𝓼𝓪𝓯𝓮 ➣ 𝓼. 𝓻𝓮𝓲𝓭

𝓸𝓷𝓮

"Stop right there, you son of a bitch!" Morgan yelled at the man on the roof, his gun trained on him.

Reid appeared behind Morgan, pushing past him and closer to him. Paul Fox stopped and turned around, his arms raising into the air as he caught Reid's eye. "Doctor Reid, how are you?"

Reid didn't respond, he only grabbed Fox by his arms and pushed him onto the ground, handcuffing him. Morgan holstered his weapon and grabbed him by his handcuffed hands and pushed him down the stairs and towards the police cars that awaited.

The past seven months were filled with Reid and Morgan bending over backwards to find this bastard and now that they had him, Reid only wished it was for a different reason. Reid looked through his apartment, stopping when he found copies of Reid and Mara's picture together.

He smiled gently, his thumb brushing over her face before shoving the picture deep into the drawer and turning his attention to any other clues. If he kept pictures of Mara, there was a good chance he had pictures of his current victims.

"Where could he be hiding them?" Morgan asked from behind Reid, making him jump.

"We already looked into all of his alias, past places of work, and the rehab," Reid said. "Something's missing."

"What do you mean?"

"He still wants us to think that he's smarter than us," Reid replied. "But he leaves clues. He leaves a paper trail because as good as he wants to be, his narcissism is his tragic flaw."

"Where's our paper trail then?"

Reid furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm not sure yet."

They both left the apartment and headed back to HQ, where Paul Fox was being held in an interrogation room. The BAU received a letter, most importantly, Reid received the letter, that contained pictures of hands being tied and blood littering a floor. Alongside that, was a letter. A letter that addressed that Reid couldn't save Mara but that he was getting another chance to find someone else.

It took them all seven months to find the general area where Paul Fox was laying low but once Reid staked out the block everyday for four weeks, he finally caught him. Taking a fucking jog. Like everything was okay in the world and he hadn't taken everything from him.

Reid knew by the letter the Fox sent Mara seven months ago and the most recent one that it was him. They knew he had victims and they knew he had a place to hold them, yet they couldn't figure out who their victims were nor where he was hiding them.

They thought this was a normal case, just with a suspect they needed to find already. They thought they'd hang himself with his own words and it would be that easy. 

Until Hotch brought them all to the round table in the middle of the case and sat them down. "Please sit down."

"Why?" Reid asked as everyone took a seat. "What happened?"

"Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team," Hotch said as everyone fell dead silent around them. "As you all know, Mara was hanging on by a thread when we found her."

Everyone perked up at the sentence, Reid moving closer to the edge of his seat, eager to hear what he had to say next.

"But, the doctors were able to stabilize her and she was airlifted from Virginia to Texas under covert exfiltration," Hotch said as the team gasped, Reid falling back in his seat in shock. "Her identity was strictly need-to-know. And she stayed there until she was well enough to travel."

Garcia let the tears slip from her eyes as she took in the reaction of the team around her as Hotch continued. "She was reassigned to Italy where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to, for her security."

"She's alive?" Garcia gasped.

"She's been deep uncover for the last seven months, we had to pull her out in order to catch a grip on this situation," Hotch continued, ignoring Garcia. "She's almost here."

"But we buried her." Reid muttered quietly.

"As I said, I take full responsibility for the decision," Hotch said. "If anyone has any issues, they should be directed towards me."

"Any issues?" Morgan snapped. "Yeah, I got issues."

Garcia set a hand on Morgan's arm to stop him as their eyes fell on the girl in the doorway. Garcia was the first out of her seat, wrapping the girl up tightly in her arms and letting out cries.

She hugged everyone until she got to Reid. His eyes were filled to the rim with tears, his eyes practically deceiving him. She was here. She was alive.

"I'm sorry," Mara said, particularly to Reid. "I'm so sorry."

"You're alive," Reid breathed, moving his hands to her face, brushing his thumbs against her cheekbones. "You're here."

He moved his arms around her and hugged her tightly. He needed to feel her. He needed to know that this was real. That she was really alive.

"I knew you weren't dead, I knew it." He said into her neck as he closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. 

Reid's eyes opened when he realized that it had changed. That she didn't smell like warm vanilla and the coconut shampoo she always used. She smelt like cigarettes. Alcohol. She smelt like musk. She smelt like a man.

Reid tried to convince himself it was because she was undercover for so long but when he pulled back, he noticed the bruises and cuts that littered her face, the kind you could only see up close. Her hair was dyed blonde, her signature red lipstick starting to fade. He met her eyes and it felt like he was meeting a new person.

He pulled away from her, taking a step back. This wasn't Mara. This wasn't the Mara he loved and adored seven months ago. 

She turned to Hotch as everyone around her just kept their eyes on her. "So, what have we got?"