Dr. Spencer Reid was awoken by the sound of screaming. He bolted upright and fell out of the chair he was sitting in onto the floor of the BAU's jet. Five sets of eyes were staring at him. "Who was screaming?" he asked, while he picked himself up. His hair was soaked in sweat and he felt disorientated.
"Reid, that was you screaming." Derek Morgan informed him with a shake of his head.
"I must have been having a bad dream, but I don't remember what it was about." he told them scratching his head.
"You always have bad dreams and the rest of us have to suffer for it!" Morgan snapped at him.
"Hey, I'm not trying to have bad dreams, you know." Reid tried to defend himself.
"Leave him alone." Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner told Morgan, not looking up from the files in front of him.
"It's kind of true." Emily Prentiss put her two cents in.
"You know that I'm just as annoyed by Reid and all his nightmares as well as his need to tell us what they are about; but he can't control it so it's kind of cruel to take it out on him.
Reid stayed quiet. There was something familiar about the scene unfolding before his eyes. Strangely familiar and frightening. The bickering continued until everyone was yelling at everyone else. Reid got up and sat down in a window seat. He must have woken up in the twilight zone. Reid looked out the window and the sight before him rendered him paralyzed. Out on the wing of the jet was a creature that looked like a Gargoyle. It was currently tearing the plane apart. That's when it looked up at Reid and smiled.
Reid woke up with a start, falling to the floor of the jet. His scream cut through the silence as five sets of eyes were staring at him. Reid shook his head violently, and then pinched himself. It hurt, therefore he must really be awake now. "I had this strange dream, kind of like the twilight zone." He informed the eyes that were trained on him.
"We don't care about your bad dreams, you always have bad dreams and the rest of us have to suffer for it!" Morgan snapped at him.
Reid was quiet, his mouth fell open and the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end.
"Leave him alone." Hotch told Morgan with his nose still in those files.
Reid tuned them out and ran to the window of the jet. There was nothing there. He sighed and sat down only to hear a scratching noise on the window beside him. When Reid looked up he was eye to eye with the Gargoyle in his dream. It's sharp teeth made it's smile look sinister. Reid screamed for a third time.
Warily, Reid stared into the five sets of eyes that were trained on him while he was laying on the floor of the Jet. This was getting to be too much. Maybe if he didn't say anything about the nightmare loop that he seemed to be stuck in, no one would say anything and he would be able to break the cycle of nightmares.
He was wrong.
"You always have bad dreams and the rest of us have to suffer for it!" Morgan snapped at Reid without prompt.
No. This wasn't happening. Reid squeezed his eyes tight and covered his ears with his hands. Maybe if he didn't look out the window he wouldn't have to see that ugly, horrifying, hellish face staring back at him. That's when Reid heard and explosion come from the direction of the wing. Suddenly, the jet was falling.
"Spencer. Spencer, wake up!" Reid heard a familiar voice calling to him. When he opened his eyes, he was staring up into the concerned eyes of his mother, Diana Reid. He was in a hospital. Did he survive the crash from that height? Did any of the rest of the team make it? How was it that his mom was there by his side, taking care of him? Unusual.
"Is the rest of the team okay, Mom?" Reid asked in a panic. "Did anyone else survive the crash?"
"Spencer honey, calm down. You weren't in a crash, that is just one of your stories. You always did make up some imaginative stories." Diana told her son.
"No Mom, I work for the FBI, for the BAU. I'm Special Agent, Dr. Spencer Reid." Reid tried to remind his sick mom. "Why aren't you at Bennington? Did you fly here to see me?"
"Spencer, we are at Bennington Sanitarium. You live here, honey. I live at home, in an apartment here in Las Vegas with your father."
"No. That's not possible." Reid argued. "This must be some part of the dream." he reasoned. "If I pinch myself, I'll wake up and I'll be back on the jet with my team." Reid tried to pinch himself and then realized that he couldn't move his arms. He looked down and took notice of the straight jacket that held his arms in place. On his chest was they monogram BS for the Sanitarium. He struggled against the restraints but nothing worked. He began thrashing around in panic.
"Spencer! Calm down, honey." Diana said to her son, worried that he would start banging his head against the wall again. "Doctor!" she screamed as she tried to restrain him.
Two large men came in through the door with a nurse in tow. The men held Reid down while the nurse administered some medicine. The continued to hold the man until his thrashing had subsided. Reid's eyelids drooped but didn't close.
Reid couldn't fight it any longer and then everything got turned around. Reid woke up back on the jet. He hadn't screamed this time which was a good sign. No one was looking at him. Reid laughed softly to himself. What a crazy dream. Reid moved to a window seat, but snapped the window shut.
Back in Las Vegas at a sanitarium named Bennington, rested a drugged patient in his late twenties.
"His delusions are getting stronger, Diana. I'm sorry. He believes those people in his fantasies are real. He's not ready to face reality that they don't exist and never had." the doctor told the patients distraught mother.
Meanwhile, across the U.S. in a government building in Quantico, Virginia, a team known as the Behavioural Analysis Unit prepped for a conference. While they waited for their Unit Chief to make his appearance, they chit chatted to pass the time.
"When do you think Hotch is going to hire a new agent?" Prentiss asked looking around.
"I'm not sure, but it better be soon." Morgan replied.
"It feels like there is someone missing." Garcia added.
The End.