Disclaimer: Only my original characters are mine.
Reid awoke on a sunny Saturday morning because his cat Leia decided that she wanted attention. The nose in his face, and the meow in his ear, yanked him out of a very pleasant dream he was having about visiting the ocean and digging his toes into cold, wet, sand. JJ had put in an appearance in this dream. She stood close enough for him to catch the scent that was unique to her in spite of the wind that whipped her hair around her face. She was leaning in to kiss him when Leia woke him.
He pushed the cat's head out of the crook of his neck and sat up. "You just can't let me sleep past six on a day off can you." He complained in a rusty voice.
Leia meowed and jumped into his lap. "You interrupted what could have turned into the best dream I've had in years, you know that right?"
Leia swished her tail and turned her blue eyes on him. He'd never seen a cat with eyes that color before he adopted Leia from the local animal shelter. She had a white coat with big black patches, and a tail that looked as though it had been dipped in black paint. Her face was pure white. She seemed to be telling him to stop being a lazy ass and get up.
"Fine… but now that I'm up, I'm going to take care of my chores, not play with you." He informed the cat. She only stared at him.
He picked her up and stroked her head a couple of times while his brain woke up. "Come on… let's go get breakfast.
Leia leapt down from his arms to the bed and from the bed to the floor. She meowed at him when he didn't move fast enough to suit her. He stuck his tongue out at her and she ran out of the room.
"One of these days…" He grumbled, following her into the kitchen and his beloved coffee machine.
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Reid picked up his clean batch of clothes and hiked out of the laundry room to the elevator. So far he'd managed to get his laundry done, clean his apartment from top to bottom, and re-organize his collection of books.
The elevator reached his floor, and he almost knocked over the little old lady that lived next door to him. "Sorry Mrs. Warburton, I wasn't watching where I was going." He grabbed her arm.
"Don't worry my boy. It's the curse of being old. People develop a convenient blindness around you. It's actually pretty useful. You wouldn't believe the things I've seen since I turned eighty and had to use this stupid cane." She stabbed the floor with her cane and Reid laughed.
"I guess that's true. Did you need help with something?" He asked, picking up the basket of clothes he put on the floor of the elevator, and balancing them on one arm.
"No… I'm just going for a short walk and to pick up the mail. You're a sweet boy for asking."
She smiled up at him and her wizened face was beautiful in its age. Her iron grey hair was short and shot through with pure white highlights. She had dark brown eyes and stood about five feet tall. Her dress was a large flower print in purple and blue. She wore clunky orthopedic shoes in an ugly shade of tan. He tried to get her to let him go fetch her mail for her, but she insisted, claiming to need the exercise.
He said goodbye to her and headed on to his apartment at the end of the hall. Leia was waiting for him when he came in. She was sitting on the arm of the couch closest to the door and began to loudly meow when he entered the apartment.
"Hey… I've got to put these clothes away." He explained.
She jumped down off the couch and followed him into his bedroom. She ran around his feet, nearly tripping him while he folded and put clothes away in the closet and his dresser.
"Leia… you need to be patient." He picked her up and put her on the bed, so he didn't trip over her. She leapt down again and left the room with her tail in the air.
"Fine… but don't come crying to me when you want a saucer of milk," He threatened. He put the laundry basket back in the closet and shut the door. He went to find Leia.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly, but that was okay for him. At least he wasn't looking at dead bodies, or looking for kidnapped children.He was about to go into the kitchen and see if there was anything in the refrigerator worth eating when there was a knock at the door. He turned toward the living room and laughed when Leia streaked past the doorway to the kitchen. She had to greet any visitor he had. She loved visitors, Morgan being the only one she hated. Morgan wasn't fond of her either. It was funny.
Leia stood next to the door and meowed at him when he came into the room. "Yes… I know there's someone at the door. Let's see who it is." He told her as he opened the door.
"Mrs. Warburton…" He asked curiously. Her eyes were bloodshot and he could tell she was very upset and had been crying. "Please come in and sit down."
"Thank you Dr. Reid." She walked slowly into the room, leaning more heavily on her cane than he'd ever seen. Her hair a bit windblown and she still carried a plastic shopping bag in one hand.
"Is everything alright," He watched Leia jump up on the battered old couch Mrs. Warburton had sat on. The cat crawled into the old ladies lap.
"Leia… Get down from there," He admonished the feline, who only looked at him.
"It's fine dear boy…" One of her hands, swollen with arthritis, and dotted with dark brown age spots, began to stroke the cat as if for comfort. He noticed the hand was shaking.
"Ma'am is there anything wrong?" He asked again, sitting in the equally battered armchair across from the couch.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I just came from Sleeping Pines…"
Reid was floored when the old lady looked up at him and he saw the tears running down her face. "Mrs. Warburton… What happened?" His voice was more forceful than he'd meant, and he was just opening his mouth to apologize when she interrupted him.
"I- I had just arrived to visit my friend, Stella Hutchinson, and the nurse informed me that she had a heart attack this morning."
"I'm very sorry ma'am. Would you like a glass of water, or something else to drink?"
"Do you have anything stronger than water dear boy?"
He gaped at her and she gave him a watery smile. "I - ah don't know. I'll have to check."
He left her there with Leia purring in her lap, while she stroked the top of the cat's head. It seemed to have some calming effect on her so he didn't make Leia get down.
He rummaged around in his pantry and actually found a bottle of Jack Daniels. He then remembered that Morgan had given it to him as a Christmas gift, his idea of a joke as he knew Reid wasn't much for hard liquor.
"I'm afraid Jack Daniels is all I have Mrs. Warburton." He called out and nearly dropped the bottle when she called back.
"That will do just fine. Make it a double, neat." She answered back.
He wondered for a minute if he should pour the drink, after all she could be on medications that might not mix well with the alcohol, but then again she was an adult and most definitely over twenty one. He poured out the drink and took it to her with a trembling hand.
"Don't look so upset Dr. Reid. I don't intend to get plastered." Tears were still leaking from her eyes.
"No ma'am…" He gave her the tumbler and went back to his seat. She sipped the drink like it was tea.
"I'm sorry… I don't mean to act like I've lost what's left of my marbles. Stella was my best friend. We grew up together. Our friendship survived two wars, two marriages, kids, grandkids and the loss of both our spouses. I guess I thought she'd be around forever."
"Was she very ill?" Reid asked.
"Yes… she had Parkinson's and her tremors were so bad she was confined to a wheelchair. Sometimes she would hallucinate and not know me. Other times she seemed almost like when we were children. She could remember all the trouble we used to cause our parents and…" The old woman broke down again.
Reid could only sit there and look at her. What was he supposed to do? He wasn't good at comforting people, especially little old ladies with cats on their laps.
"Is there anyone I can call for you?" He finally said, feeling stupid and useless in the face of this woman's grief.
"No… I just don't understand. It shouldn't have happened."
"Mrs. Warburton…"
"I know you think that I'm a grief stricken old woman who's imagining things, but there is something wrong at Sleeping Pines."
"Ma'am I'm sure that nothing untoward is going on. You're friend was ill and -"
The old woman stamped one foot on the floor and Leia scrambled down from her lap. The cat yowled and then ran out of the room. Reid stared at the old woman in surprise.
"There's something wrong there young man. I know there is. I talked to Stella and she told me about some of the friends she made there and their "so-called natural deaths."
Reid swallowed hard and tried to phrase his words very carefully. "Deaths in institutions have steadily risen in the United States. In nineteen eighty, they made up seventy-four percent of deaths, with sixty point five percent in hospitals and thirteen point five percent in other institutions." He supplied helpfully.
"I don't need statistics Dr Reid. There is something fishy going on there, and I need your help to figure out what it is!"