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"Spencer, good to see you. How have you been in the two days since our last appointment?" Dr. Flanagan rose from her chair behind the desk and sat, as had become customary for Spencer's visits, in one of the two armchairs in front of her desk.

He waited until she was seated then took the other chair and handed her a small package wrapped in tinfoil.

"What's this?"

"Banana bread," he told her, "I've found that baking relaxes me, Dr. Flanagan. It's funny, because I've never been much for cooking at all."

Dr. Flanagan smiled broadly.

"But I've been reading about ways to relax and clear my mind," he paused as he saw Dr. Flanagan nod approvingly, "And actually, Grace suggested culinary arts."

"Well it looks like I have my lunch here, doesn't it? Thank you very much, I'm looking forward to it." She laughed and set it down on the desk, picking up his file in her other hand.

"Are you ready to go over this with me today, Spencer?"

"Yes."

"All right then. First I just want to go over the four types of symptoms."

Reid chewed his bottom lip and listed them, "re-experiencing, avoidance, hyperarousal and cognitive."

She nodded. "Now, there is no question you did have re-experiencing."

"I did. I do. Actually, I haven't in almost a week now."

"You've also indicated there were hyperarousal symptoms," she flipped through her notes, "trouble sleeping, being startled more easily."

He sighed.

"But you haven't had avoidance symptoms at all. And regarding cognition symptoms, I spoke to your friend Jennifer yesterday. While you did have some guilt and blame feelings earlier on, she told me you have worked past that. You realise you're not to blame. You have no reason to feel ashamed or guilty."

Spencer licked his lips and started to say something but Dr. Flanagan held up her hand to stop him.

"Nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about." She repeated purposefully. "But do understand, those feelings may or may not resurface now and again. That's completely normal and you have the tools, the coping strategies, to deal with them."

Spencer nodded.

"And you have been finding other ways to deal with anxiety or stress. That's a positive too. You're enjoying your favourite pastimes like reading and chess?" He nodded and she murmured 'Good, good. And finding new ones apparently," laughing slightly as she gestured at the tinfoil package on her desk.

"What does this all mean, Doctor?" He sent a silent thank you to Grace for all the help she'd been over the last four weeks.

"Well, Spencer, what it means is, I don't believe you have PTSD." She smiled when she saw the positive reaction on his face.

"You don't or didn't exhibit enough of the symptoms for PTSD to be my diagnosis. You have resilience factors that probably contributed to that. You have supportive friends. Your experience in your career; you're used to dealing with traumatic experiences, like murders, fires, plane crashes, you're used to that kind of trauma. You had positive coping strategies in place, even before you came to see me."

She paused to flip through a few pages and looked up at him. "You refused medication when we first started discussing treatment and I have to admit I wasn't sure that was the best course of action but you've proven otherwise."

He debated internally whether or not to tell Dr. Flanagan about his dilaudid issue. She could see he was thinking about something and stayed quiet for a moment, giving him some time. She searched his eyes for a minute and then broke their silence.

"You had a problem in the past, didn't you?"

He cast his eyes downward and nodded.

"Spencer. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You obviously conquered it and don't want a recurrence." She reached out and touched his arm. "That's admirable, not shameful."

He lifted his eyes to meet her gaze and gave her a tiny smile.

"And it tells me you know yourself well enough to know what's good for you. That's a good thing, Spencer. It gives me confidence that you will recover from this. Which is why I'm positive you do not have PTSD. You have, or rather, did have, ASD. Acute stress disorder. It's an immediate reaction to your own trauma, but for the most part, the symptoms have gone away."

"I read about that too. The only thing left is the occasional nightmare. But even that's been almost a week since the last one."

"That's good news. Bear in mind, the symptoms may return now and again, and they may even get more intense should you be triggered in some way. I'll continue to monitor your progress, bi-weekly I think would be best to start, unless you have a recurrence. But I'd like to see you at least once more, Spencer, before I change our routine. I'm away on Monday for a conference but does next Wednesday work for you?"

He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and opened the calendar program, adding an appointment as he asked "Ninety-thirty a.m. again?"

"Yes, that will work." She rose, offered her hand, which he happily took and then saw him out, smiling at the sight of her patient with a definite new bounce in his step.

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