A/N: So this is a little later than I hoped, but at least I'm not two months overdue for an update like I am for another fic I'm (trying) to write. Once again, thank you for all the feedback/reviews/faves/follows! In the end, that's what inspires me to keep writing. (So you only have yourselves to blame.)
Warning: This chapter displays much heavier themes of eating disorders and feelings of worthlessness than the previous chapters.
Enjoy!
oOoOoOoOo
"Knock knock."
Reid looked up from his hospital bed and saw Hotch standing at in the doorway, unable to read the older man's expression. "I was hoping you'd stop by," he said tiredly, gesturing for his boss to come in.
"I wouldn't dream of not coming to see you," Hotch replied, sitting down in one of the plastic chairs by Reid's bedside. Sighing heavily he clasped his hands under his chin, resting his arms on his knees. "What happened, Reid?"
Reid swallowed. "I've been really sick recently," he said softly, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. "Migraines, nausea, just run-of-the-mill issues. My doctor told me it was probably a stress thing."
"Probably a stress thing?" Hotch repeated. "Anything else?"
Reid looked down. "He said I should take some time off work. Once," he added in defensively, seeing the scowl that his boss was giving him. "He only said it once."
Hotch sighed heavily. "Reid, once again, you are not a medical doctor. I don't care if you've got an IQ higher than Einstein and a billion degrees, your doctor will always know better than you."
"You don't get it," Reid said quietly.
"What, Reid? What don't I get?" Hotch asked, concern lacing his tone.
Reid sighed and smoothed back his hair again. "The BAU is my home. It's sad that I think of my workplace as my home, but that's what it is. I'd rather be here with the people I think of as my family than at my apartment, doing nothing but watching old TV reruns and wasting my time."
"We could have arranged for you to stay behind as a consult on cases, rather than leaving you out entirely," Hotch pointed out. "We need you working to the best of your ability, and if that means you have to take a break from traveling with the team, then that's just the way it has to be."
"I solved the case," Reid pointed out. "I never would have solved it if I'd stayed in D.C."
So Rossi's conclusion was more-or-less spot on, Hotch reflected. He sighed, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. "The BAU works as a team, Reid. We would have solved it eventually, even if you weren't available."
"But how many more victims would have died?" Reid challenged him, looking him dead in the eye. "How many more little children would Mclean have kidnapped, raped and murdered? How many more families would he have destroyed?" The younger agent's voice broke a little on the last sentence, and he averted his eyes down to the thin bedsheets.
Hotch paused before he answered. "I used to wonder the same thing," he finally replied, staring off into the hallway.
Reid looked up. "Really." He arched an eyebrow. "With all due respect, I'm a genius with an IQ of 187, and most of our cases are solved by me noticing some tiny little detail that everyone else missed. Without me on the team, you guys wouldn't solve our cases half as quickly."
"That's the kind of thinking that lands you in trouble with a job as demanding as the BAU," Hotch reminded him. "Yes, the work we do is important, but your wellbeing is just as important."
"It's not though, is it?" Reid replied. "Sometimes, one tiny detail can mean another innocent person dies. That person - and their family, their friends, anybody who knew them - have their lives changed forever as a result of our incompetence."
"Getting sick isn't incompetence, it's human," Hotch stressed to him.
"When was the last time you took a sick day off work?" Reid challenged him, raising an eyebrow. "Never mind a sick day, when was the last time you took a vacation day?"
Damn. He's got me there, Hotch cursed. "I'm the unit chief, I have more work. It's different for me," he argued.
"You know, I used to think that too, but then I started talking to Anderson. As is turns out, unit chiefs are not required to always travel with their team on cases," Reid said, eyebrow still cocked. "All that extra work? You force it upon yourself for no reason."
Hotch sighed. "You're right. I don't always have to travel with the team. Maybe if I didn't, I wouldn't have lost Haley." The mention of his deceased partner was a low blow against Reid, but Hotch figured the man needed some incentive to accept Hotch's point of view. "But I have my reasons."
"Which are?"
"I travel with the team because it's my job to make sure that everyone is safe," Hotch emphasized, looking Reid dead in the eye. The younger agent didn't break the contact. "That includes you, Reid."
Reid was silent for a few moments, biting his lip. "I don't want to take much time off work," he said finally. "A few days. A week at most. How long did the doctor say I should stay here for?"
"Overnight," Hotch replied, glad that Reid had finally come to his senses. "But you'll also have medication to take for a while afterwards. No narcotics," he added, noticing Reid's panicked expression.
"Medication?" Reid echoed.
Hotch shrugged. "Vitamin pills. Iron tablets. A change in diet."
Reid groaned and flopped back down onto the pillow. "Uggghh."
Hotch watched him bemusedly. "What?" he asked. "You don't like the idea of changing your diet?"
Reid shook his head emphatically. "Surely the iron tablets will be enough? It's not like my red blood cell count is so low that even the tablets won't be enough." He paused. "It's not, right?"
"No," Hotch replied, "but you've got to do what the doctor says. Reid," he said sternly, seeing the younger man pout.
"I will, I will!" Reid said. "So how long before I can get back to work?"
Hotch studied him suspiciously. "You're very eager to go back."
"I feel like we covered this five minutes ago." Reid rolled his eyes.
Hotch held up his hands in surrender. "Fine. You're staying at home for a week," he told him. "The whole week, no exceptions. If we get a case, I'll have Garcia come round and set you up with a laptop so we can Skype. Do we have a deal?"
"Am I allowed to say no?"
"No."
"Then yes, that sounds excellent."
"Good," Hotch replied, standing up to leave. "You're probably tired, so I won't keep you much longer. Get some rest, okay?"
Reid nodded restlessly, eyeing a magazine on the other side of the room, near the door. "Can you get me that?" he asked.
Hotch shook his head. "No reading when you're meant to be sleeping." His eyes darted across to the magazine, noticing its predominantly-pink cover. "That's a Cosmopolitan, Reid. What would you want with that?"
"Remember what I told you? Diverse stimulation is the key," Reid replied with a crooked grin.
Hotch chuckled lightly, heading towards the door. "As it always is with you. Always looking for stimulation," he smiled. "Morgan will pick you up from the hospital tomorrow sometime. Call one of us if you need anything."
"Will do," Reid replied, yawning slightly.
He sounds tired, Hotch thought. The stress he's been under lately finally caught up to him.
The last thing he saw of Reid that night was the younger man's eyes closing, head resting softly against the pillow.
oOoOoOoOo
That night, Reid's dreams are filled with the screams of children and the blood of those he couldn't save. His dreams are filled with that every night, but this time the images are accompanied by the harsh lights of the hospital that seep through his eyelids and into his brain, casting a bright filter into his dreams, lighting up his nightmares. Nothing can escape his attention now.
He sits perfectly still in the middle of a beautiful, tranquil park. The bench he sits on feels cold and his body feels sluggish and heavy. For a while he simply sits, relishing in the beauty of his surroundings. In the distance, he can see his team laughing and joking with each other. His current team are there - Hotch, Morgan, JJ, Garcia and Rossi - as well as the one's he'd long said goodbye to. Elle, with the smile that had gradually become rarer and rarer after the assault that had eventually driven her away from the BAU, from Reid. Gideon, whose eyes did not carry the same heavy guilt and anguish that Reid had seen in them after the bombing. Emily, looking happier than Reid remembered seeing her in a long time. Blake, with a dazzling smile and a small boy at her side. Ethan, he remembers.
He doesn't bother to move and sit with his team. Instead, he smiles at them from afar, waving softly. The smile upon his face feels plastic and fake, but none of them seem to notice. They talk to him, but he remains at a distance. He can't bring himself to move to sit with them; he simply has no energy. It's as if he's become glued to the ground, the motion he can force himself to undertake the fake smile upon his lips. His team are so close, yet so far away, and Reid doesn't want to trouble neither them nor himself by pushing himself past his limit. They're all such good people, and he doesn't want to interfere with his petty personal problems. Instead he simply sits there pretending to be happy, looking around at the calm and tranquility - the control - around him.
And then Reid blinks, and the illusion is gone.
The park is no more, replaced by a dark, dirty alleyway. He sits alone on the cold, trash-laden ground, knees pulled up to his chest. There are a collection of bloodied needles and syringes scattered around his feet, and Reid jumps to his feet suddenly and steps on them, smashing them into the ground and breaking them.
"I don't need you anymore," he mutters, gritting his teeth as the syringes shatter.
"You have something better," a voice murmurs from behind him. Reid whips around and sees his team - his old team - standing behind him with condemning expressions. Elle. Gideon. Emily. Alex.
Reid blinks in confusion, and the scene changes again. This time he's in a white, painfully white room, barely lit by one swinging bulb right above his head. There are only a few pieces of furniture in the room, but each one has its own designated space marked out for it, each the perfect size for its relative object. A fridge, well-stocked with food. Overflowing with food, Reid realises. All sorts of junk food and soft drink is practically spilling out from the door. Photographs of all his bad memories are inexplicably taped to the door, its handle warm and inviting. Reid licks his lips hungrily, reaches out for the handle -
And then notices the sink and toilet in the other, smaller half of the room. There are words carved into each of them, words like MONSTER and GUILTY and WORTHLESS. Some of the insults he remembers from high school, others are too vulgar for him to even repeat in his mind. And still they call out to him, much more than the stocked fridge did. He needs the release, the control that comes with being cleansed and purged, and there is only relief as he takes his toothbrush from its holder and sticks it straight down his throat -
The starkly lit room vanishes, and the beautiful park comes into view. Reid is once again sitting completely still on the bench, his co-workers only a few yards away, none of them any the wiser. He feels more relaxed than he has in a long time, healthier, cleaner.
He knows this kind of behavior isn't natural, yet he doesn't want to bother his co-workers. They wouldn't understand the kind of release he got from it. All they'd want to do is make him stop entirely. Reid doesn't want to stop, he just wants someone to understand.
He sighs, smiling his fake, plastic smile to his team once again. What they don't know can never hurt them.
oOoOoOoOo
"You ready to go, Reid?" Morgan asked from just outside of the doorway. It had been twenty-four entire hours since Reid had collapsed, and according to the doctor, he was practically back to normal. Morgan was, of course, incredibly skeptic, as were the rest of the team. He'd made a promise to Hotch that if anything at all seemed odd or off about the younger agent, Hotch would know.
"Uh-huh," came the reply. Reid emerged from his old hospital room, looking much better than he had in a few months, Morgan realised.
"How're you feeling?" the older man asked Reid, offering to carry his bag for him.
Reid shook his head, clutching his bag a little closer to him. "Actually, I feel pretty good," he announced, fingers tapping with restless energy. "I think whatever medicine they gave me also cleared up my random sickness, because I'm not feeling any of that now. Can we go get something to eat?" he asked suddenly.
Morgan raised his eyebrows. "Did you not just have hospital breakfast?"
Reid looked at him disbelievingly. "Firstly, you know as well as I do that hospital food is a disgrace to all other sources of nutrition. Secondly, I had iron tablets after that, and they leave the most disgusting aftertaste." Reid wrinkled his nose. "It tastes like someone roughly inserted a massive metal rod down my throat."
Morgan winced. "That bad?"
"That bad, and then worse. I can't wait to eat something and get it out of my system."
"So where do you feel like going?" Morgan asked, unhooking his keys from his belt.
Reid paused. "Anywhere with orange juice," he declared.
"You're cheating on coffee with orange juice? Damn, Pretty Boy, how do you think your poor coffee feels?"
Reid visibly stiffened when Morgan called him 'pretty boy', causing Morgan to stop and frown. "Hmm? Reid?" he prompted, touching the younger man's shoulder lightly.
"Nothing. I just don't like being called that anymore," Reid answered, voice uncharacteristically tight.
"I…I can stop, if you'd like me to," Morgan said.
Reid smiled slightly. "Could you?" he asked, breathing a sigh of relief when Morgan nodded. "Sorry. I just get uncomfortable when you or someone else calls me that now. It never used to be an issue."
"Then why is it an issue now?" Morgan asked him.
Reid shrugged. "I don't know. I'm thirty-two years old now, I guess it just got a little…weird, after I hit thirty and all."
Morgan shrugged. "I think I'd be a little weirded out too," he admitted, prompting a bigger smile from Reid. "It would be kinda like Rossi calling me pretty."
"Ugh. The sheer mental image alone is enough to make me want to vomit," Reid groaned.
Morgan laughed with him, clapping the younger agent on the shoulder. "Come on, doc. We'll find a real good breakfast place and you can binge on terrible food all you want."
Reid grinned in response. "I can hardly wait."
oOoOoOoOo
A/N: Slow fanfic progresses slow. Next chapter has much more development of the storyline than these past three. Speaking of next chapter, it'll be a little while before the next update due to having another fic which I've accidentally neglected while writing this chapter.
About the orange juice - for me, at least, orange juice reduces the terrible aftertaste of iron tablets. I figured someone would ask me about that, so I thought I would mention it here.
Remember, reviews, follows and faves are all adored. You're all the reason why I feel motivated to update regularly… xD
Thank you for reading!
