Chapter 11: Paige's POV

I woke up on a gurney in the back of the ambulance. There were a few EMTs taking my vitals, and JJ was next to me. I slowly sat up, at the protest of the EMTs. I was being given oxygen through tubes in my nose.

"JJ," I said anxiously. "Is Derek okay?" She smiled.

"Yes, he's fine. He has a slight concussion, so they are going to take him to the hospital just to keep track of his vitals. Are you okay?" I shrugged.

"Nothing broken," I replied. While that was true, I wasn't sure if I'd ever be truly okay again. I'd killed someone, and that could never be undone. JJ gave me a sympathetic look, as if she knew what I was thinking.

"There's blood all over your face," she said quietly. "Is it yours?" A tear leaked out of my eye and I wiped it away. From the grimace on JJ's face I could tell I had just smeared blood across my cheek.

"No," I answered. I turned to the EMT. "I should probably get an HIV test," I said to them. One, a young woman with short hair, nodded and went to get one. Once that had been taken care of, (I tested negative for now but I knew I would need to be retested in three months), JJ helped me out of the ambulance. I looked around for Spencer, and eventually saw him leaning against one of the BAU SUVs. His hands were in his pockets and he was staring at the ground. I looked at JJ questioningly. She sighed.

"It was really dangerous what you did," she said cautiously. "You very easily could have been killed."

"I almost was," I murmured.

"I think Spence is still struggling with that," she continued, her brow furrowed. "You should talk to him." I turned to see Derek in a second ambulance, protesting as one of the well-meaning EMTs attempted to put an IV in his arm. Putting off talking to Spencer for a moment, I went to see Derek.

"Hey," I said nonchalantly, stepping up into the vehicle. He looked up at me and smiled; his argument with the EMT forgotten. Then he frowned.

"You look pretty busted up, kid," he said. "You gonna be okay?" I nodded.

"What about you?" I asked. "Are you okay? What did they do to you?" He sighed and gingerly touched the back of his head.

"They took pretty good care of me, considering," he said. "They hit me over the head to abduct me, but after that they gave me food and water and didn't hurt me. They did drug me, at first." This seemed hard for him to admit. For the first time I thought about how this must be affecting his pride. The big bad FBI agent being abducted probably didn't sit well with him.

"Once I'm out of the hospital, we have to have a talk you and me," he said.

"What about?" I asked. Unwillingly, my eyes filled up with tears. "Are you angry at me too?" He reached over and took my hand, his large warm hand practically covering mine. He sighed.

"Reid's not happy huh?" he asked. I shook my head and wiped away an errant tear. "Well I can't really blame him," he said calmly. "You did risk your life to save mine, and while I appreciate it, from what Hotch has told me it wasn't necessary. You could have died, kid," he said, and his voice shook a little. "Do you know what that would have done to me if you had died trying to save me? I don't think I could have handled it. I'm having a hard enough time as it is." I nodded glumly. He pulled me towards him and I carefully hugged him around the tubes and wires they had him hooked up to. I took a deep breath and tried to stop crying once I saw that my tears were staining his shirt.

"I'm glad you're alive," I said to him, not moving from our embrace.

"Back atcha Sugar," he said tenderly, and then let me go. "Go home," he told me faux sternly. "I'll see you later."

I got up and climbed out of the ambulance. Spencer was waiting by the SUV. I walked over to him, my legs still a little wobbly. I stopped in front of him, awkwardly, unsure of what to say.

"Hotch told me they want to keep you at the hospital over-night," he said, not looking at me.

"I don't want to," I said. "I want to go home…with you." He said nothing but turned and opened the passenger side door. I climbed in and he shut it behind me before getting in the driver's seat.

He was silent the whole drive to the BAU office where we picked up his car, then the whole drive to his apartment. He didn't say a word when we were inside, just walked into his bedroom. I didn't follow him, sensing he needed a moment, but went into the bathroom. It was the first time I'd gotten a look at my face, and I gasped out loud when I saw it.

My fight with Alison had given me a fist-sized bruise on my right cheekbone, and my lip was split. This was underneath the fine spray of blood that covered my face and neck and part of my shirt. It was smeared in places, mostly around my eyes, making me look like I had war paint on. My hair was a sticky, frizzy mess. A shower was most definitely in order.

I got in and stood under the hot water with my eyes closed, wondering if I would ever truly feel clean. I jumped as the shower curtain was pushed back, and sighed in relief when Spencer climbed in with me. I don't know what I had been expecting, but Spencer was a welcome sight. He wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to his chest. I put my hands on his narrow hips and gently bit the base of his neck, where I knew he liked it. He made a small contented noise and captured my lips with his, kissing me breathless. He turned me so that my back was pressed against the dripping wall of the shower and lifted me so that my legs were wrapped around his torso. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him for all I was worth. It was clear we both needed comfort from each other.

After our passionate sex and we had finished our shower, we both got out and dried off. He still hadn't said anything to me other than words of encouragement and instruction while we were making love, and it was beginning to freak me out. I didn't get dressed, but rolled into bed naked and fell asleep almost instantly. I was too tired for words, and I didn't know what I would say if I wasn't.

When I woke up I could tell that I had already slept most of the day away. I slid out from the sheets and wrapped myself in my bathrobe. My stomach growled and I decided my first priority was food. I wandered to the kitchen and helped myself to the lukewarm half-pot of coffee that Spencer had left. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and opened the fridge to get milk, but there was none. So I ate the dry cereal, leaning against the counter. The house was completely silent, and I wondered if Spencer had gone to work. He usually left a note if he went somewhere, but perhaps under these circumstances he'd decided not to. Maybe he was too angry to let me know where he was going.

Once I was done my breakfast I got dressed and wondered what to do with the rest of my short day. It was already evening but I felt wide awake and restless. I needed to do something, I just wasn't sure what. Finally, I decided to head to the hospital to check on Derek. I wasn't sure if he was still there, but I couldn't sit in the house alone. It was driving me crazy. I went into Spencer's office to get a piece of paper to write him a note letting him know where I was going. Even if he didn't show me the same courtesy I would do it for him.

As I walked in, Spencer spun around in his chair hearing me approach. He startled me so badly that I burst into tears. I hadn't known he was in the house, let alone in the office, and being surprised for some reason triggered an intense reaction. He was immediately out of his chair and holding me in his arms.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Did I scare you?"

"Yes," I said. "I didn't think anyone was in the house." I took a step back from him and wiped the tears from my eyes. He was studying me, and I didn't like it. "What?" I asked; defensive all of a sudden. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's what I thought," he said, almost to himself. "I suspected it when you jumped last night when I opened the shower curtain. You're suffering from hyper-vigilance." I sniffed and pressed my back against the wall.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder," he said. "The symptoms are that you are easily startled and take extra precautions to protect yourself, like keeping your back to a wall," he remarked mildly. "It's common in people that have experienced traumatic events, like you did yesterday."

"Well that's lovely," I remarked sarcastically. "How do I stop it?"

"It will go away over time," he said calmly, then turned away and sat back down in his office chair. His back was stiff, and despite his calm demeanor I could tell he was still harboring the resentment from the day before.

"You're angry at me," I observed.

"Yes," he replied, not looking at me.

"Are you going to explain why?" I asked, my own annoyance starting to heat up. He put his pen down and this time he did look at me, his face uncharacteristically furious.

"I shouldn't have to explain why," he said, every word shot out of him like a bullet. "But since you asked, I will." He stood up from the desk again and stood in front of me, his arms crossed. "It has to do with the little thing you did yesterday. You know the one…knowingly walking into a death trap? If you're going to try to commit suicide, Paige, perhaps you could consult me first?" His sarcastic tone pissed me off.

"Is it really that I almost died?" I asked, "Or is it that I almost died to save Derek?"

"You wouldn't have had put your life at risk at all if you had just told me what you were planning! You could have had back up!" He was avoiding the question and we both knew it. "Don't you trust me?" he asked.

"…Yes," I replied, but I winced as we both realized that the answer came too late.

"Why don't you?" he asked. "What have I done to betray your trust?" I realized that because of Derek's disappearance, we had never really talked about why I had run away to Maine. So we got into it. We argued for almost three hours. There was yelling, insults (on my part), slamming doors, and at one point I even pushed him. I'd never been so worked up in my entire life, and I don't think he had ever been either, although he stayed many degrees calmer than I was.

As is the way with arguments, we both brought up things that had been bothering us. I brought up Lila and telling the team about my nightmares, even though they seemed like problems from a lifetime ago, they were still bothering me. He brought up how I just ran away to Maine when things got tough, my (what he called) "overly affectionate" relationship with Derek, and (again his words) my "propensity to try and get myself killed." After hours of arguing, we both were emotionally exhausted. I sat on the bed with my back to him, and he stood with his back to me staring out the window.

"So what do we do now?" I asked after a long silence. He sighed and I could tell he was thinking. After an even longer silence, his shoulders slumped.

"I don't know," he replied.

"I know," I said suddenly, and this surprised him enough that he turned around to look at me.

"What?" he asked.

"We compromise," I said with certainty. He breathed a sigh of relief. "For example," I started, "I promise that when I'm upset about something I won't run away from it, but try and talk it out with you instead. Now it's your turn." He walked around the bed and sat next to me, which I took as a good sign.

"I promise not to have any more contact with Lila," he said. I smiled. I extended my hand, and he shook it.

"That's one set of problems out of the way," I said. "Now what else would you like from me?" He thought for a moment.

"Will you promise to talk to me, or at least tell me before you make possibly life-altering or life-ending decisions?" he asked. I was tempted to smile at his wording, but his face told me he was very serious.

"I promise," I said, and he sighed in relief. "If you promise me that you won't tell the team details about our life together," I finished. He seemed happy to agree to that, and we shook hands again. I leaned forward and kissed him, thinking the whole situation was settled. He returned the kiss, but pulled away after a moment.

"There's one more thing," he said, and I knew what he wanted. "I want you to promise not to be friends with Morgan anymore." I hated to do it, but I had to refuse.

"I can't do that Spencer."

"Why not? I promised not to contact Lila anymore," he pointed out.

"That's different," I said. "You and Lila were sleeping together, and Derek and I are just friends."

"He wants to be more than friends and we both know it," his annoyance was returning, and I didn't want to start another argument.

"What if I promised not to spend time with him unless you are there too?" I asked. He thought about it.

"I guess that would be okay," he said reluctantly. "And can you also tell me if he calls you?" I nodded, happy to agree if it meant I could still be friends with Derek. Sighing in relief, I laid back onto the bed, and Spencer did too. He put an arm around me and pulled me up against his side. I felt more content than I had in a long time.

"You know what Spencer?" I asked.

"What?" he asked, kissing the top of my head. I smiled and pressed my face into his chest.

"I think we're going to make it," I said.

"Make what?" he asked, confused. I laughed.

"No, make it, as in, last for a long time," I said. "If our relationship could last through that argument I think it could last through anything."

"You may be right," he said. He seemed to be lost in thought. I rolled over, grabbed the phone, and started dialing.

"Who are you calling?" he asked.

"The Chinese Food place," I replied. "You have no food in this house…again." We both laughed.