A/n hey all, thanks so much for your continued support of this story. The next chapter is ready.
Disclaimer: See profile
Warnings: see profile and chapter one
"How much longer do we have to wait?"
"This is a doctor's office. You know you can't just come in here and walk right back to the examination room." Emily hissed at him.
"I know that!" He hissed back. "It's bad enough that they make you fill out all those forms, and make you give your whole life history, without making you wait for an hour."
"It hasn't been an hour Reid and I had to fill out the same forms when I came in here."
Reid was clutching at the arm rest of his chair like it was a life preserver. She'd seen him looking at the door more than once. She wondered if he would bolt, despite his promise to do this for her.
"I'm not going anywhere." He said quietly.
"How did… Never mind, I forgot for a minute who I was dealing with," she added with a small smile. "You manage to convince me at the oddest times that you're just some young genius doctor that knows everything about everything. I forget that you're also one of the best profilers in the world."
He was looking at her with those chocolate eyes that could fool you into thinking that he was naïve and very innocent. In a way, he was, but if you knew how to look behind the obvious, you could see that there was so much more there.
"Emily…"
"Sorry, just thinking," She said.
"Yeah, I've been doing a lot of that in the last two weeks."
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
He got up from the chair and went to choose a copy of the Readers Digest that was four months out of date from the glass covered table that was in the middle of the room.
"Because I just sprang this idea on you out of nowhere and expected you to just hop to it like one of my mother's servants. I really am getting to be like her." She answered when he sat down again.
"No, you're not." He promised. "You gave me time to think about and consider all of my options. If you were "the Lady of the Manor," you would have just ordered me to help."
He said it so matter-of-factly while idly flipping through the Digest, that she giggled. "Yeah, that would have worked."
"Not really…"
Emily laughed out loud. The blond-haired woman that sat several chairs away, looked up from her magazine, and then back down after Emily covered her mouth.
"You're really funny at the strangest times Reid."
"I wasn't trying to be funny."
The same small black-haired nurse came in the room and said "Spencer Reid?"
He dropped the Digest on the floor where it lay open face down. Watching him leap out of his chair like someone had left a porcupine on the seat cushion, made Emily choke back a laugh. She grabbed his messenger back from the seat next to the one he'd been sitting in when he dashed over to the nurse without it.
She followed him and the nurse back to Dr. Kelly's office while trying not to laugh at the young agent. The last time she'd seen him act this way was when Rossi joined the team and Reid had a serious case of hero worship.
"Please sit down and the doctor will be right in." The nurse showed them into the doctor's office.
Reid sat down in the nearest chair and picked up a small carving of a dolphin made out of jade that sat next to the nameplate on the doctor's desk. He began turning it over and over in his hands, looking at it as though figuring out how the artist had rendered it so beautifully was the most important thing in the world.
She let him sit there and didn't disturb his inspection of the small carving. It was as though touching the smooth surface of the jade was soothing to him. She took the seat next to him and tried to stop the shaking that was beginning in her hands.
What if the doctor found something in his tests that made it so Reid couldn't be her donor? What was the doctor going to say when he read Reid's paperwork and discovered the possibility of inherited mental illness?
More questions and thoughts like these ran around and around in her head until the doctor came into the room. Reid looked up and leaped from his chair again. He held out a hand to the doctor. "You must be Dr. Kelly. You went to Duke Medical School and graduated in the top five percent of your class. You spent several years in private practice before opening this clinic. You have a ninety-two percent success rate in your field which makes you one of the best in the country. "
Dr. Kelly lifted an eyebrow and extracted his hand from Reid's enthusiastic greeting. "Thank you Dr. Reid… I don't think anyone ever summed up my life in quite that way before," He smiled at the very nervous young man.
"He tends to ramble when he'd nervous." Emily said.
"I do not!"
"Yes you do!"
Reid dropped back in his chair and started playing with the jade dolphin again. His face had gone pink and he wouldn't look at the doctor till the man directly addressed him.
"Dr Reid… I must say that I rarely have patients that so thoroughly complete all the paperwork we push on them."
"It's helpful to have all the facts."
Dr. Kelly put down the file the office staff had assembled from said paperwork and took his place in his chair behind his desk.
"Emily, I'm surprised that you didn't tell me everything before our visit."
"What do you mean?"
"You know the answer to that question. Dr. Reid, while you're arguably an intelligent, and well read young man - who is very successful in his work and in the academic world - there are some things in your background that disturb me."
Emily glanced over at Reid who was sitting calmly with the dolphin in one hand and watching the doctor as though he might be discussing something innocuous like the flu, or the common cold.
"It wasn't my place to go into detail." She said.
"True, but there are areas of concern to me, I don't think that -"
"Dr Kelly… My health concerns are only a small part of the equation. Was I kidnapped, tortured, and subjected to a dangerous intravenous drug that resulted in my addiction to said drug? Yes! Do I have a history of mental illness in my family? Yes and no." Reid interrupted.
"What do you mean by that Dr. Reid?"
"My mother was diagnosed when she was in college. It was the seventies. Drug use was very pervasive in that culture, especially at Berkley. There is a theory out there that some schizophrenic breaks occurred because of hallucinogenic drug use.
"Yes, I have read that study. It needs more collaborative work done."
"I realize that, but I also know that there's no other mental illness in my family on either side. I'm two years past the average age of onset in schizophrenics."
"You know as well as I do, that anyone with that gene can have their first symptoms as early as eight, and as late as sixty years old."
"True enough, but those numbers are very small. The point is that I don't want to be afraid of my mind anymore. I spent too many years from the age of sixteen, till now, worrying if the voices are going to start and the paranoia or the hallucinations. I don't want to be afraid anymore."
"I can understand that Dr. Reid. But, it's my job to make sure that when a woman comes in here with a designated donor, that all possible problems are avoided."
Reid uncrossed his legs and sat forward. "Are you telling me that science can predict cancer, or any of a hundred other diseases or disorders? I know that you guys have mapped out the human genome, but they can't predict what will happen when two people conceive a child. That sort of genetic manipulation is decades away."
"Be that as it may Dr. Reid…"
Reid got to his feet. "I'm here because I want to be. I care about Emily. Her happiness means a great deal to me. She's been there for me in ways that you can't imagine. I'm going to do this for her. If we have to go to another clinic then…"
"That won't be necessary Dr Reid."
The other man had gotten up from his chair and followed Reid to the door. "I want what's best for my patients. If Ms Prentiss is okay with it then so am I."
"I'm fine Dr. Kelly."
"Then let's get started."
Reid went back to his chair, followed by the doctor to his desk. "Now, you need to have a complete physical before testing. One thing we test is your blood type. You'll have to give a sperm sample that will be tested for all STDs and other abnormalities. We will test the sperm for motility and get a count. Anything below five million won't give us the result we need. The optimal number is more then twenty million. Now Ms. Prentiss has decided that she wants to do artificial insemination. Because of her age, it may take several tries for her to conceive.
"Do I have to come back?" Reid squeaked.
"Yes… If everything checks out, then you'll have to return to give three more samples for testing over the next three weeks. And, absolutely no sexual activity of any kind for three days before testing," The doctor said with finality.
"Really…" Reid squeaked.
"Yes, it's very important to get an accurate sperm count. We'll quarantine the sample for six months after testing for HIV and then test again before we attempt fertilization."
"Is there away that we can skip quarantine." Emily asked. "Reid has been submitting to drug testing ever since he quit Dilaudid."
"How long ago was your last test?"
"Six weeks ago. It was clean then, as it has been every time I've had the testing."
"What about your sexual partners? I assume you practice safe sex."
Reid went crimson and Emily tried desperately not to laugh at her hapless teammate. "Um… I don't really have a girlfriend right now but… I mean yes, um when I… Um yeah, I practice safe sex."
"Alright… if the sample is clean, we'll proceed quickly."
"Thank you doctor," His face began to return to its normal color.
"Don't thank me… I need to see all your records and all the test results from the FBI."
"I'll get the doctor to send them over here."
"Good… Let's make you an appointment for your physical and to give your first sample."
---
Reid and Emily entered the Starbucks an hour later. Reid made a beeline for a very strong cup of coffee while Emily found a table next to the bank of windows at the back of the shop. Her hands had finally stopped shaking. It was going to work out if she could get Reid to all of his appointments without the rest of the team catching on.
"I got you some coffee and a cranberry muffin." Reid said just as she looked away from the sun that was beginning to set in a riot of gold, crimson, and purple.
"Thanks… I'm kind of hungry."
"Me too…" He had a large cup of coffee and a chocolate chip muffin.
"Thank you Reid."
"For what?" He peeled the paper off his muffin and broke it in half.
"For doing this for me. I know that what you have to do isn't what you expected. I had no idea you'd have to go back four times to…" She trailed off because her face was beginning to get hot.
Reid choked on his muffin. "It's okay… I should have researched before I went in today."
"I'm surprised you didn't know. I mean you know everything, right."
"No… I don't know everything. Why does everyone think that?"
"Because you always have the right answer for us when we need it. I guess I assumed you'd know all there is to know about fertility problems."
He went red and stammered. "N-no… I um… n-never thought too much about it. I mean, I know all the options, but I never bothered to read up on the actual procedure of donation. I guess I hadn't got around to it yet. I was so nervous that I just forgot about research till I got in the car to drive to the doctor's office."
"You knew all that stuff about Dr. Kelly."
"Yeah, I read up on him, but not on the procedure. I know it sounds weird for me, but I guess I thought if I didn't read about it, I wouldn't think about it and be blushing every five minutes. I didn't want Morgan to be suspicious."
She smiled at him. "I can see that."
"Can we talk about something else?"
"Sure, what did you have in mind?"
"Anything else but being a donor and fertility experts. I'll deal with the appointments, but I don't want to think about it now."
"Okay." She thought hard for a minute. "Hey did you read that article Rossi published last month. I thought what he had to say about anger excitation rapists was fascinating…."
A/n some of the medical facts have been tweaked for this story. In RL sperm must be qaurantined to prevent the spread of AIDS, but I've decided with the help of my most excellent beta to change it for this story because of Reid's drug use and the testing he must have gone through already.