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THE LEG! ARRRGGGGGGGHHHH! I can't freaking believe I got that wrong! I HATE when I do something like that! (If you hear a strange sound, it's me banging my head against my desk.)

Anyway, thanks to spygoose314 and others for pointing it out. As much as it drove me nuts to hear it, I am glad when people tell me these things, especially when it gives me a chance to correct them. There will be an explanation within the story (the poor medical staff are going to take the blame), but for real life it's simply this: I got it wrong. I regret it, but it does happen.

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Chapter Seventeen

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The first time he awoke was when a sickening sense of urgency pulled him forcefully out of the darkness. Henry! He had to save Henry! From what, he didn't remember, but he had to save him!

He frantically fought to say his godson's name, but there was something in his throat. Panic began to overtake his confusing weakness and he grew more and more agitated, struggling to rise from whatever he was lying on, choking on the obstruction in his windpipe as he desperately tried to get someone to help him. Warm hands were on his shoulders, holding him down. A blurry face loomed over him, a gentle and familiar voice repeating, "Kid - Spencer - it's all right. It's all right. He's fine. Henry's okay," but it wasn't getting through to him and he began to thrash around harder, growing truly frightened now.

"Look, look, I've got a picture," the voice said, holding something just above Reid's head. Another voice, further off, told him, "Sir, you can't use that here."

"I'm not making a call," the first voice protested. "I just need to show him this picture. He needs to know that his godson is okay and then he'll calm down."

"Sir, it's policy! Cell phones can affect the equipment…"

He could hear the argument still continuing, but he pushed it out of his consciousness as he tried to focus on the picture on the cell phone as the first voice - Rossi, another part of his brain supplied - fought to keep the nurse from getting her hands on it.

Can't see it! he cried with frustration, not quite sure if it was out loud or merely in his head.

"Aw kid, no, don't do that! He's okay! I absolutely promise you!"

It was only when he felt the unpleasant tickle of tears streaming from the corner of his eyes and falling into his ears that Reid realized he was weeping.

"Can't you see? Oh, Christ, no you can't, can you? They took your contacts out."

"Sir, do I have to call security?"

"For heaven's sake, this will just take a second!" Reid heard Rossi snap and suddenly the cell phone slammed into his nose.

"Damnit! Sorry, kid!" Rossi said, but Reid, locked on the picture before him, barely heard his apology and was even less aware of what it was for.

"We knew your first worry would be for Henry, so Will took a picture. He and J.J. wanted to bring Henry to see you, but they were nervous all the tubes and that would scare him. But see, he's all right. His wrist is taped up, but it's just a minor sprain, nothing to get worried about."

He began to shake with sobs as his body endeavoured to cope with an overwhelming mix of pain, anxiety and the after effects of adrenalin.

A comforting hand stroked his hair back from his forehead. "Shh, shh, you saved him. Everything's all right. You saved him. You saved him."

-x-

The next time he awoke it was to a doctor conducting an exam. At least that's what he later put together; right then there was merely the sense of vague people-shapes moving across the slit-like range of his vision, then a bright light and someone asking him gently if he could open his eyes a bit further, and finally someone wanting him to answer questions. He murmured whatever words came to mind in response, only slightly curious to know if they in any way matched the questions given, and completely oblivious to the fact that at some point the tube in his throat had been removed. His eyes began to drift shut again before the doctor had even put away her ophthalmoscope.

"How is he?" a voice asked. Rossi again, he realized.

"His answers are good, but he seems a little more lethargic than I'd like."

I'm just tired, Spencer wanted to tell her. And it was true. Beyond the trauma of the accident itself, not to mention the lingering effects of the aesthetic, there was the toll of the emotional roller coaster he'd been on for the last week or so. The case in Seattle, the threat of the news story, the decision to leave his job, the emotional confrontations with just about every single person in his life, and - finally - the supreme hurt and disappointment at the real reason his friends had thrown him a party - consciously, he remembered none of it, but his body did. Crushing him under a mountain of exhaustion, it pulled him down into unconsciousness again.

-x-

He awoke slowly, but more completely, the third time. He noticed the sun pouring in through the window and knew intrinsically that there was something odd about that, but - still afflicted by a bone-deep lassitude and a hovering sense of depression - he turned away from it without bothering to figure it out.

"Good morning," someone said, off to his right. He turned his head to see the same dark, fuzzy form of Rossi sitting in a chair. "You seem more awake. You've been mostly out of it for about a day and a half."

Ah, that's why the light seemed wrong, Reid thought. He started to say something, but then realized there was a mask over his face.

"The oxygen in your blood dropped a little this morning, so they put that on you," Rossi explained. "Probably not too comfortable, but it's got to be better than having the ventilator tube back in. No, no, leave it," the older man ordered when Reid lifted a hand in annoyance to pull it off. "You punctured a lung. The doctors are worried about hypoxemia. They've got a chest tube in you too. They said ox-poor blood can lead to organ malfunction. It can also lower your blood pressure. Anyway, the doctor will be here soon. She can explain it to you."

For the first time, the fact that something had happened to him began to truly sink in. "I punctured a lung?" he asked through the mask, and then lifted the mask to ask again when the first time was too garbled for Rossi to catch it.

"Yeah, but you're going to be fine. You got banged up pretty good, but nothing that's not repairable."

Reid tried to lift his head to see his other injuries, but the effort made him dizzy and sore. "What else?" he asked.

"A concussion, three broken ribs, a broken arm…" Rossi sighed deeply. "And you re-injured your left knee again."

Reid squeezed his eyes shut; that was a hard blow. The long, discouraging weeks he'd gone through the first time flooded back and in his heart he despaired at the thought of having to endure that all again. He wasn't sure he could face going through it a second time, especially now, knowing beforehand how hard it was.

A hand grasped his wrist. "It's going to be fine. It's going to be a long road, but the team will get you through it."

Anger surged through him, at the team, at the whole situation, at his whole damn life. He yanked the respirator mask off. "I don't want them here!" he rasped.

Reid could see that Rossi was momentarily taken aback by the sudden vehemence of this command, but thankfully the older man didn't argue. "Would you like me to go too?" Dave asked.

Reid gazed at the man now standing next to his bed, abruptly recalling how he'd called out for Dave in the ambulance. Why had he done that? Had it been love? Fear driving him towards the comfort of a parent? He hadn't known at the time, and still didn't know. He only knew that he had just wanted Dave there, and to make him understand that he had never meant to hurt him, but he'd been terrified he'd left it too late.

And now? Now, he was torn. He felt a bitter betrayal that Dave hadn't stood up for him at the party, but, at the same time, he felt an embarrassing need for Dave to be there - a need further complicated by the worry that in asking Dave to stay, he might be using him, taking reassurance from him and potentially leading him on, and then pushing him away again when he felt better.

"Have you been here the whole time?" Reid asked.

"As much as the hospital would let me."

"Why?" Tired as he was, Reid spotted the flash of anger in the other man when he asked this question, but then Rossi collected himself. "Because I wanted to be here. Because I was scared. Because I wanted you to know someone was here for you," Dave told him. "Spencer… Look, don't worry, this isn't about my feeling guilt, or trying to guilt you, or pressure you into doing something you don't want. I don't have to stay here as your father, I can stay as a friend."

"So you… uh, would like to stay?"

Rossi nodded. Reid was surprised to see there was a suspicious glistening in the other man's eyes.

"All right," Reid said.

Whatever statements of gratitude Rossi had been about to express were interrupted by a doctor coming into the room. A dark-haired woman looking somewhat like Blake, only taller and with strands of gray in the pony tail pulled behind her head, she smiled at seeing Reid up and alert.

"Ah, Doctor Reid, I'm happy to see you a little more awake today. I'm Doctor Amyot. I'm the one who worked on your lung. Do you mind answering a few questions for me?" As she checked the monitors and gave him a quick physical, she ran through the standard mental status exam - name, age, etc. When Reid answered all of them perfectly, she smiled again. "Well, I'm very pleased by your results today. Doctor Erdrich - our chief of orthopedics - will be by this afternoon to examine your knee. Oh, and I think we've figured out the mix-up from the other night, Mr. Rossi."

"Oh?"

"What mix-up?" Reid demanded to know, lifting up the mask.

"It's nothing to worry about, Doctor Reid. It's a little embarrassing for me, but when Nurse Saylor was writing out Doctor Erdrich's chart, she got a little confused by his explanation of how the car hitting your right side caused the left leg to fold up under you, and wrote that it was your right leg that was injured. I should have caught that, but I was focused on my task during the operation and afterwards simply read what was on the chart without thinking about it. It was a stupid mistake and I'm sure I didn't exactly fill your father here with confidence, but no damage was done. Make no mistake, you've got some rather spectacular contusions on that side, but we've double-checked all the x-rays and there's thankfully not even a hairline fracture to the right leg."

"Was the left knee being previously injured the cause of the problem this time?" Rossi asked.

"Only to some degree. From what I understand," the doctor said, addressing Reid directly, "coming down against the curb is what caused most of the damage. That's how you broke your arm and three of your ribs, one of which pierced the lung. As for your leg, well, try not to feel too badly - yes, the damage was worsened by the old injury, but with the way it was twisted, quite probably there still would have had to have been some repair work done."

"How long will it take to get better?" Reid asked.

"The chest tube will be in for a couple of days, and we'll be keeping you for at least two weeks after that due to your lung, I'm afraid. Mainly in case of complications. For the leg, you'll have to ask Doctor Erdrich about, but he might want you in longer just to be sure it's kept immobile. Physical therapy now… you might be looking at a few months or more. Once it's determined the leg can be moved, we'll start exercising it, but of course any therapy where you have to lift yourself will be delayed until the cast is off your arm. Still, hopefully that won't be too long. It was a simple fracture of the radius. By the time you're ready to begin your therapy in earnest, it will only be a week or two before it's ready to come off."

San Francisco. I was supposed to be in San Francisco on Tuesday, Reid thought. A day and a half wait, that makes this Monday. Tomorrow. I'm supposed to be there tomorrow.

"You all right, Spencer?" Rossi asked.

What could he answer?

Doctor Amyot moved closer. "I know this is very hard news to hear, Doctor Reid," she said gently. "Recovery is a difficult prospect for anyone. But try to stay focused on the thought that you will recover. With work, your life will return to normal."

Reid couldn't help but dwell on the state of things between him and his team, the up-in-the-air nature of his identity, the fact that a new tenant was moving into his apartment in another day or so and he was technically homeless, and the quite probable loss of his brand new job.

Normal. When had his life ever been that?

-x-

The hospital kicked Rossi out at 8:00 and that's when Reid's anxiety began to build. Despite the sedative the nurse gave him, as twilight deepened, the ever-increasing list of things he had to deal with kept running through his head, keeping him awake.

The team knew of his fear of the dark, though they didn't know why he had it and so tended to oversimplify it. It was not so much a fear of the darkness itself, as a fear of being overwhelmed by the memories that the darkness brought with it. When he was young, starting after his father had left and it had finally sunk in that the man wasn't coming home in a day or two, night-time had been when all the worries had come. How was he supposed to take care of his Mom? How were they supposed to eat? Who was going to protect them if an intruder came in? Maybe his Mom was right and someone was going to come and take him away!

Night-time too, was when he would hear his Mom crying in the next room. She was strong, incredibly strong, but even she felt sadness and worry and fear. And night-time was when her episodes would often grow worse. Hearing her - her, the bravest person he had ever met - whimper fearfully in the dark had been absolutely terrifying in ways even he, with his tremendous brain, had been too young to express or comprehend.

And night-time had also been when the loneliness had hit him the most. On those days when his Mom didn't know him, or didn't want to respond, there was literally no one else to talk to; no one to ask questions or comfort him, or even just be nice to him when he'd had an absolutely brutal day.

It was a terrible night, but when he woke the next morning, Rossi was there.

-x-

Naturally, though, it was not that easy.

"Is that the newest one?"

Rossi, manuscript open on his lap, looked up to see Spencer had woken from his after-breakfast nap. "Yeah, the latest Rossi catalogue of sick puppies and icky psycho-freaks."

"I sincerely hope you're not having Garcia write that as a cover-jacket blurb."

"I don't know; accuracy might be a nice change of pace."

Reid smiled wanly. "Was I asleep again?"

" 'Fraid so. Getting tired of being so tired, I take it?"

"Something like that," Reid said listlessly.

Rossi held up the manuscript. "I could read to you."

"Like telling me a bed-time story?"

"I think telling bed-time stories about serial killers and sex offenders gets you put on some kind of list. Think of it more as a colleague to colleague thing. Close your eyes and picture yourself at one of my readings or lectures."

"You know, I went to one once."

"Seriously? I never saw you there."

A corner of Reid's mouth quirked up, but his eyes still held the same lacklustre gaze. "You didn't know me then," he explained.

"Ah. Did you enjoy it?"

"Very much so. And it…"

"And it what?" Rossi asked when Reid didn't finish.

"Nothing. It just helped me through a… a bad night."

Reid didn't elaborate and Rossi didn't ask him to. He couldn't be sure of what Spencer was talking about, but he had a pretty good idea; he'd done quite a few readings and book signings back in early '07, just before he'd joined the team. And also just about the time when Reid would have been recovering from Tobias Hankel. "I'm glad to hear it," was all Rossi said. Then, hoping to divert the other man, he asked, "Did you buy the book?"

Reid smirked. "I've got all of them. Several copies of some of them."

"Honestly?"

"Why would I lie about something like that?" Reid asked, one eyebrow raised in genuine perplexity.

Rossi shook his head, but he couldn't keep the wide smile off his face. "I don't know. But… thanks." He'd known Reid had read his books, and even memorized them, but to know that he had actually bought all of them - and multiple copies at that - reinforced that feeling that there was something of him in his son, and that the job truly would have eventually brought them together no matter what the circumstances. And, strangely, it also touched him not because this was James, but because this was Spencer - a respected colleague and a good friend in his own right.

"Uh… sure. No problem."

"So would you like me to read to you?"

Spencer regarded him hesitantly. "That might be a little…"

"Weird?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"It's okay. Remind me later and I'll go to your place and pick up your contacts, or an old pair of glasses."

"Actually, I'm not sure where my things are at the moment."

"Oh, right. Well, I could order some new contacts for you."

"That would be helpful. Thank you."

"No problem. So I guess you have no place to stay when you get out of here?"

Reid fidgeted and looked away, not ready for this conversation yet. "No, I suppose not."

"You know you can stay with me, right?" Rossi told him.

"I…uh… don't know if that…"

"It's okay, Spencer. You don't have to give me an answer now. Just think about it, all right?"

Reid nodded, but the mood had already changed. While Dave cursed himself for pushing too hard, Spencer cursed himself for being a coward and shying away, and the abrupt disappointment and awkwardness was difficult for both men to deal with.

"Dave - "

"No, Spencer, don't. I've been meaning to talk to you about this. Look, it's okay if you don't want more. If you don't want us to be father and son, they we don't have to be. I want to be here for you, but it's fine if it's as a friend rather than a father. I mean, I've already had a lot more with you than some fathers get. I've met you, worked with you, seen the kind of man you've become and been proud to know you. I've gotten to help you a couple of times, I've shared a drink with you and hell, I've even seen you hit a home run. And it's been wonderful. So if that's all there is, it's good."

He got up, took Spencer's face between his hands and kissed both cheeks. "And I apologize. For the party. I wanted you to stay so badly because…" He shrugged. "Well, you know. And Garcia did what she did because she's going to miss you desperately. And Morgan, okay, I can see where you'd find him an overbearing ass lately, but you know how protective he gets. J.J…. I don't know. But it doesn't matter, because what we all did was hugely wrong. None of us saw what we were doing to you: keeping you locked in this little box we created, confining you and holding you back. And worse, telling you that we had no faith in you." Reid opened his mouth to protest, but Rossi shook his head. "No. We did. We all did, even if we weren't as vocal about it as J.J. I don't think we knew what we were doing, but we did it. We've always trusted your brain, but we never showed you how much we trust in you as a man. I don't know what to say about that, other than it's possible we're complete morons. So go. Go to Africa. Do good work and have the time of your life!"

With that, Dave moved to leave. "Now, I'm going to take off for a bit and see if I can track some of your stuff down. You probably don't need to be naked and blind on top of everything else when the hospital kicks you out of here."

-x-

Making a resolution is one thing, doing it and living with it are another. Sitting in his car in the hospital's underground parking lot, David Rossi leaned his face into the steering wheel, clutching it with a white-knuckled grip, and willed himself not to cry.

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Yeah, I might have a problem with angst. But we're getting to the good stuff, I promise!

And oh, all you clever people figuring out Henry's potential influence in this whole situation! In fact, he's got a couple of scenes where's he's going to play a fairly direct role in the outcome. So I hope you stick with me!