Premeditated Chapter 16c
In the bathroom on the BAU jet, Reid checked his appearance in the mirror to make sure that he looked alright. He looked alright, so he fumbled in his messenger bag to retrieve Scott Collier's unloaded pistol. The pistol was a Glock, like the ones that Morgan and Prentiss carried, and the two that Hotch carried, and the one that Elle had carried, and the one that JJ had carried, and the one that he himself had carried, but no longer, because after he had used a Glock, but not his own, to kill the first UnSub, and after the second UnSub had used a revolver to try to kill the third UnSub, he had switched to a revolver, a Colt, then another revolver, a Smith & Wesson, and that was the gun that he had used to kill the third UnSub, who had used another gun, a Glock, to try to kill the third UnSub. Reality and fantasy had been conflated, but the story was clear.
In the bathroom, Reid recounted the story as Hotch had told it to him. He played it in his mind, fast-forwarding through the scenes and extracting the parts that formed a coherent narrative. The story was shallow, because it had been told by a profiler, but it all made sense, because the seeds of the story had been planted, consciously and subconsciously, by a killer. To Hotch and the rest of the BAU, Reid's actions had simply been the latest in a long series of reckless behavior, for which, to them, the psychology was as shallow and murky as it was, to him, deep and clear.
Finding that it was not enough to play the story in his mind, Reid assumed the voices of Hotch and himself to play the story out loud in the bathroom. As he stared at himself in the mirror, he mumbled the words softly, picking and choosing among them to play the story, twisting and turning them, but only slightly, to play Hotch the way that he wanted to play Hotch and himself the way that he always played himself. It helped that he broadcast and received the story through the auditory channel. For Reid, the auditory channel was not as rich and vibrant as the visual channel, so the pain was partially attenuated.
"Reid, are you OK?" Reid mumbled as Hotch.
"Fr, free, freez..." Reid mumbled as himself.
"Reid, it's freezing. Get in the car."
"O...K..."
"Reid, the UnSub is dead. You shot and killed him when he tried to shoot and kill you?"
"Y, ye, yes..."
"Reid, the UnSub confessed his crimes?"
"Yesssssss..."
"Reid, that was reckless and stupid. You should have waited for backup. Why didn't you wait for backup? What were you thinking? Did you think that the UnSub had gone to the falls to take you up on one of your options? Did you think that he was going to try to kill someone there? Did you think that it was all your fault that he was going to try to kill someone? Was that why you spent the morning monitoring the CCTV footage? Was that why you rushed out of the police station after you spotted him in the live feed?"
"Uh...huh..."
"Reid, you should have waited for backup. You shouldn't have run off to face the UnSub alone. While waiting for the rest of us to show up, you tried to engage and distract him as you had done before, but he recalled his mistakes from his conversation with you. He confessed his crimes to you, but only after he had made up his mind to kill you. He drew his weapon, but you drew yours just as fast. You may not have the best aim, Reid, but you're the fastest draw among all of us. He fired, and you fired. He missed, and you didn't. Thank God."
"Six..."
"I know, Reid, I know. You shot him six times."
"I, I, I...k, ki, killed..."
"You shot and killed an UnSub, Reid. Listen to me, Reid. You shot and killed an UnSub. You did your job. You killed one to save many. You don't have to feel any guilt, Reid. You don't have to feel anything, Reid."
"N, noth, nothing?"
"Nothing, Reid, nothing. Let's go back to the police station. You're going to have to give an official written statement, but only to wrap up the case. We found the missing jewelry at the house. It would have been an open and shut case against him. I guess he knew that. None of that matters now. Let's go back to the police station, so we can wrap up the case and go home, alright?"
"Yeah, Hotch, alright."
The story was clear. At the police station, Reid told it in an official written statement to wrap up the case. Afterwards, the team went out to lunch at "The Pot of Gold" before heading off to the airport to board the jet. On the jet, Reid sat in the back with his head down until he could stand it no longer. He got up and went to the bathroom. In the bathroom, he fumbled in his messenger bag to retrieve Scott Collier's unloaded pistol, the one that, according to the official written statement, had skittered under the railing, into the river, and down the falls. He looked it over, turned it around, and put it away. Later, he would load it and use it. Now, he considered the plot, the profile, and the fall.
First, the plot.
Five years ago, he had shot and killed an UnSub and felt nothing. He recalled his exact words, complete with the self-conscious starts and stops of his 24-year-old naivete.
"I, I know I should feel bad about what happened...I, I mean, I killed a man...You know, I, I, I should feel something. But I don't."
And the counsel that he had sought and received, "Not knowing what you feel? That's not the same as not feeling anything."
Five years later, he had shot and killed an UnSub and felt everything, an indefinable white light that had not yet resolved itself into its well-defined components. He recalled his exact words, complete with the self-aware exaggerations and attenuations of his 29-year-old cynicism.
"I, I, I...k, ki, killed..."
And the counsel that he had not sought but received, "You shot and killed an UnSub, Reid. Listen to me, Reid. You shot and killed an UnSub. You did your job. You killed one to save many. You don't have to feel any guilt, Reid. You don't have to feel anything, Reid."
If only the two could have been conflated. One was perfect for one, and the other was perfect for the other. As he stared at himself in the mirror, Reid both knew and felt that it was much too late to conflate one reality with another. Besides, conflation would have required time travel, which was not within his technological grasp, because, although he could have done a lot of good, such as curing diseases, launching rockets, and developing time travel, in his life, he had chosen not to.
Second, the profile.
The profile was complete, so the working title would have to be replaced with the permanent title. Having taken inspiration from the Bible, Reid had named the profile after Satan. Taking inspiration from the Bible again, Reid named the profile after Satan again. All along, just as he had fooled himself into believing that he could have gone back to being an angel, and just as he had fooled himself into believing that he could have pushed the detective over the railing, into the river, and down the falls, so had he fooled himself into believing that "The Fallen Angel" had been something other than a euphemism for "The Devil".
Third, the fall.
In the Bible were described two falls from grace - the Fall of Man and the Fall of Satan. In the chronology, the Fall of Satan came before the Fall of Man, but in the chronicle, the Fall of Man came before the Fall of Satan. In the Book of Genesis, mankind fell from a state of innocence to a state of guilt when Eve, tempted by the Serpent, ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Adam, tempted by Eve, ate the same fruit from the same tree. As punishment for his crimes, the Serpent was cursed to go upon his belly and eat dust for all the days of his life. In the Book of Revelation, the Serpent was identified as Satan the Archangel, who, having lost his humility and sought to place himself at, then above, the level of God, had been cast down from Heaven, onto Earth, and into Hell. In the aftermath, Satan the Fallen Angel must have asked himself, many times, a question that had an answer. Having fallen this far, was it such a big deal to fall farther still? Having answered the question, Satan the Fallen Angel had become Satan the Devil. Satan the Devil had been the Serpent who had set up the Fall of Man, but man could hardly have fallen without his, and her, own complicity. The Devil tempted. Man gave in. God judged and punished. Man suffered.
Reid stared at himself in the mirror. He smiled, a huge teeth-baring cheek-cracking lung-clearing exhalation of unadulterated bliss. He felt something, a feeling that built and built and built, driving away all other feelings, filling all the spaces between all the molecules in the atmosphere, until the atmosphere was chockful of molecules, packed and touching, more like molecules in a solid than molecules in a gas, but aggregating to form a shimmering transparent gas nonetheless. Upon the mirror, the gas condensed, forming a curtain of water droplets over the glass. White light entered the glass, reflected off the silvered backing, and refracted through the droplets to resolve itself into its well-defined components. Reid wiped his hands over the mirror to clear away the condensation. It was like wiping a blackboard clean so it could be re-filled with the rhythmic tapping of chalk against slate. When the mirror was clean and the slate blank, he smiled again to defile both surfaces. Upon them were resolved thoughts and feelings freed from right and wrong. Smiling into the mirror, he felt a feeling that he had felt before. In the bliss after the storm, Reid felt powerful.
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