The Telepath's Daughter

A Quiet Place

Reid and Ana were blanks.

Large, empty, grief-stricken dead zones.

They sat, limp-limbed and drained, in chairs facing the old doctor's desk. From behind that dignified symbol of authority, the old man waited with patience acquired over centuries, and with the foreknowledge of how desperate the situation really was.

He hadn't taken this task lightly. Telling a tight-knit family unit like the Reids that they had to sacrifice their daughter if they wished to continue on with the lives they'd built in Quantico verged on cruelty. But to let the child go home would be irresponsible.

With all his odd abilities to track timelines and their potential of becoming reality, the doctor could find only terror, destruction, and death when he traced the possible paths of Melinda Reid continuing on under the guise of a normal, human child in the outside world. She was simply too unpredictably powerful and too emotionally immature to be trusted to keep herself in check.

He waited, keeping silent while the young parents before him absorbed what he'd said. He could hear the echoing emptiness where such a short time before there'd been ebullient joy over the birth of their son. His eyes tracked to the empath. Stone-faced she remained, but a wealth of tears poured down her ashen cheeks. He knew the mother, the female, the deadlier of the species, especially when it came to protecting her young, would emerge first.

I can't leave my child behind. You have no right to ask it of me.

I'm not asking, empath. I'm telling. The old man felt a welling of sorrow in his own chest. I have been a father. I have treasured and cherished my children. I have lost them to time and to fate. I know the pain of this. I know it will never heal.

Ana's body seemed to cave in on itself. After a moment, she raised her head and howled a wordless expression of pure grief to the unseen sky above this building, this town. Reid flinched. It was the same animal cry he'd heard in his line of work when a parent had to be notified of their child's death. He resisted thinking about such moments, but now he realized that it was always the women, always the mothers, who screamed. It was an elemental force. It was a primal language that spanned species. If you were lucky, you never had occasion to speak it.

It brought Reid out of his shock. His agile mind grasped for loopholes and conditional arguments. You said yourself once that merely being here where ESP-er forces are abundant had played a part in my own powers, and Ana's, increasing in unforeseen ways. It's possible that, if we take Melinda home, whatever she gained while here will fade.

The doctor sighed. It will not fade, telepath. I have seen it.

But she's a fast learner. All this growth in a matter of days proves it. She can learn to control herself. And we'll be there at her side to help her. Every moment, if necessary. Please!!

No.

Spencer, his mind's made up. I can feel it. Like a stone wall. Ana resumed quiet sobbing.

There has to be a way...

No. The ancient eyes closed. Here...let me show you...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"They're talking about me, Uncle Aaron."

"Yeah. I figured they would." Hotch was playing with a tiny handful of pebbles he'd gleaned from the surrounding rocks, pitching them one at a time into the dark depths of the forest. "Can you tell what they're saying?"