Disclaimer: Do Not Own.

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed my last chapter. I really didn't think I'd find any support for this fic. I apologize for the delay in this chapter, which I found extremely difficult to write. As it has such an obvious foregone conclusion based on the summary for the story, I struggled with writing this chapter in a way that was interesting, so I hope it won't disappoint too much. I have already begun work on Chapter 3, so hopefully it won't be as long until the next update. Thank you for reading!

A Dream If There Ever Was One

Chapter Two

The first thing Dr. Spencer Reid became aware of upon regaining consciousness was that his head was throbbing from the base of his skull all the way to the space behind his eyes. This was never a good way to start the morning.

He hadn't yet decided if he should open his eyes. Besides the pounding in his head, he was fairly comfortable. This really was a nice bed. And when had he changed into these pajamas? He couldn't even remember leaving the club last night.

The club.

Reid sat suddenly. Well, this wasn't good.

It was now abundantly clear that something was very, very wrong. For one thing, he could now clearly remember being thrown into a table by the unsub, which might explain his current headache. Then there was the business with the strange device and the glowing blue light emitting from her hands, but that probably wasn't ever going to make sense. The only other thing he could remember was reaching out to grab her ankle, and, well, waking up here.

And now that he was looking, here seemed to be some kind of small medical facility, probably a clinic, seeing as he was currently sitting in the only bed in the room. Besides the change in clothing, however, it didn't look as though much else had been done to him. The area next to his bed was filled with machines he didn't recognize, but he wasn't hooked up to any of them. Before he had a chance to examine any of them further, a door to his left slid open.

Reid looked up to see a petite red-haired woman in some sort of lab coat smiling cheerfully at him.

"Is Morgan out there? Um, my friend, I mean. He would have brought me in?"

The woman looked confused; maybe Morgan had already left to meet up with the team.

"Listen; I'm fine, really. So, if I could just, um, get my clothes back..." Reid tried to sit up, but the doctor pushed him back down, flashing a light in both his eyes, which was exactly what his headache didn't need.

"You don't have to…"

The doctor ignored his protests and presumably asked him some questions regarding his condition. Of course, he had no way of knowing for sure, as she was asking in rapid-fire French.

"I'm sorry. What?"

She repeated he question – still in French – as she busied herself with a console on the wall behind his bed.

"I still don't understand. I'm afraid I don't know French. Well, I man I can read it, but that's not – Anyway, is there any chance you speak English?"

She turned to look at him as though his problems extended much further than just a bump on the head.

Reid was growing more confused by the minute. Maybe he was actually crazy. Well, crazy was an inaccurate term, but there were several documented cases of malfunctions in the language center of the brain after head trauma. Some people woke up with bizarre accents or the inability to comprehend sarcasm. Maybe this hearing everyone in French was a yet unrecognized after-effect of brain injury. However, the prospect of being patient zero was not quite the scientific discovery he was looking to make.

But, there was the smallest possibility that he didn't have an unknown psychological disorder and that this doctor was actually speaking French. But that opened even more troubling doors: if this was real, where was he? How long had he been out? Certainly not long enough to be transported overseas or even to Canada, at least not that far east. And if Morgan hadn't gotten him out of the club, why wasn't he dead, or restrained, or given any indication that he'd even been kidnapped?

The door slid open again, and the doctor left Reid's side to speak to the new arrival. From his position, he could only see the red-haired doctor using some sort of handheld device to show data to her companion. But when he responded, it was not in the French Reid was expecting to hear; all he heard was a low rumbling coupled with a series of clicks. And the doctor laughed, as though whoever was there had actually said something intelligible.

Reid sat up and climbed out of the bed as quietly as he could, overcome by the need to fully witness just what was happening right now.

And that's when he knew he was definitely dreaming or insane, because nothing else explained why the doctor was calmly conversing with a six-foot-tall bird…reptile…thing.

What the hell was going on?

The creature turned its head quickly, stopping to fix his gaze on Reid with pinpoint precision, giving Reid the perfect chance to better examine the mandibles that framed a mouth of razor-sharp teeth.

Reid only realized he was backing up when his back hit the wall. Never in his life had he felt more cornered: no gun, nowhere to go, and It was approaching, reaching out with its three talons, probably preparing to rip his throat out.

When he opened his eyes again, Reid realized that not only was he not dead, but the creature was still two feet away and was looking what Reid could only describe as concern. It once again tried to communicate before being interrupted by the doctor, who was gesturing to her forearm. The creature seemed to agree before snapping his head back to Reid and bringing up a bright orange hologram over his right arm. He gestured to it before gesturing to Reid's own forearm. Reid shook his head, and the creature spoke once again to the doctor. After a brief search in a cabinet, she seemed to bring the creature what it was looking for.

It held out a hand again, holding up what looked like a metal bracelet and once again gestured to Reid's forearm. Understanding, Reid provided his wrist and allowed It to fasten the device and activate the hologram.

"Well, that's better, now, isn't it?" A distinctly human voice asked. "How did you manage to get through the Wards without an omni-tool?"

"Without a what?" Reid's mind was reeling from trying to process yet another bizarre twist to reality.

"Garrus," the doctor addressed the creature, "I need to finish my examination. Then you can question him as much as you want."

"Question me?"

"First things first. Would you mind sitting back down on the bed?" The doctor brought up some kind of scanner on her hologram…omni-tool. "My name's Dr. Michel, by the way. I'm guessing you didn't catch it the first time."

"Dr. Spencer Reid."

"Well, Dr. Reid. It looks like you didn't sustain any trauma. Is there anything else that's bothering you?"

"Just a migraine, but it's nothing, really."

By the time he was finished speaking, Dr. Michel had already returned with a small packet in her hand. She tore it open and applied the gel inside directly to his temples, and Reid was surprised to find himself feeling instantly better.

"That's amazing." Reid touched the gel on his forehead. "Thank you."

"It's just medi-gel." She smiled up at him.

"Are you finished, Dr. Michel? I really need to get back to my more important cases." The creature (Garrus did she say?) was now leaning against the column that helped divide the clinic from the waiting area.

"Garrus, I had no idea you were so grumpy in the morning." Dr. Michel turned back to Reid, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "Don't worry; his bark's worse than his bite." She seemed to reconsider. "Well, not literally." She laughed, but Reid didn't find it particularly funny. "I'll be in my office if you need me."

Dr. Michel smiled at him one last time before leaving him alone with Garrus.

"Dr. Reid, you said?" Garrus asked while opening a display on his omni-tool.

Reid nodded.

"Dr. Reid, I'm Inspector Garrus Vakarian, and I need to ask you a few questions about last night."

"I'll do what I can," Reid offered, though he was pretty sure that was going to be next to nothing.

"Could you tell me, then, how you ended up laying in an alley wearing two million credits worth of forged antiques?"

"What?" Reid felt like a broken record at this point.

Garrus sighed and sat down on the low dividing wall. "Your clothes? And personal effects? You can play dumb all you want, but they're clearly illegal forgeries. No collector or museum has reported a break-in, and they don't have a watermark required of replicas. So just tell me who you're working for, and we can both get on with our day."

And there was that bone-chilling, niggling fear/possible revelation again. Reid was starting to hate those.

"Could I maybe…see them? The antiques, I mean."

Garrus narrowed his eyes, but complied, pulling the evidence bag from the cabinet from the cart near Reid's bed. He opened it up and revealed what Reid had been dreading: his bag, and the clothes he had been wearing last night.

"Where am I?" Reid asked hesitantly.

"You're in Dr. Chloe Michel's med clinic. In the Wards."

"Okay. And that is…?"

"On the Citadel." Garrus was giving him that same wary look that Dr. Michel had given him not fifteen mintues before.

"And where is that…exactly?"

"In the Serpent Nebula? I don't understand why you're asking me this."

There was just one more question to ask:

"And, it, um, doesn't happen to be 2007 by any chance?"

"It's 2181."

And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse.

"Okay. Well, this is going to sound completely insane, but, well, here goes: I am agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation…on Earth. But when I sustained my head injury, it was the year 2007. So.."

He looked up at Garrus, trying to gauge his reaction, but he wasn't exactly easy to read. He tried to hold his gaze, anything that might encourage the detective to believe him. For a moment, they sat there, staring at each other, and Reid realized how uncomfortable it was to be on the other side of an interrogation.

And when the silent tension between them finally peaked, Garrus burst out laughing as though Reid had just told him the first joke he'd ever heard. "I'm sorry. I've been up for more than a day at this point: everything seems pretty ridiculous right now. But I just can't believe that you are actually claiming to be a time traveller to beat a forgery rap. I have to tell you, you're good. You almost had me convinced that you believe it."

"I think it's because I do."

"Come on," Garrus said, "you can drop the act now. It's not even like I could book you on anything. Being in possession of a forgery isn't even a felony without intent to distribute. I was counting on you being dumb enough to incriminate yourself."

Reid was too distraught to take offense to the slight at his intelligence. "You have to believe me."

Garrus stood up and closed the holographic overlay of his omni-tool. "What I have to do is get some sleep. It was…interesting to meet you, Spencer Reid."

He moved to leave, but Reid quickly blocked his path. "Wait, please." He took a steadying breath. "I know that you have absolutely no reason to believe me or even to think that I'm remotely sane, but I really don't have any other options. Maybe you could just look at my belongings…or something. There's got to be something I can show you." Reid was trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.

Garrus's face was impassive, and Reid felt himself deflate.

"You're right, this isn't your problem." Reid went back to the bed to grab the evidence bag.

Garrus sighed. "I can't promise this is gonna prove anything. I'm no expert."

Reid hastily overturned the bag and let its contents spill out over the bed.

"Well, how about my ID badge from the Bureau?" Reid pulled the card out of its protective sleeve and handed it to Garrus. "I mean, that's a terrible picture, but it's clearly me. And it has the year right on it."

"And anyone with a basic knowledge of computers could have made it."

"Okay." Reid started rummaging through his messenger bag for anything that might be proof enough for Garrus. License? No, that was too close to the ID badge. What about money? Did they have paper money in the future?

He was just about to ask, when he noticed that something else had caught Garrus's attention.

Garrus was holding his revolver and was staring at it with such fervent amazement that Reid felt rude interrupting.

"This is a Smith & Wesson revolver, right?" Garrus asked, never taking his eyes off the gun.

"Yes, it's a-"

".38 caliber. I've seen one before."

"They still make them?" Reid asked.

"No, they fell out of production after the discovery of mass effect fields made them obsolete. But, I used to see one all the time when I was a kid. When I would come to see my father at C-Sec, he would always take me to this old weapons museum, and I always went straight for the human antiquities. They had this 1943 Smith & Wesson Victory Model that was actually used in your Second World War. And the idea really got me, you know? The thought of something so small being a part of something so grand, and the thought that maybe some wars were worth fighting." Garrus smiled sheepishly. "But, maybe I'm over-simplifying. Anyways, I was there so much that the curator let me hold it one time. He died a while back and they sold off the whole collection. I actually tried to track it down." He shook his head. "Yours must be a newer model, but I'd recognize one anywhere. And seeing as it has no signs of age…I mean, I can't say 2007, for sure, but…" Garrus looked up at Reid. "Shit."

"I know."

"I mean, this is – this is actually crazy."

"To be honest," Reid said, "I don't think I've actually processed it yet."

"A time traveller." Garrus sat down on the bed, still staring at him, mouth agape.

"You've never met one?"

Garrus chuckled. "Definitely not."

"Well," Reid began packing his things back into his messenger bag. "Now that that's sorted out, you can just take me to the nearest time machine and send me back."

"Actually, I can't."

Reid shrugged. "Why not? I'm sure it can't be that far."

"I can't because time travel hasn't been invented yet."

"I'm sorry. What?"