Chapter 1: When Will My Life Begin?

April 21st 2012 6:00 AM

It was early in the morning, in a cold, laboratory, a young geneticist sat at her computer, going back and forth between working, being exceedingly bored, and letting her anxiety get the better of her. Her reddish brown hair fell down her back from the high-set pony tail she had pulled it into before leaving her apartment that morning. The lights were dim, only half of them had been lit, she stared at her computer screen, only occasionally peering down at a collection of datasheets sitting on the desk in front of her.

6:30 AM

Maeve Donovan, was in her lab at Mendel University, on the fourth-floor of the science building, trying, and failing to keep her mind on her work, and off of the strange shadow that had begun to follow her literally everywhere she went. She was working on organizing the data from her last project, trying to put it into an organizational form that her colleagues would be able to interpret so that the study she and her team had done could be replicated in other labs around the country and across the world. It was fairly dry work, looking at the same data she'd been working with for months, not the sort of thing that could take her mind off what her life had become. It had only been about a month since she'd begun to get the sense that she was being watched, only two weeks, since someone, likely the same person who was following her, had begun to bombard her email account with threatening messages; then, most recently, whoever it was had sent pictures of her, with her fiancé, Bobby, at the park, walking home together.

As a result, partly at least, she'd decided to break off the engagement, in reality though, they'd been drifting apart since he'd proposed, for a whole list of reasons, she'd had to admit it to herself, Bobbly simply wasn't the one, they were compatible on paper, but there was no chemistry left between them, and given that, as her own situation only seemed to grow more dangerous by the day, it wasn't worth it anymore, to drag him through this with her. The truth was though, that she would've broken up with him anyway…eventually…this had just provided the justification and urgency she'd needed to convince herself to go through with it. The look his eyes had been terrible, she'd never intended to hurt him. She just…had to do it, mainly because of her stalker but not entirely, she just hoped someday he'd understand that.

What she needed right now, what she craved, was work that her mind could sink its teeth into, work that could get her mind away from her own worries and back on helping other people. Little did she know that that was precisely what she was about to get.

…

April 20th 11:45 PM

Reid closed his front door behind him, dropped his messenger bag on the sofa, and tried to ignore the increasingly intense throbbing in his head. That case had been rough, and he couldn't concentrate anymore the way he used to. His migraines, and the ever increasing pain, light and sound sensitivity, and insomnia that came along with them, had become his near constant companion. He hoped the others didn't notice just how bad this was getting, he hoped they didn't realize that this was the reason behind his sunglasses, or that it now required a double, or even triple-shot espresso just to keep him awake and allow him to think clearly. He had told Emily and Morgan, about the headaches he'd been having, he'd even admitted to Morgan that they were making focus and sleep almost impossible, he knew that Hotch had known for months, having guessed on his own the first time it had become almost impossible to hide, but he was grateful to his superior for not having pressed the issue.

The longer it went on, the more he just tried to live with it and get on with his days as usual, the worse it became. Without warning, the room began to tilt, and his stomach lurched… just as it had on the plane during every takeoff and landing for the last several months, but this was the first time it had happened on the ground, and the first time it had happened twice in one day… now he was scared.

Calm down…get it together… he thought ho himself. Panicking only makes it even worse, you know that… He told himself in his head, over and over. He tried to keep it at the front of his mind, that despite everything, an answer might finally be within reach. He had a name, a first name anyway, of a geneticist who may be able to help him, and mercifully, she lived in the same city, he had left a message for her on the phone in the office connected to her lab. He had the weekend off, he silently begged her to call him sometime in the next two days, so that finally, he could find out what was wrong, maybe even make it stop, for good…

Until then, there was only one thing to do…attempt to get some rest… Since this was arguably the single worst migraine yet, he took the unusual step of downing a dose of Excedrin before bed, given the fact that Excedrin did carry the risk of addiction, and given one of the darker episodes in his own past, he used it, but sparingly, only when it, whatever it was, was at its absolute worst, did he even dare touch the bottle. Then he stumbled to his bedroom, exchanged his work clothes for his favorite green pajama pants and a T-shirt, before rolling back the blankets and allowing himself to collapse onto his soft mattress. He sighed in relief as the medicine started to take effect, the pain reduced to a dull throb, and the dizziness, nausea, and sensitivity to light began to subside, for a while at least. If he got lucky, maybe it would last long enough for him to drift out of consciousness and then maybe he could get some actual sleep that night.