Dr. Spencer Reid was well-respected amongst his colleagues and the general public. A child prodigy, he was often held to a higher standard, which he enjoyed- most of the time.

There were times when he wondered what it would be like to be a normal kid. Even as a very small child, he took care of his paranoid schizophrenic mother. He barely knew his father before he left their family. Although he related well to adults, he didn't understand social convention with others his own age. He often felt alone and isolated, especially when his mother was having a schizophrenic episode.

From his earliest memories, he recalled that he had always sucked his thumb.

He had done it especially during his mother's schizophrenic episodes. He would sit there, thumb in his mouth, clinging to his mother's hand when she would start to hallucinate. Only occasionally when the hallucination got bad enough would she push him away. When that would happen, he would run to his room and shut the door, thumb in his mouth and tears streaming down his cheeks.

Although he was intellectually ahead of his peers, he was stunted when it came to his emotional growth. He knew sucking his thumb was bad, but he needed something stable in his life, and that was it. As he grew older, he knew he should stop, but couldn't. Old habits die hard.

It simply went uncorrected. More because he refused to do so. On bad days when he felt sad and alone, the thumb snuck it's way into his mouth.

His germaphobia did come into play, and he made certain to clean his hands before putting the digit into his mouth. Occasionally it went in too soon and made his mouth taste awful. That was the price he paid.

The only one who knew of this habit was his mother. On occasion, when he went to visit her, she would cuddle him and hold him close while he stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked. He was her baby, through and through.

Diana loved to baby her son. The schizophrenia did nothing to obscure that. Whenever she had the chance, she'd mollycoddle him. Whenever Spencer came into her room, she knew he'd had a hard day. She'd offer a sympathetic shoulder for him to cry on. He wasn't afraid to cry in front of her. He acted infantile all the time with her, because he could get away with it. No one else understood his need to be babied.

Today, he was visiting his mother in the sanitarium. He checked in at the front desk and headed to her room. The nurses passed him by without a second glance. He opened the door and then pushed it shut. Diane was lying on her bed, and her head snapped toward the door. Her face broke into a grin, and she got up and went over to hug her son.

Spencer was happy. "Hi, Momma."

Diane kissed her son. "Hi, baby."

Still remarkably strong despite living in some squalor, she hoisted her son onto her hip. She sat on the bed and settled him on her lap, running her fingers through her son's hair. She gave him a kiss and he smiled, burying his face into her neck.

Slowly but surely, his thumb slipped into his mouth. Diane smiled as the rhythmic sucking began. She cuddled her son tightly.

"How's my baby doing?"

Spencer smiled behind his thumb. "Good."

"Good." She grinned, and kissed him again.

She rocked slightly, pressing her son to her chest. He kept her sane during the worst of her schizophrenia. She looked forward to reading his letters every day. She hummed a soothing tune quietly, and they sat together. It was a moment frozen in time- one of peace and gentleness.

They sat there for a long time. Spencer kept his arms wrapped around her neck as he snuggled into her. It was so easy for him to forget that he was older, and slip back to a time where there was no expectation of his behavior, and where he was just a little boy, incredibly attached to his mother. Diane was more than happy to indulge him.

Spencer began to whimper quietly, and Diane's hold on him tightened in response.

"What's the matter, baby?" She asked softly.

Her child began to sob. She rubbed his back in soothing circles. She brought Spencer's face out of her shoulder and pushed the hair away from his eyes, and wiped his tears away.

"What is it?"

"I-I'm scared."

"What are you scared of?"

"I-I'm h-hearing t-things. The voices... They won't stop."

Diane's heart sank in her chest, and she held him tightly.

"It's okay, baby. They can be stopped, I promise."

He cried into her neck, trembling in fright.

"Mommy... Make it stop. Please, make it stop..."

She cuddled him and kissed him. "I wish I could..."

Spencer continued to cry at the terror besieging his mind. Diane rocked him and held him tightly, understanding the exhausting delusions plaguing her son. Her maternal instincts went into overdrive as she fought to defend her son from the invisible demons attacking him. She felt helpless, but continued to try and comfort him. The worse the voices became, the more Spencer regressed in behavior. She simply held onto him and reassured him of her presence while the voices in her son's head threatened to eat him alive. It was all she could think to do. She stayed that way for hours, praying that her son would somehow be granted peace from the voices tearing his sanity apart bit by bit.