm gonna go in."

Spencer held his hand up. "No, wait."

He stopped, frozen against the wall. "What?"

"Mr. Garner?" Spencer called out. "My name's Spencer Reid. You were in the hospital with my mother. I think. . .I think she might have confused you."

Morgan shot Caroline a confused look. She simply shrugged, just at a loss as he was. She pressed her back against the wall, the gun warm against her hands.

"All we want to do is help Rebecca," Spencer continued. "That's exactly what you want, right? That's why you sent us the puzzles? That's why you said you hoped to see us soon?"

A raspy, disembodied voice floated down the hall. "Ask the question."

"There is no magical question, Mr. Garner." Spencer looked to the team as he whispered to them, "He believes if I ask him the right question, it'll heal all of his wounds."

"Do you know the question?" Hotch asked, his voice hushed.

"I know what he wants," Spencer said as he began to edge along the wall. "I'm gonna move to where he can see me."

Caroline blinked. "What?"

"Reid!" Morgan snapped as Spencer stepped into the hallway. "Reid, no!"

He handed a nearby SWAT agent his gun as he slowly walked down the hall with his hands raised in the air. "Stay calm, Mr. Garner."

"Shit," Caroline muttered as she started to follow him, her gun by her side.

"Caroline," Hotch hissed at her. "Get back here!"

"I'm not leaving him to do this by himself," she whispered back, carefully walking behind Spencer.

Like hell she'd let him walk into a potentially dangerous situation without his gun. Even if she didn't understand what he was doing, she wasn't going to let him get hurt.

He craned his head back slightly to look at her. "What are you doing?" He asked in a hushed voice.

"You and me, remember?" She said. "I've got your back."

He didn't say anything, but she saw that flash of a smile before it disappeared into a more appropriate neutral expression.

"Ask the question, Sir Percival," Garner murmured as they both quietly made their way down the hall.

"I told you, I'm not Sir Percival," Spencer said. "My name is Dr. Spencer Reid from the FBI. You were in the hospital with my mother, Diana?"

"If you want the grail, you must ask the question!"

Caroline steeled herself at the urgency in the unsub's voice. If they weren't careful, things could get bad, fast.

"She's not a grail!" The young doctor exclaimed. "She's your daughter. Her name is Rebecca."

"My daughters died in a fire," Garner panted. "And my son. And my wife."

"Rebecca lived."

"No. Your mother, she explained it all to me."

"My mother's a paranoid schizophrenic who'd forget to eat if she wasn't properly medicated and supervised," Spencer snapped. Without taking her eyes off the door, she brushed her hand against his gently. He slowly unstiffened.

"She made me realize none of it was real," he claimed. "I never lost Rebecca. She—she never existed in the first place."

"She does exist, Mr. Garner," Spencer said as he gently opened the door. "And we're here to help her."

Once the door was fully opened, Caroline saw Mr. Garner sitting in the desk chair, his face marred from burn scars. Strapped to his chest was a row of explosives and in his hand was the remote. His finger was mashing the red button in. The moment he let go, he'd detonate.

"Hotch, Morgan?" She called over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off the bomb. "I think it'd be better if you guys waited downstairs. We're gonna talk alone with Mr. Garner up here."

"Go ahead and talk, Care," Morgan said, "but we're not goin' anywhere."

She cursed Morgan's stubbornness. She had counted twelve pipe explosives strapped to the unsub's chest. An explosion that size would probably take out a part of the house.

She carefully stepped out from behind Spencer and aimed her gun at Mr. Garner's forehead. He didn't even seem to notice her. She had a clear and easy shot. But she knew the moment she pulled the trigger, the bomb would explode.

"Ask the question and I'll be healed," the unsub said. "And you may take the grail. Just ask the question, Sir Knight."

"I can't."

"Heal me!"

"Mr. Garner, a fisher king wound cannot be healed by somebody else. It's not a wound to the body," Spencer explained. "It's a wound to the memory. Wound to the mind. It's. . .it's a wound that only you can find, and a wound that only you can heal."

"Just ask the question."

"There's only one question that matters, Mr. Garner. There's only one really important question. Can you forgive yourself?"

"I couldn't get to them," Mr. Garner whispered, his voice weak. She could hear the sadness and despair.

"If you tell us where she is, you can save Rebecca now," Spencer said. "Just tell us where Rebecca is."

"You already know," the unsub breathed. "I sent your mother the map."

"What map?"

"Can I forgive myself?" Mr. Garner took a deep breath and then glanced at the detonator in his hand. The moment she saw the look in his eyes, she knew he made his decision. "No, I can't."

Spencer grabbed Caroline's arm and yanked her out of the room as they took off down the hall. He screamed, "Run!" right as the bomb exploded.

She felt a wave of heat thrown them forward, sending her off-balance. As she fell to the floor, Spencer dove on top of her, his arms wrapping around her head. Somehow, she managed to untangle herself and carefully sat up, dazed, and saw Morgan snuffing out a fire on Spencer's leg with a blanket.

She blinked as her ears rang. Someone tugged at her arm. She glanced up and saw Hotch standing over her. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her supporting her with one arm.

"Morgan, grab Reid!" He instructed. "We gotta go!"

Reid coughed as Morgan pulled him off the ground. He dragged him as Hotch took off down the hall, his arm still wrapped around her.

"What the hell was that?" He demanded as they shuffled along the hall.

Spencer cleared his throat. "He had a bomb."

"You didn't think we needed to know that?" Morgan snapped.

"I told you to go downstairs," Caroline shouted over the racing flames, starting to cough.

"Well, you didn't say bomb," Morgan retorted as Hotch helped her down the stairs. "You left that part out."

"Stop," Spencer said. "Stop, stop, stop."

She rooted her feet on the floor, stopping Hotch in his tracks. Morgan looked up at him in disbelief. "What do you mean stop? The house is on fire, Reid. Let's go!"

"Just let me think!"

"While you do that, I'm getting Caroline out of here," Hotch said as he attempted to move Caroline once more. She braced herself and shrugged out of his grasp.

"What are you doing?" He asked her. "We have to go!"

"I'm not leaving until we find Rebecca," Caroline argued. "Garner was the Fisher King, so this is his castle. She has to be here!"

"Caroline, you're bleeding."

Hesitantly, she reached up and touched the side of her face. It was slick and wet. When she pulled her hand back, there was blood on her fingertips.

"It's fine," she said quickly. "Probably just a scrape."

"Look, there may not be time for a search," he told her sternly as he held his hand out to her. "Let's go."

"Not until we find Rebecca!"

"Down—she's in the basement downstairs!" Reid exclaimed as he pushed passed them down the stairs.

Caroline didn't hesitate to run after him. She knew Hotch and Morgan were right behind them as they descended down into the dark basement.

She heard a female voice shouting, "Help! Get me out of here!"

Her voice echoed against the walls, making it hard to distinguish where Rebecca was. It was even harder with the ringing in her ears. But they found her, chained to the floor.

Morgan pushed the bed towards the wall so they could all see where she was chained. Rebecca coughed as smoke started to fill the room. She tugged on her chains as she screamed, "Hurry!"

"The key," Caroline said to Reid quickly. "The knight holds the key. He called you Sir Percival!"

Spencer fumbled in his pockets until he found the skeleton key. He quickly unlocked Rebecca from her chains and Hotch scooped her up as they all ran outside. Just as they were half-way across the yard, the house exploded in orange and yellow flames that licked up and down the house.

As Rebecca got loaded into an ambulance, Caroline watched the house start to burn and crumble. No one bothered to stop it. There was nothing left to save.

As the yellow and orange flames danced in the night, she reached into her pocket and pulled out Elle's badge. She ran her soot-covered finger over Elle's picture and sighed.

It was finally over.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Once Caroline got her head bandaged at the hospital, the team headed back to Quantico, still dirty from soot and debris. However, once they walked through the door, JJ greeted them with some good news.

"Elle's out of surgery," she said. "She's gonna be ok."

Caroline sighed. "Good. Is Gideon still at the hospital?"

"Yeah. How's Rebecca?"

"She's in the hospital," Morgan answered, "but she should be all right."

Garcia, who had suddenly appeared beside Caroline, murmured, "Physically, maybe."

She didn't say anything to the tech analyst's comment. What happened to Rebecca would follow her for the rest of her life, that much she was sure of. But she survived and she has a chance at life now. It the scheme of things, that made it all worth it.

Hotch was half-way to his office when he stopped and faced them gathered by the door. "Thank you, everyone, " he said. "All of you."

"Well, we could've only gotten so far without Ms. Reid," Caroline said, casting a smile at Spencer. He smiled back, a real smile, and her heart melted.

Once she had cleaned herself up and changed her clothes, Caroline headed over to the hospital. When she arrived, there was no sign of Gideon, but she could catch up with him later. Right now, she just wanted to see Elle.

She stood over the hospital, watching as Elle took gentle, soft breaths as she slept. To see her breath at all was a miracle. She let out a relieved sigh as she pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. She took Elle's hand into hers. With her other hand, she pulled out her badge and set it on the table in front of them.

"It's for when you wake up," she said softly to her friend. "Just so you can have it."

She didn't respond. Caroline sighed as she rubbed the back of her hand gently. "I'm sorry I wasn't there," she whispered. "And I'm sorry that I won't be here when you wake up. I have something I need to do, but I'll come back. I promise."

She carefully stood up. She fixed Elle's sheets and brushed back the hair from her face. Once she felt like she was going to be okay, Caroline turned her back and left.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline pulled the yellow caution tape from the door before she stepped inside the house. She looked around. It was fairly empty except for a few decorations and photos. On the white wall closest to the door, the word RULES was written in blood. Elle's blood.

She had seen the crime scene photos. The last thing she wanted was Elle to come home to her blood on the walls.

She took a deep breath before she headed into the bathroom. She set the red plastic bucket she brought into the tub and turned the water on, filling the bucket almost to the brim. She turned the knob and the water shut off. She carefully carried the bucket back into the living room and set it on the floor in front of the bloody message.

From her pockets, she pulled out her latex gloves and a washcloth. She dropped the cloth into the water as she slipped her gloves on, carefully not to tear them. Once the cloth was wet enough, she pulled it out of the bucket and started to scrub the blood off the wall.

About fifteen minutes in, the front door opened. Caroline looked up and saw Hotch standing in the doorway.

"I knew you'd be here," he said.

She set the washcloth into the bucket. The water had already turned a muddy shade of red. "Am I that predictable?"

"It's not predictability," was Hotch's only answer. He nodded to the bucket at her feet. "Want some help?"

She smiled a little and nodded. He grabbed a washcloth from the kitchen and dipped it into the bucket. She didn't look over at him as she continued to scrub. She almost had the L gone.

The two worked in silence until Hotch finally said, "Why'd you come?"

She frowned as she scrubbed a spot of blood. "What do you mean?"

"We could've hired someone to clean. You didn't have to do it."

"I wanted to."

"Why?"

"Because," she sighed, "when she wakes up and heals, she'll want to come home. And when she does, I want her to know that it's safe. Random people coming in and out doesn't help that."

Hotch didn't respond. Caroline kept scrubbing. Her arms were sore, but she ignored the pain.

"It wasn't your fault," he said after a moment. "That you weren't there. You didn't know."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I know. But it wasn't your fault either. Just because you sent her home doesn't mean you got her shot."

"How'd you—?"

She smiled a little. "I guess you're not as stoic as you thought, huh?"

"Keep scrubbing."

She chuckled under her breath as they worked in silence. She couldn't help but wonder if Elle was awake yet. She also wondered if she was awake, how did she feel? Scared? Alone?

She might have lived, but a vital part of her was missing now. She knew how scary that felt. How she felt like she'd never recover.

But she'd be there for her. The whole team would be. She just knew it.

She didn't know what the future had in store for her or for Elle or for Spencer, but she knew that at least she'd have the team. No matter what happened next, they were her family.

And she would never leave behind her family. 

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

A/N:

hehe. hi!