My Life Had Stood
Chapter 39: No Lid Has Memory 2
Spencer paced in front of the hospital's coffee machine, his brain shifting through all possible explanations for Alsie's loss of balance. This mystery effectively allowing him to forego delving anymore on the dream-memory or its implications.
He thought about the scarred right side of Alsie's face, and the bruises she had as a child. It was possible that the physical abuse she'd experienced as a child was to blame. Not just for her loss of balance and coordination, but for her D.I.D as well. Her migraines too likely stemmed from untreated head injuries she'd sustained as a child.
Spencer felt his stomach knot as he recalled meeting her in that park. The bruises he'd seen on her arms. Arms he recalled being slightly thinner than other children their age back then. Why hadn't he done more back then? And why hadn't he realized...
He swallowed, shaking away the last thought before he could complete it. He instead continued to pace.
"Reid, is Allison all right?" Rossi called out as he noticed the younger man by the coffee machine in the waiting area. After Alsie had been bandaged and her doctor had ordered multiple tests to be done to determine what had happened, Spencer had called Rossi.
"...she's getting a CAT scan and a full medical check-up. As well as a complete blood panel..." Spencer replied, listing off all the tests Alsie's doctor had ordered, while he continued to pace. Rossi's presence and concern allowed him to really put aside his unwelcomed memory.
"What happened? Could this be because of Shelly? Or the accident three years ago?" Rossi asked, his concern increasing just by seeing how agitated Spencer was. Knowing that Alsie was also the mother of his grand daughter contributed as well, since despite knowing her only a few days, she had at one point lived with his son. Not to mention how close she was to Spencer, who felt like a son to him even more than James.
"...maybe, I..." Spencer shook his head, knowing from the sickening feeling in his gut that neither was the case. At least not completely. "Rossi, I...I should've helped her. This is my fault."
"What? No, there's no way this is..."
"I noticed her bruises when we met as children. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't help her...I..." Spencer blurted, catching the other man off-guard. He proceeded to explain how he and Alsie had met at the park as children, and that he'd blocked it out. He managed however to stop himself from revealing about his dream-memory, which was something he seriously did not want to accept. "I must have blocked it out because I didn't protect her. I failed her..."
"No, kid. You were a child. You were both children. You can't blame yourself for what happened over twenty years ago." Rossi reassured the distraught man, his own thoughts whirling at record breaking speeds. His brow furrowed, deep in thought as he recalled all that Garcia had discovered about Allison Schmidt and what Spencer had just told him.
"But...Rossi, I..." Spencer chewed on his lip, realizing that the other man was right. Though he still felt sickened that he had failed Alsie when they were kids. "I should've told someone...I..."
"Are you sure you didn't?" Rossi asked carefully, his brain still shifting through everything known about Schmidt and what the younger agent was confessing. "You said you blocked out meeting her as a child, so you could've tried to help. Or maybe the girl from the park is a different one than Schmidt..."
"What? No. It was Alsie. That I definitely know. I didn't keep that blocked out." Spencer shook his head against Rossi's conjecture.
"You're sure...?" Rossi asked again, receiving a perplexed look from Spencer who reminded the older agent of his eidetic memory. Though, he conceded reluctantly, that it wasn't infallible since he'd managed to block out some of his memories from childhood. Mostly ones connected to his father.
"But Alsie is Alsie, the girl I met in that park. I wouldn't keep her blocked out..." His stomach clenched even as he said that, though he kept his dream-memory locked in the back of his brain. 'Not even if I have reason to...'
"All right." Rossi conceded, nodding. "I'm just...a bit confused. Or missing something. Because, according to the records Garcia uncovered on Schmidt, she never visited Nevada, least of all lived there as a child."
Spencer started to respond, but stopped, his emotional state causing him to take longer to think. He gasped when he realized what was missing. "Oh, Adrienne Leigh Crawford. That's Alsie name. Well, what it was when we met in 1990."
"...what?" Rossi stared at Spencer as though the younger man was some sort of space creature. The next second it switched to a part angry and part confused look. "You didn't mention this before. You could've mentioned Alsie wasn't always Allison."
Spencer stared at Rossi, confused. "I thought Garcia would've found that out already. I mean there'd be a record of it, right? If she was removed from her home and adopted or changed her name."
"No." Rossi shook his head and answered slowly. "Allison Schmidt was never adopted, never changed her name. Not even when she moved in with her grandmother after her parents died when she..." Rossi paused, recalling the year Spencer just mentioned as when he and Alsie had met as children. His eyes widened and he cursed.
"What? Rossi..." Spencer started to ask while the older agent mumbled about how they should've had the younger man read the records Garcia found on Schmidt.
"You and Alsie were the same age, when you met, in 1990?" Rossi mumbled, waiting for the younger man to nod. "The real Allison Schmidt was already living with her grandmother in West Virginia at the time. Not to mention she's a year or so younger than you."
Spencer was about to reply, to deny what the other man was saying when they were interrupted.
"Reid, Dave, how's Schmidt?" Hotch approached them, stopping when he noticed the strange body-language between the two.
"That's...a good question." Rossi replied, watching Spencer as the younger man took in all that they'd just discussed. Hotch gave Rossi a questioning glance. "Alsie isn't the real Allison Schmidt, Hotch. She lied about her name."
"What?"
Spencer shook his head, denying what Rossi was saying. Though at the same moment he felt his stomach clench at the truth behind the statement. "There has to be a reason for it. Alsie wouldn't just..."
Hotch's brow furrowed, his eyes flitting between the two men. "What happened? Dave? Reid?"
"Alsie isn't Allison Schmidt. She lied about that. Her real name is Adrienne Crawford." Rossi replied, raising an eyebrow when Spencer automatically corrected him by saying it was 'Adrienne Leigh Crawford.'
"Okay..." Hotch mulled over what he'd just learned, as well as the expressions on both agents' faces. Rossi's was considerably irritated, while Spencer's was frightened and anxious. "Let's talk about this in a private room."
"I thought she was adopted and had gotten her name changed that way." Spencer explained even before Hotch bid them to follow him into a quiet, unoccupied room. "I didn't think she just stole an identity. And...I'm sure there's some reason why..."
"Reid," Hotch massaged his temple, then crossed his arms, his expression very stoic and serious. Rossi having followed, simply remained quiet, studying Spencer. And going over all he knew about Alsie, all he could profile. "Is there anything else about Schm...Miss Crawford, that we need to know? Anything at all you haven't told us?"
Spencer hesitated, considering his response. His stomach roiled and he felt the dull throb of a migraine starting in the back of his head. He swallowed.
"Alsie...she..." He took a deep breath to calm himself, the dull throb getting more pronounced. "Alsie has D.I.D."
"Dissociative identity disorder?" Hotch crocked an eyebrow, pausing as Spencer nodded. "How did you find that out? Did she tell you...?"
"No." Spencer cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes, in an effort to stave off what threatened to be a massive migraine. Something that he hadn't needed to worry about for years. "Um, Sh...Shelly told me. And...um...I met Alsie's alter Ana..."
The two older agents shared a look, but didn't voice their thoughts. Not that they needed to.
"Look, I...I know I should've mentioned about the D.I.D, especially when it became apparent that Alsie doesn't remember what happened with Shelly, but..." Spencer winced, covering his eyes as they became more light-sensitive. Something that didn't go unnoticed by Hotch or Rossi.
"Are you all right, Reid?" Hotch asked, his concern, and Rossi's, shifting away from Alsie's deception to the younger man's well-being.
"I...I'm fine."
"Maybe you should sit down, take a break." Hotch replied, quietly noting how the younger agent winced and squinted his eyes as though in pain. He immediately thought back to Spencer's bout with migraines around three/four years ago. And everything that that had led to. "Garcia can look into Alsie's background before she became Allison."
Spencer attempted to shake his head, but flinched when it aggravated his headache. An action that caused both older men concern.
"You're not fine." Hotch said, and prompted the younger man to once again sit down.
Spencer resisted only a few seconds longer before sitting down, his stomach clenching. He bit his inner cheek, his eyes shut against the wall and ceiling lights. Though neither the pain nor the light-sensitivity bothered him as much as the nausea gnawing at his stomach. Despite knowing that nausea was a common symptom during a migraine, it worried him. This was the first time he'd experienced it during a migraine. Furthermore, it'd been so long since he'd had a migraine, let alone one this bad.
"I...I'm fine...Alsie..." Spencer mumbled sitting in a chair, unable to look up at Rossi or Hotch due to the lighting above them. He sensed however that neither believed him. "Don't...don't upset her."
"Don't worry, kid." Rossi replied, his tone quiet so to avoid exacerbating Spencer's migraine. He studied the young agent, feeling the strongest sense of deja vu. One that gnawed at his stomach and refused to fade. His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed, questions forming disjointedly in his head.
"Ah!" Spencer flinched as Hotch's phone rang, the suddenness of it amid the quiet room intensified its effect. If there'd been any chance of convincing Hotch or Rossi that his headache wasn't as bad as it seemed, it'd just vanished. "Ah..."
"Hello? Hotchner, here." Hotch answered the phone quickly while exiting the room, his intent to get done with the call quickly and then to get a nurse or doctor to check on Spencer. "Yes. That's right."
Hotch paused, listening to the caller. Each second becoming more perplexed and suspicious.
"You're kidding." Hotch muttered, not believing what the person on the other end was saying. "He turned himself in? When?" His eyebrows rose slightly as the caller answered. "His lawyer...? All right. Bring him to Quantico. My team will handle things from there."
Hotch hung up afterwards, mulling things over.
"Aaron? Who was that on the phone?" Rossi asked, having just exited the room where Spencer was sitting. While Hotch had answered his phone, the senior agent had quietly called over a passing nurse to check on Spencer.
"First, how's Reid?" Hotch asked, to which Rossi replied that a nurse had just gone in to check on the young agent.
"So...you gonna tell me what that call was about?"
"Somerfield's contacted the Bureau a few hours ago through a lawyer. He's turning himself in."
"What? You're kidding." Rossi gaped.
"He's being flown in from a FBI field office in Nevada to Quantico as we speak."
"Nevada? What was he doing there?"
Hotch just shrugged. "No idea. Especially since the lawyer he has is his sister's lawyer."
Rossi mumbled a few choice words, more than willing to head back to Quantico to meet the man that had orchestrated his son's kidnapping. As well as possibly his granddaughter's. He paused though, glancing to the room where Spencer was.
"Go to Quantico and question Somerfield. I'll stay here to make sure Reid's okay and to question Schmidt."