Chapter 2: Bleached, Burnt, Doctornapped.
Everyone's eyes darted to Reid in an instant immeasurable by nanoseconds of time. They were all so anxious to see what he had to say about jogging Hotch's memory, or whatever else; they knew that it would help him. Reid, after all, was like a walking encyclopedia of everything you could possibly read, and nobody knew that better than his team. If anyone could help Hotch out of his fragile state through use of knowledge, it would be him.
"There was this book I read about memory recall testing once. It's called "Paradise to Parasite-The Twisted Gardens of an Unstable Mind", and it said that the mind coming out of a physically and emotionally devastating experience was like a shirt that you burnt in a dryer fire, and bleached afterward. His brain is almost as nonexistent psychologically as the shirt; he could think we are ANYTHING right now. Do NOT give him any ideas."
"Is there anything we could do?" Emily spoke up finally, the words falling out of her mouth like snow in a tumultuous avalanche of lost love.
"Anything at all?" JJ added, unconsciously hoping her words would spur the young doctor's thinking process.
"There is one thing that we could do..." Reid trailed off, making the team become rather irritated and anxious.
"What is it, Reid?" Gideon and Rossi instantaneously barked simultaneously.
"We could go up to him and ask him who we are… but we'd need permission from his doctor."
The last few words of that sentence quashed the sliver of hope that the idea had given them. Finding a doctor in the busiest hospital in the D.C.-Metropolitan area at midnight was going to be like finding one needle in a particular pile of needles. And if his nurse was ANY indication o how his doctor would be… yikes! The idea of asking him who they were had a snowball's chance in hell. And even if this particular snowball was made of the finest substance of fire-resistant water, there was no way of prognosticating his response without an O.K. from his doctor.
"Couldn't you give the OK, Reid? After all, you are a doctor." Emily whispered to him as to not give any ideas as to who we are. She, more than anyone, wanted to keep the idea-snowball alive and fireproof.
"I'm not that kind of doctor. It would be against regulation to make psychological decisions about a patient that wasn't quite mine." He whispered back, the somewhat-smile on Emily' face disapparating. It hurt him to see Emily's mouth twisted into such a distraught figure- he knew what this was doing to her.
"I'll go find his doctor, O.K.?" he stated, authoritatively bringing the conversation's volume level back to a normal speaking volume. Without any chance to see anyone's distraught face, he dashed out the door and quickly shut it behind him. The 5 remaining fully conscious team members looked out the window to see him awkwardly speed walk to the receptionist's desk, of which there was thankfully no line.
Emily couldn't believe it. Her life was crumbling and falling to her feet, and soon there would be nothing left. She wanted to just close her eyes and click her heels 3 times and be whisked to Kansas, a far off dreamland in which this trouble would be somewhere over the rainbow. Heck, if they weren't even in a public place she would have tried it. But she knew she had to be there for him during this trying time.
Just then Rossi tapped her on the shoulder.
"Em. Look!" he said, pointing to the window on the door. She turned around to see 2 large men in business suits and ties grabbing Reid on the shoulders and walking him out the door.
"What the hell?"