April 12:
5:45, and he's finishing up the week's paperwork. He's alone in the bullpen. When it's empty like this, he can hear the building: the faint soothing hum of the ventilation system, and the even fainter hum of the overhead lights. There's an occasional tock-tock of someone passing by in the hall outside, and then the low drone of the elevator going up and down at the corridor's end.
His cell phone rings, the tone a sharp nail driving into the silence and making him jump. He doesn't recognize the number.
"Hello."
"Dr. Reid?" A slightly pompous, official-sounding female voice.
"Yes?"
"This is Officer Carla Mikulski with the Metropolitan Police. We're holding a Maeve Donovan down here, and she told us to contact you."
The breath goes out of him. He sags in his chair, his vision swimming a little. What?
"Dr. Reid?"
"Yes...what's going on? Has she been arrested?" He can't imagine a scenario where that's possible, but -
"No. One of our officers picked her up at the Dupont Circle Metro station. She was...behaving erratically, and he was concerned. We were going to have her transported to Mercy General for observation, till she gave us your number."
"Is she okay?"
"Physically, yes. Mentally, we're not sure. Aside from giving us your info, she hasn't said anything. I'm assuming you're a mental health professional of some sort?"
"You could say that." He's not lying, a psychology doctorate and eight years of profiling work qualifies, right? "I'm...familiar with her history - look, which station are you calling from? I'll be there as soon as I can."
He jots down the station address, his hands shaking, and hangs up. Damnit. How's he supposed to get there? Taking the Metro from here to Dupont
Circle means at least two train changes and nearly two hours, between wait times and the Friday afternoon crowds -
Heels coming down the hallway outside, a distinctive clunky sound. Only one person working on this floor has shoes that sound like that. Relief floods him.
He grabs his messenger bag and hurtles out the bullpen doors, just as Garcia is pressing the elevator buttons. She turns around, startled, then smiles.
"Hey, Tall and Brilliant! In a hurry to get out of here?" Then she sees his face, and frowns. "You okay?"
"Garcia, you drove here today, right?"
"Yeah."
"Garcia? I need a huge favor."
The drive is slow going. They hit some of the traffic outbound from the city, and creep along till Garcia spots an off-ramp and zips down it, taking a route down side streets he's not familiar with. The scenery blurs past. He's not really paying attention. If the cops are talking about transporting Maeve - that irritating euphemism for brief involuntary commitment - it means whatever happened is serious. If he's going to convince them to let her go with him instead, he has to seem halfway normal and professional. Look at their eyebrows and noses for a semblance of eye contact, count to three before speaking, put your hands in your pockets because there's no way you'll be able to keep them still and that might look weird - he'd better not act too familiar with her, either, if he's letting the cops assume their relationship is clinical. Hopefully she'll realize that.
He feels a little sick. He realizes he's curling and clenching his hands over and over, not quite outright flapping.
Garcia pulls into the station parking lot, maneuvering neatly between two cruisers to park.
"Want me to come in with you?" she asks.
He looks at her - loud orange dress, winged glasses slightly glittery with rhinestones, bright feathered barrettes - and decides: "I don't...think I'll need backup." He's not actually sure of that, but her presence and appearance might raise extra questions.
"Come get me if you do."
Mikulski is much shorter and thinner than her voice on the phone suggested. She offers no handshake or polite preambles, which he appreciates; just asks for ID, and then starts explaining. He keeps his gaze on her eyebrows.
"Officer Lopez spotted Ms. Donovan running through the crowd at the Dupont Circle station at about four p.m. He thought she was just trying to catch a train till he saw her stop and attempt to hide under a bench. She seemed noticeably distressed. He stopped and tried to question her, thinking someone might be after her. She was incoherent and, he said, appeared to be reacting to someone who wasn't there. He tried to get her out from under the bench, and she went out the other side and took off. Lopez pursued. She didn't appear to be looking where she was going, and fell down the stairs between the upper and lower level.
"Lopez was able to restrain her and bring her in without further incident. She's been very quiet. Wouldn't answer any questions, so we're not sure she knows exactly what's going on. All she said was, 'Call Dr. Reid,' and then your number."
One. Two. Three. "She has been checked out for injury?"
"She's banged up a little from falling, but no signs of head injury we can ascertain, if that's what you're wondering. Or intoxication, either."
"She doesn't have any substance abuse issues." He hopes that's the truth. The possibility's never occurred to him and he's never seen anything indicating otherwise, but still - "Look, she doesn't need to be transported. She's not a danger to anyone else, and I very seriously doubt she's a danger to herself."
His speech is starting to fall all over itself, speed increasing. Mikulski looks at him sharply, and he forces himself to pause, then slow down. "She...has PTSD issues and gets panicked in crowds sometimes. That's all. We're working on it, but she's probably just not ready for Friday afternoon public transit yet." He smiles, hoping it looks like a no big deal, really smile instead of a please believe this one.
Mikulski considers, tapping her fingers on the desk for an interminably long moment, then nods. "We can release her under your supervision."
"Thanks." Keep still and quiet, Spencer, don't look too happy - why does his internal voice always sound so much like his mom at times like this?
After he signs the release paperwork, the bored-looking cop at the front desk gives him a worn black purse he assumes is Maeve's, then leads him back
down the hall. The bare little room they enter is clearly for interrogation, with a table and chairs and a faint smell of sweat and damp brick.
Maeve's not at the table. It takes a second for him to spot her: in the far corner, curled against the wall, hair hanging down and hiding her face. Her gray tweed suit is smutched with dirt, pantyhose torn, large bloody scrapes visible on the knee and arm he can see.
Oh God.
"I've got it from here," he tells Bored Cop, who nods and leaves.
He eases the door shut, sits down on the floor beside her, and whispers: "Hey."
She flicks the hair out of her face with a little head shake. Her voice is very small: "You came."
"Of course." There's a bruise starting on her left temple, but her pupils look normal and she seems reasonably focused. He runs her through the standard orientation questions - name, birthday, location, today's date (that one takes her a little while) - and checks her visual tracking.
"Did I pass?" she asks when he's done, her voice flat.
"It'll do. Let's get out of here, huh? This is no place to spend a Friday night."
She doesn't exactly smile at that, just a little mouth twitch, but she starts slowly getting to her feet.
It's getting dark outside. Maeve climbs straight into Garcia's narrow backseat, without a word, and curls up tightly again, staring at nothing. Garcia looks briefly at her before turning to him, brow furrowed. "Everything okay?"
"More or less."
He takes the passenger seat again. It's easier to give directions to Maeve's place from here. He lets his mind drift, except for when he has to point out the
next turn.
Finally they pull up in front of her building. Garcia puts the car in park, motor still running, and half-whispers as he's climbing out: "You need any help, you know my number."
"I know. Thanks."
Maeve's apartment is at the end of the third-floor corridor. It takes her a few tries to find her keys.
She's left the kitchen lights on, eye-stabbingly bright bluish fluorescents that make everything cast sharp shadows. She locks the door behind them, tugs to
check it, rattles it again, then flips the wall switch to turn the fluorescents off and the living room floor lamps on. He scans the living room. Two walls of stuffed
bookshelves, a TV on a stand that looks like it's been kicked down stairs a few times, brown recliner sofa with a patchwork quilt draped over the back. Clean, but musty, like it hasn't been ventilated in a long time.
Maeve folds the sofa out and curls up on one half, pulling the quilt over herself, face expressionless. She doesn't even bother taking off her shoes. He just stands there, unsure, words frozen somewhere between brain and mouth. Finally, he's able to make himself speak: "Um...do you want me by you right now?"
She nods.
He fits on the sofa, just barely. He curls up around her from behind, and puts an arm around her. She relaxes against him, exhaustion-limp, her hair very soft against his face.
"What happened?" he asks.
Her words are slow, but lucid. "They told you."
"Their version. What about yours?"
She sighs. "You...know I had...an interview today."
"Yes." She'd called him, giddy with excitement, after she'd heard: a possible adjunct position at one of the smaller university campuses in Arlington.
"I got there okay. Met the people...everything was going great. Then they...wanted to show me around the department." She stiffens slightly. "It was six floors up. Open walkways, and...windy."
"Why - oh." Unsecured heights after Diane had almost forced her off that rooftop. Of course.
"Yeah. I walked out a little ways and I - couldn't. Ran back inside and threw up in a trash can." She shrugs. "That ended that pretty fast. At least they shooed me out politely."
"So you headed home?"
"I was...disoriented. Got lost for a little while trying to find the station and remember the schedule. Couldn't stop thinking about that roof that night - or her face, or - well. I found the train. Rush hour was starting, I'd forgotten what it was like, and it was this - tornado of people. Being pushed, and noise - missed my stop to change trains. Wasn't sure where I was."
That explains why she was at Dupont Circle, he thinks; he'd wondered what she was doing over there.
"The train stopped. Someone squeezed in right up against me, she was - wearing Diane's perfume, and - " She shudders. "And I was there again, she was up against me holding the g-gun on my head again and..."
"So you ran."
"I don't remember it, just noise and I could feel her trying to grab me and I had to get away. I ran. Tried to hide. Thought I saw her trying to get at me. Ran again. Someone was chasing me and shouting, the cop, I guess. Then I fell. I don't really remember anything else, except men's voices and telling them to call you."
He can feel her heart pounding, fluttering like a trapped bird, and he just holds her a little tighter for a while while processing what she's said. He knows what it means, but what's the best way to explain it?
She beats him to it. "It was a flashback." Her hands ball into fists. "Wasn't it?"
"Yes."
Her voice is shaking. "This...isn't going away on its own, right?"
"It doesn't usually, no."
Her laugh is sharp-edged, dangerously close to tearful. "That bitch just keeps stealing my life, I'm just as stuck as I ever was, and I can't even afford to try to
do anything about it. What the hell am I gonna do, Spencer? If this keeps up, I can't work, I can't even look for work, if it happens in public again I might get arrested for real - "
"I can help you."
Maeve rolls over on her back and looks at him, startled. "You?"
"Yes." His words are tripping over each other in haste again. "I mean, I -I've got a degree, professional training and - I know what it's like, too."
She considers. "You'd do that?"
His chest and throat are hurting, looking at her. He nods and kisses the bruise on her temple. When he can speak again, he says: "We'll...work out some kind
of plan. It won't be much fun."
"Anything's better than what's going on now." She pushes the quilt aside and looks down at herself. "Ugh. I need a bath."
"When's the last time you ate?"
"This morning."
"You take care of the bath, I'll take care of the food."
She smiles, for real this time, and limps off down the hallway.
Once he hears water running, he gets up and looks through the kitchen. Beans, rice, ramen, tomato soup, those little microwaveable cups of powdery orange macaroni and cheese. Poor college student food. Except she's not a college student. He thinks of her shabby purse and wonders, again, just how she's doing financially.
He calls the nearest pizza place, and then sits down and gets his notebook out of his bag. By the time Maeve emerges, bathrobe-swathed and damp and scrubbed slightly pink, he's already outlining what they might do.