Sorry it's been so long, guys! Schedules clash sometimes! Anyway, here's chapter 4, hope you like it! Feel free to review! :)
Reid sat back down at his desk, now holding a steaming cup of coffee. He could feel the heat through the ceramic of his coffee mug, the one Garcia bought him for his last birthday. She'd gotten a plain white mug and painted it herself. It had a blue and green polka dot pattern, and said '#1 Genius' on it in bold black lettering. He smiled as he took a large sip of the brown liquid (which was admittedly loaded with quite a bit of sugar), and set it down on his desk.
He looked over to Garcia, who was back sitting with them and playing online poker again. He watched over her shoulder for a few minutes, seeing her win three consecutive hands. He was just going over the odds of her pulling off a full house in his head when she spoke up. He was so focused that he jumped.
"So my number one genius, I never asked any of you. How many of my cookies are left?"
"Oh...um, when I left, or more like escaped, those two were fighting over the last one," Reid said, pointing in the general direction of Morgan and Prentiss's desks.
"And how many did you eat?" Garcia asked him, smirking.
He looked away from her with a sort of sheepish look on his face. She could see that his cheeks were tinged pink.
"Um...seven," he mumbled into his cup, taking another sip.
"Seven?" Garcia repeated incredulously, raising her eyebrows.
"Well Morgan ate nine!" Reid responded quickly.
"You ate nine cookies?" she asked Morgan, who had joined them. He was suddenly very interested in looking through one of the drawers of Reid's desk, pulling out and examining the various pens he found.
"Prentiss ate a fair few herself," he said, attempting to shift the blame just as Reid had done.
"Did she eat nine?" Garcia asked him. Reid almost laughed at how much she sounded like a mother scolding a child.
"Well, no but-" he said, before being cut off by Garcia's stern glare."Yeah, nice try Mr. Overprotective," Prentiss said jokingly. Morgan glared at her and resumed twirling around in his chair again. She laughed and continued her paperwork.
Reid smiled to himself and reached into his bag, pulling out a hard cover book and cracking it open.
He had only read 47 pages, when he was distracted by a series of loud beeps coming from somewhere to his right. He looked up and saw Prentiss digging in her bag.
She pulled out her phone and mumbled, "Forgot to put it on vibrate." She pushed a few buttons on it, and Reid looked back to his book, intending to find his place and resume reading. But before he could continue, Prentiss yelled, "Guys...come look at this text I got from JJ!"
Reid could immediately tell something was wrong. Prentiss sounder worried and confused, and when he looked up at her she looked paler than usual.
He threw his book down on his desk and walked over to her, Garcia and Morgan on his heels. When he got there, she offered up the screen of her phone and he read the message on it.
Emily, something's going on. I don't know what yet, but it's bad. If you don't hear from me in two hours, something happened. -JJ
"What does that mean?" Morgan asked.
"She's at the hospital for Brandon's surgery," Emily said slowly. "Could that mean something went wrong with the surgery?"
"No," Reid said. "I think it's something bigger."
"Like what?" Garcia asked nervously.
"I don't know, but it's got to be something. JJ wouldn't contact us like that if it wasn't."
They all looked around at each other for a few moments. Reid's mind was whizzing, trying to come up with something...
"Team. Conference Room," Hotch's voice came from behind them suddenly, and they wheeled around to face him. To any outsider, he would seem perfectly fine. But they could tell that something was wrong. Something bad. He walked down the hall toward the round table room, Rossi following him, looking just as confused as they were.
They all looked at each other again, wondering the same thing. Were Hotch's sudden demand and shaken appearance and JJ's text related?
They all quickly strode up stairs and caught up to their team leader. Morgan walked boldly up to Hotch and said, "Hotch, this doesn't have anything to do with JJ, does it?"
Hotch's surprise was evident to them all, his eyebrows shooting up slightly. "What makes you say that?"
"I got a text from JJ a few minutes ago," Prentiss said. "And we can tell something's wrong."
Hotch remained quiet as he ushered them all in the Conference Room, closing the door behind them. He walked slowly up to the front of the room, standing exactly where JJ usually stood. Reid felt a sudden pang of uneasiness.
Hotch looked around at them all for a moment, then settled his gaze on Prentiss. "Would you please read out the text she sent you?" he asked. At that point, Reid could tell that something was seriously wrong. Hotch was speaking in an almost sad voice. And his left eye was twitching slightly, something that only happened in the most stressful situations.
Prentiss's fingers, clumsily shaking, fumbled over the screen until she found what she was looking for. She relayed the message in a slightly shaky voice.
Reid watched Hotch carefully as Prentiss read. Hotch began nodding slowly, finally heaving a great sigh and sitting down at the table once she finished. He rubbed his eyes for a few seconds before speaking.
"While I was in my office, I received a phone call from Lonesome Pine Hospital," he said, not looking anyone in the eye.
"That's the hospital Brandon is at," Reid supplied.
"Is Brandon okay?" Garcia asked, her anxiety clear.
"Well, that depends," Hotch said darkly.
"What do you mean, that depends?" Morgan demanded.
Hotch sighed again. "I talked to a man by the name of Seth Matheson. He's the hospital administrator."
"Why would he be calling you?" Prentiss asked apprehensively.
"He wanted to inform me that he believed that one of my agents in seemingly...mentally unstable. And he's holding her for a 72 hour psych eval," Hotch told them.
A stunned silence surrounded them all. JJ, mentally unstable? It couldn't be true, they'd all seen her every day. They talked with her, worked along side her. She was fine...right?
Reid watched all of his teammates, registering the looks of shock, disbelief, and anger cross their features. Then he watched sadness and understanding appear.
"She... she did seem a little off lately," Garcia sniffed sadly. A few of the others nodded.
"Wait...you can't honestly believe that!" Reid said loudly. "There must have been some mistake! She was fine!" The others looked at him. He could tell that they thought he was holding onto denial.
"Hotch, what happened that they decided they needed to hold her?" Reid asked the man sitting a few chairs away from him.
"Well, there is apparently no real Brandon. They believe she just made him up. And when JJ asked to see the cameras so she could probe he was real, and all she saw was herself...she became hysterical. That and the fact that they found a bottle of anti-depressants in her bag."
"No Brandon," Prentiss said quietly, her eyes wide. "She's been talking about him for months."
"Did anyone know she was on anti-depressants?" Rossi asked. They all shook their heads.
"Come on you guys," Reid said quietly. "How can you all just believe this? And give up on JJ?" He looked around at them all in disbelief. Happy go lucky JJ. The only one who called him 'Spence'. One of the only people who could always make him smile. It wasn't possible.
Morgan, who was sitting next to him, clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Stress of the job can get to anyone, kid.""No," Reid said firmly in response, standing up and nearly upsetting his chair. He suddenly felt like he had to be doing something to help her. "I think I might know what mentally unstable is like more than anyone here, and I know that JJ definitely isn't."
He glared around at them all for a few seconds before walking out of the room. He was determined to prove them wrong. And to get one of his very best friends back, her name cleared.