Chapter 13

AUTHORS NOTE : Thanks guys. This is the first chapter to break 2k words :D Anyways, Would anyone be interested in heading over to fictionpress and Reading Ryan's Mom's backstory? I was kind of wanting to write something like that. If you've read anything like Wintergirls and Wasted you might be interested. I enjoy reviews, and I still don't own anything aside from Ryan.

"I'd kind of like to go see my mom." Reid said. He had been evaluating his life over the last several hours, and he determined that he needed to see his mother as soon as possible, in case he died on the job. Losing his life on the job hadn't been a real fear until now, when it almost happened to him.

"I was actually thinking about going to see my aunt soon too. Maybe we can make a big trip of it." Ryan said.

"Yeah, they say the best way to get to know someone is to travel with them, maybe it'd be a good way to kick off whatever it is we have going." Reid replied, taking Ryan's hand.

"Well we have two weeks, we're flying back to Quantico this afternoon, which gives us about a day and a half to sit around and do nothing. Technically we've got sixteen days because its Friday , and we have this weekend off anyways. So I say we relax and try to pack up at our respective homes tonight, relax and head out Sunday morning." Reid suggested.

Ryan was on his phone, using Google maps to figure out how long it would take them to get from Quantico to Vegas, and then from Vegas to Berkeley. Vegas was about thirty-five hours away.

"Lets leave early Sunday morning, the traffic won't be too bad, I mean like really early, like before the church crowd shows up." Reid suggested.

"I'm alright with that." Ryan replied "I have to head back to the hotel now to go get all my stuff together and maybe shower." Ryan smiled "I'll see you on the plane." With that he kissed Reid one more time, lingering a couple of seconds longer than he should have, and walked back to the hotel.

"You certainly look happy." Garcia said, she had her pink suitcase packed and sitting at the edge of the bed while she played on her laptop.

"Well that's because I did what you said." Ryan replied.

"You got your man?" Her eyes grew wide.

"Yeah!" Ryan replied, he was beaming with excitement. "We're taking our two weeks AL as soon as we get back and we're going on a road trip."

"Do you think that's good for him right now?" Garcia said, furrowing her brow.

"Well he wants to go see his mom and I want to go to home for a little while too, so we figured we may as well just go together because it's going to be a good way to see if things are going to work between us." He explained. "Don't tell Hotch or anyone though."

"You're secret is safe with me. " Penelope replied, making a zipping motion over her glossy lips.

When Hotch came and got Reid, Spencer tried to keep himself as stoic as possible. Hiding his excitement all of the way home and not crawling into Ryan's arms on the plane was difficult, he wanted closeness but he wasn't going to get it until later.

After everyone had gone home for the evening, Ryan and Reid lagged behind near Reid's car. "Do you want me to stay the night with you?" Ryan asked.

"No. I think I'd like to miss you for a little while, How about you spend the night Saturday so we can just up and leave Sunday?" Reid suggested.

"Yeah that sounds good, I'll come over Saturday night." Ryan replied tucking a strand of hair behind Spencer's ear.

"I'll see you then, I suppose." Reid smiled

Ryan kissed him, sweetly and with purpose, after all it would be their last kiss until Saturday night.

Reid thought he would be feeling a lot worse after being held hostage by a mad man with three personalities, but he felt surprisingly normal. Sure he felt scared, and sleeping was a bit of an issue because he would see Tobias Henkel holding a gun in front of his face whenever he closed his eyes, but sleeping had always been a bit of an issue for Reid, so what was the difference? He had been prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills anyways. "Geez, does everyone think I'm going to go home and kill myself?" Reid thought when he had been handed the papers earlier that day. He had told Hotch that he felt fine and that he wasn't going to take the pills. This little act of defiance bothered Hotch enough to take the papers from Reid and fill the prescriptions himself, taking the money out of Reid's paycheck.

When he arrived at home he checked his mail, carefully searching for anything from his mother. At the bottom of the stack, an envelope was there, waiting for him. He went inside and set all of the other mail on the kitchen table.

He carefully peeled the envelope off of the letter, and after unfolding the letter he read:

Dear Spencer

He certainly sounds like the kind of guy any mother would not like to see their child bring home, but I'll make an exception because he made you pancakes. Your father used to make me pancakes. When you find a man who makes good pancakes, you've got a keeper. As for your liking men, well I always sort of saw that one coming, I mean look at you. I could never see you making any woman happy, When you were in college, I always kept waiting for you to show up for a visit on the arms of some guy from the physics or engineering department with an announcement of "Mom, I'm gay" . Well anyways, I hope you can come out here soon, you know all of the doctors here like you.

Love always, Mom

Reid stared at the letter for a moment, not sure if he should feel relieved that his mother accepted him or offended that she had said that he could never please any woman. "Well that's probably true." He thought. He had never really tried to date girls, with that very thought in mind.

"I should probably write her back before I leave." He thought, dragging his bag into the laundry room. He opened the washer and began to empty the dirty clothes from his go bag into the machine, and after putting detergent in with the clothes, he turned it on and went to his bedroom.

Reid began digging through his drawers to find his pajamas which he had left at home, and when he found them, he grabbed a towel from the hallway closet and set forth to the bathroom, determined to take the most through shower he had ever taken in his life time.

Walking into the bathroom and approaching the sink, Reid took his contacts out and placed them in their case. He got close to the mirror and looked at the flecks of yellow in his brown eyes. "Always focus on the positive" Garcia had once told him. "I like these." He thought smiling at himself a little.

Once the water was warm enough, he stepped in and shampooed his hair twice, and very meticulously scrubbed away anything that could potentially be leftover dirt, in hopes that it would scrub away some of the memories and the fear. Once he felt as though he had scrubbed himself almost raw, he sat down on the floor of the shower to pull his thoughts together. He closed his eyes, brought his knees to his chest and rested his head upon them, wrapping his arms around his calves and letting the water pour over him. "Why am I so afraid?" He thought.

"Is it because I could die or lose my mind at any moment and I'd have someone around who would have to deal with that? I mean I'm pretty sure I'll be in the nut house with my mother by the time I'm thirty…What would my mother say?"

He opened his eyes for a moment.

"She would say that I'm still young and I need to live and experience life a little more before I shut myself away in my house with a stack of books. I need to go out and do something before my brain rots and I end up living with a bunch of people who tear at their own flesh and have fits at night. Alright. I'm going to make a commitment to this, I'm going to throw myself all in." He was feeling confident now.

"Its quite a gamble, but hell, I'm banned from casinos in Vegas , Laughlin and Parump." He let out a small laugh "I don't think there is any mathematical equation for this kind of thing, I just sort of have to go with it, which is a new experience for me. Just going with it." He closed his eyes again and let his mind go blank as he let the water go from hot to warm then to cool and finally cold.

When he finally got up and climbed out of the shower, he toweled off his hair and put on flannel pajama pants and a tee shirt. He left the bathroom and began to search for the brown hoodie he kept around for nights like this, when he was freezing his skinny ass off. "This is yet another reason why I need to put on weight." He thought, exasperated with himself.

That was when he noticed it. Laying on the floor next to his bed was Ryan's gray hoodie. He picked it up and held it to his nose, there was still some smell on it. "Good observation, doctor." He said to himself, slipping it over his head. He immediately felt a little better.

He rummaged through his messenger bag and pulled out the case containing his glasses and after placing them on his nose, he walked out to the kitchen and began to rummage around for food. He didn't keep perishable things around unless he knew he would eat them immediately, so that ruled out a lot of things. He began to dig towards the bottom of his freezer, the cold on his still wet hair giving him the chills. "Alright…frozen pasta dinner it is." He thought, pulling it out and taking the little trey from the box. "Cut film cover to vent." It read.

Spencer had always taken a silly joy in doing that. He grabbed a knife from the cabinet and proceeded to stab the film cover to death.

He placed it in the microwave for three minutes, took it out , stirred and placed it back in for another two and a half minutes. This act was hellishly mundane but for some reason , today Reid found it calming.

While the TV dinner remained in the microwave for the allotted one minute after cooking time, Reid went to the living room to search for the TV remote. He didn't feel like reading today, he wanted to vegetate and do the things that "normal" people did on Friday nights. Well normal people who don't have any parties or night clubs to go to or dates to go on do on Friday nights. "So basically what losers do." He thought, uncovering the remote from under a throw. He hit the power button, turned on a news station then went to go get his dinner from the microwave.

He somewhat mindlessly ate the frozen dinner, just to fill a void in his stomach and hopefully help him gain a little weight. "Maybe Mom is right, maybe I do eat like a bird and drink too much coffee." He thought when he was finished.

He pulled his laundry from the washer and placed it in the Dryer, then sat back down on the couch to watch cartoons. It was getting late and the "Kid's cartoons" where off the air and the cartoons intended for adults with their bawdy humor and mild swearing where beginning to take over the air waves.

He crawled into bed after folding his clothes, only to find that he couldn't sleep, that horrible thoughts where filling his head, that the dark was horrifying to him. After an hour or so of fighting himself about it, he turned on the lamp, grabbed his messenger bag and began to dig through it. He found the vials of dilaudid and the syringe that he had taken off of Tobias's dead body. He injected himself with the clear liquid and passed out with the lights on.