Notes:
This chapter takes place from roughly before Season 6, Episode:12 Corazon, where we see Reid struggling with a migraine for the first time in the show, to Episode:17 Valhalla
"They're getting worse."
The migraines. The nightmares, the sensitivity to light and sudden loud noises. All of it. But Reid didn't have to elaborate, Liv just knew. She'd make a darn good profiler for someone entirely self-taught.
"I take it the last doctor didn't find anything in the MRI?"
"I've seen several now. Run every test I could convince them to try. But according to the results, there's nothing wrong with me! One Doctor even suggested it was purely psychosomatic. Can you believe that? I am not imagining things! There is something really, physically wrong with me! I'm not losing my mind!" He was practically shouting now, but he stopped when he saw Olivia flinch and lowered his voice, "sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I just, I don't know what else to do."
"Spence?" she said slowly, sadly. "I believe you."
Her words hit directly upon his fear and he bit his lips to keep from crying aloud. Her hand light but unyielding against his back, the calloused finger tips tapping out a gentle rhythm that soothed the ache in his chest.
He looked at her, unable to give voice to his thoughts.
"Yeah, I know. Don't give up." Olivia said gently, "maybe connect with researchers, there are new studies coming out all the time, they might not have all the answers you are looking for, but understanding what's happening to you, even a little, can help, even if all you can do is make peace with it."
"What happens if I don't get better? They'll take my gun, how long before I become a liability in the field? I nearly got myself shot last night."
Olivia bit her lip and Reid wondered what she didn't want to say.
But she wasn't holding back her words, she was measuring them.
"If that does happen Spencer, IF, then you will find other ways to help people, because that's not only what you do, it's who you are. So maybe you do that by teaching the next generation of profilers, maybe you encourage other bright minds to pursue research into schizophrenia and migraines and any other brilliant thing you put your mind to." she paused, took a deep breath and added, "maybe you just live life as a good man, making the world a little better for anyone around you the way you already do." She gave his shoulder a squeeze before settling herself back into her previous position and resuming work on the large wicker basket between her knees. "So, IF that happens, you will still have a life left to live. I'm not giving up on you, neither is your team."
Testing each whip, bending, weaving effortlessly into the patterned handle. The calm quiet between them not broken by her humming under her breath, it was part of the silence, filling the space with something so soft and ethereal it didn't weigh anything at all. She was wearing long cargo shorts, and sitting cross-legged on the ground, another silvered scar could be seen, peaking out at the edge of her exposed knee cap. But it was not alone. Her legs seemed speckled at a glance, like sparse but overlarge freckles. Scars. Most small, some longer and more jagged. None as deep as the one beginning on her shoulder.
A year ago, Spencer might have assumed she was hiding them, but he knew her better now, knew she just hadn't thought to mention them, as if something that marked her so permanently could be that easily overlooked.
"That scar, the one on your knee-" He realized this was not specific enough and tapped the one he meant. "How did you get that one?"
"Funny story actually, I was cutting down dead tree branches, and things went a little sideways." She chuckled at the memory and he tilted his head to study the angle of her face, committing it to memory for future sketching. "Must have been what? 10, 11 maybe, and there were these trees on our front yard, something was killing them back and I decided to try my hand at being a tree surgeon, so I grabbed the sharpest hatchet I could handle and started taking off what I could reach… but there were a few bigger branches I had to climb for and one snapped off and hit me on its way down."
Not for the first time Reid noticed the absence of parental care in her story. "And this one?" he tapped another spot on her shin where a cluster of silver dimples lay.
"Riding incident, loose saddle and the horse spooked, gravel isn't terribly forgiving."
He chose another and then another. Borrowing a bicycle too large for her. Falling from a bunk bed. Odd childhood incidents were not unusual, but if there was anything like medical care in her recollections, she had done it for herself, bandaging and cleaning her own wounds, sterilizing what she needed and never seeming to either ask for help or receive any.
"That one? Oh, that one is stupid, I caught the edge of the faucet washing my hands before Christmas dinner, and you would not believe how much it bled! I remember my mother saying 'what'd you go and do that for?' as if I'd done it on purpose."
"Did you get stitches?"
"It was pretty shallow, I managed to clean it up without making a mess and Joe helped me with the dishes after so it wasn't too bad."
Reid was not the only one who had been effectively parenting himself from an early age, where he had had the responsibility of taking care of his own mother, she had been cooking, cleaning and maintaining a home for her brothers. Her mother seemed to have been as involved with her sons as most mothers, and neither they, nor their father had seen the heavy burden placed upon Olivia.
And that burden lay upon her still.
She didn't break down when the call came to let her know Ben had flunked out of the program. The tiniest tremor of disappointment was all she seemed to feel, not because she was hiding, but because she had expected it.
It was the hope that had surprised her, not its failing.
"I am not my brother's keeper." Olivia glanced down into the valley below and then she straightened to look out at the horizon. Beyond the horizon. The unusual expression she wore, as though she was looking out through the pages of history, knowing, seeing it all bared away. "I lost him, I've lost them all."
"I'm still here." Spencer had said.
"Yes, you are." She answered him in that same far away voice, strange and ageless, hollow. "In time, you will go, when you find your way home. But you won't be lost, and I… I will still be here."
In Miami a month later Reid saw a similar expression in the eyes of a suspect, a man who claimed there were ghosts on him, spoiling his head.
Reid patted Glory's forelock and slid the bridle up over her ears before saying in an offhand way. "I signed myself up for therapy."
"No. Really?" Olivia said, spinning to look at him, "really? that's great, I'm so proud of you!"
"After this last case… I thought maybe it would help and it can't be that bad if you can handle it."
"Are you saying I'm a wuss?" Olivia said, laughing unaffectedly.
"No, just that I needed an extra push, and you provided it; not on purpose I know, but still… Thank you."
The depth of his gratitude seemed too heavy for a simple response and they worked in comfortable silence to finish tacking up and mounting.
When they'd put the horses through their paces and Glory was just beginning to glisten with the effort, they slowed to a walk and he brought the conversation back around.
"We had a case, while you were gone, the illustrated man."
"I remember, tattoos, you wrote about it in the emails."
"Right, well, there were journals, a lot of journals, detailing his crimes."
"And you were tasked with speedreading them," Olivia supplied.
"Of course. I heard one of the local cops saying something to Morgan and Prentiss, that there must be something wrong with me because I appeared unaffected by the grim material." Reid paused, considering the reins in his hands with pretended interest. "I know I'm not as… expressive as many people are, but I am not a sociopath. I was just doing my job, sifting through the graphic garbage for clues to find the missing girl, I didn't have time to be affected."
"Until it was over." Olivia said, seeming to read his mind.
"Yeah. I can compartmentalize exceptionally well when the pressure is on, but when the case is over, when I close my eyes… there are downsides to having an eidetic memory in my line of work, the words and pictures all blend together in my nightmares, and as much as I try, I can't forget."
"Is that what you were doing, back when you were using? Trying to forget?"
"That was a big part of it, yeah." Reid nodded, glad Olivia didn't treat the subject as taboo, it was somehow easier to acknowledge when she didn't pretend it hadn't happened. Remarkable really, given how her brother's addiction had impacted her, but she wasn't scared of him, nor was she scared for him the way the team had always been.
"I'm sorry you can't forget." she reached across the gap to pat his shoulder, "I guess having a bad memory is a blessing in some ways, I can't remember much of my childhood, except the worse bits, something happens and it just… pops back up clearer than day."
"Trauma imprints on the brain differently, and reliving those memories reinforces those neural pathways. I've been reading up on it… there's a theory that using memory devices to relive positive events could help counter act the overwhelming negativity of complex childhood trauma. My therapist actually suggested I journal positive events in my life and I've started to read through it whenever I wake from nightmares."
"Is it helping?" Olivia asked, skeptically, pulling the reins back as Arion sidled sideways and stomped his impatience.
"Yeah, yeah I think it is."
"Guess it can't hurt," she shrugged and patted the restless horse's neck. "But my boy here is raring for a bit more of a workout, do you mind?"
"Go ahead."
"Right, well, Giddy-up!" and she was flying away, her dark hair and Arion's white-grey mane flowing like water into the heat-haze. A mirage.
Oasis.
Watching her, Reid decided to take more than a mental picture. He had an idea, and he'd need tangible copies to make it work.
"Got an email from Ellie last night, she seems to be settling in well."
"That's great! It's nice you know." Reid chewed his cheek considering the sharpness of his pencil with some skepticism, "that you've kept in touch. Usually the case is over and there's nothing, no way of knowing how the survivors fare, or if we made a difference. She really seemed to like you..."
"Yeah, she's sweet, I'm glad her mom has stepped up for her," Olivia said with a sigh and a look out the kitchen window, then returning to her task, asked, "how's the new agent doing? Agent- Seaver, is it?"
She was stirring a pot of browning meat while Reid attempted to draw an outline in the sketchbook Olivia had gifted him.
"She's pretty fine, I mean, she's getting along fine, with the team I mean."
"So, she's pretty." Olivia said with a suggestive smirk.
"I mean, she's not unattractive, so yeah she's uh, I mean, yeah, maybe a bit, not that I was really looking at her or anything."
"Oh, so she's really pretty!" Olivia pointed the spatula at him, "-let me guess, petite, blond, blue-eyed and driven with a strong and decisive personality?"
"How-? I mean, what makes you think that?" Reid asked, ducking away from her penetrating eyes.
"Because you were blushing, Doctor Reid. So, is she? Exactly your type?"
"No, and I don't know have a type, so I don't know what you're talking about."
Olivia laughed heartily at his feeble excuse, "You know, feigning ignorance is much more difficult to pull off when you're a certifiable genius."
"Still don't know what you're talking about."
"Right, well, let me know when she agrees to go out with you."
"Why are you so sure she'd say yes?" Reid asked.
"Why are you so sure she'll say no?" Olivia countered, pausing her preparation of aromatics to look at him with a raised brow.
"Well, it really doesn't matter, because she's not going to say anything, I'm not going to ask." He looked up in time to see her questioning face, "I've tried talking to her, but she's made it very clear she isn't interested. And even if she was, she'd never risk her career for an inter-agency relationship with the nerd who won't shut up about Doctor Who."
"I'm sorry Spencer... You'll find you're person someday, don't give up."
"I thought you were supposed to be chopping onions, not giving me life advice."
"Hey, I can multitask, and this chili will be ready when its ready. If you're already hungry, go find a snack, this has to simmer for two hours at the least."
Reid pretended shock and outrage at the waiting time, miming at an invisible watch and grinned as he dodged her half-hearted attempt to swat his arm as he passed her to hide behind the open pantry door.
"Hey, you were the one who wanted campfire chili for dinner, don't tempt me to put another habanero in it, and don't-" Liv succeeded in swatting his hand away from the small cake. "Nope, don't even think about it, Doc."
"Hey! It's my birthday, why can't I sample the cake?"
"Because I made it! Go, take your cookies and get out of my kitchen."
"Are you not going to let me help at all? I feel kind of guilty just sitting around when you're working so hard."
"It's your birthday."
"Yeah, and if the birthday boy asks if he can help, he should be allowed! Birthday boy privilege." Spencer asserted.
"Fine, you can do the biscuits, later." Liv answered, relenting while pretending to scowl at him.
Spencer wisely exited beyond her reach before pressing his hand to his chest in a dramatic show of faux passion. "Oh-Livy-Ah- you temptress, fresh biscuits too? My good fortune abounds indeed! Whatever have I done to receive such plenteous beneficence from the fair lady of this magnificent estate?"
"Go pick an album, you ridiculous wastrel, before I think of more creative ways to punish you for your audacity."
"As you wish milady." He swept a deep bow and laughed with her as he went to fulfill her request.
The cake he'd received at work yesterday was good, and the cheer of his colleagues warmed him. But the fiery chili was on another level, with the buttery biscuits still warm from the oven and Olivia's laughter as he fanned his sweating face.
"Here, lactaids first, then cake." She tossed the bottle across the table and he caught it, reading the label and chewing four of the minty tablets.
"I can't help it, I love dairy."
There were benefits to having a birthday so close to his favorite holiday. The pumpkin-cream cheese cake with its tiny jack-o-lanterns and black cats decorating the top was even more delicious than it had smelled.
He'd watched with amazement as the blobs of color formed into recognizable shapes under Olivia's careful use of a single toothpick. An excess of effort for just the two of them he thought, but she had insisted. And he'd been given authorization to pick the movie, so long as it could be watched on vhs or dvd, Liv never complained that the entire thing was in a language she didn't know, laughing simply to see him laugh and smiling at his long-winded explanations of each bit or joke.
"Hey, Liv! Emily passed up on a Solaris, I know its in Russian, but I thought I could translate for you? If you want to go with me?"
"Okay, I'm going to need more context, movie, play, opera?"
"It's a five-hour sci-fi meditation film actually."
"Five hours? Would you be offended if I brought a book and earplugs?"
"No. Plus I've seen it before, so if you need a break, we can go for walks and I'll catch you up."
"I have one condition."
"Really? Only one?"
"You pay for the popcorn."
Reid laughed through the phone, "that I can do."
Notes:
Season 6 Episode 18: Lauren is next, are you ready?