Wild Nights, Wild Nights || s.reid

EPILOGUE: Since I Hoped, I Dared

You and your daughter arrived in Virginia exactly fifteen days after the US Marshal that was assigned to your case, Marshal Tabitha Ronan, gave you the big update on the search for Alexander Marseille. Marshal Ronan had advised you to wait before going home, to see if there were any surprise developments that might come about in the few months after, but you were done waiting.

You hated the fact that you'd been put in that position in the first place. Had you known what was happening, you would have put a stop to it immediately.

But the decision had been made for you.

You'd been informed of everything when you woke up from surgery—or, several days after surgery. You hadn't woken up immediately when the anesthesia was lifted. And during that time, you had been transferred out of the United States to a hospital in Vancouver, where you met Marshal Ronan for the first time. She was one of several marshals that oversaw citizens in Witness Protection in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Because of the nature of your case, however, they wanted you out of the country. In your condition, they hadn't wanted to move you overseas, so they stuck you in western Canada, right by the border.

And when you were finally lucid and strong enough to even just open your eyes for extended periods of time, Marshal Ronan told you what you needed to know.

During the tail end of your surgery, the hospital security system had been hacked into. Suspected mob affiliates brought their families into the hospital with them to try and provide civilian cover. The nurse in charge was notified and informed Hotch of the current threat, and he had made the decision to proclaim that you'd died. Once the hospital was secured again several hours later, Hotch had informed the team of the truth.

And, after several inquiries to the US Marshals Service, and after Hotch made several calls to the Attorney General, they decided that the threat to your life was still imminent were you found to be alive while Alexander still ran the mafia. And if a key witness—which you were—in such a high profile case was deemed to be in imminent danger, that witness could be required by the bureau to go into the Witness Protection Program. The US Marshals Service made quick arrangements with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and your unconscious battered body had been transferred out of the country as soon as you were stable enough for travel.

And so you found yourself in that hospital in Vancouver, and as soon as you were well enough to leave the hospital, you would assume a new identity in your new town: Osoyoos—Canada's only arid desert.

You didn't believe it at first. Your vision still blurry from the morphine coursing through your veins, you almost laughed at Marshal Ronan.

And when you finally realized that, no, this was not another coma-induced dream, you were so furious that you tried several times to contact the BAU just to curse them out.

But there was security posted by your door, and a nurse that came back around every half hour.

Rationally, you knew that this was simply the protocol for witnesses in cases dealing with organized crime, and you also knew this was likely for the best. You would have been a liability if working on the case, especially while injured and vulnerable.

But that didn't make you resent them any less for shipping you away while you were fucking unconscious.

And you had sworn that when you were recovered, there would be hell to pay.

But recovery had not been as easy or simple as you'd hoped. In those first weeks, it had been excruciatingly painful to move even the tiniest bit. And you had been informed that, because of the proximity of the bullet to your spine, you had sustained minor spinal cord injuries that left you in physical therapy for almost two years at a small clinic in Osoyoos.