Commencement

Chapter 22

Once he saw how complicated it was to get him situated into a wheelchair with his leg extended and assorted tubes and wires in place, Reid made a silent vow to become the most cooperative and uncomplaining patient on the floor. After he saw JJ.

"Thank you. I'm so sorry to put you to the trouble, but…" He began, as he was wheeled down the hallway.

"We understand, Agent Reid. We're all about supporting our law enforcement community here. But we're also about helping our patients heal. So this will have to be a short visit. Agent Jareau needs her rest. You both do."

"Agreed." Though he had no intention of leaving her without being satisfied that she was out of danger.

So much for being their most cooperative patient.

A nurse was leaving JJ's room just as they arrived.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm afraid she's sleeping."

Considering that 'sleeping' was better than 'unconscious', Reid managed to be grateful, if disappointed. He half-turned in his chair to speak to the aide.

"Can I just sit with her? I promise I won't wake her."

Having spent fifteen minutes getting him into the chair, the aide was more than happy to oblige.

"I'll leave you with her. Just don't get me in trouble, okay?"

He grinned. "Okay."

As he was wheeled into her room, Reid's eyes fell upon the figure in the bed. He'd never seen her more still, nor more pale. The last solid image he'd had of her was from the ambulance ride to the hospital, where each of them had refused the gurney in favor of the other, until the EMTs had made the decision for them.

"I've been like this for two days. Her injuries are fresh," he'd argued, hoping they would be able to ignore his episode of syncope.

But they hadn't been, and he'd been ordered to the gurney, JJ riding beside him, sitting on the bench, hunched over herself. He'd annoyed his caretakers by insisting upon lifting his arm, and laying it on her shoulder, in place of holding her newly bandaged hands. She'd been through too much, and he'd known instinctively that she would need the physical contact. If he was honest with himself, and he was, he'd known that he needed the contact, too, the reminder that neither of them would be asked to endure this final trial alone, and without the one who had sustained them through so much of what had come before. And so, they'd ridden together to the hospital, and he'd assured her of her recovery, and promised his own. He'd insisted on seeing her today to satisfy himself that both of those promises had been kept.

The aide positioned Reid directly next to the bed, maneuvering the chair so that his extended leg was pointed away. He had to twist a bit to look at her, but he was fine with that.

At least I'm with her. At least she's not alone.

Not that the others couldn't have stayed with her, and maybe they still would. But he and his best friend been through too much together these last few days...and the fifteen years preceding...and he knew instinctively that it had to be him she saw when she opened her eyes. And so, he sat, and watched, and waited, and remembered….

For all of the burden it could be, Spencer Reid was still grateful for his eidetic memory. In his lowest times, the times when he was most vulnerable, and least able to control it, his memory had a habit of presenting him with an unfiltered recording of his life, and the unfiltering of it almost always meant that his memory replayed his far-too-many major traumas. and trials, and tribulations before it presented the far-too-few highlights, and the far-more-precious, 'nothing' moments, countless in number.

But, on his good days, Reid could sort through his memory like a filing cabinet….the Morgan memories, the Emily memories, the Garcia memories. Those with Rossi, and Hotch and Gideon. He had a small drawer devoted to Elle, and even one to Alex. And JJ had earned an entire cabinet.

With JJ, he shared work memories, both inconsequential and monumental, events that separated them, and those that brought them together, major traumas, and major victories, small stories and anecdotes, and birthday cakes and physics magic and coffee, and tea, made just the way they liked it. Short conversations about nothing and everything, and a thousand acts of kindness. They shared family memories, memories built around the changes in their lives, like Will, and Henry, and Michael, and Maeve. Memories forged in the depths of a prison experience, or an abduction. Memories of gratitude, and relief. And, judging from what they'd shared in that collapsed building, maybe they shared more than memories. Maybe they shared some hopes and dreams. Some 'could-have-beens'. Some 'if-onlys'.

So, while he watched her sleep, Reid visited each of those things in his mind, the things that had happened, and the things that had not. And he celebrated, and mourned, in the same moment.

That's all we'll have left after this, is memories.

Maybe it was his debilitated state, or maybe it was watching her, in hers. Or maybe it was something else. Whatever, something brought wetness to Reid's eyes, which spilled over to his cheeks. He was using the sleeve of his hospital gown to take a swipe at his eyes when he heard her voice.

"What's wrong?"

His head shot back up. She was awake. Eyes open, as deep a blue as he could ever remember. More importantly, they were alert. Keen. Intelligent.

The sepsis didn't hurt her. Thank God, it didn't hurt her!

"Hi," he said, not answering her question. "You're awake."

She gave him that most blessedly familiar smile, the one that said she found him endearing, and not merely tolerable.

"Yep. So are you."

He chuckled. "Unlike you, I've been awake for a full day."

Her smile was tired, but it was there. "I'll have you know that I was awake for almost two years before you were even born." An old joke between them.

"Touche." His usual response.

JJ lifted her relatively unencumbered left hand, and Reid took it into both of his.

"Seriously, how are you feeling?"

"Pretty much like I've been hit by a truck."

His brow furrowed. "Are you in pain?"

Her head moved back and forth. "Just a little." Raising her complaining right hand. Then she moved her left, in his grasp. "But this one feels pretty good."

He smiled. "It feels pretty good to me, too."

"And how is your leg?" Her head motioning in the direction of his protruding appendage.

"It's fine. Or it will be. That's what they tell me."

JJ nodded. "Emily told me you had to have a second surgery."

The resulting look on Reid's face told her he was planning to have a talk with Emily.

"Don't be angry with her. I insisted."

He gave in. "I've been doing my own insisting. I think we might both owe her dinner."

JJ smiled. "As soon as you're on your feet, and I have my hands."

Despite the banter, there was a maelstrom of undercurrent in the room. Relief, worry, regret, apprehension. A sense of endings, and beginnings. A sense of separation, and the rending of something deep within, even while it felt like a pouring open. Love.

Reid's eyes penetrated it all, holding hers in an intense gaze. "I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd lost you. For a little while there, I thought I had."

She studied him without blinking. "Well, you didn't. I'm here, thanks to you."

"For now." Sorrow engraved in his features, the realization that they really were at the end of something.

He felt her free hand tighten around his. "Forever, Spence. It's true we won't see each other every day, and my heart breaks just as much as yours about that. But we'll still be in each other's lives, won't we? I'll still bring the boys to visit you, and you'll still come to see them, won't you?"

He managed only a half-smile at the implication that only his relationship with the boys might be deemed a socially acceptable reason for him to continue his relationship with his best friend.

Maybe that's because we're not just best friends. I don't know what we are, but I know we're more than that.

And 'more than that' would have to remain forever undefined. He was certain of that, just as he believed she was.

His mind took him back to that briefest moment, only days ago, when they'd explored what 'more than that' might have been.

It might have been wonderful.

But it had also been only a moment, a time-out-of-time, surrounded by all of the moments, and all of the choices, that had come before it, and those to follow. As isolated as he might sometimes feel, Reid did live in relationship. And the relationships that had come to define his life precluded any but the one choice for him. To his surprise, he was accepting of it. He could live with the bittersweetness, and not temper it with regret.

Maybe it's enough just to know.

Maybe his life, whatever path it took, might be lived just a little more richly knowing there was someone out there who felt 'something more' about him. Maybe it would feel like it had a more solid foundation, a center of gravity. Maybe it would feel like he had a home.

"Spence?"

He realized he'd never answered her. "Of course I will. You know I love the boys."

And you. I'll still love you.

Something pushed him just then. Later, remembering the moment, he would recall it as a shove….from above, from another woman he'd loved, and not told. All he knew in this moment was that he had to tell the woman beside him.

"I love you, too."

The look on her face told him that she'd heard those three words laden with all of the subtext neither of them could ever say. Her eyes filled, and it took her a moment to find her voice.

"And I love you. You're in my heart, Spence. You have been, for a very long time. And I'm not letting you out, just because I don't get to see you every day."

He smiled. "I'm counting on that."

She wasn't quite done, and he couldn't help but wonder if she was feeling a shove as well. All he knew for certain was that the deep blue of her eyes was now shimmering with tears.

"The other night? I know it was partly because we were in a situation, and we didn't know if we would get out of it. But…. but, for me, it was also real."

His gaze held hers steady. "I think you already know that it was real for me, too. It won't take an eidetic memory for me to keep it for a lifetime."

She gave him a sad smile. "I'm keeping it right here." Freeing her hand from his to pat her chest, and then immediately returning it to his warmth.

Each of them ached for the fullness of embrace, but their physical conditions wouldn't permit it. So Reid had to settle for bringing her hand closer, and boldly kissing the back of it. It was JJ who turned her hand, and laid her palm above his heart.

For a long moment, neither of them could manage to speak. Their eyes exchanged fifteen years' worth of memories, and images of the uncertain future. It was familiar territory for him. Reid had gotten lost in her eyes at least a thousand times. But this time, he found something. He found himself. And he told her.

"We'll be okay. Everything will be okay."

JJ simply nodded, still unable to find her voice. She'd trusted him so many times before. She would trust him in this.

Hearing a tell-tale bustle in the hallway, Reid knew they were about to be interrupted. Better to bring this exchange to an end before someone else did it for them.

"I promised I'd let you rest, so I'd better go. But I'm only down the hall, if you need me."

She gave him a small smile. "Always. But you need to rest, too. I have a feeling the others aren't going anywhere without us, anyway. We don't want to keep them from their futures."

Reid reminded her. "Rossi's future is in front of a keyboard, remember? He says he's still got stories to tell."

"Don't we all."

He gave a wry chuckle. "I'm not sure I want to tell all of my stories. Anyway, Emily is still working on getting the director to study the effects of the changes, and she's in her 'I won't take 'no' for an answer' mode about it."

"I thought they'd refused her request."

"The did. So now it's not exactly a request." Then, recalling his conversation with his prior unit chief, he added, "I think Hotch might be coaching her on it."

"Really?"

Reid shrugged. "He told me he sees the breakup of the BAU as an experiment that won't work, but there has to be some way to demonstrate it."

JJ gave a tired nod. "It was good to see him. He stopped in a little while before you did."

Reid agreed. "I didn't realize quite how much I missed him, until he showed up. Guess I forced myself to get used to it."

"You've had more than your share of things to get used to, these past few years, Spence."

"That, I have."

And I'll have more, in the very near future.

No longer able to ignore the drooping of her lids, Reid tried to maneuver himself away from JJ's bed, but his extended leg made it difficult, and he had to use her call button to summon the aide, who arrived moments later.

"Ready, Agent Reid?"

"As I'll ever be."