*We'll paint the grey clouds.
With pretty rainbow hues,
And we'll brush the gloom away.
And save it for a rainy day. Rainy day
Oh, today.* Tomorrow is another day, Disney's Rescuers, 1977
J.J. held onto Reid as she hummed a lullaby, the words long forgotten. She closed her eyes as if she could stop the tears and shut out the sight of the graveyard. But no matter what song she sang or what happy thought she tried, nothing could erase the images of mutilated bodies: whether it was Rosalyn's or Reid's. She had always wondered what it felt like to be the one to discover a dead body. Now she knew: ignorance truly was bliss.
No you don't, she told herself. He's not dead. He's alive. He's alive.
"Are my boys okay?" Garcia tiptoed into the room, carrying a tray laden with jello, games, several steaming mugs.
"Think you brought enough?" J.J. asked reaching for the coffee.
"That's for..."
"Speeenceer..." J.J. whistled. "Garcia brought you a treat." She waved the cup under his nose. He couldn't resist.
Reid turned his puffy red eyes towards Garcia, his head not leaving J.J.'s shoulder. "Jello, my favorite."
Reid pulled back from J.J., whether out of embarrassment or hunger, she wasn't sure, but he reached for the blue jello and leaned back on the bed.
"So, how's my little Popsicle?"
"Better," Reid replied as Garcia felt his forehead. It was still too cold for her liking. "So which would you like, Reid? Coffee, hot chocolate..."
"Neither!" a voice bellowed from behind the other side of the room. The curtain was pulled aside to reveal a very tired unit chief who didn't even turn to his team, his head buried in the pillow. "He needs sleep!"
"Chamomile tea it is. We'll get you warmed up in no time."
"That's better. Keep it down and don't wake me until the doctor gets here." It didn't matter if hell had to freeze over along with Reid. He was going to sleep!
"Okay, so I've got scrabble, a deck of cards, chess and monopoly. Take your pick, Reid."
"I don't really feel like -"
"Uh-uh. You need to have some fun, young man, and since we can't take you out on the town, this is the next best thing. Pick one."
"Monopoly." It wasn't often that he had time for a long game and maybe, just maybe a strategic game could keep his mind off of the hell that was beginning to brew in his body. "Did you know that Fidel Castro banned the game of Monopoly in 1959 because it served as a reminder of capitalism..."
J.J. and Garcia were caught halfway between an eye roll and a laugh.
Their Reid was back.
Reid sipped his chamomile tea as he picked the horse for his game piece, watching J.J. and Garcia's smiling faces. He felt sick, in more ways than one. It was as if to them, the last three days hadn't happened. They could just wipe the memory away with a little game. He would indulge them if for no other reason than he wanted it to work so bad. His back was stinging something fierce and his stomach felt like some it was being torn apart, but he knew better than to ask the doctor for pain medicine. He had all that he was going to get for the next several hours. He was just going to have to suck it up. At least now he could breathe without fearing that his lungs would collapse on him.
He shifted in his bed again, trying to get comfortable. It was impossible. J.J. watched him as if from a microscope. "Spence, are you okay?"
Was he okay? That depended on the definition of 'okay'.
"I'm fine."
"Spence..."
Reid avoided her eyes, scanning his cards. If only he could roll a six, he could get Park Place. Boardwalk was almost useless without it.
Garcia rolled a...5. Nope, not useless after all.
"50 please."
"Spence, talk to me." J.J. took the dice as Garcia handed over the fake currency.
"I'm not dying."
"Not dying and fine are not the same thing, and you know it. How are you feeling?"
"How am I feeling?" Reid reiterated sarcastically. Well if she really wanted to know... "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes," she answered, her moment of hesitation giving her away. Reid made a grab for the dice, but J.J. held them out of his reach.
"J.J. give him the dice."
"Not until he talks to me. Reid, you were crying on my shoulder for twenty minutes and then act like nothing's wrong."
"He doesn't have to talk if he doesn't want to." If Reid started talking, she was leaving. He could get all of the warm cuddly things he wanted: sweets, hugs, a shoulder to cry on, anything as long as he didn't give her nightmares.
"PLAY NICELY!" Well, Hotch really was irritated.
She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Please, I want to help, and I can't if I don't know what happened."
"You know what happened! I ran after the unsub and got a shovel to the head and chains for three days. And don't tell me that you honestly think forcing me to relive the worst days of my life is going to help! There is nothing to be gained by forcing me to relive that!" Sure they made victims tell horrible tales from the relative comfort of a police station but that was always to help catch the killer before anyone else could be hurt. If Tobias didn't have an accomplice then they had no excuse to torture him.
"You're angry at us. Why?" She didn't want to know, he could tell by the tremble in her voice.
"Why?" his voice broke. He wiped away the traitorous tears. He thought back to when he was sitting in that chair, chained and watching the mutilation on the laptop screen. He put his hands up to his face as if he could block out the images swirling through his brain. "What were their names?"
"Michael and Pamela Hayes," she answered. She had been about to answer for Mrs. Douglas and the boyfriend but Reid didn't know about them. They had already left...
"I thought.." Reid closed his eyes took a deep breath, willing himself to stop crying. "I thought you were coming then."
Garcia's heart broke in half at the sight of her Junior G-man crying. She moved in to give him a hug, but he pushed her away.
"Why?" he screamed. "I trusted you, I trusted you to find me!" His voice was coming in through hiccoughing sobs. "You always save people with your computer...but the one time that I need you...not some stranger you'll never see again. It was me. They get everything and I got nothing!"
"Reid...I tried." Garcia wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug him, but he had curled up into a ball, his hair hanging in his face. The words suddenly sounded useless but she had to say them. "He was re-routing his IP address, I couldn't track him. I tried, baby, I tried. I promise. I wanted nothing else, but I couldn't."
"We did everything we could, Spence." J.J. started to rub his back, but stopped as his body tensed, whether from physical or emotional discomfort she couldn't tell. She pulled her hand away, attempting to untangle his limbs to no avail. "Look at me. We went through everything in Hankel's house..." She stopped, knowing it was useless. Reid hadn't been there to see the team working through the night, pouring through hundreds of notebooks, searching for any clue.
"When he left, I didn't actually think they would die. I thought we could still save them. I was so sure."
"Reid." It was Hotch. He had listened to enough. "If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at me."
"Can't," Reid moaned. "You figured it out. You saved me."
"No. You saved yourself. You gave us the clue, at gun point no less. I should not have sent my two most inexperienced agents out together with no way to call for help.
Reid shook his head. "You couldn't have known he was..."
"We should have just called Hankle and asked him to come to the field office for questioning."
"And I should have gone into the house to call for back up after Hankel ran outside."
"Reid, listen to me. There were a lot of things that went wrong in this case, but ultimately the only one who is at fault is Hankel."
Reid was too far gone. Hotch shook his head at J.J. and Garcia, motioning for them to take the game away.
Hotch put a hand on Reid's shoulder, struggling between comfort and professionalism. "Is there someone you want to stay with you?"
Reid shook his head. He just wanted to go to sleep and pretend like nothing had ever happened. The rest of the team seemed to be managing that quite well.
"How about your mom?" Garcia spoke up, cautiously. She had been noticing Reid's phone going off at the Hankel house. "You missed four calls, apparently she's missing your daily letters."
Reid picked up the phone and dialed the number. He had no idea what he was going to say to her, but Garcia was right..just hearing the voice of someone who genuinely cared without a guilt trip to nurse would be refreshing.