Disclaimer: Criminal Minds and all its associated characters are property to CBS and no profit is being made from this story.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Hurt Is Over

'There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed- done with.' -Harry Crews

Reid awoke late Sunday morning, later than he ever recalled sleeping in. Peeking one eye open and looking at the bright light that filtered in through the window, illuminating floating specks of dust, told him that he had slept well into midday. Groaning softly as he rolled onto his back, his eyes squeezed shut, he wished he hadn't woken up at all. It was the first real night of sleep he had experienced in awhile, the Seroquel working wonders for his insomnia, and it was more than disappointing that now it would have to end and he would once more join the waking.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," a rough, amused voice called and his eyes pealed open at the juxtaposition. Such a playful thing to say in such a serious voice. Looking over at Hotch, he scowled at the brief grin that momentarily lighted his boss's face.

"You'd sleep this late too if you were full of drugs," he retorted, cringing at the way his throat burned, the parched quality of it stinging with his words.

Hotch, having heard the hoarseness and seeing his discomfort, reached down to the floor and produced a water bottle, handing it over to the newly awakened patient. "Here, drink this," he said, receiving an appreciative glance from Reid before he twisted off the cap and swallowed several large gulps.

When he had finished, he placed the cap back on and handed it back to Hotch, thanking him, as he sat up against his pillows.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"Lunch. I stayed back in case you finally woke up," he answered, making Reid cringe at the emphasis. The first time the man had a sense of humor, and it just had to be at his expense...

"Are you hungry? I have a sandwich here- from Garcia. Along with some cookies and juice boxes," Hotch said as he reached down again and pulled a rather large lunch bag onto his lap as he searched through it.

But Reid shook his head. "No, I'm not very hungry."

Hotch looked up, sighing tiredly as he leaned back and ran a hand over his face. "Reid, you need to eat. You've lost enough weight as it is and-"

"I'm fine," he ground out, cutting him off with his forced words. Hotch regarded him, his dark eyes burning uncomfortably as they traveled down Reid's form as if searching for evidence that he wasn't fine, that he needed to eat. But concealed under a tee shirt and flannel bottoms, the only proof that existed was the way his joints jutted out awkwardly, the pale skin pulled taut over the bones. However, despite the barrier of clothes, Hotch knew that Reid's ribs would be visible, deep creases from where the skin sunk in under bones and muscles, casting dark shadows over his near white complexion.

Sighing, he decided to try a different tactic. "You know, they'll keep you here longer," he said, nonchalantly as Reid turned slightly to eye him out of his periphery. Continuing, he added, "If you don't eat. They'll make you stay longer. They'll take it as a sign that you're not improving or as a desperate attempt to commit suicide." Reid cringed, the bluntness of his superior's words sending shivers of apprehension down his spine. He didn't want to die. Did he? While he couldn't deny that he wasn't the happiest he had ever been- the symptoms of depression well known to him- he didn't necessarily think he was ready nor willing to die.

He let his gaze drop down to the folds in his blanket, the white cotton pulling upwards in rumpled piles from his sleep-filled night. Death...

The hairs on his arm and back of his neck stood on edge at the word- the concept- his skin overcome by prickly gooseflesh. What was it like to die? It was an odd thing, that someone in his profession had never really paused and pondered the facets of death, the last few seconds of life. It had become so commonplace, so natural to just know that people ceased to live. Being the analytic he was, he could break the life and death of any human being down, making it science, making it fact. Someone didn't die from old age, they died from old organs that could no longer function, could no longer support the most complicated system of nature. Someone didn't die from being stabbed, they died from the blood loss or damage to major organs, or, in more gruesome cases, inability to move oxygen throughout their body with a sliced trachea. Death wasn't something that someone wished, death wasn't something that didn't make sense or made people question anything other than the divine.

Death was science.

Never putting thought in it before, his mind finally began to explore death- not with facts, not with statistics- but with raw emotion, raw wondering, and pure confusion.

Did it hurt to die?

Or did one simply cease to feel?

'I don't want to die,' he told himself resolutely, pursing his lips. 'I can't leave my mom, my team.' But what if he didn't have his mom or his team to depend on him? What if he simply existed, on his own, no worldly ties, no commitments to hold to? Would he feel the same? Was his only reason to live based now on the need to please others, placing everyone else before himself? Was it selfish to want to die? Or merely self-fulfilling? He didn't know. He couldn't know. People discouraged suicide, claimed it as the coward's way out, a one-way pass to eternal damnation. But that was only a passing trend, wasn't it? Hadn't suicide been hailed as the most honorable death in Japan, to die at one's own sword? Wasn't it viewed as a way to ascend to higher plane of existence by some theologies?

For once, Reid's vast knowledge of random and unusual facts seemed to only make thinking more complicated.

Of course it would though. Depression, suicidal tendencies...it was all so far from logical thought, on an entirely different end of the spectrum. It was all emotive, primitive. There was nothing to back up either side, nothing substantial really. Just societal norms.

But despite the muddled, obtuse concept of killing oneself, there was one thing Reid was certain of. Suicide was cowardly, was weak. It was not just running away from a problem, it was running away from a problem with no definite end in sight; a hallway that only grew with every step, the nebulous door at the end only fading more, the edges becoming a blur. While Reid wasn't exactly the most masculine man, sporting bulking muscles and impeccable physical qualities, he was most certainly not weak. No matter what emotional duress he was going through, what trauma his brain was combating, he would not take the easy way. He would not let himself become so unproductive, so unresponsive, that the only possible solution would be one that was all too permanent. He was stronger than that- strong enough to work through whatever it was he had to work through without resorting to such cowardly methods.

"Reid?"

Blinking, he looked up, the sound of his name startling him from his thoughts. Hotch was staring intently at him, sitting closer than he had been before. Reid paled under the intense look, his shoulders hunching slowly as he unintentionally tried to make himself smaller. The gaze was unsettling, the way his eyes searched his own, as if piercing straight through into his thoughts. For a brief, illogical second, Reid found himself wondering, 'Can he read my mind?' but quickly dismissed the idea as ludicrous. Of course he couldn't read his thoughts. How ridiculous of a notion. But he still couldn't help the way he seemed to guard and filter his mind, raising up figurative walls of protection.

"You're not thinking of it, are you?" Hotch asked, his voice low and pressing, betraying the concern that Reid knew lurked behind his words. While Hotch displayed a cold exterior, he was not an unfeeling man.

Raising a brow, he asked, "Thinking of what?"

Hesitating for only a second, Hotch answered, "Killing yourself."

Reid shook his head. "Of course not, Hotch. I couldn't do that to everyone."

Hotch stared at him for a long time afterwards, his lips pinched together as his dark eyes once more perused Reid's own, searching for something. Reading his mind. Unable to look back and allow his entire mind to be open to Hotch's search like an intriguing book, he turned away, looking out the window. Light blue skies with the tops of red and gold leaves filled the casement, the touches of autumn killing the plants. But in death, a new livelihood had been given to the leaves, a new identity.

Was it the same when humans died? Were they reborn into something different, something entirely unique? While Reid was still hazy on what exactly his beliefs were regarding the afterlife, he had never placed much stock into the idea of reincarnation. People lived, people died. That was that.

He could still feel Hotch's eyes burning into his back, a shudder raking through his body. He was well aware of what the man was thinking. When Reid answered, he had said, "I couldn't do that to everyone." Anyone who knew Hotch would know that he was honing in on the sentence, dissecting it and analyzing its possible meanings.

Did that mean that if Reid had no one who relied on him, he would be considering it? That Reid was only being selfless, only living for others and not himself?

Slowly, choosing the words carefully, Hotch said, "Would you want to, though?" confirming what Reid had known he was thinking.

But hearing the question asked aloud, knowing with certainty that Hotch was wondering if Reid would take his own life, made him bristle. He felt indignant, infuriated. "I'm stronger than that, Hotch. I may not look it, but I'm not weak," he responded, surprised by the hardness, the sharp and spitting way his voice rang through his lips. He could see Hotch's surprise as well, though fleeting, in the way his eyebrows rose, upturned in the middle, and the way his eyes widened, his lips parting ever so slightly. A part of him wanted to apologize, say he knew that Hotch was just expressing his concern. But he couldn't. Irrationally, he was too insulted to take his words back.

"I know," the older man breathed out finally, his eyes flitting downward.

Moments passed by where nothing was said, the anger and hurt sound of Reid's voice still lingering in the walls, like smoke, sucking out the oxygen from the room. When it seemed like his lungs would collapse, his throat constricting around his trachea, Hotch said, "I'm sorry if I offended you. I know you're not weak."

Reid heard his words, but did nothing to respond. He wanted to believe him, wanted to sigh at relief and trust his statement. He couldn't though. Paranoia was no stranger to Reid- whether from hereditary origins or from lessons learned in his job, he was questioning, inquisitive. Nothing was taken at face value, nothing was neglected of investigation. Hotch would have proud, to know the way Reid's mind wearily regarded the world and the people within it. Even if he himself and his honesty was in question.

Because, even though Hotch said he knew Reid was strong and did not thing him cowardly, a little voice in the back of his mind pitched an inner monologue, voicing what Hotch would not. And before he even knew what he was doing, before he was even aware of the way his mouth moved and the sounds coming from his throat, he said his thoughts.

"Say it," he said, in the same hard and snapping tone from before. Hotch looked at him, his eyes narrowing and his eyebrows sinking in curiosity. "Say what you're thinking."

Finding a response, Hotch said, "I'm not thinking anything in contradiction if that's what you mean, Reid."

"Liar. Even if you don't mean to, there's a part of you that's saying it, saying I was weak to get into this situation in the first place. That if I was stronger like you and Morgan, this wouldn't have happened," Reid counted, his Omega traits nowhere in sight as he called his superior on the spot, demanded him to say what he couldn't, claiming him a liar.

"Reid, of course I don't think that. No one would have been prepared to deal with Wright. Besides, there's nothing wrong with being physically weak, all that matters is that your mental strength-"

Reid cut him off, a sudden, wry chuckle interrupting him and making him lean farther back, as though now frightened by the invalid genius. But when Reid settled down, he shook his head and explained, "Did you really just say someone who had a Psychotic Break is strong mentally? Really, Hotch, if you're going to lie, don't make it so obvious." He didn't mean to sound so venomous. He wasn't even sure why he was attacking the man so- perhaps living and relying so heavily on statistics had finally made him break, finally made him give him to every emotion and impulse that struck him and act on whim. Regardless, Hotch had straightened himself, hovering over Reid impressively as he gripped onto the arms of his chair and began to speak, low and slowly.

"I saw the reports, Reid. I read everything about your childhood." At this, Reid stiffened and paled even more so, his mouth opening as though to defend himself and argue with the invasion of privacy, but Hotch quickly continued, adding, "I know what you went through, at home, and at school. And I know what you went through with Wright and Varney."

He paused, watching as Reid's shoulders raised and encased his neck, his back arching as he fell into himself, letting his head fall and his chin tap his chest. The slight tremor of his body- shaking hands that propped him up, shivering spinal column- combined with the way he tried to shrink, to disappear, displayed his discomfort for the world. With a twinge of regret, Hotch knew he was remembering. He also knew that he would not be able to go through what Reid was going through, that the sturdy and stoic man could not handle the pain and violation that this young genius was reliving. Who was stronger: the one who shook at painful memories, or the one who pushed them away?

Letting his voice soften, a rarity, he knew, Hotch said, "What you've survived is what makes you strong, Reid. The more traumas you live through, the stronger you are. And you are by for one of the strongest men I've ever known. No hidden meanings, no contradictions, nothing to second guess. Because I mean it." Reid looked at him with the finality of his words, his eyes large and...light. For the first time since the ordeal began and Reid was found, Hotch could see his eyes as they were, as they used to be. Dark, oppressive clouds lifting, his hazel eyes no longer as muddy as realization to his words sank in.

"But I got captured-"

"And you survived."

"I let him break me."

"You let yourself be put back together."

Reid swallowed, knowing that Hotch would have a counter to everything he said. But wasn't there truth to his words? Didn't he survive the week of torture, even if he did lose himself? Didn't he regain his mind, eventually, when many doctors speculated he never would?

Voices were heard from the down the hall, familiar sounds of his teammates as they approached his room. Leaning forward and whispering, Hotch said, "There is no sense in giving up now when you've conquered so much." He settled back in his chair just as the door opened and the group of five entered, surprised to see that Reid had woken up.

And Reid was surprised himself, surprised the Hotch had offered such comfort and, more importantly, that he found that it had worked. There was a new, reawakened sense of life, a sudden relief to his aching and lethargic limbs. He was right. He was strong, wasn't he? Surviving so much, overcoming so much.

"How was lunch?" Hotch asked nonchalantly, as though he hadn't invoked an epiphany within the youngest resident of the room.

"It was alright. The sushi wasn't as good as I would have hoped," JJ said with a shrug as she looked to Reid and smiled, pulling up a to-go bag and giving him a begging look. "I know you haven't been up to eating, but we got you something just in case. Want to try it?"

It was to everyone's delighted surprise that the ghost of a smile appeared on Reid's face as he reached out, thanking them for the food before slowly beginning to eat the sushi.

xXx

Garcia was the first to hug Reid goodbye, running forward and politely shoving through the others before wrapping her arms around his slim form and, if not for his height, would have gladly picked him up in her enthusiasm. She nearly pulled back with a whimper when she felt him tense and cringe at the touch, but then she felt his arms wrap around her waist, returning the gesture, though with not nearly the same amount of gusto. Her heart tugged at the effort he gave in hugging her, knowing how difficult it must be.

"I love you, Reid," she whispered, letting her lips hover over his cheek for a small second before lightly and slowly pressing them down to his skin, leaving behind dark red stains. Pulling away, she held him at arm's length, and pushed her lower lip out as she forced a smile through thin trails of tears. "I expect to see you back at the Bullpen telling us useless facts any day now!"

Smiling, Reid said, "I hope so."

A hand clapped on his shoulder and he looked up to see Hotch. "Your space will be available, if you want it and if you're ready, of course," he said. 'If I pass the psych evaluation, you mean?' Reid thought to himself. But despite the bitter correction, he smiled nonetheless at the prospect of returning someday- maybe not tomorrow, or in the coming months, but eventually- to his family and the only job he ever felt confident and needed in.

Emily stepped forward and offered Reid her own hug, one not nearly as long or bone crushing as Garcia's, but all the same heartbreaking as she kissed his cheek as well, chuckling to herself at the lip stick mark.

"Hopefully we'll be able to see you soon," she said, and he nodded before turning to Rossi, who smiled, awkwardly, balancing his weight between his feet.

Opening his mouth as if to say something, and then snapping it shut as though deciding better, Rossi nodded before striding towards the door, causing Reid to smirk. Despite the solemn and serious nature of his friends' leave, he found himself wondering if perhaps the real reason Rossi possessed a handful of ex-wives was because of his inability to properly communicate. But the logical part of his mind had managed to keep that thought to himself, and to himself only. Rossi would not appreciate the notion nearly as much as he did.

'Still, wouldn't hurt to say a word or two,' he thought with chuckle as he turned to the last team member to say good-bye, JJ. But her gaze was not at him, but at the floor, her golden curtains of hair shielding her face from view as she absentmindedly picked at her nails as though they were the most interesting thing in the world.

Clearing his throat which suddenly felt uncomfortably closed in, he turned to Hotch, pushing the hurt he felt from her obvious rejection away from his mind. Did he really expect any different?

"Alright, you guys ready?" Hotch asked, his answer given in the form of half-hearted nods and somber replies. Looking back to Reid, Hotch lowered his head but allowed his gaze to raise, looking directly into Reid's once more and igniting the paranoid ideas that he was reading his very mind. Despite the unsettling flurry he felt in the pit of his stomach, the sudden blockading of his most private and incriminating thoughts, he continued to meet Hotch's gaze. "Remember what I told you, Reid. Spencer," Hotch said, the sound of the genius's given name sounding foreign on his lips.

But he nodded nonetheless, momentarily confused. They were on a first name basis now?

He was startled from his musings by the last minute goodbyes and the shuffling of his teammates leaving, slowly and reluctantly.

He rose a hand and weakly waved, the familiar feeling of dread once more forming like a weight in his gut, pulling his entire body down and pinning him to the floor. Rivets of the emotion, of the urge to reach out and grab onto Hotch, Garcia, Emily and even Rossi pounded in his veins, the sound of it overwhelming as it crashed against the curved capillary walls. They were leaving, again. Just like they did in Phoenicia, just like they did at the hospital, just like they were doing now, and just like they would again.

'No!' he reprimanded himself, involuntarily shaking his head. They wouldn't leave him, not intentionally. They valued him, respected him. Loved him, even. They would never leave him, not like that. Would they?

He swallowed the question, deciding the anxiety it created was not worth it, and realized that he had passed the goodbyes in a catatonic daze; he was alone. The door was slowly inching towards its frame, its progress unsubstantial and remnant of the retreating team, his family.

His knees finally giving into the weight that buried into his abdomen, he slumped down to the floor, his forehead pressing into his folded arms.

For anyone who ever claimed that silence and emptiness burdened no noise, made no audio presence, they were wrong. And Reid had realized this, in that very moment, as he was left in a room void of life with the exception of himself, and all too keen to the noises that could be heard. The symphony of silence, the sound of being alone. Like a poltergeist that crept out into the clear room and altered the world when no mortal soul was there to bear witness, the quiet filtered in the room.

The sound of his blood, hot in his veins, roaring past his ears.

The sound of the autumn wind as it crawled in through the cracked window, slithering past the holes of the cage and whistling against the metal.

The distant noise of machinery, humming in the nurses' station.

The crunching of dead leaves from the outside world- how isolated he seemed!

He had forgotten how the sun warmed his skin, how the breeze chilled it. He could no longer recall how it felt to breathe in cold, fresh air into his lungs, or huff it out and see it materialize in front of him as the upper part of his lip heated with the exhalation. What did it feel like to walk over leaves and hear the satisfying crinkle and crumble of them against the ground and the soles of his feet? What was the sound gravel made as it crunched beneath his weight, grinding against other rocks and pebbles?

He felt so disconnected, so despondent from the world. Like he no longer belonged, an alien amongst the citizens. Was it because it had been nearly four months since he last stepped out into the world, or was it because of the depression, the aftermath? He didn't know.

With startling clarity, he suddenly knew that all of the people he worked with, all of the "emotionally disturbed" cases he studied were right. He didn't know what it was like, he couldn't understand their plights. There was a drastic difference between being an outside observer of the mentally unstable, and being the mentally unstable. This feeling, this depersonalization, wasn't something that could be read about- not truly. It was something that was unnamed, without a face, until the very moment it was experienced. A text could never describe it, never put it into words.

He was in unexplored territories, a frontier where books meant nothing- they were just fanciful proses. How would he know what to do, how to act? His memory which had once been so reliable failed him. As he struggled to recall the treatments and therapies used in dealing with cases such as his, the words he had seen in the text on how to approach it twisted. The letters jumbled, fell apart. The solution to his problems, which he at any other time could've pulled out of his filing cabinet and held in his palm, turned to dust and he was utterly and completely useless.

"No," he whispered, his head trembling in his arms. He had to rely on others, on therapists and strangers to work him through this. He was dependent now. Just like the criminals he locked away on a a near daily basis. Would he be understood, would he be heard? He wanted to say yes, knowing his own perception of the therapy. But this was new, unknown. Something he had hoped to never experiment with.

Why were all of his steadily laid plans falling apart at his feet?

"Spence?"

Jumping, he looked up at the voice and felt his face melt and soften as he looked directly into JJ's clear blue eyes. How long had she been there? Had she been standing there the whole time he broke down? How bad was his breakdown? He had spent the entirety of it so reserved in his mind that he had not processed how he acted outwardly. Was she frightened of him? Pitying him?

His eyes dropped at the words. Did she pity him? Would she always look down at him with that patronizing emotion, the one he had ruefully seen in Garcia and Morgan's eyes? Chancing another, searching look, he rose his eyes once more and met hers, shifting them as he sought to discern the emotion he saw in them.

Was that...guilt? Or was he just misreading it?

"Why...why are you still here?" he asked.

She licked her lips, letting her gaze falter before finally settling it on the floor. "I um...wanted to talk to you, in person, before I go," she said, clearing her throat softly as Reid straightened himself, his interest suddenly piqued. What did she need to say?

Instinctively pulling his arms across his torso as though it would tame the rapid butterflies fluttering within it, he asked, "What did you want to talk about?" Why did his voice have to squeak so much? Why couldn't he be more like Morgan, collected and in control even around women?

Biting her lip as she turned her eyes back to his, she said, "I wanted to a...apologize."

Reid's brows pulled downward as he cocked his head to the side slightly, a questioning look about his face. "Apologize? For what? You didn't do anything wrong," he said, feeling his words trail off as she began shaking her head.

"No, no I did. I..."

"JJ? What is it?"

She swallowed hard as she averted her gaze once more. "I...I told him what you were like." Her voice was soft and Reid found himself straining his ears to hear her, leaning in closer to her. He furrowed his eyebrows as his lips parted. Told him...who was him?

"I don't understand-" he started, but was interrupted when she stood up, raising off her haunches as she shook her head, her blonde locks whipping around her face.

"I told Andrew what you were like! He asked me about your personality and I...I answered him! In the hospital, I said everything! I basically let him know that you fit his victimology perfectly! It's my fault he went for you!" She was hysterical, her voice high and frenzied as she flailed her arms around her face, tears rolling slowly down the slopes of her cheeks. Reid frowned deeply, his head pulling back to better see her.

He had known that; Andrew had alluded to it before, hadn't he?

At the time, he recalled feeling angry, betrayed. Hurt that JJ had so willingly handed information over to a stranger about him, personal accounts of his life, everything he had so carefully kept hidden. But now, this feelings seemed somehow less important, more pushed to the side with everything else that was going on.

Like JJ, crying and blaming herself for something she had no control over.

Standing on shaking legs, he stood at his full height and reached out to her, snatching her wrist as it flew through the air. Startled, she stopped and looked at him, her eyes wide and blurry behind her tears.

"Spence?" she said, her voice seeming so small.

"It's not your fault," he responded, letting his shoulders shrug slightly.

She shook her head. "No. No, it is. Because of me he went for you."

His eyes widened as he fought the sudden, ridiculous notion to laugh. It seemed entirely inappropriate, unacceptable, but he couldn't deny the fact that he had to tighten his lips together to avoid a chuckle from coming through. He must really be losing it now.

"JJ, it was because of me he went for me. Not because of what you said."

She swallowed. "He knew you matched his victimology because of what I said-"

"He would've found it anyway," he reasoned, letting go of her wrist and sitting down on his bed gingerly. He struggled to shove the memories away from his mind, to keep his thoughts settled on the present and the present only. It was difficult to do, images of Andrew wielding a knife before him, or the feeling of Varney's furtive fingers gripping onto his hips, but he knew, within the back of his mind, that JJ needed this. She needed to know it wasn't her fault, that Andrew was too meticulous of a killer to be persuaded from a victim so easily. She needed Reid to provide logical explanations about Andrew's profile to prove that she was not an active force in his abduction.

"He kept tabs on his patients-" he began, but was cut off by JJ's murmured and softly pressed correction.

"Victims, Spence."

He nodded stiffly, categorizing the mistake as a Freudian slip and then letting it fall to the back of his mind as he continued, "He kept tabs on them. He used whatever means necessary to get the information he needed. It's not your fault, JJ. He saw me as someone who matched the others and wanted me."

In that moment, Reid was torn between two reactions. One reaction was the level-headed one, the one the would comfort JJ, use his beloved facts to support his theory and to calm her worries. And the other reaction was screaming at nothing, begging for him to lash out, to curl into himself, to squeeze his head as if he could squeeze the memories out of his orifices. Throughout the weekend his team had been here, he had pushed all memories from his mind, let the week in Hell be forgotten- or as best forgotten as he could manage.

He knew the repercussions of that.

He knew the instant his team was gone- the second he no longer had a reason to keep his cool- they would push forward, be revisited once more. He had hardly had time to go over the new revelation of what had occurred with Varney. What would happen when JJ, the last of his visitors, turned to leave him? Would he crumple to the ground, despairing over everything he had learned? Would he need to be restrained again after suffering from a horrifying flashback? Would he have nightmares, more pronounced and with a new name and face to the monsters that lurked in his sleep?

"I should probably get going, the team's waiting for me," JJ said, forcing a shaking smile to her face as she looked at Reid.

Panic flooded him. He fantasized her leaving, the door closing behind her and slamming shut just as he fell over, crying, screaming, fighting off invisible hands. Hands that grabbed at his clothes, pushing them up. Hands that bruised his hips and thighs. Hands that pulled him down. He couldn't let the demons get to him, he needed them to stay away.

"Don't go!" he called out desperately, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her flush against his chest. She couldn't leave him. If she left, the monsters would come out. They would get him. She needed to stay.

"Spence!" she called out, worried and frightened as she held him close. But he didn't hear her. He couldn't. All he could hear were disembodied voices, slicing through the air and curdling his blood.

'Why did you shoot him in the chest, of all places?'

'Why does it matter anyway? He seems to have too much fight in him to be worth it. Why not find a different-'

'Because Spencer is perfect!'

'You're in a lot of trouble, Spencer.'

'This is for your own good.'

'No! No! Please don't!'

That was his own voice, ringing in his mind, followed by a ghostly echo that made his ears throb, booming with his own calls. The world was dissipating around him, the feeling of JJ's hands gripping his shoulder's unsubstantial as she shook him, trying to bring him back. But he was lost in the flurry of images that rolled like a wave through him.

She was screaming, calling for help. But her voice melted away, turning into the clinking and clanking of metal against metal as his cuffs became a melody to what Varney did.

xXx

Author's Note: I'm sooooo sorry! I've been so busy lately, but hopefully the next chapter will be posted far sooner!

Thanks to all who have reviewed and favorited (Yay for making up words!) and alerted this story! It's extremely appreciated!