heart like yours (jennifer jareau)

1. three

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"the only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." - oscar wilde

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Delilah stood in the conference room with Hotch, Gideon, Elle and Adrian Bale, the latter handcuffed with several officers stood behind them. Tracy was still in the cage with the hostage and it was finally time to deactivate the bomb.

"Okay. I've isolated the wires connected to the actual device. We've got one shot at this. It's either the... Blue wire or the red wire," Tracy said, looking over to them with raised eyebrows.

"Which do we cut, Bale? Red or blue?" Gideon said.

"Red," Bale said.

"You know if you're lying, this thing goes boom, you get nothing, right?" Gideon said.

"Yes," Bale said.

"If we cut the red, it's over. You get to spend your time in a cushy asylum, bushes, trees, visits, nurses... And we get this man out of here alive," Gideon said.

"I don't see how I could be any clearer," Bale said.

"17 seconds," the bomb guy said.

"Red wire, right?" Gideon said.

"Yes," Bale muttered.

"Cut the blue," Gideon said. Bale's head snapped to the side to look at Gideon with wide eyes.

Delilah, Elle and Hotch did the same.

"Are you sure?" the bomb guy asked.

"Do it," Gideon said.

The bomb guy reached out with his scissors and Delilah winced, half closing her eyes so she could watch but also not watch if Gideon was wrong. She trusted his gut, but this was a sensitive case for Gideon and she did not want to add watching a guy get blown up into her trauma box she kept locked in the back of her mind.

Tracy cut the blue wire, and nothing happened. Delilah exhaled and nodded, watching as Hotch grabbed Bale and shoved him out of the door.

"Alright. Shouldn't take long to cut this thing off now," the bomb man said.

"Thank you. Thank you," the hostage sobbed.

"How'd you know?" Elle looked at Gideon.

"He told me. He said given the opportunity of pressing that button, he'd have no choice. All I did was take his word for it," Gideon said.

Delilah smiled.

"Good catch, Gideon," she said. He nodded, turning to walk away to take Bale to the prison with Hotch.

Elle and Delilah watched the bomb guy start to dismantle the bomb now it wasn't active.

"How long do you think it took Gideon to trust his gut instincts like he just did? Not taking Bale's word," Elle said.

"I think he just knows Bale enough by now to have figured out he was lying when he said the red wire," Delilah said.

"Do you trust your instincts?" Elle said.

"I try to. It's usually a judgement call," Delilah said.

"But how do you learn?" Elle said.

"Same way you learn anything. You make a mistake, and you never make that mistake again," Delilah said.