Agent Jerau glanced at her watch for the third time that morning, the files she had selected for the day already waiting neatly in a pile on the desk, next to her laptop. The silver-corded watch's hand showed seven minutes past ten, and deciding that enough was enough, JJ flipped open her cell phone and speed-dialed Reid's number.
On the other side of the line, the phone rang one time, two times, four times - and went to voicemail.
JJ hung up the phone, her expression troubled. Reid was supposed to come back to work that Monday morning. No one had seemed too concerned when he didn't show up at 8:30 as usual, but they always reviewed case files at ten a.m sharp, and ninety minutes was a bit too long to be late for.
With an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach, JJ rose to her feet and left her office, the files remaining on the desk. She walked to the unit chief's office and knocked on the frame before walking in through the open door.
Hotch looked up at the media liaison from his day-planner before his gaze darted to the clock across the room. "We're starting the briefing?"
"Ah, yes," JJ replied quickly. "Hotch, have you heard from Reid? I thought he was supposed to come back to work today."
"He was. He called yesterday and said he needed another day."
"Is he all right?" JJ asked immediately as Hotch walked up from his desk and she fell into step with him on the catwalk.
"He's trying to be," Hotch answered with a small sigh. "He should start working tomorrow. We'll see how he's doing then."
JJ nodded as Hotch continued through the conference room. "I'll be there in a minute," she muttered before walking back to her office to retrieve the case files. The feeling in her stomach had just gained a considerable amount of weight, and it would remain there until the end of the day when she would finally be able to hear her friend's voice.
Thousands of miles away from the BAU Headquarters in Quantico, Reid was trying hard not to turn back and walk away from the old main building of Bennington Sanitarium. He had left his rental car at a far spot in the hospital's parking lot, and now as his feet carried him through the main building on the pleasant, curving path, he was feeling more and more irritated at the distance from the lot to the hospital at each step. He had had very contradicting feelings about this visit to his mother. Ever since he had returned home from Georgia, one side of him longed to see her, to look her in the eye and see for himself if she was, after seven years, still resentful at him. Another, more nagging side of him openly feared the encounter. Layers of guilt had built up within him through the years; for not being able to take better care of her, for admitting her to the hospital, and for barely ever visiting her. His mother was, and would always be, closest to Reid's heart, but fear –fear of inheriting her illness, and of facing his own guilt, seeing the accusation in her mother's eyes – it had distanced Reid from her, and as much as he regretted it, one part of him relished the mileage.
The gravel gritting under his feet at each step, Reid kept his gaze down as he strode up the path, hands buried deeply into his pockets. He ignored the caretakers and patients enjoying the beautiful autumn air out on the green grounds. He did not know what he was going to say to his mother; he did not even know why exactly he was here at Bennington at this moment. His inability to assess to his own emotions was creating unfamiliar feelings of frustration which he did not know how to deal with. As he approached the curving marble steps at the entrance, Reid glanced at the stone façade of the building with an inexplicable sense of hatred. The building almost seemed like a prison; one he would not be able to get out if he stepped in.
Just like his mother... He had taken her away from her home, her books, her life, and locked her up here in this prison – one with a beautiful garden and a gentle staff, but a prison nevertheless.
Reid had to stop at the gates as the guilt within him resurfaced. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to fight off the feeling. Keep rational, he instructed himself. It was the right thing to do; I couldn't take care of her. This is not a prison; she's well taken care of here.
Forcibly clearing his mind of foreboding thoughts, he straightened his back and walked into the building with long, determined strides.
"Dr. Reid! What a nice surprise!"
He nearly winced at the gleeful voice of Dr. Jensen as the red-haired woman came through him, hands open at the sides and a big smile on her face. Halting at his step as the doctor approached, Reid gave her a stiff wave, one hand embedded in the pocket of his jacket.
"Hello, Dr. Jensen."
"Hello," she replied, smiling warmly as she clasped her hands together. "I'm guessing Diana doesn't know you're here."
"No, she doesn't," Reid answered quickly, his forced confidence already beginning to fade. He glanced through the main hall just behind the archway.
"And you're here to see her?" Dr. Jensen suggested slowly, raising her eyebrows. Reid turned to her confusedly.
"Of course."
"Ah well," the woman said, still smiling, "Last time you were here, you pretty much disappeared without seeing her." Her voice was light, somewhat teasing, and inexperienced as Reid was, she almost sounded flirty.
"I had work to do," he replied briskly. He disliked the doctors' always cheerful attitude; as though their shiny smiles could fix all the broken minds and all the broken hearts in this facility. Dr. Jensen's smile faded.
"Of course."
Standing like a statue, Reid nodded towards the hall. "Is my mom in there?"
"I think she's in her room," Dr. Jensen replied, her eyes suddenly watchful as she regarded Reid. Occupational habit. He wondered, for the briefest second, if he was acting like this too as a profiler.
"Thanks a lot," he said quickly, kinder this time. Dr. Jensen nodded at him and Reid turned to climb the stairs to the third floor.
As he reached the quite, chilly stairhead, he took a moment to stop and breathe deeply. In the face of an unwanted task, his mind was strangely empty. Swallowing, he turned and began walking through the familiar way to her mother's room.
The soft carpet drowned the sound of his footsteps, and an eerie feeling enveloped his heart as Reid reached room 308. He raised a hesitant hand and knocked.
He did not hear anything from the inside. He knocked again, and twisted the doorknob.
"Mom? It's me, Spencer."
The door was, not surprisingly, unlocked, and Spencer saw his mother standing by the bookshelf, looking at him over her shoulder with a confused frown. For a long second, the mother and son regarded each other; then, Diana left the book in her hand back on the shelf and hurriedly turned around, taking a couple of steps towards Reid as she pulled together the sides of her pink robe.
"Spencer, what are you doing here?"
"I'm here to see you," Reid slowly admitted the obvious. He closed the door and stood uneasily as Diana's blue eyes scrutinized him. Reid avoided her gaze as he waited for her to speak.
Diana crossed the room in three long strides and stood right in front of him. Her cool hands gently cupped his gaunt face. "Spencer, whatever happened?"
At the concern in her voice, Reid felt the hesitancy in his heart loosen. A lump formed itself in his throat, and he swallowed.
"I- Mom, something – I wanted to – see you," he stammered, his eyes wandering on the floor. Diana's hands slowly came down. She gestured towards the couch by the window, and did not speak until Reid took a seat next to her.
"Something bad has happened, hasn't it?" she asked knowingly, eyes searching her son's face as though she was already reading the story from its paleness and the lines and shadows.
Reid forced himself to speak.
"A case – went really wrong," he began hesitantly. When his mother kept silent, he felt that he needed to continue. "I – me and JJ went to interview a witness, but – the man we thought was a witness… turned out to be the uns—the bad guy we were looking for."
He looked up to see that the distant look in her mother's blue eyes had softened. He sighed.
"I messed up, Mom," he admitted, staring at his lap. "I suggested to JJ that we split up in order to catch him, but…"
"But what, baby?" Diana asked patiently. "What happened?"
Reid shook his head, taking a deep breath to expand his constricting chest. How could he put into words what had happened? I was kidnapped. I was tied to a chair. I was beaten; I was drugged; I was actually killed and revived. How could he voice these phrases? He was not used to being the subject of passive voiced sentences; the wording was foreign, it felt as though he was talking about someone else – always someone else, the people, the victims in the case files he reviewed. Not himself.
"You've been sick."
His mother's voice brought him out of his reverie, and he smiled, just a little.
"Yeah, I've been very sick," he confirmed with a nod. It wasn't too difficult to say compared to the other phrases.
"You look terrible," Diana observed with a touch of worry in her voice. "How long have you been sick?"
"About a week. But I'm better now."
It was not a lie; as he had gone though withdrawal, it had been a week of pure agony. Only the day before had he been able to sleep just a little better, probably only because his body was exhausted after such an intense period of readjustment to a drug-free system. Nevertheless, tired as he was, he was indeed feeling better than he had felt since Georgia- physically, at least.
Diana's gaze rose to her son's eyes and remained there. She sighed before speaking. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to take care of you."
Spencer looked at her carefully.
"Would- would you have come if you knew I was sick – I mean, if you could?"
Diana's eyes narrowed under the deepening frown. "Of course I would, Spencer. What kind of a question is that?"
"Mom, are you angry with me?"
Diana Reid blinked confusedly as she stared at her son's anxious face for a few long moments. "Why would I be angry at you?" she asked slowly, lingering on each word. Reid could see that she was getting ready to put up her defenses. He licked his lips and answered quickly, afraid that the sudden courage would desert him.
"For admitting you here, to Bennington."
There, he had finally asked it. His gaze followed her as his mother rose to her feet, once again pulling at her robe, tying the belt at the waist as she paced slowly, hands in her pockets.
"Did you come here to ask me this?"
Reid shrugged uneasily. "I don't know. I think so, but not just for that – I – I needed to see you."
"What is it that you really need?" Diana asked, her voice growing distant once more. Reid licked his lips again.
"I want to know if you're blaming me for being here."
Diana stared at him. "You're asking for my forgiveness," she stated, mercilessly blunt. Reid sighed, bowing his head.
"I don't know, Mom," he admitted quietly. "Do I need it?"
"Spencer, you're confusing me." Diana was clearly growing frustrated. "Did you come here to ask me if I resent you?"
"Yes," Reid affirmed with a nod. "Yes, that's the main reason."
With dread in his heart, Reid waited for her answer. Diana threw him a fierce look before turning on her heel and walking to the window.
"Some days, I remember my students," she began, her voice brisk. "I remember the classrooms. The exam sheets; the seminars. Teaching." She turned from the window and stood, facing her son. "Some days, I remember my study in our house. Sometimes I actually think I'm there. I see you,too. Sitting on the carpet at my feet, with a copy of Voltaire on the floor… and your little hands on the sides of the pages." She paused to look at Spencer's hunched form. "I miss the old days a lot, Spencer." She paused again, almost hesitantly before adding, "I miss my life."
Unable to meet her eyes, Reid nodded.
"Sometimes I wish you hadn't brought me here; I wish that I had my life to live, without being watched like a hawk each and every second. I wish I was... free."
I know that you do, Mom. I know.
It was all Reid could do to keep his eyes from watering. He was not going to break down; not now, not in front of his mother. He was not that weak.
"But when I come around and think in my right mind," Diana continued after a long silence, "I know that this is better for me." She looked at Reid. "And for you, my son."
She paused for a few seconds before she walked back to the couch and sat down. "Tell me what happened."
The lump in his throat was now too big to swallow; Reid cleared his hurting throat. "During the case?"
"Yes."
Reid rubbed at his eyes. He felt tired; physically and mentally. His mother had not answered his question, and her acknowledgment of his reasons did nothing to ease the weight in his heart. But he didn't have the strength to push the matter any further.
"We split up with JJ," he answered her question in a defeated manner, "And Tobias – Tobias Hankel; that was the bad guy's name – he caught me off guard. He... knocked me out... and took me to a shack. He held me there for two days."
Speaking in the active voice was easier, and when he left out the specifics, his ordeal did not sound too horrific to Reid's own ears. But when he looked up, he could see in his mother's enlarged eyes that she was already filling in the blanks in her mind.
"Oh God," she breathed softly, reaching forward and placing her hand on the side of his head. "Oh, my poor baby." Her long fingers began caressing his hair.
His eyes glistening, Reid stared into his mother's eyes. On Diana's part, he knew that it was a genuine gesture of affection, but her hand felt strangely cold and coarse on his forehead, as though it was the hand of a complete stranger. For a brief moment, he remembered the warmth of Garcia's hand as she had held his; and with a sudden feeling of aversion, he pulled back from his mother's touch.
Diana quickly pulled her hand and placed it on her lap as Reid abruptly rose to his feet.
"I - I should go now. I have a flight to catch."
Diana nodded without rising from her seat. She did not offer her son kind words of goodbye, and Reid remained on his feet, right in front of her, feeling his heart swell at his mother's distant manner. For the thousandth time he swallowed the lump in his throat to ease his breathing, and with more sadness in his heart than he had ever felt, he turned, and left the room without another word.
"Spence, finally! I've been trying to reach you all day. Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine," Reid replied truthfully, relaxing on the long couch in his living room. "Is there a new case? I'm supposed to start working tomorrow."
"No, I know. There's no new case; I just wondered if you're okay. I was - a bit worried when Hotch said you asked for another day."
"Everything's fine," Reid reassured his friend. "I needed to take care of something, that's all."
"All right, then." JJ paused on the other end of the line. "You sound good, Spence. I'm really glad to hear that."
"Yeah. Thanks."
"I'll see you tomorrow morning, then. Good night."
"Good night, JJ."
He hung up the phone and tossed it aside. Slowly, he rose to his feet and made his way to his bedroom with a yawn, stretching his arms. He could not believe how much better he felt already; he could feel the pleasant pressure on his eyelids, and the bed was, for the first time in a week, calling out to him. Leaving the hallway lights on and the bedroom door open, he lay down on his side, closed his eyes, and his lips twitched at the lack of pain in his body.
The last thing he thought before he drifted off to sleep was why he had not dared using such a little amount of Dilauded before.
A/N: I've been wanting to write a scene between Diana and Reid for a long time now; their relationship have very interesting dynamics and I really like exploring it. Actually, I think I'll write another fic specifically on that issue. Sometime. What do you think about Reid in this chapter? And about Diana?
Thanks so much for all the lovely comments and the encouragement to continue. I'm still enjoying writing this very much; it would mean a lot to me if you let me know if you're still enjoying reading it!