Every Penrose Triangle has its thorns by Lexikal

Rating: I give this one a T, because it deals with violent death and extreme grief and because most people baby kids and think they are emotionally unable to handle anything that isn't sugar coated (start em on the depressing Russians early, I say, but I doubt fanfiction dot net agrees with me and it's their site, so this gets a T).

Summary: Takes place one week after the events of "Zugzwang", and Reid can barely see the light. Grief can be one of the hardest parts of life. Morgan visits the "kid" and tries his best to comfort his friend. A philosophical discussion (Reid being Reid!) ensues.

Spoilers: For the events of Zugzwang

Author's Note: I am fascinated by the mental state that is grief (secondary only to shock that arrives when someone is faced with life-threatening or sanity-threatening trauma), and I am interested in spiritualism, mysticism and philosophy and this fic is the result. Also, there are times in some of my fics were certain details or key phrases are repeated. This is not accidental, but a way of highlighting the sense of unreality and uncertainty that accompanies strong emotional states. For instance, if I am writing about someone in an extreme stake of shock and also dissociation, their assessment of what is going on is going to appear short, simplistic and repetitive to most readers because in those situations people's thought processes become cyclical, obsessive and childishly simplistic (ie: "this can not be happening, she can not be dead, she can not be dead, I don't believe it..." et cetera). Knowing this might help you read my stories, if you know that is a tactic I use to denote certain emotional and/or mental states. I think it's effective myself, but not everyone likes the same tactics in stories. I also often italicize thoughts, especially sudden thoughts or obsessive thoughts. Oh yes, apparently lots of people loved Zugzwang. I hated it. It felt like a manipulative ploy to get people to go "awww" over Reid, but utterly unrealistic, as if the writers said to themselves "ratings are down and from surveilling fanfiction dot net, we know that fans like high drama, so let's kill of the love of Reid's life and end this story arc on a tragic note which will make the fangirls swoon"... that's what that show felt like to me. Don't want my opinion? Heh heh, tooooo laaaate (singsong voice). The segments of italicized print about near death experience "theories" are word for word from the book "Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near Death Experience" by Pim van Lommel, M.D. (Good book if you are interested in such things, btw). The other block of italized text is Socrates speaking in Plato's Phaedo. Anyway, please review.

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."- Kahlil Gibran

10 minutes after Maeve Donovon went down, Morgan led Reid out of the room toward the ambulances. Reid didn't need an ambulance, he wasn't physically injured, but he looked like he might faint. They all knew, even before Hotch approached and checked for a pulse, that Maeve was dead. Hotch checked for a pulse only because that was official operating procedure, but it was only slightly less silly than checking for a pulse on a decapitation victim. Anyway, there was no pulse but for that 5 second span as Hotch made sure, Reid's eyes lit up with what might have been the inbred, far distant cousin of hope. No pulse. Other law men were moving in, sqawking into radios, shining lights, doing what police officers did at crime scenes involving murder-suicides. Reid followed Morgan silently, looking ever so much to Morgan like a concentration camp survivor on an old film reel, someone who has physically survived but looks emotionally and spiritually dead in the water. "Come on, kid." Morgan said gently, putting a hand on Reid's arm. It was all he could think of to say.

2 hours after Maeve Donovon was found to be dead by Hotch, after Reid had been "checked out" by a paramedic (b.p. a little low and pulse a little high, but that was to be expected) they were on the jet home. Reid was eerily silent, staring out the window at the passing clouds, fist perched under his jaw like that famous statue, "The Thinker" by Rodin. To Morgan, he seemed ghostly and ephemeral, as if he were an illusion, a curtain of tiny insects hanging in the air pretending to be Spencer Reid, or a a strange interplay of water droplets and lights. Spencer Reid as a cloud. Something that might scatter and ghost away like smoke if it was touched. Morgan was sitting next to his friend, at a loss for words. Some losses were just too huge for words.

4 hours after Maeve's death and they were all back at the BAU, at their home base. There was an unspoken certainty that Reid should not be alone, and yet, an equally strong sentiment that his wishes should be respected. Reid was staring around the BAU as if he had never seen it before. "Kid?" Morgan asked, not really expecting a response, just wanting to tell Reid's subconscious that he was keeping tabs on him, that he was there for him in that special big-brother way he had for the agent. "Reid? What do you want to do, man?" But Reid was already walking away from him, putting distance between himself and other human beings.

"I'm going home, I'd like to be alone, please." He said this in a tight, eerily controlled and strangely monotone voice. Morgan darted a nervous glance at Hotch, at Rossi. Garcia, not present at the crime scene, had been informed and was keeping her distance from Reid but her eyes were hugely owlish behind the glasses, filled with concern and tears. Morgan knew she wanted to come to Reid, mother-hen him, say emotionally poignant Garcia-things to make sure he was okay.

"Reid, I don't think you should be alone right now." Hotch was the one to say it. Hotch who had gone through his own version of this particular life tragedy with Hayley. Out of everyone on the team, Hotch's experiences were the closest to Reid's regarding Maeve's death, and it was for that reason that Hotch had spoken what they were all thinking. "You shouldn't be alone right now, Spencer." Spencer. Hotch only called Reid "Spencer" when he was trying to make a gentle point, to be firm without being aggressive.

"Maybe I shouldn't be alone right now, but I am going to be alone." Still a fairly blase tone, but under it, under the burgeoning, hemmorhaging grief was certainty. Reid met Hotch's eyes and something passed between them, Morgan could see that something, that understanding, zip between them. Hotch nodded so slightly Morgan would have missed it if he hadn't been looking for it. Morgan reconsidered Reid's words and realized that he wasn't just speaking about being literally, physically alone in his apartment. No. Those words also meant that Reid would be emotionally haunted on his own, they were a statement of fact: Hayley was shot while you listened in, helpless, and she died in a similar fashion, but that fact doesn't help me or mitigate my grief so please do not compare the two. Hayley was Hayley and Maeve was Maeve and they are more than the sum of their parts. I realize you want to impart wisdom here, and spare me any grief you possibly can, but it will not work. Please do not even try.

So much said with so few words.

"I will need someone to drive me home, though." This said in the same careful, deliberate voice. How much energy was it taking out of Reid to continue to be so rigidly "together"? Morgan didn't want to think about it.

"I'll take you, kid." Morgan said in what he hoped was a gentle, supportive tone, but Reid just nodded that wooden, robotic nod violent crime survivors often had before the full extent of the tragedy they had endured hit home. If he said too much or let down his resolve, he would lose it, he would become emotional and Reid preferred to lick his wounds in private. He always had. Morgan knew this. Every member on the team knew this.

"Reid!" Garcia piped up then, looking almost offended nobody was making a greater stink over him. She came to him, blinked sadly, and then wrapped him in a huge bear hug. Reid went stiff and rigid in her meaty arms, then relaxed some and gave her a weak hug back. She pulled back and looked at him. "You know my number. You know all of our numbers. If you have to be on your own right now... Reid, phone us. Don't shut us out, okay?" And then Garcia stopped, because emotion was bleeding into her voice. Reid said thank you, and his voice cracked on the word "thank". He glanced over at Morgan and Morgan nodded and followed the younger man towards the elevators. Reid's energy was waning and he wanted to get home before he lost control in front of his colleagues. And really? That wasn't too much to ask, all things told, was it?

8 hours after Maeve was shot, Reid was sitting on his couch in the dark, alone, breathing hard. His body wanted to cry but he was distantly certain that if he let himself start, he might not stop for a long, long time. The pain might feel worse. It might feel excruciating if he let even a little of it through. So he sat on his couch in the dark and stared at the shadows thrown by car headlights outside his apartment, and breathed hard.

10 hours after Maeve died, Reid was lying on his couch, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling and running through the 100.5 days he had "spent" with Maeve, days spent getting to know her mind, her soul... the only parts of another human being that ever really mattered. Tears were spilling over his cheeks without his permission and his mouth was set in a grim, rigid line. He turned over sidewise, pulled one of his couch cushions towards him and buried his face in it and let his eyes leak but he couldn't make any noise. He knew if he made noise, it would quickly become intolerable in here, and he had nowhere else he could really go. He would refuse to take the easy way out and go get drunk. No. He wouldn't self-medicate this grief away, to do so would be to spit on his memories of Maeve. Reid burrowed his face in his cushion and squeezed his eyes shut and asked his mind to please stop thinking about Maeve, please stop cycling over our conversations for just a few hours, so I can rebuild some stamina. In a few hours, brain, you can start again, but please stop for just a few hours so I can give her memory the proper attention it deserves later on.

His brain wasn't listening to him...

16 hours after Maeve died and Reid was neither awake nor asleep, but in some in-between place where he could still distantly think. His brain was showing him the final minutes of Maeve Donovon's life over and over and over. He could see himself pulling back from Diane when she tried to kiss him, and his semi-conscious mind was grilling him over his inability to fake love. If he had been able to fake love with Diane, Maeve would probably still be alive. But he had stalled, he had run into a wall and been unable to fake love, and Diane had caught on, and now Maeve was dead. Maeve was dead because he couldn't pretend to be something he wasn't, couldn't pretend to love someone he didn't. It was a weakness he would have to work on in the future.

23 hours after Maeve died Reid realized he had to pee something fierce. He wandered into his bathroom and relieved himself without turning the bathroom light on. When he was done, he realized he was thirsty, and cupped some water in his hands instead of retrieving a glass from the kitchen, before wandering back to the couch to be with his grief again.

50 hours after Maeve left the Earth, Reid realized he should eat something. It took him 5 minutes to get off the couch after coming to this decision, and far too long to sulk into the kitchen, where he found nothing but condiments in the fridge. In the freezer he found 6 Stouffer's Lean Cuisine TV dinners that Garcia had brought to him almost a year earlier, when he had been sick with a bug that had left him puking for nearly a week. Reid hadn't eaten any of the TV dinners then, but he thought he might have one now. He looked through his selections before deciding on the four cheese cannelloni. He did not own a microwave, but luckily there were conventional oven directions. The meal would be ready in maybe 40 minutes. Good enough. He hadn't eaten for nearly 55 hours, he could surely wait another 40 minutes.

3 days and 6 hours after Maeve's life was stolen, Reid found himself miraculously showering and putting on a suit, hailing a cab and heading out to the airport to catch a plane to catch her funeral. At that time, his body moved of its own accord, slow and labored and robotic, and everything felt unreal and distant, like he had perhaps been slipped some sort of mind altering drug. Time and space and distances felt "off", but apparently such dissociation was common in times of great stress. Reid felt and watched the world like an observer rather than a participant and when it came time for him to look down at her pale, preserved face he leaned down and let his lips brush hers. His team was with him, had come out and he could feel them eyeing him, desperate to talk, to inquire about his emotional state, but all that existed was Maeve, lying perfectly still like a porcelain doll in a little wooden box, destined for the underworld and whatever might lie in wait there. Morgan drove him back to the airport and sat with him until his plane came, made fumbling, awkward attempts at speech, begged the young genius not to "shut us out" but Reid was too disconnected from everything to respond back in anything more than monosyllablic yesses and noes and eventually Morgan stopped trying to make chit chat. At one point he gently squeezed Reid's thigh in a sign of comfort and support, but that was it.

4 days and 12 hours after Maeve was shot and killed, Reid was sitting on his couch, staring blankly at the television. He had tried to read, but couldn't focus on anything for more than a crass handful of seconds. At the same time, he was tired of being alone in the dark with his thoughts. Reid, never a big TV watcher, had channel surfed. Daytime television, if possible, seemed even duller than the evening shows. Reid eventually stopped on Ellen. Two little girls in pink tutus and wearing tiaras were giggling and chattering away and Ellen was grinning at them, obviously delighted. Reid just stared, trying to figure out if he would have ever found such an interaction cute. If he wasn't in the depths of grief right now, would this exchange have brought a smile to his lips? He honesly didn't know.

5 days after Maeve died and Reid had lost 10 pounds and eaten only three scant meals. He hadn't shaved and had only showered once before wandering back to the couch with the towel and lying back down. At some point during that fifth day he heard a knock on his door, the mechanical knock of someone who wasn't his friend. 2 hours later, when he popped his head out the door, he found a box addressed to him. Garcia was the sender. Reid took the box inside, left it on the little dining table. He'd open it later. He'd had phone calls he hadn't had the energy or desire to answer, at least 7 of them in 5 days.

5 and a half days after Maeve died, and Reid was in the shower, under the hot jets of water, sobbing as hard as he had ever sobbed and probably ever would sob, sobbing until he was pretty sure he had burst a blood vessel in his throat. He remained in the shower until his skin was scarlet and wrinkled, and then until the water went tepid, then cold, before getting out, shivering. He'd only stopped crying because he had run out of energy and numbed himself out, but the tears were still in there, all that grief, and would strike again. Of this, Spencer Reid had no doubt.

6 days and 12 minutes after Maeve was shot and her life drained away, Reid was curled up on his couch, various books from his personal library spead open-faced and down all around on the floor. Books on spirituality and mysticism, books on the scientific theories regarding near death experiences. He'd shivered for a good hour after getting out of the shower yesterday, and finally, as he was warming up, had burst into fresh, anguished sobs. At that point he realized that he was no doubt clinically depressed, and felt a sudden stab of anger at his own brain for telling him that. Doctors always wanted to put labels on things, label various emotions as pathological, but how was he supposed to feel not a week after the violent death of his soul mate? Depression seemed pretty reasonable. That spark of anger, however, set off a chain reaction of adrenaline which had him off the couch and looking for books. He had much of the information memorized, but sometimes holding a book in his hands and reading directly from it gave him a deeper sense of confidence, and of peace. His eyes scanned over some text, locking onto each word as if they were little buoys in turbulent water. What he was reading was this:

...the most common explanation for NDE is an extremely severe and life-threatening oxygen deficiency in the brain, resulting in a brief spell of abnormal brain activity. This results in the blockage of certain receptors in the brain and the release of endorphins, a kind of morphine produced by the body itself, causing hallucinations and a sense of peace and bliss. This theory seems inapplicable, however, because an NDE is actually accompanied by an enhanced and lucid consciousness with memories and because it can also be experienced under circumstances such as an imminent traffic accident or a depression, neither of which involves oxygen deficiency. Moreover, a hallucination is an observation that is not rooted in reality, which does not apply to descriptions of out-of-body experiences that are open to verification and corroboration by witnesses. In an out-of-body experience, patients during resuscitation have perceptions from a position outside and above their lifeless body, and doctors, nurses and relatives can later verify the reported perceptions. They can also corroborate the precise moment the NDE with out-of-body experience occured during the period of CPR. Besides, one would not expect hallucinations when the brain no longer functions because they require a functioning brain... Regarding the tunnel experienced by many NDErs, according to the psychologist (and consulting editor of the Skeptical Inquirer) Susan Blackmore, one possible explanation is oxygen deficiency in the (visual) cerebral cortex; others speculate that the tunnel experience is caused by the disruption of oxygen supply to the eye, gradually darkening one's range of vision and leaving only a short-lived pinprick of light in the middle that would be the tunnel. However, a tunnel experience is accompanied by a sense of high speed, meeting deceased relatives, and sometimes hearing beautiful music. Oxygen deficiency in the eye cannot explain this...

Reid stopped reading and wiped at his eyes, which were streaming again. Despite working for the BAU for many years and being faced with the reality of death on a near-daily basis, he had never before needed to know there was something else after death so much as right now. Now that Maeve was gone, he needed to know... that she wasn't really gone. Not really. If he couldn't prove that reality to himself, at least on an instinctive, gut level, he felt he might go mad with grief.

Reid flipped through some pages, scanning quickly, and seized on something else:

...One of the first attempts at explaining NDE was based on the fact that stress releases endorphins. There are morphines occuring naturally in the body in small quantities, which function as neurotransmitters. They are released in large quantities during stress. Endorphins can indeed get rid of pain and cause a sense of peace and well-being. However, the effects of endorphins usually last several hours whereas the absence of pain and the sense of peace during an NDE vanish immediately after regaining consciousness. Endorphins also fail to explain other elements of an NDE...

None of what Reid was now reading was new to him, and yet, on another level, it was all new to him. He had read it before, but never really given these findings much emotional thought, because he had never needed to give them much thought before. Suddenly the phone began to ring, shrill and insistent. Reid got up and went to his mammoth wall-to-wall bookcase and scanned titles until he found what he was looking for. He came back with his battered copy of Plato's Phaedo and flipped pages until he came to what he needed to read, needed to read like a deathly thirsty man needs water.

Like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her... and is [death] anything but the seperation of soul and body?... And being dead is the attainment of this separation; when the soul exists in herself, and is parted from the body and the body is parted from the soul- that is death... Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen... The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable... If the immortal is also imperishable, the soul when attacked by death can not perish... That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world, to the divine and immortal and rational: thither arriving, she lives in bliss and is released from the error and folly of men... And where the dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally conveys them, first of all they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously, or not...

Reid stopped reading and rubbed at his eyes. He knew that there were accounts of NDEs dating back from the first written accounts of human experience. Knew that science, though it tried, could not debunk the NDE as the brain fart many material reductionists wanted to believe it was, that there were just too many aspects that didn't add up, that hinted at a reality that wasn't reductionistic or material and therefor, could not be analyzed by men who existed as cogs solely within a reductionistic, material paradigm. Now, sitting- eyes streaming- Reid held Plato's Phaedo to his chest like a shield and shut his eyes and said a silent, wordless prayer to any God or intelligence out there that might be able to hear to make it true. Because Maeve just ceasing, like food in the fridge that has spoiled and is destined to be scraped into the trash or the toilet? That was too great an insult to decency, to love itself. Too great an insult to bear. After what might have been 30 seconds or might have been five minutes, Reid reopened his eyes and went back to reading.

7 days, 8 hours and 54 minutes after Maeve departed the world of the living, there was insistent knocking at the door, then Morgan's concerned, familiar voice.

"Reid? Kid? You don't open the door and I am using my key, okay? We're all worried about you..."

Reid got up and shuffled to the door, pulled the chain off and blinked out into the relative brightness of his apartment's hallway.

"Come in."

Morgan took in Reid, smiled gently. Reid looked even worse than he had at the funeral, eyes shadowed in skin so dark it almost looked bruised. He hadn't shaved but apparently was still showering, as he didn't stink. He was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt which sported the atomic structure of caffeine and pajama pants which Garcia had given him one year as a joke on Valentine's day, pants splattered with Stewie Griffon from Family Guy and the recurring slogan "Victory is mine!". Morgan was pretty sure Reid had never seen an episode of Family Guy in his life. No matter.

"Come in," Reid said and stood aside so Morgan could enter. All the lights were off save for a floor lamp near the kid's couch. Piles of books were littered on and around the couch, many of them open and splayed face down on the floor. Morgan scanned the titles of the books: Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience... Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife... Science and the Near Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death... Erasing Death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death... and Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness....

"I've been reading," Reid explained unnecessarily and retreated back to his nest of cushions and blankets on the couch. Morgan, who had been worried in some deep, nagging fashion that defied words felt slightly relieved to see that at least the kid was showering, that he was reading... he wasn't just lying alone in the dark feeling horrible, he was reading and that was something, wasn't it? Heartening still was the subject matter Reid was delving into. His genius brain was looking to prove the existence of life after death to itself, to make some sense out of the atrocity that was Maeve Donovon's inherently senseless murder.

"When was the last time you ate something?" Reid, always skinny, was starting to look downright gaunt. Reid blinked at Morgan's inquiry, as if trying to translate it from the Latin.

"Yesterday, maybe?"

Morgan had to suppress a gentle smirk. That was another thing about Spencer Reid that Morgan loved with a passion; his unfailing, immediate honesty.

"Yeah, I thought so." Morgan said and wandered into the kitchen, put water in the kettle and put the kettle on to boil. Reid had a french press coffee maker, claimed it made better coffee than drip machines. Morgan found the coffee beans in the freezer and the electric grinder above the sink. Set to his task of making coffee, considered just how profound the small rituals of comfort were. A quick look in Reid's fridge belied the notion that Reid was taking care of himself: the kid was out of food.

"There are TV dinners in the freezer, Lean Cuisine. Garcia got them for me when I was sick," Reid said softly, as if reading Morgan's mind. Reid, so silent in his stocking feet. Morgan checked for himself: 3 dinners.

"You have a pad of paper around here? A pen?"

"Sliding drawer next to the cuttlery drawer, under the batteries."

Morgan pulled out a writing pad (yellow paper, lined) and a blue ballpoint and came and put the paper and pen in Reid's long fingers.

"What's this for?"

"I want you to make a list of any foods that don't require much preparation. Anything you even remotely like, Reid, write it down. Make a list and I will go grab them for you."

"Morgan, that's not necessary-"

Morgan cut the younger man off with a pointed look.

"Reid, make the list, accept the help, and I can tell the team that you are at the very least showering and reading and eating somewhat regularly. They'd still probably rather you returned phone calls but eating is a minimum requirement for staying on your own." Morgan knew the words were slightly condescending, but damn it, they were also true. If Reid couldn't be trusted to at least eat every day, then he had no business being on his own.

Reid opened his mouth to say something, promptly shut it.

Morgan went back to the kettle, pulled it (just beginning to scream) off the heat and spooned coffee grounds into the press. Filled the press and let it sit. Went back to Reid's living room with Reid trailing behind and giving off annoyed vibes at having his grief so rudely interrupted.

"I know you mean well, Morgan, but I do really want to be alone. I'm not good company right now."

Morgan sighed. Redirected the conversation.

"Near death experiences?" His head jerked in the direction of the largest stack of books.

"Yeah. The scientific jury is still out, of course, but in the last thirty years there has been so much more interest in the field, and some of it does seem to point to... something... after we die. That said. I am not up for company right now. I appreciate the sentiment... but..."

Morgan, who believed in his gut and his bones that death wasn't the end many believed it to be, only nodded.

"You been sleeping?"

Reid shrugged, and as he did so Morgan had his answer.

"Talk to me, Reid. You're not alone in this."

Half a minute passed with Reid looking inward. When it became obvious that Derek Morgan would not be easily dispatched, Reid took a deep breath.

"I never thought it was possible to miss someone like this." Reid's voice was barely above a whisper. "I miss her so much, Morgan."

Morgan nodded. He couldn't, of course, know exactly how much Reid missed Maeve- that was Reid's reality, and his alone- but he had lost loved ones too, and could imagine.

"I debated what I would say to you when I came out here," Morgan said gently. Reid looked up from scrawling chicken scratch on the foolscap and waited for more.

"I want you to know you are not alone, but other than that... all the platitudes we tell each other during times like these, they feel wrong to say to you. Saying nothing to you isn't right, either. I know it hurts, Reid, and I know it feels like it might never stop hurting. And I am not going to lie to you and tell you you will find someone else just like Maeve. Maeve was Maeve and there is no replacing her. But her death isn't your death."

Morgan stopped, realized his words sounded overly planned and far too formal. In a way, they were. He'd been running things to say that might help Reid through the 3.3 pound computer in his skull for days.

"I don't mean this in any dangerous way that you need to worry about," Reid started, voice even lower. "But I almost wish her death had been my death."

Morgan was silent, waited for anything more. After a dozen very long seconds Reid looked over at him.

"If I had just been able to fake love... to convince Diane... if I had just been able to kiss her, do that one little thing... Maeve would still be here."

"You don't know that. And you can't start thinking like that, kid, or you'll go crazy."

"I feel it, though. When Diane was kissing me, I hesitated. I just... I couldn't. I couldn't physically do it. Not convincingly. And my hesitation cost Maeve her life."

"Diane Turner cost Maeve her life, Reid. Not. You." Morgan couldn't keep the anger he felt at the whole situation out of his voice.

"She trusted me to help her. I was the profiler, the criminologist. I should have been able to save her. I had her, Morgan, I had her. I was saving her. She would have made it. But when she was kissing me- Diane-. I remember the exact second when everything went wrong, when she pulled back and looked at me. She felt I had betrayed her and I knew at that second that it was over. And I can't stop thinking about that second in time, maybe half a second, right before she broke the kiss, right before she broke the kiss and realized it was fake... I keep replaying that. That and how I told Maeve I didn't love her."

"Maeve was incredibly bright, Reid. She knew the situation you were in. Do you honestly think she didn't know what you were doing?"

"Intellectually, I know she must have known. But in here?" Reid pointed at his chest- his heart- tapped the front of his shirt gently. "In here I am so scared that maybe she didn't know. Maybe on some level she believed those words, that I didn't love her. She told me she loved me, and I was waiting for my chance to say it to her face, and instead I said the opposite. Then she died. She died with that declaration in her mind."

"She knew you loved her," Morgan said this forcefully. He had to make Reid see this, really see it and really believe it.

"I know you are probably right. But what if you're not?" Reid's voice was miserable. He stared down at the yellow pad of paper where he had scrawled a mere four words: Cereal. Bananas. Soy Milk.

Morgan sighed and got up. "I'm going to get you some coffee, okay kid? I made us some coffee."

Reid nodded, distractedly. Listlessly added "granola bars" to the grocery list.

Morgan got them each a cup of black joe (with three heaping teaspoons of organic cane sugar in Reid's cup- Reid looked like he could use any calorie that could possibly be sneaked into him) and set them out on the little coffee table in front of Reid's sofa. Reid stared at the coffee for a second, then carefully picked up the cup and took a sip.

"I told you I wasn't good company right now, Morgan."

"I'm not here to socialize or be entertained, kid."

"I really do want to be alone right now."

"I know you do," Morgan sighed. "You finish that list and I'll go and get you some food."

"I'm sorry." Reid's voice cracked on the word "sorry", and Morgan was suddenly certain that Reid was talking to Maeve as much, if not more, than him. Wherever Maeve might be right now, and whatever of her might still be left in existence.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for, Reid."

Reid didn't respond to that. But he seemed to be curling in on himself, like a slug, tentacles retracting. Morgan couldn't leave him, not like this, but Reid didn't want him to stay.

"Reid, if you could talk to Maeve directly right now, what would you say? And what do you think she would tell you?"

Reid stopped writing. Looked at Morgan with an exasperated look on his face.

"Humour me, kid."

"I would tell her I was sorry for not saving her. I would tell her I love her."

"You said love her. Present tense," Morgan pointed out. Reid smiled wanly. Nodded.

"I guess I did."

"You realize you told her just now? Just told her you loved her?"

"I don't know that with any certainty, Morgan." Reid's rootbeer brown eyes looked desperately hopeful, though. He wanted to believe, even if he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. His voice was full of emotion, the voice of a man on the edge of bitter tears.

"What do your books tell you, then? What does your gut tell you?" Morgan asked this kindly and gestured towards the stacks of books on near death experiences, on mystical encounters throughout the ages and out of body experiences that were piled around Reid's person like a crumbling shrine. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Plato's Phaedo. Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. Life After Death:The Evidence. The Divine Comedy. Open on Reid's coffee table was a book, title unknown, featuring full colour glossy plates of fine art. Morgan approached the book, glanced over at Reid for tacit permission. Reid nodded. Morgan gently picked up the tome and flipped through the book, stopped on a large plate of a tunnel made up out of the wings of what had to be angels. Two humans in robes were perched at the viewer's end of the tunnel, a glorious, golden light awaited them in the distance.

"Blake or Bosch?" Morgan asked, dipping his head in the direction of the book.

"Uhm.. neither. That is Gustave Doré. He did mostly wood engravings and book illustrations in the 19th century, but his work does look like many of the Flemish painters of the 15th century."

"I would have sworn it was Bosch," Morgan murmured. Part of him- a big part- didn't care but he knew Reid cared. Reid always cared about what was, to most other people, minutiae.

"Bosch painted an incredibly similar piece called Ascent of the Blessed. That entire book you're holding is full of art as it relates to near death experiences or what used to be called death-bed visions. Across vast periods of time and equally vast geographical distances we have accounts of NDEs from all ages, all genders, people of all intellects and religious or atheistic persuasions, all professions and socioeconomic statuses." Reid stopped and looked at Morgan. Morgan nodded.

"Go on, kid. I want to hear this."

"If NDEs are wishful thinking, then I find it odd the description of them would be so universally consistent. An atheist is just as likely to experience one as a Catholic or Buddhist monk, previous religious beliefs only seem to shape how the person describes certain universal themes. A Christian is more likely to refer to the conscious, telepathic kind intelligence in the light as Jesus or God, whereas a Buddhist will frame the experience based on his or her religious experiences and the deities and buddhas prevalent in his region. And scientists who claim the experience is a result of nothing more magnificent than oxygen deprivation to a dying brain conveniently leave out, or are unaware of the fact, that NDEs produce enhanced thought, the euphoria associated with them ends immediately after the experiencer regains consciousness and normal sinus rhythm is reestablished. These very same scientists, apparently interested only in uncovering the objective reality of our existences, fail to note that the experiencers often report medical lingo they could no way have known and which is inconsistent with much of what TV shows and movies show us takes place during cardiac arrest resuscitation efforts. There have been cases of people who were blind from birth seeing while having an NDE, and describing what they saw after the fact, and having it verified. People with optic nerves that were damaged and out of order for their entire lives actually seeing, Morgan. Cerebral anoxia can't do that. A dying brain might feel some peace as everything shuts down, but things would not be clearer, more enhanced and people, especially children, who meet up with deceased relatives they had no knowledge of before hand? Makes no sense. If all of these experiences were just manifestations of a dying brain and wishful thinking, then the scientific community is conveniently forgetting the cases which by all accounts are nothing if not proof of continued existence after the death of the physical body."

Reid stopped and glanced down. His cheeks flushed. He had said, like he so often did, more than he had initially intended to.

Morgan nodded. He was used to Reid, to the encylopedic knowledge which so often issued forth from the younger man's mouth, unbidden and prodigious. Morgan flipped through the pages and was met with more tunnels. Other images, too, ethereal bodies floating, attached by cords, to what had to be sleeping human beings. Staircases shooting into the heavens. Globes of light.

"Do you think there is even the chance, however slim, of something more?" Morgan asked. He had stopped at the plate of another painting. Tapped it.

"I have no way of knowing either way, Morgan. It is why I am an agnostic. It is why I have always been an agnostic. And before you ask, yes, that one is William Blake."

"Always agnostic?" Morgan prodded, nodding his thanks at Reid for the Blake comment.

"Since about three or four," Reid amended.

"Okay, but... take Maeve herself. If I had told you five years ago you would meet someone like Maeve, someone you would grow to love that much, would fall in love with and spend a hundred and a half days talking with on the phone before even laying eyes on her, someone you would connect with to that degree... would you have believed me with any certainty, Reid? Even if I claimed to know beyond all doubt?"

"I would have been agnostic. Until it happened."

"But it did happen. Maeve did happen for you."

Reid nodded. As bright as he was, he wasn't getting Morgan's point.

"If something as amazing and unlikely as Maeve Donovon could happen to you... why not believe in a life after this one?"

Reid nodded again. He still didn't appear convinced, but he desperately wanted to be convinced, that much was blatantly obvious. He shivered suddenly, although his living room wasn't cold, took another gulp of coffee. Handed Morgan the list. After the granola bars, Reid had tagged on white bread, fruit pies and Jif peanut butter (creamy one, please). Not exactly health food, but baby steps were better than nothing.

Morgan neatly folded the list and slid it into his back jeans pocket. Turned back to his friend. He wanted to say something more, but sometimes silence was the most potent response.

"I'll be back in about an hour, kid."

Morgan watched Reid nod, pick his cup back up, take another gulp of coffee, then another. His eyes were haunted and sad and exhausted but maybe, just maybe, slightly less haunted than they had been fifteen minutes earlier. His brain was sorting through information, at least, and if every human soul had a purpose here on Earth, then Spencer Reid's purpose, no doubt, was to sort and analyze information.

When Morgan reached the front door he heard Reid speak, low and soft, a susurrus.

"Thank you, Morgan."

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

-FIN-

That's it, please review. My take on maybe the most difficult time in Reid's life so far.

End of story note: I hope Reid sounded like Reid, and not like, well... me. One of the main reasons I love CM so much is that I identify with Reid to a large extent (much more in the earlier seasons, though, Reid is Super Hipster Reid now and I can't pull off Hipster worth a damn), maybe more than any other fictional character save for Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, but that can create problems when I am writing. I am never sure if I am writing Reid well and keeping him in character enough, so please tell me if he felt in character to you. I love, love, love to inject factoids and minutiae and trivia into my stories (which is why this has taken a good 10 hours to write), and this didn't get into the story, but I wanted to tell you guys that the classic rock band The Doors apparently named their band after the Huxley book listed in this fic called "The Doors of Perception" (alternately, I have also heard that the name is a homage to a William Blake poem, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" with a line that reads: If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite) I suppose it doesn't matter if The Doors named their band after the Blake poem or the Huxley book, as Huxley named the book (about his mystical experiences with mescaline in 1954) after the Blake poem, anyway. Am I still talking? Damn, I am. You're crazier for reading, fellow Reid-o-philes (I think we should come up with a name for ourselves, but Reid-o-phile is much too obvious). Oh yeah, I also hope you feel inspired to run down a book of Blake poetry or listen to music by The Doors or look at flemish paintings from the 15th and 16th and 17th centuries or read about the phenomenon known as the Near Death Experience. If you want to know what the Gustave Doré painting briefly mentioned in this fic looks like, look no further than the story "cover" art I made... that is it, White Rose by Doré!

This is the end Beautiful friend/ This is the end My only friend, the end/ Of our elaborate plans, the end/ Of everything that stands, the end...

Review please!