Title: Au Natural (Part 4)
Author: dustytiger aka Trista Groulx
Rating: T (like the show to be safe)
Disclaimer: I do not on CM. I am still poor. CM still belongs to its creator, network, writers, actors and actresses who bring it to life weekly.
Summary: Prentiss and Reid are getting married, but what brought them to this point?
Notes: Thank you as always for the kind reviews. This is the part where we find out what's wrong with Reid. This idea has been in my head for a while now. I really had hoped that CM would explore the idea again this season so here's my explanation. As a person who has suffered from migraines since I was thirteen years old I totally feel Reid's pain. The symptoms are based on my own new diagnosis. I'm not a doctor I just know what I've experienced.

Prentiss watched helplessly as her friend sat in a chair waiting for his name to be called. She had agreed to come with him to this appointment to help calm his nerves, but she wasn't sure how much she was really helping. She took his hand and squeezed it gently. She was surprised when he turned toward her and smiled slightly, feeling more at ease.

"It's gonna be fine, Reid," she assured him.

"I'm relieved I'm not alone this time, thank you Emily," he told her.

"Any time Reid. Let's get your mind off this."

"I've tried," he sighed.

"Let me try something."

"Okay."

"You never did answer me about whether or not you wanted to have baby geniuses, Reid."

Every time she had tried to ask him he had somehow weaseled out of answering her. She was curious if that was something he had thought about. Reid was such a fountain of knowledge about so many subjects but this one seemed to throw him off and there was a part of her that liked to see him have to struggle with the question.

"Honestly Emily I don't know why everyone seems to think if I had children they would be geniuses," he explained. "There is just no correlation between intelligence and genetics."

"I know, Reid. I just wonder if you've thought about being a parent."

"I would be lying if I said I've never thought about what it might be like if I became a father, but I don't think it's a good idea. When JJ was pregnant I thought the whole thing was more than a little unnerving. If I became a parent I would want to support my child from the first day I found out about it, but it would be difficult for me to support my partner if every time the baby kicked or moved I recoiled away like a timid cat."

"You might be less unnerved by pregnancy if you did research about it. I also think if it was your wife who was carrying the baby you would have completely different feelings than watching your friend who is like a sister t you and seeing a pregnancy for the first time. With your wife it would be your child growing, a child you wanted. I'm sure it would be different, you'd want to know everything that was going on because that's how you always like to learn."

"You might be right. Still I would need to find someone that I trusted to have a family with. Despite what Morgan seems to think I have dated, but as you know it's just difficult with this job. I'd like to have someone to come home to, and it would be nice to have something normal in my life like a family. But it's not as easy as all that. Women see me as curiosity more than a viable mate."

"I understand that, this job can make it difficult to find someone, but JJ has made it work."

"She's very fortunate, I'd like to find that, but there is more to my decision than just finding someone who might want to have a family as well."

"What do you mean?"

"I would have to find a woman who understood the risks if we were to have a family. My mother's condition is genetic, and although the chances of my child getting schizophrenia are slim as I haven't been diagnosed, there is still a significant risk that my wife and I would need to discuss. I also think it would be a bigger challenge for me to be a parent because I didn't have much of a childhood between being in accelerated classes and having to help take care of my mother. Any woman who I thought I might want a family with would have to understand I would need time to really learn and understand a child's needs. You can't learn to be a good parent from books, you learn most of that from your parents. I learned from a mother who was sick but tried to be a good mother when she was lucid and a father who abandoned me. That would be difficult past to have to co-parent."

"You've thought about this a lot."

He nodded. "I have. I think it would be amazing to be able to watch the woman I loved bring our child into the world but I have never been that fortunate."

"I think you might be surprised Reid."

The doctor then came out calling Reid's name before they could take the conversation any farther. The two of them stood up as the nurse showed them to an exam room. Prentiss was surprised that Reid had not let go of her hand, but was relieved. She wanted to be there for him the whole way, and she thought this was his silent way of telling her he needed that. There were two chairs in the doctor's office and they sat down and he took her hand again as they waited for the doctor to come in. The door opened and the both looked at the doctor, with worried looks on their faces.

"Doctor Reid, I assume you'd like your wife to stay for the exam today?" she asked.

"Emily is my friend," Reid stammered. "But I'd like her to stay if that's all right."

"That's fine, if that makes you more comfortable. Now let's get to the bottom of these headaches."

The doctor began to ask Reid questions about the headaches, what he had done to treat them, and what other doctors had said. Prentiss was amazed to learn so much about what Reid had been through the year before. She felt guilty for not being there for him sooner, although he had somehow hidden the truth of the amount of pain he'd been in at that time from everyone. No one else in their close knit team knew how much pain their friend was in.

"Doctor Reid, after everything you'd told me, I have an answer for you," the doctor told him.

"Really?" he asked, surprised after all the appointments he had been to and all the research he'd done he was sure he would never be diagnosed with something real, something that had a name.

"What you're suffering from are cluster headaches."

Reid let out a sigh of relief, unsure what to say. A part of him wanted to back to the doctors who had told him what he was suffering from was psychosomatic. He wanted to tell them it had been real the whole time, and that it now had a name. He could research the condition, and he could maybe find relief from the pain.

"What are cluster headaches?" Prentiss asked breaking her silence.

"They are a severe form of migraine. They are called clusters because often the pain can last for months and in some cases even years at the time. A lot of people think of cluster headaches as only debilitating nocturnal headaches and are often misdiagnosed as migraine. But the fact that these headaches went away for a period makes me even more certain in my diagnosis."

"How do I make them better?" asked Reid.

"That's the difficult part, I'm afraid, these headaches are exceedingly difficult to treat. Using pain medication can lead to abuse, and rebound headaches mostly you need to do what you have been doing. Treat the pain when it's extreme and learn ways to live with the pain when you have it. Now that we know what these are it explains why your CT scans came out normal. Almost every sufferer finds different methods give them relief from their headaches, and it's a matter of finding what works best for you."

"That's it?" Prentiss asked.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have better news. Your friend is in no real danger, and he does have a diagnosis but unfortunately there is no quick cure."

"I am happy that I have a diagnosis Emily," Reid assured her.

"Doctor Reid I'd like you to try to come once a week until you are out of this cluster. We can discuss different treatment options and see how each one works until we find the right fit."

"Thank you, I'll try to but it might difficult with my work."

"I understand but I think it will help in the long run."

"I'll do my best to see you as regularly as possible."

The doctor then gave Reid a list of various triggers and things which could make the headaches worse as well as a short list of different treatments to try. He quickly read the list. Reid was glad had he an answer. It wasn't the worse possibility but it also wasn't one of the better diagnoses he could have been given. He hoped that now that he knew what the problem was he could find something to help the headaches go away quickly.

End Part 4

Notes: All of the info I have in this fic comes from my own experience with cluster headaches, and research I have done trying to keep the pain down while I wait for an appointment with a specialist. I honestly hope that at some point this ends up being Reid's diagnosis because it would bring awareness to the condition. I'm not looking for sympathy by writing this fic I am just hoping to make my more aware of what these headaches are and just how difficult it can be to live with. Going months without any real relief from a headache is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. (My current cluster started in mid-February). Every time I was the episode with Reid waiting in the hospital I think of myself waiting at hospitals for treatment cause that's exactly what I do so that's what inspired me to give him the same headaches as I have. I hope everyone liked this part.