"Hey Spence, um, just calling to see if you're alright. Call me when you get this," J.J. said before hanging up her phone.

She continued into the conference room where the team was sitting down to debrief yesterday's events.

"Where's Spencer?" Emily asked as she looked around the table.

"He's taking yesterday pretty hard. He won't answer the phone," J.J. said sadly.

"Poor kid, I've been in his shoes before and it isn't a good feeling," Rossi said empathetically.

"I think we've all been there at some point," Luke agreed.

They all nodded as J.J. looked at her phone again. Still no text or call. A beeping sound alerted someone in the room to a message. She looked up to see Emily reading her phone. Her eyes grew large and confusion etched over her face.

"Wait a minute … this can't be right … I just received the report that 7 bodies were recovered from the scene. Six are confirmed to be SWAT officers and one female body, suspected to be Roberta Lynch," Emily said with a furrowed brow.

"What? What about Lynch?" Rossi asked as his face paled.

Emily looked up at him with her jaw dropped.

"He set this up. He had an escape route," Matt said.

"So, he's still out there," Tara said, stating the obvious.

"But he got everyone he would've wanted … his biological father, his mother, his daughter … there's no one left," J.J. said.

"Not everyone, he still has me left," Rossi said as the group looked to him. "I'm the only one left he hasn't killed."

"Tara and Luke, I want you to make calls. We need surveillance on all our family members. J.J. and Garcia, go check on Reid, bring him here. The rest of us let's try and figure out his next move."

Everyone nodded and got up from their seats to get to work.

(xxxxx)

J.J. knocked on the door agq ain. Spencer still wasn't answering his phone.

"Spence, open up, please. It's about work," she said through the door.

"Can't we just open it?" Penelope asked, worry etched on her face.

"Give him a second. I don't want to invade his privacy," J.J. said as she knocked again. "I know you want to be alone, but we have a case."

After a few more knocks and no sound on the other end of the door, J.J. sighed and gave in. She dug into her pocket, pulled out her key and unlocked his door. It swung open and both girls gasped at the sight of Spencer unconscious on the floor.

"Oh my God!" Penelope cried as she started dialing 9-1-1.

J.J. dropped to her knees and placed her shaking hands on Spencer's throat searching for a pulse.

"He has a pulse," she said as she slowly turned Spencer's head toward her. "He's bleeding from the nose."

She could hear Penelope talking to the operator faintly in the background, but she was too focused on Spencer and her fear of losing him to pay full attention.

"Spence, can you hear me?" she said as she gently ran her fingers through his hair.

Suddenly, his body began convulsing violently. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and his throat let out a terrifying gurgling sound.

"Oh my gosh! Oh … he's seizing now … oh … oh," Penelope cried from the doorway.

J.J. reached out and loosened his tie, then slipped her hands around him, trying her best to turn him onto his side. She found this to be difficult considering the severity of his seizing. It was like trying to turn a car on its side.

"Please hurry!" Penelope sobbed.

"I'm right here, everything's ok," J.J. kept saying to Spencer as she tried to hold him on his side.

"They are nearby! They'll be here any minute!" Penelope called out.

It seemed like hours before Spencer's seizing ended and the EMT's arrived to rush him off to the hospital. J.J. sat shaking in the ambulance as she watched the workers hooking him up to machines and securing an oxygen mask to his face. Next to her, Penelope had called Emily to tell her what was happening.

"Go ahead Garcia you're on speaker," Emily said.

"Reid's hurt," she blurted.

"What?" Emily said suddenly giving her full attention to the call.

"He was unconscious when we got there. I don't know for how long. He's bleeding from the nose and he had this awful seizure," Penelope gasped as she covered her mouth. "They think he has internal bleeding of the brain."

"Ok, you and J.J. stay with him. Keep me updated constantly," she ordered.

Though she sounded calm, Penelope could hear the fear in her voice. This was going to shake the team something terrible, but she also knew that it was the fire they would need under their asses to find Lynch. Now it was beyond personal.

(xxxxx)

At the hospital, they were asked a bunch of questions but neither of them had the ability to make decisions. They would need Diana for that. Penelope volunteered to go get her, while J.J. stayed by Spencer's side.

The next hour, J.J. sat next to his bed watching him closely for any signs of life. Tears quietly slid down her cheek as she stroked his hand with her thumb.

"I guess this is how you felt when I was shot, huh," she said as she sniffled. "I'm sorry about that," she paused as words seemed to escape her. "This really sucks. I shouldn't've let you go home last night. I should've stayed with you. I should've trusted my gut."

She heard a ruckus in the hallway and turned in time to see Diana walking into the room, with Penelope right behind. J.J. stood up to greet her, but Diana's eyes were plastered to Spencer. She started shaking her head.

"No, that's not Spencer. It's ok, it's not him," she said as she looked to J.J.

J.J.'s heart shattered more at Diana's denial. Her lip trembled and she shook her head back at Diana.

"It is," J.J. said barely above a whisper.

Diana reached out and grabbed Spencer's arm. Her eyes located the scar he had received when he fell off the fence as a kid. He was trying to be a tightrope walker. Her eyes instantly filled with water and she reached out to cup her son's face.

"No, not my baby," she whimpered. "No, no, no. My poor baby."

J.J. leaned into Penelope, both girls crying as hard as Diana. The irony of life. All Spencer wanted was his Mom to get her memory back. Now she has full clarity and he is in a coma, possibly never waking from it.

They all turned at a knock on the door. A sympathetic doctor walked into the room carrying a clipboard, probably with Spencer's information on it.

"Are you Dr. Reid's mother?" the woman asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Diana hiccupped.

"Your son's CT scans show intracranial hematoma. There are two options, both require Dr. Reid to undergo surgery. One is less invasive than the other, but with either there are no guarantees that he won't suffer permanent brain damage. At this time, we need to make a decision quickly to ensure it doesn't worsen."

Diana looked panicked as she curled her fist against her lips. Her eyes darted between the doctor and Spencer. J.J. recognized the anxiety attack building and was afraid of setting Diana into a fit.

"Doctor, can we have a few minutes, please," J.J. asked softly.

"Absolutely," she said before leaving the room.

"I can't do this. I can't make this decision. I'm not right … I'm sick … what if I do it wrong?" Diana said looking to J.J. terrified.

"Diana, Spencer once told me that one of the most fascinating things about your disease was that no matter how hard it tried to take you from him, in your heart you were always there. He said that he could always feel you present with him, even if you didn't seem to be mentally. He said everything would be ok because the disease could never attack your heart," J.J. said as she stepped on the opposite side of Spencer's bed.

"He was always so much braver about this disease than I was," she said sadly.

"He trusts you. He knows that whatever you decide will be straight from your heart and with his best interest in mind," J.J. assured her. "We trust you too."

Diana looked to Penelope who nodded with an encouraging smile. Then she looked back to J.J. just as Spencer's heart monitor rang loudly and they looked to see him seizing again. The bed bounced wildly as he shook violently.

Diana began screaming as nurses ran into the room. J.J. pressed herself against the wall to get out of the way, while Penelope grabbed Diana and tried to soothe her. The doctor ran in and helped the nurses work on stabilizing him.

"Do we have a decision?" the doctor called out. "We need to get him into surgery immediately."

"The less invasive one," Diana whispered.

"She said the less invasive one," Penelope repeated.

The doctor nodded and the team unlocked his bed, wheeling him from the room quickly, leaving the three women standing in the middle of the empty room sobbing.

(xxxxx)

A/N: you guys are amazing! Thank you for the awesome comments! I hope you are enjoying this. Don't worry, I don't like to drag things on forever. I have too many exciting things planned! Stay tuned for another update – tonight or tomorrow! xoxo