She didn't break too many traffic laws getting to Reid's. Well, that was the story she was going to be sticking to. What mattered was that she was here. She had shot off a quick text to Hotch about what was going on and the fact that she might be late so at least the team would be updated and possibly panicking about their boy genius. Well, that was why she was here.

She looked up the stairs of Reid's apartment complex dubiously. Why did the elevator always seem to be under maintenance here? Emily didn't do stairs this early in the morning. She sighed heavily and started to climb them. He was on the fourth floor because of course he was. The things she did for her genius.

Finally, she got to his floor, panting way too hard. Why did each floor have a double set of stairs of God know how many steps each? She was a healthy, highly trained federal agent for crying out loud! Stairs shouldn't defeat her! Her lungs felt like they were going to burn themselves up. OK, maybe stairs would. Just, don't tell did not need one of his work out plans.

Emily hesitated at his door. Should she knock or just go right in? He'd know it was her, right? She tried the door. It didn't give. That made her worry increase. Even if he didn't want her checking up on him surely, he'd know that she would anyway and unlock the door. Was he unconscious? Injured? Was it OK for her to pick the lock? With all these thoughts running through her head, Emily suddenly remembered she had a key. Idiot. Ramming the key into the lock in irritation, Reid's door swung open.

"Reid?" she called in to give him a little bit of warning.

Use her manners and all that. Mother would be proud.

She frowned as she looked around her. There was no one here, his living room was empty. Well, supposedly. Once she honestly thought he had been abducted when she had been invited over and he was nowhere to be seen only to find him hidden under the papers and books he was studying. She wasn't going to make that mistake again. Carefully scanning the room, Emily noted the usual haphazard piles of books accompanied with she assumed were the relevant papers, two cups of coffee (half drunk), some unidentifiable crumbs and, most disgustingly, piles of used tissues. Yuck. Notably, there was no Reid. She shut the front door and properly entered his apartment, edging around the collection of tissues.

"Reid?" She called again, a bit louder and really hoping he was conscious.

"Em-Emily?" Spencer gasped out from his bathroom.

Emily winced at the sound. It sounded worse than when he was on the phone.

"I'm here!" She replied, relief washing over her.

It said a lot about them that she was glad he hadn't been abducted.

A hacking noise came from the bathroom. Emily couldn't even call it a cough. It was more like his lungs were rejecting him.

"In here," he said weakly.

She gave his floor a dubious look and poked one of the tissue mounds with her toe. It didn't move. Ew.

"Hold on, I need to navigate through this ocean of tissues first," she called back.

She got a groan for a reply.

Making quick work of avoiding what she was now referring in her head as 'ick mountains', Emily crossed his apartment to get to his bathroom. Not really caring about if he was decent or not (everyone on the team had shared enough hotel rooms that they literally had no shame around each other now), she burst into the bathroom. Only to be greeted with an incredibly pathetic scene.

Reid was leaning against his toilet, one arm slung around it as if her would fall over otherwise and looking more enough than she did in her emo years. She would have killed to have that bruised look around her eyes when she was fifteen. He had flushed spots high on his cheeks and his hair was tousled in that way that made her stomach swoop. Still did, even though it was matted with sweat and hopefully no other bodily fluids. Even more tissues surrounded him than were outside (impressively).

"You look like shit," Emily bluntly informed him.

He cracked an eye open and gave her a baleful look.

"There is no way you could have made it from your place to mine in that time frame without breaking any laws," he informed her sternly, or it would have been sternly if it wasnt for the fact that every third word he coughed violently.

"Actually, I was at my coffee shop," she dismissed airily. "Answer my question."

"It wasn't a question. It was a statement," he retorted, voice cracking and looking alarmed. "And your coffee shop? That's even worse, Emily!"

"I took a shortcut!" She defended.

She could practically see him mapping the neighbourhood in his head and looking more alarmed.

"The only shortcut is an alley not meant to be driven down!" He hissed at her.

"Between the hours of nine and five," she pointed out. "It is definitely not nine."

Reid just groaned at her. She rolled her eyes. She was here and in one piece, wasn't she? So, everything was good.

"Still look like shit, " she said obnoxiously.

"I feel like it," he moaned pathetically, resting his head against the tank of his toilet.

"Were you sick?"

"Yesterday evening," he responded glumly.

Emily looked at him and then around the small room disbelieving before giving him a final incredulous look.

"And last night," he admitted with a huff.

"And what do you count as last night?" She asked suspiciously.

He muttered something under his breath.

"Spencer."

Reid sighed dejectedly before repeating, "Three thirty am."

Emily glared at him, "And why were you going to tell Hotch that you were going to be in later?"

He just gaped at her.

"That's what you wanted me to tell him when I said I was texting him that you'd be off, right?" She demanded.

Reid muttered something that definitely wasn't a time under his breath.