#like they did w elle's indirect reference to sa or hotchs implied sa w foyet

[maschotch]

i knew it would be you who came to the cabin to check on me.

you must be frightened. i apologize for that. i never meant to cause you pain. and i also never envisioned writing this letter.

i’ve searched for a satisfactory explanation for what i’m doing.  all i’ve come up with is: a profiler needs to have solid footing. i don’t think i have do anymore. the world confuses me. the cruelty, indifference, tragedy.

when my dear friend sarah was murdered, it tore a hole in me, and truly believed the best way to handle that pain was to get back to our work as quickly as possible. to get on to helping somebody else. i thought i could handle sarah’s murder. work through it.

remember the first case we had after? it was on a college campus. you see, i met sarah at college on a campus just like that one, 31 years ago. campuses are supposed to be places of life and excitement. they’re supposed to be about the future, figuring out who you are and who you’re gonna be. they’re supposed to be about dreams, not nightmares. about hope.

i really don’t understand the world anymore.

all homicide scenes are tragic, but when the victim is someone young, their life ripped away before they’ve even had a chance to live… it’s devastating. in this line of work i was afraid i would lose the ability to trust. but i’ve realized i can’t really look at anyone without seeing their death. and as bad as losing faith in humanity seems, losing your faith in happy endings is much worse.

how many victims have we seen? how many crime scenes? hundreds? a thousand? pictures of families, victims, both alive and dead. i was always able to stay objective, to stay at arm’s length.

but now… all i see is sarah in them.

nathan tubbs was easy. but there was a time in my career when i would have asked the question i should’ve asked: was he too easy? the biggest trap for a profiler to fall into is pride, forgetting that for all your skills, profiling is just a tool.

it was like you could physically feel the mood change on the campus. kids—they’re so resilient. they trust and believe in a way i remember but cant reach anymore. like a very old picture. you remember the circumstances with the feelings, the emotions. they’re just out of your grasp.

they believed in us. believed in me. the way sarah believed in me. and, as with sarah, i feel that i had led them right to the slaughter.

what was i even doing there? how many times have i told you that a profiler cannot do the job if the mind is unfocused? if anything is going on in your personal life that would cloud your judgement… my mind has never been more unfocused than it was on that campus

did i let a lion loose among babies? was my judgement clouded by a need to make someone pay for sarah’s death? two more dead. was it a price that needed to be paid? is death ever worth it?

was the world always this gray? is it only in the movies that it’s black and white? is that just an illusion? i used to know. i used to understand my place, my direction, where i was headed.

profiling requires belief—belief in the profile, belief in yourself. after sarah, i no longer trust myself at home. but after tubbs, i no longer trust myself in the field. and without that i have nothing.

and that was the last domino… the death of that girl. hotch being suspended over something that was my fault.

i said at the beginning of this letter that i knew it would be you to come up here. im so sorry the explanation couldn’t be better. and i am so sorry that it doesn’t make more sense.

but i’ve already told you, i just dont understand any of it anymore. im sorry. i guess i’m just looking for it again. for the belief i had back in college. the belief i had when i first met sarah and it all seemed so right.

the belief in happy endings

-jg