Chapter one part thirteen

People who truly love us can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive us our worst sins. Rarely do you find someone capable of both. Jonathan Carroll

Catherine shifted in seat and tried to get comfortable, the doctors told her that it would take three to six weeks for the ribs to stop bothering her so much. She had been hesitant to take any pain medication from the doctor, even something mild like the Tylenol 3. She didn't want Spencer to have the temptation of drugs around him while they were away. Spencer pleaded with her to take the pills, he couldn't stand seeing her in pain.

"Catherine, what he is giving you is a mild pain killer. I was shooting up a derivative of morphine for over a month. With the dose he is giving you and your size I would have to take like six of those to even come close to what I was doing," he told her once the doctor left the room after her last exam.

"Six pills?"

"Bottles...six bottles Catherine. What he is giving you is nothing compared to what I was doing. I'm asking you to take them for yourself so you're not in so much pain, you can hardly move without wincing. I won't touch them...I don't even want them," said Spencer. Catherine eventually agreed to a small bottle of pills, one that would get her through two weeks and no refills.

Spencer was driving the car and he was trying to drive slowly, but the road was so bumpy it really didn't matter. They were heading up to Gideon's cabin for a week, maybe more just so they could each recover without too much hassle and stress. Spencer felt his hands shaking, it was withdrawal kicking in again and he was starting to feel tired.

"Do you want me to drive for a while?" asked Catherine seeing his hands shake. It was Spencer's car so she technically shouldn't drive it, but they were on a road in the middle of no where so she didn't think anything would happen.

"Could you?" he asked. Catherine nodded and he pulled off to the side of the road so they could switch sides. Spencer got out of the car and felt a wave of nausea shake him, the withdrawal effects were starting to get worse. He was almost a week without and it was really starting to get to him, it mirrored all the symptoms of a cold but it was like the cold from Hell. His body ached and he couldn't seem to get warm or sleep. He crawled into the passenger seat and wrapped his arms around his stomach. Catherine took the driver's seat and looked over at Spencer. He was very pale and was sweating like he had been running non stop. My poor baby. She put the car into drive and followed the map Spencer had gotten from Gideon. It took another hour to get up to the cabin and in that time Spencer had fallen into some sort of fitful sleep. Catherine parked the car and and shook Spencer lightly and he quickly jerked awake.

"We're here,"she signed. Spencer sighed and got out of the car than went over to Catherine's side of the car and opened the door for her since she was having trouble moving around. She unbuckled her seat belt slowly and he was able to help her out. God look us, a pair of invalids, thought Catherine has they walked to the front door. Spencer unlocked the front door and made Catherine sit down while he brought their bags in.

It was a nice cabin, it reminded Catherine of when she and her father went camping in California when she was a child. They were clearly in the middle of no where and she really didn't mind. It was peaceful, she imagined if she could hear it would just be birds and the wind in the trees. Spencer came back into the cabin with their bags and he sat them down. He shut the door and looked around.

"Gideon said it was remote." Catherine nodded. Spencer sighed and sat down across from Catherine and looked at her. More of her bruises were fading and changing colors she was starting to look like herself again, expect her eyes. She looked tired and worn down. She tries to help me and I push her away, she tries to to help her student and gets a beating to show for efforts. He looked at her sadly and took her hand.

"You ok...you look tired."

"Just sore. That road just sucked." He nodded and she got up and picked up her purse. "I'm just gonna take half of one."

She went into the bathroom and he heard a bottle opening and water coming out of the tap. Spencer bit his lip and laid down on the couch, he was tried and his stomach was in knots. Catherine came back into the living room and saw Spencer in a half doze on the couch, he hadn't been sleeping and he looked like he was coming down with a cold or flu. Catherine sat down next to him and touched his forehead he was burning up, but he was shivering like he was freezing. Catherine went and got him some water, a cold wet cloth and a blanket. She sat the water on the table and covered him up with the blanket. She brushed his hair back and put the cloth on his head. He groaned and opened his eyes.

"I feel sick," he muttered.

"I know," she signed. Spencer shivered again and started to cough. Catherine bit her lip and touched his forehead.

"This sucks," he signed.

"I know." He took her hand and squeezed it hard.

"I love you so much...don't deserve you..." he drifted off to sleep and Catherine sighed. She had been against him going cold turkey fearful of what could happen to him. She had suggested rehab so he could wean himself off slowly and not be in so much agony. Spencer told her that if the higher ups realized what he had been doing he would lose his job and he would lose his chance at any other job outside the government. He insisted that it had to be this way. Catherine felt herself getting sleepy from the drive and the half pill. She laid down on the small space left to her on the couch next to him. He coughed again and Catherine took his hand. She moved closer to him so she wasn't falling off the couch. Spencer draped one arm around her and pulled her close to him.

"Stay here with me," he mumbled. He felt her settle in next to him and she drifted off to sleep. He pulled her closer to him and he went to sleep.

…...

Spencer woke up a few hours later with Catherine still next to him. At some point during the nap their positions shifted, his leg was between her legs and their bodies were pressed together pelvis to pelvis. He could feel her breath on his neck and his hand was on her side. The desire for her was overwhelming, he knew though that he had no right to her in that way, not now. He took a deep breath and tried to untangle himself from her without waking her. She moaned and looked up at him half asleep.

"I needed that," she signed. "I didn't realize I was so tired."

"Me too." He felt slightly better. His body was still sore, but part of it was also from sleeping in such an awkward position. He didn't feel the fever anymore or the chills. Catherine got up slowly the nap was needed, but she shouldn't have slept on her side like that. The doctors had warned her to sleep on her back only and now she knew why. Spencer got off the couch and helped her up.

"Thanks." She looked up at him and he felt his breath catch in his throat. Catherine took a deep breath and just hugged him. He pulled her close and held her, she broke away from him slowly and looked up at him.

"We need to talk about some things Spencer...ok," signed Catherine.

"Ok. I know we do." Catherine sat back down in a chair and he sat down across from her.

"What happened to you in Georgia?" Spencer shifted in his seat, he knew she was going to ask about what happened to him and she had the right to know. He brought the nightmare home with him and made her apart of it.

"How much do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"JJ and I were going to interview a witness...we thought he was a witness to a possible break in tied to our murders. We got there and something just wasn't right." The sun was coming into the room and by the time he was finished the sun had started to set. Catherine had teared up several times and he had to stop at times to compose himself too.

"I don't know why I took the drugs, I don't why I did half the things I did over the past few weeks, but it was never my intention to hurt you though and you have no idea how sorry I am that I hurt you."

Catherine wiped her eyes, she hated this dead man who had inflicted all this pain and suffering on Spencer and yet Spencer didn't blame him. Catherine didn't care how many personalities he had, this man had beaten and drugged Spencer for almost three days, almost killed him and caused them both unmeasurable amount of heart ache.

"I...I am so sorry that he hurt you so much. Why didn't you tell me before...did you think I would think less of you somehow?" asked Catherine.

"I don't know...I thought less of me. I thought I knew how to work in the field and I got myself kidnapped, I could have gotten JJ killed, I killed a man who tried to kill me and saved my life at the same time. I was just...I was messed up and I didn't know how to deal with it." Catherine took his hand.

"No one thought less of you. I didn't. I was just so happy to have you home Spencer."

"I know that now...I just felt like I failed. I failed myself, my team, you and I was so tried of feeling that. Feeling like a failure, feeling weak, I didn't want to feel anything anymore."

"Did it work?"

"No." Catherine's hand was still in his and he squeezed it. They sat there for a long while trying to come up with something to say to each other.
"I wish you would have told me sooner," signed Catherine.

"I didn't know how. I shut you out and it wasn't fair to you. I just...you're the one normal thing I have...you've always been the one stable person in my life, even when we were apart...I knew that if I tried to find you that you would be there no questions asked and I took advantage of that. I profiled you and I used your feelings for me against you," admitted Spencer.

"What's my profile?"

"You have abandonment issues from your mother leaving you and self esteem issues from her belittling you and your inability to hear. Even though your father and grandmother gave you all the love and support you needed, you never got it from the person you really wanted it from. Once someone gains your trust and affection you open yourself up completely, you have no boundaries or limits. You don't shut people out even after they hurt you, you keep the relationship open in case they need support. It's why even after hurting you time and time again you let me back in. Most people would have ended this years ago...not you. I took your virginity and than I left you...you came back. I didn't speak to you for three years and you came back. I tell you I don't love and you let me back in."

"Should I stop letting you in?" That thought sent Spencer into a panic and he started signing faster.

"I...I need you to be open, because I have no idea how to be. I don't know how to let people in the way you do and trust them so completely...you're not the only one with abandonment issues in this room. I just shut people out people because it's easier than dealing with the feelings...the possibility that they're just going to leave again." He started crying again and Catherine hugged him.

"It was easier to push you way than deal with the feelings," admitted Spencer.

"What feelings?" asked Catherine.

"That I'm in love with you. That you coming back in my life has been one of the few good things that has happened to me in a long time. Good things don't happened to me Catherine, you know that." She didn't know what to say and they sat there for a long awhile trying to figure out what to do next.

…...

A few hours later Spencer went to take a shower and Catherine was sitting outside drinking her tea, it was really lovely out here you could see the stars since you couldn't see the lights from the city. Her dad used to take her and Spencer star gazing in the desert when they were kids. Maybe that was one of the reasons she couldn't shut Spencer out, so much of their lives were tied together. Her dad could never understand how William Reid had just left his son and never called or wrote him. Than again he could never understand why her own mother and his wife had just left them. Her own father never dated after after her mother left him, he devoted himself to her care and to his job as a elementary school teacher.

She asked him once when she was a teenager why he never dated and he just smiled at her and said the only two ladies he needed was her and her grandmother and both of them were a handful. Her grandfather had died when her father was a child so maybe that was why he threw himself into being a dad no matter who the kid belong too. He didn't have a dad and couldn't stand anyone else not having one. She pulled the sweater around her tighter, it was lovely out here but still too cold for March. She had told her dad she was leaving town, but not about her attack. She didn't want him to see her like that and she didn't want him to see Spencer in the state he was in. It would break his heart to see us how we are right now. Than again she had a feeling that Spencer wasn't telling his mother a lot of things right now too.

Spencer came outside with his own cup of tea and sat down next to her.

"Canis Minor," signed Spencer, Catherine was already looking at it.

"Cancer is out too," signed Catherine. He sipped his tea and looked at her, she was wearing his tan sweater and had pulled it tight around her. She looked so small sitting there and in the dim light you couldn't see her bruises.

"You know the constellations are going to be different when you go," signed Spencer.

He found her acceptance letter when he was picking up the apartment and she told him about it when he asked. A part of him knew that they would take her, she was amazing at what she did and he was so proud of her. Another part of him was going to miss her in ways he didn't understand. He knew that it was only for three months, but after that had happened three months was going to feel much longer.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to see them...the city lights will be too bright." Catherine shivered in the darkness. "You don't want me to go now."

"I want you to go because it's a once in a lifetime chance and I don't want you to go because I'm selfish and I'll miss you. You wanna go now don't you?"

"Yes. I haven't been overseas in years. Paul never wanted me to travel. I mean he did, but not like this. Leaving home for so long. It was one of the things that caused us to grow apart."

"You each had a very different idea of marriage." She wanted to experience things and he wanted her home.

"Yeah." It was getting too cold out here for her and she decided to head inside, Spencer followed her. She put her mug in the sink and looked outside. Spencer came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder.

"Will you be ok if I go?" asked Catherine. She turned around and looked at him. "If you don't think you're going to be ok, I won't go." I don't want you to go...but it's because I'm selfish and it's only going to hurt us in the long run.

"I'm going to be ok. You have to trust me. This is about you...I want this for you. I want us to be ok and I know that holding you back to make me feel better isn't going to help us," signed Spencer.

"I want you to be ok." He was making her cry again, after everything that had happened he was surprised that they had any tears left to cry.

"And I will, I promise...I know that if I screw up up again this is over, you will not come back to me and I need you to come back to me." Spencer bent down and hugged her careful so he wouldn't hurt her ribs. "Please don't cry...it's ok. It's going to be ok." Catherine wiped her eyes.

"I promise I'll come home to you."

"You leave in two months?" She nodded. "Let's just get through them...and we'll go from there."

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love. ~George Eliot

Notes-

Tylenol 3 has codeine, codeine is found in cough syrup and my understanding is that is a very mild pain killer compared to Vicodin or Morphine. So I imagine compared to shooting up Dilaudid, Tylenol 3 would do nothing for him.

Withdrawal from Dilaudid-According to the internet, withdrawal from Dilaudid is sometimes like having the cold from hell: aches and pains, fevers, cold sweats, vomiting or feeling like you have to, not sleeping. They say going cold turkey on this can lead to some serious health issues and that rehab is suggested. However, I imagine checking into rehab might not have ended well for poor Spencer if anyone had found out. *chiefstruassisabitch-cough

The car-The Deaf have cars with special mirrors and sensors that help with detecting noises. The VW would not have that, so techincally she shouldn't drive his car.

March constellations-Cancer and Canis Minor are very bright that time of year.

Thank you for all the good reviews and adds.