The Cold Hands of the Dearly Departed

It was cold, like mind-numbingly, painfully freezing. Spencer's feet were so cold they hurt and that was the first thought that crossed his mind as he slowly awoke. It was like that cold that's so painful it's almost hot. The kind of cold that seizes the blood in your veins and the warmth in your bones and feels like it's paralyzing you from the inside out..

It reminded him of the time his mom had one of her episodes and piled them into their car before driving across the state to a forest in the middle of nowhere. She gave him a pair of too-big galoshes and his dark green rain coat before walking off into the treeline, barely waiting for him to put them on as she disappeared behind the perfect camouflage of mottled green leaves. He tried to run after her but the oversized boots caught on the debris of untouched nature and catapulted him into the unseen puddle on the woodland floor. He felt a modicum of disgust as water spilled into his boots, drenching his feet and covered him in muddy water from the knees down. He pulled himself out of the puddle and raced after his mom, scanning the floor and through the trees to spot a glimpse of her worn lilac cardigan and blonde waves. He walked through the forest and scanned for his mom for what felt like hours before following the indents of her footsteps to find her standing in front of a small lake.

He remembered looking at her and thinking she'd never looked so beautiful and stood there with the sun shining on her face and a free but completely dissociated smile as the wind made her hair float around her like she was sinking to the bottom of a lake. It was a scary type of serenity.

It was pure and terrifying at the same time.

He stood next to her and waited for hours until the sky turned black and the stars shone brightly, he waited with her until she remembered him and apologised then walked them back to the car and drove home like nothing happened. He waited with her when it got so cold that frost dusted the dead leaves on the ground and the flowers that grew through them.

When they eventually got home, he sat in the bath until his feet unfroze and the water turned cold. He ran his mom a bath and made them the box of mac and cheese that he bought when he went to the store the day before, he sat with her as they ate at the aged dinner table, gave her the small white pills from the bottle in her nightstand and laid in bed next to her as she read him a collection of Henry Scogan's poems until they fell asleep.

His feet felt just as cold as they did at the edge of that lake but he couldn't figure out why. He wanted to pull his worn blankets tighter around him and tug the brightly coloured crocheted blanket Penelope made him up to his chin but when he opened his eyes, it wasn't there. He wasn't in his apartment, nor was he anywhere he recognised. He was lying on an uncomfortable bed with wires and machines attached to him and a bright light above his head blinded him. He lifted his left hand to block the light and half-heartedly wipe his eyes to clear them but the tubes stuck in his hand prevented him from doing so. A royal blue box to his left caught his eye, swiftly followed by flowers littered around the room and balloons with pearlescent strings floating in the corner by what he assumed was the door. His eyes were so blurry he could really only see colours and vague shapes without his contacts. His inability to see sent him searching for his glasses but his eyes caught on a large hot pink lump piled on a chair to his right. He went to reach for the lump, his curiosity telling him to poke it and see but the glint of light on a lens next to the lump had him reaching for his glasses. He slid the cold frames onto his face and inspected the lump as best he could, pulling at the fabric before realising it was one of Penelope's blankets. The warmth he knew it would provide was something he deeply welcomed so he gathered all his strength and pulled it onto his bed and covered himself with it. He noticed a weight on his leg but his strength had whittled away and he really didn't want to move his blanket to see what it was.

He sighed lightly into the fabric, his excursion having wiped out all of his energy and he wanted nothing more than to sleep but he was prevented from doing so when a nurse entered his room. She didn't look at him when she walked in, going to the end of his bed and pulling out his chart, flicking through until she found a specific page then pulling out a small bottle and a needle from two small, clear sanitised bags. Spencer tried to talk to her and get her attention but his mouth wouldn't cooperate, he tried to just make a noise but through his tiredness he realised he couldn't, his throat was sore from being unused and he had no energy left. He slowly started to fall asleep again but a nagging in his brain told him to open his eyes, his subconscious had recognised something his brain had missed. He forced his eyes open once again and looked around until he focused on the small bottle next to the nurse's hip; the blurriness of his vision made it difficult to focus on the small letters but a panic set in when he realised what it said - carbenicillin.

If he was in a hospital nowhere near Quantico, they might not have any information about his allergy, he knew Penelope knew of it but it wasn't on his hospital records since he only discovered it after helping a colleague with a small study and he had a bad reaction when he accidentally spilt carbenicillin on on the papercut on his finger and his colleague had immediately given him epinephrine. He had to let the nurse know because Penelope wasn't here and he didn't want to die.

He tried kicking the railing next to his bed but he suddenly realised the weight on his leg was a heavy brace, completely immobilising it. He watched as she read his chart carefully, noting the dosage and then pulling the clear liquid into the syringe, he heard the monotone beeping that he had previously ignored suddenly increase in pace and draw the nurses attention to the screen before her eyes quickly flitted to his face. Dread settled in his stomach when he realised he couldn't do anything and she pulled the stethoscope from around her neck and pulled down his blankets to press it against his chest. She listened quickly before pulling it away and tapping the side of his face and saying 'Spencer? Spencer can you hear me? Mr Reid?' She pulled up his eyelids to shine a penlight in them and his eyes darted around at the sudden intrusion of his personal space. She repeated his name again and quietly dipped out of the room to gain the attention of another nurse before zipping back to his side. His strength was diminishing faster and faster and he felt himself slowly slipping into unconsciousness, he was desperate to tell the nurse about his allergy, he'd gone into anaphylactic shock before and it had almost killed him, he didn't feel like doing it again.

The second nurse hurried into the room and he couldn't hear what she was saying, it was quiet and low which he found soothing as the other noises in the room started to blur into white noise. The nurse pulled up his eyelids again - he hadn't realised they were closed - and it gave him the opportunity to see his first nurse pick up the syringe. He was desperate to tell her to stop but his body was failing him and he wanted to cry when he heard the older nurse say 'Give him the carbenicillin, it should help with the increase in his heart-rate, the gunshot may have transferred some bacteria and if anything, antibiotics will help fight the infection. Check his chart for allergies and get 2 milligrams of heparin, it will take the ease off his heart and lower the risk of blood clots, this poor boy needs all the help he can get.'

A tear slipped out of his eye as it closed and he felt his heart hammering in his chest. He couldn't help himself as one quiet, solitary thought passed through his head before he passed out. Before his chest started aching and he couldn't breathe. Before he felt the burning pain of jarring his broken bone in his thigh as he seized again. Before his throat closed up and he didn't have to hear Penelope screaming when she saw the white glint of bone sticking out of his thigh and the blood leaking onto the floor. Before he saw white and felt like he was floating.

Just one, lonely, terrible thought,

He was still cold.