Ineffable - S.REID

10

・゜゜・．THREE WEEKS LATER .・゜゜・

Clara drove silently but for the radio that counteracted the buzzing in her ears and made it easier to focus. After receiving a phone call from Hotch, calling her into work in the middle of the night, then another frantic one from Spencer, she had pretty much ran to her car to go and pick him up. He didn't want to get behind the wheel. Luckily she had already picked out the clothes for the morning and did not have to waste time pulling together an outfit, just threw them on and ran out of the door, fixing her hair in the car as she drove down a weirdly empty road. It was as if the world knew that something awful had happened and for a moment, decided to stop.

"So he was your boss before Hotch?" Clara asked reluctantly as they approached the cabin hidden so deep in the woods that the road had become terribly uneven, her car wasn't too keen on the terrain. She wanted to get a gauge of the situation without asking too pressing of a question and had been pondering how she could do so for the entire journey. The answer had not come though, so she was forced to lean towards an abrupt question instead.

He nodded, lifting his head from his hand that rested on the car door. He softly continued, being forced to clear his throat as his voice just didn't work at the beginning. "More than that to me...He was a mentor really, an incredible friend," he trailed off as Clara turned the car off, having reached their destination. She sort of just looked at him for a moment, waiting to hear what he wanted to do or to figure out if she needed to go in for him to begin with. She just did not know what to do in this situation, she was the only one who hadn't known Gideon as he was far before her time so walking through those doors felt rather unnerving. She watched anxiously as he took a deep shaky breath, staring at the open door to the house that had clearly been broken into. "You go in, I'll be in in a minute," he whispered.

Clara hesitated for a second, just checking that he truly meant what he was saying. She needed to just be sure that he wasn't saying what he thought was best, that he was speaking truthfully. She was still reluctant to leave the car and him alone even after coming to the conclusion that he did want to be alone. "Okay," she responded gently before climbing out of the car, the only sound being the jangle of her keys, before she closed the door and sent him into silence. She glanced back at him just before she entered the house and he smiled at her reassuringly and even from meters away, she could tell he didn't mean it though.

Her gaze fell onto the body first. Like always she did not know who lay under the sheet but this time it was different. She gained all sorts of information from her colleagues, her friends, eyes and expressions. Hotch told her more than she ever thought he would with just his brows and Rossi told her books worth of information just from the crease between his brows. She had known of Gideon briefly from Rossi, from one of his stories over their breakfasts, but never had she realized what an impact this man had on his life. The look on Spencer's (and all their expressions really) and the raw emotion displayed in his tear filled eyes were something that she never wanted to see again. Clara couldn't help but feel some guilt grip at the back of her mind simply because she hadn't known this person that had clearly been severely important.

"Are you sure?" Garcia asked gently and reluctantly, not truly wanting to know the answer.

"It's Gideon," Hotch responded, after a brief hesitation, in a tone that Clara had never heard before. Not even a second nor a breath passed before Spencer turned, tears spilling down his cheeks, and fled out of the cabin into the woods. Given that this was a work situation, Clara didn't know exactly what she was supposed to do. She knew she would be needed at work but Spencer needed her too, even more than work did. She glanced at Hotch, apologized quickly with her eyes then went after the more important option.