Amnesiac {S. Reid} (ON HOLD)

Letters and Nostalgic Photographs

***

Cassidy Turner sat upright in her bed and listened to the rain rap hard against her window. She had spent the entire night just thinking. Of her father, of herself, of those photos agent Hotchner had selfishly shown her, and of course - Spencer. She wasn't sure how to speak to him anymore. He had called her the day prior to check in, and she had ignored the incessant vibration of her phone.

She wanted some time. She needed time away from everything involving her case. She was scared that she would be put into prison, but most of all - she was scared she would never find out what exactly had happened that night. The night she was accused of murder. Cassidy knew she was a good person. Deep down she knew that it would take something life changing to drive her to kill - and she couldn't help but feel that there was an entire piece missing in the BAU team’s investigation.

She slid out of her bed and her feet hit the cold tile floor. She told herself to keep one foot in front of the other until she reached the kitchen - trying to ignore the throbbing pain her head was in the minute she sat upright. Once she reached the kitchen, she swung the refrigerator door open and took out some old Chinese food from the other night.

Once she had reheated it, she walked to her couch and sat down. It took a while to get used to the feeling of her new apartment - at least, the apartment was new to her. The new her that could no longer remember who she even was before this whole mess. In all reality, she had been living there for a few years already, but she couldn't remember a thing. She unwrapped the box and ate it cold as her TV played reruns of Cheers.

It didn't take long for her to realise that her phone was ringing, and when she saw the caller ID, she hit the decline button almost instantly. It was only eight o’clock, so she understood why Reid would think it was okay to call at this hour, but everytime she thought about him a pit rose in her stomach. She really had grown rather close to him, and if she had the intention of using him for the case originally, it would have been great - but she had no plans to use Reid for information.

She wanted to be his friend.

She couldn't remember the last time she had a friend.

But she couldn't find comfort with him, at least not while she was still on trial. He was a good guy - he cared for her well being, he tried to understand what she was going through, but she wasn't the girl he thought she was. She wasn't even the girl she thought she was. She didn't know who she was. Nobody knew who she was.

Except him..

The library was unusually empty at this hour. Most libraries close around six, but this one stayed open later hours for the workers in town who needed the copy machine to print documents. Once she had parked her Sedan, she walked into the building with determination. She had to find everything she could in the public police records on her father. And she meant anything.

“Damn!” She exclaimed after a few hours of searching the library computer.

“Do you need any help?” An older woman with greying hair and a high bun asked Cassidy considerately as she watched her pound her fist on a keyboard that officially belonged to the library - which would technically make what she's doing vandalism.

“I-I- just want this stupid thing to work!”

“Hun, I can assure you that it does - um... maybe tell me what you're looking for?”

“I'm looking for information on a man - my uh, my - father.” She said the last part quietly as if she was disbelieving of it herself.

“Your father?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Okay sweetie, why don't you tell me his name?”

“His name is Henry Turner.”

The woman brought her hand to her chin and stroked it thoughtfully. “We have some records in the back if you'd like me to-”

“Yes please!” Cassidy exclaimed with exaggeration.

The woman laughed and gestured for her to follow. She brought her to a smaller room located behind the front desk, and the librarian pulled out a large brown file box. “This is where we keep the records of the uh- irrelevant information stored in our system.”

Cassidy laughed, “It’s fine, I understand. It's not like he was your father.”

The woman let out a small chuckle, “You're right about that.”

The librarian left Cassidy to look through the storage box for an hour. In the meantime, Cassidy flipped through almost every file with no luck. Eventually, she stumbled upon a file labelled, “H. Turner”, and she was confident this would hold the information she was looking for.

She flipped through the file eagerly, and found a few family photos. A few of Henry by himself, one of him in the military, one of him with a young boy, and one of her father with a woman. “Isabella Johnson.” Cassidy whispered to herself. She was ninety percent sure this was her mother's maiden name before she was married to her father Henry, but the officer she had been interrogated by didn't share anything too personally about her parents besides the shape of their mailbox - so, Cassidy had her doubts.

Still, Cassidy found herself drawn to the woman in the photo. It looked like a younger version of the woman she was shown that day, and this caused her to fold the photo in half and stick it in her pocket. She was already being charged for murder, thievery wasn't exactly on her 'most-feared' list. Once she had stuffed the photo into her pocket, she read a few files and looked at a few articles on her father.

There was nothing too personal in them, just his name, where he went to school, and his military records. It was a rather disappointing discovery - but she tried to tell herself that she had at least found ‘something’. 

Once Cassidy arrived home, she checked her answering machine to find a missed call from Reid. She sighed and took the photo from her pocket - pinning it to her fridge and grabbing a slice of cold pizza. She felt bad ignoring him, but she didn't understand why he couldn't just leave her alone.

In the back of her head she knew why. He was a good person, and all he wanted to do was help her. It was more than she had ever gotten from agent Hotchner or any other BAU member, but the last thing she wanted to do was break his trust. And she knew that's all she would end up doing if she got involved.

So, she distanced herself.

For weeks, and weeks, and weeks.

Until the letter came. The letter that would eventually decide her future. She would be going into court in two weeks.

Had they developed enough evidence against her already?

“Fuck…” She mumbled to herself as she reread the letter. She was hoping it would vanish into thin air, or that she would wake up from her life like it was some awful nightmare. But she had to face it, she would be arrested for a murder she didn't even remember committing.

She tossed the letter in the trash and held her head in her hands.

“My life is over.”

***