Disclaimer: I do no own Criminal Minds.
"The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved." – Mother Theresa
o o o o
20 May, 2009
Spencer cursed bitterly as the foot of his crutch caught on the corner of the counter and he lurched forward, the mobile he had balanced precariously between his ear and shoulder clattered to the tile floor. He managed to catch himself by grabbing the top of the island before he followed the cell phone to the floor.
"Hi! Calliope's answering machine is broken – this is her refrigerator! Please speak slowly and I'll stick your message to myself with one of these awesome glitter magnets. Oh! Oh! Or her epic new sushi magnets…" Spencer squeezed his eyes and gritted his teeth as pain shot up his leg.
By the time he'd managed to pick up the phone the window for leaving a message had long passed and, frustrated, he tossed it over the bar and onto the wilting couch in the living room.
"I hate crutches," he muttered to himself as he slowly maneuvered himself out of the kitchen and over to the couch. Edging himself down, he propped his leg up on a pillow and flipped the TV on absentmindedly. Grabbing the glass of water on the coffee table and popped the top off the prescription of Tylenol 3. After swallowing the pill, he hit his most commonly used speed dial and waited until the ringing gave way to her voicemail.
"Hi! Calliope's answering machine is broken – this is her refrigerator! Please speak slowly and I'll stick your message to myself with one of these awesome glitter magnets. Oh! Oh! Or her epic new sushi magnets…"
"Hey, Sweetheart. It's, um, it's me – Spencer. I, uh, I miss you. I guess I just keep calling when you're away from your cell. I'll try again later. I love you, Calliope. Very, very much, Sweetheart. Please, call me back."
Sighing, he leaned his head back, and dropped the phone in his lap. He knew she wasn't going to call him back, he knew that he wasn't just missing her when he called. She'd been avoiding his calls for the past seven days, avoiding the calls of García and Morgan, Emily and JJ. Even Dr. Sellers was avoiding his calls, though, two days ago, Spencer had managed to trick him into answering his cell phone by calling using Morgans' mobile when he was being carted back from the hospital after a post-op.
"Dr. Sellers? Wait! Please – don't hang up! It's Spencer."
"I know it's you, Spencer," Dr. Sellers sighed and Reid could hear him close a door on the other side of the line.
"What – what's going on? Calliope won't pick up my calls and she won't call me back. And you're avoiding me as well – I know you are. Why? Did I do something? Did I –"
"Spencer, you haven't done anything wrong," Dr. Sellers told him, the exhaustion evident in his voice. "What happened scared her. She loves you, Spencer. Seeing the reality of your job up close in person made her panic. If you had tackled that doctor half a second later or at a slightly different angle, she might have watched you die."
"She… I…" Reid shook his head to clear his mind. "Dr. Sellers, I love my job, but… but I love your granddaughter more. If I have to choose between my job and being with her, my decision could not be more clear."
"I know that, Dr. Reid. I do. I know that you'd –"
Reid could hear the door opening and closed his eyes as he heard her unrecorded voice for the first time since "I love you too, Spencer" in the ambulance five days ago.
"Grandpa? Who are you talking to?"
"Just a friend. You ok, Callie?"
"Um… yeah. I'm ok. What would you like for dinner?"
"There's some chicken in the fridge. How about I grill that up when I'm finished talking? You could make some rice or pasta to go with it, if you'd like."
"Ok. I'll get everything out. Say 'hi' to whoever you're talking to for me."
Reid wiped the water from his eyes before it fell, not wanting to cry in front of Morgan. He spoke again when he heard the door close, "Calliope's with you?"
"Yes. She hasn't gone home yet. She's staying with me."
"Is she ok? What'd the doctors say? How's she doing? Does she have PTSD?"
"She's doing all right. She's having nightmares, but she's so-so when she's awake. Much quieter then she usually is, but every day she gets a little bit better. The doctors say that it's too soon to tell if she has PTSD, but they have her on Xanax for the time being. They tried Ambien CR for a two nights, but took her back off because it caused her nightmares got worse."
"How bad are her nightmares?"
"Bad. She can't tell me what they're about. All I know is she screams herself awake every night. Always screaming for you. I have to go, Spencer. She's calling for me."
"Can I… Can I see her? I can't drive, but I can take a train to Frederi –"
"No. She doesn't want to see you yet. She's not ready. Spencer, I will let you know, I promise you that, but not yet."
"Ok, alright." Reid wiped his had over his face. "Thank you, Dr. Sellers."
"Goodbye, Spencer."
Reid shut the phone and handed it back to Morgan. "Thanks."
"You ok, man?" Morgan asked, looking at him briefly before turning back to the road.
"No," Reid answered honestly. "My leg's nothing compared to knowing that she won't answer my calls, to knowing that I can't hear her voice or hold her hand because she doesn't want to talk to me or see me."
"Do you know what you're going to do?"
"I don't know, Morgan. I honestly don't know."
"Reid, are you gonna leave us, man?"
"I don't want to. I don't… I mean… Ugh, I need to think, I need to think…" Spencer rubbed his temples viciously, trying to force his mind to think clearly. "I love her, Morgan, I really, truly love her and I hate it that I'm causing her pain. In a week, she'll most likely be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. She's screaming herself awake from night terrors every night. They have her on Xanax. She's quiet and sedate. Dammit, I heard her talking to Dr. Sellers – if I didn't know her voice, I wouldn't have even known it was her speaking. She isn't herself and she's hurting and it's all because of me and what I do for a living.
"I love my job, Morgan, you know that. I love being a profiler, I love working at the BAU, I love being part of this family. But it's hurting her…"
"She's important. She's special. We know that, Reid. We all see the difference in you since you've been with her. You've grown more in the past eight months than you have in the entire time I've known you. She's changed you, I think for the better, and, for better or worse, you've changed her.
"You can't walk away from her. But you can't walk away from this job, either. This job, whether we want it to or not, is part of all of us. Being Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid, Profiler for the BAU is who you are; walking away from this job won't change that. But, you can't walk away from her, either, because she's part of who you're becoming.
"What you have to do now is try and find a way to reconcile the two - to remain the man you are now and embrace the man you're becoming."
"Sounds difficult, challenging and all around exhausting," Reid sighed as Morgan pulled them into the parking lot of Reid's building. The engine died as Morgan pulled the keys out of the ignition and hopped out of the car. He grabbed Reid's crutches out of the back and helped his friend out of the car.
"C'mon kiddo, let's get you upstairs."
"I can get up by myself, Morgan. I'll take the elevator."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I've got it. Thanks for taking me, Morgan. It was a huge help."
"No big, Reid... Hey, kid."
Reid turned around awkwardly on his crutches and looked at his friend.
"You know my sisters, right? Sarah and Desiree."
"Yeah, I know your sisters. What about them?"
"I love my sisters, but when I was growing up I always to have a brother."
"Heh, I always just wanted a sibling."
"I think I finally know what having a brother would be like now, Spencer. Thanks."
"Yeah, you too, Derek." Reid smiled.
"I'll call and check on you later, kay?"
"Ok, Dad," Reid joked, rolling his eyes.
The phone buzzed in his lap and Spencer jerked back to reality, bringing the phone to his ear. "Calliope? Hello? Sweetheart? Hello?"
He pulled the phone down and groaned aloud, "How can anyone as smart as I am be so ridiculously stupid?" He hit a button on his phone and read the text message from Morgan before tapping out a response.
"Ok, I can't do this. See? I'm talking to myself. This is a bad sign. So why am I still talking to myself. Ok, stopping now."
He hadn't left his apartment since Morgan dropped him off two days ago and, quiet obviously, he was going stir-crazy. Hobbling across his apartment he grabbed his messenger bag, shoved the anti-inflammatory and Tylenol 3 in the bag, stuck his wallet in his pocket and snatched his keys. He managed to make his way down the elevator to the street with few mishaps and made it into a cab with relative ease.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
He shuffled up the long pathway to the sprawling bungalow, a feeling of calm overcoming him as he took a long, grateful breath of the mixed aromas from his muses' garden, listened to the jingling of her wind chimes.
Spencer stumbled twice on the three steps up to the porch and had to stop for a minute to readjust the wretched crutches before slipping his key into the front door lock. The air was eerily still and silence felt foreign as he closed and locked the door behind him. The first thing he did was press the button on the radio so that the recently familiar voice of Natalie Cole floated out of the speakers hooked around the house and brought the space to life the way he was used to it.
He'd known she wasn't going to be here when he set out with this destination in mind, but he needed to be here, surrounded by her presence. Slowly making his way to the master bedroom in the corner of the house, he ignored his hunger and dropped himself onto the bed, groaning as his knee jerked.
The bedroom was the same as the last morning he'd been in it. His pajamas were still in a pile next to the bed. Leaning over and picking them up, he slowly changed out of his clothes and slipped on the pajamas. He got into the bed, pulled up the blanket and grabbed the pillow he knew she used.
Spencer curled himself around the soft pillow, burying his face in it, inhaling her scent and, for the first time since he'd finished high school, cried himself to sleep.
A/N:
Hope you like it.
Thanks for reading.
Please tell me what you think, good or bad.
Love, Thalia
