Author's Note: I'm sure it is obvious, but again as a disclaimer - I do NOT own Criminal Minds or any of its character, but I'd love to. :)

This is a continuation of my first 2 stories Damaged: Time to Heal and The Healing Continues. The one-shot Home at Last fits in before this, but is not necessary to follow the story.

All of the characters that I established in those stories continue here. This story starts where the Book Two finished. I was always upset that no one seemed to care that Reid nearly died from Anthrax poisoning or that he was shot in the line of duty. I addressed the hospital stay from the Anthrax in my last story and in this story I will show what happened behind the scenes of episode Faceless, Nameless. I hope you enjoy this and leave reviews.

Reid was allowed to go back to work on May 25th, but was not cleared to travel until the first of June. The team was not called away on a case for a couple of weeks and that gave Reid time to completely heal from the Anthrax poisoning. His first week back he had felt fine, but his deep persistent cough was annoying to both Prentiss and Morgan. They tried to get Hotch to send him home, but Reid insisted he wanted to be at work. His doctor had cleared him so Hotch could not see a reason to send him home.

Hotch asked Reid to take his files and work in the conference room for the week and that helped eased the tension in the bullpen. Every day Reid's cough was getting better and by the following week he was able to go back to work at his own desk.

Spencer moved all of his belongings to Chelsea's condo between cases and they were both busy with work and happy living together. After the break in casework because of the Abbot & Carson Brokerage case, Chelsea's caseload had finally picked up and she found herself working full time again. Because of the independent nature of her job, she was able to work when Spencer was at the BAU and put in more hours when he was away on a case. That flexibility was helpful when he had an afternoon off and it kept her mind busy when she knew the team was tracking an unsub.

Chelsea loved all of Spencer's team. They were his family and they all had each other's back both at work and at home. Although she was friendly with all of the team, Chelsea and Spencer spent most of their time with Emily and Morgan. Chelsea had formed a close friendship with Emily and she could tell that Morgan saw her like a little sister. The four of them went out to dinner frequently, and occasionally one or the other would bring a date along.

On Friday, July 17th a unique case came in and their team was asked to investigate. Spencer sent a text to Chelsea letting her know that they were being sent to Canada to check out a US Veteran's confession of murdering 10 victims. He was unclear if they would be able to get any jurisdiction to work on the case so he may be home soon; maybe even later that night.

After their initial investigation, the team realized that Sgt. William Hightower, an Iraq war Veteran had crossed the Canadian boarder and given a false confession to get the FBI involved. He wanted them to look into the disappearance of many people living on the streets in Detroit, including his sister. He produced enough proof to get Hotch to agree to look into the possible murders. Sgt. Hightower's evidence led them to search for a human trafficker that abducted people in Michigan and used them for medical experiments at a pig farm in Canada. The case took a disturbing turn when they realized there were nearly 100 unidentified victims and their bodies had been disposed of by feeding them to the pigs.

The team had been able to save the last victim and bring her safely home to her mother, but as bad as the case had seemed, it was worse when Sgt. Hightower shot and killed the unsub. He believed the suspect was going to get away with murder and decided that he would rather spend the rest of his life in jail than let that happen. The case had international jurisdiction because the killings had been in Canada and the victims were American and reports needed to be filed in both countries.

Spencer arrived home at nearly midnight the next Thursday night. What he thought might be few hour case had turned into nearly a week. It took time to find how the unsub carried the victims to Canada and another day to locate the farm and the surviving victim. After that there were piles of evidence and paperwork that the team had to sort out with the Canadian police. When the suspect was shot, it increased the anxiety level of everyone there and the paperwork. They were all exhausted on the flight home.

Each night when Spencer called Chelsea, he assured her that he was not in any danger that day. They were still investigating, but none of the team fit the unsub's victim type. He didn't bring up that when they did identify the suspect, there was always a chance that he could get violent when apprehended. Coming from a family of cops, she was aware of that also, but it was something they never discussed. After the suspect had been killed, he told Chelsea that the case was over, but they were needed to help finish up with the paperwork in Canada and he wouldn't be home until late that night.

Spencer didn't often talk about a case when he called her. He usually wanted to spend the conversation with her on more pleasant things and take his mind of the horrible things that he saw. He was even less forthcoming on this case. He told her that the case had taken them to a pig farm in Ontario, Canada. He didn't say much about the case specifics; it wasn't something he wanted to relive in a conversation.

Chelsea had stayed up to greet him when he arrived home. She had missed him and knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep until he was back. When she heard his key in the door, she jumped up to greet him and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She stepped back and asked laughing, "What is that smell? Did you bring the pig pen back with you?"

He had a small smile, "It's my bag. I fell this morning at the farm and didn't have time to get the pants dry-cleaned. I stuck them and my dirty shoes in a plastic bag before packing, but it didn't completely help."

"You fell? I don't even want to know what Morgan said about that." She giggled. "Give me the bag, I'll put the pants and any other dry cleaning stuff in the cleaner bag and take it down to the lobby now. We won't have to worry about the smell and it will get cleaned tomorrow. Give me what your wearing and I'll get a load of laundry started. I think I'll spray your bag with Lysol and hang it in the guest bath to air out also."

He just nodded and started to take off his clothes. He was completely exhausted and he welcomed her help, but he started to blush when he was about to take of his boxers. She smiled when she saw the blush and kissed him until he wasn't worried about being naked any longer. She swatted him on his bare butt and told him she'd meet him in the bedroom soon.

He jumped and squeaked when she swatted him and hurried off to the bathroom. When she had cleaned up his bag, started a load of laundry and had taken the bag of dry cleaning to the lobby for the morning pick-up, she headed to the bedroom. She heard Spencer blow-drying his hair. She came in the bathroom smiling at how cute he looked with his wet hair hanging in his face. "Here let me help you." He was wrapped in a towel and she had him sit on the lid of the toilet. She enjoyed running her fingers through his hair while she continued to dry it.

"I hope you don't have to be at work early."

"No, we were given the day off. Hotch told us that we deserved the three day weekend. I think I want to sleep the hole time."

She smiled, "Maybe you can stay in bed all weekend, but I don't really plan to let you sleep the ENTIRE time."

He smiled back. "I think I like that plan."

#

Chelsea woke up to Spencer shaking violently at 3:00am. She realized immediately that he was having a nightmare. This was only the second time since they had been together. The first time it had terrified her. She woke up to his thrashing body beside her and thought he was having a seizure. Once she was fully awake and turned on the lights, he had calmed down a bit and finally woke up.

Spencer had told her about his nightmares when they were first dating and how they had interfered with his life 4 years ago, but she hadn't realized how bad they were until she witnessed one in person. Back in 2005 when he was having nightmares nearly every night, he didn't want to admit it to anyone. He felt it would make him look weak and show everyone that he wasn't cut out for the job. No matter what time he had the nightmare, he was unable to get back to sleep. With only a couple of hours of sleep each night, he was becoming extremely sleep deprived and ended up confiding in Morgan. Morgan admitted to having horrible nightmares not long after he started with the BAU and Gideon had helped him. After his discussion with Gideon he was able to keep the nightmares at bay for the most part. They still happened about once a month, but he was able to deal with that.

He had very few nightmares since he and Chelsea had started dating. His mind was distracted after work and falling asleep with her in his arms gave him a comfort that he had never known before. Chelsea knew he'd had only 2 nightmares while he was out of town since they had been together.

She knew this case on the pig farm had upset him. He had not told her any of the details, but she was able to find a few stories on the Internet before he arrived home. He had not wanted to talk about the case and she decided not to mention what she had read. There had not been many details released, but what was reported was that an unnamed suspect had died in his home after reports that 100 victims had been slaughtered and feed to his pigs. There were no official statements and all of the information had come from anonymous sources. Just reading the story and not actually being at the crime scene had made her ill; she couldn't imagine what Spencer was feeling.

The last time he had a nightmare, he had tried to get up and go read in the other room explaining that he never was able to get back to sleep. That night, she told him she could distract him and make him tired enough to sleep again. He started to protest, but she pulled him close and kissed him. She kept kissing him until he was returning the kiss and it became a passionate need. The next morning, she was smiling at him when he woke up and told him with a big grin, "I told you I could make sure you got back to sleep."

This time, as soon as he started to shake, she knew he was reliving some of the past case. They had only been asleep for about 2 hours and she knew he was exhausted and needed to get more sleep. After he was fully awake, she helped him calm down by softly stroking his head and shoulders. She asked if he wanted to talk about the dream or the case and he just shook his head. After his breathing had gone back to normal, she kissed him and told him she loved him and was going to make sure he fell back to sleep. He smiled knowing how she was planning to do it, joking that he needed to wake up in the middle of the night more often.

When his phone rang at 5:30am, she was sleeping and confused. They'd had less than 4 hours of sleep and he'd been told to take the day off. After he got off the phone with JJ, he told her that the team was needed right away. It was a time sensitive matter and all of the other BAU teams were away on cases.

Chelsea was angry. Spencer didn't blame her, but he had never seen her like this before. "Your team has been away on a horrible case for a week and had little rest. You get home around midnight and now they expect you all to jump up and be productive at 5:30 in the morning? How do they expect you to function?" After her outburst, she seemed to resign herself that he had to go, "Where are you going this time? You know your go bag is airing out in the other room and empty."

He was sitting on the edge of the bed holding her hand. "I know. It's a local case and JJ said I didn't need a bag. She figured none of us had time to repack. We can come home when we need to change." He paused, "I'm sorry," pausing again. "I don't know all the specifics yet, I was the last person JJ called. She received an email while she was talking to me giving her a few details. An unsub sent a local ER surgeon a threat yesterday, that if he doesn't let him kill his son, he will kill another victim each day. The DC Police just found victim number 2 this morning."

Chelsea sighed, "A doctor takes an oath do to no harm. I can't imagine any father being given a choice like that, but I'm sure a surgeon who spends his life trying to save stranger's lives every day is sick about this. I'm sorry I yelled. I know it's not your fault and it is selfish to want you here all to myself this weekend. But your team really needs a break after that last case and it really isn't fair."

"I know." Spencer acknowledged, "I love my job, but times like this are trying. We all work well even tired and under stress, but we are not going to be at our most productive. If there was another team available, they wouldn't have called us in."

"Go get ready. I'll make you some breakfast. At least if you get some food and coffee in you, you'll be better off to face the unsub."

He smiled a thank you and kissed her. As he headed towards the bathroom he realized for probably the millionth time how lucky he was to have Chelsea in his life.

Author's note: I made a slight change in the date of the To Hell…And Back Pig Farm case. The case was shown as the last episode in May 2009 and the "next day" where Hotch is missing was shown in September. I chose to make that case in July and that made the timeline of both Reid and Hotch back at work in September make more sense.