Thanks for the support!
Chapter Eighteen:
Reid and Iris played chess during the evening on Friday. They had played on Wednesday, and while she wasn't particularly good, it was something to do while they talked.
"What's the weirdest part of being back for you?" she asked.
"For a long time, it was textures," he said. "Now it is smells."
"I know," she said. "This place smell so sterile. Not a whiff of perfume on the staff. I think it must be a policy."
"It is ridiculous what you take for granted," Reid said. "I don't have to live in a place that smells like my own waste."
"I don't care what they say," she said as she moved a pawn. "You had it worse than me."
"You were in a sex cult, your whole adult life," Reid said as he moved his knight.
"But I could shop," she said as she moved another pawn. "I was allowed clothes and they'd let me drink. If I tried to go for help, say in a shop at Paris, someone was always watching to see if my name would come up and they'd grab me before I could find safety. I was on a leash, but it was a long leash."
"Someone should have found you," Reid said as he took a pawn.
"My own parents didn't believe I was abducted," she said as she moved her bishop "I was an angry kid. They thought I fled to New York City. My parents divorced when I was young and my father barely around. Always sent the alimony checks on time so my mom and I were fine financially. But my mom was obsessed with crime dramas and watched them all day instead of working. She claimed she was unemployable."
"Sounds like clinical depression," Reid said as he castled.
"That what the other women said. See, I had friends in the cult. They taught me tricks and mothered me better in some ways than my own mother."
"You speak so flatly about all of this," he said. "It's like you're not the one who experienced it."
"My shrinks say it's my coping mechanism," she as she moved her knight. "What's yours?"
"I'm not really coping," he said. "I'm just adjusting to new challenges every day. I'm still terrified he will come back and take me, even though I killed him."
"I know that feeling," she said. "Every strange man with the slightest hint, I don't know what the PC term is but I call it "Europeaness" and I seize up."
"Do I look European to you?" he asked.
She stared at him.
"You look tormented," she said. "You may be of European ancestry, but you don't carry yourself with a sense of arrogance, I can see in men."
"I feel hunted," he said as they moved more pieces. "Hunted by my past. I feel like someone wants to take my clothes and put me back in that basement. I wonder if that person is me because I'm afraid I won't adjust to the real world."
"That is some deep s**t," she said. "I'd take sixteen years in a sex cult over what you went through any day of the week."
"It's not a game, Iris," he said. "We went through horrible things and I wouldn't want to go through what you did."
She looked at the chess board.
"I'm not a good player. One gentleman whipped me for every pawn I lost. The rule was he could he only play one game with me. See again, the bastards who kept me also had a code of conduct. They couldn't hurt me too badly, otherwise I'd be damaged goods."
"I honestly don't know anymore," he said. "You make it sound like it wasn't as terrible as what I went through, but I sense you are holding a lot back."
"You know," she said. "You may think you're not an agent anymore, but you still have the skills. You read people like a book. You didn't forget how to read, Spencer Reid."
Reid just looked at the chess board. He was ahead by six moves. Talking with Iris made him feel good as it helped contextualize his experiences. They both needed a lot of help and maybe they could help each other.
…
Reid dressed in sweatshirt and sweatpants, for Morgan, as his regular therapists were off on the weekend. He walked to the visitor room where there was a therapist in the corner and Morgan smiling like everyone else who visited him. Reid wondered why that unnerved him so much.
"Hey Reid," he said. "It's good to see you."
"Hi Morgan," he said. "It's good to see you too."
Reid sat down.
"Emily gave me a picture," he said. "It looks like you have a girl."
He smiled.
"Her name is Sharon and she is more of a handful than her brother. I always imagined having two boys, but I'm happy to have her, even if she's in her terrible twos."
"At the age of two a child can understand a lot more of what they hear but can't express it back. They also are developing a sense of independence."
Tears began to fill Morgan's eyes.
"God, I missed you," he said. "I missed you so much."
"But I'm not always a fact machine anymore Morgan," he said and gulped. "I tried to kill myself because I felt so damaged and terrified, I couldn't be the Spencer Reid you knew and loved."
"Emily told me," Morgan said. "No one is expecting you to be the same person after what you went through. Trust me I know. Torture leads to change, but it doesn't have to be bad. You become stronger after you survive."
"But I didn't want to," Reid said as his eyes filled with tears.
"I know you didn't, but I also know you scared yourself. You are a phenomenal person. You'll survive this like you've survived every other challenge you in your life. I have faith, even if you don't."
"I've never been more afraid of myself," Reid said.
"Remember when you hit that softball into the outfield?" Morgan asked.
"How could I forget," he said. "My one shining sporting achievement."
"You've just got to take all that emotion raging in your body and channel it into something good. You may not feel like it, but I know you're capable of overcoming all of this and coming out a man who may be a little different, but still deep down you're the Spencer Reid we know and love. I love you man.
"I love you too, Morgan," Reid said and offered his hand.
Morgan held it and Reid put his other hand on top of it. At first it felt uncomfortable, but he needed his touch he needed to prove what he was capable of. Reid needed fight back against what was hurting him mentally.