The Telepath's Daughter

Remember...

"But what if you make a mistake and they...they do find out about you?"

"If they notice you, you just pretend they didn't. You don't do anything. Most of the time they'll believe whatever reason they come up with themselves, if you don't fit in." Melinda shrugged and lowered her gaze. "They don't really believe in people like us. And I guess they don't want to."

"Then why do you have to be so careful to go unnoticed?" Suspicion laced an older student's words. She'd been thinking of leaving the sanctuary when she turned eighteen and had been dreaming and plotting for quite a while. She'd even begun writing what she termed An Outsider's Survival Manual in her spare time. Hearing Melinda's account was making it seem lackluster and the student was unwilling to give up the idea of Great Adventure just yet.

In truth, Melinda was fast losing interest in being a guest speaker. She was anxious to retreat somewhere where she could be on her own and sort out the strange, half-remembered activity that was running like a current in a lower level of her mind. It felt like equations that were almost whole, but needed a nudge to attain completion. Something about the possibilities she sensed surrounding their solution made her excited and uneasy all at once.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The old doctor was making his last regular rounds of the day.

It had been a long one. The search for the telepath's daughter had somehow dovetailed into the arrival of the telepath's son. Although everything had worked out in a most satisfactory way with a marvelous aura of happiness seeming to envelope the entire coterie of visitors, the doctor felt a tiny mote of anxiety hovering in some undefined space nearby. It put him in mind of a grain of sand intruding upon an oyster's inner workings; something endlessly irritating and troublesome that maybe...just maybe...with the proper nutrients and care, might develop into a beautiful jewel.

But for now, it was an unknown thing skirting the edges of his sanctuary. And the doctor would not allow anything to interfere with the safe, sacred space he'd spent a dozen lifetimes creating.

His work at the hospital might be tapering off for the day, but he still wanted to find out more about the little girl, Melinda. The doctor's natural curiosity spurred him to want to look deeper into her sojourn into the forest. He himself hadn't ventured very far into it for centuries.

Just too busy. And now, despite all the maintenance, getting too old to jog about the underbrush and uneven ground.

He smiled at his own acceptance of the aging process, even if, in his case, it was so very slow. But the telepath's daughter peaked his interest and made him feel an intellectual adventurousness that almost made him feel young again.

And there's that way she seemed to wink out of existence. So unusual...

The doctor paused in the act of glancing at a patient's chart. His undefined anxiety, like dust motes swirling, suddenly coalesced. His head jerked upright. He realized his awareness had a direct link to the source of this uneasy anomaly. As his dust motes gathered and formed a shape, he knew that at the other end of the link, more than motes were assembling. Puzzle pieces were falling into place with a strange, stunning rapidity.

It's her. Dear God, it's the little girl. I should have known. But I didn't.

And that was what really shocked him.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Julio Ruiz loved it when new life entered the world. He loved it even more when it was a gifted child like the Reids' son. When babies were gifted, Julio had such a strong sense of unlimited potential. It made his heart skip with the prospective power of it all.

So a huge grin took up residence on the Palero priest's face and refused to abandon its post for anything trivial. It remained in place during Miss Millie's fretting that everyone wouldn't be on time for the dinner she and Mr. Rosie...Dave!...had spent a goodly amount of time preparing. It didn't budge when he sensed Ana's lingering worries about her children, despite Hotch's assurance that Melinda was safe and sound and despite the old doctor's testimony that he foresaw an interesting life for newly arrived Kevin.

Julio's grin gleamed as he helped Ana into bed while he tried to soothe her with his own good and happy thoughts.

But the grin faltered when he realized something. Ana wasn't a telepath. She could receive from and send to her husband and her daughter, he knew. And she could somehow piggyback on Reid's talent when they were together, letting her communicate with others in his presence. And as far as Julio knew, the old doctor could make himself heard by anyone, even the ungifted.

But Julio was sure that neither Reid nor anyone else had been involved when they were walking home from the hospital and Ana asked him to intervene on her behalf with the FBI agents because she was too weary to speak.

Is she changing? Growing? Maybe giving birth this time was different?

His grin faded away, replaced by a furrowed brow and he sat beside sleeping Ana. He studied her features. Her eyelids twitched. Her lips pressed into a firm line. She didn't look peaceful.

Julio didn't want to intrude on her. He had a feeling doing so would increase any distress her empathic mind was experiencing.

Is something happening to you, little mother?

His musings were interrupted before he could give any deep consideration to whatever might be going on with Ana.

Julio? I need your professional opinion. Are you listening?

The Palero priest would have kept vigil by Ana's side until her husband returned, but the sense of urgency in the old doctor's summons had him retracing his steps back to the hospital while the oceanic power of the doctor's telepathy still echoed in his mind.

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Want me to walk you home, Mellie? Bobby's gentlemanly offer only garnered a one-shouldered shrug from his new friend.

Don't have to. I remember how to get there. She'd seemed downcast ever since school let out, but now an even more sorrowful tone entered Melinda's thoughts. And it's not my home. We're probably going to my real home tomorrow...or something.

I dunno. People don't just take babies home right away. Sometimes they let them rest before a road trip, ya know? Mellie? You listening? Mellie?

Spencer Reid's daughter wasn't paying attention. Her mind had been exploring the semi-understood equations that had been spiraling and half-forming like columns of mist ever since she'd begun talking to the class about her life outside. There was just something...something missing or misplaced. She wasn't quite sure.

And then she was.

Like an exquisite mosaic mural, Melinda saw all the neural paths and vortices and layers, the knowledge of which had come so naturally when she was a newborn. In an almost visceral sensation, she remembered how easy it was to follow the paths and adjust and erase and...

...and heal. I healed Uncle Aaron.

For a moment, her lips twitched upward into a smile of fond remembrance. Bobby took it as a hopeful sign that her mood was brightening.

...and destroy. I ruined that...that other...she...she...I broke her mind...I...I...I still know how...I remember! I remember it all!

Bobby's hopes for a happy ending to the day were dashed. Tears welled out of Melinda's eyes in an unending torrent.

If Ana had been there to see, she would have noted that Mellie cried the same way Spencer did.

Silently.