Fanfic: Knowing and Understanding [Criminal Minds]
Title: Knowing and Understanding
Author: wanderingjasper
Rating: PG15/FRT
Characters: Gideon, Team (gen)
Word Count: 1092
Themes: Angst.
Warnings: Referenced character death, talk of suicide.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I do take liberties with them for no financial gain.
Notes: One-shot. Fill for the prompt "suicide" at angst_bingo
Summary: The team gets news that they weren't expecting, but aren't entirely surprised by.
“To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape.” - John Fowles
Garcia is handing around a bag of hard candies when Hotch enters the conference room, his team chatting easily. He takes an offered candy, but slips it into the breast pocket of his suit for a more convenient time; Garcia grins happily at him, but he can’t manage a smile in return.
“Guys,” he says, his voice not as hard as it should be, “there were remains found in remote woodland in Montana-”
“Is this a case?” JJ pipes up, as she and Rossi both cast their eyes around for files, confused. JJ looks mildly panicked because Hotch doesn’t spring these things on her, he talks to her because that’s her job and that’s how they work.
“No,” Hotch shakes his head. “They identified the remains from dental records.”
Most of the team look confused as he pauses to steel himself, then Morgan’s jaw sets and he slowly lets his eyes close, and Hotch knows he knows what’s coming. Maybe others do too, but they’re waiting for confirmation before their brains will allow them to react.
“It was Gideon.”
Garcia lets out a little gasp and her hand goes to her mouth. JJ’s hand goes to the side of her face, rubbing at her temple as her gaze falls away from Hotch. Her face fallen, Prentiss looks around at the rest; Rossi looks serious, reserved. Morgan’s eyes are open again and he shakes his head, and Reid looks shocked but there’s also just a tiny sense of relief there. He catches Hotch’s eye and he blinks it away, averting his eyes.
“Did he-” Morgan stops, clenches and unclenches his jaw, “what happened?”
“The remains were at least three years old,” Hotch says slowly, evenly, realising he hasn’t quite done processing the information himself, “but the coroner concluded he died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. The weapon was found with the remains.”
Nobody says anything. Nobody talks when Hotch tells them to get on with any paperwork they have, that they’ll regroup in a couple of hours.
“I knew,” Reid says into his hand, where his mouth is rested, his elbow on his desk. Prentiss looks up from her papers, scooting her chair to the edge of her desk so she can see him, face immediately curious and compassionate.
“You did?”
“Well no, technically not. But when I went to his cabin, and the door was unlocked and the lights were off, I thought I was going to find his body. Even with his letter, I...” he pauses, readjusting his chin on his hand, “it’s been so long since he left. I thought we’d have found out sooner that he’d committed suicide.”
“Well if he didn’t want anyone to know, then of course we didn’t find out sooner.” She reasons, a perfectly logical line of thinking.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Death rarely does,” Emily smiles softly.
Reid smiles half-heartedly at her before she moves back behind the partition between their desks. It’s a platitude, but the whole team is resigned to the fact that it seems to be all they are capable of offering each other until backed into a corner, and try not to give it time in their conscious. He doesn’t expect her to understand; she didn’t know Gideon as long as he did, didn’t form a relationship with him like Reid had. She doesn’t have an emotional recollection of how utterly wonderful it felt to please him, to solve a riddle or find a missing piece of a puzzle and know he’s proud. She doesn’t sometimes get a physical echo of the feeling of him gripping the back of his neck, meant in reassurance and affection, and feeling caught between being comforted and feeling used somehow. She isn’t having to justify the wave of relief at finding out Gideon is dead, and not being sure whether it’s because he’s gone or because now at least he knows.
Knowing is never quite enough, and understanding never comes.
“It makes no sense,” Morgan says, dropping the files on the discovery of Gideon’s remains onto Hotch’s desk. He’d asked Hotch for them right away, and his boss had allowed him, unsurprised by the request. Hotch nods for Morgan to sit, and he does, leaning back in the seat with his legs set wide, slumped in resignation.
“What doesn’t?”
“Gideon doesn’t-” a pause, “-didn’t play well with other kids. He was... Gideon was selfish, Hotch.”
“And?” Hotch prompts, though he’d sure Morgan knows he has been thinking the same.
“Gideon worked for the greater good, but he didn’t give a damn who he put at risk in the process," Morgan continues. “Why Montana? Why somewhere so remote nobody found him? Gideon just wouldn’t care.” He rubs a hand over his face and up over his short-shaved head. “When Reid came into work saying Gideon had left him a letter the first thing I thought was it was a suicide note, that Reid had gone to his cabin and found his body. Gideon wouldn’t have even thought about what that would do to him.”
Hotch watches as Morgan’s face shapes in concern at the thought of his friend being subjected to that, thinks about how protective he is over the younger agent. He folds his arms on the table as he considers that this must be weighing heavily on Morgan’s mind for him to be here instead of trying to talk Reid and Prentiss into coffee, and trying to make light of heavy emotions.
“We might never be able to profile his last days,” Hotch says evenly. “The coroner can’t even pinpoint exactly when he died.”
“I know that. But there’s gotta be a reason.”
Morgan isn’t totally sure why he wants to know Gideon’s motivations; whether it’s to absolve him or to condemn him. But it just doesn’t fit that Gideon’s last act is so uncharacteristically selfless. It doesn’t fit that the man who put his team at risk for the sake of solving a case multiple times - with dire consequences - would have the forethought to make his suicide have so little impact. Morgan leave’s Hotch’s office with only the silent assurance that his boss has no better a handle on the whole situation, and the mutual limbo is somehow comforting.
Knowing is too much, and understanding never comes.
“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” - Albert Camus