Reid was sure his heart stopped when he heard the growl come from the depths of the trees to his left. He knew that sound anywhere and he was sure it would join his nightmares in due time. He gripped Morgan tighter, ignoring how weak that seemed.
He did not want to come face to face again with the bear that had already given his body enough pain. He wasn't sure he could take it and face the frozen tundra and walk another ten miles.
It was all too much for the young profiler.
Reid felt Morgan grab his gun out of its holster and held it at the ready. "You think you'll be fine to sit down?" Morgan asked, not taking his eyes away from the trees. The two agents heard the snapping of twigs and the growling grew louder as the beast approached.
"Yeah," Reid managed to whisper out. Morgan gently laid his friend down on the snow covered ground. If Reid still had feeling anywhere, he might have objected to getting wet once more, but he didn't mind now.
There were bigger things to deal with, such as the fierce Mother bear heading right for them.
Morgan stood his ground as the bear emerged from the shadows in the trees. Reid's heart skipped a beat as he got a good look at the brown bear. Yes, it was the same one that had attacked him just yesterday. His memory had never failed him yet and he was sure that even without an eidetic memory he would remember those sharp, deadly teeth.
The bear looked directly at Reid and the doctor could have sworn that he saw the bear smile at him as if it was saying, "You thought you could get away, didn't you, well too bad."
"Don't you even think about it," Morgan said and stepped right in front of Reid, efficiently blocking his injured friend from the bear's deadly gaze. "You're going to have to go through me, big ugly."
"Morgan…" Reid said hesitantly as the bear stood up its hind legs and let out a loud roar that seemed to shake the entire forest.
Reid saw Morgan clench his jaw and he didn't waver once from his stance with his gun out in front of him. The young profiler had to admit that he was slightly jealous of his friend's bravery, but then again, most would say that Reid was quite brave himself.
Morgan fired his gun once and the sound seemed to echo all through the forest. Reid couldn't help but flinch when he heard it, his nerves already on edge at the sight of the bear again.
The bullet buried itself in the bear's left shoulder and it let out a loud roar of pain. The bear returned to all fours and looked at Morgan with a look that could kill if that was even possible.
Once again, Morgan didn't even flinch.
Blood was coming out steadily from the bear's gunshot wound, but that didn't seem to faze it at all as it started to charge straight towards Morgan and Reid.
"Morgan…" Reid called out, more worried for his friend than for himself. He had already survived a bear attack, but if Morgan got himself injured as well than they were pretty much done for.
Morgan didn't move or acknowledge that he had heard his injured friend. He simply stared as the bear grew closer and closer.
"Morgan!" Reid screamed as the bear was only three or so yards away from them.
Another gunshot went off and the bear let out on more roar, but this one wasn't of pain. No, the bear seemed even angrier than before.
The bullet had barely grazed the bear.
Reid heard Morgan curse and desperately try to fire his gun once more, but before he could, the bear was on top of the FBI agent.
"Morgan!" Reid called out once again as he watched Morgan and the bear fight for dominance. The bear was obliviously winning and the young doctor couldn't help but close his eyes when he heard Morgan cry out in pain.
Reid searched desperately for his own gun, but he couldn't find it on his person. If he had left it back at the place they had just left than he knew that the universe was really out to get him. Giving up on his search for his own gun, Reid searched for Morgan's.
But then he realized that Morgan still held onto his gun and was trying to use it to unsuccessfully fight off the large Mother bear.
"I have to do something," the young genius whispered to himself, knowing that he couldn't just stand by and watch as his friend got mauled to death.
He saw an especially large rock sitting on top of the snow a few inches away from his right hand. Reid grabbed it and without even really thinking about what he was about to do, he threw it right at the brown bear's massive head.
"Get away from him!" Reid shouted as he did so.
The bear looked up from Morgan and growled as it locked its eyes back on Reid. The bear did exactly what Reid hoped it would; it left Morgan.
But unfortuntaltly the bear was now once again on Reid's already injured body and they seemed to resume their struggle from when they had been interrupted the day earlier.
Reid wasn't even sure what was happening anymore, he was lost in a world of pain as the bear clawed and bit at his half frozen body. He tried to fight off the bear, but his arms didn't seem to want to obey him.
Reid seemed to be worlds away when he heard a last gunshot go off . He vaguely realized that the bear had fallen off of him and that now someone else was leaning over him.
"Reid, Reid are you okay?" Morgan asked, his voice tinged with worry.
Reid could only let out a low groan.
Morgan cursed under his breath and he pushed Reid's long hair away from his face. "Hey, stay with me buddy. You're going to be fine, okay? Hotch is going to find us, you'll see. And we'll get you to a nice warm hospital and you'll be all fixed up."
Darkness worked its way into his vision and Reid heard Morgan's voice growing softer and softer. He grew so very tired and wasn't sure he could stay awake another second.
"Reid, you stay awake! Don't you dare fall asleep on me now! Hey, hey come on kid…work with me."
But Reid knew he couldn't work with Morgan. He was too tired and he finally succumbed to the warm darkness that was so inviting.
Reid had been out of the hospital for two days now. In reality, he didn't even think he needed to go to the hospital, much less stay there for three days while doctors and his team fussed over him.
He didn't particularly enjoy being the center of anyone's attention, especially when that attention was mostly out of pity and guilt.
He saw it in all of their eyes, the guilt over what had happened. He tried telling them that it wasn't their fault that he had been stupid to go off by himself, but no one would have it.
Nobody ever wanted to blame the victim.
But now he was safely away from all of their gazes and "Are you okay?" questions. Reid had been given as long as he needed away from work to gather himself together and get ready for the field again.
He didn't intend on taking too long off of work. He was sure that sitting around his apartment thinking about what had happened would be much worse than catching Unsubs.
And sitting around his apartment would just lead to the distraction of dilaudid and he wasn't sure he was strong enough to fight off the intoxicating drug just yet.
So here the young genius was, sitting across from his mother in Bennington Sanitarium. He hadn't seen her since the whole Fisher King incident and figured that now was as good of a time as ever to come back and visit.
She wouldn't look at him with pity or guilt. She was too smart for that.
Reid hadn't gotten the nerve to tell her what had happened just yet, slightly worried at how she would react. The doctors told him that she was having one of her better weeks, but he didn't want to ruin it with this news.
She had been so happy to finally be able to see him. She didn't hug him, but she did give him a warm smile as he approached him.
But Reid knew that she knew that something was wrong with him. His mother always knew, and Reid had never been especially good at keeping things from her.
They had exchanged pleasantries and she had listened as he told her about life in Quantico and a recent book he had read. She talked about the doctors and the newest patient to join them.
And Reid knew he couldn't keep avoiding it forever. He hadn't sent letters to her for the two days he had been captive and if that didn't set his mother off, than the fresh injury to the side of his face did.
She had asked him about it when he first arrived, but Reid came up with some lame excuse about walking into a door or something like that.
Diana Reid was too smart to buy something as lame as that.
The mother and son duo lulled into a comfortable silence until Diana broke that by placing her hand on her son's knee and asking, "Spencer, what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, but he knew it sounded pathetic even to him.
"A mother always knows when something is wrong with her child."
And Reid just couldn't help but allow a few tears to slip down his cheeks. His mother moved even closer to her son and wrapped her arms around him. She let go after a few moments, but kept a comforting hand on Reid's back as he went into his tale.
He told her of Tobias, Charles and the archangel Raphael. He told her of the burning fish and how he wasn't sure he could ever eat fish again. He told her of the pain of the beatings, of how he had almost died, of how he was to confess the sins that he wasn't even sure he had committed.
He skipped over the drugs for he did not want his mother to know how weak he was. To know how he couldn't fight them off and now he was too weak to not listen to their comforting Siren's call.
But he did tell his mother of how he dug his own grave and how he finally was found. He told her of how he could barely stand to be around his team anymore for their guilt was suffocating him.
She simply listened the entire time and nodded in the correct places and encouraged him in other places.
At the end, Diana Reid had only a few words for her only child, "Spencer, you are so strong."
And it was this that convinced Reid that truly he could survive and that he could overcome that shack.
He left the next day with a promise that he would try to be safer to his mother. He went home and two days later, he was back at work.
Hotch tried to keep Reid away longer, but Reid wouldn't have any of it. He needed to work, he needed to be strong.
But of course, he couldn't be strong all the time and at night, when the shadows in his mind were too strong to ignore, was when Reid finally caved.
And now, almost a year later, Morgan was fighting to keep strong as he pushed down on his friend's bleeding shoulder and side in a desperate attempt to keep his best friend alive.
Author's Note: I hoped you all had a fabulous Easter! I appreciate all the reviews and my Internet has been down almost all this weekend so I haven't been able to reply to any reviews. Have a great week!