The morning of one of the worst days of her life starts as normal as any day can. Spencer is in New Jersey, working on catching a serial arsonist who's targeting churches on Sundays. She wakes up in his apartment, curled into the comforter that smells like his laundry and his shampoo. Her phone is close to vibrating right off of the side table, and she manages to snatch it before it falls out of her reach. She only hits the snooze button twice that morning before rolling out of bed without sitting up first. Shedding the blanket and standing on the cold wooden floors has her stripping out of her pajamas before she's even reached the bathroom in an effort to get into the warm spray of the shower quicker.
There are no signs from the universe that this day will haunt her for the rest of her life. She makes coffee between pinning back her hair and brushing her teeth, and makes it out of the apartment before seven with her purse and her mug in tow. Her train is on time. She's first to the lab, the samples she's working with were correctly taken, and the paperwork is in the correct order. The creep from IT didn't come in and Trish offers to run and get lunch from the sandwich shop on forty-second street. They take an extra half hour to goof off before snapping back into the groove of things. She stays until seven because Andy is willing to go over her Paraplegia diagnosis with her before he has to leave for Seattle.
She's on the train that takes her to Lincoln park because she planned on eating at one of the venues there in order to get some fresh air when she gets the call. The train is loud and crowded, but she pulls her phone out when it vibrates anyway. If it's Spencer calling she needs to ask the password to his apartment's wifi again after having been kicked off when the router restarted last week.
But it's not Spencer. It's Aaron Hotchner calling her.
The phone stops ringing before she gets a chance to answer it but it would be too loud on the train to hear him anyway. She steps off at the next stop and hits redial. He answers after the first ring and she has to assume that he was still holding the phone in his hand.
"Maeve." He answers. It's not a question as to if it's her, but more of an announcement of her presence.
"Agent Hotchner? Did you call me?" There's always the chance that it was a misdial. He has her number from Spencer's file and from the few occasions the team and their partners had get-togethers.
She was trying not to think of all the nightmares she's had about getting a call from Hotch before. About him calling in the dead of night to tell her that Spencer was dead, shot on a raid, blown up in an attack, stabbed by a crazed unsub. She tries not to think about how familiar it all is. How getting the dreaded call from Hotch is one of her biggest fears.
"I did. Are you home?"
He's beating around the bush. Hotch never beats around the bush. He was a man of few words and always meant what he said. He was straight forward and to the point.
"No. I'm in the subway. Is something wrong?"
Tell me Hotch. Why did you call- why isn't Spencer calling me instead? If there was something changing Spencer would be calling.
Unless he can't.
"Spencer's in the hospital. He and Rossi were canvassing for witnesses and there was a shooting. He's in St. Ann's currently. There's an agent at Quantico ready to drive you here."
She supposes this is the true beginning of the worst day of her life. To her credit she does not drop her phone or fall to her knees. She steps four feet over to a bench and sits down before her knees get the chance to go weak. Her lungs don't seem to be working however, and she knows that's important. The subway rushes past her and sends her hair whipping violently around her face. A cluster of teenagers go bumbling across the platform, oblivious to the fact that maybe one day they'll fall in love with an FBI agent and then that FBI agent will be shot.
"Maeve?"
"How- how bad? How bad is it? Where- he-," Words spill from her mouth before her brain catches up with her. She stands abruptly from the bench, twisting around to look at it, to look at the train, to look at the time and the platform and the stairs leading up to ground level.
There's only half a second of hesitation before Hotch seems to settle on what he's willing to share with her. "There were three shots fired; Rossi said that two hit him in the lower left chest. We just got to the hospital and they've taken him back into surgery." Maeve squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could until they physically hurt. Hotch's voice was as steady as ever, but even she heard his stoic voice waver at the end. She sucked in a ragged trembling breath then opened her eyes and started running towards the staircase, her purse bouncing against her side as she emerged from the subway and into the bright Virginia sent spikes of dizziness through her skull for a moment before she adjusted to the brightness and managed to take in her surroundings. She was on Jefferson Street. A thirty minute train ride to the apartment, but only eight by taxi.
"Did they tell you anything? Chances- or- or where it was located or the caliber or-" she cuts herself off, knowing that her words didn't sound like words anymore and more like incomprehensible gibberish. A taxi pulled to the road at her waving.
"It was a Glock 45. There was no arterial blood." Hotch doesn't have a lot of information to give her except for what had been relayed to him by Rossi. Thankfully Rossi was one of the most qualified agents to handle such a desperate situation and while he was visibly shaken, the first responders had told Hotch that his quick reactions had given Spencer a better chance at pulling through. "They have three trauma doctors on staff. We just don't have very much information yet. We're still in the process of informing the nurses."
She holds the phone to her chest as she leans towards the window separating her from the driver. "428 North State Street." The driver must have noticed her urgency and the pure panic in her eyes, because he pulls away from the curb with enough zest that she has to grip the oh-shit handle to keep herself steady. "The man- the man who shot him- do you have him in custody?" Her face is wet now, and swallowing takes her full focus due to the pain it causes, but she doesn't feel like she's crying. She feels like she's panicking her eyes decided that the best way to handle that was by drowning themselves.
"No. But we have his name and face. The local police are seeming to take this as if one of their own were shot. Cop shooters don't last long on the street." She wipes a hand across her face, muscles achingly tense with anxiety. She has so many questions swirling through her brain fighting for dominance that she doesn't get the chance to voice one before Hotch speaks again.
"We're talking to a few nurses now; Is Spencer on any medication?" Maeve hears the subtle inquiry there. There were no signs that Hotch had noticed that said perhaps Spencer was using again, but he would ask that feared question if it meant giving the doctors more information to save his life.
"Yes. He takes divalproex sodium- the extended release, and rizatriptan. They're both for his migraines. He hasn't taken the rizatriptan for over three weeks. It should be out of his system." She should be there. She should be talking to his doctors. She is the one in charge of all of his neurological prescriptions and she practically had his medical history memorized. "What else? What else do they need to know?"
"It's all the basics- no history of bad blood pressure or heart diseases-"
"No. No he's healthy apart from the migraines and any genes from his mother's schizophrenia." Her voice jumps at this, her breath getting caught in her lungs. Discussing Spencer's medical history over the phone was making the situation very real, very fast. They were talking about the man who laughed at her puns about radial symmetry and didn't own so much as a single pair of matching socks and who could recite one hundred and thirty two facts about the spanish mafia without even realizing.
Hotch must have her her breath hitch, and he continues on in a softer tone. "I'm currently listed as Spencer's medical proxy, but if any decisions have to be made-" There's a loll in his words here, as if he had to pause from the weight of them on his tongue. "I'm going to contact you first and we'll discuss everything." She has to place her cold fingers on her chest at this, willing the pressure to ground her in the moment to process his words. Hotch is helping her- is telling her that she won't be helpless and uninvolved in Spencer's care- she's reminded again that Hotch is a good man.
"Thank you." She whispers, clearing her throat afterward in an effort to speak louder.
"It's going to be a few hours until we get any information. Take the time to pack a bag for yourself and Spencer. I'm going to text you the number of the agent who will drive you."
"Okay." She doesn't mean for her voice to sound so broken. She drops her head from her shoulders and rests it on her hand. She can hear Hotch hesitate again, obviously debating if he should say more to comfort her.
"I'll call you if anything changes. Be safe."
Be safe.
Hotch's anxiety showed through those two words alone. He was terrified of any one else in his family being lost today.
She hangs up the phone and clutches it to her chest with white knuckles. The cab driver has not slowed down. He's even speeding through yellow lights.
"Okay?" Is all he asks. One word spoken as an ear to her tragedy.
"No. No- I need to get home."
The driver goes faster. She doesn't know how to express how grateful she is other than to leave him an extra ten dollars before she rushes for the doors of Spencer's building.
Once she's at the apartment she forgoes the elevator and bounds up the stairs like she's being chased and fumbles for her keys as if she were drunk. She feels her phone vibrate in her pocket but only checks it long enough to confirm that it's Agent Hotchner sending her the number of the agent driving her to New Jersey.
She has a leather bag big enough to hold a week's worth of clothes or so, and she tries to put all of her focus on making sure she makes everything they might need instead of thinking about Spencer dying. About him being shot- of the fall out-
She packs toothbrushes and razors and hair ties and soap. She goes into the bedroom and opens their wardrobe before dropping her arms to her side with a slap.
Shot.
He was shot. Shot in the chest. Lower left chest. Liver, lungs, arteries (no arterial blood), ribs, gallbladder, pancreas, diaphragm, stomach-
Shot twice.
She's a doctor. She knows the math and she knows the procedure. Somehow that just makes it all worse.
Packing momentarily abandoned, she clamps both hands over her mouth.
She doesn't mean to crawl on the bed and she doesn't mean to start shaking and she definitely doesn't mean to slip right into a panic attack. She can't get enough air into her lungs and she can't stop the jumping of her chest or the hiccups that rip through her diaphragm painfully.
When she eventually comes back to herself she tries to compartmentalize more successfully. It works to an extent. She packs all the sweatpants he owns and four flannel shirts that buttoned all the way down so he could wear it and there would still be access to his chest. She packs him two sweatshirts (because there's a very good chance that she will end up wearing one of them) and she packs him all of his clean socks and underwear.
She texts the agent before packing her own things. She might as well have him headed on his way.
He makes it faster than expected and while she's sure she has most things packed, she decides it doesn't matter because anything she's forgotten she can pick up at the closest store to the hospital.
She's probably slipped into shock by the time they've left DC. Her face is dry but red and she finds that she's unwilling to put the leather bag in the trunk, choosing instead to hold it on her lap and wrap her arms around it. It's heavy and somehow that's comforting.
The agent driving doesn't try to strike up any conversation with her, but when he picked her up he had offered her his reassurances and offered to try to answer any questions she had. He seemed genuinely concerned about Spencer and herself. She hadn't had much to say though, and he had respected that by not pushing her. The radio was quiet but loud enough in the heavy deafness of the SUV.
She flinches like she's been slapped when her phone rings. She had turned her ringer on so she couldn't miss any calls, but the sudden shrillness had sent her heart pounding.
It was Hotch.
There's a moment of nothing except for pure unfiltered terror.
He's dead. He's dead and Hotch is calling me to tell me that he's dead. That he bleed out on the table, that he's gone, that he coded-
She hits answer. Apparently Hotch knew exactly where her thoughts were headed. "He's alive. He's still alive."
She lets her head thunk against the cold glass of the window. Her voice only cracks once. "What changed?"
"They've managed to stabilize him enough for transit. They got approval from Philadelphia to fly him to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital."
"Airvac?" She already knows the answer, but she needs all the information she can get.
"Yes- They're preparing now. I'm going to fly with them and go to Philadelphia and the rest of the team will join us when they've caught our unsub."
"Right." It feels like her throat has swollen shut.
They have to fly him out.
They have to fly him out but he's still alive.
Arriving at the hospital is nothing but chaos. It's nearly eleven PM, but a hospital never sleeps. The parking lot is almost full and snow has begun to slip from the sky, prompting anyone still lingering outside to rush about mindlessly to get back into the closest source of heat. Hotch is standing by the closest entrance when they park the SUV to join him. He offers to take her heavy bag and she lets him because the closer they get to the doors the more lightheaded she's feeling. "Have they told you anything more?"
"No. We've been waiting for you to get here." He speaks to the agent who drove her quietly before the man climbs back into the SUV and starts it again to head off. When he turns back to her she can feel him reading her appearance. "How are you holding up?"
"I just need to know more." She says, shivering in the brisk wind. "I'm a doctor- the more I know the better I'll feel."
Hotch can't help himself from remembering every time when Reid had coped the same way- choosing to try to understand a situation to the best of his ability and how it happened rather than process his emotions surrounding it.
He leads her through the maze of a lobby to several elevators and they ride up to the fifth floor in silence. She feels lost and small among the pale blue hallways, the unfamiliar surroundings threatening to open up and swallow her. They go straight to the nurses' station, and upon being informed that she's arrived, one of the nurses hurries off to fetch one of the doctors. Another leads them to a private waiting room.
The lights are lowered and a tv in the corner glows silently with a game of Jeopardy. There's only a handful of chairs and a coffee machine sits along with some magazines and children's toys on a table in the corner. The walls are a muted purple and there are nondescript paintings hung about. There's only six chairs, and Rossi is slumped over in one of them.
She has a feeling she's going to become very familiar with this room.