Chapter Twenty-Four
11/09/2019. 09:22 hours. Virginia Hospital, Arlington, Virginia.
Spencer blinked sluggishly as his consciousness returned, the white haze over his vision slowly dissipating. He could feel something soft against the back of his hand. An oxygen cannula sat just beneath his nose, the gentle pressure of the oxygen in his airways. He was lying in a partially reclined position. As the mist finally left his sight, Spencer found he was lying shirtless in a bed. A large bandage was taped over his abdomen, just below his ribs. His wrists were bandaged. His left arm was encased in a blue sling. His torso felt like it was aflame. He turned his attention to the monitors beeping steadily to his left. Blood pressure is perfectly normal. Pulse is a little high. Oxygen levels satisfactory. Spencer's eyes moved over to the bags of fluids hung above him. He narrowed his gaze to try and make out the lettering. Non-narcotic pain relief and post-operative antibiotics. The sheets rustled as he tried to shuffle his position slightly. Spencer squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth with the agony that flared throughout his torso. The soft sensation on his hand tightened. Taking deep breaths to ease the pain, Spencer cautiously opened his eyes to see Mel at the side of the bed. Her hair was rumpled at one side and she had dark circles around her eyes. Spencer smacked his lips and tried to sit up. He curled an arm protectively around his abdomen.
"Please, be careful, Spence. You don't want to rip your stitches." Spencer fumbled around the bedside cabinet for his spectacles. Mel held them out to him. He accepted them with a small smile and slipped them on.
"What happened?" asked Spencer hoarsely.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Spencer averted his gaze to the blanket and scrunched his face in thought.
"I was chained up. Emily took off my tie that had been used to blindfold me and JJ took the tape off my mouth. I don't remember anything after that."
"You stopped breathing. EMTs had to resuscitate you. You have electrical burns on your neck and lacerations to your wrists. The -uh- knife that you were stabbed with nicked your stomach and liver. They were easily repaired, but the damage to your spleen was extensive. They had to remove it as it was causing internal bleeding." Spencer nodded and gripped his abdomen, sweat beading his forehead. "Spence? You could have something stronger than Tylenol." Spencer shook his head.
"I can't. You'd hate me if you knew." Mel squeezed his hand in reassurance.
"Try me." Spencer swallowed hard and turned his head to truly look her in the eyes.
"Twelve years ago, I was kidnapped by an UnSub with DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder. He had three alters- himself, his father Charles and the archangel Raphael. He held me captive for three days in which I was handcuffed to a chair, beaten and tortured by Raphael and Charles. Tobias forced injections of the Dilaudid into me. I-" Spencer's voice cracked in shame. "I became addicted to it. After Charles had made me dig my own grave and I killed him, I took Tobias' vials from his still warm corpse. I struggled to get clean. I was clean up until two years ago when Lindsey Vaughn drugged me with heroin and cocaine. I-I can't risk becoming dependent again."
"I understand. Really, I do. I had some dependency issues myself until about eight years ago. Mine was ecstasy. After I crashed my car whilst high, I realised that I couldn't keep going like that. I put myself through rehab and then trained as a corrections officer." Spencer raised his eyebrows.
"So, you don't hate me? I- I have a lifetime of trauma, I have a brain injury, epilepsy… I'm always being kidnapped…" Mel gave a snort of amusement.
"You don't say? Listen to me, Smartypants. If I hated you, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. I love you too, dumbass." Spencer's eyes glistened.
The pair were startled by a knock on the door. Spencer lifted his eyes to see Emily and David stood in the doorway. Emily had a small smile dancing on her lips but Spencer could read the tension written into her face.
"Mel? Could we have a minute alone with Reid, please?" asked Emily. Mel nodded and came to her feet. She gave Spencer a loving glance before exiting the room. David took the recently vacated seat. Spencer's eyes darted in concern between the two agents.
"It's good to see you awake, kiddo," said David. Spencer frowned and pursed his lips.
"This isn't a social visit, is it?" asked Spencer, his voice guarded. He curled his arms around his waist protectively. David shook his head.
"We need to know what happened to AD Barnes," came Emily's voice. Spencer quirked an eyebrow.
"Wait. That woman kidnapped me and tried to kill me, and you're asking what happened to her?"
"We need to give a report to the senate. We need your statement," responded Emily. Spencer gave an unamused huff. "Reid? They think you killed her in cold blood." Spencer's mouth gaped in horror.
"Hold on a minute, You found me chained up, blindfolded and gagged! How could I?" David sighed.
"Please, just tell us what happened. We know you didn't do it maliciously," said David.
"Fine. I woke up in Emily's office. Barnes barged in and tried to say that Michaels was a good man, and that he had a daughter that was closer than we thought. She took my badge and made me handcuff myself. She had two armed guards that took me down to the parking garage, pushed me to my knees, gagged me, blindfolded me with my own tie and drugged me. When I woke up, I had no idea where I was. They hooked my cuffs to a chain on the ceiling and pulled my arms up. They put a shock collar on me. They then made me say goodbye to you all."
"What happened after that?"
"I heard the guards walk away. Barnes was pacing. She pulled my chains up further so that I was on my feet. I had to take the chance. She was going to kill me." Spencer opened and closed his mouth as he mentally debated what he was about to say. "I lifted myself up and wrapped my legs around her neck. I…. I choked her… When she dropped, I dropped when she did and my shoulder dislocated. The guards heard and came running. They shocked me, and then one of them stabbed me." Spencer averted his gaze to the blankets. His eyes stung with tears. He pressed his palm to his mouth to stifle a sob.
"The senate wants me arrested, don't they?" came Spencer's quivering voice.
"I'm afraid so, kiddo. At least, until they have your statement and they look through all of the evidence," responded David, sadly. "The evidence all points that it was self defence. I'm sorry to have to do this, Spencer." Spencer shook his head in despair, tears streaming down his face.
"Please, don't do this" David slipped his handcuffs from his belt and fastened one loop around Spencer's right wrist, then tightened the other loop around the metal bed rail. Spencer's face crumpled and he curled in on himself, his body wracked with sobs.
"It would have been better for everyone if I had died in that hospital when I cut myself."
"Reid, you don't mean that," answered Emily.
"Don't I? What do I have left?" Spencer wrenched his throbbing arm out of the sling and tossed the material to the floor. He tore the IV from his hand and the EKG leads from his chest. David came to his feet and tried to ease Spencer back down. The genius struggled against him, blood seeping through the bandage on his abdomen.
"Spence. Please. Nothing is going to happen to you," gasped David, desperately trying to calm the young man. Spencer let out an ear-piercing scream. He tore the bandage off his abdomen and forced his fingers through the sutures and deep inside the chasm. Emily grasped his hand and wrenched it away from the wound. Blood trickled down his hand and arm. He clenched his hands into tight fists.
"Spence! Please, stop!" yelled Emily. Spencer's head tilted back and his eyes rolled into his head. His veins protruded from his neck. "Spence?"
Spencer's limbs became taut and his face contorted unnaturally, blood trickling out of his nose. His breaths were stilted, coming as noisy grunts and his back arched from the mattress. Saliva frothed out of his mouth as the convulsions set in, his arm jerking against the cuffs. Emily fired David a terrified stare.
"Take the cuffs off," she demanded. David unlocked the cuff from around Spencer's wrist, narrowly dodging a flailing hand. "Spencer? It's Emily. You're okay. The cuffs are off. You're safe." Blood oozed out of the open abdominal wound. Mel barged into the room and shoved Emily away.
"Get away from him! Don't you think you've done enough?!" Mel cradled Spencer's twitching face between her hands. "Come on, Spence. It's okay. What did you think was going to happen when you cuffed him?!" Mel's green eyes were filled with rage, her nostrils flaring.
"The senate…" answered Emily.
"I couldn't give a fuck about the senate! Take the damned statement to this senate right fucking now! He's been through enough!" barked Mel. Silently, Emily and David exited the room, their heads bowed in shame in knowing that they triggered this seizure. Mel quickly grasped the nurse call bell and jammed the tip of her thumb into the orange button, then turned back to the convulsing genius in the bed.
"Please, Spencer, baby. Come back to me. You're going to be okay." Spencer's jerking began to slow as a nurse and Dr Stokes bustled into the room. Spencer blinked lethargically and gazed around in confusion as the nurse pushed a suction catheter into the side of his mouth. Blood and saliva drained away with a grotesque slurping sound. Satisfied that the man's oral cavity was cleared of secretions, the nurse withdrew the catheter and handed an oxygen mask to Dr Stokes. The nasal cannula had long since been lost in the bed.
"Dr Reid? Can you hear me? It's Dr Stokes. You're safe." Spencer's eyes rolled as he tried to place the sound of the voice. Dr Stokes pressed the mask firmly onto Spencer's face. The genius' bloody fingers came up and weakly brushed against the mask to push it away, smearing blood across the plastic.
"Leave it, Dr Reid. Your oxygen levels have dropped massively with the seizure." Dr Stokes' eyes fell upon the gaping surgical wound. Spencer continued in his futile attempts to remove the mask, his co-ordination so muddled that his fingers kept slipping.
"N-noo….. D-die…." mumbled Spencer, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion.
"Who do you mean? Who's going to die?"
"Me…. H-have to…. Better…"
"Dr Reid? The way you're feeling is completely understandable, but it's not a solution. You know that. You still have a lot of work to do out there." Spencer was fighting to keep his eyes open, his hand weakly grasping Dr Stokes' wrist. He shifted slightly, letting out a feeble moan at the pain radiating through his torso. The nurse pressed some gauze down onto the wound to stem the bleeding, forcing an agonised groan out of the young man.
"I'm going to give you a mild sedative so I can take a look at your wound and make sure you haven't done any further damage. You need to get some rest." Dr Stokes turned to the nurse. "Could you get me four milligrams of Ativan IM please?" The nurse nodded and turned on a dime to retrieve the medication. Dr Stokes pressed down firmly on the gauze and gazed sadly at the handcuffs hanging from the bed rail. He was far from surprised that the young doctor was suicidal. Mel meekly crept forward and took Spencer's right hand into her own. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
"Spence? It's me, Mel." Spencer slowly lifted his hazy eyes to meet Mel's. It took a moment for his brain to reboot and recognition to kick in. His brow furrowed and his lips parted slightly to speak. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth.
"Shh, Spence. You don't need to say anything. This doesn't change anything between us. Do you understand me?" Spencer nodded slightly, clasping Mel's hand. "They're going to sedate you, but I'll be right here. Just sleep." The nurse returned with a hypodermic needle and syringe in hand. Spencer's eyes widened at the needle.
"It's Lorazepam, Dr Reid. It's not a narcotic. It's just a mild sedative." Dr Stokes gave a firm nod to the nurse who unsheathed the needle and jabbed it into Spencer's bicep. The medication stung as it entered muscle. Within minutes, Spencer's eyes fluttered before falling shut, his hands dropping to the mattress with a soft thud.
11/09/2019. 19:27 hours. Virginia Hospital, Arlington, Virginia.
Spencer blinked to clear the gritty feeling of sleep in his eyes. For all he had been sedated, he felt far from well-rested. His body throbbed. The cannula was resituated beneath his nose and a new IV had been inserted into the back of his left hand. He lifted his head slightly, the room spinning, to see Mel curled up asleep in the armchair. A new bandage was taped to his abdomen. His shoulder had turned multiple shades of purple ad black. He noticed that the handcuffs had been resecured around his right wrist. Dr Stokes was at the foot of the bed, making notes on the clipboard in his hand. Spencer groaned and dropped his head back into the pillows.
"Welcome back, Dr Reid," greeted Dr Stokes with a small smile. Spencer simply huffed in response. "Your team is on their way to release you. Sorry about the cuffs, but I was ordered to put them back on you whilst in custody." Spencer jerked his arm against the cuffs in frustration, the metal scraping against metal. Dr Stokes pulled up a stool to Spencer's bedside.
"Dr Reid, we need to discuss something. Your wound opened up. We had to take you back down to the OR to clean out the wound and suture everything. Was this an act of self injury or suicide?"
"I was hardly going to die from it, was I?" bit back Spencer.
"Dr Reid, you need to understand something. Your spleen was removed because of the damage sustained. That puts you at extremely high risk of developing and becoming seriously ill from infection. You could have developed peritonitis and sepsis. You're going to need to take antibiotics for the rest of your life."
"Yay, me. I'll try harder next time."
"Listen to me. I can't even begin to understand what you've been through, or what's going through your mind. You have people out there who truly care for you. This young lady has not left your side. We have tried to tell her to go home but she refuses. You have the ability and support network around you to get through this. Use Dr Dove. That's what he's there for. You need to talk through these thoughts and feelings you're having. You do a lot of good out there, Dr Reid. I plan to discharge you in the next couple of days, but I can't in good conscience let you go back to being alone. You're still in a mental health crisis right now, but sending you to a psychiatric hospital would be counterintuitive with everything that has happened. Our psychiatric liaison team will work with you whilst you're here."
Dr Stokes glanced up at the sound of knuckles rapping against the door to see a well-built Hispanic man in a suit stood in the doorway. The man's face was unreadable, yet his dark eyes were fixed on Spencer and looked somewhat saddened. He flipped open his credentials to Dr Stokes.
"I'm Section Chief Matteo Cruz. I've come to talk to SSA Dr Reid." Dr Stokes nodded and cast another glance at Spencer.
"I'll be back in a little while." Dr Stokes turned his gaze back to Cruz. "Please, go easy on him. He's been through enough and I don't want him having another seizure." Cruz nodded in affirmation. Dr Stokes left the room and closed the door behind him. Cruz perched on the stool that the doctor had been sitting on.
"How are you feeling, Dr Reid?" asked Cruz. Spencer laughed darkly.
"Peachy." Spencer watched Cruz through furrowed brows as the senior agent reached over and unlocked the handcuffs, then slipped them into his pocket.
"No need for those anymore. The senate has accepted that AD Barnes' death was an act of self-defence. Barnes was her mother's name. She had no idea who her father was until a year before her brother was sentenced to death. You're still fully instated as an SSA. In light of everything that's happened, and your health, the bureau is offering you a full time teaching position in the academy. You'll still be able to consult with the BAU." Spencer winced as he shuffled himself further upright in the bed.
"With all due respect, sir, the BAU is my home. The team is my family."
"I understand that. I have seen it for myself. Please, just think about it. It could be a good option for you. I've put in a formal request for you to stay with one of your team on a long-term basis. You need the support around you, both physically and mentally. You have the FBI at your disposal." Spencer gave Cruz a sincere look.
"Please, tell me one thing."
"Sure." Cruz shrugged and clasped his hands together on the bed rail.
"Are there any more of the Michaels family that I need to know about?" Cruz chuckled and shook his head.
"No, Reid. There isn't."
"Good." Spencer gave a relieved sigh and lay back into his pillows. He rested a hand protectively over his wound and stole a glance at the sleeping woman in the chair. Cruz's eyes followed, eyebrows raised.
"Lady friend?" Spencer felt his cheeks flush and he pursed his lips to hide the smile itching to break through.
"You could say that."
"I hear she's quite the feisty one." Spencer frowned and turned back to Cruz.
"How so?"
"She may have kicked Prentiss and Rossi out earlier today after you were placed in custody. I don't know the full details, all I know is that you had quite a bad seizure afterwards and she sent them packing." Spencer let out a small laugh, then groaned at the fire rippling through his abdomen.
"Sounds about right. She's a correctional officer."
"Ah. Explains a lot. Listen, Reid. I have to get back to Quantico. I wanted to come and release you from custody and share with you the Deputy Director's offer. Please, do think about it. You have my full support, and the support of the FBI, whatever you decide."
"Thank you, sir." Cruz knew of Spencer's aversion to touch, so he was taken aback when the genius extended a hand to him. He took Spencer's bandaged hand and shook it firmly before leaving the room.
Spencer averted his attention back to Mel who was stirring in the chair. She blinked sleepily and rubbed her eyes with her fists. Spencer smiled softly at her, his chest tightening with affection. She smacked her lips and gazed around with bleary eyes. She stretched her arms out to the sides, her bones clicking. She noticed the young man's gaze on her.
"It's rude to stare, Dr Reid."
"I'm not staring. I'm admiring," Mel smiled coyly and cupped her chin in her hand on the bed rail.
"You like what you see? Bed hair and smudged mascara do it for you?"
"You could be wearing nothing at all and still be the most beautiful girl in the world." Spencer slapped a palm over his mouth, eyes widened in horror at what he had said. Mel dropped her head onto her arms, her entire body shaking. Spencer felt his heart drop.
"I am so, so sorry," gasped Spencer. Mel lifted her head. Tears streamed down her face, yet her smile was so wide, the genius thought her face may split in two. He looked at her in confusion.
"Oh, my god! I can't believe you said that! I didn't think you had it in you! Oh, man. The look on your face is priceless. You're so damned cute!" Spencer gave her a lopsided expression, one that was unsure on how to react. She wiped the tears away with the side of her finger and reached over the rail for Spencer's hand.
"Did you mean it?" asked Mel.
"Mean what?"
"When you said you loved me. Did you mean it? Or was it one of those cliche things you say when you die?"
"I meant it. I knew I was going to die, yes, and I had accepted that. But, yes. I did mean it." Mel leaned in closer.
"Prove it." Spencer used the rail to pull himself over the bed and rested his coarse palm on the right side of her face, her pink locks tickling the back of his hand. His right hand tightly gripped the rail to steady himself. He entwined his fingers in her hair and pulled her in closer. Neither of them cared that they looked in a state, or that they had morning breath in the evening. Their lips met, sparks igniting between them and their kisses growing more passionate by the minute. Mel's arms curled around Spencer's neck, one hand firmly clasped in his curls.