CM fic: 'The Terrible and Great.'
To say that this was unique was an understatement. To say that it was shocking and horrifying was an understatement. Even with all that they had seen, it was an understatement.
It was being reported in the news outside of the U.S.
Everyone wanted to know more. In the way that if you see an accident on the road, you know that a terrible thing has occurred, but you can’t keep yourself from looking.
Morgan sometimes felt that they were as bad as the public.
They had been requested for help with this case. After the capture of the unsub, Strauss had ordered them, with a little too much professional ambition glittering in her grey eyes, to stay and conduct research. To talk to this unsub. In the interests of their profession and academia.
But he still felt sick with himself. For far too many reasons.
To hold rational and civilised conversations with this man was disturbing. What he had done was horrific. Disgusting. Vicious. And terrifyingly brilliant.
His intelligence was astounding. He had used this intelligence to find, stalk and kill his victims in the most effective, creative and mind-boggling manner. So many organisations would have loved to have had this man. In different circumstances. It made him feel uncomfortable to think that the FBI was one of those organisations.
Many things made him uncomfortable. The fact that this man disgusted him.
The fact that his disgust made him feel guilty. The fact that he could sympathise with this creature. Empathise.
He knew that this man couldn’t be blamed. He knew that this man was insane.
And he felt his disgust retreat. This worried him. The day when he walked into the room and felt only discomfort and sympathy was the day that he had to leave the room without saying a word to the man waiting for him with a fragile smile and wide, hurt eyes.
Because he hadn’t felt any of that disgust. He had felt the normal horror, the discomfort, even the small bite of fear. And the overwhelming sadness and sense of waste. That was okay. He always felt those things when he talked to the kid. But no disgust.
He doubted whether he would be able to go back in there.
***
“You left last time.” The voice was soft, and infinitely hurt. “You didn’t even speak to me.”
Morgan gave the kid a reluctant but genuinely apologetic look.
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
Morgan felt like vomiting and crying at the same time.
“I think you know the answer to that.”
Reid flinched, drawing back in on himself, his face scrunched in anguish and pain and a desperate needy sadness.
The kid always hated it whenever their disapproval was levelled his way. Whenever anyone described him as ‘monster’, ‘sick’, ‘criminal.’
As though he had never wanted to do any of this.
Of course, anything was possible. This was all just so tragically fucked up that anything was possible. And Morgan knew how the kid felt. It seemed as though this scrawny and easily hurt creature of intelligence could never hurt anyone. Was never meant to hurt anyone. It was as though the timelines had got fucked up somehow, and this was the mutilated and just plain wrong result.
But there had been anger in the killings. At least the first one.
There had been anger and sadness and a bone-deep involvement. And that was not compatible with an unwillingness to kill.
Then again, if someone killed Morgan's mother, he might be moved to murder too. Empathy.
The mother had been the stressor. In every way.
Mentally ill. Very fragile. A burden. And Spencer Reid, the devoted son. With a mother who could not defend him from the abuse he suffered at school. Who could not teach him the things he needed to know, could not look after him the way he needed to be looked after. No mother. No father. No friends. What hadn’t been the stressor?
And yet he adored her.
- “Talk to me about your mother.”
“I love her. She’s everything to me. She always tells me the right thing to do.” -
“You said that your mother always tells you the right thing to do.” Morgan had stated, after the painful silence. He sat down across from where Reid was manacled to the table. “What do you mean?”
A soft smile crossed the kid’s face. So loving and tender. Morgan felt his eyes and his throat ache in preparation for two entirely different reactions.
“She does what a mother should do. She fixes everything for me. If I ever need advice, I go to her. She always knows what to do.”
Yeah, Morgan thought, like she didn’t in life. She looks after you now like she never did before. Living in your head, she’s a better mother than she ever was living in this world.
And yet her death had been the start of it all. Her death had ruined her son so much that he had killed twenty people. Some would say that they deserved death, but Morgan was hesitant to declare anyone’s worthiness of a death like that.
The irony and the tragedy and the horror made him want to go to sleep and forget that he had ever met this kid.
Morgan had never met Reid’s mother in real life, and knew that it was unfair to judge that woman on the woman that was tormenting Spencer’s brain. But she was the sickest woman he had ever heard tell of.
- “She always tells me what to do. She always tells me the right thing.”
Yeah. I’ll bet. -
“Okay, Reid.”
This was all he could manage before he had to look away, to rest his head in his hands for a moment.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” So concerned, so polite. So good.
“No, kid, I’m not alright. And neither are you.” The kid’s face crumpled, and his lips trembled, Morgan’s words hurting more than execution ever could. “And it’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”
Tears started to form in those wide eyes. Those eyes that had been the last thing that twenty people had seen right before they saw the relief of the world darkening.
Now he knew how Gideon felt.
He had been the first to interview the kid. After six hours, he had emerged from the interview room, face more worn than Morgan had ever seen it, eyes dull and voice sounding as though he was about to give up. He had only said one thing before he had retreated to his cabin and turned in his resignation.
The straw that broke the camel’s back, and now Morgan understood. And he hadn’t even had to take much weight on his back.
“Why are you saying this?” The voice trembled and broke and sounded like no more than a confused child. Reid was confused about a lot of things. He was confused as to why they wouldn’t let him leave this hospital to go home. He was confused as to why he was shown pictures of mutilated bodies.
For a few hours he was confused.
Then he would be able to tell Morgan exactly what he had done and what he had felt. What his mother had felt.
Then it would be back to the confusion.
“I’m saying this because...” They were Gideon’s words, but Morgan didn’t think that the man would care that he had stolen them now. “Because this wasn’t meant to happen. You were meant to have done great things.”
Morgan hadn’t ever felt so tired.
Reid swayed slightly.
“Mother always said that I would do great things.” Those eyes twitched minutely, and he swayed some more. Perhaps it was the meds.
Something darker and more tormented than Morgan would ever guess at - even when this kid still haunted him in twenty years time - swept across his face.
“And I did do great things. “ Reid looked up at Morgan with those pained and confused and all-too knowledgeable eyes. “Terrible,” he admitted with a jerky nod, “but great.”