The Journey

Part one: The Lounge and Other Places.

When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest. ~ Antonio Porchia,Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

There was no way I could go back to work for the BAU. I am permanently exhausted and in pain. Not just physical pain, but emotional. Everything feels so empty. I have a job. Of course I do and I go in every day and I sit at my desk and wish I was anywhere but where I am. Ticking boxes and checking forms is not really stretching my brain at all, but it is definitely stretching my will to live! I'm still in contact with Hotch. He saved my life. He was more than just a person I worked with. He is family to me, but something in the relationship has changed. I cant put my finger on it. Sometimes I sense that Hotch feels guilt over what happened and he shouldn't. It is me who is overwrought with guilt. I should never have gone back to that place. I nearly got my friends killed by my foolish actions and I certainly am responsible for the disappearance of Floyd. I'm not going to admit to myself that he's dead. I cant do that. I refuse to go that far. He is simply missing. Sometimes I go and see Sam. I cant bring myself to talk to him. I just stand the other side of the glass wall and look at that still form lying on the hospital bed and wonder where he really is because he's certainly not there. I know that. I can feel that. Is he somewhere with Floyd? I have no way of telling. Both Rossi and Hotch sit with him for hours. They read to him. They massage his skin with oils and creams but when I talk to them about the boy they tell me that they don't get a response from him other than slight movement of fingers and toes. He has seizures. He screams. He acts as though he is in terrible pain, but still there seems to be no brain activity. Maybe he would respond to me? I don't know and I don't want to find out. So I stand there and press the palms of my hands against that glass window and just look at him and see how much like his father he is. The profile of his face and the way his hair lays. Ten minutes is all I can take and I have to leave. I don't want to let go of the tears I can feel building up inside.

Then I go home.

I sit in the dim light and stare into the shadows trying to will someone to come back to me.

I miss the voice in my head.

I miss his smell.

I miss the feeling of his arms around me.

And I miss that flow of adrenaline when the fear hits home. When the fist cracks against my flesh.

I'm sitting at home now with a coffee clutched in my hands and my legs curled up under me and day after long day and night after dreary night has past and he's not returned. When the telephone rings I usually ignore it then check who's called later. Sometimes I will return the call; if it's Hotch or Rossi. I ignore the rest. Derek has stopped calling me now. Garcia posts notes through my door still, inviting me out for lunch and such, but I never go. I don't want to talk to them about what's bothering me. I don't want to talk to them about work.

'I filled in some forms and ticked some boxes.'

Would be all I'd have to say.

'I sat all night staring at the shadows willing them to come alive.'

They'd have me locked up.

'I have a knife which I slice into my arms with.'

They'd take me to talk to someone.

I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want things back how they once were, but it cant happen.

The only other person I talk to on occasion is Emily. She comes around without calling first. She hammers on my door until I give up trying to ignore it and unfold myself from my chair and go answer the door. She never asks to come in. She doesn't expect an invitation so she moves me out of the way with her hand and walks on in. She makes herself a coffee and sits on my couch and for a while we both stare into the shadows. She is the only one who seems to understand.

'He will come back.' She says sometimes.

And I shrug and pretend I don't care. What if he does come back though? What then? They will try to arrest him for the things he did and yes, he did things he should rightfully be locked up for. He would be pursued and chased and the mess he's already made will become bigger and bloodier. In a way maybe it's best that he doesn't come back.

Today has been overly warm and it's made me feel uncomfortable and my skin is itchy. My arms where I have healing wounds are causing me to slide my hands up the sleeves of my shirt and scratch at the red sore flesh. I was going to eat today. I had every intention of eating something. I even went to the store and got a pack of sandwiches in plastic triangle shaped plastic containers but they're sitting in the kitchen bin now. By the time I got home I was no longer hungry. I live on sweet coffee and would you believe this? I've started smoking. Disgusting habit but one I feel I need to do. Don't ask me why. I don't want to think about the reasons for this too hard. So I stink of tobacco and sweat. God only knows what my breath must smell like right now.

Getting up off my chair feels like such an effort, but tomorrow is another work day and I hate the job maybe, but I still have to be presentable. I have to make an effort to at least not look like I'm falling apart inside. Perhaps if I keep my exterior in place my internal turmoil wont be so obvious. Except to Emily. She knows. She understands. She's never asked questions, well not after the first couple of tries anyway. I'm not going to be talking about how I feel to anyone and certainly not to Prentiss.

I haul myself to the bathroom and spend the first twenty minutes in there just scrubbing at my teeth and flossing and inspecting them then doing it all over again. I stare into the mirror and look at the sunken look I've taken on and wonder about those sandwiches. Then I strip off and throw my dirty clothes into the wicker basket over in the corner. Then I turn on the shower and count to fifty. Always I count to fifty. If I get distracted by something I have to turn off the water and start again. I don't know when this started. I think it was gradual but it's a firm routine now and not something I'm going to find easy to break. I wash my hair with apple shampoo and scrub at my body with a brush and a bar of soap until my skin is red and raw. Then I work on my arms with my fingernails. I don't like to see the scabs there on that area between my elbow and wrist and so I pick and I pick until they are a bleeding mess again. That's OK. No one ever sees it. I wear long sleeved shirts all the time. There have been times when the wounds have opened up at work. I scraped my arm along the side of the desk once and opened up some of the cuts. I had to go to the men's room and wrap paper towels around my arms until the bleeding stopped and then wear my jacket for the remainder of the day. I probably looked hot and I probably had a sweaty odour to me too, but it was better than having to explain the blood all over my shirt sleeves. It's a small price to pay for the comfort and reassurance that I do actually still bleed and that I do still have some small amount of control over my life and what's going to happen next. I hold my arms under the hot water of the shower until the bleeding ceases and then turn off the water and step out, being careful not to slip on the floor and I shrug myself into my blue bathrobe.

It's a bit of a relief to get that part of my evening over with. It means having to touch the scars running down my sides. It means having to feel where that thing grabbed me and tore into me and it reminds me of what it may have done to Floyd and I don't want to think about that. I want to relax. Please just give me a bit of peace and let me relax!

That night like so many others before and probably after I fall asleep on the chair and wake up in the morning with a mug of cold coffee at my side and my hair sticking up and a mess and my limbs and back aching. At least though with these other things to think about I am not thinking about those scars on my side; it distracts me from the one thing which is constantly going through my head.

Has what I did killed the one person I need the most?

-o-o-o-

There is a pulsating pain in the back of my head. It's been there since that dark day in that damned house by the lake. It's been there since before then probably but I'm placing the blame on that time spent trying to hold onto Spencer and my life under that weight pressing down on my back. The only way to stop that pain is to drink.

I am drinking too much. I know that I'm drinking too much and I suspect that Dave knows too, but he's not said anything. I can still do my job. I can still hunt down serial killers and child molesters and I can still keep my team working together. I had hoped that Spencer would have come back to work eventually, but he point blank refused to go the evaluation. He wouldn't talk to anyone about what had happened. At the hospital when we were both slowly recovering he seemed to shut down and feel the need to keep everyone away from him. Maybe one day, in his own time he will recover, but the time has past now that my hope for that are really reasonable.

So here I am at home for once. A long case and a tiring case, but we got the guy who was smashing women over the head with a hammer and leaving them to die. Another success for me to tick off in my head along with the others. I take a long deep swig of my amber coloured drink and the pulsating slowly dies away. I have been to see Sam today. I'd missed a few days because of being out of the state but today I managed it. I talked to him about trivial things and about reports I'd seen on the news. I played music for him, but I have no idea what sort of music he likes. I'm just guessing that it would be something loud and discordant. It seems to fit his personality. Not that he has one now. I read to him for a while too. Not long. My head began to hurt too much and I didn't want a migraine before I'd got home. I didn't want that white blinding agony to hit me until I was here in the safety of my small apartment and able to administer my own form of medicine. Am I becoming an alcoholic? I don't think so; not yet anyway. I could stop this if I wanted. I hold the drink up in front of my eyes and swirl it around in the glass and watch with sore and probably bloodshot eyes as it moves around enticing me and telling me to take another sip.

When was I last drunk? I don't know. Certainly not recently. It seems that I could drink that whole bottle and it not effect me other than to cure that dreadful pain sliding around in my head like a knife.

I think about putting on some soft atmospheric music and then decide that maybe I'd be better off getting myself ready for bed. Another work day tomorrow. I need to be on the ball. I need to get this almost haggard worn out look off my face and pull myself together. I finish my drink first though.

The routine in the bathroom is one I have slowly developed over time. I brush my teeth vigorously and floss and rinse with the blue mouthwash. Then I repeat. I never seem to be able to get my mouth clean enough. I strip off and turn on the shower then stand in front of the full length mirror and look at my body. I look at the scars and marks I have and I can easily assign a time and place for each of them. I touch them gently but my hand never goes near to where that spike of wood had sliced through me. I don't want to think of that. I step into the shower and shampoo my hair with apple shampoo and then scrub at my body with soap and a brush. I don't ever seem to be able to get my body clean enough either. The water is too hot. The brush too coarse. My head though feels good. Whatever is making me have these violent headaches has gone for now.

Last time I saw Spencer we met up at a coffee shop. He was too thin. He was too quiet. He wasn't Spencer anymore. He was smoking and it looked wrong. It seemed so out of place and off beam to see him smoking, yet it didn't stop me wanting to ask for a smoke too. I didn't though. I will let that be his way to heal and I will have my whiskey.

I step out of the shower and pull on my bathrobe and pad damply back to the lounge. Another drink wont hurt; just one more and then bed. Blessed sleep I would love to say, but it wont be. It will arrive quickly and it will be full of nightmares and I will awaken with feelings inside me that I don't want. Feelings of loss and betrayal and hate and rage and as those feelings slip away I am left with nothing but a big empty place which I had at one time reserved for love. There's no place for love in my soul now though. I need that space for all those other feelings I wake up with each morning. I had once thought that I could form a bond and maybe even a tentative sort of love for Sam, but whatever was there has gone. I visit him now out of a sense of duty and though this will sound callous and hard hearted, if they told me that the machines should be turned off I would give them a quick hard nod and keep my stoic front up and be pleased.

Rossi, he's talked things over with me. Somehow he's formed a bond with the boy. Any responsibility I have had he seems to have taken on himself. They wont be asking me questions about Sam's future. They go to Rossi now. I'm good with that. I let him down. I let everyone down eventually. It's like some damned curse hanging over me. No, not hanging over me; it's closer than that, it's eating away at me and making me become something or someone I don't want to be.

-o-o-o-

Previously I think I have mentioned the difficulty with keeping tabs on time when you live down a dark pit full of shit. Sometimes that time spirals out of all control and you get thrown somewhere you'd really rather not be. This is one such time. Where the fuck am I? Well I cant answer that question. What I can tell you is that pain is very much a part of my life for now, as is the boy standing hunched over at my side. I'll describe for you where I am because you might want to know, maybe you're not interested, but I need to pull these images into my own head and let them solidify. Maybe tomorrow I'll be some place else. For now I'm in a dirty sand covered street. There are cars scattered around and a row of shops on either side of this two lane street. The shop windows are either dark and filth covered or they are long smashed and look over the street like toothless mouths. They sky has a strange pink or is it green? Look to it. The actual colours are hard to make out. It shifts and changes each time I look up at it. No clouds. No birds. No dogs barking somewhere in the distance. Nothing. Absolutely fuck all else is here. A hand reaches out and grabs hold of me.

'Where are we?' Sam asks me.

'Fuck if I know.' I say comfortingly. I reach into a pocket and search for a smoke which I find. Then I fiddle around looking for my slim silver lighter. 'Want a smoke?' I ask the boy who is standing which his back still hunched over and looking down at the ground.

'Well it's not like it's going to kill me is it?' He moves out a hand to take the smoke which Floyd has just lit up for him. 'Ta.' He mutters as it slips between his lips. I give him a quick description of where we are, much like the one I gave you but maybe with a few 'fucks' and 'shits' added for effect. The air smells wrong. The place certainly looks wrong. A soft breeze snatches away the blue smoke from my hand rolled cheroot. A soft hot breeze. A soft hot dry breeze. A soft hot dry breeze with a faint tinge of something not nice to it. Over cooked steak? Spoiled hamburger meat? I'm not sure. It's an old smell though. An ancient smell and it sort of reminds me of that fucking house which Spencer and I were going to spend a week of relaxing wonderfulness in.

Sam keeps a tight hold of my arm as I sigh and take a step forward.

'Where are we going?' he asks and exhales some soft blueness from his lungs.

'Out of the middle of the street. Some shade maybe. Perhaps look for some water.' The last bit is a damned lie. I'm not going to look for water here. There wont be anything worth drinking. Had there been there would be some sign of life to go along with it.

'So why is this place deserted?' Sam says. Maybe talking to himself. Maybe to me.

'Disease? War? Lack of jobs? Fuck if I know. I just know I don't want to be standing in the middle of the street.' So why I've only taken one step forward might make you wonder why I'm not moving my butt away and finding shelter. Well that's partly because each step I take feels like something is ripping into me and there is the problem with co-ordination I am having.

Remember I got my neck a tiny bit very broken. I have to think about each movement I make. I have to say to my feet to move forward and then I have to tell it to stop and let the rest of my body catch up. Hand movement is easier. Which is what I would call a God Send and I think I might be right, but walking is giving me some grief. I'm just glad, well only sort of glad, that Sam cant see the pained expression on my face or the way I am clutching my stomach with my arm half expecting it to collapse in on it self or explode outwards.

'Are we going then?' The boy has taken more steps forward and is almost dragging me along behind him.

'Just give me a moment. Give me a fucking damned moment boy.' Left foot forward now please. Thank you. Stay there. Now right foot. No, no, a bit further forward. Oh shit I'm going to chuck up. Left foot do your thing if you don't mind…….

Falling on my face in the dirt is something I've done many times before but I'd rather of not done it here. As my body smacks into the ground and Sam's hand get ripped away from my arm I expel a load of shit and crap out of my mouth. I think if I'd looked at it real careful like I would have seen that it was my own guts I am chucking up into the dirt. I lay there taking deep breaths and wondering how in the name of Pluto I'm going to get back up again without letting Sam know I'm down here in the first place and I hear his feet moving in the dirt.

'What happened?' He sounds alarmed. 'Where are you? What's that smell?'

'I'm OK. Just my…my…I need to sleep.' And I do. I need to sleep more than anything in the fucking universe and all the extras stuck on the side. I just need to close my eyes now and sleep and hope that nothing comes for me while I'm here. 'Wake me up if something tries to eat me.' I tell Sam and I close my eyes and let my body drift for a while. At least my plan was to let my body drift for a while, but I seem to be back in the pit of stink with Sam under me again. Now I don't know if this is a dream or if where I just came from is the dream. I lay there for a while. I'm not sure how long but judging by what happened next it wasn't for a tremendous amount of time. Though my eyes seem to be open where I am I know that they are closed and to awaken from this dream, if that's what it is, I have to open them for real. It's a struggle. My body doesn't want to obey me. It wants to lie here and heal, but I'm not going to allow it to. It's my ears which seem to go back to where I was first rather than my eyes. I can hear on the periphery of my senses the sound of something eating. That slurping chewing sound which I know too well. I take in the sound for a while wondering what the hell is being eaten and by whom and then slowly manage to open my eyes again. At first all I can see is dirt and sand but as I turn my head slowly towards to noise I can see Sam crouched there. I can see his hands to his face and it is from him that the sound is coming from. I watch for a while in silence and see one of his hands reaching forward and picking at bits on the ground. Now I am awake.

'What the fuck are you doing?'

His head snaps towards me and his hands drop to his side. 'I was hungry.'

'You are eating my vomit for the love of the gods!' I manage with a lot of informing my body what I want it to do, to sit. 'I puked up my own guts and you're eating it.' He nods slowly at me.

'I was hungry. You wouldn't wake up.'

'But that's bits of me!' and now my body reacts without my having to give it lengthy instructions. My hand snaps out and cracks Sam on the side of the face. I watch as he slides gracefully onto his side. There is my blood smeared over the side of this face and for some reason this sets off a chain of events which maybe one day I will look back on and wonder if it was the right thing to do, but at the time I didn't really have control over.

OK.

I had control.

I just chose not to utilise said control. Not for a while anyway.

My attack didn't stop at the one thump. Nor did it stop at two. I threw myself over his prone form and smashed my fists into his face and chest until my knuckles were split and bleeding. Then I pushed myself up and started kicking. I planted my boot in his face and the back of his head. I ground my heel into his groin. I stamped down on his knees and ankles and head and when I'd finished, when that red rage began to slide away again I took him by his hair and dragged him into the dim shelter of one of the old used up shops at the side of the road. He left behind him a smear of blood. It was soaking into my shirt sleeves. It was splattered up the legs of my jeans and had left a shiny red place on my boots.

The whole attack happened in silence. Sam was out from the first thump and I didn't see the point in screaming abuse at him if he couldn't hear me. Now though, now that we're in this dirty shelter and he's laying bleeding on the floor I talk to him.

'You shouldn't have done that. Look what you made me do you fucking idiot.'

He doesn't respond.

'How the hell are we going to get out of here now?' My guts are twisting and screaming inside me. My head is pounding. I need a smoke. I need a drink. I can remedy the smoking but the drinking I cannot. 'Fuck and shit.' I mutter and prod him. 'Wake up you son of a bitch. We cant stay here.' But Sam doesn't even twitch or groan and I wonder if I just smacked him back into hades. He's not dead. I can see that skinny chest moving up and down and those eyes. Those spooky Sam eyes are open.

Let me tell you about those eyes of his. They don't see. They don't do much at all. They just stare out at nothing the whole time. Maybe they will get better, but maybe they wont; I have no idea. What I do know is that kicking him in the head and stamping on his skull isn't going to help the process of healing. I sit with my back against the wall and run a hand over my forehead. I can feel a slight indentation from where I head butted that creature before.

I'm so fucking pissed off!

'Where are we?!' I shout out into that bright sun drenched empty street. 'What the fuck is going on?! Why did you make me do that to Sam?!' Yup, always blame someone else. The moment you take on responsibility for your actions you're a dead man. Pass the buck. Or you'll end up craving something you cant have. In my case Spencer.

-o-o-o-

I wake up suddenly from a strange dream. I'd been walking through a wilderness of sorts. A ghost town. I could hear my feet crunching on the ground and the sun beating down on my long dark hair.

I roll out of bed and walk to the bathroom and stare at my face in the mirror like I have done oh so many times before. I sometimes think I see a shadow of something behind me and I spin around to see what it is but there's nothing there. I tell myself I am cracking up. 'Emily you need to see a doctor before this effects your work.' I mutter as I look at my face in the mirror above the wash basin. There it is! I see that shadow again and I spin around so fast that it makes me feel light headed. Of course there is nothing there. Obviously there is nothing there. Except some how there is; not something I can see though, but something I can smell. A deep dark musky smell overlaid with whiskey and smoke.

'Where are you?' I whisper at the wall. 'Where the hell are you?!' This time louder. 'I know you're around somewhere. Where though. Tell me what you want me to do. Let me help you.' I blink a couple of times. Yes it is time I went to see the doctor. Except I know I wont. This is a comfort to me. This smell. This knowledge that he has tried to get here. He's been watching me. I smile contentedly and walk to my lounge where I pour myself a large glass of whiskey and pull a pre-made smoke from a red and white pack. I spend the rest of my evening standing at my window looking over at the street and the park beyond. I wonder for a short while if I should tell Spencer.

Then I decide not to.

I will keep this for me.

I will pull Flanders back to me.

Though I shall keep going to see Reid. I have to know what's going on with him. I know he's cutting. Any fool would know that. I know he's not eating. Hell I've seen inside his pantry. He has nothing there but coffee and sugar. I wonder how long it will be before Spencer turns back to taking drugs. He's been there before. He'll go there again. It's just a matter of time and he's sliding fast, very fast backwards.

a/n: worth continuing or not?