Well I was very excited to wake up one sunny morning and find I had reviews!
Very excited indeed!
But this is the last chapter, although I am toying with the idea of expanding it. I just need a storyline that involves a case. And unfortunately I'm not as clever as the CM writers!
Speaking of which, disclaimer; I do not own Criminal Minds or anything associated with it. I just wish I owned Reid. Or one of his maps. MapsxReid is my OTP in the end!

But I'd like to thank;
lolyncut (whose name I keep misreading and I mildly horrify myself! haha)
PinkBell
Wondering Soul
and some random anon! Thank you anon!

But anyway, thoughts on expansion if it pleases the court!

Nora Jackson slept fitfully on the chair by Reid's bedside. Her head was perched precariously on the edge of the bed whilst her hand squeezed Reid's rightly as if doing so would wake him up, all healthy and new again. The doctor's had told her that the surgery had been a success but that the next 24 hours were critical. She had stoically refused to cry, pacing for almost three hours until finally she couldn't take it anymore. She had to see him. She hadn't wanted to; seeing him lie deathly still with tubes feeding through him brought a lump to her throat. The first thing she'd said when she'd burst through the door, interrupting the federal agents who were standing nonplussed over their friend, apart from entreating him to look way from the blue flame, was, "did you know that the lump in your throat is you trying to supress your body's instinct to increase oxygen flow?" She'd grabbed his hands, squeezed it tight and let her tears drown it as she'd stuttered out the fact, "you told me that you remember?" A weepy giggle bubbled from her lips, "you were trying to help me stop crying. Badly I might add." And then she'd taken in his passive face. And simply given up.

Spencer had come home from an away case one night, the first one since they began dating, immediately going over to Nora's apartment knowing that she'd be awake, only to find her sobbing on the floor surrounded by chocolate and tissues. With a runny nose and wracking shoulders she launched herself at him, ecstatic that he was alright.

"What's wrong? Of course I'm alright." The poor man was astounded as he'd never seen her cry before. He'd seen her misty eyed, maybe a little teary at a movie, but never full out sobbing in to his shoulder and getting his sweater vest all wet and patchy. It had taken a while for her to finally speak,

"I saw that Agent Jareau say there'd been another murder and the way she described him..."

Reid immediately understood why the need for this sudden panic. The latest victim of the Unsub before she'd been caught had looked a lot like him. Skinny, nerdy guy; easy prey to a beautiful woman with a homicidal grudge to bear. Reid himself had had a lucky escape, only escaping because he wouldn't immediately sleep with her and the fact that all he could think about was Nora. The situation of him being hit on by a beautiful woman instead of Morgan, especially when he was standing right there, had turned from flattering in to downright uncomfortable.

"Why didn't you call me if you were this worried?" He stroked her hair whilst the sobbing slowly began to cease.

"Well I didn't know if I could... you're on the job?" She pulled back, blushing at her mistake and feeling a little uncertain. Awkwardly she attempted to brush away the wet patches she'd made on his shirt and sweater vest.

"If you're ever feeling worried then, you can call me. Hey, did you know that the lump in our throat when we cry..."

The woman was inconsolable even when all the BAU agents had tried to comfort her, take her away from Reid or try and make her go to sleep. She hadn't slept a wink since Reid had gone into surgery thirty one hours ago. Finally they couldn't help her and just let her cry herself to sleep at her boyfriend's bedside. And there she stayed until a few hours later when Morgan, who had briefly popped out, returned with a bouquet of flowers, clearly from the hospital gift shop. Nora raised her sleepy, red raw eyes which immediately widened when he brought in the flowers.

"No, no." She whispered, staring at the flowers like they were the epitome of all evil. Everyone could see she was itching to take the flowers out of the room for some reason but she refused to leave Reid's side, "not lilies." Lilies reminded them both of death, something Reid saw on a daily basis and just didn't need them to be the flower to wake up to. Both of them knew the language of flowers. It had been the one thing Nora had been able to teach Reid that he didn't already know. The white lilies that Morgan had brought in mean purity but that image had become distorted with the use of them in funerals, "please could you bring in some tulips?" There was another one of those soft smiles as she turns back to Reid's unconscious form, "we love tulips."

Reid and Nora sat on a bench, licking ice cream, with Reid's arm casually draped over the back of the bench, as they stared at the tulip fields. They were in the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. It was April so the gardens were alive with the colour of all the multi-coloured tulips, daffodils, cherry blossoms and roses. Luckily they'd come on one of the sunniest days of April so the rain didn't make Nora's hair curl and attempt to become an afro like it usually did. It was their six month anniversary and it was here that Nora had finally been able to talk to Reid as animatedly about something he didn't know as he usually did with her. Her grandmother had loved flowers and passed down her wisdom to the granddaughter who'd wanted to know everything,

"In Japan, there's a story about a particular cherry blossom of the Iyo district." Nora had announced as they'd stood in a comfortable silence underneath one of the beautiful trees. Reid had no information to give her for once, "there was a Samurai who lived for many years in a village where a cherry blossom never died. But when the Samurai began to die so did the blossom. Everyone lamented so the Samurai decided to do the honourable thing to make the villagers die. He sat under the tree and committed the ritual suicide of Seppuku. The nutrients from his body fed the tree which grew blossoms again an hour after the Samurai's death. It's said to still be alive even now. Cherry blossoms represent a fallen Samurai and became Kamikaze pilots." Reid had stood, enthralled by the enthusiasm of Nora's voice. The language of flowers had never interested him but the sheer excitement in Nora's eyes had him wanting to learn more. He wondered if this was how she felt whenever he started blathering on when everyone else clearly only felt boredom, "in China of course it's different. It means love, female beauty, sexuality and dominance."

And with that they'd continued with Reid asking about various other flowers, encouraging more stories like the Japanese ones. When finally they got to the tulips, got ice creams and sat themselves down, Reid pleased to note that Nora had a massive smile on her face.

"There are so many tulips here! And all of the colours have different meanings. Yellow means 'there's sunshine in your smile' or 'hopeless love', multi-coloured ones mean 'you have beautiful eyes' and red means 'believe me' or it's just a general declaration of love."

"So if I were to give you some tulips I'd have to be pretty careful in which colour I picked?" He asked almost nonchalantly but there was a certain catch in his voice and the way he kept his eyes trained at the horizon and away from her made her think something was up. So she'd given a non-committal shrug and waited like told as he ran away with his gangly awkward run. About fifteen minutes later her ice cream had been completely demolished. Long fingers suddenly wrapped themselves around her eyes. She recognised them instantly from the old book and map smell. And then a smell of flowers… of tulips. When she was allowed to open her eyes a bunch of tulips, all of the colours she'd pointed out, was hovering in front of her face, "oh Reid! Which one do you mean?"

"All of them?" His voice had shot to about two octaves higher, a sure sign he was nervous. Nora beamed back at him and merely picked out a red tulip and handed it over, knowing that that was all that was needed.

"Hey! You said you needed them for the FBI!" A gruff, annoyed voice came out from nowhere.

"We've got to go."

There was simultaneous groaning and cooing from the separate genders of Reid's friends. All the girls had oohed and awed in the appropriate places. The men had groaned although all were secretly impressed that their awkward Spencer Reid actually had, dare they say it, swag. He could be smooth if he wanted to be. Nora giggled at Morgan's half-disgusted, half-impressed face.

Suddenly Reid's hand twitched. He let out a quiet groan before his eyelids fluttered. Then he simply drifted off in to sleep; no longer unconscious, just asleep. Nora didn't say anything but heaved the biggest sigh of relief with an almost over exaggerated heave of her shoulders. Everyone who had been secretly holding their breaths let them all out as a collective exhale.

Reid was back with them.

"I call party at Nora's apartment when this is all over." Garcia announced happily, a massive weight lifted off everyone's shoulders.

And Nora was finally with them too.