Teeth biting into the belt that was pulled tight around his arm, Spencer Reid slid the syringe easily into his now protruding vein, and injected the dilaudid into his blood stream. His head lulled backward as the opium took over his body, and he fell into a state of complete mind numbing bliss. All his life his mind was a constant buzz of words and pain and memories, but with dilaudid, it all fell silent.

After Maeve died Spencer had immediately acquired the drug, the pain of the moment sent him spiralling, but he didn't use that night. Nor the night after. He kept the stash hidden beneath a floorboard under his bed, not strong enough to throw it away, but not weak enough to use. It was not until he was shot in the neck, that it all really began to spiral. He hadn't thought about asking the nurses for the non-addictive painkillers, given that he was comatose, at the time. As soon as he woke up he knew. He could feel it surging through his body; he could feel the instant release. But he also noticed Garcia, she was sat next to him, her eyes gently scanning his left arm. Track marks. From after Tobias, when he first used, small and hardly visible now, but still there. Her eyes flickered away from his arm and noticed he was awake. Spencer found it difficult to interpret her thoughts, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. He didn't want to seem weak, yet with every passing second, as the painkillers pumped through his body, he was getting weaker.

Six months passed since he had been shot and Spencer hadn't arrived at work. JJ knew something was up, Reid had been acting strangely for a while, but he still arrived at work everyday, at the right time. He did his work properly, and he managed to function well throughout the day. Which is why JJ dismissed drug use as a possible explanation, when Spencer used he was completely irrational and unreliable, but recently the only strange thing was his lack of participation in social gatherings and his rush to get home at the end of the day. JJ supposed Maeves death might have something to do with it, but now she was worried it was something else, something worse. She only hoped he had slept in or something.

Morgan and Garcia stopped by Reid's on their way to work, per JJ's request, but found no answer. Morgan immediately became paranoid and yelled at the door. Before Garcia could stop him he had kicked the door in. Garcia hand flew instinctively to cover her nose. "What's that smell?" she asked, he voice muffled by her own hand. "That, baby girl, is heroin" Morgan replied, voice filled with disgust.