Title: Steps
By: LoraLee2
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Usual disclaimers, I do not own any CM characters, I'm just borrowing them and will return them in the same condition as I found them.
Warnings: Tissue alert? Very mild spoilers for Elephant's Memory and 3rd LIFE, one sentence of "ick."
Summary: Reid deals with his past.

***

"I -- I felt like a murderer. I figured out his trigger - take Jordan away; I told the team how to do it - JJ and Emily said Eileen could contact her; then I pulled the trigger - showed her what Owen had done, told her to leave."

"You were trying to save Jordan."

"I know that. I really do. But I didn't feel that. How could I possibly feel that while I'm leading a teenage boy to his death."

"So, you decided to take off your gun and your vest and go chat with a sociopath with a machine gun?"

"I just -- I just needed to -- I needed to fix what I'd done. I needed to make it right. He had no reason to kill me. I hadn't hurt him - at least not that he knew about - I hadn't hurt Jordan. I wasn't a threat to him. Everyone he killed had hurt him or Jordan, that's not a sociopath. That's not the profile of someone who can't be saved."

"No, it's not, Kid. But you could have been wrong."

"Yeah." He gave a dry laugh, "You know that moment when you realize you've just done the dumbest thing in your life? I've just done the dumbest thing in my life and the only way out is to keep going forward. I'm standing there in front of Owen, and I hear you guys pull up behind me. And at first I don't know if it's you guys or if the locals got there first. And suddenly I realize I don't want to die."

He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair, "You'd think I might have figured that out a year ago, huh? Some genius I am. It takes standing in front of a kid with a machine gun, and four handguns pointed at my back with more on the way for me to realize that I want to live. And not like I've been living for the past year. I want to do more then go through the motions, do my job and go home. I need to be more than a good profiler, good at the job."

"You do. You are."

"No, right now I'm not. It feels like every time I get back on my feet something else happens and I get knocked on my ass again. Charles killing me, me killing Charles and watching Tobias die, Gideon leaving. Then -- then when Jack shot Phillips -- the man shot a kid in front of a federal agent and not only does he not go to jail, the government gives him a whole new life? And Lindsey, what's she going to grow up like? 'Kill him, Daddy, kill him," I wake up hearing her voice begging her father to murder a man. I hear Phillips begging for his life. I see Phillips lying on the floor, I see Phillips lying on the floor begging for his life, then I see -- then he's not. He's not crying, he's not begging, he's not anything but a pile of blood and bones and brains splattered on a bathroom floor. I failed and somebody died."

"Reid, the man is a sociopath who doesn't care about anyone but his daughter. Phillips hurt his daughter, he killed Phillips, that's how he thinks. None of us could have talked him down. Not me, not Hotch or Rossi, not even Gideon could have gotten through to him. You didn't fail, you never had a chance."

"Maybe, maybe not, but I had an option."

"Not much of one."

He looked his friend in the eye, "Would you have taken the shot?"

"I don't know, man. I really don't know. We didn't have all the information, you thought he was a loving father who just wanted to protect his baby. None of us knew what he was."

"We knew he was involved in the mob."

"We didn't know he was a hitman. We all thought low-level goon, a knee-breaker."

"But he wasn't. He wasn't, and a kid is dead --."

"You know that that kid was a murderer and a rapist."

"I know."

"Somebody in that room was going to die no matter what you did."

"You're right."

You did everything you could."

"That doesn't make any easier to live with."

"No, it doesn't."

"And it doesn't stop the nightmares. It doesn't stop the doubts. It doesn't stop the voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me it's never going to end, we're never going to stop all the bad guys, we're never going to save all the children."

"We all have a little voice like that."

"Yeah. I know, ego, super ego, id, conscience, morality, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I know all the whats and the whys, I even know that given time it'll get better, but right now, it still hurts like hell."

"And that's why you started to implode again."

"That's why I started to implode. I wanted to stop thinking. I wanted to stop dreaming. I wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to escape. No, I want to escape. I want to stop feeling, remembering, thinking."

"But you can't."

He feels the tears prick at the backs of his eyes, hangs his head but fights them back, "You're wrong. You're so wrong. And that's the problem; I know exactly how to escape, exactly how to make the pain stop for a little while. I know exactly what street corner to go to, to get what I need. I know exactly who I need to talk to. And I know exactly what it would cost. And what it would cost me."

He picked his head up and held his friend's eyes, "All it would cost is a couple hundred bucks for an unopened bottle and a new needle and giving up everything good in my life: My job, my home, my mom, and most importantly, my friends. I could do it, but I won't. I won't do that to myself or to my friends."

"So tell me how I can help."

"I put in for some time off, a couple weeks. Oddly enough Hotch didn't have any problem giving it to me."

"Yeah, he's a little mad, but he's mostly worried."

"I know. I thought for sure he was going to rip me a new one on the plane. Instead he tells me to 'catch the rest of my movie'."

"So, you going back?"

"Yeah. I figure with so many meetings at so many different times, I can probably get to three, sometimes four, a day. But I like the one I went to, I -- I, um, met someone there. He loaned me this," he pulled the one-year medallion from his pocket, "he told me to give it back when I get my own. I don't really understand why he did that, but -- but I touch it, I look at it, somehow it makes me feel a little better. I think -- I think knowing that he did it, that he turned his life around and became a success, it makes me feel like I can do it too."

"That's good, man, that's really good. It sounds like you've got a good plan going there."

He nodded, "Yeah, I've been reading a lot of literature on recovery. One of the things they all have in common is support, family, friends."

"We're here for you, man. You know we are."

"I know. I'm kind of counting on it. I was wondering if you would do something for me."

"Name it."

"I -- I think I'm going to need to talk to someone. Not really about the meetings, and definitely not about work. Just anything else, movies, cars, sports, just anything."

"Yeah, I can do that."

"Every day?"

"Every single day. More if you need it."

"I'll understand if you can't. I mean cases, sometimes we don't get a break at all, so don't worry if you can't."

"Hey, I'll call. And if I can't call, I'll have JJ or Garcia do it. They usually wind up with a few minutes here and there."

"He smiled, "Thanks."

"Don't thank me too soon, you just might wind up hearing way too much about Kevin and Bill."

He sighed, "Well, as long as it has nothing to do with crime, I'll take it." He paused, "Those might be shorter conversations, though."

"So, when's your next meeting?"

"In twenty minutes," he nodded out the diner's window, "across the street, that's why I asked you to meet me here. I figured I'd head over as soon as we finished lunch."

"Well, looks like it's about time for you to head over then." There were already a few people heading inside.

He looked down at his plate, three lonely fries sat next to a pile of ketchup, the burger long gone. Funny, he'd been so nervous about what he was saying, he couldn't even remember eating his lunch. He pulled out his wallet and laid money on the table. "Yeah, I guess it's time." He smiled at his friend as he stood up, glad he didn't offer to 'come along,' this part, he needed to do alone. Later, later was when he would need to hear his friends' voices, but right now he needed to stand on his own two feet. He was on a long road, but he was going to take it one step at a time until he got where he was going.

Morgan watched out the diner window as his friend walked across the road. There was traffic and people and he wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest, but he could see that walking into that meeting took every bit as much courage as stepping onto that train in Texas had. He looked at his watch and decided he really didn't need to be anywhere today.

A.N.: This wasn't what I sat down to write, but I think some of the most emotional stories happen that way.

***