Chapter 30

Once at the hospital Laura slipped out of the car and back into Spencer's arms. He gently guided her into the emergency entrance, where the staff was already waiting. "Come on." Blake said gently. "We're going to get you both checked out."

At that Laura stopped. "No." She said.

"Come on." Spencer told her. "You need to be looked at."

Blake and Morgan looked at each other. With the exception of Spencer's hands both victims looked fine; completely healthy. In fact Laura seemed to be almost glowing with good health. But Reid wouldn't say that without good reason.

"No." She insisted. "No. Not here. No."

"Then when we get back to DC," he insisted right back. "In the next day or two. Come here." He pulled her in and whispered to her again.

Whatever he said she wasn't thrilled with it, but she gave in. "All right." She agreed. "All right."

"Good. Just stick with Alex while I get this fixed. She's great, she'll help with whatever you need, okay?" Once Laura nodded her acceptance Spencer looked over at Morgan and held up his injured hand. "Let's…do this and get back to DC. Please?"

"Yeah, probably. Katie's team can take the scene."

As the hospital staff guided them to an exam room and Alex and Laura to a place to wait Laura stopped. "Spence," she said quietly, "don't leave."

"Never," he promised.

Once in the exam room Spencer slumped on the gurney while he submitted to the usual round of poking and prodding. "You okay?" Morgan asked.

"Adrenalin," Spencer replied, probably meaning that it was wearing off and he was crashing.

That, Morgan thought, was understandable. "Do we need to check anything other than those hands?" He asked.

"No." Spencer replied. I'm okay. No narcotics." He said to the nurse starting his file.

At least that hadn't changed. Morgan waited until they were done with the initial poking and left them alone a bit. "You know the Unsubs sent us a video, end of September. You seemed more together then."

Spencer quirked a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "I was."

"So when did things go sour?"

"Three weeks ago."

Damn. "You want to talk about it?"

Spencer was quiet for a time. "I don't think I can." He admitted.

Morgan sighed. Dr. Cargill had prepared them for this. People whose brains were wired up weird, like Reid and Laura, had a hard time putting emotions into words. Get them into a calm environment, she said, someplace quiet, orderly, healthy and be patient. Eventually it would come out. It would take time but eventually it always came out. "That's okay, there's no rush. We're here for you, no matter what."

"And Laura," Spencer insisted, with more emotion than he'd shown so far.

"And Laura," Morgan agreed. Whatever it took.

Spencer was quiet for a long moment as more adrenalin wore off and he settled deeper into the mattress. "Did I miss Henry's birthday…oh god, Mom." That made him start up again.

"Easy. Easy. Just lay back. Rossi's been checking with Dr. Norman, she's okay. You want to give her a call?"

"Yes. No." One spurt and now he was crashing harder. "I should but she probably won't believe it's me on the phone."

"I'll ask Rossi to Call Dr. Norman when he gets here. Maybe we can set up a video call tomorrow. Speaking of …" Morgan pulled out his phone and dialed lucky #7, "Hey babygirl. Be nice, you're on speaker."

"What happened? Is he okay?" Garcia fluttered.

"Hey Garcia," Spencer replied.

"Oh my god! You're there! You're okay!"

He sighed, "Yeah."

"Hey." Morgan got his attention. "No more saying what we want to hear, all right. You're not in high school anymore. Whatever it is we can take it."

Spencer sighed again and seemed to shrink back inside his skin. "I'm physically okay." He said, "Dislocated my thumb, that's all."

"Yeah, but something else is going on." Morgan said. "And whatever it is we want to help."

"Yeah, we do." Garcia agreed.

Spencer frowned a little. "I don't think this can be helped."

"We'll figure it out." Morgan insisted.

After Blake asked if there was a private place where they could wait, she and Laura were shown to a small consulting room. As soon as Laura sat she immediately started rocking back and forth. "Are you all right?" She asked, gently.

Laura almost smiled. "Wish I had something to knit." She replied.

Stimming, Blake realized, self stimulation, a way to lower anxiety by blanketing an over-stimulated nervous system with white noise. "It must be hard, being out with all this busyness after being someplace quiet for so long."

Laura was quiet for a moment. "Yeah," she agreed. "That's part of it. Spence said we could go back to his place, he said it was quiet there. Figure out what to do next."

Darn it. "Unfortunately Spencer's apartment is under repair. But one of our teammates, Dave Rossi, has a ridiculously big house and he's made arrangements for Spencer to stay over with him. I'm sure he won't mind if you stay as well."

Laura considered this again, in the slow sort of way of people who have gone through a lot in one day and are still catching up. "Maybe a hotel would be better." She said, tentatively.

For a moment Blake was almost offended, why would she want them to avoid the team. But then she saw the blush in Laura's cheeks and went with her gut. "No need." She said. "Rossi won't be offended if you two share a room."

"Sure?"

"Absolutely."

"No one's going to say he's…"

"He's?"

"Too young or...something?"

"At thirty-two?" Blake gave an impatient huff. "If they do they'll answer to me."

Laura relaxed a trifle, "All right." She was quiet a few more moments. "He promised we'd stay together, no matter what. He promised we'd try again."

"He always keeps his promises, he's good that way. Try what again?"

But Laura didn't answer. After a moment she said, "I was going to borrow Spencer's clothes. Granted, they'd be way too long on me."

"Your housemate Tonya put a suitcase together. It's waiting for you."

"Cool. I should call her. I should call my Dad." Laura sighed again. "I can't handle my Dad right now. I can't handle Karen right now."

"You don't have to." She had every right to make her own decisions, Blake thought. "But before you call Tonya you should know that they had to move you out of the house when the school year started. Your father and stepmother came out…"

"…and Karen trashed everything?"

"I'm sorry."

Laura chuckled without humor. "That doesn't surprise me. It's okay, hating Karen is kind of familiar. She did that a few times when I lived at home. I had a trunk…"

"I…I am sorry. But, you can start over."

"No!" She said with more emotion than she had shown so far. "We don't start over! We try again but we don't start over! When you start over you forget. We can't forget. We try again but we don't forget, Spencer promised!"

"All right. All right. Fair enough." Blake soothed her back down. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Laura considered a moment, and then she shook her head. "I'm sorry." She said.

"I am too."