I've borrowed just a few tiny details from a couple of first season episodes, and a smidge of dialogue and the hints that Reid's suffering flashbacks from the episode that aired next after "Revelations." Still don't own any of it. Hope you enjoy!

And Still We Smile

Chapter Six

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself,

and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to

which may be the true."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

A few more days' time saw Spencer Reid stepping out of the elevator and back into the bustling offices of the BAU. Cradling a latte for himself and a caramel macchiato for Morgan, he stood for a moment, feeling equal parts awkwardly hesitant and incredibly grateful to be back.

"Reid!" Morgan called jovially at that moment, waving him over to their desks in the bullpen where he already sat. "My man, it's good to have you back." He clapped Reid on the shoulder as he stood to greet him and take his favorite drink from Reid's hand as he offered it. "Thanks," he added.

"Everyone else is here already?" Reid questioned, glancing around, but not seeing any of the other members of his team.

"Gideon, Hotch, and Prentiss are in the round table room; JJ's got a new case for us."

As if to prove Morgan's words, JJ came walking by them just then, her arms full of case files, her smart skirt swishing about her knees, her blond ponytail swinging. "Morgan, Reid," she said, giving Reid a welcoming smile as she passed them and went up the stairs to begin the briefing, "you guys coming?"

"You bet," Morgan said, pushing off the desk he'd been leaning against, his agile, strong frame unfolding and leading the way as Reid followed, hoping no one could tell that the words "new case" had caused a strange quiver in his stomach.

Usually the start of a new job for the BAU had Reid tingling with excitement. The mental challenge, the race against time, the vital feeling of making a difference, of perhaps for the first time in his life belonging in a group, of knowing why he'd been given the mind that he had, all thrilled him in a way he never felt anywhere else. But, now, having been one of the victims changed all that. He felt it at that moment as he silently entered the conference room last, trailing Morgan and JJ.

He settled into a seat toward the back of the room by Emily, who gave him a nod in greeting, and forced himself not to fidget and sip his coffee. It was ridiculous to be nervous, he tried unsuccessfully to scold himself. 'Tobias is dead and you're still here. You won,' his mind whispered. A shock ran through him, stopping him cold as the words echoed emptily through his head. Almost exactly what he'd said to Elle all those months ago in Ohio. And though she had still been standing, she obviously hadn't been alright. Now he could see what he hadn't at the time, and it pained him to realize how blind he'd been to what she was going through. Her jaded, 'Well then, here's to winning,' suddenly seemed much more fitting. He certainly didn't feel like he'd won at all; he had merely managed to survive.

Pushing that all back, he turned his attention to JJ as she began her presentation. 'Just listen. Focus,' he told himself. 'You can do this. It's your job. Don't make them worry even more; you certainly don't want to be taken off the case and have to spend more time alone in your apartment.' The full vial of Dilaudid still sitting unused in his bathroom cabinet mocked him there, and the half-empty one tucked into a hidden pocket of his messenger bag practically cackled its gleeful victory over him whenever it grew quiet in his mind. The drug taunted and lured him. He had to stay away from his own four quiet, lonely walls and all the new thoughts and fears he was left with.

"…The victims have all disappeared from their homes in Westchester County in the middle of the night. Local PD is starting to fear they're dealing with a series of hate crimes." She turned toward the screen, punching the remote button in her hand as she did. As the pictures flashed up and she introduced them to the newest victims, Reid shifted in his seat, and felt himself squirming inside.

Crime scene photos had never bothered him before. He had knelt beside a dead body many times; to examine a flint knife broken off in a victim's brain, or to determine the gender of a mostly decomposed skeleton, or in any number of other bloody, macabre scenarios. However, now, just seeing pictures of the victims was breaking him out in a cold sweat. Reid brushed an errant lock of hair out of his face behind his ear, swallowed tightly, and hoped none of the others had noticed yet that he wasn't piping in with his usual flow of information.

JJ continued unfazed, flicking the remote again, bringing up a final picture of the most recent victim – Sandra Davis. She was laid out on the grass, leaves strewn all around her, her eyes wide open but rendered forever unseeing. And at the sight of her like that, Reid could again feel himself being drug across the hard ground from a cornfield, rocks and dirt clods bumping along his body, bruising and scratching as Tobias took him. He saw it again just as it had been that night. Felt all over again the sense that he was going to be slaughtered like any other victim of any unsub they'd profiled. Amid flashes of waking up handcuffed in a chair in some remote cabin, having a loaded gun pointed right between his eyes, a backhand blow nearly knocking him off his seat, having to choose which one of those innocent people should die…he was back there again with nightmare suddenness.

It wasn't the first time he'd had a flashback. The Dilaudid he'd begrudgingly dosed himself was largely gone due to such flashbacks, and the shaky fear that followed them, saying he would never be free of them, never be the same again.

Gideon studied Reid carefully from across the table as they all leafed through the case files, peering at the younger man through the wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose as he appeared to be perusing only the papers in front of him. Reid was doing an admirable job hiding it, but Gideon could see that he'd been on edge and nervous since they'd entered the conference room. It was his first day back, and Gideon had hoped it might be quiet and uneventful; that they wouldn't fly out on a job until Reid regained his bearings, but apparently that was not meant to be. What he needed to know was if Reid was ready to go out with them – and if he was okay behind the mask of normalcy he had already put on for them this morning.

"Alright people," Hotch said, effectively ending the meeting and making Reid jerk slightly as he snapped back to the present. "Wheels up in 20 minutes."

As the whole group stood, grabbing their case files, bags, and coffees, and heading back to lockers and desks to get their things, Reid managed to slip out quietly, slinging the strap of his bag over his shoulder. He needed to make one quick detour before he could head out with them to Connecticut.

Taking off down the hall with his long, quick stride, Reid glanced over his shoulder upon reaching the restrooms, then darted inside. Locking the door behind him, he then bent and began franticly rifling through the bag, scrabbling until his fingers closed around cool, small cylindrical glass. Pulling it out, a tremor ran through him as he saw the clear liquid drug; his secret ally and sworn enemy at once. His hands for a second took up the shaking he'd grown familiar with as he would vacillate between another dose and flushing it all down the toilet. He was truly breaking out in sweat now, even more than he had been in the briefing.

Heart pounding, he sighed, knowing he would do it and rubbing a hand over his tired eyes in defeat. He bit his lip, hating himself for continuing with something he knew to be so foolish and harmful, for even taking the Dilaudid off Tobias' body in the first place. But now – right now – he couldn't quit; he needed it. He had to calm his nerves enough to do his job. He loved his work and the BAU, and didn't want to lose his role on the team. What else did he have in his life beyond that?

Without allowing any more time for debate, Reid moved with fingers that had suddenly turned deft and sure. Finding the needle he'd hidden in a zippered compartment of his bag as well, he filled it with the drug, then rolled up one sleeve of the cardigan he wore, located a vein near the bend of his elbow, and poised his finger to depress the plunger.

Just then, a commanding voice sounded, seeming to be right outside the bathroom door. "Has anyone seen Reid?" Hotch's voice questioned. Skittish, Reid nearly panicked and tossed the needle and the Dilaudid back into the pocket without taking any, and zipped it closed. Splashing cold water on his face and the back of his neck, he drew a few shaky breaths as he patted his skin dry and determinedly avoided his own eyes in the mirror.

'I'll just have to handle this one on my own,' he told himself firmly, hoping that he still could. Surely he could still function without it.

Then he scurried out the door, seemingly managing to appear from thin air at Hotch's elbow. "Right here," he said calmly in answer to his supervisor's earlier question on his whereabouts. Though he could hardly believe it possible, he was relieved when Hotch let his momentary disappearance and quiet demeanor in the meeting go. And with that he proceeded to plaster on a bland smile and slip the calm, intellectual, non-tormented mask back over his face for another day.