He listened. He listened, but it was so difficult to understand. At the moment, he felt horrible about himself, like he had actively hidden a current problem from her. He knew that wasn't it and that he would have told her at some point, but...

He bit his lip, taking a deep breath. He tried to rein in his emotions a bit. She wasn't going to leave him. She wasn't giving him That Look. She was still touching him.

"I..." He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut, and this time, he allowed them to stay closed. "I... I want you to know, I didn't choose to start. It was..." his breath became shaky, but he forced himself to go on, "it was a serial killer. Tobias Hankel. He had Dissociative Identity Disorder. One third of him was looking for an excuse to kill me, one third was convinced my team and I were the heralds of Armageddon, and the original personality felt powerless to help me. The original was the one to shoot me up the first six times. He thought... it would make it easier for me."

Reid tried to work the lump out of his throat, but he couldn't. He opened his eyes, but he didn't make eye contact. Tobias Hankel was one man who would always haunt him.

"I was addicted after that."