Chapter 5: What A Time To Die

Penelope never liked hospitals.

Not that many people did like hospitals, but she never saw how a hospital could be liked.

Everyone that stepped foot inside a hospital was in pain. Whether they realised it or not, they were hurt in a way that couldn't be fixed with a bandaid and a kiss. How anyone could ever like a building filled with so much hurt, and pain and grief was beyond her.

She'd driven her brother Manny to the hospital when he broke his arm, and again when he forgot about his cast and went swimming only for it to disintegrate in the pool. She'd followed the ambulance that held Eddie when his appendix burst and the ambulance wasn't an option. She'd sat alone on the cold plastic chairs and waited to fill out forms to confirm the death of her parents when her brothers couldn't get there soon enough.

She didn't like hospitals at all, and seeing Spencer in one was even worse.

Penelope hadn't left the hospital since Spencer arrived, asking Derek to bring her a change of clothes and the blanket Spencer loved, later asking him to pick up her deliveries of action figures when they were told it was going to take more than a few days for him to leave. Derek eventually coerced her out of the hospital, driving her home in his black jeep and promising to stay with her while Hotch kept Spencer company. He drove her back 10 hours later once she'd slept and eaten something other than the bland cafeteria food and had collected her laptop. She sat at his side until the decision was made to take shifts. Penelope understood that the reason behind the idea, the team had families to look after, loved ones who needed them. But she didn't, she didn't need to ration out her time and wanted to disagree with the plan. But after seeing the relief on Hotch and JJ's faces when everyone said yes, she couldn't say anything. She never intended to stick to the schedule, turning up hours before her shift and staying hours later because she refused to abandon Spencer in the way she knew he was always terrified they would. She stayed because she knew Spencer would.

She worked from his bedside when she was there, updating him on the current cases that the team was forced to work from the bureau. When she was at her desk she checked the group chat she had made for the team when they had been forced into shifts. Photos and regular updates were posted on the hour and they had all begun to rely on them as a sense of security. They studied awful cases and helped form a far but could turn to Reid when their hands would start to shake and the noticeable lack of happiness in the office would become unbearable.

Even Rossi had turned to technology for solace - something Penelope would never have thought to happen. The photos he sent in of Spencer were always the same, sent from the chair next to his bed, Spencer's hand laying next to him as if someone had just let go of it, lax fingers unknowingly reaching for the warm palm that had encased them only moments before. His hair was smoothed behind his ears and the blanket pulled up to his chest, tucked pristinely around his body with loving care.

Once, when Penelope had an all too vivid day-dream about Spencer dying on the pavement where she was shot, she had turned up to the hospital during Rossi's shift, needing to see him for herself. Looking through the window she saw Rossi with his hands clasping Spencer's tightly and pulling them to his forehead as tears streamed down his face. She could hear him desperately whispering something in Italian as his shoulders shook and his face crumpled. She stood to the side of the window watching as he took a breath, pressed his lips to the back of their joined hands with a fatherly tenderness and dusted off the sadness he bore. She had walked away quietly after that, never mentioning it again but the look of desperation and grief on Rossi's face never left her mind. She knew how it felt to grieve that deeply, and it was something she knew you rarely chose to share.

Now, she sat alone at his bedside - Derek having left a few hours ago, pressing a kiss to her forehead and squeezing Spencer's uninjured leg before walking out the door. Boy Genius had been painfully quiet as they had all come to expect but the quiet buzz of Star Trek: The Next Generation from the tv filtered through the room. She stroked small circles into the back of his thumb with her own as she watched Patrick Stewart talk to LeVar Burton about something on the ship. She turned towards Spencer and reached for the large cup of coffee sitting on the raised table over his bed. Her fingers brushed the cardboard sleeve of the cup when her phone buzzed loudly on the plastic windowsill next to her.

"Oh my god! It says vibrate not earthquake, is vibrating at a normal level not good enough for you?" she questioned as she reached for her phone, releasing Spencer's hand, coffee forgotten. 'Captain Boss Hotch' scrawled across her screen as she accepted the call, bringing the phone up to her ear.

"Office of pretty and powerful speaking, how can I help ya?" she said quickly.

"Garcia, how is he?" Hotch's deep tone answered,

"He's good, there's no change, the nurse dropped by half an hour ago and I asked her too. She just said "Well, he's as good-'"

"Good as can be expected?" Hotch sighed,

"Yep. Do you think she gets tired of saying it or is it some freaky kink thing where she gets off repeating herself time and time again?" Penelope questioned, she leaned forward and looked out the door at the nurses station, the brunette nurse in question standing in front of a computer typing rapidly.

Hotch's huffed chuckle made her smile widely, his sense of humour kicking in as he replied. "I think it might be a personal vendetta against the people taking up her hospital corridor 6 times a day that ignore the visiting hours"

His own smile was evident in his conspiratorial and lighthearted tone that only made her own smile grow wider and she laughed lightly down the phone.

"Can I help you with anything or is this just a friendly call to check up on our Boy Genius?"

Penelope heard the phone shift and Hotch's voice grew louder through the phone like he'd wedged it between his cheek and shoulder followed by the taps of fingers on a keyboard.

"Actually, I just got a call from the hospital saying that one of the forms for Reid hadn't been completed, and they're missing some information that could change what treatment he gets. They said the form is at the second floor nurses station. I told them you could fill it out if that's okay?"

"Yeah, of course! I need to stretch my legs anyway, and I don't think Spencer will mind me dipping out for a couple of minutes, right Reid?"

She looked at him, gently pushing his shoulder with a small smile before it sank into something sadder when he didn't reply. She knew not to expect him to, but it didn't hurt any less.

Hotch cleared his throat and spoke again, "He's going to wake up Penelope. It might not be today but he will. He loves us too much to leave us."

"I know," she replied in a small voice, the words escaping in a sigh.

"I'll text you once I've filled out the form, and I'll send the update out on Spence when I'm back. Second floor nurses station, right?"

"Thank you, second floor nurses station"

"Alrighty, Garcia out"

She ended the call and slid her phone into her bag. Picking it up from the floor beside her chair and pulling it over her wrist then grabbing her coffee as she stood up. She leaned over to Spencer's cheek and pressed a kiss against his pale skin.

"Don't go waking up and walking around while I'm not here. You hear me?" She lightly squeezed his wrist and smoothed out the blanket over his chest then walked out of the room and around the corner to the elevator.

She sipped her cooling white chocolate mocha as she waited for the doors to open, sending a polite smile to the nurse behind the desk to her left. The digital green numbers counted down from 8 and she pulled out her phone, sending a text to Derek about her lack of hot mocha, snickering at his only just decent reply moments later. The ping of the doors caught her attention and she stepped into the lift pressing the button and standing in front of the group of people already in the lift, clutching her coffee to her chest. Sending off quick fire texts with Derek, Penelope tuned out the automated voice of the lift announcing each floor, reeling in her laughter to smirks as she waited for her floor. When the automated female voice rang through the boox that it had arrived at floor 2 she quickly turned off her screen and pushed her phone into the front pocket of her bag. She walked out of the lift, dodging to the right when she spotted a bin mounted against a wall, walking over to dispose of her now stone cold coffee before making her way over to the desk in the middle of the busy floor.

Halfway across the tiled flooring, she came to an abrupt stop as a group of nurses wheeled out a patient from a curtained bed space to her right.

"Sorry!" One of the nurses uttered with an apologetic look as they pushed the bed towards the set of double doors on the opposite side of the floor. Penelope followed behind them unintentionally as she walked up to the desk. A nurse who looked to be in her mid 30s turned away from the computer she was writing on and picked up the file to her right, sliding in several pieces of paper before putting it in a stack and turning to Penelope.

"Can I help you?" she queried.

"Hi, yes you can! I hope - anyway, I was sent to fill out a form for Spencer Reid in room 317? I was told it's about his treatment or something that can change it?" She said quickly, looking at the name stitched in light purple thread on to the pocket of the dark purple scrubs the nurse was wearing. 'Helen' was sewn in a neat purple cursive at the top of the pocket, clearly handstitched with a precision that couldn't be mimicked by a machine. A look of recognition sparked across Helen's face and she reached for an inch thick pile of files, digging through it before pulling out a clipboard with a stack of papers attached to it.

"Ah yes! Doctor Brauff called down earlier and said that there was an issue with the information we have for Doctor Reid/ let me have a look…" she pulled another file with a post-it attached to the front out of the pigeon holes to her left and flipped through it to find a mostly filled-out form.

"Here it is! So most of the form looks good but this box at the bottom is empty and this is asking after his medical history and if there have been any known reactions to treatments or medications. This is quite important as one of the tests we ran last 2 days ago seemed to indicate an allergy to one of the components in a drug we can use to treat the infection in your friend's leg. We can't test it however because we need permission from the emergency contact or next of kin it can cause adverse side effects." She explained, showing Penenlope the test results that first caused concern, pointing to an underlined red scribble at the bottom of the page that simply said 'Carbenicllin allergy?'

"If this is the case, his treatment won't change because we've been using an antibiotic called ampicillin to treat him so far but carbenicillin is much more stable than ampicillin-" Helen stopped when Penelope pulled a confused face,

"Were his medications not explained to you earlier?" she asked.

Penelope felt herself slowly start to panic as Helen talked about Spencer's treatment. She had read information about Carbenicillin for a case years ago for a case where a victim had been given a dose and had an allergic reaction that ended in anaphylactic shock and death. She remembered an email Spencer had open on his laptop about a study months ago but she was at a loss. She wasn't a doctor, she dropped out of CalTech before her sophomore year even started! She shook her head, barely taking a breath before she answered.

"No it wasn't we asked the nurse for updates about it all but just got told he's doing as good as can be expected. I- I'll have to check if he has any allergies, I can't remember them right now." she sputtered. Helen's eyes narrowed as she spoke, nodding along as she took in the information.

"The nurse you asked, what did she look like?" the nurse asked carefully.

"About 5'5, slim, brown hair, dark eyes, and a pair of shoes that look like they're straight out of 1975" Penelope answered in a rush. Helen nodded and gave away nothing, "Why?" she asked.

"I know the nurse you're talking about, she doesn't always update the people here for the patients" Helen said, keeping her facial expression calming but tight, a glint of something Penelope couldn't quite decipher underneath it.

"To cut a long explanation short, we need the information on this form to make an informed choice about which treatment to use for your friend's injuries if they get any worse or if he wakes up. Right now, the medications he is on are keeping him in a stable condition but if he wakes up, that means his body is trying to heal. If he does wake up, we need to change the drugs he is on because they won't fit the state his body is in." Helen pulled a clipboard out from behind the desk and attached the form to it with a swift click of metal and placed a pen on top ofit then slid it across the desk to Penelope.

"So, here's a pen. I need you to take this form and the clipboard over to the chairs in the corner over there and fill out as much as you can then bring it back once you're done. I know it sounds confusing but any information you have could help" Helen smiled and let go of the clipboard once the blonde had it in her grasp. With a shaky smile, she gave the nurse a nod and moved to the corner, setting herself down on the blue and white plastic chair. She took a breath to steady herself, and another before shaking off the fear. She pulled her laptop out of her bag and opened it, typing impossibly fast to track down Reid's medical history that was given to the bureau. Pulling up the information and skimming it quickly, it had no information about a penicillin allergy. Weird she thought to herself as her informational spidey senses tingled. She knew she didn't have all the information, and it's not like she could ask Spencer about it. If he had told Hotch or anyone else for that matter, it would have been on his medical history immediately. So this meant that it couldn't have been a test done that was a part of a hospital medical study. Spencer didn't often give out his personal email to many people, reserving it for the team, and the contacts he made talking about information that he found in one of his reading binges. Garcia's fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard, the tapping almost becoming a buzz, only stopping every now and then to click on the screen before continuing.

"Sorry, Spence" She murmured as she gained access to his email history, cross referencing Carbenicillin across all of his emails. The list of thousands narrowed down to 17 when she hit enter.

"Bingo" she whispered. Sifting through each email, she realised the dated conversation was discussing a study of the Spencer's correspondent's creation. The dates matched up with one of the few 3 day weekends the team had been given and Reid had evidently agreed to assist in a study about a type of penicillin. Skimming through most of the email she began to get impatient, wanting to find the information she needed, and to not have invaded her friend's privacy for no reason. She was about to move on and start her search again before she reached the last email in the list. Sent a week after the date of the study that Spencer's acquaintance had confirmed in their earlier emails, this one seemed more personal, friendly even. It was significantly shorter than the rest

Dear Doctor Reid,

Good news! The study is being published in 3 weeks then it's going up to the board!

Your help was invaluable, you'll have to come back to the campus soon. Eric and Simon cannot stop laughing about your Quantum Mechanic joke a week later - you need to give them some new material!

I hope your hand is okay, it was the first and most severe allergic reaction I've ever seen to carbenicillin or to anything really, I'm just glad we had the EpiPen on hand from the last study. You have to let me know if you have any side effects, I refuse to be the reason why the 21st century loses one of its most brilliant minds.

There is going to be a symposium on the Quantum entanglement theory we discussed in Madrid in the International Conference on Quantum Entanglement. I'll send you the papers once they've been released if you can't make it - it would be nice to see you there Spencer!

Keep an eye out for an email from me, I'll send you the link to the journal.

All the very best,

Joshua Keffling

Penelope let out a breath of relief and picked up the form from the chair next to her, filling out the box at the bottom of the page. Her relief was quickly met with worry when her mind started to spin and imagine what would have happened if they had ignored the indicators of his allergy. She was tempted to google the symptoms of the reaction, telling herself she should be educated on her friend's allergy. But her mind flipped back to the email. The email where Keffling said "severe" reaction. Severe didn't usually mean nice. Severe meant deadly. Like the girl from the overdose case. Severe meant dead.

Moving quickly, she pushed the thoughts out of her mind and packed away her laptop into her bag and picked up the clipboard and pen, walking back over to Helen who had a black office phone pressed to her ear. She pulled the phone away and pressed it to her chest, saying quietly "Did you get it all down?"

Penelope nodded, "He's seriously allergic to it. None of us knew but a friend of his found out when they worked together a while ago. He cannot be exposed to it, like at all" She emphasised, handing across the clipboard. Helen nodded and put the chart down next to the notepad she was writing on, "I'll tell Doctor Brauff and let all the nurses on his floor know" She assured.

Penelope smiled at her and wished her well before she walked away into the open elevator. The clock above the elevator caught her eye and she was shocked to realise she had been away from Spencer for nearly 45 minutes, Damn emails she grumbled to herself. Pulling out her phone she checked her messages which had blown up in the time she had been at the nurses station.

The first few from Derek and Hotch, Derek continuing on their normal flirty banter before asking where she went, Hotch's short message asking if she was able to fill out the form. When it hit 2pm the groupchat started out slowly with a message from each member asking after both Penelope and Spencer, Hotch messages soon after, telling them about the form. At 2:10pm the group chat was inundated with messages, starting at asking for a reply and the last few were all saying some rendition of 'I'm on my way, schedule be damned'. The last message was sent 4 minutes before Penelope checked her phone, in any other case, she would have assured the team it was fine and they didn't have to turn up but with Spencer being so vulnerable, she knew nothing would stop them from turning up to see him for themselves. She quickly typed out and sent a message saying she was filling out the form and finding the information needed took her a hot minute, and that she would meet them outside Spencer's room. The doors pinged and the voice announced the floor number and Penelope hurried out of the doors to room 317.

Walking past the nurses station, she saw a nurse put Spencer's chart down while talking to the nurse behind the desk and forms were slipped into the clipboard before it was passed back. She got to the door of Spencer's room where another nurse was talking to him quietly and using a penlight on his eyes when a firm hand on her shoulder and a voice close behind her called out.

"Ma'am! I'm sorry ma'am, you can't go in there right now. We need to stay outside for the moment, I will come and get you when you're allowed in"

Confused, she turned around to look at the nurse who was pulling her back towards the seats that the team had sat in the first time they had to wait for Reid to be poked and prodded. They brought back bad memories and Garcia refused to sit down in them, instead putting her bag on the chair, phone in her other hand.

"Wait, why can't I go in? What's wrong?" she asked, panic surging in her chest like a wave, the pressure crushing her lungs and making her heart beat too fast to measure.

The nurse put a calming hand on her shoulder which Penelope quickly shrugged off, it didn't feel calming it felt patronising. She had never dealt well with patronisation.

"It's okay. He's not decompensating, he actually woke up. We need to do tests to understand his condition and change him over to his new treatment now that he has woken up."

Penelope's blood ran cold.

She froze, laser focused on the nurse.

"Ma'am? I understand it can be a shock especially after a sudden change-",

"What treatment?" she asked, quietly with a clear panicked urgency, "What treatment? I need you to tell me right the hell now! What treatment are you giving him?" She asked, the panic in her chest growing until she realised she was shouting at the nurse in front of her.

"Ma'am, I need you to calm down"

"No, I will not calm down, are you giving him Carbenicillin?"

The nurse looked confused but nodded, opening her mouth again to try and speak. The colour drained out of Penelope's face and she pushed past the nurse, ignoring the shouts and the failed attempt to grab her hand.

She forced her legs to move faster than she thought they could, rushing into Spencer's room. She didn't realise she was yelling, pleading for them to stop.

She didn't know she was saying anything at all.

She pulled the door open and could hear herself screaming the thoughts running through her head

No!

Please, you'll kill him!

Please stop!

He'll die!

She felt pure terror lick up her spine and encase her in stone when she realised her pleas had fallen on deaf ears when she saw the needle pulling out of his IV and the bottle of carbenicillin on the tray next to Spencer's bed.

The nurse looked over in shock at the sudden arrival of Penelope in the room and went to remove her from the room before Penelope started crying. She watched Spencer's eyes open, focus on Penelope, his rand reach for her and then drop like a stone to the bed moment before he started to seize. His neck muscles tightened and locked in place while his body shook, growing more and more violent, jerking against the brace on his leg, the blankets on the bed, the tubes connected all over his body. A team of nurses rushed into the room, ignoring Penelope who hadn't moved from just inside the door. His muscles strained and shook in a vicious frenzy, the blankets and pillows were pulled off the bed and thrown to the sides of the room, only to show his already broken leg seizing against the brace with a cramp that was visible in the muscle of his thigh. In one horrific and traumatic movement, his leg flew against the rail of the bed, tilting over the metal and slamming down as the cramp spread, worsened by the seizure forcing the already separated bone to pierce through his skin.

Penelope screamed when she heard the break and saw the tiny glint of white surrounded by a free flowing sea of red. A scream of agony for Spencer that turned into a sob that she couldn't control. She didn't know how long it had been but his body stopped shaking and flopped back against the bed. It was silent when he hit the bed, the soft thump acting like a spark in the room, the sound of wads of gauze being ripped open and shouts for paging ortho flew around the room and and flurry of action pushed Penelope away from the room and into the plastic chair next to her bag. She couldn't control her cries and felt the hands of the nurse who had tried to stop her earlier attempt to bring comfort to her now. But it was all in vain. She couldn't have even told anyone her name. In that moment, all she knew was pain and grief and fear. It was overwhelming. The surge of waves that had been in her chest had turned into a tsunami, an impenetrable wall of water higher than the sky was knocking her over, pulling her down, throwing her into debris until she was as bloody as the gauze in that hospital room.

She couldn't have told anyone that Spencer was wheeled out the room by the team of nurses that had rushed in. She couldn't have described the trail of blood that stained the floor of his room and marked his path to somewhere she didn't know. She couldn't have told anyone anything because she couldn't see past the blood on his leg and crack of his bone and the knowledge that he was probably dying right now. All she could think was he's dying. Over and over and over again. Sobbing it out in harsh breaths that almost sounded like screams. She didn't know that the team had arrived or that they were trying to ask her what happened.

All they knew was that there was a body's worth of blood on the floor of Spencer's room, he was gone and Penelope was sobbing with every breath she heaved

He's dying

He's dying

He's dying