In the season nine two-part finale, Blake becomes distraught and depressed when Reid is shot in the neck by the UnSub after pushing Blake out of the way and nearly dies, even commenting that it should have been her who was shot instead. She is also further upset when rescuing a young boy who was being used by the UnSub as leverage against his mother. Though Reid survives, Alex is greatly shaken by the case, and reveals to Reid that both he and the young boy reminded her of her deceased son Ethan, who died of an unnamed neurological disease at age nine. Her guilt and distress over Reid's brush with death touched a major nerve with her, seemingly pushing her to the breaking point. At the end of the "Demons", she sits apart from the rest of the group on the plane ride home, and it is implied that she sends a text message to Hotch handing in her resignation. After taking Reid home, telling him about Ethan, and departing, Reid finds her FBI badge in his bag, and watches her leave, saddened but accepting, from his window.
