Disclaimer: Not mine. Dammit.

Established Hotch/Reid.

Warning: No one dies. But still.

Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair. -R.D. Laing

It had been a bad case. Reid had talked to the unsub at the end. The gun trained on Reid had wavered, lowered, and just when Aaron thought Reid had pulled another miracle out of an abyss, the gun had steadied and flashed up and his heart had stopped and Reid had fired.

The unsub dropped.

Reid had saved his tears for later.

Crumpled on the couch, pressed into Aaron's chest shoulders shaking and silent, so silent, Aaron might have wondered but for the warm wetness trickling like a shattered sliver of the ocean through his shirt.

Jack walked in, rubbing his eyes, clutching the green triceratops Spencer had given him under one arm. "Why is Spencer sad?"

With a start Spencer shifted, straightening, a mask of calm that was terrible, might have fooled even another profiler but wrung Aaron's heart, folding like shutters over his face. "It's okay, Jack, we were gone so long on this case I got really tired. But I'm okay. What are you doing up?"

Too solemn eyes regarded him dubiously, before Jack reached out a hand to pat Spencer's cheek. "It's okay to be sad."

Aaron saw Spencer's eyes fill, and watched as he folded the smaller hand in his long elegant fingers, whispered, "You're right. It is okay to be sad. I think—I think a hug might make me feel better. Would that be okay?"

Wordlessly Jack stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Spencer, holding him tight, maybe too tight, but Spencer tucked his head down beside Jack's and closed his eyes, and only broke away when Jack did.

"Thank you, Jack. That helped. It—really helped."

Months pass.

"Aaron. I have to. I can't do that to another child. I know better than anyone—"

"You don't know. They might be wrong. Don't do this." His voice surprises him, it's thin and fragile and hangs in the air on a thread of spun glass.

Spencer swallows, and his eyes track jerkily over Aaron's shoulder before he snaps his gaze back. "Determination and stubbornness can only do so much, Aaron. I tried. More than anything I didn't want— Please don't make this harder for me than it already is."

But Aaron shakes his head and ponders the faltering in his chest. Is his heart really breaking? Is this what it feels like?

The younger man's face crumples.

Aaron won't move towards him, won't take him into his arms, because that will mean he accepts this, that he isn't going to wake up this time, Shh, you were just dreaming, I'm here, I love you.

Spencer looks away.

Then there's that soft, solemn voice. "Why is Spencer sad?"

Jack is standing in the doorway behind them.

Desperate, he seizes that, he uses it, he doesn't care that it shreds the man he loves if it will make this not happen. A whisper. All he has. "Don't do this to Jack."

"Would a hug make you feel better, Spencer?"

Anguish and anger flare at Aaron through those huge expressive eyes. Spencer turns and drops to one knee in front of Jack, taking Jack's right hand and holding it between his own. He has folded everything in his expression away except tenderness.

Jack looks frightened.

"Not this time, Jack."

"What's wrong? Did a bad guy hurt you?"

"No." Spencer looks past their hands to something on the floor that isn't there. "None of the bad guys ever hurt me, not really. You know no bad guy could get past your dad, right?"

A hesitant nod. Aaron is still frozen.

"But I did get hurt. Well, sick. There's—a problem with the chemistry in my brain, and—I'm—I'm not getting better. You remember I told you about my mom? And how I had to send her away, because I couldn't take care of her and she needed help?"

The lip begins to quiver. "Are you—are you going away?"

"Jack, I'm so sorry. It's important for you to remember that I loved you."

Jack's voice is a whisper and tears overflow, silent, unheeded. "Don't you love me anymore?"

"Oh, Jack." Now the long slender figure kneeling on the floor did reach out, hug Jack, and Jack hugs him back and neither of them say it's too tight.

Aaron has the hysterical thought that the two people he loves more than anything in the world are going to shatter in each other's arms because the human form isn't strong enough to withstand this.

"I'll love you while there's anything left of me. And Jack—you love your daddy, alright? You have to play with him every chance you get. You have to help him remember how to love and be happy. That's the most vital thing."

Aaron closes his eyes, something warm and salt is streaming down his face but he doesn't feel pain, not yet, and gentle, hesitant fingers are tracing the line of his cheek.

"Please don't blink?"

His eyes are closed only for an instant. He drags them open.

Spencer Reid is gone.

AN: Outcomes for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia follow, loosely, a "rule of thirds": one third of those, after the initial episode, will never have another; one third will have recurring episodes throughout their lifetimes, with a return to baseline functioning between episodes; and one third will have chronic or progressive symptoms leading to institutionalization.

For this one-shot I put Reid in the final third, and this is the choice I think he might make if he were actually diagnosed with schizophrenia.

However, individuals with schizophrenia may be unremarkable, productive, beautiful members of society, like my father, who has paranoid schizophrenia and falls into the second third. He works and supports a family, pays a mortgage, has many friends and only immediate family are aware of his illness.

I do not believe that schizophrenia equals institutionalization or social marginalization and don't want anyone to get that impression from this fic.

Reviews are love!