Being looked at is always uncomfortable, but it's not as though there's much else for Gideon to see here. Granted, Spencer only knows this because eye contact is difficult for him, but that doesn't make it any less true. He doesn't want to think about what Gideon must see in him. Most obviously, Spencer hasn't slept well. It's not just the usual trough in energy, the crash and the insomnia that always follow finishing a case; he just hasn't slept well generally. All he's eaten the past few days has been under someone's supervision because he's felt impending nausea for the past two weeks. Not even Hotch and Derek know about it -- what's the point in raising alarms over something psychosomatic? It's just easier to pretend, to lie. At least his arms are free of track marks, which is something, Spencer guesses.

Talking, though, is easily just as uncomfortable as being observed -- at least, it is under the circumstances. He looks at Gideon as though he just suggested riding down the main thoroughfare on a flaming unicycle and juggling lobsters.

"This unsub was difficult," he acquiesces, figuring Gideon deserves to hear something. He holds his coffee mug with both hands, presses his thumbs on the white ceramic. "He -- he was abducting teenage boys from shopping centers and torturing them, but then... they all died of drug overdoses. Heroin."

For the most part, it's the newspaper by-line version of the story, something that Gideon knows and that his face registers. His brow furrows and he frowns -- Spencer's seen that face before. "Without a gun, I look like a teacher's assistant." "Come on, you're not worried about how you look." The weight of the pistol on his hip reasserts itself against his thigh and Spencer's spine stiffens with the knowledge that Gideon sees right through him, the same way it does for Mom. He's heard so more times than he can count: "You're not that difficult to profile."

"Come on, Spencer," Gideon says. His hands are doing something, but Spencer pays no attention to them. Forcing himself to look Gideon in the eye is for his own good. "You haven't changed so much that I can't tell when something's bothering you."

"It's not something," Spencer ruefully corrects him. "It's not everything either, but -- it's a lot of things."

"The heroin?"

He really is an open book, then, and, by way of agreeing, he gives Gideon a small nod and takes a long drink from his mug. The honesty of the situation makes him wince. Or maybe that's the fluorescent lights. There's a clatter as one of the old men knocks his drink over. One of the kids gets a bloody nose for no apparent reason -- There's no apparent reason for the other man's rhetoric. "I'm not interested in the arguments of men." It's not an argument; it's just fact; Spencer can't read minds, he hardly picks up social signals properly sometimes. He only studies human behavior.

Studied human behavior? Should it be past tense? The past several hours have involved him studying Tobias Hankel's dissociative identities and his own conflicted feelings about the opioid analgesic he's being given.

By the third time, he doesn't mind so much. He always wanted an opportunity to turn his brain off for a while...

Staring at his coffee shouldn't bring so many things to mind -- Tobias, the track marks on these victims' arms, Derek trying to talk to him, Derek calling him on his lies, Derek being more reasonable than he expected, JJ being delicate with him, JJ looking out for him, JJ overcompensating, Hotch understanding then looking all too worried as the weeks went on, Gideon being everything no one else could be and then being gone... His hands are shaking as he takes a drink. They don't need to be shaking, so why are they? He's already obvious enough.

"I've been -- I've stayed clean," he says quietly. Even with two-and-a-half years of sobriety and successfully talking to other people -- strangers, at that -- under his belt, Spencer just can't talk about this normally. The greatest courtesy Derek, JJ, and the team do is acting like this doesn't exist unless there's good reason to acknowledge it. Gideon used to do that too. "I started going to -- to group meetings, Narcotics Anonymous for law-enforcement, which isn't easy, but..."

It's harder when he's been infected with Nicholls-Brown anthrax and he's quickly dying. Locating words can be difficult enough without them coming out as gibberish and the freezing, sterile medical is lacks all comfort. Which is more uncomfortable? Dying here, with Kimura and the EMTs, hoping that his profile of Nicholls was correct -- or dying in a dirty chair, on a filthy floor, handcuffed, beaten, and coming down from being drugged? The latter has an upshot, at least: Spencer made it through that.

Now, the last words he'll leave are unintelligible and the last meaningful ones were pushing Derek away. It was worth it -- being hosed down isn't supposed to be sexual, but if Derek were to see him naked, there's only one way he'd want it to go. He wouldn't be able to have it, either, or he'd risk exposing Derek too. Before those words, the important ones were figuring out Chad Brown; the lasting ones were snapping at Kimura when she was just trying to help.

His lingering words will be that he loves his mother, embedded in a computer file he suspects Garcia might never delete; what he remembers as he dies is that he refused all narcotics. Every cough hits him deeper, moving further into his lungs in jerky progression. His back and abdominal muscles ache with the constant tensing and relaxing. His chest burns -- or is it stabs? Which of the twenty adjectives for pain would best describe this?

Is it backsliding to accept the morphine? Could he abuse it in a hospital setting, with Kimura and the staff monitoring him? Would he need to admit to it at NA? Would he need to start counting his days sober from square-one? Would Derek be upset with him? What would he do when he inevitably got cut off? What would he do to postpone that inevitability? Are any of these answers worth the risks he'd take to find them out?

"But none of it's easy," he concludes. As he looks up at Gideon, he can feel his voice trying to break, his eyes threatening to tear up. "Ever, it's... Of everything I've ever tried to do... I mean, you'd think it would get to be less difficult, some of the people at the meetings... they make it look so effortless. But it's a struggle. I just -- it never gets to that point, not... not for me."

Spencer hates that his body is working so hard to betray him. Is it so much to think he could just play this cool? He should be stronger than this, which he knows is a dangerous line of thinking, but he didn't come here to guilt Gideon into coming back to the BAU, not when he's doing so much better now.

"You're being too hard on yourself, Spencer. No one could expect it to be easy for you, not after what you went through." The old Gideon advisory tone -- how is Spencer supposed to feel about this? It's what he wanted, isn't it? But something's still not right.

"Sometimes it's easier, though," Spencer amends himself abruptly, tonguing his lips as he tries to find the right words. "Sometimes... I don't know. When I'm with Henry, or with Derek, it's like... like having a physical presence attached to why I'm staying clean... it sort of creates this shield, I guess? Then a case like this happens and I feel so..."

"Exposed?"

Spencer nods again at this suggestion and averts his eyes. Why couldn't this place have wooden tables? This plastic one has its imperfections, the places where things have been dropped or where children have pointlessly stabbed forks into the surface, but, overwhelmingly, it's quite boring. He doesn't need more reminders of how he ought to be looking at Gideon.

"How have you been sleeping?"

He doesn't look at Gideon to make this point; 'How do you think I've been sleeping' is better conveyed by not meeting his eyes, by rolling his shoulders and swallowing thickly, by pointedly looking somewhere else. Is it petulant? Adolescent? Yes, most likely, but Gideon asked a stupid question. Anyone can see how Spencer's been sleeping without being a former member of the BAU, so why should brilliant Jason Gideon, profiler extraordinaire, extoller of the virtues of empathy, who famously denounced guns as unnecessary, need to ask?

Spencer's resolve to keep this position crumbles when Gideon reaches out and touches his hand.

"Please don't make me profile you, Spencer."

~*~

For as long as he can remember dreaming, Spencer has had nightmares. He's known for just as long that this doesn't make him significant; everyone has nightmares. Some people have them more often than he does, which is horrifying. Sometimes, the nights aren't all that bad. Night terrors -- it could be worse. They wake him up with little detail or pretension, just gut-wrenching, pound-in-your-chest fear with an aftertaste that rings like vertigo. The nightmares, though, are more drawn out and never quite so simple.

This time, he's alone with his gun and a lonely corridor yawns out before him, its countless doors unopened and Spencer doesn't even try to change that; all he knows is that he wants to get out, but the exit sign never gets closer. Somewhere in the building, there's an unsub, but there isn't any way that Spencer can take him down alone. Where's Hotch? Derek? How did he get separated from them? Somewhere else, someone is crying -- the high-pitched wailing has to be Henry's and Spencer just runs harder -- Will, JJ, and Garcia are nowhere to be seen, so he needs to save his godson -- what is Henry even doing here? Why would JJ have her baby where she knows an unsub is?

What's the unsub's MO? Why can't Spencer remember it? Why can't he remember anything about this place or why he's here?

Finally, the screaming gets to be too loud and Spencer throws himself at a door, hoping it will open. It doesn't, and he tries the one directly opposite. This one opens, but not to something Spencer likes -- he charges in, pistol up, checking all the corners instinctively, and the scene makes him lower his arms. He recognizes Henry immediately, but the person holding him is someone Spencer hasn't seen in ages. He's small and slight, easily as thin as Spencer (or thinner), with tufts of curly black hair and a far-gone look of desperation, a bloody knife in his free hand...

"Nathan..." But, wait, that makes no sense -- nothing about this adds up right. Nathan's prospective victims were all prostitutes, not babies -- but Henry's fine; he's screaming, but he isn't bleeding -- there isn't anything that fits.

"I had to kill them, Doctor Reid," he says softly, in his stark, consistently apologetic voice. Is that really desperation on his face, or is it shell-shock? "I found your godson, and they were coming at us -- they were going to kill him, and I, I couldn't let them..."

"Nathan, who are 'they'?"

Nathan gestures around the room with his knife, keeping a firm hand on it and leaving Henry quite alone; it's good that he's holding Henry now, because Spencer thinks he might need to vomit. Bodies -- there are bodies everywhere. Where did they come from? Have they always been there? How did Spencer miss these corpses? Stumbling, dazed by this revelation, he nearly falls on his face, only to see that he almost tripped over Benjamin Cyrus, which is the only reason why he notices who the dead among them are: the villains, the bad guys, the former unsubs. Next to Cyrus is Randall Garner, his dead fingers cleaving to a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur. Owen Savage, Jonny McHale, and Cory Bridges were all too young to die, regardless of what they did, and Philip Dowd is entirely unthreatening without a gun. Is that Adam or Amanda whose hair Spencer steps on? Amber Canardo's eyes are still open; they're even more unsettling now. Vincent's glasses are broken, completely shattered. Portly, white-haired Henry Grace died holding his pendant of phi in his hand; Frank and Jane held each other's hands.

...Why would Nathan kill Jane? She was always prone to raving, of course -- she could talk as fast as Spencer, but only half of it made sense, if it was intelligible at all. She could have been perceived as a threat, but surely he could've seen that he didn't need to hurt her. For all she loved Frank, or thought she did, she was an innocent...

So was Doctor Bryar, but Spencer actually does trip over his body, too caught up in wondering after the logic of this situation. Why is Nathan the one killing people? Even so long after working his case, Spencer's had hope for him, hope that he'll be able to realize he's stronger than his own mind, hope that, even if he can't be normal, he'll be functional, happy.

Suddenly, Nathan drops the knife and Spencer feels something cold and metallic against his chest. Trying not to succumb to his frantic urges, Spencer grabs at it -- why is he wearing Grace's pendant? When did he get a copy of Empty Planet? Did he walk in carrying it?

"I had to kill them, Doctor Reid," Nathan says again, holding Henry to his chest with both hands. "They wanted to hurt your godson."

"Wait -- but... how did you -- how did you know that Henry's my godson?"

Nathan looks surprised by this question. "Raphael told me."

Raphael... Spencer swallows thickly and motions for Nathan to hand Henry to him. Once he's holding his godson comfortably in one arm, he grabs one of Nathan's hands and pulls the boy back into the corridor, running for all of their sakes. As before, the exit sign gets no closer, even though Spencer pushes himself harder. Lactic acid production increases when the body's demand for energy is high and it does so to the point that there's too much lactate and it can't be processed quickly enough -- but the acidosis people think of is actually caused by a drop in pH related to the production of hydrogen in the anaerobic hydrolysis of ATP -- and, either way, it doesn't matter.

Finally, the exit sign gets closer and Spencer makes the mistake of thinking they'll get out: before them, the floor splits open like it's in an earthquake; they have to scramble just to get a hold on something. Unfettered by the presence of a baby, Nathan pulls himself up quickly and gets away, but Spencer has to fight to keep his one hand from slipping. And it is a fight -- Henry's suddenly so heavy. How can one baby be so heavy? Spencer's sure he can't hold on much longer...

But right as his faith fails him, someone's gentle hands reach down and take Henry. He doesn't scream, so it must be someone good -- maybe it's JJ, or Derek -- but it isn't who Spencer expects in the least. Instead of anyone who would fit the situation, Spencer looks up into the lined, placid of Jason Gideon.

But Gideon left the Bureau, left Virginia entirely for God knows where -- why would he be where they know the unsub is?

Does it matter? No, or at least not much -- desperate, Spencer holds his now free hand out, shouting, "Gideon, help me!"

Gideon's expression doesn't change, he only tilts his head to show he's listening.

"Gideon! Help -- I can't hold on much longer."

More unresponsiveness.

"Save me! Please!"

As Spencer watches his former mentor turn and walk away, he feels as though a lead brick has been dropped in his stomach -- and even though Gideon's leaving, Spencer still cries out for him.

"Please help me -- Gideon, help me -- Gideon -- Gideon!"

"Spencer!"

At the calling of his name, his handhold crumbles away and he falls into the black abyss.

With a thud, he wakes up on JJ's floor, at the foot of her couch, and to the sight of Derek's panicked face. He knows dreams are infamous for their inability to make any sense at all, but this is a break even from dream logic. His heart is racing and his breathing rushed, but his mind is slower than he can recall it being without some form of chemical assistance. As Derek helps him back onto the sofa, all he can think is that the colors all look wrong. They weren't so muted in the rest of his dream.

JJ and Garcia show up next, JJ in a modest nightgown and Garcia in pajamas with some print of cartoon cats. This makes no sense either; they both look exhausted and confused, and Spencer's sure that his subconscious would be nicer to them. He's also sure that it would make this entire scene less awkward and less silent. Surely, as a part of his mind, it has to know how much he dislikes tension.

Garcia's the first one to try and say anything: "Boys, as much as I am a proponent of sexual healing... it is three in the morning, I had a long day yesterday, and JJ's, I'm sure, was not much better--"

What she's implying hits Spencer too late and, rather than handle it gracefully, he snaps, "We weren't having sex!"

He must do so too loudly, because soon Henry's screaming fills the house -- it isn't until Spencer hears this that he even considers that he might be awake. Sighing loudly, Garcia turns and shuffles off down the hall to the infant's room. Although JJ is still visibly exhausted -- and how can she not be, with Will in the hospital, a son to take care of, and two profilers and a technical analyst temporarily living under her roof? -- she joins Spencer on the sofa, taking the space on one side while Derek takes the other.

"Spence?" she asks tentatively, yawning and still half-asleep. "What happened out here?"

For a moment, Spencer just looks at her, but he finally manages to explain, "I -- I was dreaming."

"That's not all you were doing, pretty boy," Derek corrects him, running a hand down the back of Spencer's head. "You were having a nightmare -- you started screaming about Gideon--"

"Gideon?" JJ interjects. Spencer can't begrudge her the incredulous tone: it wasn't a secret how much Gideon meant to him, but it has, quite legitimately, been ages since anyone's brought Gideon up. She briefly glances at Derek and, when he can't explain it, she looks back to Spencer and prompts him, "Spence... it's okay to talk about it. What happened with Gideon?"

"Not much at all, really," Spencer answers honestly, furrowing his brow as he forces himself to remember everything. "He -- I was in this warehouse, looking for an unsub, but I found Nathan Harris, you know, from -- from the Capitol Hill case, instead. He was in this room full of old unsubs, but they were all dead, he'd -- they'd been trying to attack him and Henry, so Nathan--"

"Henry?" JJ interrupts someone again, and with good reason, given that Spencer's talking about her son. "You had another dream with Henry--"

"At a crime scene or similar," Spencer finishes for her, nodding by way of saying yes. "But... Nathan kept the two of them safe. And... Cyrus was there, and Henry Grace, Frank and Jane, Vincent, Jonny McHale, Randall Garner, and... so many others -- and then I tripped over Doctor Bryar, and Nathan mentioned Raphael, so -- so I took Henry from him and the three of us ran for it. And we were almost up when the floor split -- Nathan got away. I thought I'd fall, but... but Gideon saved Henry. And I put my hand out, to get him to pull me up, but..." He swallows thickly as he trails off.

"But...?" Derek says firmly.

Spencer finishes his story softly, pointedly avoiding eye contact with either of his companions: "But he just left me there."

Of course, realistically, Derek and JJ are going to be worried about him, and he knows it could be worse. JJ's soft fingers could leave his hair to dangle in his face. She could have stayed in bed, rather than get up. Not all mothers do that for their children -- Spencer never says this to her, because he never sees reason to question her dedication to raising Henry properly and because there isn't any point in projecting his own experiences onto his godson's. JJ is not Diana Reid, who in turn is not JJ, and even going into complex metaphysics, the only ways to make the two entities one are complex, theoretical, and unrealistic. The similarities between them stop at intelligence and the color of their hair.

Likewise, Derek could ignore this. He wouldn't, but he has the capability. If he were anyone else, he wouldn't find it difficult to just roll over and let Spencer endure his nightmare alone. Staying with JJ means that they sleep apart anyway -- she doesn't want to wake up to them having sex on her sofa and Will's much less fond of the idea. Even if he's in the hospital still, this is as much his place as JJ's; his opinion counts for more than Spencer's or Derek's.

Derek could do many things he doesn't do. Most prominently, right now, he could keep his hard, soft hands to himself. He could skip running his fingers down Spencer's arm for leaving Spencer to his own. Tobias's hands are surprisingly soft, his touch delicate, even as he checks Spencer's arm for a promising vein. It even takes Spencer by surprise when Charles comes out and yanks on him so harshly -- Expecting Derek to leave him alone is something Spencer doesn't do, from a practical standpoint; he just still hasn't grown accustomed to the notion that some people will try to take care of him. Derek and Garcia shoving him right into bed after this last case was surprising, even if he had been legitimately exhausted.

It's just ludicrous, though. If Derek and JJ were any sort of reasonable, they wouldn't be worrying about him. Henry is the immediate source of anxiety -- he's growing more every day; he needs his rest of his development is probably going to suffer; being jarred from that by his screaming godfather isn't good for him. Even if he'll never remember this -- or very likely won't, at least -- the experience could scar him, especially if it happens any more while Spencer's still here. He could develop an aversion to loud noises, agoraphobia -- his crying is consistently answered with love, but unconscious memories of the source of the pain could damage him in too many ways to consider.

Henry could develop any number of neuroses because his godfather doesn't sleep well. And if they won't worry about that, then there's Will. He's out of danger and his condition got moved down from critical last night, but taking a bullet that close to the heart and lungs can't ever be simple. Nightmares, on the other hand, don't hurt anyone. They upset Spencer's ability to sleep properly, but so many things have done that for so long. If it's not nightmares, it's work, it's cravings, it's Dilaudid and overthinking it, it's taking care of a schizophrenic mother -- if he couldn't handle himself, he would have let the nightmares beat him long ago.

"Babies cry, Spence," JJ informs him, catching him staring over at Garcia as she comforts Henry with cooing and cuddles. They've had this talk before. Spencer's only now getting better at not losing his cool completely when the baby starts crying. "If it weren't you waking him up, it would've been something else."

"I know, I know," he acquiesces. "I'm just... I hate being the one thing tonight."

"JJ," Derek interjects, taking Spencer's hand without any warning. "Can I sleep with him tonight? You know, considering everything."

Spencer's eyes double in size when she says, "Of course you can."

"Just keep it PG-13, loverboys," Garcia teases through a yawn, able to talk now that Henry's asleep in her arms. "Because as much as I enjoy the footage from your webcam, the last thing baby Henry needs to see in the morning is his godfather's cute little naked butt. It'll encourage the eventual clothing removal phase."

Spencer furrows his brow. "...What webcam?"

Garcia smirks. "Why the one I put in your bedroom, Boy Wonder. Didn't Captain Chocolate Sex tell you about it before he rocked your world a few nights ago? Really, the superhero roleplay was a nice touch. The folks who flock to Garcia's Boys-dot-com adored it."

Spencer starts to point out, "Garcia, we've never done superhero roleplay" -- but, instead, finds himself cut off from two sources: JJ explaining, "She was kidding, Spence" and Derek kissing him on the mouth.

After the new round of goodnights from JJ and Garcia, Spencer finds himself entangled in Derek on the sofa -- clothes on, so no one gets upset or traumatized, but clinging anyway. Whether or not he sleeps again tonight matters very little; he has Derek's warm body against his, Derek's hands brushing down his hair and cheek, and Derek's neck, in which he hides his head. Derek's feet brush lightly against his ankles as Spencer intertwines their legs; he always forgets that he's the taller one.

"Pretty boy..." Derek starts.

Spencer quickly cuts him off: "I don't want to talk about it."

Derek's voice grows firmer, loses a little bit of the warmth -- hardly any, but enough that Spencer notices. "I know you don't, but I do." He pauses, lifting Spencer's chin up and forcing eye contact, then prods, "This isn't the first time you've dreamt about Gideon, is it?"

Spencer doesn't need to ask how Derek knows this. Despite the team rules about not profiling each other, and despite their personal rule that amounts to the same, Spencer knows he can be an open book. He's even worse when he doesn't have his wits about him -- Gideon always said it. He's not that hard to profile.

Since there's no point at all in lying, Spencer whispers, "No. He's -- they were at their worst right after he left, and then they sort of... stopped coming that frequently. They picked up again around the first anniversary, and -- and with the second one coming... I guess I just didn't think that much of it."

So much so that he didn't even tell Derek, and how Derek feels about that is spelled out in how he frowns. Spencer adds on softly, "I'm sorry."

"Spencer, you know you can trust me, right?" This is too familiar territory and, even after Spencer nods, Derek continues: "I'm not gonna run to Hotch because you've been having nightmares about Gideon--"

"I know you're not, and Hotch would have to understand and--"

"That doesn't mean I'm not worried," Derek interrupts, putting a finger over Spencer's lips. "This hasn't gotten in the way of your ability to function yet, but you and I both know that it has the ability to do that. And I don't know about you, but I don't want it to get that far--"

Spencer wriggles out from under his partner's finger and snaps, "I've been -- I've lived like this for years, Derek; I'm not gonna become a danger to the team because I'm having nightmares--" He hates how annoyed he sounds, but it can't be helped.

"I'm not talking about you being a danger to the team, pretty boy." The gentleness in Derek's voice is unexpected, though Spencer knows it shouldn't be. "I don't want these Gideon issues eating you from the inside."

Gideon issues. It's an accurate little set of words, but that doesn't make it any easier to digest. Spencer doesn't want to think of the implications.

"Hey, genius," he says gently. "What's the name of that mountain region in Pennsylvania? The one I'm taking you to relax in next time we get a break from work?"

And they say there's no such thing as a stupid question. "What're you talking about?"

Grinning broadly, Derek sing-songs, "Poconos." Delicately, and emphasizing the homonym-cum-punchline, he pokes Spencer's nose.

Spencer can't help but laugh; trying not to wake the house again, he buries his mouth in Derek's shoulder until he thinks he's okay again. "That's so -- did Garcia teach you that?" he whispers, further snickers threatening to come out and ruin all the work he did in getting composed.

"You bet that big, sexy brain of yours she did. Now, if I ask nicely do I get a goodnight kiss?"

For a moment, Spencer looks up into Derek's smile, his twinkling eyes, and pretends to give this proposal a fair amount of consideration. Soon, though, his façade falls away and he gives Derek a slow, tender kiss. He can't make any promises when Derek strokes his hair and asks if there will be more nightmares tonight, but he nods anyway and nestles comfortably against the other man. Home is just a construct, an idea that, as he learned early, both from Diana Reid's conduct and her lesson plans, can mean a great many things to different people -- but, as far as Spencer's concerned, JJ's sofa is home enough if he can fall asleep in Derek's arms.

~*~

"So, you and Morgan are together, then?" Gideon's smile is genial, pleased, as though he saw this coming and is just so proud to see it a reality. For all Spencer knows, he just might have. He picked up on Spencer's misguided crush on JJ easily enough, after all. "I like him for you, Spencer, I really do..."

Gideon goes on in a similar manner, and as he drains his second round of coffee, Spencer wishes he'd brought Derek with him for this meeting, but he knows he had the best intentions in telling his partner to go out with Emily and Garcia instead. Having Derek would make him feel more comfortable, but it would be too much like why he kept going back to the Dilaudid. Weakness, nausea, lethargy, withdrawal -- none of it mattered, because he didn't need to think when he was high. His problems didn't go away, but they seemed less painful.

It would just be the same if Derek were here right now. The awkwardness would still exist, but Spencer would feel all too content to ignore everything he's wanted to say to Gideon and just turn this into an extended catch-up session. Two old friends swapping stories and nothing more. Already, they're going too far in that direction and Spencer can hear Emily castigating him all over again.

Inherently, though, it can't be that and Spencer knows that as he meets Gideon's eyes and says clearly, even though he feels his voice betraying him: "I've really missed you."