Within the span of ten minutes, Hotch had driven Reid to the hospital, where he was checked in within another thirty minutes.
During this forty minute window, Reid systemically recalled every book, article, and brochure he'd ever read on the subject of necrotic gastroenteritis. It was a very depressing, isolating thought… and not even an entirely correct one. He put his hand on his head and leaned over in the chair he sat in, because he still hadn't been processed fully. He wondered when Hotch would be back, but then again he couldn't be sure if he even saw Hotch leave yet. For a moment, he decided to glance around for his boss instead of get lost in very terrifying prospects and his own misinformation.
It struck him, the malady that made the most sense, the one statistically most likely to hit him… it all made perfect sense that he'd have peptic ulcers, sometimes they can show in other parts of the digestive tract, specifically the duodenum of the small intestine. Caused by Helicobacter pylori… mentally he ran through every fact he had about it. Such as the onset from years of having it in the body but if stress levels increase or the immune system decreases for any reason, that's when it can flare.
It made perfect sense. He had a stressful job, true, but to date very few things had ever made him lose his ability to detach himself from the worry.
Just to be certain of this best fit he ran through every abstract viral, parasitic, protozoan, and fungal disease sources he could think of. He tried to remember all the parasites that could possibly cause these symptoms… and there were a lot. Most of which were kept in far away places, typically Southeast Asia or Africa. A few were in South America and Northern Europe, but mostly, those parasites were stringent upon exposure to undercooked foods, poor hygiene conditions, pig feces…
…He shuddered just thinking about the pig farm, it had become affiliated with the last time he had seen Hotch before he had been shot and Hotch had been stabbed. He didn't recall stepping in anything, and when a genius with an eidetic memory says that, it holds a little more worth than say when Morgan doesn't recall placing reservations for hotel rooms. For a moment Reid debated the merits of making his next degree a medical PhD-MD program. It would probably help with autopsies, but he did already know a lot about it. Briefly, Reid tsked at the idea of being bored while studying for a new PhD program, it was time intensive and to choose one that was anything but enjoyable, he couldn't think of that as being positive.
Then he remembered he was about to go in for explorative surgery and that the doctors still weren't even sure what was making him sick. He blanched, he stopped looking for Hotch, he'd already found him at the nurse's counter anyway, and bowed his head to his knees.
Idiopathic is a frightening word, it means there are no solid answers, no solid statistic, and no solid path. If this wasn't ulcers, what else could it be? There had to be hundreds of possible causes, but as he ran through the list as he knew it to be, he ruled one after the other out. He knew he was crying, he could tell because his vision was more blurry than it would be if he weren't. Then again, staring at khaki pants from two inches away, it was hard to lose fine details.
From overwhelmed, Reid became fearful. Life experiences had taught him a few things, set expectations for what to do in situations like this. The coping mechanism he opted to use today was fetal position and crying, well, a seated fetal position… close enough. He expected to be left to his own thoughts, to work it out in his mind and then try to come to a solution, resolution or some life-changing affirmation.
He didn't expect a firm, warm hand on his shoulder to squeeze. The nurse had been female, not like she had a reason to touch him anyway… his head shot up, momentarily forgetting that his cheeks were tear-stained and his eyes were puffy and red from crying.
Before he could fully grasp what blurry orb was touching him, he was pulled into a strong set of arms. Arms he remembered clearly.
"…Hotch…" He whispered, too afraid to raise his voice, he knew it would crack and break. Enough things on him were breaking. He didn't want any more to try.
If it was some weird parasite, the doctor had a pathologist on hand, he'd have said something about it, right? Okay, so if it wasn't a new pet he hadn't intended to pick up, was it cancer, or H. pylori? But he hadn't had any great metabolic changes lately… well, okay so maybe a little.
No, it was still too quick for multiple sites, he said three, at which they were in two different sites. Okay, if it wasn't cancer, but it was still smaller areas, it couldn't be systematic enough to be his entire immune system. Autoimmune issues were out. Fungal…? No, those were more likely from injury, not ingestion, or to be subcutaneous or cutaneous. Viral?
Reid's head jerked up. Viral… he had to remember, he wished he had studied more viruses at the moment, he only had a brief overview. Sudden onset, multiple infection sites, ability to acutely do massive damage and then go dormant or be destroyed by the immune system, and usually highly contagious, all those fit… but he couldn't think of a specific example, or hearing of any outbreaks…
He was over-thinking, causing a panic-attack, he did even realize Hotch still hadn't let go, he was starting to realize fingers were snaking through his hair, stroking downward gently. He needed those blood results to tell him what the hell this was. It's too scary to have an unsub inside him. He didn't have a working profile of it without more information… and as far as medical metaphors and similes go, that's a hard pill for a profiler to swallow.
Gentle, soft words being chanted into Reid's left ear finally brought Reid to a more grounded position. Once Hotch was comfortable with the way Reid was breathing, he pulled back, hands still firmly planted on Reid's shoulders.
As that thought sank in, among the thousands of others swiftly buzzing by him in a malarial inducing haze of mosquito-thoughts, he realized one of the hands gracing his shoulder to instead swipe gentle but callused fingers underneath his eyes, rubbing away the remaining tears.
He blinked the moisture out of his eyes enough to see the studious look on Hotch's face as the man inspected him.
"…Wh…when did you even get back?"
"I haven't left, Reid. I called Morgan, he's going to get your things. I didn't think it was right to leave you alone so vulnerable…"
If Reid hadn't had so many other things on his mind, he'd have sworn that was what Hotch looked like when he blushed. Then again, Hotch blushing is as mythical as a rooster's tooth or a sharktopus… SyFy channel lies be damned!
Reality moving around him, along with the buzzing thoughts, and constant pain in his stomach from not ingesting large amounts of antacids left Reid hanging precariously close to feeling faint. That, or brief contact with Hotch caused a strange euphoric high, he was quite willing to concede that or was a mathematical or, the kind that can mean yes to both that is. He put a hand on his own forehead and leaned lower.
"I think I'm going to pass out." He let out a faint, almost hysteric unnerved laugh. Hotch's eyes went wide momentarily before he called over to a nurse, waving one arm, the other used to steady Reid's body just in case he came through on his threat of syncope. Reid wavered and Hotch pulled him into his side.
The younger agent closed his eyes to compose his breathing, when did the world around him start moving so frightfully fast? He felt like he was in slow motion watching everything else in fast forward, he smelled Hotch's fabric softener and a musky scent unsure of when he ever saw Hotch put musk on, but knew it to be the way the man smelled.
No one could smell that good naturally, could they?
He thought of pheromones briefly, though it was getting too hard to think through the pain. There was another blur of motion, making him really think the world was in fast-forward, what he didn't realize was that it was just a stampede of coworkers rushing toward him.
Hotch held his hand out in a stop-motion as Reid's eyes went wide. "Finally," Hotch seemed relieved when he said that, apparently spotting a nurse with a stretcher heading to the conformation of agents.
Reid was confused when no less than three sets of hands had 'helped' him to the stretcher. Hotch's, he knew, Morgan's… well he wondered just when exactly the man had gotten there, and why only to realize about thirty-four seconds later that he had come with Reid's belongings and team-mates. The third were smaller, feminine, he presumed a nurse.
Too busy figuring out who's hands were whose, he missed the fact that said nurse had fastened two IVs to him and was easing his back into the soft foam of the stretcher. His stomach lurched, he was unhappy to be moving in directions when fetal position had been working so well for his stomach before hand, and before he could fully grasp at the gnat-thoughts, he was in a hospital room along, Hotch's silhouette at the door, arguing with Morgan about whom would go in and why.
He would have been disappointed with the fact that it wasn't Hotch until he heard familiar clacks of heels. He started to sit up, "JJ!"
"Reid, lay back down." She said gently, smiling at him.
Reid nodded once, "JJ… I… how've you been?"
She smiled, "Better than you, apparently."
Reid mumbled something under his breath, JJ turned to face the door, noticing the doctor came in, she approached the foot of the hospital bed and gave Reid's foot a squeeze.
"Hospital green isn't your color, you really should stop wearing it." She smiled, Reid smiled back at her. He wondered when he had zoned out, because when he became aware again, the doctor was in the room talking to him, his head felt fuzzy, and that was about all he felt. In the corner he saw Hotch.
Hotch looming in a corner was both odd yet normal to Reid at the moment. It was odd because Hotch demands full focus and attention any time he's present, not because he's egotistical or even because he decrees it, it's just merely a mark of how perceptive the world is to an alpha-male with a star-studded career like SSAIC Aaron Hotchner of the BAU of the FBI. It was fitting because he couldn't imagine the room without Hotch in it though.
The doctor mentions something about another three minutes and he'll be ready to take in for the surgery, and Reid misses the fact that he's been anesthetized and prepped for surgery. He's missing several things, he couldn't tell you when he even put on the hospital garb JJ pointed out to him.
"Reid, you're doing fine…" Hotch smiled gently.
"…When'd JJ leave?"
Hotch's eyes widened momentarily, Reid presumed if he was a blinker, that would have been the point for him to prove it. "Reid, JJ left two weeks ago."
"No, I mean she came into my hospital room a few minutes ago… then she left when the doctor came in. She told me hospital green isn't my color."
Hotch put a hand on Reid's ankle, but he couldn't feel it. He just felt heavy, heavy and fuzzy.
"JJ wasn't here, Reid. You passed out a few minutes after the others got here."
"What time is it then…?"
Hotch doubted Reid even grasped that he was telling him about a dream, but he felt uneasy seeing Reid out of sorts. Out-of-sorts Reid is a seldom-seen Reid, and when that Reid makes appearances, shit is usually somewhere within the immediate vicinity of a fan. He can site the two other instances where he'd seen this—the Henkle case immediately after finding Reid lasting for a few weeks, and when Reid had remembered Riley Jenkins. It had been one of the few times Reid had actually used his personal leave time.
Moving closer to Reid's face, Hotch approached the bed-side. "Reid, this probably seems to be going very fast, but they've scheduled you for emergency surgery. They're the best of the best at what they do. The doctor got your blood-work back, they know what they're looking for and what they have to do. When you wake back up, everything is going to be fine. I promise, okay?"
Reid nodded sleepily, he wasn't even really sure what Hotch was going on about.
He silently saw Hotch pull out his cell phone and place a call, getting a severe look from no less than two nurses looking into the room, waiting for Reid to be out cold, which after that, he supposed he was… because he wasn't supposing anything else.