"Carefully, lift it over the edge of the bed."
Rosemary shot a timid look Reid's way as he watched the nurse assist the brunette in getting off the bed. He returned the look with an encouraging smile and raised eyebrows, and she brought her attention back to the nurse. The woman held her arm out for Rosemary to hold onto and slowly, her legs swung over the side of the bed.
Rosemary winced as her muscles twitched in her wrapped leg and looked at the nurse for instruction.
"Slide down and keep holding on to me," the red-haired woman said gently.
Rosemary nodded and let herself slide down until her feet touched the cold floor. But as she began to put weight on the leg, it ached. She bit her lip and gripped the woman's forearm tighter. She was standing, but couldn't bring herself to move yet.
"Just one step at a time, slowly," the nurse coaxed.
Rosemary took a shaky breath and stepped forward with her good foot before she was forced to move the other. Her knee bent involuntarily as she tried to step with the injured leg. But she persisted, letting the nurse lead her in Reid's direction. Rosemary tried to cheer herself on mentally and soon she was moving at a steady pace, finding the movements to come more and more naturally with every step.
"Good, now I'm going to let you go now, just take a few cautious steps," the nurse encouraged. Rosemary tentatively let go of her forearm before taking her own steps forward. But her muscles suddenly spasmed in the hurt leg and she let out a soft cry, losing her balance.
Reid shot out of his chair and caught her, helping her regain her standing. She gripped his arm tightly, feeling foolish for looking like such a klutz.
"You okay?" he asked her in deep concern, looking down at the brunette.
"Yeah, sorry," she mumbled, trying to keep her focus on her steps so as not to embarrass herself again. Reid led her to the nurse, handing her back off to the nurse with a nod. She was helped back into bed and she fell back into her pillows as the nurse left the two alone again.
"I looked so idiotic," she muttered, hand on her forehead.
"The fact you were even walking again like that is amazing," Reid argued, coming to sit beside her again. "Don't tear yourself down. I mean, you got stabbed in the leg and your muscles went all screwy. You're doing the best you can considering."
"How are you so kind?" she wondered aloud, brow furrowed lightly as she stared at him, trying to figure Reid out.
He pressed his lips together, big eyes lowering to gaze at the joined hands in his lap.
"When so many people have been unkind to you and you see the ugliness I see in my work..." he trailed off, frowning. "You realize you have to be kind. You have to be the anomaly."
Rosemary's mouth opened slightly as he returned his hazel-eyed gaze to her, a sad smile coming onto his lips.
"Tell me more about yourself," Rosemary then said, hoping to cheer him up. "So you're super smart, you've got a ridiculous amount of doctoral degrees..."
"I have an eidetic memory and I can read up to twenty thousand words per minute," he added, leaning forward a bit in his seat.
"And I thought I was smart," Rosemary grinned. "What about your parents? Since you probably already know everything about mine..."
Reid's face suddenly fell, though he attempted to fix it immediately to seem like he was fine.
"My mother has paranoid schizophrenia and I had to put her in a mental institution when I was eighteen," he said pretty matter-of-factly, his hands fidgeting slightly in his lap. "My father left because he couldn't take it anymore. I still communicate with my mother and everything but.. it's tough."
Rosemary put a hand over her mouth.
"I"m so sorry, I shouldn't have pried," she whispered, immense guilt settling on her shoulders.
"You couldn't have known my family history was so messed up," he shrugged, though she could tell he was still a little hurt by the thought of it.
Rosemary's eyebrows furrowed in sympathy and she quietly added, "Well, despite all that, you turned out to be really, incredibly successful. It's inspiring."
His eyes seemed to light up just a bit at that and he gave her a tiny, grateful smile. Rosemary smiled in return, a nice understanding passing between the two. She then plucked the next question off the top of her head and spoke.
"So, what's your middle name?"
Immediately there was a groan and "Oh no, not this question-"
"What?" she laughed, tilting her head in confusion. "Is it really that embarrassing?"
"About as embarrassing as Dionysus Lardner's incorrect assumptions about railway travel," Reid emphasized, a laugh escaping his lips.
"What? He only thought people would die of asphyxiation riding trains," Rosemary giggled, pretending it wasn't that big of a deal.
"You knew that?"
"Give me some credit," Rosemary defended, making his smile widen.
"Okay, okay- you've proven you're one smart girl. But I'm not telling my middle name."
"Okay, would it help if I told you mine?" Rosemary coaxed, eyebrow arched derisively. "And it's pretty odd, so you'd better tell me yours after."
Reid watched her in distrust before finally giving in and sighing, "Fine, what's yours?"
Rosemary bit her lip before saying in a lower tone, "Minerva."
"Your middle name is literally the name of the goddess of Wisdom?"
"Right?" Rosemary exclaimed with a hand gesture. "It's cool and all, don't get me wrong. But my dad couldn't give me Athena? No one knows who Minerva is if you tell them she's a goddess, they only recognize her Greek counterpart!"
"This isn't even a fair trade because that name is so cool," Reid shook his head, crossing his arms.
"Touche," she agreed. "But you promised. Give it up, Doctor."
Reid sighed and looked down at his jeans before mumbling, "Walter."
Rosemary emitted an involuntary giggle and his head whipped up, his mouth opening in shock.
"I'm sorry!" she said behind her hand, her eyebrows high. "It's really not bad! Spencer Walter Reid."
"Doctor," he corrected with a teasing look.
"I think it sounds incredibly vintage," she assured him, forcing her smile to disappear so she could offer a serious, meaningful look.
"Maybe," he said with a thoughtful glance, fingers on his chin. "Rosemary Minerva Lennox."
"I sound like the protagonist of a young adult fantasy novel," she groaned, heading falling back into her pillows.
"No, it's a pretty name," he argued quietly, and she side-eyed him from her position.
"You really think so?" she inquired in a tiny voice, lifting her head again to watch him though sparkling eyes.
"Yeah, I do," he confirmed, a little bashfully. There was a brief, comfortable yet charged silence as she looked at him in appreciation and he looked back with the tiniest smile on his lips. He suddenly broke it, clearing his throat.
"So, Mozart or Beethoven?" he asked, his smile becoming more awkward.
"Hmm... Mozart," Rosemary answered, scrunching her nose lightly. "Beethoven is overrated by the general population, in my opinion."
"That's what I'm saying! Now, The Picture of Dorian Gray?"
"A masterpiece," Rosemary countered, a triumphant smile on her face as he looked pleasantly surprised.
After a few more rounds of questioning, the pair was interrupted by the ringing of Reid's cellphone. He pulled it out, an apologetic smile being sent her way and she nodded, trying to hide her disappointment at their being interrupted.
"Really? Sounds terrifying... I'll head out right now, see you there."
Rosemary's stomach fell. "Another one?"
Reid nodded solemnly as he got up from his seat. "More victims this time."
"What is it?"
He looked uncomfortable and as if he was going to deny her, but she gave him a pleading, distressed look.
"One man confronting another with the severed head of a woman- with snakes for hair. I bet you know exactly what the scene is, don't you?"
She swallowed, nodding numbly.
"I'll alert the guard to sit outside again while I'm gone, and hopefully your parents will be back soon," he told her gently.
"You have to go?" she asked, eyes big and pleading.
"I'm sorry."
He went over to put books back in his bag and walk towards the door.
"Goodbye, Spencer Walter Reid," she called after him, a slightly longing look in her eyes. He stopped while holding the door open, looking back with a tender expression on his face.
"Goodbye, Rosemary Minerva Lennox," he responded, a brief smile sent her way before he left.
Rosemary folded her hands over her stomach, face slightly downcast as she lay in the room, now alone.
"Jesus," Blake muttered as she stared at the scene.
"You know what this means don't you?" Hotch asked as he came up beside her, his attention also held by the gruesome scene before them.
"The unsub is evolving," Blake shook her head. "He's using more people in his scenes, and he's going further in the detail. Every snake is perfectly place on her shaved head, he drained all the blood so he would literally be as pale as a statue... it's horrifying."
"I seriously didn't expect this, but... wow," Reid said as he walked up to the both of them.
The scene depicted one man in Corinthian helmet and material around his lower body, holding his outstretched hand the head of a woman- whose hair had been entirely replaced with skinny, dead snakes. The second man was posed with arm up in defense, his body pale white from loss of every drop of blood in his veins.
"This is a scene from the legend of Perseus," Reid explained, turning to the two. "His wedding to Andromeda is interrupted by Phineas and his men, and Perseus pulls out his prize from his previous battle with Medusa to turn all the opposing men to stone."
"We aren't working fast enough," Hotch said suddenly as he turned away from the scene. "He's collecting more and more victims and getting bolder in his depictions. If we don't hurry up, who knows what the body count will be in his next scene."
"Where's dad?" Rosemary inquired as her mother entered the hospital room, lunch in hand for her daughter.
"I think he was going to eat somewhere else and then get you some clothes to change into for tomorrow," Mrs. Lennox said casually, offering the bag of food to her daughter.
"How did the questioning go?" Rosemary added.
"It was... a little tense, they were suspicious of your father," Mrs. Lennox admitted, looking down with lips pressed together tightly as she took a seat.
"What?" Rosemary burst out. "That's ridiculous, he would never!-"
"You and I know that, Ro, but not these FBI people," the small woman shook her head. "We did our best to prove their suspicions wrong, but who knows what's going through their minds."
"I hope they move on from him as a suspect," Rosemary said anxiously, biting her lip.
"I'm sure once they realize they can't offer anything other than hunches they'll forget about him," her mother reassured her, squeezing her hand lightly. "Now eat your lunch."
The phone in the room suddenly went off and Mrs. Lennox got up to answer. "Hello?"
Rosemary waited with bated breath to hear what was going on.
"No, he's not here at the moment, he went to go eat and get some clothes for Rosemary a while ago," her mother replied into the phone with a slight frown. The conversation then ended as she hung up the phone.
"Who was that?" Rosemary questioned with puzzled brown eyes.
"Special Agent Reid?"
Rosemary frowned, wondering what he could have been calling for. And why was he asking about her father?
"He's not there," Reid confirmed, an unsettled expression on his face.
"Reid, go with Morgan back to the hospital to double check, Blake and I will go to Rosemary's house to check for him," Hotch ordered, already walking towards the black SUVs. "We've confirmed the bodies have been here for only a few hours now, and if he's been out of anyone's sight for a few hours, we have reason to be concerned."
Reid and Morgan exchanged looks before everyone piled into the SUVs, the tires screeching against the pavement as they sped away from the scene.