Start From the Beginning

The Start

"Agent Saylor Watts." The judges voice came back into my mind. Shaking me into the reality of what I was facing. I cleared my throat, looked at the honorable Judge Falloway. She was an older woman, with greying hair, and glasses sliding down her nose. I knew her, I had spent countless hours over the last year in a court room putting people behind bars for the rest of their lives. Crimes that were unspeakable and unthought of to anyone but the people who were like me, or to the families that lost someone important to them.

"I apologize." I nod at her, facing back towards the court room. I grasped my shaking hands together under the lip on the stand. Trying to contain the anxiety I felt. I was terrified.

Judge Falloway looked at me closely, pushing the mic away from her face, covering it enough to hide the words she spoke directly at me. I looked back to her, searching her face for the courage to keep up.

"Are you okay Saylor?" Her eyes glistened with a maternal drive. She cared for me because she was a mother who had empathy for others. She meant well. She knew how hard this was for me. Everyone there, who know me... who knew him... they knew how incredibly hard this was for me.

"I am. Thank you." I swallow as I turn to look at him.

There he sat. Dr. Spencer Reid.

There he was in an orange jumpsuit. His hair was haphazard on his head. His eyes locked on mine and I could feel everything he was feeling. The exhaustion, the terror he was hiding so well, the love he held onto. It was all hitting me so hard that it became harder and harder to breathe.

My blood was struggling to move just seeing him sitting there, handcuffed to the table. He was next to the attorney handling his case. The only eyes I could focus on, the only thing in that room that mattered to me was him.

Spencer Reid was under arrest for capital murder. He would possibly be facing life in prison, maybe even the death penalty. The thought of that made me ill.

"Can you repeat the question?" I asked tearing my eyes away from him to look at the prosecutor. Prosecutor Tate Mclaren if I could be more specific. He was a middle-aged man in an upper-class suit, who has known Spencer for years and me more so over the last. He has worked on cases against us and with us. It hurt like hell to sit here and work among people who were going to try to have Spencer put away for life. He was protecting his state... and I had to respect his work ethic... even if it felt like betrayal.

I was supposed to spend my life with him. I was here to keep him safe, but now, the last bit of effort to keep him alive was riding on my testimony.

"Agent Saylor, I was asking you if you knew the defendant Dr. Spencer Reid." Tate stepped forward.

"I do sir." I nodded and tried to regulate my breathing.

"Good. Can you point out Spencer Reid to the jury?" I closed my eyes, nodding, and trying to hide the irritation I was feeling. I was the last one to be questioned. The jury knew who Spencer was by now. It was no secret that the man in the orange jumpsuit was the one who was convicted of killing in cold blood.

"Thank you Saylor. Would you be able to tell the jury how long you have known the Dr.?" Tate looked to the jury with a tone about him that said he was going to ruin Spencer if he got the chance.

"I have known Dr. Spencer Reid for almost two and a half years now." I look at Spence whose features soften as soon as we connect. His hands were clasped on top of the table, his fingers tapping each digit one at a time as if counting them. One of his nervous ticks.

"And Agent, do you feel that two and a half years is enough time for you to accurately and totally understand a person? Their values, the way the see the world?" He sneers.