The Ghost of Princeton ||Spencer Reid||

reset

CRESSIDA

I stood in awe of the room for a moment, my mouth hanging open. The room I had been working in for six years had three monitors... this was heaven.

"Hi, hi..." Penelope Garcia spoke, running over with tiny little steps that made her pigtails bounce with each movement. She took hold of my hand. "I know you weren't in the room, but I want to apologise for ever doubting your story. I, um, I've seen some things in my wonderful tenure here but... seeing what you endured for six years..."

"It's okay. I expected doubt. Honestly, it would be more shocking if everyone believed my story without the videos." I said, she took a short breath and smiled.

"I just want to tell you that you're safe here with the BAU and we will do everything we can to catch these guys." She said as she pulled me into a hug. My body went rigid without a second thought, but she held me until my shoulders relaxed. Until I reminded myself that the people I was with now weren't looking to hurt me. They wouldn't hit me, wouldn't kick me, throw me around. The hug wasn't to tackle me to the ground, it wasn't to overpower me but to empower me.

"Okay, so the computers in this room are all yours for you to do what you need to." Garcia said as she let me go, I nodded and looked around once more. The room I had worked in had been essentially a large expanse filled with nothing but the desk, computers and a chair. This... this was comforting. "How will you be able to tell that they're in?" She asked.

"By finding the chain of code I always manipulated and seeing if it's right or not." I said, sitting down at the computer and immediately beginning to fish my way through the security system. "They're not in, which is good, but I'm going to need to fix this firewall now so they can't get through at all." I said, beginning to type in new code to do exactly that.

The door opened while I was wrapping up the codework, and when I quickly looked over my shoulder I saw both Prentiss and Seaver.

"Almost done?" Prentiss asked, I nodded my head.

"We both brought some clothes so you can try things on and see what fits the best." Ashley Seaver said as I looked back to the screen.

"I don't think I'm going to care about fit too much, there's next to nothing on my bones aside from skin at the moment." I said, wrapping up the code and standing up from the chair.

"Well, that will be fixed in no time. Spencer is apparently shouting everyone lunch so I hope you're hungry for some good takeaway." Prentiss said.

"Free food?" Garcia asked.

"Yep, combine that with arguing with Rossi to give you thirty minutes to shower and get some clean clothes..." Prentiss said with a smile, I furrowed my brow.

"What?" I asked, not understanding what she was implying.

"You really are the female version of Reid." Seaver said, I shook my head. What the hell does that mean?

Instead of getting a single answer to clear up my confusion, Prentiss and Seaver took me to the showers and left me alone for thirty minutes. They had given me one of their toiletry bags and a clean towel, and left a couple changes of clothes for me to choose between.

It felt strange, to be alone after all these years. To know that if I wanted to, I could just walk out of this building and no one would be able to stop me. It felt even stranger to be able to use hot water, to feel it warm my skin. The novelty of it had made me turn the water all the way hot, before it burned too badly and I had to take it back to a lukewarm.

Felt strange to have a choice of clothes, and a different pair of shoes than the ones that the Horsemen had kidnapped me in. Luckily, Seaver and I wore the same size and she kept a pair in her go-bag. Even if we weren't I would have asked for shoes that didn't fit.

Because after I finally showered and changed into fresh clothes, I threw the old shoes into the bin. All they were was a reminder of the years I had lost and served to better purpose, I needed to reset. The clothes I kept, just in case there were traces of any of the Horsemen's DNA on them. After all, I never got to wear women's clothes, so I assumed they just used what they didn't want for themselves anymore.

I think Prentiss had the same idea, because when she and Seaver returned she had an evidence bag ready to go. I put the clothes into it and when she asked about the shoes I explained that none of the Horsemen ever touched them, that they weren't any use. I think she saw the pain in my eyes, so she just bagged the clothes.

They walked me to the briefing room, making polite conversation with me in order to build rapport and trust. As to whether they genuinely wanted to do that or they had been asked to, I couldn't really tell. But I guess that didn't matter right now.

What mattered was the board filled with stills from my video evidence, ones that showed the faces of the other three Horsemen. What mattered was the blank spaces they needed me to fill, because even though I had sent Reid as much information as I could, the things related to their personalities and how they acted in different situations.

They needed me to help them make the profiles for the Horsemen, so that we could figure out their real identities.

And as much as I wanted to focus on that right now, as much as I knew that I shouldn't be thinking about anything else... the smell of Chinese food was making my mouth water and stomach rumble. I wasn't going to be able to focus until I had eaten some of it.

My eyes lifted to meet Spencer's, and I forced a small smile to my face. All of the team were in the same room, and it was overwhelming for me but I had to work through it. I looked back to the food spread so I could focus on anything other than the people in the room.

He had picked a type of cuisine that could be shared. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but maybe it was so I could just take what I needed. If you have been starved for years you physically can't fit what would be considered a normal serving size into your stomach. With this I could take as little or as much as I could handle.

So I sat down in the seat next to Spencer and started to fill my plate.