The water ran through his fingers, leaving the rest of his body un-moving. He was completely zoned out, staring straight ahead through the kitchen window focused on nothing in particular. He had to admit, the warmth running over his hands felt good. He didn't want to move from that spot or let go of that feeling. It had been so long since he had felt anything but coldness, numbness, and... nothing. It was nice to sense the heat spreading throughout his body.
"Spence..."
JJ suddenly said from behind him. Spencer jumped at the abrupt interruption from his frozen state. JJ looked at him with wide blue eyes, holding her hand out towards him in caution.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."
Spencer forced a small smile and resumed washing the dishes that he was previously helping with. He always felt bad for being another thing JJ had to worry about, so he helped out where he could.
"I'm going to head to work. Do you mind getting Henry to the bus stop?" She asked, craning her head to look him in they eyes as he shifted his gaze downwards on the dishes in his hands. Spencer nodded and glanced over at her before returning to his work. JJ stared at him with that same JJ-concerned face of hers, but eventually gave up and rubbed his back.
"Thanks, Spence." she said, giving his shoulder a squeeze before grabbing her keys off the kitchen counter. Reid listened to the door shut behind her, waiting to let out a sigh. He knew his unhappiness made her unhappy too and he felt guilty for this, but it's not like he was trying to be sad, it just overtook him day and night.
"Uncle Spence?" a small voice said from behind him. Reid shut off the water and glanced over at Henry with a small smile before drying his hands with a towel.
"You ready, buddy?" Spencer asked quietly. Henry was really the only person he spoke to as of late.
His godson nodded and ran to the other side of the kitchen to grab his backpack and pull it over his shoulders. Spencer ruffled Henry's hair before pulling open the door and stepping outside into the chilling air.
"Aren't you cold?" Henry asked him, looking up to notice that Spencer only had a short sleeved tee shirt on with his sweatpants. Reid smiled down at Henry as they began walking down the street towards the corner where the bus always picked Henry up.
"No, I'm okay. You're right though, I should be wearing a coat." Spencer told him. Truthfully, he felt like the cold air was good for him; something to force his senses to wake up a bit.
"Daddy said he'd take me to get a new hat and glubs after school. When I was on the playground at school, i dropped my glubs in mud, but it was an accident..." Henry began rambling. Spence chuckled at the way Henry always said 'glubs' instead of gloves.
Spencer's smile quickly faded however, when he glanced down the street at the faint outline of the run down fort in the woods. He had visited four times at this point, already craving for a fifth. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook the feeling from his head while silently scolding himself. Why is he so weak?
"Uncle Spence?" Henry's voice questioned below him. Spencer realized Henry had stopped to ask him what the matter was when he had been distracted by his own guilt.
"I'm fine, bud. Come on, I think I hear your bus."
The last remnants of water gleamed in the darkness of Hani's water skin. God, it looked good. It had to have been four, maybe five hours since Evie had had her last sip. She knew that she was on her last drop.
It had been a rough and sleepless night. Although there was no sign of life when she was trekking through the woods the previous afternoon, as the sky faded from a deep pink to a dark purple, strange noises were peaking up everywhere. It was the most terrified Evelyn had ever been. The first time she had heard the low howl of a wolf in the distance of the forest, her heart had nearly beat out of her chest. She had found a large pine tree to lay under after that, hoping that it would provide some means of shelter. Laying on the frost covered ground wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world either. The cold dampness soaked through her thin tattered dress shirt and froze her to the bone. If she hadn't had been so exhausted, she wouldn't have fallen asleep at all.
It wasn't easy picking herself up at the crack of dawn either. Everything ached terribly. Her skin stung from the constant stab of the cold. She couldn't feel or move her fingers or toes anymore, her teeth wouldn't stop chattering, and her gunshot wound got so excruciating at some points that it even caused her to throw up the little food she had left in her stomach. Now there was a consistent stabbing sensation in her stomach. She had been hungry before; really hungry. When she had been vacationing in Still, Evie had kept walking. Five hours later she was still going; no food in her stomach, terribly dehydrated, wounded in some ways she probably didn't even know about yet, freezing cold, hopelessly weak... but somehow she was still on her feet. Somewhere she still had a sliver of motivation left.
It wasn't easy to keep that willpower when she couldn't even see straight however. About an hour ago, she started seeing double of things like the trees and her own feet moving beneath her. The scene around her got blurrier and blurrier as time went on, her head feeling like it was inside of a spinning dryer set on an endless cycle. Evie was still sane enough to realize that she couldn't keep going on for much longer. She could physically feel her body shutting down with every passing second. A sudden realization hit her like a ton of bricks; she wasn't going to make it.
She was going to die out here alone. No one would ever know what happened. She'd just disintegrate into the mud leaves and die there.
Evie felt her chest heave a bit as she continued walking. One foot forward, then the next, then over again... it had become such an automatic and mechanical motion that it didn't even feel like it was her doing it anymore. She was just a puppet, someone else pulling the strings. How she had kept going like this, she did not know. Evie felt as if she was watching herself from outside of her body. Suddenly all sensations felt numb, even her once racing mind.
Evelyn felt her foot hit a hard object in front of her, most likely a root jutting out from the ground. She went down hard, but hardly felt it this time. At this point, everything was so surreal. The faint gleam of the sun through the gray clouds above the canopy suddenly seemed to bright to look at. It sent her head spinning again and everything was just so blurry...
Was this how it felt like to die? Was she dying? Of what? The possibilities were endless; was it dehydration, blood loss, hunger, hypothermia? Evie couldn't tell for her life. Spencer could probably tell her. The thought of Spencer just sitting there and nonchalantly spouting out facts about how her body was shutting down made her laugh... well more like cough excessively while smiling like an insane person.
Soon it got bad, and Evie couldn't breath. She was left here on the ground, wheezing with no power to get up and drink that last bit of water. Black spots were forming in the corners of her eyes and one thought kept drifting through her head: This was it.
"I'm sorry, Spence." she whispered through small gasps. Evie hated herself for not having the strength to get back to him. She just couldn't do it. It was too late. She was done.
Evie felt a warm tear slip down her cheek as everything faded; her vision, her hearing, her pain, her thoughts. The last thing she hallucinated were voices in the distance. And geez, did they sound vivid. At least she had the power to recognize that she was going crazy.
As Evie felt herself slipping away, the voices grew louder. She could distinguish between them now. There sounded to be a man, a woman, and... a child? That was strange. The voices were so unfamiliar. She thought that she'd at least hallucinate Spencer, or the team, or her dad. And why were they growing louder and only more lucid as she continued to slip away?
"Can we pleeeeeeease get ice cream on our way home?" the small voice was begging. The crunch of footsteps accompanied the sound of what seemed to be a little girl. Not just one set of footsteps, however.
"Ask Dad." the woman said. Evie could hear the smile in her voice and imagined a small little family not unlike her own before her mother had died.
"Dad?"
Evie heard the low chuckle of a male's voice as the footsteps grew closer and closer. She tried everything in her power to force her eyes open. The world looks ten shades darker than it should have and everything was just a fuzzy shape, but she could see them. She could see three dark outlines of the figures of the family. They were real...
Come on, Evie. She tried to motivate herself. Just yell out to them.
No matter how hard she tried though, Evie couldn't even move. Her eyes slipped closed once more against her will and she screamed with frustration in her head. She could hear the footsteps passing her from ten or so feet away. They were just walking by, completely oblivious to her dying but a few meters from where they hiked.
Please, God. Please, please, please... she prayed. The footsteps continued to fade however, as did her consciousness. Evie would've cried if she could've. She would've curled up with her arms around herself and screamed and run her hands through her hair and dug her nails into her palms with grievance until they bled because that's how she felt, but she just couldn't. The only thing she could do was listen to the only chance she had walk away from her dying body.
"I think I dropped one of my gloves." The little girl said. The footsteps ceased and the man "hmm-ed".
"Do you think it's further down on the path?" he asked her.
"I don't know."
The footsteps started up again, but this time in Evie's direction. They were coming her way! She still had a chance!
"Let's see..." the woman's voice said, her footsteps crunching through the dead leaves littering the ground. "It's the blue ones, right? If we retrace-"
The woman's voice stopped in mid-sentence. Evie's heart nearly stopped with anticipation right there. She hated just being stuck in her frozen body, unable to do anything. She felt so helpless, and not to mention, nearly out of time.
"Oh my god..." the woman said quietly. Yes, yes, please... Evie thought. "Oh my god, Ted!" she gasped. There was a loud sound of leaves being torn through as someone ran to her side. The last thing Evie sensed was the feeling of hands gripping her shoulders. Only then did she let herself fade into an abyss, hoping that it was too late.
JJ rubbed her hands over her face in attempt to wake herself up. It was getting so hard to stay awake lately. Sleep didn't come easy when she kept having nightmares of one of her best friends being shot right in front of her. And if she was having a hard time, she couldn't even imagine how Spencer really must be feeling. Lately had had stayed unemotional and numb, at least on the outside. It was like he just shut down completely as a coping mechanism and it worried her to death. When Maeve had died, it was bad. But now again? This was every sort of hell imaginable.
The only time she would hear him expressing any sign of response was late at night when she'd walk past the guest room door after another one of her nightmares and hear him quietly crying in a half-asleep half-awake state. It was heart wrenching to listen to that almost every night. Most of the time she'd walk in and hold him until he fell asleep and woke up without any recollection. Sometimes he'd be aware enough stifle his sniffles if she opened the door and insist she go back to bed to get sleep. God, that kid... she didn't know if he'd bounce back from this one.
She could barely even remember the happy Spencer. The Reid that was always finding a way to be optimistic and excitedly talk your ear off with facts and theorems seemed long gone, never to return. Not only that, but his appearance was so different too. His eyes were even darker than usual, he had lost weight which was not at all healthy for someone already so skinny, his skin was paler, his eyes bloodshot. JJ didn't look much better lately, but Spencer looked like a walking image of death itself and she just wished she didn't have to lose two of her friends, because she wasn't sure she'd ever get the old Reid back.
"JJ!" Morgan's voice boomed. JJ jumped in her seat and straightened, looking around at the table to meet all four pairs of eyes staring back at her. Morgan was watching her under his dark eyebrows, his even darker eyes softened with concern. Looking around at all of her team members, JJ realized they all looked different too. It was the same kind of things; bloodshot eyes, skinnier, dark circles. Everyone had taken a hard hit from this.
"Sorry, what?" she asked weakly, squeezing her eyes shut tightly against her newly forming head ache.
"You look exhausted. Are you sure you don't want to get home and get some rest?" Hotch asked, concern laced in his voice. JJ forced a sad smile at her boss and shook her head.
"No, no. I want to help."
"JJ, we've got our whole team on this..." Morgan tried to tell her, but JJ shook her head again.
"No, I need to help."
Her team looked at her with sympathetic but understanding eyes. They had been spending days and days looking for the gang that had killed Evie. It didn't sit well with anyone that they were still out there, especially when their friend was not.
"Why don't we take a break?" Rossi suggested. Hotch sighed and nodded, looking around at his team.
"Reconvene in 10." he said, getting up and leaving the office before anyone had a chance to answer. Even Hotch had his tells for when he was upset. He was distant, more detached than usual. The team watched in silence as he exited the round table room and shut himself in his office.
Garcia was the first to break the silence, closing her laptop with a click.
"Does anyone want donuts? The kind with pretty pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles? I think..." her voice caught for a second. She took a deep breath to regain herself before carrying on. "I think we need rainbow donuts..." she whispered sadly, her eyebrows pulled together with discomfort. Morgan nodded.
"Sounds good, Mama."
Garcia nodded and rushed out of the room, her heels clicking the whole way. Rossi tapped the table a few times before standing up and exchanging a small forced smile to Morgan and JJ before leaving the room, but not before giving JJ's shoulder a squeeze. Morgan and Jayge were left alone, sitting in silence for a good long while. It wasn't an awkward silence, though. It was more of a quiet moment of understanding between them both. A moment where JJ just zoned out, letting her mind race and her shoulders sag.
"How's our baby boy doing?" Morgan finally asked. JJ closed her eyes and sighed. She opened her mouth to say something along the lines of "somewhat of a zombie", but her phone began buzzing in her pocket.
She gave Morgan a quick apologetic look before fishing it out, reading the unfamiliar number on the screen. JJ frowned and nodded towards her phone.
"I'll be right back." she said. Morgan nodded as she stood and exited the room, taking long strides across the bullpen and into the kitchen that was currently vacant. Sliding her phone unlocked, JJ held her phone up to her ear.
"Hello, this is Jennifer."
"JJ?" a weak voice said from the other end of the line. JJ's whole body froze in place. It couldn't possibly be... Was she going crazy? Damn, that sounded like...
"E- Evie?"
The girl from the other end of the line let out a small laugh before carrying on.
"I, um... Yeah. I'm at St. Josephs in Raleigh. I-"
JJ heard her voice break, but she still was trying to process this. This was impossible. She died. Right in front of her. Dead.
"I want to go home, JJ." Evie said after recomposing herself.
JJ could feel her eyes stinging seeing as they were uncharacteristically large and unblinking, but she couldn't move. This wasn't happening. It just wasn't, it couldn't.
"Um... JJ?"
JJ found it somewhere in her to move, the first thing she did being pinching her arm as hard as she could, leaving a deep red mark. She didn't care though. It all felt to real, too vivid.
"Oh my god..." JJ finally breathed, a smile spreading across her face. "Oh my god, how... what the hell, Evie? How are you alive?"
"Alive?" she asked, obviously confused. "What do you mean?"
JJ stumbed over to the chairs on the other side of the kitchen, falling into one and running her hand through her hair.
"You were dead. We all thought you were dead. How on Earth-"
"You all thought I was dead?"
"Evie, we had a memorial service and everything! You died down in Boston! You were shot and then they blew up the entire building, and oh my god..." JJ was nearly yelling at this point. Her heart was beating out of her chest, and she didn't know what to think. It seemed that Evie didn't either. There was nothing but silence coming from her phone.
"Dead..." she repeated, as if trying the word out on her tongue. "How- How's Spencer?" she asked hesitantly.
"He's... I really don't even know where to start. He's not okay, Evie." JJ said, hurt clear in her voice. Everything was starting to sink in. A lump formed in her throat and tears jumped to her eyes.
"He's going to be so happy. I'm so happy." Jayge told Evie. She listened to her laugh, a slight trace of tears in her voice. But it was her voice.
"I'm coming to pick you up. You can tell me everything, okay?" JJ said, suddenly realizing she couldn't take another moment to wait. She needed to get over there as fast as she could. She felt like if she didn't get there in time Evie would somehow disappear again, gone from their lives once more.
"Okay. I'll just wait-"
"No!" JJ yelled abruptly. "No, just stay on the phone with me until I get there." she said while running back to the round table room to grab her keys and jacket. Evie laughed.
"Okay." she said. JJ laughed too, running to the elevator and punching the button impatiently. "Just don't hang up."
How this was happened, Jayge had no idea. But it was, and things were about to be back to how they were supposed to be.
"Don't hang up..."
It was strangely warmer than usual for a late January day. Spencer didn't need to bury his hands in his coat pockets or pull his arms tighter to his body against the chill of the winter wind. Sure, it was still cold enough that you would cringe with each passing gust of wind, but it was just enough above bearable that Spencer's lungs didn't burn when he breathed in the air.
It was dark already, maybe even at the night's darkest point. It had been getting dark at 6 lately however, so it didn't necessarily mean it was in the darkest hours of twilight quite yet. At least, Spencer hoped it wasn't. He had gone for another hit of Dilaudid in his "secret place" in the woods at around five o'clock. He had hoped that would give him enough time before JJ got home from work to question where he was going. He had left his phone at JJ's house however, so he didn't know what time it was or if she was trying to reach him. Honestly, for all he knew it could've been three in the morning and she could've been freaking out. He hoped that wasn't the case.
It was irresponsible of him to slip out for Dilaudid at such a busy time of the day. Not that Dilaudid was ever "responsible", but having to slip away from reality right before dinner rather than at his usual four in the morning routine was pushing it. That feeling of need was growing in Spencer, though. The addiction was already at the point where Spencer craved the drug so much that he dropped everything in order to get it, no matter the risks. It would've scared him, but man it felt good to get away. He saw Evie again, and even though he couldn't remember what memory he dreamed of exactly, he knew it was good and made him happy.
"Hey, Spencer. I was just about to call you." Will's voice greeted Spencer upon entering the house. Reid's eyes flickered to the clock above their kitchen stove which read 7:48. Damn... JJ had already gotten back from work. He didn't see her car however, which was strange.
"Is JJ back?" Spencer asked quietly and hesitantly. Will looked up from where he was stirring soup around in a pot for dinner.
"No," he said in his distinct New Orleans accent as usual. "She said she had somethin' important to do. Wouldn't tell me what. Dinner should be ready in half an hour." he continued to say, smiling up at Spencer before returning his attention to the soup. Spencer nodded solemnly and made his way back to his room, stopping in the threshold of the office room to wave at Henry as he did his homework.
Upon reading the notifications on his phone, Spencer cringed at the 8 times JJ's name popped up on screen. He had missed her call eight times? What could possibly so important? Spencer hoped to God she wasn't worrying about him.
Sighing, Spencer hit the speed dial for her number. It only rang for a couple trills before she answered.
"Hello?"
"I, uh... I think I missed your call." Spencer said quietly, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.
"Yeah, no. Try like 10 of them, Spencer." JJ said as if she was upset with him. He knew she wasn't, though. Especially not at a time like this. The one thing that did confused Reid was the small voice in the background, so soft and so broken sounding that he hardly made out what it said.
"Is that Spencer?"
JJ seemed to ignore the voice though, sighing and asking him if he was okay.
"I'm fine..." he mumbled.
"Okay, well I'm going to be home in a minute. I have someone coming to see you."
Spencer held the phone away from him while dropping his face into a pillow and moaning. He muffled his rejections before returning the phone to his ear.
"JJ, I really don't feel like seeing anyone right now." Or ever. He thought, bitterly. Spencer held back this irritable urge within him however. He shouldn't been taking things out on JJ.
"Just trust me, okay?"
Spencer sighed and closed his eyes. He was just so tired. Not even so much as sleep-deprived tired, even though he was very much that. He was even just mentally tired. Emotionally tired. He was drained, and beaten down, and just defeated. Still though, he wanted to make JJ happy.
"Okay."
"I'm pulling in now." she told him. Spencer took a deep breath and pushed himself off of his bed and made his way back through the hallway and to the front door, not bothering to put a coat on. He didn't know who this person was but honestly, he really didn't care. He just wanted to please JJ and get it over with.
When Spencer opened the door, the first thing he saw was JJ's car pulling into the driveway. The headlights were nearly blinding him, the shape of JJ's body only a silhouette in the driver's seat. The person next to her though, she was dainty and not to mention definitely a she. Confused, Spencer closed the door behind him and crossed his arms over his chest in attempt to keep some warmth in his body. The headlights went out as JJ shut off the car and popped open her door. Spencer tried to adjust his eyes the best he could, but they still looked like dark silhouettes as he stood there trying to ignore the annoying rush of the wind against his face and bare arms.
The other girl got out of the car after JJ so that she could lock up her car with the familiar beep that Spencer had heard for the last week or so when listening to JJ come home from work. They both made their way towards Spencer, and it was clear that whoever Jayge had brought with her, was having trouble even walking. Her arm was in a weird position as if in a sling and she had a slight limp to her walk. Not only that, but something about just this figure, it was... familiar... eerily familiar.
Spencer suddenly felt knots tightening in his stomach. It was like the rest of his body was processing before his mind. The closer they walked up the pathway to the front porch, the closer they got to the light spilling out of the living room windows and more and more Spencer was able to make out. He wasn't focused on JJ, not anymore. His eyes were locked on this so-called "visitor". Her demeanor, the way she crossed her arms over her chest underneath her coat and kept her head down as she walked, her slightly curled hair that reached just past her shoulders... more and more was revealed as they walked closer, and more and more became familiar.
It wasn't until they passed through the light flooding out onto the pathway when Spencer nearly collapsed with surprise. He was seeing things. He had to have been. No, no, no, this wasn't real. He was crazy. Or dreaming. Or... using Dilaudid?
This wasn't like that though. This was so much more clear. The way her eyes caught what little moonlight that shone threw the clouds or the way the corner of her lips just barely turned up into a sad smile that sent knives into his chest... She stopped three feet from the porch where Spencer stood unmoving, but JJ kept going. She gave Spencer's shoulder a squeeze before entering the house alone without a word. Reid hardly even noticed though. He didn't notice anything, nothing but her.
She looked unsure of what to do. Her eyes locked on his, her gorgeous gray orbs that had caught his attention from day one. Her arms tightened around herself as a gust of wind passed over them and she cringed, seeming to remember that her arm was in fact in a sling.
There were different things. She was so much thinner, she looked even more fragile than before, she had cuts and bruises in a few places visible, and it looked like she had barely slept in days, but other than that... it was her.
Even the word felt unreal on his lips as he hesitantly choked it out, using whatever sense he had left in him to speak up.
"...Evie?"